Book of Days

On the 6th of August in 1774, a slight woman from Manchester, England, arrived in America at New York Harbor with a small band of followers. Her name was Ann Lee, but her followers called her Mother Ann. They called themselves the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, but they became known as Shaking Quakers, a derogatory name given to them by outsiders to describe the whirling and sometimes frenetic dances that were part of their worship. They embraced the name and began referring to themselves as Shakers, and following their arrival in America, the Shaker movement gained momentum. Shaker communities sprouted up throughout New England and west into Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. A short lived community was founded even in Florida.

The Shakers became well known for a foundation of their belief that was handed down to them by their founder, Mother Ann: “Hands to work and hearts to God.” This concept made itself manifest in the products the Shakers created, and they became well known for the clean, simple design of their furniture, oval boxes, and poplar ware, and for the exquisite quality of all of their products: not just furniture but also garden seeds, cloaks, confections, and more. They also became known for their progressive and egalitarian ways, referring to God as Mother/Father and giving women leadership roles in each Shaker Community.

In the summer of 1996, I had the privilege of working with the sole remaining active Shaker Community in the country. In the world, actually. It’s at Sabbathday Lake, Maine, in a town called New Gloucester. The spiritual name of the Community is Chosen Land, and to be there, you sense it really is a chosen land. Seth grew up right near there, and that summer, he worked as a tour guide while I worked as an intern in the Print Shop, alongside Brother Arnold Hadd. We printed a biography of Deacon James Holmes, the first printer at Chosen Land, who, in the early 1800s, when he was in his eighties, received a gift of metal type… and then decided the only logical thing to do was to build himself a printing press and teach himself to print. My kind of guy.

Brother Arnold and I labored at this all summer long, always keeping in mind Mother Ann’s words. But on the Sixth of August, Brother Arnold asked if Seth and I would come to dinner and stay for Meeting, for it was, as he called it, “the Glorious Sixth.” We accepted, along with a few other close friends of the Community.

Dinner was wonderful, but this is nothing unusual: every Shaker meal I’ve experienced has been hearty and delicious. After dinner, as the sun began to sink low in the west, we gathered ourselves up and our own small band made its way across the street, from the Dwelling House to the 1794 Meeting House. We took our seats, the Brothers and Seth and me and other men of the world on one side of the room, the Sisters and women of the world on the other. Meeting began and progressed as it always does, with Bible readings and set Shaker songs, and especially, on this night, a song about Mother Ann’s crossing of the Atlantic that begins with “At Manchester in England, this blessed fire began…” And then, testimonies and Shaker spirituals that come from the heart of anyone who wishes to speak up or sing.

Gradually, twilight filled the Meeting House. And as it grew darker, the most amazing thing happened, for me, at least… and to this day I remember distinctly the way the fading light played tricks in my mind as I watched the Sisters sitting across from me and how I could see so many different faces in their own faces, as if the Shakers from the past were there with us, too. Considering the spirit present that night in that sacred space, they probably were.

Celebrating this evening with the Shakers was one of the great privileges of my life, and I know it may very well be the one and only time I get to do so. It was, most certainly, one of the most moving experiences of my life. And so each year this magical date appears on our Convivio Book of Days calendar. Most people read this annual entry and don’t know or care what to make of it, but I mark the day quietly, and I think of my Shaker Family at Chosen Land warmly, especially as night falls upon the land, as all those Shaker Brethren and Sisters from the ages come to visit their old Chosen Land.

Image: Two buildings at Chosen Land (the Boy’s Shop and the Spin House), with the rolling hills of New Gloucester beyond.

We support the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community by purchasing the herbal teas and culinary herbs that we sell at the Convivio Bookworks website from them. The Community first began selling herbs and teas in metal tins in the 1860s. To walk into the Herb Department in the Sister’s Shop is intoxicating: The very air is spiced with herbs.