“When in doubt, wait”

“When in doubt, wait” is a Quaker motto for patient discernment, captured in the practice of remaining silent until moved by the Holy Spirit. In Douglas Steere’s account, waiting is not passivity: it makes room for inward religious experience and can alter the relations among people gathered in worship.

Meaning in Quaker Worship

Steere loved the silence of Quaker meetings, where no one was to speak unless moved by the Holy Spirit. He observed, however, that not everyone followed the motto “When in doubt, wait.” The phrase thus names an ideal of restraint within a shared practice, rather than a rule he claimed was always observed. Speech is held back not as an end in itself, but so that a participant can discern whether speaking is called for.

Steere’s own religious search helps explain the importance he gave to silence. During his first year at Harvard University, new ideas had unsettled his faith. Silent prayer with students from the Episcopal Divinity School opened him to prayer, and by the end of the year his faith had been renewed. At the University of Oxford, he discovered the Quakers and the power of what he understood as Christ’s indwelling spirit. The motto belongs to this broader account of attention as a way of becoming receptive, rather than manufacturing certainty.

The Meeting as a Shared Practice

Steere described silent worship as more than an individual discipline. He wrote of participants being tendered and drawn close to one another and to the common Father. He had seen worship level an ugly barrier between two people and begin a process in which they asked forgiveness. In this account, waiting creates space for a change in relationship: silence does not erase conflict, but can make reconciliation possible.

The phrase’s force therefore lies partly in its communal setting. A meeting is not simply a collection of private moments of quiet; those present share the possibility of being moved, while each must refrain from treating personal impulse as sufficient reason to speak. Steere’s description connects that restraint with both inward devotion and mutual responsibility.

Silence Beyond the Motto

Steere’s experience at a Quaker relief-planning meeting in Finland during the aftermath of World War II gives a further example of religious experience arising within collective work. After a brief prayer and another participant’s prayer, he described being overwhelmed by a sense of release and closeness to those present; he also noticed that two others seemed to share the experience. The account does not identify this episode as an application of the motto, but it echoes Steere’s emphasis on inward experience unfolding among a gathered community.

A related, distinct example appears in Howard Thurman’s experiments with worship at Howard University. Thurman introduced periods of silence for meditation and prayer, and his creative services sought to bring participants together across divisions. These examples broaden the book’s treatment of contemplative silence, but “When in doubt, wait” remains specifically the Quaker ideal Steere admired: an invitation to pause, attend, and speak only when inwardly moved.