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Hear From the Residents

August 18, 2025

Summer Writer-In-Residence Lani Furbank on Sitting in the Silence

Lani Furbank is the fifth writer of the Summer 2025 cohort to spend a week onsite participating in our local residency program at Northern Virginia’s Woodlawn & Pope-Leighey House and Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food and Agriculture. Our summer writers-in-residence focus their weeks on-site exploring ways to rediscover and re-purpose place and place histories, and use writing as a means to build community, to bring awareness to critical social and environmental issues, and as a creative force of empowerment.

Lani Furbank is a strategic communicator advocating for a just and sustainable food system. She is currently farming at Potomac Vegetable Farms and working as a researcher for Food Works Group. She just earned her Masters of Professional Studies in Sustainable Food Systems at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA). Previously, she was a communications campaign specialist at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), focused on development finance reform and climate accountability. Prior to CIEL, she was a food journalist, writing stories at the intersection of food, farming, and the environment. During her five years of freelance writing, her work was featured in outlets such as the Washington Post, CNN, BuzzFeed, Eater, Food Tank, Edible, the Michelin Guide Digital Platform, the Washington City Paper, Good Morning Washington, Good Day DC, Great Day Washington, Thrillist, Time Out, Food Tank, and the New York City Food Policy Center. Before going freelance, Lani was the associate producer for Let’s Talk Live on WJLA-TV. 

A couple of months ago, I was having lunch with an acquaintance when the topic of religion came up. We had only recently met each other through a membership organization we both belonged to, but with some interests in common (cooking, journalism, travel, sustainability), we figured we should get to know each other better. I was talking about my recent experience as an intern at a livestock farm where the majority of the staff was Catholic, and we began musing about the current state of politics and culture in the US, informed by our nation’s religious past and present. 

What did I know about the Quakers? my acquaintance asked. I shook the branches of my brain, and all that came out was the catchy tune, “Simple Gifts,” and a vision of the man on the rolled oats carton. Not much. She proceeded to tell me about a residency she had the honor of taking part in years ago, where she met the Woodlawn Quaker community and learned of their legacy. “You should apply,” she urged. 

Several Sundays later, at the start of my weeklong residency, I pull up to the Meetinghouse, a minute before the Meeting for Worship was to begin at 11. The one-story house is modest and old, white siding, dark green shutters, and a simple porch that wraps around the front. Cars pull in beside me, Subarus and sedans and Priuses.

I push open the front door and see a table with a guest book and a row of hooks with hanging nametags on black lanyards. I can see names in bold blocked Sharpie, alongside kids’ handwriting with each letter in a different color. The folks who enter behind me catch the attention of a member, asking if they are new here. He then spots me and smiles — am I new, too? 

It’s about to start, so he gives us the short intro: worship is silent, but anyone is welcome to stand and share a message if they feel the spirit is speaking to them. Or, he warns, it could be an hour of silence. “Communal mysticism,” he calls it.

Inside the meeting room, dozens of sturdy wooden benches are arranged facing various directions. There is no center, no altar. There is no cross, and no paintings. The only color comes from the pea-green cushions and hand-knitted blankets laid over some of the benches.  

I find a seat near the perimeter, and people file in around me. They’re in button-downs and blouses, sneakers and t-shirts. There are Birkenstocks and motorcycle helmets. Colorful hair and tropical shirts. They bring coffee cups and reusable water bottles with stickers. They range in age from young adults all the way up to folks in their eighties. It looks like a crowd you could see at the mall or at a museum or the grocery store. No shoe buckles or broad-brimmed hats in sight. 

We sit. There is no pronouncement or welcome or bell. I gather that we’ve started. The guest flyer gives the option, “Eyes open or eyes closed, Friends find their own ways.” At first, my gaze travels around the room, but left without much to observe, it softens, and my eyes close. I wonder what I’m “supposed” to do. 

Invoking past religious experiences, I try meditation, focusing on my breathing. I try to release the thoughts that pop up when I hear a cough or a creak or someone new enters the room. The man who I met in the entry hall told us of the silence, “Some people hate it, and some people are grateful for it.”  

Half an hour into the “expectant waiting,” he stands and offers a message. Sporadically, three more people follow. The clock on the wall ticks forward. With a few minutes left, a stream of children enter the room and join their families on their benches. 

Noon arrives, and the man who seems to be in charge stands and shakes the hand of the person behind him, with a hearty “Good morning.” The room follows in waves, greeting one another for what seems to be the first time that day. I find a few hands to shake, and then we are seated again for a round of introductions and announcements. Any time a newcomer speaks, the room offers a “Welcome” in unison. 

Those with announcements let their fellow Quakers know of logistical matters, and also of upcoming events, like a monthly “trust circle” exercise to find commonality across differences, and a forming group to support neighbors affected by recent political conditions. 

When there is nothing left to share, it’s time for the common meal, and the once-silent worshippers come to life in fellowship. 

I am warmly welcomed by a few individuals, curious about my motivations. I tell them about my week in residence. In a way, it is my form of expectant waiting. 

The historian of the meeting, who has been a Quaker since she was a child, tells me that the way of life is what has kept her in this faith. It’s a worldview distinct from the mainstream, where things just make sense. Spending only a couple of hours with the group, I understand what she means. I feel the humble, connected presence of people, something we could all use a little more of these days. 

In the week ahead, I’d learn the long history of the Woodlawn meeting, and its founders’ commitment to equity and peace, so powerful that they built an anti-slavery agricultural society on the site of a former plantation to prove their virtues. 

Sitting in the presence of this past, writing about farming and society and religion and what it means to lead a good life, I wonder how the spirit of this community may speak to me.

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