Rick’s off doing stuff with relatives today so, left to my own devices, I’m mixing it up a little bit. Laundry and Quacks as usual but after that I’m riding my bike to the Hancock Center and leaving it there while I take the bus for breakfast downtown (because lord knows you should never do your weekly shopping with an appetite). After leisurely biscuits-and-migas at Whole Foods I’ll take the bus back, procure the groceries, and bike them home . With any luck I’ll have it all done by 11:30 (because lord also knows you don’t want to be outside any later in the day than is necessary while the sun is this hostile).
And that, plus a foray down to campus in the evening for lap-swimming, will be my day: simple, low-cost, and more than a bit solitary. Maybe I’ll even get to the True Blood disks from Netflix before it’s out.
No Meeting for Worship today; went last week and enjoyed it, felt truly at stillness with myself, for the first time in months and months. I suspect this was partly enabled by the low turnout, a holiday weekend and many Friends off at the yearly Gathering. I make a point of not attending the following week because the Gathering attracts a lot of the Meeting’s more windbaggy sort and they come back feeling all holy and just have to tell us about it, usually during the silence. It’s just part of the yearly cycle, one I know by now I can safely skip.
I remember when I was totally fastidious about attending the Meeting’s monthly business sessions, one of which follows MFW today, but I can safely skip those now too. I’ll get all the salient points in two days when I receive the minutes and edit them for the newsletter. This is the Quaker equivalent of reading the TV Guide instead of actually watching TV: an excellent way of keeping in the loop without having your patience tried by real-time bullshit.
Especially Quaker bullshit, which usually contains an unhealthily large dose of hand-wringing. After almost 50 years, totally had it with the hand-wringing.
I ended up taking my concern from last month about SUVs to Oversight and last I heard they were going to discuss it at their meeting earlier this week. What happens next I don’t know; maybe it’ll make it into Meeting for Business today, maybe not. I suspect that Friends’ means of conveyance to Meeting is not a large concern to the FMA at large and from most perspectives it shouldn’t be. The important thing is that I spoke up instead of letting it fester inside.
While I was sounding out the clerk of Oversight on my concern she asked how I was. I took this to mean how is my relationship to the Meeting; since she’s one of the few folks at the FMA I feel comfortable speaking to in close-to-total honesty I told her it hasn’t been good but I’m trying to bring myself back. She sounded glad to hear it, which I in turn was glad to hear. “Been finding a little too much inconsistency between word and deed there lately,” I added. “If I’m going to renew my investment in the Meeting I can’t keep quiet about what I see.” I hope others are as understanding as her.
[bitchy paragraph about particular clueless Quakers snipped]
I was a lot more circumspect in the wording of the concern as I actually sent it to Oversight. While I don’t expect the FMA en masse to give up their cars and begin riding bikes, especially in the Austin summer, it concluded, all I ask is that those who come to Meeting in oversize SUVs give at least a little thought to treating the testimonies I hold dearest with more respect just this once a week. See? I know how to talk the Quaker-talk, at least initially. The hairy eyeball comes later.
Far as I can recall, this is the third time I’ve submitted a concern regarding the life of the Austin meeting. The first was people bringing in coffee (and half the time knocking it over mid-worship) and the second was the PETA-man. I’m happy to say that two and more years after the coffee business, worship services are largely free of anything stronger than the occasional mug of tea. This might be because we’re now housed in a carpeted space, however.
The issue of authentic ministry that I raised in the wake of the veggie-Christ preacher is, I suspect, as old as unprogrammed Quaker worship. I didn’t expect any solution on that one; again, the important thing is to speak your piece rather than stew. Even more necessary is to do that speaking judiciously and not wear out your voice or credibility by speaking too often – much like ministry during meeting itself.
I’m sure thinking a lot about Meeting for Worship for someone who goes as infrequently as I do these days. It’s something you’re not easily quit of, not when it’s all you’ve known since your earliest days. I am invested, after all. It’s just acting like it in the most healthy way that I have yet to learn.
And that, plus a foray down to campus in the evening for lap-swimming, will be my day: simple, low-cost, and more than a bit solitary. Maybe I’ll even get to the True Blood disks from Netflix before it’s out.
No Meeting for Worship today; went last week and enjoyed it, felt truly at stillness with myself, for the first time in months and months. I suspect this was partly enabled by the low turnout, a holiday weekend and many Friends off at the yearly Gathering. I make a point of not attending the following week because the Gathering attracts a lot of the Meeting’s more windbaggy sort and they come back feeling all holy and just have to tell us about it, usually during the silence. It’s just part of the yearly cycle, one I know by now I can safely skip.
I remember when I was totally fastidious about attending the Meeting’s monthly business sessions, one of which follows MFW today, but I can safely skip those now too. I’ll get all the salient points in two days when I receive the minutes and edit them for the newsletter. This is the Quaker equivalent of reading the TV Guide instead of actually watching TV: an excellent way of keeping in the loop without having your patience tried by real-time bullshit.
Especially Quaker bullshit, which usually contains an unhealthily large dose of hand-wringing. After almost 50 years, totally had it with the hand-wringing.
I ended up taking my concern from last month about SUVs to Oversight and last I heard they were going to discuss it at their meeting earlier this week. What happens next I don’t know; maybe it’ll make it into Meeting for Business today, maybe not. I suspect that Friends’ means of conveyance to Meeting is not a large concern to the FMA at large and from most perspectives it shouldn’t be. The important thing is that I spoke up instead of letting it fester inside.
While I was sounding out the clerk of Oversight on my concern she asked how I was. I took this to mean how is my relationship to the Meeting; since she’s one of the few folks at the FMA I feel comfortable speaking to in close-to-total honesty I told her it hasn’t been good but I’m trying to bring myself back. She sounded glad to hear it, which I in turn was glad to hear. “Been finding a little too much inconsistency between word and deed there lately,” I added. “If I’m going to renew my investment in the Meeting I can’t keep quiet about what I see.” I hope others are as understanding as her.
[bitchy paragraph about particular clueless Quakers snipped]
I was a lot more circumspect in the wording of the concern as I actually sent it to Oversight. While I don’t expect the FMA en masse to give up their cars and begin riding bikes, especially in the Austin summer, it concluded, all I ask is that those who come to Meeting in oversize SUVs give at least a little thought to treating the testimonies I hold dearest with more respect just this once a week. See? I know how to talk the Quaker-talk, at least initially. The hairy eyeball comes later.
Far as I can recall, this is the third time I’ve submitted a concern regarding the life of the Austin meeting. The first was people bringing in coffee (and half the time knocking it over mid-worship) and the second was the PETA-man. I’m happy to say that two and more years after the coffee business, worship services are largely free of anything stronger than the occasional mug of tea. This might be because we’re now housed in a carpeted space, however.
The issue of authentic ministry that I raised in the wake of the veggie-Christ preacher is, I suspect, as old as unprogrammed Quaker worship. I didn’t expect any solution on that one; again, the important thing is to speak your piece rather than stew. Even more necessary is to do that speaking judiciously and not wear out your voice or credibility by speaking too often – much like ministry during meeting itself.
I’m sure thinking a lot about Meeting for Worship for someone who goes as infrequently as I do these days. It’s something you’re not easily quit of, not when it’s all you’ve known since your earliest days. I am invested, after all. It’s just acting like it in the most healthy way that I have yet to learn.
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