The Comfort of Friendship

After Meeting on Sunday, I had lunch with EVH and a new attender, AA. Great food and great conversation, though we veered a bit more spiritual than I was used to in those situations. I guess that's a side-effect of having someone who's experiencing Quakerism for the first time. EVH is on the verge of some serious grilling by her exam board, so here's to you EVH. Knock-em-dead! But not literally. Always interesting to hear people I know discuss their spirituality, and EVH being a smarty is especially interesting to listen to (Pretty and smart? Deadly combination). She mentioned the comfort of ritual, which definitely resonated with me. We also chatted a bit about Quaker Clearness Committees. It's such a unique process that I really can't hear enough about it. Jana mentioned it once as well, and I still ask her to tell the story every once-in-a-while, usually trying to pretend (badly) that it's for someone else's benefit. Oops, I might have done that to EVH as well.

Maybe I was mumbling, but EVH always seemed to mis-hear me in the funniest way possible. Though that was a two-way street: At one point I thought she was saying she was very into scarification (instead of her actual "I am respectful of it" stance). It's odd where I draw my lines. I'm respectful of piercing and tatoo'ing in most of their forms, but scarification is something I have a difficult time with.

Actually, I noticed AA had a semi-elaborate tribal tattoo around one ankle, that I meant to ask the story behind. She has an interesting narrative, coming from a Unitarian Universalist background. Finally hearing about that tradition made me all the more interested in checking it out some time (beliefnet tells me I'm a 100% match). Also interesting was the "tour of faiths" she's put herself through. I found it difficult enough to go to my first Meeting, and that was a tradition I was familiar with! The prospect of visiting others without knowing whether it's a waste of time or not sounds really intimidating to me. And she didn't just visit, it sounds like she checked out various Bible studies as well. Wow. Maybe I can shortcut all that by picking her brain. :-) Also of note was her dance with various grad-school programs. As someone gearing up to go back to school, I'm always interested in hearing about other experiences in those situations.

[EDIT: added 11:04am]
I mentioned my experience at LDS Institute, and how the singing made me nostalgic, especially since there we sang a song at the rise of meeting (tougher in the absence of hymn books, but still fun). We all agreed that music can be a powerful, positive experience.

I missed Kathy, David, Bonnie, Shana, Ryan, and the Remys, but it was a lovely afternoon with fascinating company.

Did I already mention dinner with the Remys in a previous post? Well, I won't go back and re-visit that too much except to say that I find it amazing to see their kids growing like weeds. It's perhaps easier to see in CatGirl, with her jumping and prancing (and not doing homework). I swear she grew a couple centimeters while I was eating dinner. But GameBoy is clearly growing too, though perhaps less obviously. He doesn't prance per se, but after marching with him for over an hour on Saturday and seeing him at dinner Sunday, it's a little shocking to compare him to my memories from just a few months back. I guess it's just that age. Is he at that age when boys are actually behind girls in growth? I seem to remember it being somewhere around that 12-14 year range when, in swimming, girls would dominate boys in the same age group. That ends, but not soon enough, it seemed.