A spiders' web in the early morning. Photo: By Katelyn Greer on Unsplash.
Eye - 13 December 2024
Eye hears from Friends feeling nostalgic, spinning a web, penning limerick-based delights, and singing songs of sleeping!
Spinning a web
The juxtaposition of nature and technology caused wry smiles during a recent Meeting.
David Hitchin, of Lewes Meeting, writes: ‘On Sunday 17th November some Friends at Lewes were participating in Meeting for Worship via Zoom they noticed a strange flickering on their screens and then a diagonal line appeared…
‘Where more appropriately could a spider spin a web than on a webcam?’
Festive Friends
Early Quakers had a testimony against keeping times and seasons, like Christmas. Janet Scott writes in Quaker faith & practice 27.42, ‘all of life is sacramental… since all times are therefore holy, no time should be marked out as more holy; that what God has done for us should always be remembered’.
However, many modern Meetings do observe Christmas. Indeed, Eye’s favourite festive memory with Friends is seeing the whole Meeting gather to sing the ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’… with actions! There is nothing like watching otherwise serious Friends leaping, milking, laying eggs, and sketching out the outline of a pear tree!
Beth Allen, of Bromley Meeting, writes: ‘I was thinking back to Finchley Meeting Christmases when I was growing up and wondered if Q-Eye had ever asked how Meetings mark it (or don’t).
‘In Finchley, Clarence Dolling, who was a musician, used to gather us all together, first for a couple of evenings of rehearsal, and then for three evenings before Christmas Day we would set out and sing carols round the local streets. Twenty or thirty adults would sing one carol under a lamppost and then move to the next, while us children knocked on doors and collected money. Things were simpler in those days!’
What does Christmas look like in your Meeting?
Quaking in flocks
The limericks keep a-flowing this week, with two from Bob Ward, of Aylsham Meeting!
There once was a fellow named Fox,
Who decided to pull up his socks
By chancing the thrill
Of seeking God’s will –
He set people quaking in flocks.
Should you ever find that your soul wearies
With most theological theories,
Then remember to look
At the Little Red Book
And take on Advices & queries.
Sing a song of sleeping
Anthony Wilson, of Lichfield Meeting, shared a beautiful memory with Eye, which raised a smile.
He writes: ‘During the world war two years at Yealand Manor evacuation school, we would sing a range of songs as we returned from long group walks through fields and woods. One of the most popular was:
One Friend went to sleep,
Went to sleep in Meeting.
One Friend and the clerk,
Went to sleep in Meeting.
‘The numbers built up as we went along until we were in sight of the Manor, when the final verse “All Friends went to sleep…” brought us back to base.
‘I think it was me who thought of the main refrain, with our teacher/leader adding the clerk’s inclusion.’
Doline. near Yealand Manor. By Karl and Ali, via Wikimedia Commons
