Eye - 27 May 2011

From geese to a 'boon day'

Gathered geese

A gaggle of Friends gathered at Glenthorne last weekend for a conference exploring the future of Experiment with Light within Britain Yearly Meeting.

The teamwork, commitment and care demonstrated by migrating geese prompted the meeting to take something of a fowl turn, (unlike the weather, which only took a foul turn). As twitchers stilled themselves for Meeting for Business, the metaphor of the wild goose revealed itself. Although a shy beast, it soon influenced participants, who broke into a chorus of honking in the manner of geese to show their appreciation for the minutes. Flying in formation the group will continue to honk to encourage the leader at the head of the skein who will take the brunt of air resistance as Light groups across the country become more connected, and as EwL becomes more prominent within the Yearly Meeting.

Mystery Bible

As the Friend staff boxed up bound copies of the magazine and leafed through papers in preparation to move to a newly developed part of Friends House, Eye noticed a rather old Bible printed in Welsh.

The inscription on the inside cover declares it to have belonged first to Sarah Davies, March 28, 1884, who was born ‘in the year of our Lord 1859 April the 17’ And later to ‘Anne Davies, born in the year of our Lord 1889 March 3’. If any Friends know of any descendants of these women, presuming that they were Quakers, please contact the Friend so that we may return this interesting artefact.

Simmering silence

Exeter Meeting in Pennsylvania is not the only one that makes use of a stove. In Tokyo Meeting a stove plays a key role in post-worship hospitality, or it did back in 1983, as Eye’s friend Kurt Strauss writes in to tell us.

He happened to be visiting on a business trip and decided to visit the local Meeting. Arriving a little late he took off his shoes and chose a pair of slippers from the row left out for visitors. In the Meeting room ‘a very small number of worshippers were gathered around a stove at one side of the room. On the stove was a kettle, with water gently simmering away in the silence.’

At the close of worship Kurt apologised for being late and, in turn, the elders apologised for ‘not having translated the spoken ministry, and for the absence of the usual number who, it turned out, had decamped for Yearly Meeting.’

Chopsticks were provided and Kurt tells of the image of ‘a small group of people standing round a table, each holding a bowl of soup to their mouths with one hand, and slurping noodles with the help of chopsticks held in the other.’

The Lord’s work

Eye had a brief note this week from David Solloway in Kirkby-Stephen. He refers to a recent ‘boon day’ held to thoroughly clean the Meeting House inside and out, and seems most pleased with the eighty per cent turn out from the small membership of the Meeting. A ‘boon day’ is defined as ‘a compulsory day when manor workers helped in the Lord’s fields’.

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