Eye - 3 July 2020

From A friendly rhyme to a fiery reminder

A friendly rhyme

A Quaker with Covid-19
To get through his self-quarantine
Perused A&Q,
the Friend each week too,
And QF&P in between.

Warwick Hunt

Sunday globe-trotting

In June The New York Times offered an insight into how some Friends in the United States are adapting to online worship and asked: ‘Can You Gather With God Over Zoom?’

The article by Bianca Giaever, which can be read at https://bit.ly/NYTquakerZoom, features reflections from a range of Quakers.

Describing worship to her readers, Bianca Giaever writes: ‘In Quaker worship, members sit together in silence, waiting for a message from God to move through them.’

She speaks with Friends who have felt ‘unmoored’ by being unable to worship at their Meeting house, and with others who have encountered mirth from those they’ve told about virtual Meeting for Worship: ‘Sitting in silence in front of a computer for an hour. Some things you cannot explain.’
Some Friends have become virtual globe-trotters on a Sunday. One describes how he starts off with Friends in Amsterdam, joins another Meeting in Birmingham, moves on to worship at the Pendle Hill Institute, then finishes with his home Meeting in Portland.

In reflecting on the vocal ministry, the added variety was highlighted – some Friends have incorporated scenes from their home, music and incidental birdsong into their ministry.

One added that she felt there was a new intimacy to be found in online worship, as ‘faces and expressions are on full display’. Joan Malin, from Brooklyn Meeting, said: ‘I really see that they are deep in worship… There’s a vulnerability when someone is doing that, and here they are putting it onscreen for us to witness… it helps me get there, too.’

A fiery reminder

Ken Smith, the warden of Salisbury Meeting House, sent in this picture of Bridie, Friends’ fire-breathing companion. He told Eye: ‘Since before the lockdown she has been reminding Friends and hirers to wash their hands. We reckoned that, as it is said people never read signs, that they might read this one. Bridie will continue to remind us, once our Meeting house is open, for the months to come.’

CAQM alias OUGH

Poetic contributions have inspired Paul Honigmann, of Jordans Meeting, to pen a tongue-in-cheek offering himself. He told Eye that he enjoys the poetry published in the magazine, but that he is ‘sad that almost none of them have been rhymed. I have therefore tried to write one (full of rhyme) about my Local Meeting…’

Just now our worship must be Zoomed although
We miss our Sunday Meetings, small yet thorough.
From the kitchen a gentle whiff of dough;
Outside, birds singing on a nearby bough;
An elderly Friend whose throat just now is rough
Tries to control a rather genteel cough.

Our Meeting houses still in many a borough;
Aylesbury, Amersham, Chesham, Chorley Wood; then through
To Wycombe, Jordans, Swarthmore, and Windsor joined with Slough.
Where two or three are gathered, that’s enough.

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