Eye - 31 July 2015

From dancing in the waves to long term lettings

Dancing in the waves

A passing encounter filled Jill Allum and her husband Phil, of Beccles Meeting, with unexpected joy.

‘Phil and I were at Lowestoft walking along the beach. We sat on the stones near the rumbling waves. I looked up and a little distance away was a young girl, about nine, dancing in the waves.

‘I was transfixed by the beauty of her dance. All alone, oblivious of passers by, she created her own steps… She ran into the sea, as near the crashing breakers as she dared and raised her arms, as if in worship. She bent and dipped her hands into the water and appeared to offer it back as a sort of gift of thanks. She twirled, ran a few steps back and in again, kicking her feet in time with her hands. It gave me a magical feeling.

‘After half an hour, we got up and moved towards her. She was trying to get a reluctant adult to join her dance, giving me an opportunity to talk. “I’m her foster mother,” said the woman, “she came from Romania nine months ago. She couldn’t speak any English. She had never seen the sea or been in a caravan.”

‘“Hello,” the child said to me.

‘“I love your dance,” I replied, but I don’t think she understood.

‘We walked on along the shore. In about an hour we returned, and there she was, still dancing in the waves!’

Space and the Spirit

An apparently empty space can be moving, as James Brockbank, of Gainsborough Meeting, experienced.

He writes: ‘I visited Brigflatts on a raining, cold afternoon in March 2015. Fortunately, the place was open. During the time I spent there no one was present. That is to say, no living people were. Nevertheless, I was very much aware of a spiritual presence and felt a compulsion to put my experience down in words. The visit inspired me to change from thirty years as an attender to becoming a member.’

James shared the meditation he penned with Eye:

The door was open,
No words were spoken.
There was no Meeting,
But I felt a greeting.

No people in the room,
Imagination filled it soon.
What historic goings on,
Stories here for everyone.

George Fox ministered here,
He didn’t have to fear.
No presence of hostility,
Only a peaceful tranquillity.

I had a feeling,
That was spiritually appealing.
I loved that place,
A silent meditation base.

Long term lettings

Sixty-seven years and still going strong… Maldon Camera Club and the town’s Friends Meeting house are peas in a pod, heading towards their platinum anniversary together.

The Club aims to help members ‘increase their enjoyment of photography’ and meets three times a month at the Meeting house, between the middle of September and the end of May each year.

Laurie Andrews, from Essex, spotted the long association in the new edition of the Maldon Town and District Guide notes, which say: ‘The efforts to restart the club were recorded in the club’s first committee meeting minutes in February 1948… the Friends Meeting house was also noted as the club’s venue, where the club meets to this day.’

As Laurie notes, ‘that’s an awful lot of rent!’ Do other Meetings have equally longstanding hirers?

---

Comments

Please login to add a comment