Thought for the Week: The dull door
Bernie Kennedy reflects on coming to Quakers 'through the side door'
It was a lovely warm late afternoon in June. I was visiting the local Quaker Meeting to observe a new tutor teaching her second course for the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA). The subject was ‘Overthinking’.
As I approached, I thought I saw someone go into the building, but when I pressed the ‘Push Me to Open’ button, nothing happened.
Through the glass door I could see Lisa, the assistant warden, eating pasta out of a bowl. At one time the warden used to lock the doors between five and six o’clock in the evenings to get a break, but I didn’t think they still did this, as they ‘double staff’ the sessions now. And was that Ella next to Lisa, tucking into her pasta dish, too? I smiled at them and pressed the button again, and still nothing happened.
Lisa started waving her fork about and mouthing words at me from behind the reception desk. It appeared to me that she was saying: ‘Sling yer hook, mate! We’re having our dinner.’ Charming, I thought. Definitely, the ‘Bad Quaker’ welcome I’d heard about.
Still, I smiled back at them and mouthed: ‘It’s OK. I’ll use the side door. I’ve got a fob.’
I’m an ‘open-upper’ on Sundays, you see. And so I used the side door.
Ella met me in the corridor: ‘I didn’t know you were a warden!’
‘Oh, yeah, been a few months now.’
‘Good stuff!’
And then we got to Lisa at the front desk.
‘I was trying to say: “Pull the door. The button’s broke. But you can still get in, if you pull the door”.’
Oh, how we laughed!
And this is how I came to Quakers, through the side door.
You need to login to read subscriber-only content and/or comment on articles.