rambling

Hey Sister,

I am impressed that your son could identify the source of his anxiety.  That takes a lot of awareness.

And I am praying for your boobs!!

I've had two trains of thoughts...I will try to follow them here.

So, I spent all day at meetinghouse. We have contra dances and we pay the band and the caller in fresh baked bread. Then we sell the excess.  I had my youngest granddaughter with me.

Our meeting is aging and dwindling.  This is happening throughout the region.  I am on regional ministry and counsel, and so I see it. I see it in the State of the Meeting reports and in the communication we have with individual meetings.

One of our most active members just learned that she and her sister  have apartments at a Quaker retirement home near where Mama lives.  The Friend who told me believes this is the end of our meeting.

We are down to about 6 members.  The youngest is probably in her 50s. We are going to have a retreat in June to try to explore this issue together.

My granddaughter started to melt down, and took a nap on my lap, meaning I had meeting for worship all by myself.  I sat for an hour in silence.

I started thinking about the earliest Friends.  There was a huge change at that time - the Protestant Reformation. People began to think for themselves, rather than allowing the church to speak for them.  Quakerism arose from George Fox's realization that we each had a connection with Spirit or God or the Light. We didn't need a priest to intervene.

The Light shines in everyone.

Right now, a Friend from my meeting has inspired a minute about industrial farms.  I have a leading about using our nature preserve - the six acres that surrounds meetinghouse - to explore, learn, and share permaculture.  There is a oneness in this...

I think we are in another huge change.  I think we are opening to understand that not only does the Light shine in everyone, the Light truly shines in all creation.

I think if we follow this, Friends will be drawn...

But I also think the way we join with our spiritual community is changing. I have no idea what we are changing into, but we are changing...

Earlier this month, at our regional retreat, someone pointed out that each age group uses a different social media.  And so I think we need to use them, to let people see what meeting is doing...

Maybe the time for organized religion is passing, one meetinghouse will morph into something other.

All I know is change means giving up as much as gaining...and it is uncomfortable!

The other train of thought, let's see if I can follow this...I have been thinking about my health, about my weight.  I decided to look at myself naked. I don't do this. I glance to make sure I'm presentable. I look at my face. But part of being separated from self means I don't "see" me.

I don't look like I thought I did. I was surprised.  I have continued the practiced, and am trying to love my body, to see - if not beauty, at least something acceptable.

I started trying to remember what my body felt like before...when did I gain weight?...what was going on? I gained weight with my first pregnancy, and just continued.

I was thinking about being married.  Would we have chosen each other if I had not gotten pregnant?  I remembered how lost and unseen, unloved I felt.  But then suddenly, for the first time, I had a sense of how hard it must have been for my ex.  He was already escaping into alcohol when we met and when we got together...but it all had to be as confusing for him as it was for me.

And it took me this many years to develop that bit of empathy.

I feel selfish and self-centered admitting that!

A lot of our problems was simply each of us trying to control the situation...which neither of us ever did.

But now, I am feeling myself, and trying to love myself back into health.

What a long, strange ride it has been!!

So far..

Love and hugs from Clare