Skip to main content

Incapacity

Image
By
I appear to be completely incapable of writing my impressions of NEYM Sessions this year.

*sigh*

Comments

Kel said…
perhaps you could try drawing, painting or collaging them instead
it always helps me when words fail
11:27 PM
Hystery said…
What happened at NEYM? I'm seeing it pop up in blogs and people are disturbed and distressed. What gives?
1:43 PM
Jay Clark said…
Perhaps allow it time. This will allow you more time to digest, ponder and work through what is needed.
3:54 PM
Cat C-B (and/or Peter B) said…
@ Kel,

You've got a point. I'm not terribly visual--with me, it's all about the words.

But maybe if I can loosen up my attachment to logical sequences, and put out a series of impressions, without worrying too much about ordering them or building to one particular point or conclusion. I think that might work.

@ Hystery: that's a large question! In brief, we set aside our usual agenda to make room for more open-ended worship. What emerged was both good (lots of deep movement of Spirit among us) and less-good (compromises to Quaker process, and some of the strains and fault lines among us that are normally camouflaged by business being made evident).

It was complex enough that I fear that doing justice to one part of it might distort other parts. So I'm struggling.

A sort of word-collage may be the best way to describe it. It will not serve well as journalism, but then, can traditional journalism capture what it feels like to be in a body of people experiencing Spirit moving among us?

@ Fr. Jay: yeah. It kind of feels like I'm still to close to it to bring it all properly into focus.

I'll try my hand at a small snapshot or two over the next few days, and see how that goes.

Thanks.
10:49 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Peter on Grief and Communities

By
Well, that was unexpected. For the last year, ever since my mom's health took a sharp downturn, I've been my dad's ride to Florence Congregational Church on Sundays. That community has been important for my dad and the weekly outing with me was something he always looked forward to and enjoyed, so I didn't mind taking him there. It meant giving up attending my own Quaker meeting for the duration, but I had already been questioning whether silent waiting worship was working for me. I was ready for a sabbatical. A month ago, my dad was Section-Twelved into a geriatric psych hospital when his dementia started to make him emotionally volatile. I had been visiting him every day at his assisted living facility which was right on my way home from work, but the hospital was almost an hour away. I didn't see him at all for three weeks, and when I did visit him there, it actually took me a couple of seconds to recognize him. He was slumped forward in a wheel chair, lo...
4 comments
Read more

A Quaker Pagan Day Book: Testimonies and Queries

By
Pagans often argue about how to define who we are.  What are the boundaries--between Wicca and Witchcraft, between Heathens and Pagans, between polytheists, pantheists, and non-theists...  While I could do without the acrimony, we're a new as well as an old religious movement, so it makes sense that like any adolescent, we are fascinated by questions of identity. I will admit to preferring the Quaker approach to identity, though: rather than trying to create the definitive checklist of belief that make someone a "real Quaker," Friends typically share a body of testimonies and questions for reflection with those who are drawn to the Religious Society of Friends. "Do you feel this same sort of spiritual leading?" Friends ask one another.  "Does this speak to the condition of your soul, as it does to ours?" Queries, not checklists of doctrine, hold the ways Quakers approach discernment, including around membership.  And though no individual can declar...
2 comments
Read more

Red in Tooth and Claw

By
When Nora, Peter's grandmother, lived with us , our household was the nucleus of an active local Pagan community. Over time, dementia eroded more and more of Nora's ability to retain anything she learned about in the present, so she wound up discovering again and again that she was living in a family of Pagans. Over and over, we would have made some reference to our Paganism, and Nora, having forgotten about it for the time being, would ask us to explain again what it was we believed. We would explain, yet again, about all of life being sacred to us, and nature being the source of our inspiration. Each time we did this, we would reach the point in our discussion where she would protest, quoting the line from Tennyson about " Nature, red in tooth and claw ." Nevertheless, we would insist that that was where we looked for the holy, and eventually, she would exclaim (just as she had the time before that): "Well, then, you're all heathens!" When we ...
30 comments
Read more