A good friend of mine was secretary for her Quaker meeting. She was/is such a lovely human being, never said a bad word about anybody. But there were times when even the profound peacefulness of her faith would fail her. She told a story that left me in stitches (and deepened my understanding of the Friends):
At meetings, which went on for hours because of the Quaker belief in Consensus (no decision would go forward without every single voice being heard until the ENTIRE GROUP was in agreement), there would be near-consensus, and after taking notes for literally hours she'd be breathing a sigh of relief, it's almost over, then JUST as things seemed so close to consensus, she'd hear a wavery voice from another pew and someone would be saying, "Friends, I have another thought to share..." and poor C's brain would boil and she'd sit there with her hand cramping thinking very very un-Quakerly thoughts.
So I was just thinking, even if a majority of folks on the board realized they were mostly in agreement about the primary problems, what would they do? We could hold meetings on subjects such as:
What seems to be the epicenter of most quakes on the board?
How much damage is done?
Are the aftershocks over?
Are the scientists explaining how the quake starts and spreads?
Do we get it?
Do we linger around the fault lines because the landscape is lovely?
Are there undersea quakes?
Can we just ride the nice waves?
Will they be small enough to cause entertaining action, but not as big as tsunamis?
Are there Noctopi, with tentacles in every thread, who might be squirting too much ink?
Is the ocean's health limitless? Can it absorb everything released into it?
Can too much Noctopus ink actually harm the ecosystem?
And for me, the most important question:
Am I a Noctopus?(Don't answer that...)
love,
Hops
