Quaker Meeting (AKA The Ungodly Shoe)

Sunday our quest began by attending semi-programed worship at my meeting, Minneapolis Friends Meeting.

Violet and Sarah weren't able to come, Violet had work and Sarah was sick, but that was okay since both are Quakers anyway and have been to meeting countless times. So it was to be Ali, Julia, Kiya and myself.

Ali drove to my place and we drove together. We happened to run into Kiya before getting to the meeting house, so the three of us walked in together.

I won't recount everything, that seems a bit pointless, so I'll just stick to what stood out to me.

Ali reminded us that her mother used to go to our meeting as a child, so Julia had Ali talk to her dad about it, and he remembered her family, which was cute. Then at the end of meeting he informed the entire room that Ali's mother went here and who her mother was, so after meeting Ali had a number of people come up to her to talk and ask about her family. She seemed a little uncomfortable, but it was amusing, and cute I think. Also, it mean that really in a sense Kiya is the only one with no ties to Quakerism... weird.

The women who was planned to speak from the silence was a bit annoying and confusing. She talked about enjoying your present moment (or EYPM as she called it... and attempted to make a joke about) and I mean, the idea was nice, but she just made it cheesy ya know?

But it happens, sometimes the speaker for semi-programmed is great, other times... not so much.

But she did move a few people to speak from the silence, and that was nice. And I think it was cool for Ali and Kiya to see how that works, even though it's very different compared to the more tradition un-programmed worship that has no planned speaker and where people speak from the silence much less often.

Still, what I remember most from this meeting was nothing religious at all.

It was a shoe.

The shoe of the woman in front of me. I know this women, her daughter is my age and we used to be friends, but that is all irrelevant. I wanted to shred this women's shoe, or tape/glue it onto her foot.

You see, she was wearing flats, and her legs were crossed, so her right leg was over her left, and therefore that foot was hovering above the ground. Because of this her shoe would slip off her heel, so she would move her foot attempting to get her heel back into the shoe (with her eyes closed because she was busy worshipping in silence). But she would almost always fail because a small bit of the shoe would fold in under her heel preventing it from entering. Still, after awhile she would get her foot in, and you would think YAY success, but no, about 30 seconds later it would slip right out again and the whole thing would start over.

I noticed other things that bothered me from long term Quakers. Some paging through the hymnal clearly out of boredom during worship, others checking watches, some constantly fidgeting, and others clearly watching everyone or specific people. I include myself here, because I wasn't being the best Quaker, but I did have my moments of trying to actually worship silently, but I also didn't really go into meeting that day as a Quaker going to worship but as someone observing and introducing.

Still, after that, I can't help but wonder how many Quakers actually full out worship during meeting and how many are really just focused on getting their shoe to stay on their foot.