Why are Quaker friends the best?
We’ve only been here for, like, 2 hours, and I feel like you’re my best friends!
I looked up from the puddles of watered-down Elmer’s Glue and a chaotic pile of little snippets of colored tissue paper, and grinned. The 9-year-old who enthusiastically spoke couldn’t see it, but my heart suddenly grew about 3 sizes bigger. I looked at the four children huddled around the little craft table outside Mt. Toby Meeting and felt so much gratitude.
After 20 months of Zooming, mailing, texting, emailing, and yearning, two small groups of JYM families gathered at two different meetinghouses last Saturday to experience JYM together. In person. For four hours outside. We giggled, played games, climbed and swung on swings, blew bubbles, talked about Friends Camp, and talked about nothing in particular. We played Connect 4, did crafts, listened to a story, and sang. We were silly and chatty, without a scripted agenda. We had one-on-one conversations. We looked each other in the eyes.
These many months, we’ve discovered there are many more things we can do on Zoom than we ever thought possible. But being in the presence of the Spirit as it is channeling through each of our whole bodies, and sensing that Spirit all around us in the same shared space together—that, that we haven’t come close to experiencing virtually. Or, speaking for myself—I haven’t.
Children need time and space to let their thoughts unfold. Often, they share spiritual nuggets that theologians would swoon over while zipping down (or up) a playground slide, standing on their hands, or gluing tissue paper. Often they want to do it in snippets with just one person who they trust can receive it. In these instances, it’s best to look them in the eyes for a moment so they know you’re listening, slow down whatever you’re doing, and hold that space with all of the soft Light you have to give. It’s generally over in 2 blinks of your eyes—it's easy to miss.
We must continue to communicate belonging, connection, love, and friendship however we can. It’s okay if a lot of it’s on Zoom screens or U.S. Mail. But we mustn’t dismiss what we know experientially, especially in regard to our young people who so often make sense of the world and the Divine experientially. Where we gather together in person, that of God is there—perhaps even in the watered-down glue stuck on your fingertip.
With so much love and gratitude to the children and their families, to the JYM staff, Framingham and Mt. Toby Friends Meetings, and all of you in this circle,
Gretchen