FGC, Tuesday, Everything BUT Chili Dogs!

FGC, Tuesday night

So much today. It’s 10:30 and I’m exhausted. Will try to post this on Wednesday, the 4th

Worship for healing this morning.. I shared about a wound that had opened this past Saturday, during the opening Worship. I had been feeling very raw and grumpier than usual. I felt like I couldn’t safely share my hurt with my spiritual community. That was painful. I asked to be held in the Light. I entered the healing circle of folks and sat down in the center. Immediately felt a pleasant coolness surround me. I felt loved. I felt that everything would be ok. People came up and touched me, placed their hands on me, moved energy around and through my body. One person told me my wound is a gift, a spiritual gift. After my “turn” in the center, I returned to the circle feeling that the raw spiritual wounds that were open were starting to heal. My emotions felt balanced. The wound was still there but the pain was remote. I felt energized, hopeful, and good. Richard, the workshop leader, talks of “finding the good” in something or someone. As Quakers say: “That of God in everyone”. I felt like I found this in me today. A total of five individuals, myself included, sat in the center today.

I returned the blue bunny which I borrowed. Didn’t feel blue any more..

I sat at the local arrangements table this afternoon. I got some challenging questions about things like “Where can I find good Wisconsin cheese?” Luckily, my F/friend Rick was standing there and was able to discourse at length on cheese. I now call him the cheese wiz, but the joke’s getting old.

A woman, a healer, attending the workshop stopped me tonight and told me that while I was in the circle, being held in the Light, she had a vision of the yin and yang and how the little dots that are in the yin part and the yang part were moving. She offered that I might meditate on the meaning of all this movement in the yin yang. I thanked her for the gift.


Several of us had an impromptu discussion about the plenary speakers last night. It seemed like people I’d been talking with during the day had strong feelings………..generally it was the greatest thing since sliced bread or they hated it. We talked about what challenges there might be there for us. We talked about feeling judged. We talked about how young the speakers were, how they have much less life experience, although this doesn’t mean their wisdom is diminished. Just that their apparent clarity may not include the contradictions and difficulties life brings us all. I felt like some of the speakers were like salt poured into a raw wound. However, this discussion helped me to see things in a new light, to find the good in the speakers, while acknowledging things I disagreed with or felt uncomfortable about.

That same evening, I attended a workshop on Bayard Rustin by F/friend Steve. There were people there who knew Rustin or had met him. Steve did a fantastic job of facilitating the workshop. Many entertaining and moving stories were told about Bayard Rustin. I learned a lot. At the end, an older Quaker man, who knew Rustin, said he was upset that the “new book”, the Lost Prophet, “wanted to martyr him on two crosses, a gay one and a civil rights one”, and that there was “nothing” in the book about Quakersim. I have read this excellent book and disagreed. Many people were aroused by his comments, it seemed as a half dozen hands shot into the air. I wanted to say something, too but Steve said it best.. He commented that Bayard Rustin lived out his Quakerism. This Friend spoke my mind. Thanks.

Note to Mr Ether: I didn’t have a chili dog, nor did Poodledoc, Jr. However, I DID see the kids eating hotdogs, but that’s not the same thing. Obviously.