Many of my readers know that I am a Quaker and a member of the Colorado Springs Friends meeting. Peter and I met in Quaker meeting in 1983 and I have been a Quaker since 1970. We really enjoy going to Quaker meetings around the world and went to the Westminster Friends meeting in London Sunday morning.
Quakers use questions which are called queries to help them reflect on some aspect of their spiritual life. Some meetings will read a query before the workshop and meeting such as ours in Colorado Springs always read a query before the business meeting. In this case, the London Westminster meeting read a query about God’s will. Generally Quakers are encouraged not to speak directly to a query but to reflect and act, but clearly this query had a lot of people thinking in many diverse ways. When Quakers speak in a meeting, it’s usually only for a few minutes but there were a number of Quakers speaking on Sunday and then toward the end of meeting, we had a lovely silence.
Some people spoke about how we can use the idea of God’s will to justify many things that probably are not at all God’s will. I spoke about an idea that I have been reflecting on for some time. When I did a two-week Shakespeare course at Cambridge University several years ago, former director of music for the Royal Shakespeare Company gave a lecture on how art such as music and drama and painting, etc. often moves through chaos and discord and disharmony to resolution. This can also be applied to life and right now a kind of chaos in both the United States and England politically. And perhaps we apply it to our own lives about how we try to figure things out and find peace and harmony.
The meeting house is near Covent Garden which of course is known for its flowers and so we also walked around there. There was a Charlie Chaplin look-alike artist performing to the music from CITY LIGHTS and doing clever things with blocks. Covent Garden is also where ‘Liza Doolittle’ sold flowers in My Fair Lady. I have included photos of the street performer.
