The Sunday I went back to Quaker Meeting

I haven’t been to Quaker meeting since the Sunday after September 11, 2001. I just never felt comfortable in the Seattle Meeting. I decided that Denver’s Meeting is in the same yearly meeting (the 4-corners states gather for a week every year and we would go throughout my childhood) as SLC so I should try it.

Quakers are so kind. We felt very welcome and meeting was centering and grounding. They have a lovely window with light through the leaves to watch during silence. Four different people spoke, which is much more than my childhood meeting. I cried several times, missing my mom. Grateful she raised me as she did. Several people came to talk to us after, only a couple remembered me or my mother but that’s ok. They were interested and thoughtful people.

Penny Thron-Weber was so kind, and still does the same bun with her hair she did when I knew her. Then she actually invited us for Sunday family dinner with her family. I remember her as having a snuggly carrier with a baby at yearly meeting, and I ate with that kid and her two kids! Her younger brother, Raji, was a Young Friend for a while with me, but she is ten years older than him.

I felt so honored and also so at home. The sense of inclusion that is not just hospitality, but is a spiritual practice is one of the best things about Quakerism. “There is that of God in every person” means not just being kind but being interested and taking time to see what others have to teach us or to add to our lives. My mom would often invite folks over if they were traveling through town or just trying out meeting. That sense of inclusion means a lot to me.

And in addition to all this it was harvest time for their big garden! Potatoes, beets, tomatoes 3 ways, onion, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, eggplant were all fresh picked. And the pears for a pear piñon tart as well, not pictured above. I left well fed physically and spiritually.