My first full day at YMG09

Despite avoiding too much busy-ness, I had a full day today. Up early for worship at 7.30 till 8, then after a leisurely breakfast it was nearly time to go into the morning session. The highlight of this for me was Colin Billett’s introduction to the topic of Committed Relationships.

In a short twenty minutes Colin spoke eloquently, persuasively, movingly and humorously in favour of equal treatment for people in same-sex relationships who want to publicly affirm their commitment to each other. As a gay man who grew up in the 1950s and 60s, I was powerfully moved to hear this heterosexual family man and father of four deliver his talk which included me and all lesbian and gay people on equal terms. He spoke with joy as well as earnestness, it was a pleasure to witness.

During the lunchbreak I attended one of the special interest groups for a while, and then at 2pm went back into Central Hall, this time to hear Jennifer Barraclough speak on the topic of Creating Community. Jennifer gave a highly engaging, thoughtful and valuable talk, in which she began by doing what she then encouraged us to do – telling her story. I hope to write more about this at a later occasion, so I won’t go into detail now.

After a short break there were Response Groups, I joined one facilitated by Simon Pollitt. It was a mixed-age group, being about half made up of members of Junior Yearly Meeting and the other half of adults. It was great to engage with the younger people’s passion and enthusiasm. It was also interesting to think about the difference between physically located community and, say, community based on a network, or on the internet. I also was dead chuffed to get two separate compliments from teenagers on my vivid pink shirt.

Soon after this it seemed to be time for the evening meal. As I ate and chatted I could look out of the window and see rabbits grazing on the nearby patch of lawn under the trees. This is a great campus for wildlife. There is a long serpentine stretch of lake beside the buildings that we mainly use, with bridges at useful intervals. So there are many waterfowl as well as pigeons and other hedgerow birds. The ducks and geese often graze on the lawns, and after my evening meal I watched from my bedroom window as a family group of greylag geese walked purposefully onto the central lawn in the quadrangle formed by some of our residential blocks.

I felt a little bit down in the evening – perhaps I had spent too long in my own company. I took myself along to the Exhibition Centre, which is our main central gathering place for information, having hot drinks, buying bargain books at the Quaker Bookshop, and various other activities including filmshows most evenings.

I was there for the jazz evening. The jazz band, sponsored by The Friend and by Robert Gibson, was called Rashomon and came with four players – keyboard, bass, drums and saxophone/clarinet/flute. As I sat there, nodding at the Friend in the seat beside me, I gradually warmed to their rhythms and improvisations. At times it was hard to discern any rhythm at all, or melody, yet they held us spellbound by their playing.

The epilogue was given by a Friend from Norwich, and I’m sorry I can’t give her name since I have forgotten it. But she told us a story from The Revelation of Divine Love, by Julian of Norwich, written six centuries ago. It is about how the faithful servant eagerly rushes to do a task for her beloved Lord, only to fall down on her face in the mud. In her pain and shame she lies there feeling bad, never seeing that her Lord is standing close by with his hand extended to help her up. After silent worship the session closed with the familiar quotation, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Another thirty minutes of jazz followed. This time I sat in the centre front, and whether it was in me or in the band, I found the second set even more satisfying than the first. A really great way to end the day.

I have said nothing here about Trustees and Stewardship, which were part of the morning session. I leave that to other Friends. Here endeth the blog.