Patience. (or... the Quaker time-warp)

I was reminded Saturday (and Mon-Fri, by some others as well) that the key to figuring out where I fit in (to Quakers, my employment, the world in general) might well be patience.

At first glance, I don't seem cut out to be a Quaker in the patience department. At all. But as I spent some time musing on this, I realized that becoming more patient with this process might actually be happening, and if I start to see all that I am encountering these days in that context, I find my way into new perspectives.

From the time I was four years old, pretty much every few years or so until now, I've been told I am either very ill, or may be getting sicker. My arthritis problems (and these days, the Hashimoto's syndrome as well) started at such an early age, I think it became a part of me to just wonder not if but when I would end up in a wheelchair or similarly incapacitated, as so often predicted. Most days I choose to live in the hope that those severe problems won't happen rather then the fear that they will. Some days that plan works better than others. My clarinet-playing/music-major struggles were not a good decade, for example.

So..... couple those underlying events with a family environment that values "what you do" as "who you are", and I have a recipe for disaster when it comes to a more patient existence. I never know when those career/family/"success" goals are going to get yanked away from my grasp, like my ability to play the clarinet was so quickly and without warning. Kind of a ticking time bomb I choose to ignore.

The space of the Quaker meeting stops that clock from ticking. I can be completely present, with little regard for the self-imposed critique, or the "to-do list" that I usually carry around with me. For the first few weeks of this, I was a little overly concerned with the "expectant waiting" ministry angle of it all. For now, it seems just being able to shut myself up (inwardly speaking) is pretty mystical in and of itself. Divine messages (and I get those too) are just a bonus.

I have spent much time lately thinking about how my previous positive "Quakerly" encounters in life led me to where I am now. Perhaps what I saw as negative experiences might just be the things that kept me in those meetings thus far, knowing I needed the spiritual practice that on first glance is not at all suited for my "doer" efficient lifestyle.

And when I am feeling really centered, when all this Quaker mumbo-jumbo is working for me, I can bring that silent, patient space outside of the Quaker meeting. Like in that early morning I ended up sharing a quite profound conversation outside Portland's "Mr. Bagel" with Marty, a homeless fellow who has quite a perspective on what we as a society choose to see (like I had any energy after that to bother to hear Matthew Fox!). Or when Lee from the chorus shares with me the Verdi-requiem-kidney-donation story (that'll get its own post it's so happily bizarre). Or when my fFriend Alex and I spend time sorting through some remnants of her life, trying to decide where the value lives for her now.

All this patience is getting a little exhausting. But I'm slowly working my way to a place where I can live it without so much mental drama. Slowly. With patience.