T

he Pendle Hill clerking workshop was a very powerful experience for me as a high school clerk. I’d been feeling nervous about my ability to serve the community and the workshop really lived up to its title for me. I was impressed with Arthur Larrabee’s leadership style—he taught us not so much by the exercises or handout booklet but by his own example. I appreciated how he was able to make us all feel heard while still sticking to some sort of an agenda.

I felt like an overstuffed suitcase by the end of the second day, trying to cram everything that was said into my brain to be sorted out later. The way that Arthur organized the workshop, we spent most of the time flipping through a thick booklet to different sections relating to the role of the clerk, how to set an agenda and when not to stick to one, the difference between “open” and “silent” worship and other topics. He also had three exercises: difficult situations that a clerk might find herself in, with hints or suggestions on how to deal with them. I found these “you’re the clerk, what would you do?” practice sessions very helpful—I would have appreciated more of them.

One of the most amazing experiences that I had over the weekend was during a hypothetical situation in which a gay couple wished to be married in the meeting. Your job as clerk in this case, feeling a sense of the meeting, was to move forward despite serious objections from certain Friends. One of the other workshop attenders stood up and said the exact words that were running through my head. He wanted to recognize the concerns felt by those Friends, arising from a loving care of the community, but felt that the Spirit was moving us in another direction. I was just knocked out because he did use the very same words, not just the sense of what I was feeling. I consider this yet more evidence of the influence of the Spirit in our meetings.

Our special meeting for discernment among the high school clerks was also very valuable for me, despite the fact that it resulted in reduced participation from the high schoolers in the next morning’s session (we finished around 2:30 am)! We each went into the meeting with a sneaky desire to be presiding clerk, for whatever reason the “glamour job.” It was meaningful to me that we were able to let go of what we wanted to do, in favor of what we were feeling led to do.

One part of the workshop did annoy me—we were supposed to be questioning our motivations and coming to an understanding. Arthur did this by asking us “Why?” over and over and over again. “We do this to come to a sense of the meeting.” “Why?” “Because it’s more likely to be the Truth.” “Why?” At a certain point we got past the answerables and into the “just becauses.” I felt frustrated by this and I was glad that it wasn’t a very long section of the workshop.

Viewed altogether, it was a very long and eventful weekend. I was grateful for the opportunity to get together with and get to know my co-clerks, and the chance to get to know other workshop attenders. I felt that our experience was enriched by having a group of all ages, and many of the older attenders shared this feeling. With the knowledge and skills that I learned, I look forward to “serving the community with joy and confidence!”

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Rebecca Nelson has been attending the FGC Gathering for 14 years—it’s always the high point of her summer, if not the whole year. She’s a homeschooled senior in high school, and really looking forward to college next year. Rebecca is a “weighty” member of St. Lawrence Valley Friends Meeting in Potsdam, NY.

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