Heart Will Open, Too
I was getting ready to leave Detroit for Gathering. I had my 1995 white Toyota Corolla packed to the hilt with a mobile toddler survival camp: books, Groovy Girl dolls, sleeping bags, clothes, band-aids, sunscreen, mosquito repellant, flashlights, pillows, lullaby music, animal crackers, juice boxes, a chewed-on horsy and a purple lamb from Aunt Kate.
We only had to drive a half block from our .at to the I-94 entrance ramp, take it all the way to somewhere near Chicago, then turn south and follow the cornfields to Illinois State University at Normal, the site of the 2002 Gathering of Friends, our first.
I wanted to be like a tree in a Barbara Kingsolver novel, "one of those miraculous fruit trees that taps into an invisible vein of nurture and bears radiant bushels of plums." But of late our travels seemed to consist mostly of driving around in a cement triangle between work, the girls' daycare, and home. When I headed towards Gathering, a piece of me still felt encased in concrete. Living in the city and working in the public schools made me feel like I had to be too tough, and too on top of things.
I was willing to try something new, and something inside me knew that a Friends conference with a title "To Be Gathered Still" would lead me to it. It was still, all right. Our first night of the Gathering felt like heaven, fifteen stories above the street in a college dorm room. I pushed the two twin beds together, hugged my daughters goodnight, and fell asleep without the sound of the freeway for the first time in years.
Quaker time is slower than regular time. The Normal, Illinois Gathering was almost six years ago, but time stretches. A Friend who saved a table for us at lunchtime three years ago will turn and see us and continue a conversation as if we had just gone for a cup of coffee. Another might remember something we wrote together in a workshop and seek me out years later to ask how I'm doing. Change is slow, and miracles are hard to explain. When so much happens in silence, the words are not enough to describe the slow thawing of a soul that was clenched against violence. But when Friends gather, Spirit finds a way in.
For my daughters, the Junior Gathering has been a place where they are treated as equal, sacred beings. They have ridden on magic carpets, searched for frogs, made giant plumed birds, and been turned into fish and rivers and the sun. They have come home covered in fairy dust, radiant, making new friends that they can't wait to see again. For my elder daughter, who learned early to be very quiet, the Junior Gathering staff helped to give back her voice with acting, singing, and just being a kid. For my younger child, the Gathering always gives her the freedom of movement that has been hard to find in the city. The special friendship of the Junior Gathering staff make the children feel welcome, no matter where they come from and what their spiritual needs might be.
For me, the deepest spiritual growth at Gathering has been during worship opportunities. I still carry with me the memory of all-Gathering worship, and the silence before evening plenary programs. Worshipping in silence with at least seven hundred Quakers left a mark on me, a memory of being in a space where despair and fear were buoyed up and shared, and something else flooded in. I received radical acceptance and welcoming in the worship sponsored by the Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Concerns (FLGBTQC) community. I am always grateful to be a part of this community. The girls were well cared for, and I was able to find some peace and strength. Perhaps the deepest worship opportunity for me has been the Meeting for Worship for Laughter and Healing with Richard Lee. My family received healing, and I was able to finally start to give back all that I have received from the Quaker fellowship by holding others in the Light.
This past Gathering my partner Stephen Deasy joined us, and I was again witness to the wide grace of Spirit that Gathering brings. It was a gift to be able to share Gathering with him, with the girls, with Friends from Detroit meeting and Ann Arbor meeting, and with new Friends from other places. Quakers say "way will open." I'd like to add: Heart will open, too.
Lisa Sinnett lives and works in Detroit. She has been attending both the Ann Arbor and the Detroit Friends Meeting since 1992.
