I walked past your Meeting House -
a wooden white building
that appears
like something
from the 19th Century.
I saw your large colourful text,
painted on your fence:
equality,
simplicity,
etc.
I was facinated.
“Is this real?”
I asked myself.
“Could they
really
value these things?”
I decided
to ask my wife
to attend a Meeting
with me,
to see
if you
were.
We went to a silent Meeting -
it was different than anything I had known,
more like shared meditation.
Everyone silent,
everything peaceful,
a Corgi sitting next to his person.
I hadn’t felt spiritual connection like this,
decades.
After Meeting,
we wandered into kitchen,
where the breast milk
stolen from babies,
was being poured into tea,
where the butter
made from this deadly addiction,
was being spread on toast.
A great sadness overtook me -
another example
of saying one thing
and living something
entirely different.
I went home,
trying to push the experience
out of my mind.
Hope not completely gone -
I ordered a 600+ page text on Quakers
and read it over a few months.
I researched vegan Friends
attending an online meeting -
promising,
but seemingly
focused on that activism,
with little time for
actual
shared
spirituality.
Moving to another city -
I found a Meeting House and emailed them.
“My wife and I are moving to Wellington
and we are looking for
a local Quaker meeting
without animal consumption
following the meeting.
We have been limited
to online meetings
so far,
as we cannot combine
our spiritual practice
with violence.
Can you advise
if your meeting
consumes animals
or their excretions
at the end of the meeting?”
There was a quick response:
“Sometimes we have cheese,
butter
and always milk.
At shared meals
sometimes
there are meat products.
We have several
vegans and vegetarians
that attend our meetings
and
do not
eat that
to which
they are opposed.”
My mind -
hung on the word
“products”.
I responded:
“Yes,
we realise
that some
can look
the other way
where violence and theft
are involved,
but we cannot.
Speaking out against wrongs
such as the events in Palestine
(for example)
while killing other innocents
is not
consistent
with
our testimony.”
There is an inner light -
a light which is within us all,
a light within all.
When we extinguish that light,
we diminish
us
all.
Just as George Fox
could travel to the New World
to see the barbarity of slavery
and not condemn it -
modern Friends are blind
to the light
to the slavery
for which they
themselves
are responsible.
I thought about
ending this with:
Please -
awaken
my Friends.
But,
we all know,
people will only see,
what they want to see.
Lee Sturgis