One thing it is not possible to say is that my Quaker Meeting can provide a truly uplifting and satisfying singing experience. When Kathe and I were attending together she would often compare the occasional hymn-singing before we went into the Meeting room with the religious music which had been her primary motivation for attending her mother’s church. She was a very active musician in her youth, a cellist in an orchestra (she still had her cello when I first met her, although I never heard her play it).
The Meeting’s singing was a trial to her - poorly-organized, half-heartedly sung, a dreary moment for her and probably for others, but no-one made the effort to train the singers, even though I think some of the others also would have liked it.
The online Meeting itself was also unsatisfactory. The elusive feeling of a truly Gathered Meeting was definitely eluding me now. As I logged off, I thought again of the Walking Meeting which took place at th same time, with Friends walking through a neighborhood at the prescribed six-foot distance. It, also, didn’t really appeal to me, but I thought once again that I should try it. Next week, perhaps.
I opened up YouTube and called up “Time and Stars”, and let its sweet, painful words wash over me:
Our lives are brief as falling stars
That streak the sky like tears
My life is stretched by a slender thread
Across a million years
This, at least, could still affect me. I felt the aching sense of love and longing as I followed along through its familiar words, its promise of rebirth.
When the Weaver draws our threads across
Another Where or When
I will meet, and know, and remember you
And love you once again
Once again, the ache of Kathe’s loss was at the front of my mind, but it was a good pain, precious to me. I didn’t want the pain of her loss to go away.
If only, I thought, I could actually find that song and listen to it. It still remained one of those things you couldn’t find online.
http://inwardboundpoetry.blogspot.com/2008/06/672-vision-wendell-berry.html
The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Keep searching."
