1. I don't want to alienate people who aren't Quaker, and thus won't understand this post.
2. For some reason, I made up my mind that it was necessary to answer the all-important question of whether or not to tag all my Quaker(ish) friends when I put the blog post on Facebook before making the post in the first place. (My brain is sort of obsessive and weird sometimes.)
Anyway, I finally decided to just go ahead and make the post. This was largely because I started to get worried that if I waited too long, all the friends I wanted to share this stuff with would have forgotten about me. Here's how I imagine the internet conversation going down:
Me: Hey, Friend! I thought you might like to look at some of this cool Quaker stuff I found!
My friend: Who are you?
Me: Don't you remember me? We...were friends? I was in your small group/cabin/meeting/other gathering place? I think I was your secret friend once?
My friend: And where was this exactly?
Me: Quaker camp/Quaker meeting
My friend: Wait, how do you know what religion I am/was?
Me: BECAUSE WE WERE FRIENDS!!!! DON'T YOU KNOW WHAT FRIENDS ARE??
My friend: Okay, maybe we were friends. Is your real name ___?
Me: No, it's Lydia.
My friend: Are you sure you aren't ___?
Me: Nope, pretty sure I know my own name, and it's Lydia.
My friend: Okay, whatever. If we were friends, what did we do together.
Me (getting excited): Oh, we sung songs and played games and talked about our lives and did worship sharing together and wrote affirmations of each other. All sorts of things!
My friend: Um...okay. Anything specific?
Me: [insert super specific example of a thing my friend did here]
My friend: How do you know that?
Me: BECAUSE I WAS THERE!!!
My friend: Listen, if you don't stop messaging me, I'm going to the police.
Me: Okay, fine. I give up. Bye.
So, to avoid making future-Lydia very sad, I'm making this post now. Anyways, a while back I read Quaking by Kathryn Erskine. The book follows a goth girl who moves in with a Quaker family. The book itself was pretty good, with a plot that was nice but sort of cheesy. However, what really blew me away were Erskine's hilarious quotes about Quakerism. Here are the ones I found worth copying down (with occasional notes from me in italics):
- "Quakers? Excuse me? I thought Quakers were extinct...I am not even sure it's a religion. Maybe it's a commune. Or a disease." (p. 2-3)
- "Sam and Jessica look at each other again. They do this a lot. I believe it is Quaker-speak. Or they are aliens." (p.8) #totallyanalien should be a thing.
- "'First, I will need to learn Quaker-speak,' I point out. 'You people communicate telepathically. I believe you are an alien race.' They laugh as if I am joking." (p. 33)
- "Chuck smiles. 'I think we need 'Walk in the Light''. Oh, barf! What a name! This is going to be one of those weepy, old lady hymns where voices will start warbling and tears will flow and I will get depressed by the melody alone." (p. 88) This is the song she is referring to (fast forward to 2:24):
- "Meeting has begun. And it is freezing in this place. Heat must not be a Quaker testimony." (p. 91) Seriously, though. Seeing as I live in the midst of the Sonoran desert, it isn't too much of a problem, but when someone goes to turn down the air conditioner, it's trouble.
Okay, I guess that's about it. I hope you enjoyed this post and that you have a very happy holiday season!
Best wishes,
Lydia
I read Quaking too, and it is one of my favorite books ever!
ReplyDeleteThat's awesome! (We should talk about books sometime.)
ReplyDelete