I like regularity and known knowns. I don’t do well sitting in discomfort. Yet today I had the opportunity to befriend discomfort and sit in unknowns as I attended my first “meeting for worship on the occasion of death,” which is what Quakers call a memorial service. I practiced letting go and trusting that things are working out fine, just as it is, without any need at all for me to step in.

Years back, Bruce, an older white man and a friend of mine from the Quaker meeting, felt a calling to stand on 9th Street just outside our meetinghouse. As he stood there the first night he wasn’t sure what he was doing out there, but as the nights went on he began to befriend and aid various folks who lived on the street in the neighborhood.

As the years went by Bruce has made many long-term friends with homeless and formerly homeless people and he’s introduced several of them to our Quaker meeting. On the week of Christmas two of Bruce’s friends overdosed and died in their tent just a handful of yards from our meetinghouse. One of them was Yolanda, the very first person who talked to Bruce on the street six years ago. Today Bruce held a meeting for worship on the occasion of Yolanda’s death and invited folks from our meeting, folks from our “Friday Food Share,” and Yolanda’s family. Tho I had only met Yolanda in passing I stayed for the meeting in support of Bruce and to help with the technology as it was a hybrid in-person/online meeting.

I was very aware that the majority of folks at the meeting were not Quakers and were therefore likely unaccustomed to sitting in silence. I was also very aware that the majority of folks in the room were people of color, while our membership is majority white. There were new dynamics at play and this discomforted inner part of me with a compulsion to caretake unknowns became activated. 

After Bruce told his very moving story about Yolanda he sat down and the meeting returned to silence. In a Quaker meeting, after some time, anyone who feels moved can stand up and speak, and that’s how our memorials work as well. As the minutes of silence continued with no one standing and speaking I became very uneasy inside. I had thoughts like “maybe folks don’t know what to do?” “Maybe Bruce should stand up and remind folks how this works?” “Maybe I should say something?” “Maybe everyone here is really uncomfortable?” “Maybe Quaker process is too weird for people?” “Maybe this isn’t how memorials should be held?” And the one that troubled me most was “I think Yolanda’s family is uncomfortable here.” 

And at last I came to step outside the mental storm I was caught in and came to witness it instead. I reminded myself that my discomfort is simply MY discomfort. It is mine to work on. Discomforts are not entities existing independently in the room that I’m tapping into. It wholly exists within me. Others may be having fully different experiences. Perhaps–who knows–Yolanda’s family needed exactly this silence today. 

So I resolved to simply sit in my discomfort and trust the process. I practiced letting go of the need to control things or attempting to control things. I practiced having faith in things working out fine.

The greatest trial for my practice of Trust and Faith in today’s meeting was a moment when a woman stood up and began doing interpretive dance in memory of Yolanda. The dancer was Asian American; Yolanda’s family is African American. My thoughts told me they didn’t know her. My thoughts told me the family was uncomfortable. My thoughts told me “This is way too hippyish. This is weird.” And I accepted that these thoughts existed and I practiced letting go of any need to believe them or control what was happening. And then the dancer sat down. And Yolanda’s sister immediately exclaimed “That was so cool!” 

Walter, have some faith. It’s working out fine. Let your thoughts play themselves out. There’s no need to act on anything passing thru that head of yours. Thoughts are like clouds in the sky. 

When the meeting ended Yolanda’s mother came up to me to thank me. After I approached the dancer and we chatted. She told me her family is Japanese American and that her ancestors were interned in the concentration camps for Japanese Americans during World War II. She told me she grew up hearing stories from her family about the Quakers who would come to the camps and do nice things for them. Today was the third Quaker meeting she’d ever attended and she was moved by the Spirit to dance and she simply obeyed the call.

So while I was partially cringing inside watching the dancing, Yolanda’s sister was sitting there thinking the dancing was so cool and the dancer was perfectly obeying the Inner Guide. 

The dancer was something of a natural Quaker.

Everything is working out just fine.