On worship.

I’d told my therapist earlier this year that I’d had a seemingly random desire to attend a Quaker meeting. Maybe, I joked, as a parent, most of the appeal was sitting in a full hour of silence. But the Quakers always seemed to me to be on the right side of things, and so, I thought, maybe they would know what to do during, ah, all of this.

So, I finally fulfilled the intention I set. What struck me most—other than how noisy a room full of quiet people can be—was this sense that, well, the Quakers were just trying to figure it out, too. Everyone moved by the spirit to speak was also searching for something. Seeking guidance and finding, in their every day, a bit of meaning.

After meeting, across the way, there were pastries and coffee and I milled about for a bit, trying to be friendly. It wasn’t too hard; I suppose unsurprisingly, the Quakers proved extraordinarily friendly, and I found myself swept into conversation.

One person asked me, well, basically: What’s your deal? Was I someone who believed in god? I sort of mumbled through an answer—a true one, that I wasn’t sure. But I wish I added that I believed in the the way the light was coming through the leaves, biking down the middle of a big empty street, in my son pointing at the moon out the window, and did anyone see that absolutely fucking perfect baseball game last night.