Sunday, December 23, 2007

Meeting for Eating and The Quaker Kids

The Clerk of our Quaker Meeting and his family have been really wonderful about opening up their home not only for our Meetings but also for lovely potlucks on various holidays. We had the Quakers here for a Christmas-y get-together once years ago and at Easter once years ago, but our house is really small for our still-small but growing Meeting. Theirs fits us all much more comfortably now so it is wonderful that they are so welcoming.

Yesterday, we went there for a Christmas potluck. We took salad and bean tamales and there was quite a spread there. It was so nice to get to be with everyone. It is a wonder to me that our tiny Meeting now seems overflowing with children. Not so many years ago, when our Meeting was mainly myself and three other women, I had "First Day School" with the Lone Star Girl at home alone and tried to run her to Austin a couple of times a year so she could actually see other Quaker children at their Friends Meeting. Then our Clerk's family moved to town less than five years ago and their daughter, then nine, joined my seven-year-old Lone Star Girl as my first real "class". Now we have the Lone Star Baby and another three-year-old girl and that little girl's new baby brother! I used to think that, as the only woman of child-bearing age in our tiny Meeting, it would be completely up to me to re-populate it, but thank heavens that is not the case anymore! All these children are such a blessing!

We stayed yesterday until the Lone Star Baby, after spending the afternoon running all over the place with her friend, started melting down. Then it was home again, with tears and ragged tantrum-nerves. A good day still, though.

How does your faith community bring warmth to your winter holidays?

No comments: