poliphilo

The larger and livelier a group becomes the more likely it is that trouble will arise and cliques will form. We get around 15-25 people attending worship at our Meeting House on a Sunday and around 10 on a Thursday. People drop in, people drop out. I make it my business to know the names and a little of the background of everyone who shows up but sometimes memory fails. We're at a level where unity becomes hard to maintain- and I'm aware of hairline cracks that could become fissures.

At area level- where Quakers from Meetings spread across half of Sussex from Seaford to Rye try to find common ground- there is undisguised disharmony. Ailz is at a get together this afternoon which will be dealing with the bugger-up that occured last Sunday. She says our visit to Bunhill Fields has helped her put things in perspective. When you're walking across the unmarked graves of nearly 100 people who died for their faith in the ghastly prisons of 17th century London the dissension and hurt we're experiencing seems not so very important.....