I'm a Quaker, or rather, I'm a regular attender (someone who hasn't applied for membership). Quakers are also called the Religious Society of Friends, and are a non-creedal religion, meaning that there aren't set beliefs that everyone subscribes to, and although Quakers grew out of Christianity, not all Quakers are Christian, there are Buddhist-Quakers, Christian-Quakers and nontheist-Quakers in my local meeting. I do not consider myself to be a Christian, which is an important distinction for me to make.
Anyway, I was at Meeting today and came across a passage in Faith and Practice (main Quaker text in Britain) that spoke to me:
21.67 Release
I was terrified I'd break down.
I did.
It didn't matter.
Rosalind M Baker, 1986
After months of trying so hard to hold everything together in front of a particular group of friends, yesterday I couldn't help but cry in front of them a little. And it was okay, the sky didn't fall in. Which doesn't mean I'm not still scared that if I don't hold it together in future I'll become 'hard work' and they'll leave, but maybe breaking down doesn't always have to mean the end of everything...?
Ocean
