We attended the Friends General Conference Gathering, held this year at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa. The Gathering is held on a college campus so housing is available in college dorms. We are a bit old to be college students and we have had years of living in our own house with all its conveniences. It is a shock to our ways of being to have to get somewhat dressed to use the bathroom or wash our face in the morning. One positive result is renewed appreciation for our house.
A plus is that the kitchen and dining staff provides all the meals, but most college campuses are laid out for able-bodied, college-age vigorous young people. We are not used to having to hike to breakfast, to group meetings, to lunch, and to dinner.
I was in a workshop that met every morning from 9 to 11:45. Its theme was "Life Lessons from a Bad Quaker". That is also the title of the book by the leader of our group, Brent Bill. The Society of Friends, or Quakers, was part of the long and broad revolution that began with Luther's 95 theses, basically questioning that idea that one needs the Church to intervene if one is to connect to God. The book by Tom Wheeler "From Gutenberg to Google" makes clear that many people had criticisms of ideas and practices before Luther, but his questions and ideas were quickly spread by the new-fangled "printing press". Wheeler said that because of the conjunction of factors related to the printing press, Luther's criticisms and questions were dispersed to all parts of Germany within 15 days of their being posted on the Wittenberg church door, which served as a community bulletin board.
The Quakers emphasized an individual's personal and direct relation to the Divine and practiced slient contemplation of the state of one's soul. They still do.
