Needs of the people

Yesterday I served Quaker Oats to Quakers! I’ve always dreamed of this. It started as a joke, as most good ideas do. Me and Penny, of the hospitality team, made an oatmeal bar, a place to put oatmeal into a bowl, then add toppings. Choices were: peaches, raisins, chia seeds, bananas, walnuts, apples, brown sugar, maple syrup. It was a smashing success.

Earlier this year, I had another idea that started as a joke, a funny idea, from a silly source. I was at a serious meeting with other Friends. We got onto the topic of how can we attend needs and take care of our community. You know how people put out suggestion boxes? I thought of that, then pictured a box, decorated, and designated for not suggestions. Instead, it would be a box in which to place your spiritual needs or wishes. This immediately confused people. Like, for when you need a ride? Money? Food? No. No, for what your spirit needs. Things that are not things.

At first the description put people off. I forget what it was, but it intimidated people so no one dropped anything in the box. The box almost got dropped at that point. The message was shortened to: “Drop a note in the spiritual needs box if you wish to write down what your spirit calls for, or what your spirit needs to hear from our meeting.” This worked, and people jotted down concerns, issues, and topics they would like support or guidance with.

I think now that every household needs a spiritual needs box.

The intention toward knowing your spiritual needs and outlining them helps us to begin to meet them. And that helps with every other aspect of wellness. It’s in some ways harder than diet and exercise. It can demand deep truth telling and revealing one to their own self, and vulnerabilities. Not a lot of models in this vein. This means we gotta be our own models. And to do so, we need to give ourself assignments. It doesn’t have to be hard all the time.

I recently had an assignment of taking photographs of a yew tree. I gave myself this assignment. I’ve learned to give myself the assignments I’ve been waiting for, to be given by other people. Now I just do it myself. It makes this whole experience much more satisfying.

Start giving yourself the assignments you’ve been waiting for!