xtcian

look for light in everyone

6/10/04

I attended a Quaker Middle School Graduation today in Boston, and anyone familiar with the Friends knows these things are handled by "silent meeting" – basically, all 500 parents and well-wishers sit in an auditorium with the graduates in complete silence until someone is moved to say something.

Coming from a tightly-wound-up antebellum-repressed prep school in the South, this sort of thing seemed like Communion on Planet Xenon to me; I couldn't imagine anything more foreign. At my school, we sat through – nay, endured - the semi-coherent philosophical ramblings of low-rent religious minds pontificating on the merits of good breeding. Sure, the classes were taught by masters in their fields, but the pomp surrounding assemblies and graduations was almost too much to bear.

This Quaker graduation, however, pushed the limits of my boundaries. The gymnasium was well over 95 degrees inside, and they turned off all the fans to ensure silence. At first I was annoyed, then pained - then curiously, a wave of acceptance came over me. I began to think about my own graduations, the measuring sticks these kids were going to use to mark time in their lives, and then I visited old friends in my mind whom I haven't spoken to in 18 years.

In short, it began to sink in what a "silent meeting" actually accomplishes; as long as you get past the first five minutes of short-attention-span hysteria, your mind actually does dilate into a kaleidoscope of other thoughts. Everyone in the gymnasium had a paper fan, so the meeting, though technically "silent," filled with the ambience of wafting air and crinkling paper. It was a little like John Cage's concert piece 4'33" – in which the ambient noise of the audience IS the piece.

After an eternity, someone was finally moved to speak. The first fifteen or so were wonderful. Then, after ten more, a tipping point occurred, and every single person seemed to want to get a word in. Finally, after a couple of hours of this, a participant used the silent meeting – and graduation itself – to vent a past romantic grievance. Sensing a runaway train, the principal of the school quickly grabbed the arms of those next to her, signaling a chain of hands that meant the meeting was over.

We stumbled outside, where the sub-tropical heat had broken into a cool spring thunderstorm. It was the first time since March that Tessa or I had seen or felt rain, and we stared upwards as though we never thought the sky capable of such moodiness.