From Where the Monkey Dropped It

Today I went to Meeting again. I didn’t get sad this time. I just felt calm. At peace. There were a lot of people there - over fifty. I was thinking about relationships and how with each person we interact with we are a different person. What do you do when you find someone who you just don’t have to pretend with at all?

A man spoke today. Am I allowed to share what people say in Meeting? If not, please let me know and I’ll take this down. It’s just that he said something really wonderful. He shared that he is new to the community and that at first he felt like he was walking into a forest with all of the members of the community standing tall and straight and healthy like trees. As he gets to know more and more people in the community it is like getting to know a forest better and realizing that all the trees have insects and epiphytes in them and on them. He has noticed that the members of this community have lived through a lot and have had to pick themselves up and start again. And then he told the story of British soldiers in India playing golf. Golf was a little bit different in India because sometimes you’d hit the ball and monkeys would come down from the trees, grab the ball, run into the forest with it and drop it someplace else. This went on for a long time as the players debated what to do in such a situation. They finally decided that you have to play the ball from where the monkey drops it. “That seems appropriate to all of our lives”, the man said and sat down.

After he sat and we were in silence again I kept hearing his last words over and over again in my head. “You have to play the ball from where the monkey drops it. That seems appropriate to all of our lives. You have to play the ball from where the monkey drops it. That seems appropriate to all of our lives. You have to play the ball from where the monkey drops it…”

I have been in Monteverde for almost three weeks now. I know of two families struggling through cancer and one who just lost a child. Even in this beautiful place you have to play the ball from where the monkey drops it.

Then there were announcements. This Wednesday is Zenith Day. At 11:41 a.m. the sun will be directly overhead. This only happens in the tropics. Then the peace loving Quakers broke out into a fight. Someone announced that in a few days at 12:34 a.m. Mars with be closest to the Earth than it has been in over 2,000 years and someone called out “That’s not true!” and launched into information about Jupiter and this website that I’ve forgotten. It was a pretty mild fight, I guess.

I’ve started a new book. Mothers of Feminism: The Story of Quaker Women in America by Margaret Hope Bacon. It’s fascinating. I’m putting this up here in the hopes that someone will read it and want to discuss it with me. I’m only on page 38. You still have time.

I’m gonna spend this week thinking about where my ball landed and what I’m doing about it.