People keep discussing business while I am eating! I tell them, "that won't get in the minutes - I can't eat and write at the same time!" I do remember there was mention that Pir Zia might come to Seattle soon, which is very exciting. J arrives late, she is famished, she has driven a long way to reach us tonight.
We have a discussion about what we might or might not do for Shahabuddin's birthday which is coming soon after the seminar, and it is one of those with significant numbers, but we don't want to make newcomers feel excluded.
U tells us about an on-line class that Amir is doing on the 99 Names of God - the rest of us were unaware that he was doing this.
J has been trying to figure out how to help his aged mother, and H has a worry about dying without a Sufi nearby who would understand what she wanted. It seems as though Shahabuddin's seminar will be relevant to many of us right now. I have a friend at work whose mother died 8 weeks ago and whose father died 2 weeks ago.
Finally we talk about how our group of 8 has become more than just the total of us. There are other examples of this - like when we have a seminar, the feeling grows greater than the number of people present. It isn't the food, or even the connection of the Abrahamic Reunion. So what do we do? We organise, manage and support each other - we have developed presence for each other. This discovery makes us happy! We say the Peace Prayer, and hug each other good-night.
