One of the regular attenders at Pacific Yearly Meeting is wheel chair bound and is best able to speak with a voice-assist mechanism.  During a time for voicing joys and concerns, he spoke--through others who could better understand him—of his frustration at having lost his machine voice.  He felt cut off from engaging others, sad they could not understand him, and anger that he could not communicate in the way he wanted.  He loved being at the YM so he could be with others he could not visit easily.  The YM served as a larger group that knew him and would enjoy engaging with him when so many in the larger society would not make the effort. 

However, he went on to say that over the days of the YM, people would hang in there with him, doing their best to understand him and seemed to appreciate his efforts to reach out in spite of the limitations.  For him, there was a change over the days from frustration to serenity.  Because of the effort by others to communicate and understand him, he felt he had grown closer to some at the YM than he otherwise might have.  The frustration turned to delight.  So, he concluded that this was “another hard lesson from God.” 

It seemed to me as a visitor that this perspective was lived out in other aspects of the work of Pacific Yearly Meeting.  More, perhaps there is a lesson for all of us when we feel the frustration and disappointment of failed hopes.  There might be something redemptive in the “hard lessons” of not getting what we want.  Better things may be found when we are able to go beneath the frustration than what we had originally hoped would happen. 

You can read more from Lonnie here: http://esrquaker.blogspot.com/2013/09/report-from-pacific-yearly-me...