At the 5 pm Quaker meeting in Cambridge, the person deputized to close things out invited people to share any thoughts/etc. they had during the meeting that did not rise to the level of a message. Notable first because that isn’t generally done at the 5 pm, unless I’ve been missing it — perhaps just her taking some healthy (and un-Quakerly!) executive initiative.
But also notable because she gave it a specific name: “afterthoughts,” saying the word deliberately, as in, “An afterthought is when…” rather than merely conversationally (e.g. “does anyone have any afterthoughts or things they’d like to say?”). I’m sure that’s nothing new in itself, but given that this isn’t a widely formalized practice, it’s interesting to note how it’s done in different places…
If there are any Quakers reading, do they do that in your meeting? What is it called?
My Meeting is currently having some discussion about afterthoughts, but we do (for the moment) have them.
Our clerk makes a similar statement at the end of Meeting for Worship (in Orange County, CA), but she doesn’t call it anything specific. She merely asks if anyone had something to share that they didn’t get the opportunity to say during Meeting. I really like this practice because the thoughts that are shared tend to be a nice capstone to worship as well as a segue into the introductions that follow.
It’s a pretty common practice in some meetings, usually brought in by someone new who picked it up somewhere else. I’ve can think of a couple of meetings that have had second thoughts about Afterthoughts after a few years. It seems like the kind of thing that’s very refreshing and opening at first but becomes it’s own problem as it gets institutionalized.
It’s an interesting point, Martin — perhaps it’s best to simply let it happen as people feel moved (as apparently the person referenced in the post did).
I once suggested this at the North Shore meeting, but they didn’t feel led to institutionalize it.