to take real kindly to correction. He had a loud kind of wheezy laugh that would make the room shake, and he seemed to think his last name was pretty funny. So since he was a 475 pound black bear nobody was going to argue with him.

Chester's meeting was a silent worship meeting. Which meant the beauty of its profound silence could only be punctuated by a message from the Divine. A message is the expression of the divine which is articulated in someone's speech. It is not like channeling or a Ouji board or anything like that, it is just message which meeting members share with each other. Some how it expresses the inner light, or allows that still small voice which will not be silenced by the roar of the world to speak and be heard.

After the meeting some of us stayed around and sort chatted with Bruno, after all we are the Society of Friends so why not be a little friendly.

Well it turns out Bruno had been around a lot for a bear. He said that he was surprised at how old he was. Bruno is the same age as I which is really old for a bear, and pushing the envelope of middle age for a human. Bruno did show his age, but not very much, though he did seem to creek just a little bit as he lumbered over to the wall to scratch his back against the inside wall of the meeting house. Actually he was very behaved as he noticed some of the nails popping out of the walls as he scratched his hairy back against it in true Bear like fashion. When he was finished

Bruno said,

"Next time I will take my scratching outside, and find a tree, but once a bear starts scratching he cannot stop till he is done, no matter what happens." That's why bears will endure an itch for an unbearable time rather than risk being caught in mid scratch by a hunter. So I guess Bruno must have trusted us from the start.

We were all really glad that he was done because by now the ceiling beams were really starting to strain, I think the fact that all the wood was held doved together by 150 year old Quaker Dove tailed joints was the only thing that kept the building standing.