Soul food: At Hanukkah, Martyn Kelly talks ritual

‘Food rituals are a way of staying connected with home.’

We see traces of this in the letters written by Paul the apostle to the young Christian communities of the eastern Mediterranean. The encouragement Paul offers is all about identity. It’s not about food or diet per se, but understanding food’s relationship to belonging can help us see the other side to this story.

Paul’s early letters deal with the vexed question of how tightly these communities should adhere to the traditions of Judaism. From a modern secular perspective we can barely perceive what the fuss was about, but it was the biggest issue facing the young movement, much of which was centred around diaspora communities and their synagogues.

For every group that agreed with Paul, there must have been others whose discernment led them to the opposite conclusion. Their reasoning would have gone something like this: ‘We’ve met people influenced by Jesus, we’ve put them up in our houses (because that is what diaspora communities do when members of them visit), and we’ve debated with them in our synagogues. We recognise that Jesus fits into the rabbinical tradition, and find much of his teaching to be stimulating. But we are not convinced that we should change the rules that make us a distinctive community, because these traditions maintain a connection with our homeland, to our people, and, in particular, to the Temple in Jerusalem. So, with all due respect, we will continue to insist that anyone who joins our community will have to follow the same rules that we inherited from our parents, and which they inherited from their parents.’

This was, I suspect, a live debate even before Paul and the other early evangelists turned up. We get a flavour of it in Old Testament Esther (3: 8-9), and also the New Testament Acts of the Apostles. There we have Peter’s meeting with the Roman centurion, Cornelius, as well as references to ‘devout Greek’ people listening to Paul preach at Thessaloniki. It points to ‘boundary maintenance’ as a big issue.

Both Christianity and Judaism are defined, to an extent, by what they are not. The Gospels use the pedantry of the Pharisees and the ritualism of the Sadducees as foils to highlight Jesus’ message. But Paul’s letters also help us to see how the diaspora Jews, too, defined themselves relative to the Gentile world. His engagement with these communities points to a steely determination – a determination that enabled this small disparate people to retain its distinctive character right through to the present day.

Eye - 15 December 2023

From Sustainable shimmies to On this day

Meeting for… ?

Gordon Smith, of Gloucester Area Meeting, shared a story with Eye.

He writes: ‘Many, many years ago when I was first becoming interested in Quakerism I went to the Meeting at Northampton… It was a good Meeting (aren’t they all?!) and I found the silence powerful. I recommended it to a yoga friend of mine called Ruby… she went the following week.

‘Later I asked her how she got on. She said that after the Meeting she had explained to the Friend at the door that I had recommended the Meeting to her and that she’d found the meditation powerful. This Friend had made her feel very welcome but explained: “Actually, we don’t do meditation, we do worship”.

‘A week later I was walking past the Meeting house in Sutton Coldfield. There was a noticeboard outside with all the Quaker activities listed on it. At the bottom was Sunday 10:30am – Meditation!’

On this day

The ‘gentle cackle’ of geese was among the observations from a Friend during their visit to the Norfolk Coast that appeared in the Friend of 15 December 1922.

Albert J Crosfield shared his experience of Wells-next-the-Sea, with a particular focus on the feathered encounters. He recommends: ‘Lovers of nature who can enjoy a tonic in the form of strong, cold, bracing air, should choose mid-winter for a visit.’

Clearly familiar with the area, he describes how the saltings in July ‘are brilliant with sea lavender’ and how his winter adventure saw pink-footed geese ‘feeding by the hundreds’ in ‘meadows reclaimed from the sea’. He reflects on sightings of terns, widgeon, wild ducks, and a hoopoe. However, you get a sense that some activities enjoyed in the town don’t quite tickle his fancy though: ‘A man who can enjoy a toss on the North Sea might find a “Friendly” boatman at Wells to take him out on a winter’s night, if his zeal for sea-fishing overcame his love of creaturely comfort.’

Billions needed for climate loss and damage, say Friends

'Funding must be new and additional, not taken from development aid or priorities such as health and education.'

But funding must be in the billions, said BYM, along with others in the Make Polluters Pay coalition, meaning more than the US$429 million pledged. Germany and UAE, which is hosting COP28, each pledged $100m to the fund, along with $245m from the EU and $75m from the UK.

Funding must be new and additional, not taken from development aid or priorities such as health and education, Make Polluters Pay said. The UK government must also put long-term arrangements in place through taxing the fossil-fuel industry, which it said has profited from this crisis.

A record number of fossil-fuel lobbyists got access to this year’s COP28 climate talks, according to the Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO) coalition. The UAE-hosted summit admitted at least 2,456 people affiliated with oil and gas industries.

Quaker Rupert Read and Liam Kavanagh, co-founders of the Climate Majority Project, said that ‘this hopeless COP contains a grain of hope: a climate summit whose petrostate hosts planned to use it as a platform for new oil deals? Now it’s so obvious that the system is failing, progress may finally be possible.’

The COP28 Day of Action in London on 9 December started outside the BP headquarters in St James’s Square, before moving on to BAE Systems to witness for a cleaner planet.

Quakers in Scotland helped organise an event outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, with live music, kids’ activities, and speakers. Michael Hutchinson, clerk of General Meeting for Scotland, called it ‘a dreich day and we got very wet! But inspiring to see a good turnout. As part of this event Quakers in Scotland and Christian Aid organised a silent vigil for people of all faiths and none, to uphold communities around the world who are bearing the brunt of climate breakdown and… policymakers in Scotland.’

MSPs vote for children’s rights

‘Quakers in Scotland have a proud history of advocating for children’s rights, from scrutinising military visits in schools to campaigning for equal protection from assault.’

Long campaigned for by Quakers in Scotland, the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill first passed – unanimously – in March 2021, but was referred to the UK Supreme Court by Westminster.

The bill was then amended to comply with devolution rules, and passed – again unanimously – last week.

Shirley-Anne Somerville, the Scottish cabinet secretary for social justice, said the legislation would ‘change the way we think about children’s rights’.

Quakers in Scotland have been working on the bill with Together – Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights for several years.
Elizabeth Allen, clerk to General Meeting for Scotland during the campaign, said: ‘Quakers in Scotland have a proud history of advocating for children’s rights, from scrutinising military visits in schools to campaigning for equal protection from assault.’

Britain Yearly Meeting also hailed the bill as a ‘historic moment for children’s human rights.’

The UNCRC grants all people under the age of eighteen a comprehensive set of rights, including rights to health, education, family life, play and recreation, and protection from abuse and harm. It also sets a legal requirement for all public authorities to comply with these rights. In November 2020, Scotland banned the physical punishment of children.

Quakers speak out on COs in Russia and Ukraine

'BYM joins other groups to call on the Russian and Ukrainian governments to respect the rights of conscientious objectors.'

The move comes as BYM joins other groups to call on the Russian and Ukrainian governments to respect the rights of conscientious objectors (COs).

The letter, delivered to the Ukrainian and Russian embassies in London on 7 December, condemns Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine, and urges the immediate and unconditional release of COs. International human rights law means the right to conscientious objection cannot be suspended even in times of war, say the signatories, which include Pax Christi and Churches Together in England. Around 20,000 Ukrainian men are reportedly fleeing to avoid military service.

The letter, coordinated by BYM, Fellowship of Reconciliation, and War Resisters International, comes as part of an international week of action in support of COs in the region. Conscientious objection is recognised as an essential component of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, guaranteed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights – agreements to which both Ukraine and Russia are party.

‘When Russia invaded in February last year, President Volodymyr Zelensky banned all men aged 18-60 from leaving Ukraine,’ says BYM on the Quakers in Britain website. ‘He also introduced martial law under which the limited right to alternatives to military service disappeared. One conscientious objector has served a prison sentence while nine have been given suspended sentences.’

Meanwhile in Russia evasion and desertion from military service can mean up to ten years in prison, says BYM. ‘At least four conscientious objectors have been jailed for refusing to fight in Ukraine on religious grounds.’

‘Hundreds more Russian soldiers and mobilised civilians who object to participating in the war have been detained in detention centres, where they are reportedly subject to physical and psychological abuse.’

‘No flags, no placards’ anti-hate vigil

‘The instruction “no flags, no placards” spoke to me because I had joined the Big March on Armistice Day, which was full of flags, placards, shouting and horrible chants.'

On a ‘damp and chilly day’, said Fred Ashmore, from Kingston Meeting, faith leaders, bereaved families, and politicians of all parties, came together to witness for peace and to protect community relations in the UK. ‘I was there as one of the faith group representatives, lighting lanterns together with another faith group person as a symbol of togetherness and hope… “No flags, no placards” was respected’, he said.

Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, spoke outside Downing Street, saying ‘there is no good ever in the death of an innocent Israeli, there is no good ever in the death of an innocent Palestinian’.

He was ‘awed and humbled’, he said, after hearing ‘extraordinary and remarkable’ testimony from relatives of those who were killed on 7 October, who said they wanted peace and not hatred. Fighting brings ‘agony to the families, fear for the future and it drives peace far away’, he added.

Fred Ashmore said that he attended the event after being dismayed by a previous march. This one ‘offered an action filled with quiet peaceful feeling as well as passion,’ he said. ‘The instruction “no flags, no placards” spoke to me because I had joined the Big March on Armistice Day, which was full of flags, placards, shouting and horrible chants. I left that action because I found it insupportable. In huge contrast, the vigil on Sunday was quiet and calm, and the speakers, who included bereaved parents, both Jewish and Palestinian, were eloquent for reconciliation and an end to the killing…I found it very moving and felt it a privilege to be asked to light a lantern for peace on behalf of the Quakers of London.’

Buddhist and Quaker interfaith peace action

‘Recent actions for peace and ceasefire have included people of faith, however no single unified intentional faith action has manifested.’

Rehena Harilall (representing Plum Village UK) and Jo Cooper (representing Quakers in Britain) told the Friend that the move was prompted by a desire to issue a unified call from different faith groups. ‘Recent actions for peace and ceasefire have included people of faith, however no single unified intentional faith action has manifested,’ they said in a statement. ‘Our collective, unified action as people of faiths is a powerful statement and testament of our… spiritual ethical framework to love, cherish life and live in peace and harmony.’

With an open meeting on 14 December, Friends and those from other faiths are considering the next steps for the interfaith action.

‘Many of us are deeply saddened by the growing destruction of human life in the wars being waged around us and the growing violent reprisals in response,’ they said. ‘The war in Palestine and Israel [has] shaken us, giving rise to grief and rage. Our faiths and spiritual practice remind us that these emotions need compassionate care to prevent them from becoming retaliatory violence or demonising others.’

Meeting for Sufferings: Non-members in Quaker service

'One Friend agreed that MfS had come to a very clear decision in October, but that there were still what seemed like contradictory responses.'

Introducing December’s further discernment on the subject, Paul Parker, recording clerk to Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM), said he felt that MfS had reached a ‘joyous clarity’ in October. But now it was time to work through some specific proposals for change. He had three in mind. Firstly, MfS could ask Central Nominations Committee (CNC) to include non-members among the names it brought forward for roles on central committees (this would not include appointment to BYM trusteeship). Second was the matter of non-members taking Local and Area Meeting (AM)roles. This required an amendment to Quaker faith & practice, which was outside MfS’s remit, but representatives could ask the Church Government Advisory Group (CGAG) to prepare materials that would allow Yearly Meeting to make that change. Thirdly, before non-members could be considered for trusteeship, at both national or Area level, governing documents would need to be updated. This was again outside MfS’s remit, but here too it could begin the process with CGAG.

Responding to the proposals, one Friend said she felt that, if the Society was intending to break the link between church government and membership, she would need to hear more about what membership would mean. Another suggested Friends would need an alternative ‘spiritual CV’ to establish their suitability for a role. He wanted to ask those attenders why they had chosen not to be in membership.

Robert Card, clerk to MfS, reminded representatives that they had already agreed in principle to non-members taking roles. This wouldn’t mean ‘grabbing someone off the street’ to put them on a committee – the nominations process would mean proper discernment was still undertaken.

The concern here, said one Friend, was that nominations committees were often themselves too small. They were ‘the most important bodies we have to uphold church governance’. Trusting the nominations process would involve proper maintenance of those committees.

Another said that his struggling Meeting didn’t even have a nominations committee. They had a ‘shrinking gene pool’ yet local members were still wary of appointing inexperienced Friends. It meant that he was on his third triennium as trustee.
A BYM trustee again reminded the Meeting of its October decision. This had expressed ‘real feeling’, she said. The resulting minute hadn’t asked for ‘more things to think about’, but rather how to make the principle real.

One Friend agreed that MfS had come to a very clear decision in October, but that there were still what seemed like contradictory responses. He hadn’t heard clarity on how to proceed with non-members taking roles at AM level. Changing Quaker faith & practice was of particular concern, he said. Membership might not be necessary, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t good practice.

Another Friend, who had previously been involved in a nominations team, had asked to be released from that service. Instead he wanted to focus on what he thought was the real problem driving this change: the shortage of Quakers. AMs were already ignoring the membership requirement, he said, but trusteeship ought to be a different matter. It would be very unusual for any organisation to give up the formal affiliation of its executive directors.

The clerk suggested a minute that did ask CNC to include non-members in its discernments, but moved more slowly on changes at AM/LM level.

One representative worried that this latter part ‘makes us sound foolish’, however. ‘The horse has bolted’, he said. The Meeting had already heard how AMs and LMs were ignoring the membership requirement.

Maybe MfS would have to accept that it sounded foolish, said the clerk. This was at least a way forward. In the absence of unity around changes to Quaker faith & practice, CGAG was asked to prepare materials for further MfS discernment on what those changes might be.

The end to this part of the discernment might have seemed flat to some, but the minute nevertheless included significant and consequential change: non-members will now be considered for central committee roles.

Meeting for Sufferings: BYM trustees report

'There had been an audit of BYM’s response to the Covid pandemic, which was largely positive.'

One minute from trustees’ discernment also had to remain undisclosed, she added, since it contained commercially-sensitive information about the leasing of Drayton House. This is the building next door to Friends House, which was built to provide income for BYM. It had become ‘shabby’ of late, she said, and trustees were working on how best get the most value out of it.

After a treasurer’s report that repeated the information presented in the previous midweek Meeting (see 8 December), Caroline reminded Friends that this would be her last MfS as clerk to BYM trustees. She thanked representatives for their ‘upholding over the five years I’ve stood in front of you’.

Meeting for Sufferings: Yearly Meeting 2024

'Things might look a little different, but the aim was to be more inclusive, particularly across the generations.'

Junior Yearly Meeting, for young Quakers aged fourteen to eighteen, would take place at the same time, while there would be day programmes for other age groups.

Discernment at YM would consider proposals from the group reviewing Yearly Meeting, she said, on changes to national Quaker structures. She hoped Friends would build on last year’s ministry from Diane Randall, on speaking truth in love, and on Thomas Penny’s Swarthmore lecture about creating a ‘kinder ground’ for mutual consideration. The Meeting would also hear from the Quaker Truth & Integrity group.

Those attending would be asked to consider the meaning of Yearly Meeting minutes. Were they personal or collective expressions? What difference does a YM minute make?

To accommodate the longer Meeting and different sessions, the Agenda Committee had secured the use of nearby Woburn House, said Adwoa. Saturday and Sunday would involve exploratory sessions, with a ‘celebration event’ on Sunday evening.

Responding, one Friend wanted to know whether YM would have any focus on the climate crisis. Adwoa took a moment to respond. Friends would be doing this work in the context of what was happening in society, she said – not just amid a climate crisis, but ‘we may be at war’. The ‘difficulties we’re in, in the world right now’ were obviously weighing on her. ‘I hope we can listen with love to the Spirit,’ she said.

The resulting MfS minute also accepted the dates for YM 2025 and 2026: Friday 23 May to Monday 26 May 2025; and Friday 1 May to Monday 4 May 2026.

Meeting for Sufferings: Quaker Committee for Christian and Interfaith Relations (QCCIR)

'The other churches have "come a long way as a result of what we have endured".'

QCCIR has been reorganising its work under three headings: interfaith; interchurch; and ‘commissioning pieces of work on our spiritual life and theology’. It has been running webinars on anti-racism, as well as other special interest events.

Claire also referenced the passing of the fourth presidency of Churches Together in England, from friend Hannah Brock Womack to a Lutheran minister. Hannah had had her appointment blocked because she was in a same-sex marriage, but had remained involved wherever possible, under obviously-difficult circumstances. The other churches have ‘come a long way as a result of what we have endured’, said Claire.

Meeting for Sufferings: Quaker World Relations Committee (QWRC)

'Friends World Committee for Consultation’s World Plenary in South Africa in 2024 was a key focus.'

Friends World Committee for Consultation’s World Plenary in South Africa in 2024 was a key focus. MfS looked forward to engaging with its themes of community, healing historical injustice, and care for creation. ‘May we be open to the leadings that may arise from this opportunity.’

Minutes are available at www.quaker.org.uk/mfspapers.

Cliff-hanger: Could Anne Wade remain a Quaker?

‘I signed away what I wanted.’

Individual Quakers have always recorded such experiences, but for three centuries our Society seemed to forget that it was founded on a vision of Christ himself, not the Christianity of the churches. Friends sometimes say that everyone was Christian when the Society formed, but that isn’t quite true. Margery Kempe, for example, a contemporary of Julian of Norwich, was edited to present her as conventionally Christian, rather than a witch.

After my experience on the Dorset cliffs, I spoke about it in ministry. An elder told me, crossly, that I should not bring such near-psychotic material into Meeting for Worship. I was surprised, and angry, but thought that perhaps I had not processed it enough to explain it well.

In our Meeting at the time a clever, high-status young man was taking fifteen minutes every week to ask whether he should stay in his job. After six weeks of this I asked a different elder if the man could be helped outside Meeting, as we needed more silence. She was angry with me. I was ‘not being very Christian’, she said, alluding to my Dorset cliffs ministry. I said I was no longer sure that I was very Christian. She told me that I might be better off with the Buddhists. I felt worthless. I had never been treated like this among Quakers. I should have just tried another Meeting, but thought that if I had to choose between my experience of reality and Quakers, there was no contest. I left.

I liked a lot about Buddhism, but I was inescapably a Quaker, in everything I thought and did. I just assumed my reservations about Christianity disqualified me. An overseer bounced into our flat and asked me brightly whether, as I hadn’t been for so long, I wanted to leave – ‘but do feel you can ask us for anything you need’. I signed away what I wanted, because I was too tired to explain.

Later, someone in another organisation noticed something about how I behaved and asked if I was a Quaker. She reckoned that Friends no longer demanded that everyone be Christian, so, very dubiously, I came back. After my first Meeting, when I was invited to say something, I gave my name and said I wanted to be as small and mean and petty as I was, and see if I was acceptable. I don’t think anyone took me seriously, but I really did feel, after the last Meeting, that there would be some doubt.

I have been at this Meeting ever since, very happily. The cliffs experience stays with me. It makes it easy to centre down, to come and go, to be aware of reality while staying fully engaged with this world. I don’t believe – I know.

Glimmers of hope: Craig Barnett’s Thought for the week

‘There is no standard template for a “good Quaker”.’

For some, faithfulness to the Inner Light will lead to challenging systems of injustice. For others, it may be about building up community, supporting their neighbours, caring for children, or listening to people who are lonely or struggling. And some people will be led into different kinds of commitment at different times, in response to their own circumstances and to the gradual unfolding of their own soul needs and capacities.

There is no standard template for a ‘good Quaker’, or a moral or spiritual person. Each of us has to discover our own gifts, and our own contribution to the world’s needs, according to the inward guidance that is available to us.

How to do this is not a secret. It is summarised in the first sentence of Advices & queries: ‘Take heed, dear Friends, to the promptings of love and truth in your hearts.’ We do this in Quaker worship, when we allow our thoughts to become still, and our consciousness to ‘sink down’ to a place of inward listening. Here we may become more aware of what is going on in our hearts and souls, and more receptive to the movements of the Spirit within. But this way of discernment is not just for Meeting for Worship; it is an everyday practice of allowing the Inward Guide to talk to us, of ‘sinking down to the seed’.

Practising this receptivity means tolerating uncertainty and anxiety. Perfect clarity is very rare, and most often we have only subtle nudges of the Spirit, or ‘glimmerings’: ‘[T]he travels begin at the breakings of day, wherein are but glimmerings or little light, wherein the discovery of good and evil are not so manifest and certain; yet there must the traveller begin and travel; and in his faithful travels… the light will break in upon him more and more’ (Isaac Penington, 1665).

Most often, the Inward Guide seems to work by showing us not the ultimate destination, but just the next step. We are asked to respond in faith, trusting that, if we have the courage to follow the little guidance we have, then we will see further to the step beyond. As Caroline Fox heard in 1841, ‘Live up to the light thou hast, and more will be granted thee’ (Quaker faith & practice 26.04).

The poet Rainer Maria Rilke expresses the same insight in his Letters to a Young Poet: ‘stay patient with all that is still unresolved in your own heart, to try to love the very questions, just as if they were locked-up rooms or as if they were books in an utterly unknown language. You ought not yet to be searching for answers, for you could not yet live them. What matters is to live everything. For just now, live the questions.’

Carrying the cost: Jonathan Dale on reparations

‘I have been shocked out of my complacency.’

So what of reparations particularly, now that Yearly Meeting has asked us the consider them? Our Area Meeting has had just one exploratory session, but for me it has become an important question. I have been shocked out of my complacency. I had always seen my nineteenth-century Quaker forbears as progressives, even financing the release of enslaved people. Then I heard Ann Morgan’s depiction of the Lancaster Quakers who trafficked enslaved people in their boats. I hadn’t known! At first I didn’t connect this information with my family, but the names of two slave traders – Foster and Birket – crept into my mind. Myles Birket Foster was a relation of mine. Eventually I had it confirmed.

By this time I was enrolled in the brilliant Woodbrooke/QPSW course ‘Exploring Faith and Climate Justice’. It offered an excellent choice of reading, including from Olúfémi Táíwò on reparations. I now see reparations as having four connected components: one, our nation has stolen the labour of enslaved people to build its riches; two, it has stolen objects, materials and trading opportunities; and thirdly our wealth has been produced by using more than our fair share of carbon – we have a lot to pay back. There is also a huge fourth reparation that is due: the urgent and vital repair to the natural world and all the other creatures that live in it.

This is huge. Some will say it’s so huge it’s impossible. Some Friends have even argued that it is all too vague and in the past, and we should focus instead on contemporary slavery. ‘As well as’ not ‘instead’, please. ‘Instead’ would minimise the illegitimacy of white privilege. So it’s huge, maybe. But it’s also simple. We have taken what was never ours and we need to repay. That’s hard but it seems to me to be true. If it is, that is our guidance. I need to work more urgently for equality for all. Whatever the next years bring, I am profoundly grateful to all those who have contributed to my heart being slowly but firmly prized open. My physical eyesight is degenerating, but the work done on climate justice, racism and reparations over these last few years has given me a much clearer vision. I better understand what has made me what I am, and it has liberated me into a fuller vision of what I owe. I now know it is more than I could ever repay – but that is no excuse at all for not starting.

Rustin, directed by George C Wolfe

Author: George C Wolfe. Review by Pete Duckworth.

How can a biopic, in under two hours, pay justice to a life like Rustin’s? Perhaps this is why this film concentrates almost exclusively on the 1963 Washington March.

Rustin’s controversial openness about his sexuality, and the negative attitudes to this, are made clear in the movie. (So is the ultimate acceptance of him by other activists and the wider movement, despite dreadful slurs against him.)

Rustin is played by Colman Domingo (previously seen in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and If Beale Street Could Talk). Here he gives a convincing portrayal of Rustin’s determination, energy, and commitment, as well as his vulnerability and his arrogance. The comedian Chris Rock stars as Roy Wilkins but is less convincing.

The film addresses the real issues and compromises involved in organising protest, especially the clash between ideals and practicality. Rustin’s Quakerism is referred to but not explored; neither is his later stance over Vietnam and the Black Power movement, which led to accusations of him ‘selling out’.

Rustin is one of my top Quaker heroes, and the film will draw some attention to his influential role in the civil rights movement, which has been rather overlooked. I watched the film with four Friends; we all found it emotional, informative and inspirational. I commend it to Friends who want to explore our history, or are interested in how to organise for change.

Rustin is available now on Netflix.

Letters - 15 December 2023

From Grieving for Woodbrooke to Tropes

Proceed with sensitivity

The problem raised by the anonymous author of moving to a new Meeting (1 December) is certainly not new, and when it occurs it helps greatly to be shown a way forward. It reminded me that, talking with Ted Milligan and Donald Southall, Ted quoted the eighteenth-century Quaker Samuel Bownas on advice to a Quaker minister:

‘If thee should… observe a difference in the management of their affairs… from what it is in the meeting whereof thee is a member and… may judge thyself able to show them a better method…. and if thee is forward… endeavouring to persuade them to alter their method… thee may be looked upon as a busy meddler in what concerns thee not.’

Samuel Bownas’ A Description of the Qualifications Necessary to a Gospel Minister is a much better read than its title led me to expect. The Life, Travels, and Christian Experiences of Samuel Bownas I enjoyed, too, for its wisdom and gentle humour. When he was in the USA, imprisoned for his faith, he met with a first-nations king (or rather chief). ‘The king asked if I was a Christian? I told him I was. “And are they Christians, too, that keep you here?” I said they professed themselves to be so.’

Michael Grendon

Call for a ceasefire

I believe in the right of Israel to exist, and I consider that the actions of Hamas in attacking Israel amounted to murder. However, I find it surprising that anyone who identifies as being a ‘Quaker’ does not feel able to call for a ceasefire (1 December).

Israel has said it will continue its military action until Hamas is destroyed. At what cost to the civilian population? At the time of writing, 14,000 have been killed. This appears to amount to collective punishment. The resulting resentment of the Palestinian population will make a settlement harder to achieve and will form the basis of further terrorism, from whatever groups take over from Hamas in the future.

I feel that the problems identified by Ruth Cadbury MP associated with a ceasefire are nowhere near as great as the problems arising from the continuation of Israel’s military action. When the IRA was active we did not bomb Belfast or South Armagh or Londonderry/Derry. Nor would we have bombed hospitals, even if there was intelligence suggesting they were being used as secret IRA command centres. This is the equivalent of what Israel is doing in Gaza, so why should anyone associated with the Religious Society of Friends collude with Israel’s actions by not calling for a ceasefire?

I think that Britain Yearly Meeting should consider making a public statement disassociating ourselves from the position of the Quaker MPs who have declined to call for a ceasefire, because otherwise our position is likely to be misunderstood.

Richard Pashley

Tropes

In making his extraordinary attack on Quakers for ‘institutional antisemitism’ and issuing a statement ‘rooted in tropes’, Tim Robertson (3 November) perpetrates the most insidious trope of all, that Israel supposedly represents all Jews worldwide.
It does not, as the number of Jewish demonstrators at recent Palestinian demonstrations testifies – including those who oppose Israel for religious reasons besides moral ones.

Even at the time Tim’s letter was written, between 20 October and 3 November, Israel’s reaction to the events of 7 October was already many times greater than the actions of Hamas. Besides the thousands of civilians killed, it included the order, under threat of massacre, to depopulate an area containing the homes of over a million people. Since then of course it has escalated yet further, and looks like exceeding all of our worst fears for the future of the region.

No, it is not those who place acts of violence in the context of Israel’s military occupation who ‘contradict our Peace Testimony’, it is those who seek to focus on the violence of one side only – the weaker side – in the conflict, as a way of diverting attention from the atrocities now being committed.

Antony Rawlinson

Antisemitism

Some of the letters in the Friend (24 November) make it very clear that some Friends do not understand antisemitism as well as they could. So I am pleased to report that a couple of Area Meetings are planning antisemitism awareness training. And I hear whispers that some at Friends House think this is a good idea!

But for the time being here’s a guide on what is legitimate criticism of Israel and what is antisemitism, from ‘Antisemitism from its origins to the present’, an excellent but gruelling course run by Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center:

‘Is someone demonizing the Jewish state? Now that doesn’t mean criticising. Demonising is somewhat stronger. It refers to the ascription of “demonic” or otherworldly characteristics for the Jewish state similar to the way in which Jews for centuries were described as being spawn of the Devil or having sinister or demonic characteristics.

‘Second, is the Jewish state being delegitimized? Again we’re not talking about mere criticism of Israel. We’re talking about the notion that Israel alone among the nations lacks legitimacy in the same way that the Jewish religion was claimed to lack legitimacy during prior generations.

‘Third, are double standards being used? It’s one thing to criticize Israel using the same standards that we apply to other countries. But if we’re criticizing Israel using a very different set of standards that are applied to one country alone, we have to ask whether something is involved other than mere political criticism.’

Ol Rappaport

World view: Anne Wade’s Thought for the week

‘I was in no doubt that what I was seeing was absolute reality.’

Then, as I was staring vacantly at a clump of dead grass, it just came to life. It was on fire, and yet fire was not the right word. I was in no doubt that what I was seeing was absolute reality. This was what Moses meant with his ‘burning bush… that yet was not consumed’. I looked around and the whole universe had come to life for me. It was conscious, and communicating with me, beyond words. I saw that it was like this all the time, but that we are rarely aware of it. It was not an out-of-body experience – I was still aware of being myself, all-of-a-piece and better integrated than ordinarily – I had just become open to far more than normal. The barriers that separate us from reality had thinned. I wasn’t seeing and understanding everything – that would have been too much to survive – but more than I could understand in my mundane state.

I knew that if I was going to be able to bring any of it back with me, I had to put some salient facts into memorable words. This is what I came up with: ‘This consciousness is natural, not paranormal or supernatural’; ‘It is a power like electricity, an innate attribute, not a separate order of things’; ‘It is the lifeforce permeating everything, the missing link in the theory of everything’; ‘I am seeing more colours and dimensions than I am physically able to visualise’; ‘This consciousness knows me and loves me, as it does everything’; ‘This is how every sparrow that falls is known, every hair on our heads is numbered’; ‘I am, we are each, a little piece of the pattern, the dance, of this life of the universe’; ‘All I want is to fit into the pattern and make each step of the dance perfect’.

I came back, reluctantly.

I knew that the experience would be enough for the rest of my life. I have often had lesser openings, but the next time I see so clearly will be at my death. While I am here, I am to get on with my life. I knew that Julian of Norwich had seen much the same, which was why she felt so strongly that ‘All shall be well’. I knew that George Fox had seen something similar, and that it made him ally himself humbly with Christ – but that it also put him beyond the Christian churches, with a revolutionary understanding of continuing revelation over fixed, unchangeable scripture. It was an open secret among early Quakers. Pascal saw it in his ‘night of fire’. The Quaker scientist Arthur Eddington understood it when he said that ‘we need not turn aside from the measure of light that comes into our experience showing us a Way through the unseen world’. Mystics of all religions…

Digital divide: Mike Nellis has more on artificial intelligence

‘AI is about automating inequality.’

The playing field on which the ethical debate on AI is occurring is not level. It is dominated by a handful of western corporations and governments, whose interests drive the agenda (in part, but not only, in competition with China). AI-driven innovation is now considered so vital to prosperity and security that regulating its use will always be done to fit investors’ expectations.

AI is not a neutral tool like a pen or a hammer. To make such a comparison is to misconceive what AI-systems are, and why they are being disseminated. Abstract ethical debates about AI might modify the ways it disrupts business, governance and public service – which is not unimportant – but they can’t halt its advance, and that may be the greater problem. ‘The fourth industrial revolution’, to which AI is central, consolidates existing power far more than it addresses social injustice or meets human needs. Such practice requires the egalitarian distribution of less complex technologies, especially in healthcare, energy and housing. AI is about automating inequality.

We should not disguise liberal platitudes about AI as Quaker values. It is potentially dangerous. It fosters complacency about the ease with which AI-generated problems can be resolved by ethical, legal and democratic procedures. These have already been weakened by digital disinformation, which AI will intensify. It underplays what bad actors will inevitably do with AI. Take social media, whose unregulated, opinion-polarising excesses we now simply live with. Crucially, it showcases AI-innovations as if they were proof of a golden human future for all, omitting to say that, while elites will benefit, many more people will lose meaningful employment and be further ensnared in forms of connectivity that are coercive and banal.

I was neither surprised nor impressed that Keith’s article was mostly generated by AI. These super-smart chatbots have been created using vast amounts of material scraped – stolen – from the web. This happens without the originator’s permission (or even knowledge), and is then ‘cleaned’ for use by armies of low-paid workers. Copyright legislation is evolving to address the theft, but the machines it enabled are here to stay, and getting better. Even Quakers are playing with them! So why not ask a data-trained machine to revise Quaker faith & practice in the style of liberal universalist Quakers (or maybe evangelical Christians)? It would only take a few minutes; so much time saved for better things! These chatbots were launched without serious consideration of their likely impact, despite years of ethical argument.

We did need to start a debate about Quakers and AI. We mustn’t be Luddite about it. But we might consider being a little Amish. As we discern how ‘the human’ might best be preserved in an AI-infused world, small acts of refusal might count for more than small acts of collusion.

Come to Jesus: Cap Kaylor says there’s a forgotten engine to Quaker spirituality

‘Early Friends were convinced that they were connecting with something more than an abstraction.’

It has been said that the world has heard every argument there is for God and faith, and has rejected them all. All except one: the transcendence we call holiness. Love, self-sacrifice, and especially forgiveness, are values beyond the comprehension of a purely-materialistic understanding of the universe. The sight of a nun washing the wounds of the poor in the slums of Calcutta, or the members of Charleston’s Mother Emmanuel Church forgiving the racist killer who slaughtered their elderly parishioners at Bible study, or the Amish community that forgave the murderer of their children by embracing his widow and donating money for the support of her children. Such events have the power to make the most hardened cynic stop in wonder. People like curmudgeonly author Malcolm Muggeridge, who had believed secular humanism to be the ideal social system until he visited a leprosarium run by nuns in India. Seeing the love and respect lavished on the sick, the dying, and those no one else wanted, he was thunderstruck by the insufficiency of his own philosophy. As he later wrote, ‘Humanists don’t run leprosariums.’ A life spent caring for people whose skin stuck to the pavement when they were lifted off the street requires more than humanism. The engine for that kind of service lies elsewhere.

We all need more love than we deserve. And, if we are honest with ourselves, we all need more mercy than we deserve. Forgiveness is the supremely-personal act in which love reaches its perfection.

Hannah Arendt, the philosopher and chronicler of the Nuremberg trials, said that ‘the discoverer of the role of forgiveness in the realm of human affairs is Jesus of Nazareth.’ Forgiving one’s enemies may be valued in some spiritual traditions as a kind of psychological therapy, to assuage obsessive feelings of anger and resentment. But in Christianity it has the force of a moral imperative. ‘Peter asked, “Lord, how often must I forgive those who sin against me? As many as seven times?” Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy times seven times”’ (Matthew 18:21-22). In other words, without limit.

The Christian motive behind forgiveness is love. We love and forgive in imitation and affirmation of the God who, in Jesus, is the agent of reconciliation and salvation. To be reconciled is to be restored to friendship and harmony in right relationship with God, with others, and with all creation. To be saved, in the Christian sense, is to be fully and permanently united with God and one another in God. It is the goal toward which all creation tends, and the end-product, and purpose, of the Jesus event. The Christian God is a God with whom one is called to be in relationship.

Early Quakers, like all mystics, sought a direct, unmediated experience of God. But their mysticism remained a Christian mysticism, grounded in an experience of communion with an all-powerful intelligence – one that is immanent yet transcendent, creative, eternally self-sustaining, personal, and, yes, loving. Early Friends were convinced that, in worship, they were connecting with something more than an abstraction. Not a ‘cosmic consciousness’ or ‘ground of being’, but a Divine power – a who not a what. John’s Gospel expresses that intimate encounter well: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.… In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it’ (1:1).

Early Friends had no confusion when it came to identifying that Inward Light with the historical person of Jesus Christ. In the mystical experience all the ordinary limits of physics and perception give way to a radical consciousness of unity. Christ was an individual as well as the eternal Logos, permeating the universe as its motive force, and present in every human being as a potentiality.

The Quaker author Howard Brinton held that the uniqueness of Jesus consists in the fact that he was the supreme revelation of God in human terms. He proceeded eternally from God to create whatever is good in the world. While the Light dwelt in some measure in human beings, Jesus possessed the Light without measure because he was the Light. This allowed Friends to acknowledge the truth they encountered in other faiths without diluting their own self-understanding as Christians.

The Jesus event created the possibility of a new sort of humanity. Quakers believed they had discovered the original blueprint for Christianity. This transformative encounter with the Inward Light, which is the presence of Christ operating within the conscience of a person, illuminated their true spiritual condition, simultaneously forgiving their sins and guiding them as moral agents in the world. It is a fundamentally optimistic view of creation: human beings, and the world they inhabit, are perfectible. The incarnation and sacrifice of Christ had cosmic implications beyond showing humans the way to reconciliation with God. Christ’s sacrifice is the visible part of the eternal, cosmic process of salvation.

But what of Quakerism now? When I first began to explore Quakerism, a friend warned me that I would be disappointed if I expected to find the Quakerism I had read about in books – the Quakerism of John Woolman, Rufus Jones, Howard Brinton, and Thomas Kelley. Contemporary Quakerism had devolved along divergent paths, he said: either a simplistic biblical fundamentalism, or a lazy pluralism that rendered Christ’s sacrifice irrelevant. Neither of these resembled the spirituality I had found in the early sources. One camp offered me a Bronze Age tyrant, the other an abstraction, a progressive social agenda in place of a core Christian faith. It left my spiritual longing for love and forgiveness with nowhere to go.

The Quaker religion began as a reform movement within Christianity. Early Friends were embedded in a society that was permeated with a Christian ethos. The language, customs – the very stones around them – proclaimed the Christian faith, yet Friends dispensed with the historic channels through which that Christian faith was usually transmitted: scripture, tradition, and ritual. Those things weave together the narrative of Christian identity, and its shared memory of Jesus. The rejection of them in favour of the individual’s experience of the Inward Light make Quakerism unique, but also make it vulnerable to the loss of its historically-Christian identity. Bereft of Christian spirituality, we now live in the era of hyphenated Quakers: Buddhist-Quakers, or nontheist-Quakers. To me, these developments represent the loss of a sense of God as personal, as relational. God is no longer seen as a who but a what. Can we reduce God to an abstraction, an ethical code, or a function of the mind like conscience, and still experience what our Quaker ancestors knew – God as the engine of love and forgiveness, and the object of our spiritual hope and passion?

One of the great Quaker insights was the idea of ongoing revelation. The mystery of God is eternally visible in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, who ‘speaks to our condition’. God is personally present, and active in the heart of every human. Quakerism’s freedom to approach the Jesus event without pre-packaged dogmas is also a strength. Many who long for a relationship with God are revolted by the idea of a vengeful deity who can only be appeased by the torture of God’s own son. The saints, mystics, great teachers, and the scriptures offer us a very different vision: God is love, and it is the nature of God to love and to forgive. He can do no other.

The medieval Franciscan theologian John Duns Scotus taught that the incarnation was a manifestation of God’s presence in the universe. It would have happened even if humans had never fallen from grace, he said. It was God’s idea all along. God is ever-present in creation, from micro-second to micro-second, loving it into existence from the inside out and becoming personal at last in the incarnation. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus was not a rescue mission from sin, but a personification of the Divine Presence, of the God ‘in whom all things hold together’. This is not, then, a picture of a vengeful God, but one of a loving God, breathing into creation and drawing all back in a loving embrace.

For Jesus’ crucifixion to make sense, we don’t have to accept theories like substitutionary atonement. It is God’s final act of sympathy with humanity – ‘I will suffer with you.’ The mystery of suffering will always be with us as mystery. Jesus does not come to explain suffering. He does not do away with it, he fills it with his presence and leaves us with a promise in the form of an empty tomb.

We do have a choice beyond a Quakerism shorn of its Christian mysticism or a biblical fundamentalism whose literal reading of the Bible renders it increasingly untenable. As Olivia Chalkley wrote recently in Friends Journal, ‘We know that Christianity, like all religions, has (at times) been co-opted by some of the most violent forces in history. But that doesn’t mean we have to get rid of it altogether. Our duty, as progressive Christians, is to reclaim our faith, just as the early Friends did.’

We can reclaim the power of the Christian narrative in ways that are consistent with the best of our traditions – Christocentric without being fossilised. There have always been different ways to tell the Christian story. From the Franciscans who tell us we should preach by our deeds, to Teilhard de Chardin, who saw the cosmos permeated by the presence of Christ, to John Duns Scotus, who saw the world not fallen in original sin but glittering in original blessing. For all of those legendary pioneers, and the millions more who roam through realms of the spirit, the great discovery was and is, in the words of Richard Rohr, ‘that Jesus did not come to change God’s mind about Humanity but to change Humanity’s mind about God’.

Climate change ‘possible to stop’, says Quaker expert

'If rich industrialised countries were to invest in sustainable energy infrastructure in their own countries and in less developed countries, such as a “Marshall Plan for the climate”, it would be in everyone’s interests.'

Paul Ekins, from Wandsworth Meeting, was launching his new book Stopping Climate Change: Policies for real zero at Friends House on 23 November when he made the comment. The event was one of a number organised by the Quaker Arts Network (QAN) and the Quaker Centre to coincide with the Loving Earth Project exhibition on show at Friends House until 22 December.

‘Paul Ekins, an expert on environmental and economic policy, has studied the numbers and firmly believes that it’s perfectly possible to stop climate change and indeed reverse the build-up of carbon emissions, if we (the human race) want to,’ Linda Murgatroyd, founder member of QAN, told the Friend. ‘The technology is there and it would be economically beneficial to do so, as well as an ecological necessity. However, governments and business are choosing [not to] with fossil fuel companies singled out as particularly bad guys (though European ones less bad than others).’

‘Instead, if rich industrialised countries were to invest in sustainable energy infrastructure in their own countries and in less developed countries, such as a “Marshall Plan for the climate”, it would be in everyone’s interests. This wide-ranging book sets out the evidence and arguments in some detail. Proposals for how such a Loss and Damage fund could be taken forward will be on the COP28 agenda. Governments and large companies know this is possible, so it’s up to us to hold them to account.’

Quakers welcome sentencing changes

1,800: The number of people to be given an end-date to their Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences.

Long campaigned against by Quakers, IPP sentences were abolished in 2012 but not retrospectively, leaving people languishing in prison. The sentences were imposed on 8,711 people, some for seemingly-minor offences.

‘A government press release, issued on 28 November, confirms that there is finally some movement on the termination of the much-criticised sentence of Imprisonment for Public Protection,’ Melanie Jameson, clerk of Quakers in Criminal Justice Group (QICJ), said. ‘However this will only affect those who have been out in the community without recall for five years, or after three years following a positive parole hearing. These changes will not take place until after the Victims & Prisoners Bill (currently in progress) has received royal assent.’

Currently, IPP offenders have to wait a minimum of ten years before they can have their licence reviewed by the parole board. The new changes will mean IPP offenders serving their sentence in the community are referred for review three years after their first release. Even if the parole board says no, their sentence will automatically terminate after a further two years if they are not recalled to jail in that time. The changes will apply retrospectively.

Melanie Jameson welcomed the move but stressed that ‘it does nothing to alleviate the desperate situation of those languishing in prison with an IPP, most of whom are way over their original tariff. The Justice Select Committee’s core recommendation had been the resentencing of all IPP prisoners so they no longer suffer the stress of an indeterminate sentence, with those out in the community subject to immediate recall to prison.’

Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, described the changes as ‘a major step towards wiping away the stain of IPP sentences from our justice system, without compromising public protection’.

In September, Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) urged the government to re-sentence people who have been given indeterminate sentences. A report last year described the sentences as ‘irredeemably flawed’, fuelling feelings of despair and high levels of self-harm and some suicides. A call from the Justice Select Committee for all IPP prisoners to be resentenced was rejected by the government.

As of 30 September there were 2,921 IPP prisoners, 1,269 of whom have never been released, with the remaining 1,652 having been recalled to custody.

Friend raises climate protest concerns at probationers event

‘We are failing to protect nature and so failing to protect young people and all future generations. This is the biggest safeguarding issue ever.’

Deborah Mitchell, from Falmouth Meeting, presented a motion at the October AGM of NAPO, the trade union representing people working in probation and family courts. It highlighted ‘the unjust way that peaceful protestors are being treated in court, when they are acting in the public interest by attending to climate justice’. A retired NAPO member, Deborah said: ‘The motion attracted a “yes” vote of 89 per cent, creating a way forward for a continuing dialogue.’

‘Having been encouraged and upheld at Lighthouse Epilogue Meeting, I did mention historic Quakers in the text of my speech,’ she added.

Deborah also discussed ‘the injustice of discrediting and punishing peaceful protestors acting in the public interest’. Describing the climate emergency as ‘an international emergency greater than Covid’, she said, ‘We are failing to protect nature and so failing to protect young people and all future generations. This is the biggest safeguarding issue ever.’

Referencing the government’s 100 new oil and gas licences, and predictions on land loss and food instability, the Quaker also mentioned Trudi Warner, who was imprisoned for holding a notice outside the Old Bailey saying: ‘Juries have the right to give their verdict according to their conscience.’

The speech also said that ‘we are living in a culture of denial – probation staff work with denial as response to harm and wrongdoing…And this is where we are, with judges dictating that juries must not hear of protestors’ motivations… In a London Crown Court defendants expressly forbidden [to use] the specific words “climate change” and “fuel poverty”. After they have sworn to “tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”.’

Many have been intimidated, she went on, asking those ‘shocked’ by what they’d heard to support the motion.

Taunton vigil for peace

‘Although this was exactly one month since the attack by Hamas on Israel, we saw this as a witness to our Quaker testimony for peace, and, apart from our “Quakers for Peace” banner, did not allow any banners relating to specific conflicts.'

Somerset Friend John Ainsworth told the Friend: ‘Although this was exactly one month since the attack by Hamas on Israel, we saw this as a witness to our Quaker testimony for peace, and, apart from our “Quakers for Peace” banner, did not allow any banners relating to specific conflicts. Articles were printed in the local press and around fifty people attended. These included Friends from other Meetings in West Somerset and beyond, and a number of people of Middle Eastern origin.’

The Friends also brought white poppies to the vigil on 7 November, which a number of non-Quakers purchased – ‘there are few, if any other, outlets in Taunton,’ said John.

He added: ‘Despite the busyness of central Taunton we experienced a sense of peace coupled with sadness at the violence.’

Friends House wins venue award

‘As a Quaker venue, Friends House has always been a place for inclusion.'

The award was ‘a testament to all the work, training and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) initiatives’ put in place, said a statement from the Quiet Company.

‘As a Quaker venue, Friends House has always been a place for inclusion. This led to hosting many diverse groups and organisations, including peace, independence and Civil Rights movements. In 1931, Mahatma Gandhi gave his first public speech in London in our auditorium. In December 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was introduced at a lunch reception in Friends House by Bayard Rustin, a Quaker and Civil Rights activist.’

Friends House aims to be inclusive and accessible in practical ways, it said, with signs for autism awareness on hand-driers; gender-neutral toilets available; two accessible lifts with voice announcements and hearing loops; enhanced lighting to aid the visually impaired; and accessible toilets available on every floor.

The award follows discussion on social media earlier in the year, when it was pointed out that Friends House does not have a ‘Changing Places’ toilet for people with disabilities that require extra equipment and more space. The comments followed Esther Loukin’s Swarthmore Lecture on disability campaigning at Yearly Meeting in May. Co-founder of Reasonable Access, Esther Loukin highlighted a website with a Changing Places map. Over a quarter of a million people require this type of toilet to allow them ‘to get out and enjoy activities that people without these accessibility needs take for granted’, according to the Changing Places Consortium, which campaigns for more of these facilities in public places.

Meeting for Sufferings: 2022 accounts

'Friends were interested in BYM’s strategy on this but Paul reminded them that investments were made in the long term.'

Caroline apologised again for the late accounting, and asked Friends to look at BYM trustees’ minutes to see how they had thought about the lessons to be learned. The figures had been submitted to the Charity Commission around two weeks late, but she felt it would be better to use this Meeting to consider the state of BYM’s finances than to spend more time reflecting on the delays.

And those finances are in good health, said Paul Whitehouse. The 2022 accounts showed a deficit, but this was deliberate. BYM had been cautious through the pandemic and now Friends’ donations were higher than expected, so it was right to use them on the work done in their name. Income from legacies – always unpredictable – was down, but income from the Quiet Company (formerly Friends House Hospitality) also rose.

Spending under the heading ‘Supporting Meetings’ had risen most, said Paul, the result of making local development workers available to every Area Meeting. ‘Promoting Quakerism’ had also received more financing, in part because trustees recognised, in line with discussion at Yearly Meeting (YM), that the decreasing number of Quakers was BYM’s biggest risk.

Paul did warn Friends that BYM costs would rise, particularly staff costs, but all BYM’s work was based on solid Quaker discernment, he said.

BYM’s investment income was down, in line with the world economy. Friends were interested in BYM’s strategy on this but Paul reminded them that investments were made in the long term. He wasn’t concerned with temporary losses, so long as industry standards were being matched.

The cost of raising BYM’s income was at fifteen per cent, said one Friend. Was that reasonable? It was difficult to answer, said Paul, but he thought ‘we’ve got it about right’. A new fundraising strategy was planned, added Caroline.

Questions also came about Swathmoor Hall, currently being refurbished, and about BYM’s use of renewable energy. This did have its limits – the local authority was unlikely to approve a wind turbine on the top of Friends House, said Paul.

Caroline ended by thanking Friends for their interest in the accounts. ‘They do matter’, she said.

Meeting for Sufferings: Book of Discipline

'Friends agreed that the number of pronouns should be widened, and began a process of consultatation with AMs and General Meetings on the God language.'

The Meeting then heard from two co-clerks to the Book of Discipline Revision Committee. Michael Phipps and Catherine Brewer gave a short introduction to their work on the new Book of Discipline. The Committee was planning on delivering a complete draft to Yearly Meeting 2027, which would mean copies being available to Friends by the end of 2026. This schedule was ‘demanding’ but ‘achievable’, said Michael. It did mean that the next two to three years would be focussed on writing, so Committee members would be less able to accept invitations to discuss their work. The release of more sample texts was being considered.

One Friend offered a theological response, quoting Karl Barth (‘One cannot speak of God simply by speaking of man in a loud voice’). God’s voice would speak loudly, said the Friend. Will Quakers be able to hear it?

Another Friend thanked the Committee, acknowledging its ‘mammoth’ task. They were glad to hear that children and young people were being included. Another wanted clarification on some of the words the clerks had used to describe different parts of their output: ‘core’, ‘supplementary’, ‘constitutional’ and ‘spiritual’.

‘Core’ was what went in the book, said Michael, and ought to last for a generation. ‘Supplementary’ was material that changed more frequently – a distinction that had been made by Yearly Meeting. The Committee understood that its task was to reflect ‘our spiritual approach to the way we do things’ but hadn’t yet taken a view on whether the book should be split into two (one volume of anthology and another of governance or constitution).

Michael also thanked Friends for their feedback on the Committee’s first drafts, which had looked at marriage. These had thrown up some specific questions, however, and Committee members needed advice from MfS on how to proceed. The first was on the use of pronouns: should these be more inclusive, more than just ‘he’ and ‘she’? The second dealt with God-language. Michael Booth, BYM staff link to the Committee, reminded Friends of current Quaker marriage procedures and language. These required participants to speak of ‘God’s help’ or ‘divine assistance’. This was the only place in Quaker faith & practice where such declarations were mandated, said Michael. Had these requirements become a creed?

Representatives heard of Quakers who had decided not to get married in the manner of Friends precisely because their testimony to truth meant they were unable to honestly use words like ‘God’ or ‘divine’. This did seem wrong, said one Friend, but a registering officer present felt that it was nevertheless important that marriage language did contain a spiritual element. If ‘God’ were to be removed, she hoped the spiritual nature of the enterprise could be expressed in another way.

Another Friend pointed out that if a Meeting for Clearness on the relationship had already been held, then its spiritual nature would have already been established. It may therefore not need to be repeated in a marriage procedure.

‘We are but witnesses’ said one representative. Relationships should be reciprocal, but not necessarily identical.

Another Friend had a warning: there was a bigger topic behind this discussion. Our contemplative tradition was ‘crap with words’, she said. What we understood in the Spirit was not always answerable to language.

Friends agreed that the number of pronouns should be widened, and began a process of consultatation with AMs and General Meetings on the God language.

Meeting for Sufferings: Review of YM and MfS

'In October, representatives had asked for more detail on the idea of MfS becoming a continuing year-round Yearly Meeting, which all Friends could attend.'

Sarah said that Friends had made it clear that YM was ‘really important’ to them. It was a place for ‘brave, important discussion’ in a place where they felt safe. It created real community. So the group’s proposals were intended to bring those Friends more YM, with more chances to come together.

In October, representatives had asked for more detail on the idea of MfS becoming a continuing year-round Yearly Meeting, which all Friends could attend. Sarah likened it to a piece of music played by an orchestra. The more accessible the orchestra was, the more likely all instruments would feature, and the better the music would be. ‘Discernment is better when it has access to wider experience’, she added.

One representative wanted to hear more on how a continuing YM could improve community, while another welcomed the inclusivity. MfS was ‘a seventeenth-century solution to a seventeenth-century problem’, he said. Another Friend liked the direction but was just worried that the term Yearly Meeting ‘already means at least three different things’, so it might need a different name.

One representative had more serious concerns, however. ‘What is the problem to which this is the solution?’, she asked. There was a problem with Friends being involved in decision making, with a lot of local burnout, but she felt that the review group’s plans would not solve this. A continuing YM would meet less often than MfS, she said, resulting in fewer opportunities for decision making. This would mean even more having to be done by BYM trustees, who were already doing work that could be done by MfS or YM. Mutual responsibility for decision making was ‘one of our special charisms’, she said. ‘I think we’re blowing it. Friends’.

Another Friend worried that the plans would give less weight to discernment held at Area Meeting level. He was also concerned about the role of trustees, and the tension that had existed between them and MfS.

A member of the review group said they had spoken to trustees and MfS clerks about this tension. It was actually a question of accountability, she said. She hoped that proposals for a merger had been mooted as a way of addressing that.
The Meeting then heard ministry from Marisa Johnson, incoming clerk to BYM trustees. She was willing to undertake the service because she was nominated for it in due process, she said. She was ‘absolutely accountable’, and so was feeling hurt by the suggestion of some ‘dark plot’. These hunches Friends had were always ‘vague’, she said. ‘If you don’t want trustees, bring a proposal to YM… If you do have them, respect them. I only serve you as long as you want me.’

This ministry landed, but one Friend was worried about the speed of change. Friends hadn’t done enough to improve the communication necessary for fruitful consideration.

The discussion showed how difficult it was going to be to bring a final document for discernment in March, said Sarah Donaldson. The minute understood this too: more work was needed before unity could be reached.

More next week. Minutes are available at www.quaker.org.uk/mfspapers.

Welcome sight: Geof Sewell on Thirsk’s refugee support

‘The father pretended to be part of an English golfing party.’

First, we had to complete the complex ‘Principal Sponsor Application’ process and raise over £9,000. One anonymous Anglican gave us £3,000, ‘because Quakers and the Salvation Army are working on this together.’

It was a different story after world war one. The German board of public health claimed, in December 1918, that 763,000 German civilians had already died from starvation and disease, caused by an Allied naval blockade. An additional 100,000 people may have died before the Treaty of Versailles. In February 1919, a Thirsk shopkeeper called Jed Hall got one of the first permits to ferry baby clothes and food to Vienna in his company van. He had to drive through areas where order had broken down, but repeated the trip regularly for three years, eventually winning a humanitarian medal from the League of Nations. Once, he brought back two sisters named Schindler for respite care; they spent a term at Thirsk School. Oscar famously went on to help seven hundred Jews escape the gas chambers.

In the 1920s, Jed’s sisters, Molly and Winifred, worked in a hostel for starving German children on the German/Dutch border. The Quakerspeisungen – Quaker Feeding Programme – seems to have paved the way for the kindertransport: Molly and Winfred met two German Jewish boys at Thirsk Station and took them in. They also hosted a family after the Anschluss. The father pretended to be part of an English golfing party to cross the German border. In Belgium, his wife and son were separated from him, but they met again in Thirsk. At the outbreak of world war two, the Home Office interned the father on the Isle of Man. When his granddaughter joined our Meeting for Worship in search of her family history, her only clue was his enemy alien card and the address of the two aunties.

On the day of her visit, we were raising funds for a small Afghan refugee family. Thirsk Together, a local ecumenical group led by the Salvation Army, found a cottage under the aegis of the UNHCR Pathway 2 scheme for vulnerable Afghan refugee families. The Home Office had previously found local authority housing for small groups of Syrians and Afghans, and Thirsk has also hosted Ukrainian women and children, but this is the first Pathway 2 project for a single family.

Representatives of all Thirsk churches met regularly for two years while we looked for rental property. All contributed to accommodation costs. Our first welcome party for the family was convened in the nearby Meeting house – an essential part of the community, soon to undergo renovation.

Our Last Awakening: Poems for living in the face of death, edited and annotated by Janet Morley

Author: Janet Morley. Review by Harvey Gillman

On holiday in Spain I read two poems each morning, as a sort of meditation. There are many benefits in meditating on death, for such is a meditation on life itself. As an adolescent I was fascinated by the French existentialists, who wrote of finding value and morality in the face of death. I also found echoes of this in my later reading of Buddhist writings.

Janet Morley is a feminist Methodist theologian and poet. Her book is divided into several sections: ordinary mortality; fears and fantasies; actual crisis; immediate grief; remembering and celebrating; and hope. In all there are fifty poems. Morley takes each poem, gives a helpful background on each poet, and then analyses the work. Some of the poems were known to me, but a few were new. For the most part they are very human, with a whole gamut of reactions: the almost pious, the celebratory, the emotional, the angry, the subversive, the rebellious, and the resigned.

The first poem in the ‘ordinary mortality’ section is the well-known ‘Fern Hill’, a paeon to life by Dylan Thomas. What a glorious way to introduce the theme, though I am not sure the word ‘ordinary’ is appropriate! The last poem, in the section on ‘hope’, is ‘Let Evening Come’ by the New England poet, Jane Kenyon. This beautiful, serene poem does not talk of death as such, but offers a melancholy reflection on time passing and of acceptance. It begins:

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Though Morley is a theologian, for the most part there is no preaching here (though priests John Donne, George Herbert, and Richard Baxter are included). When I first read the ‘hope’ section I was a little worried that I would be given too-easy comfort. Earlier sections had included almost angry poems, with a refusal to resign, poems of great dignity, such as Laurence Binyon’s ‘The Burning of the Leaves’ and Philip Larkin’s ‘Aubade’. I also admired two poems by modern Quakers, ‘The Unprofessionals’ by UA Fanthorpe and ‘Familiar’ by RV Bailey. These embody a sort of everyday grief, the thing we experience and try to make sense of, but from unfamiliar perspectives.

Two memories came to mind when reading this book. The first was one of the earliest pieces of ministry I heard when I joined Friends over forty years ago: ‘Those who are afraid of dying are those who have been afraid of living’ – this really needs thinking about! The second is a passage in John Berger’s Ways of Seeing. There we see a picture of Wheatfield with Crows by Van Gogh. We turn the page to be told this was Van Gogh’s last picture. We are told to look again at the picture. Do we now see it differently? Do we see life differently when we contemplate death?

Between

Poem by Dana Smith

Between missile and strike:
a family, turned pillar of fire.

Between speech and the ear: a storm
surge of heart. Dawn’s silence at sea.

Between this war and the field,
a wind gentling an olive tree.

Between the womb and the victor
one child, head tucked into her knees.

Between thee and me,
a spindly God crouched

in the cedar of Lebanon. Our history,
with its blood leaves scattered.

Between thee and me:
Burnt acres of lemon and fig.

Maybe a seed.

Letters - 08 December 2023

From Quaker Recognised Bodies to In right ordering?

Sustainability

Quakers have a concern for sustainability.

Do we consider that a world population of 8.1 billion, increasing as fast as it ever has, is sustainable?

Roger Plenty

Cadbury

We cannot change history but we can learn by it.

In her article of 24 November, Susan Groves reports on the gathering at Bournville Meeting House that basically condemned the Quaker chocolate company, Cadbury’s (also Rowntree’s and Fry’s).

In one brief sentence there was a mention of ‘the excellent conditions of Bournville workers’, but apart from that it was totally critical. So yes we would of course have done things differently if this was today rather than 1900.

Quakers, as well as other groups, are becoming very good at apologising for actions of our predecessors. Words are easy if you are not actually involved. We as Quakers, of all groups, should know that a truly meaningful and honest apology can only come from those who behaved wrongly to those who suffered. That cannot now happen as it is history.

Yes, recognise that the treatment was wrong but put it in the context of the time. Recognise that the wealth of the owners was partly used to make improvements to the factory workers. Also that Quakers, ahead of others, were leading the way in many instances to abolish slavery and other injustices.

My own Quaker family were involved in the textile trade and owned mills and probably did not treat their workers as we would expect today. But I have written testimony that they considered they were very well treated with the owners having ‘a reputation for being honest and straight in all their dealings’.

We cannot change history but we can learn by it.

David G Bower

Avenue for positive work

Thank you for Margaret Cook’s piece, ‘Just right’, about Ann Limb’s service as the 789th high sheriff of Buckinghamshire (13 October), and how she is seeking to engage her colleagues and associates with Quaker values and practices.

It reminded me of Barry Eldred of Barnsley Meeting, who in 2018-19 served as high sheriff of South Yorkshire. I recall Barry talking about arranging for Quaker silence to be included during his inauguration, as well as holding constructive conversations about civic ceremonies where aspects of the armed forces were reflected.

Barry’s chosen focus for his year in office was homelessness, leading him to collaborate with local charities and service providers to create The Homelessness Survival Guide, a handbook of advice and contacts for people threatened, or dealing with, homelessness. One magistrate, dealing with someone desperately in need of support to avoid reoffending, but also desperately in need of a square meal and a safe bed, was able to provide this guide and avoid sending them back into the prison system.

There may well be points of friction and strife when Quakers assume civic responsibilities, but while those who assume them do so with care and rectitude, it can offer another avenue for positive work.

Jonathan Doering

In right ordering?

A Friend in good standing moved house, and asked to transfer to his new Area Meeting, normally a routine administrative matter. Instead, he was asked to attend meetings, one with the safeguarding team (who were bemused about their involvement), another with an elder and a clerk, and another with home visitors, who only normally interview new applicants for membership. No one could give him reasons for the meetings. When the meeting with the home visitors was arranged, he was told the meeting was to be at the Meeting house rather than at his house as would be usual. He asked to bring a Friend with him and was refused. He met with them alone and his transfer was refused. They would not explain why.

He believes that sex is real, that men and women are different, that men are not women, and cannot become women. He suspects that this is their reason for excluding him, but that they will not say so because case law provides precedent for holding this belief, saying that it is worthy of respect in a democratic society. He is not transphobic, and he welcomes trans people into Meeting. But he feels that Quakers in Britain as an institution has been largely captured by extreme gender ideology, bringing us into disrepute.

It is being said on social media that ‘You can be a Quaker if you don’t believe in God, but not if you don’t believe gender is more important than sex.’

Is this in right ordering?

Anne Wade

Brought to book: Maggie Waldman on Henry Stanley Newman, the longest-serving editor of the Friend

Maggie Waldman

Despite his good works, both in Herefordshire where he resided and further afield, Newman’s modesty during his lifetime means he isn’t a well-known figure in Victorian history. I decided his was a life worth celebrating more widely. On the 150th anniversary of Orphans Press, a printing company in Leominster that he founded, we published A Friend In Deed: The Life of Henry Stanley Newman.

I first came across Henry Stanley Newman in 2012, when I was volunteering at the Leominster Museum. It was hosting an exhibition on the history of Orphans Press, a local printing and publishing company established in 1873 to provide training and employment for orphaned children. There were few visitors to the museum that morning, so I browsed the pile of books the company had produced over the previous 140 years. A little blue book entitled The Story of the Orphan Homes caught my attention. There was no author’s name on the cover, nor on the title page, but it was written in a singular and engaging voice by someone who really knew and cared deeply about the subject. It was incredibly revealing, not only about the time and place but also about the man who, I later discovered, had written it – Henry Stanley Newman, the founder.

The picture of Henry Stanley Newman in the exhibition showed a white-haired and bearded man in a frock coat, the epitome of a Victorian philanthropist. But the book and annual reports revealed surprisingly modern attitudes towards education and childcare. Newman totally rejected corporal punishment, large impersonal institutions, and the separation and stigmatisation of orphaned children. Newman was determined to make the Leominster Orphan Homes a loving, homely and healthy environment, so that the children should have a good education and secure skilled employment. I was intrigued, and tried to find out a bit more about him, without much success.

It wasn’t until 2016 that I caught up with him again. The Quaker Family History Society (QFHS) held a meeting in Leominster that April, and asked the museum to provide speakers on the history of Quakers in the town. Helen Bowden of Orphans Press spoke on the Leominster Orphan Homes, local historian Peter Holliday spoke about the Southall, Newman and Neild families, and I was asked to say something about the Leominster Adult or First Day Schools. There wasn’t much information locally, but it was soon apparent that, like so much aimed at improving social and educational opportunities in the town, this was yet another Newman project. Helen and I agreed that someone should try to bring all the information about Henry Stanley Newman together and make it more widely available. Over coffee a few weeks later, it was clear that we would have to be that ‘someone’ and, since Helen was working full-time, I offered to list what information there was and identify sources.

I suppose the easiest thing would have been to edit the papers given at the QFHS that day into a pamphlet. But we both had a feeling that Henry Stanley Newman warranted something more substantial. Although the Orphan Homes closed many years ago, and Newman’s books are long out of print, he had clearly made a significant contribution to civic life and wellbeing in Leominster in the second half of the nineteenth century. But as I started searching archives and compiling a list of documents it became clear he had also made a major contribution to the Society of Friends, nationally and internationally.

Newman was instrumental in the establishment of the Friends Foreign Mission Association and served as its secretary until his death, visiting missions in India, Africa, Palestine and the USA. He was actively involved in the campaign to end slavery in East Africa. He travelled across Britain speaking at meetings in support of temperance and of changes to the licensing laws. He became editor of the Friend when it changed from a monthly to weekly publication. He taught the men’s class at Leominster Adult School for fifty years, addressing conferences on adult education, organising university extension lectures, and writing and publishing books specifically designed for adult schools. All this while serving as clerk to his Meeting and being active in ministry. At the same time he ran a respected family grocery business, providing a loving and financially-secure home for his family of six children, and had a long and happy marriage to Mary Anna Pumphrey, who shared all his interests.

Helen and I were grateful to be the recipients of the QFHS Margaret Bennett Small Research Award in 2017 as the research widened from Herefordshire, to London and the Society of Friends Library, and the copying of documents held in the USA. Although none of his diaries and few personal letters have survived, Newman revealed himself, through his actions and the assessment of others, to be sincere, devout, open and honest, and certain in his faith. He had a great capacity for love and friendship. He was also driven, disciplined, and at times impatient, naive and culturally insensitive. He had periods of doubt and uncertainty about his own capabilities but was, essentially, optimistic and joyful. He was a born communicator, keen to share his own sense of wonder in the world, his pleasure in the company of children, and his joy in his faith and trust that God would provide.

I never intended to write a book but, as I found out more about him, it seemed clear that his was a life worth celebrating. What distinguishes Henry Stanley Newman, at least for me, is how much he gave of himself to others: time, thought, consideration and respect, as well as financial and practical help. A visionary, he was also a ‘doer’, someone who, when faced with a problem, worked out how to tackle it and rolled up his sleeves and got on with it. He was a conciliator and tried to bridge the growing divide between older and younger, conservative and evangelical, evangelical and liberal within the Society of Friends in the 1890s. He sought to balance his duty to family, his community and his faith by doing the equivalent of three full-time jobs, as grocer, charity administrator and missionary.

His is an example of an ordinary life extraordinarily well-lived. He had no particular talent or gift that marked him out as someone likely to succeed or become famous, but, in his quiet, unshowy, kindly and persistent way, he achieved more than many who are better known. He deserves to be better remembered.

Maggie launched the book at Almeley Wootton Meeting House.

Small wonder: Gerald Guiton’s Thought for the week

‘Like many toddlers, Oscar seems to have a foot in God’s world.’

Tiny children embody this gentle reassurance of Charles Causley’s poem ‘On Being Asked to Write a School Hymn’. They know. Let me explain.
Some weeks ago my two-year-old grandson, Oscar, came to stay for a while. His time with us included a visit to a nearby waterfall. He’d never seen one. How would he react? Well, he was thrilled, his face full of fascination as he set his eyes upon the natural wonder. Later, we went to a park where he fed animals. His favourite turned out to be a joey kangaroo, and he laughed generously as he handed food to his newfound friend.

Like many toddlers, Oscar seems to have a foot in God’s world, in Love’s oneness. You can tell by the way he, the joey, and perhaps even the waterfall, kind of knew each other from another existence – what Mary Austin, the Australian activist, called that ‘pulsing Light of consciousness’ with its ‘lucent bubble of livingness’, something we tend to forget as we grow older.

Small children instinctively celebrate consciousness, that Love-Light who we all indeed are – the actual God who is tender, vulnerable, peaceful, kind, truthful, patient, simple, equalling, uniting, supportive, liberating, fear-freeing and One. The German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach understood these as qualities that we project onto a deity of our own making, but I’ve come to see them as segues into Truth manifest as the immediate child we are. In letting our child ‘come unto us’, that is to say, by knowing better the one consciousness that we are, we open ourselves further to the eternal. It is one way we can love-with-wonder (worship), and breathe deep God’s caring balm.

Oscar’s beautiful, innocent welcome of heart cannot help but reflect this real presence, the principle that is pure, the One-derful reality both ‘ancient and modern’ whom we can come to know ‘simply from the human heart’.

Quaker MPs reject calls for immediate ceasefire in Gaza

Catherine West, Ruth Cadbury and Thangam Debbonaire all abstained from the SNP amendment to the king’s speech that called for an immediate ceasefire.

But Catherine West (Hornsey & Wood Green, and shadow foreign minister for Asia & the Pacific), Ruth Cadbury (Brentford & Isleworth), and Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West, and shadow secretary of state for Culture, Media and Sport) all abstained from the SNP amendment to the king’s speech that called for an immediate ceasefire. This was in line with the Labour whip.

Fifty-six Labour MPs did oppose the party leadership, including ten frontbenchers.

A four-day ceasefire between Israel and Hamas began on Friday 24 November ahead of the release of hostages.

In a long statement on her website Ruth Cadbury wrote: ‘I share the overwhelming concern of constituents who have written to me in the last week, that the violence must stop. Most have asked me to call for a ceasefire, however the challenges of achieving a formal ceasefire are significant and I believe we have a duty to find a credible and sustainable approach. Both parties to the conflict have to agree to, and stick to, a ceasefire, which both Israel or Hamas have made clear they are not prepared to do. I worry that a ceasefire at this moment in time without the release of hostages by Hamas risks freezing the conflict in its current state, which would be disastrous for both Israelis and Palestinian civilians.’

Thangam Debbonaire also issued a statement after the vote: ‘I voted for an end to the violence in Israel and Palestine, and for humanitarian pauses as a necessary step towards an enduring cessation of fighting as soon as possible.’

Describing the ‘horrifying’ situation, she wrote: ‘I believe that as a prospective party of government, Labour’s responsibility is to find and chart a viable diplomatic path all the way to a lasting peace. A ceasefire is on that path but is not yet possible. This is why we pushed successfully for humanitarian pauses in hostilities – not as a goal, but as an achievable first step to provide urgently needed help. Pauses of a few hours are clearly nothing like enough. I am continuing to push for a full and immediate pause in fighting across the whole of Gaza to get more food, fuel, water and medical supplies in.’

Human Traces, by Sebastian Faulks

Author: Sebastian Faulks. Review by Martin Shallcross

Thomas travels in East Africa and becomes fascinated by the evolution of early homosapiens. He contemplates the birth of self-consciousness (Adam and Eve) and the beginning of language (The Tower of Babel). Humans now have words in which they can communicate. They tell stories, describe dreams and hear inner voices. The Old Testament prophets heard voices too. ‘God’ was sometimes in the voices, and was real and present for them.

As homosapiens evolved, the voices ceased for most people. Eden was barred to them. God was no longer there as a casual presence. New ways had to be found to worship something that seemed to be no longer present, and which they missed. The Galilean fishermen were taught how to close the gap by one who could still hear God’s voice. Others felt they were called to be conduits of his presence too, and religions began to take shape and expand.

It seems to me that we Quakers unconsciously seek that ‘primitive’ simple relationship with whatever we wish words to convey: the isness of being, the unity of all beings, of all matter. For this we need no human authority, no creeds, no ritual, no effort, just a letting go so that we can experience the spirit, the inner light. Truth can be found without words. Did the sense of the numinous, of a higher power, come to us at the same time as self-consciousness? In the Adam and Eve story they are said to come together.

I left the Anglican church after forty years of ministry. As a Quaker I wait to find in the silence the still small voice. It seems to me that there is a way of believing that needs no formal faith. Perhaps in our worship we are quietly recapturing that primitive state of innocence.

Age and history eventually catch up with Jacques, Thomas, and their families. Jacques is diverted from his research by an erotic adventure. As the first world war looms, Jacques returns to practice in Paris, and Thomas to London. Thomas, aged sixty, has to give up work as Alzheimer’s takes hold of him. The treatment of mental health had staggered uncertainly into the twentieth century.

Jacques and Sonia lose their only son Daniel at Karfreit, as the Austrian army overcomes the British troops. I felt a frisson of identification: I spent eighteen months as a squaddie in the army in a Bavarian barracks named Karfreit after the battle. In the final chapter Sonia returns to Jacques’ childhood home in Brittany. She is the rock of the story, another Mary. She has lost her son but, as rain and tears stream down her face, she faces a broken Europe with hope.

Quakers push loss and damage fund at COP28

‘The unthinkable can happen when we stand together and apply pressure.’

‘Take for example, this time last year, when something unexpected happened at COP27,’ writes Rebecca WalkerWoo from Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM)’s climate justice programme. ‘Governments around the world agreed to set up a Loss and Damage Fund under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).’

Aimed at providing financial assistance to developing and climate vulnerable countries, the decision was the result of decades of campaigning. ‘But it was unexpected because loss and damage finance cuts to the heart of a deeply political issue: wealthy nations and polluters accepting responsibility for the harm their carbon emissions have caused and then paying to redress that harm.’

Agreeing to establish the fund was step one, writes Rebecca WalkerWoo on the Quakers in Britain website, but there is still ‘a long way to go’ before the financing flows to communities most in need of support. ‘At COP28, we need to ensure money is finally put into the “empty bucket” of the Loss and Damage Fund.’

At COP27, parties to the UNFCCC set up a Transitional Committee (TC) to work out how to get a loss and damage fund up and running. Since then the TC has recommended that contributions into the fund are voluntary, and that the World Bank should be the interim host of the fund for the next four years. ‘Global South communities are deeply unhappy about this decision,’ writes Rebecca WalkerWoo, ‘because the World Bank’s policies and business model (offering loans, not grants) ensure many countries across the Global South are trapped in cycles of debt.’ The bank also spent billions of dollars backing fossil fuels last year. ‘Now the buck passes to us, to make sure that discussions at COP28 address the problems with and gaps in the TC recommendations.’

Aside from suggesting Friends support the Make Polluters Pay campaign and write to MPs, Rebecca also highlights some key dates on which Quaker voices can cut through. These include a Loss and Damage-themed day on 6 December, and a Global Day of Action on 9 December.

Quakers explore ‘kinder ground’ with MPs

‘The webinar was held in an excellent spirit, revealing a great deal of common ground.'

The webinar was organised by the Quaker Truth & Integrity Group (QTIG), to promote respectful conversation between members of different political parties.

The first of two webinars with Woodbrooke, the ‘Kinder Ground in Politics’ session on 16 November, brought together Philip Dunne, the retiring Conservative MP for Ludlow; Catherine West, the Quaker Labour MP for Hornsey & Wood Green; and Richard Thompson, the SNP MP for Gordon. The three were joined by Gerald Hewitson, clerk of QTIG, to discuss how the work of the House of Commons could be done with kindness, cooperation and compromise.

Jan Arriens, co-clerk to QTIG, said: ‘The webinar was held in an excellent spirit, revealing a great deal of common ground. For all three, the primary reason for going into politics, and the main source of satisfaction, was that of helping other people. There was also agreement that the confrontational, adversarial side of politics that we so often see in the media (and promoted by it) was not representative of the House of Commons. The speakers displayed obvious respect for each other and emphasised the high degree of cooperation and collaboration in parliamentary work: for example in the various committees, and the value of the (little reported) Westminster Hall debates, at which MPs were able to speak more freely. There is little understanding of the way parliament works. Greater emphasis on education, especially in civics, would be a help, while Richard Thompson stressed the benefits that proportional representation would bring in terms of diversity and individual involvement in the political process.’

The webinar marked ‘a new and encouraging stage in the development of QTIG’, added Jan Arriens, and was followed by a second webinar on 23 November. This looked at ‘how we, as individuals, can help promote kinder ground in politics: how can we build relationships with our local MPs, and foster and strengthen dialogue?’

Ramallah Friends School graduates shot in USA

'The families of the three victims called on law enforcement to conduct "a thorough investigation, including treating this as a hate crime".'

Of Palestinian descent, the victims were reportedly wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh and speaking in Arabic when they were attacked in Burlington on their way to a family dinner.

The victims have been identified as Hisham Awartani, Tahseen Ahmed and Kinnan Abdalhamid, undergraduate students at Brown University, Haverford University and Trinity College.

The Ramallah Friends School issued a statement on Facebook saying the community was ‘deeply distressed’. ‘We extend our thoughts and prayers to them and their families for a full recovery, especially considering the severity of injuries – as Hisham has been shot in the back, Tahseen in the chest, and Kinnan with minor injuries,’ the post said.

Friends sent messages of support and prayers on social media. One former pupil of a Friends school urged ‘alums’ to ‘unite in standing in solidarity against all forms of violence. It’s the reason many of our families chose these schools for us even if we weren’t Quaker’.

The families of the three victims called on law enforcement to conduct ‘a thorough investigation, including treating this as a hate crime… We will not be comfortable until the shooter is brought to justice’.

Posting on X, Basil Awartani, a cousin of Hisham Awartani, alleged the attack was a hate crime. ‘My cousin Hisham has been shot in the back while walking with his friends in Burlington for simply wearing kuffiyehs and speaking Arabic.’

‘Dangerous performative rhetoric’ and ‘constant dehumanization of Palestinians has a real life cost’.

Since the Israel-Hamas war started in October, there has been a reported rise of Islamophobia and antisemitism in the US. Antisemitic incidents have increased by nearly 400 per cent over 2022, according to the Anti-Defamation League. Meanwhile, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) reported a 216 per cent increase in requests for help and reports of bias, compared to 2022.

Clear views: Pam Apted attends General Meeting for Scotland

‘Across the world there are good people doing good things.’

In ministry we heard how Sharyn Lock, an attender from Argyll Meeting, had held a five-day fasting vigil outside the Scottish Parliament (see News, 24 November). Sharyn, a midwife, who had previously volunteered in Palestine, was calling for an immediate ceasefire. We were inspired by her courage and heartened to hear that she was upheld and supported.

Our worship strengthened us, reminding us that across the world there are good people doing good things. We reflected that, by allowing space for worship, we are moved to greater things. It was a day of hope, inspiration and looking forwards.

We were gladdened to hear of the activities of our children and young people, and the intergenerational joy of family events. We heard how all were moved by the brilliant performance of ‘Wangari’s Trees of Peace’, by Glasgow schoolchildren at the Scottish Parliament, wonderfully created by Mary Troup. With its core theme of ‘Never give up’ it was the perfect way to lay the foundation for our ‘Peace at the Heart of Scottish Schools’ exhibition. The exhibition attracted a good level of support and interest among MSPs and twenty one went on to sign a parliamentary motion calling for more support for peace education in Scottish schools.

We welcomed our new parliamentary engagement worker, Sarah Komashko, and caught up with the group’s impressive work, including a submission to the Scottish government’s consultation ahead of its Human Rights Bill, working with Stop Climate Chaos Scotland and liaising with the Quaker Truth and Integrity Group. We were encouraged to engage with our MSPs, and reminded of the importance of putting ourselves in their shoes – they are human too!

The Quakers in Scotland Coordinating Group is hard at work. The group has drawn up a draft governing document for the new single charity, with consultation sessions to be held in November. Our local development worker, Zoe Prosser, will continue to add her support to this group as part of her priorities for the year ahead. Zoe is supporting us in many and varied ways; her positive energy is just what is needed as we navigate our way forward.

We heard an update from the Scottish Quaker Community Justice Working Group. The group seeks small openings to help bring about a more just and compassionate society. Its work has included arranging a retreat for Scottish prison chaplains, which received positive feedback. The group is working to bring us consideration of prison abolition in November 2024.

It was a full and stimulating day, aided by the efficient, wise and at times humorous guidance of our clerks. ‘Arise and be doing’ was the theme.

Do Quakers Pray?, by Jennifer Kavanagh

Author: Jennifer Kavanagh. Review by Annique Seddon

Jennifer draws on prayer patterns and practices from many faith traditions. This deepens the reader’s understanding of the call to pray, while unfolding the essence of prayer as experienced by Quakers. The book draws upon the wisdom of authors Jennifer has read, and also from people with whom she has shared profound conversations about the nature of prayer. It collects widely, and draws together the wisdom – and the uncertainties – of any one definition of prayer.

One of the delights is when Jennifer gives voice to those people to whom she has put the book’s titular question. We become part of the conversation, and the journey. One of the last chapters, ‘Life as Prayer’, asks ‘If prayer is not defined by tradition, form or specific practices what is it?… not a divided life in which there are times for prayer and times for other activities, but a way of life that is embedded in prayer, in which all stems from, is rooted in, prayer.’

Quakers may be unsure about their own answer, but here we are led, practically and spiritually, ‘to pray as we can, not as we can’t’, as the Benedictine monk John Chapman had it.

Jennifer writes in calm, lucid prose, which prompts a fruitful exploration of one’s own prayer life. Her voice speaks to us as if she were accompanying our discoveries: ‘The word “worship” is used by Quakers as if we all know what it means. I’m quite clear that I don’t… I might say that it’s a mixture of prayer, adoration, upholding, learning and, very occasionally, religious ecstasy. And, gloriously, it is never the same twice.’

Readers share her excitement as she discovers wise and spiritual writers. These include the Catholic-turned-Hindu Abhishiktananda (‘God dwells only where man steps back to give him room’); the Benedictine David Steindl-Rast (‘Wherever there is love there is only prayer’) and our own Janet Scott (‘Prayer; where we are meant to be; what we are meant to do; and how to find the strength to do it’).

Suddenly, we realise that we are drawn to deep moments that, in the past, we have not named as a call to prayer. We recognise, too, that we can accept the timeless pauses in our everyday lives as an opportunity for a profound sense of connection beyond ourselves – a time of love and renewal.

This is a text to share with others in small-group work as well as for personal exploration. There are a series of prompts in the final pages for this exercise. The guide to spiritual practices in the final pages helps us to ground our own way of seeking a life underpinned with prayer.

Peace! Books! Freedom! The secret history of a radical London building, by Rosa Schling

Author: Rosa Schling. Review by Andrew Rigby

London CND was one of the first tenants, of a small room in the basement. In 1971 the Gay Liberation Front took over the tenancy. A few years later, in 1974, the London Gay Switchboard took up residency, remaining there until 1993 when they moved to their own premises. In 1974 the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) was launched, and remained there until the mid-1980s.

The building was also used for various single-issue campaigns. In 1973 the British Withdrawal from Northern Ireland Campaign established its base there. In 1977, it provided space for what was known as the ABC defence campaign, named after three men – Crispin Aubrey, John Berry and Duncan Campbell – who were charged under the Official Secrets Act after the disclosure of a secret spy facility at Cheltenham. Reading the interview material in the book I was reminded of how different campaigning was in the 1970s. There was no access to computers or social media, and it depended on having access to physical space where people could meet and organise, compiling telephone trees, updating mailing lists, dealing with the mail, drafting, printing and distributing leaflets.

In the mid-1980s the building was one of the main meeting points for activists involved with London Greenpeace. They organised the ‘Stop the City’ protests before moving on to target McDonalds for its alleged abuse of animal rights. Two of those involved in the distribution of a leaflet (‘What’s wrong with McDonalds? Everything they don’t want you to know’) refused to apologise despite threats of legal action. Thus began the famous McLibel Case, with the McDonald Corporation suing the two activists (Helen Steele and Dave Morris). It lasted ten years and is said to have been the longest-running libel case in British history.

In 1993 War Resisters International took up a tenancy, where they remained until 2023. Other groups included Voices in the Wilderness, which campaigned first against the economic sanctions and then the subsequent invasion and occupation of Iraq from 1998 to 2003.

5 Caledonian Road is only a short distance from Friends House. Alongside the physical closeness, the ventures associated with ‘Cally Road’ involved activists from the Society of Friends, and addressed concerns shared by many Quakers. To read this stimulating and enjoyable record is to get a real sense of the issues that moved Quakers and like-minded folk in the latter half of the twentieth century.

Bible and Poetry, by Michael Edwards

Author: Michael Edwards. Review by Simon Webb

The first paragraph, then, acts like a stone thrown into a still lake. The rest of the book is made up of the ripples that ride out from the impact. The ripples are the ramifications of Edwards’ idea for our understanding of key parts of the Bible, and for belief and worship. The author also spends time carefully defining his thought, and clarifying what he does not mean, so that the reader’s mind does not head off in the wrong direction.

Part of the book’s charm is that it includes a lot about Edwards’ personal beliefs, and the impact his thoughts on biblical poetry have had on his own faith. He is very honest about the fact that he has no Greek or Hebrew and, as a Brit steeped in French culture, is working from the French version of the Jerusalem Bible. (Edwards was the first Englishman elected to the Académie Française.)

While emphasising the importance of the Bible’s poetic content, the author is keen that we should not read it as we might a book of poetry with no particular spiritual significance. In fact he is ‘down’ on such an approach, denying that ‘the present infatuation with the “literary” study of the Bible is a great step forward: more often than not its dilettantism misses the essential’.

For Edwards, Jesus is not, therefore, a poet who never wrote anything down, who claimed that his body was bread merely because it was a startling metaphor. The implication is that the Bible uses poetry and does not offer us poetry for its own sake. The Bible has a unique status and is not just another text to be rummaged through for fine poetic effects.

Edwards is, however, trying to read the scriptures having first stripped away the superstructure of interpretation that centuries of theological work have built on top of them. In this way, his approach resembles that of some of the early Quakers and their spiritual ancestors. Like them, the author finds, for instance, that there is very little biblical foundation for the Eucharist as it is re-enacted in churches today.

Noting how poetry seems to reach out beyond conventional language (and how poets often seem to have to reach beyond themselves to write it) Edwards suggests that the mysterious power of poetry in the Bible is both inspired by, and reaching out for, the divine. We are fallen creatures with an imperfect language, but in our imperfection we strive to attain to something perfect. Examining how fire, wind and light are used poetically in biblical passages, Edwards writes that here: ‘Light, wind, fire, all natural phenomena, brush against the invisible and open this world to another that, always present, suffuses it, but to which we are insensible most of the time. We move among the figures of another reality. These phenomena make us feel that all that is material gives onto the immaterial; our words, through their relation to the Word of God, lead us there.’

Callings, by Lucy Rushton

Author: Lucy Rushton. Review by Marisa Johnson

The book is fiction, but is based on stories Lucy heard from her missionary grandparents, who had served in Burma. It is meticulously researched, and brings to life a world I knew little about, through characters who struggle to make sense of what their ‘Callings’ might be, and how they may live them out.

Moving deftly backwards and forwards between the late 1920s and late 1940s, the book untangles the mixed motivations of: Ada, a young woman whose life is devastated by loss and grief; Nancy, the child Ada felt unable to bring up; Esme, Ada’s bereaved mother-in-law; and Ivy, the colleague who for a time usurps her role. The landscape, people and culture of Burma, so alien to the missionaries, are vividly brought to life.

It is hard for us contemporary Quakers to understand the impulse to bring Jesus to those who have never heard of him, and them to Jesus. Yet missionary zeal was, and, in some parts of the Quaker world, still is, a compelling calling.

But proselytising is not the only calling we experience. If we attend to the ‘still small voice’ we often find ourselves called to service in ways that we may not have expected, and may feel ill equipped for. It was so for me back in 2004 when I felt called to serve in the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel. It was one of the most significant turning points in my faith life. The same was true, to an extent, earlier this year when I found myself called to serve as a Britain Yearly Meeting trustee. As it happens, Lucy’s book provided much-needed, and frequent, relief from having to plough through 303 pages of documents in advance of the latest meeting of trustees in November!

Callings is an engaging read, and I marvel at Lucy’s imagination and erudition. I hope someone will make it into a film, and look forward to Lucy’s next offering – she clearly has a talent to share.

In the Atlas mountains

Poem by Roger Iredale

past bearing. Bent to the quick
a woman bears her load
of hoarded water, children

linger upwards, bearing theirs.
Centuries, the villages high up
have needed children

and the water for the dry
sun sapping them. More
children bear more water.

And the women, dry
tall, bent and silent
bear them all.

Letters - 01 December 2023

From Finding love and support to Meetings

Old tropes

I write as a Jewish Friend, in response to Tim Robertson’s letter (3 November).

He is probably correct in asserting that many mainstream Jewish organisations would see the Quaker position as rooted in ‘old tropes’ about Jews. For many Jews, their identity is so bound up with Israel that criticism of Israel’s actions is experienced as a personal assault, no matter how privately uneasy many Jews may feel about the occupation (and many do).

I understand those painfully-ambivalent feelings. But it would simply be dishonest to pretend that the cycle of violence started out of the blue on 7 October or that Israel is purely a victim and bears no responsibility. In fact, isn’t the accusation of antisemitism yet another ‘old trope’, intended to discredit and silence anyone who tells the truth about a lengthy, brutal, illegal military occupation? We do have a Truth Testimony as well as a Peace Testimony.

So is Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) ‘institutionally antisemitic’? To me, the statement offers no evidence for this. It seems to me measured, truthful and compassionate, and it upholds our traditional testimony by calling for an end to violence and a just peace based on international law. It is unequivocal in condemning all indiscriminate violence. To suggest that BYM has abandoned the Peace Testimony in order to give a thumbs-up to Hamas murders would be an appalling and unjust slur if it were not so patently absurd. The fact that crimes are not committed in a vacuum does not mean they cease to be crimes; no amount of suffering can confer a ‘right’ to oppress or kill in turn. I’d like to see some genuine evidence that the official Quaker position departs from that principle.

I will say that during my thirty-plus years among Quakers I’ve encountered hurtful individual examples of everything from mere crass insensitivity to unabashed antisemitism. In 2003 I stood on the platform at Yearly Meeting and reminded Friends that ordinary Israelis were human too. That seemed to come as something of a revelation to some Quakers. Perhaps there were some listening that day who even thought I was ‘providing justification’ for Israel’s violence.

As I write this, the slaughter of civilians in Gaza has intensified and newborn babies are dying for lack of functioning intensive care units. I’m not sure that an investigation into BYM’s position vis-a-vis Jews is the priority right now.

But I do think it might be helpful for each of us to drop our defences, stand still in the Light and check whether we honestly believe that every human being is equally ‘unique, precious, a child of God’.

Whether a murdered child is called Leah or Laila, whether she is one of thousands from her community or only one of tens, the agony for her parents is the same.

Stevie Krayer

Simple outreach

I came to Quaker Meetings in later life, a result of watching in a London City church where William Penn’s parents were married.

My first Meeting was instrumental in encouraging me to return regularly. The welcome I received following the Meeting for Worship was so kind and thoughtful.

I am still an attender but now feel confident and pleased to share my Quaker experience with others I encounter in my various roles.

Outreach can be simple but, performed with a generous heart and mind, very rewarding.

Sian Edwards

Meetings

Some time ago I went to a Quaker event at Earlham, Indiana. We had the Sunday choice of five Meetings for Worship, two silent and three programmed.

We Quakers in Britain can be seen as a self-selected and somewhat exclusive community, at a loss in how to widen our membership and our delivery of witness. It strikes me that many who might feel at one with Friends are not temperamentally attuned to an hour of silence as their main manifestation of membership.

I don’t know whether there are already Meetings in this country which follow the programmed format, perhaps with singing. My proposal is not that new programmed Meetings should be set up. Instead, existing Meetings might offer programmed sessions, presumably led by a minister, as an add-on to our customary mode of worship.

The Young Adult Friends programme in Oxford may have something of the feel of this. Some events led by the local development workers may be steps in the same direction. Victorian, patriarchal Friends offered somewhat analogous evening classes, though not inviting participants into their actual Meetings.

(I have to say, however, that for some Friends the silence is a blessed escape from regimented observances.)

Richard Seebohm

Order of the day? Matt Rosen on Quaker decision-making

‘Gospel Order is the order that comes from listening to Christ.’

Friends didn’t create what’s now called ‘the business method’ because they thought it would be efficient. They didn’t do it out of a concern for equality, democracy, or even ‘that of God’ in everyone. Instead, our collective discernment arose out of an experience of God. I don’t think we can understand the early Quakers or our practices if we don’t grapple with this experience.

The first Friends knew Christ to be present in their midst, guiding and gathering them into a living unity. This was not a community made by human hands. Friends were brought together by a power greater than themselves. Our discernment grew out of attention to this power.

When Francis Howgill describes some of the first Meetings in London, which he helped start, it’s striking that Friends are more often the object than the subject of verbs. In Quaker faith & practice 19.08, for example, Friends are being gathered, rather than gathering. We are being caught, as in a net. We are being drawn to land. Our hearts are being knit unto God and each other. We are being formed as a people living in the Spirit.

The practice of discernment among early Friends grew out of this same sense of surrender to a power – a power that changes us and works through us. We were to relinquish our own agendas, yield our own resources, and wait for this transforming power. Everything hinged on an openness to divine surprise, and a willingness to prune what isn’t of God. Setting our plans and anxieties aside, who knew how God might work among us?

When the Seekers and others were reached by George Fox’s preaching in the early 1650s, Fox didn’t start by establishing Meetings. Roughly sixty Friends – the so-called Valiant Sixty – went out to share the Quaker message wherever they were led, calling everyone to give up their ideas and philosophies, and come to the feet of a teacher they could know inwardly, intimately, and without a need for hierarchy or institution.

Many were convinced – they were reached and changed by the ministry of the Valiant Sixty and the experiences of God they had. These Friends soon found themselves drawn together. Worship brought them into unity, and suffering for their faith yoked them. This suffering was intense. By some estimates, nearly a third of adult Quakers in Britain were imprisoned, while 60,000 people joined the Quaker movement. What did they have that made this suffering worthwhile? Not a way of doing business. Not ideas about peace and equality. Not silence. It was an experience of the tremendous presence and power of God among them, and the hope that all creation might accept the invitation to know this.

It was only when Fox saw that Friends were being gathered by the Spirit that he began trying to establish Meetings in what he called ‘Gospel Order’. This was the second stage of the early Quaker mission. Again, itinerant Friends were dispatched, this time to settle Meetings. These Meetings would nurture the faithfulness of convinced Friends, enable them to endure persecution, and help them to hold each other accountable to God’s voice.

Gospel Order was not just concerned with good governance, stewardship, and clerking. Fox contrasts Gospel Order with ‘manmade’ order. Gospel Order is received as we listen together to the Spirit. The point is that Friends were not to order their own Meetings. We are called to allow ourselves to be ordered by a much greater Orderer.

The first Friends knew Jesus to be present among them in the most practical and everyday ways. He was present as their Guide, Friend, Gatherer, and Lord. The first business Meetings, then, were fundamentally about the government of Christ. As Christ taught and gathered, Friends tried to listen faithfully. They called this ‘putting on the mind of Christ’. Gospel Order is the order that comes from this listening, as we yield together to the Spirit’s leading. And you simply cannot have Gospel Order without the Gospel, the power of God among you. Devotion to the business method – as with any method – can become idolatry if we aren’t careful about it.

At first, business Meetings were largely dedicated to answering queries. These were about the condition of the Meeting, support for poor and suffering Friends, and support for the travelling ministry. In fact, the original queries were prompts for group reflection, not individual reflection. And the principal query was: How is the Truth prospering among you? How are Friends being gathered into Christ, established on this unshakable foundation, and how are you supporting Friends to live faithfully?

A Meeting left open to consider this would, I suspect, seem quite different from the way we work today. Do we have space to see how the Spirit is leading us?

No doubt, some of this will sound like ancient history. A lot has changed since Fox envisioned a great people to be gathered. There are fewer Friends in Britain today than there were in 1660. Fewer of us have been imprisoned for our faith. We are unlikely to face martyrdom, and we rarely hear of Quakers travelling to share the Gospel.

Of course, it isn’t all bad news. Far from it. Our gatherings are legal, a fact we shouldn’t take for granted. We have made wonderful commitments to LGBT inclusion, anti-racism, climate justice, and ecumenical work. There’s reason to celebrate. But we have lost some of the energy of the first Friends, the fire that led people to say that the earth shook for miles around when these Friends ministered. And some of our practices no longer work. Our nominations process, for example, was designed for discerning between several Friends with gifts for each role. This just isn’t our condition.

Amid this talk of loss and change, though, I remain full of hope. The early Quaker message – that we have a living Teacher who freely guides and gathers us – is still drawing seekers to land, as it did in the 1650s. People will continue to encounter and be led by this Teacher, even if our Meetings, practices, and traditions fail to facilitate this. The good news that early Quakers risked their lives to share will live on.

But the question is whether it will live on in our Meetings. Will these still be places to assemble in the unity of the Spirit and know what it means for the Spirit to be in charge? Will our discernment continue to be built on a foundation that isn’t of our own making, as Friends are led into faithful witness and loving community?

I don’t have an answer. But I do know that we have an opportunity today, as Friends and Meetings, to find ourselves transformed and to grow in love. I pray that we will use it’.

Discomfort food: Susan Groves uncovers a difficult period in the history of Quaker chocolate company

‘Why did it take you so long?’

As the flyer advertising the event said, quoting from the Yearly Meeting Epistle of 2022, ‘We are called as Friends to understand and tell the truth about the past’.

We were led with skill and kindness in the afternoon event by Kathleen Bell, a Friend from Beeston, who had been an Eva Koch scholar at Woodbrooke in 2019. Her research, under the heading, ‘When Quakers got it wrong’ led her to exploring how Cadbury’s, at the start of the twentieth century, depended on the forced labour of enslaved women, men and children.

In her presentation, Kathleen placed the people of São Tomé and Principe, islands located in the Gulf of Guinea, at the centre of this history. Slavery was abolished in 1833, so the reliance on the labour of enslaved people in the early twentieth century is something many of us are unaware of. The information I include here is largely from Kathleen’s presentation.

Cadbury bought about twenty per cent of the cocoa beans that were exported from São Tomé. The island was also the main source of cocoa beans for the Rowntree and Fry chocolate companies. William Cadbury knew from at least 1901 that the cocoa purchased from São Tomé and Principe was produced through the labour of enslaved people.

For many years – 1901–1909 – William tried to ‘manage’ this situation. He writes that he attended a Society of Friends Meeting (possibly Sufferings) in London in 1907, and that ‘there was a very divided feeling about our action, many I regret to say considering that we were acting hypocritically, although perhaps nobody quite said that word.’

While Cadbury’s advertisements spoke of the excellent conditions of Bournville workers, this was not the case with those labouring on the islands.

In 1908, the missionary Matthew Stober attacked the slow endeavours of companies that advertised the idyllic conditions for their factory workers, but purchased cocoa beans grown by enslaved people: ‘Are not both entitled to the same rights?’

The Standard editorial of September 1908 said that Cadbury’s planned trip to West Africa ‘does not come too soon’, and that the ‘white hands of the Bournville chocolate makers are helped by other unseen hands some thousands of miles away, black and brown hands, toiling in plantations, or hauling loads through swamp and forest… It is not called slavery… but in most of its essentials it is that monstrous trade in human flesh and blood against which the Quaker and Radical ancestors of Mr. Cadbury thundered in the better days of England.’

In 1909 – eight years after gaining knowledge about the enslaved workers – Cadbury decided to stop purchasing from São Tomé. A week later the Cadbury company made a joint announcement with Rowntree and Fry.

Our Bournville gathering was then asked to consider this question in groups: ‘If you were a descendant of one of the enslaved people (or anyone else) on São Tomé and Principe, what might you want to ask Quakers today? Is there anything you would want to say?’

Responses from one of the groups were as follows: ‘Do you realise the situation now is as it was then? We are still being exploited unfairly for our labour while you make the profits’; ‘Can you still be a Quaker after you know all this?’; ‘Have you worked on your white supremacy?’; ‘Look at me. Do you not see we are the same? Let us now work together but let us lead the way this time.’

Another group gave the following responses: ‘Why did it take you so long? What reparations are Quakers going to make in response to all the money Cadbury’s made out of the labour of enslaved people?’; ‘Are you moving towards social justice now?’; ‘Did you really know the damage you did? When you do, we would like you to say sorry’; ‘Are you happy being a Quaker now? Are you working on your white supremacy?’

A follow-up task asked this: ‘Considering what you have heard and talked about today, can you write an “advice” and/or a “query” that might help with further consideration – for individuals, for Quakers in their Meetings and for British Quakers as a body?’

Responses from the groups were as follows: ‘Are we willing to acknowledge our historical complicity as Quakers in the fact that Quaker businesses involved in using the labour of enslaved people generated the wealth that built our Meeting houses?’; ‘Are you aware of Quaker involvement in wrongdoing in the past and today? Do you personally benefit from economical exploitation such as slavery in its historic and modern forms now? Are you acting in ways that try to address past injustices and current racial inequalities? Do you recognise and challenge racism in all its forms?’; ‘Do you do due diligence to help nurture and support local economies and communities, and do you refuse to consume, and actively oppose the consumption of goods and services derived from corporate pillaging and corporate neocolonialism’; ‘Who are you? Do not hide behind ignorance. Do you know your own history or the history of your country? Try to understand the filters through which you view the world and question your privilege. Are you aware of the origins of what you consume? Take time to learn about the structures that underpin our consumption’; ‘Do we fully recognise our responsibility to take action when we realise that others are being harmed, whether directly or indirectly by our lifestyle and choices? Do we try to enable those whose voices have been taken from them to be heard?’; ‘Have you considered how your current existence is built upon the injustices of the past and of the present? How can we approach this with loving justice?’; ‘Are we willing to build an ubuntu [I am because you are] community in which we open the door to discomfort?’.

There was a sense of appreciation of the afternoon and there had been a very positive atmosphere. We trust the Spirit to lead us on.

Change, the subject: Ken Orchard’s Thought for the week

‘I’ve never had a static faith and I wouldn’t want one.’

Now, I don’t much care whether or not we apply the term ‘God’ to those things that fill us with awe and wonder. It doesn’t seem to matter very much any more. There are lots of things that exist which I could call ‘God’ if I chose to: the energy of the universe, the fire, the nudge, the swelling and pressing inside of me, the un-asked for passions, the astonishing beauty of nature, the unseen order of things. These could all be seen as God.

This is part of the difference between belief and faith. As I get older my beliefs fall away and my faith gets stronger.

I’ve never had a static faith and I wouldn’t want one. My faith might stop and rest in a particular place for a while, but sooner or later I know it will get restless and need to move on again. My role is to always keep my bags packed and be ready to move on with it – to follow my faith wherever it leads me. Sometimes it takes me in directions that hurt immeasurably, and sometimes I turn a corner to find a view that takes my breath away, leaving me grinning with the sheer joy of being alive.

I have no creed or theological belief system, yet I know it is important to continue with my daily practice of worship/prayer/meditation – call it what you will. I am walking a path, and my faith tells me it’s a path worth walking. I don’t have any idea where the path might take me, and I have no idea who or what I might meet along the way, but, still, I know I must walk it.

I hope my faith continues to shift and change for the remainder of my life. If it stops shifting, I believe I will have died, spiritually. I will have stopped growing and learning. My faith will have stopped evolving. This constant shifting means that I live a sort of spiritually-nomadic life, never settling in one place for too long. But, like most nomadic people, I have a tribe that travels with me.

I’m a social being and sometimes my own company is not enough. Living without a tribe would be bleak. A tribe offers the support of others who understand why I walk this uncomfortable path – people who understand why I can’t just settle. Without my tribe the nomadic life would be a lonely one. I choose a tribe of Friends, and when the faith-shifting journey brings me pain, I know they will walk quietly with me until the pain lessens.

Quaker midwife on five-day peace fast

'‘I am fasting in solidarity with those going hungry in Gaza, where Oxfam reports only two per cent of normal food supplies have been allowed to arrive since October 9.'

Starting on Monday 30 October, Sharyn Lock wore a Palestine Red Crescent vest to represent all emergency workers and health professionals. With UNWRA, Israeli Physicians for Human Rights, and the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent, Sharyn said she called on all parties to protect civilians, medical personnel, and health facilities and those sheltering in them. ‘I am fasting in solidarity with those going hungry in Gaza, where Oxfam reports only two per cent of normal food supplies have been allowed to arrive since October 9, and says starvation is being used as a weapon of war against Gaza civilians. I was in Gaza during 2008-2009, accompanying fishermen and farmers who regularly come under live fire from the Israeli army as part of everyday life under occupation. During the 22 days of Israel’s Cast Lead attacks, I volunteered as an observer and first aider with the Red Crescent, accompanying paramedics and volunteer rescuers who were targeted by Israeli fire; sixteen were killed and many more injured.’

Sharyn has suggested that people could adapt her statement into a flier, and has received donations that could pay for printing. Thanking Friends for their support, she said the fasting ‘felt like a constructive five days. Together with your help, we gave out not only approx 850 copies of my statement, but also Boycott/Sanctions/Divestment ones, and Israeli Campaign against Housing Demolition ones too.’

The vigil was covered by The Scotsman, The National, The Edinburgh Reporter, The Independent, The Evening Standard, The Standard, Irish News, BNN, MSN, other regional papers and Scottish TV. ‘I had such good conversations with so many people,’ she said, including a Palestinian woman who threw her arms around her and burst into tears, and a young Palestinian man encouraging her to keep her hopes up. ‘In the whole five days I heard from only four folks who thought they were disagreeing with me.’

Demand for white poppies surges

'The Gaza conflict seems to give the white poppy a new significance.’

The Peace Pledge Union (PPU), which promotes white poppies, said it had experienced an ‘unprecedented rush of orders in the days leading up to 11th November. So far in November, white poppy orders are up over 60 per cent compared to November last year.’

PPU staff report that they have never seen so many people buying white poppies last-minute, with many buying them to take on ceasefire demonstrations.

Remembrance ceremonies involving white poppies are also happening in record numbers, staff said, with dozens taking place on Remembrance Day and Remembrance Sunday, the highest number in at least five years. PPU members and supporters have also been selling white poppies at street stalls, often drawing attention to the victims of the war in Israel and Gaza at the same time. One stall in Wimbledon, organised by CND supporters, happened alongside a vigil for the victims of the bombing of Gaza. Alex Forbes, who was on the stall, said: ‘We sold all the white poppies in the box in Wimbledon today by the time the Palestine vigil crowd peaked… The Gaza conflict seems to give the white poppy a new significance.’

In further signs of increased demand, white poppy wreath kits, available for the first time this year, sold out within three weeks, and the number of white poppy boxes ordered by shops, cafes, community spaces, local groups and other distributors has increased by a quarter. Many schools and other educational settings have been using white poppies.

Meeting houses offer sanctuary during protests

‘We have all watched in horror as thousands of civilians are killed and displaced in Gaza, in response to the atrocious attacks by Hamas in Israel on 7 October.’

The measures form part of five suggested ways that Friends can witness for peace in the face of the escalating violence in the region.

‘We have all watched in horror as thousands of civilians are killed and displaced in Gaza, in response to the atrocious attacks by Hamas in Israel on 7 October,’ writes Clare Wood, on the Quakers in Britain website. ‘But it also can be hard to know what to do in the face of such overwhelming violence.’

Contacting MPs; showing public solidarity; educating and sharing Quaker resources; and joining with others are some of the ways Friends can offer witness, says Clare.

‘Emails to MPs do make a difference. Pressure from constituents changes government policy, particularly in times of crisis. EAPPI UK & Ireland has a Take Action page where you can find template emails… If your MP is already speaking out, write and thank them. It can be hard to speak publicly on these issues.’

Another form of witness is providing ‘a space for discussion, reflection, and sanctuary’, says the article, adding that BYM has received an increased number of questions from Meeting houses in recent weeks, as Friends try to make ‘informed and often quick decisions about who to hire their rooms out to’.

Last month, Central Manchester and Cambridge Meetings cancelled ‘Victory for Palestine’ events by the Socialist Workers Party after strong criticism on social media.

The promotional material was judged to be in breach of Quaker standards for depicting violent imagery. BYM subsequently released advice to all Meetings on room hire.

Some key principles for making these decisions include not hosting events that call ‘for any kind of violence or armed struggle’, or which ‘uses racist language or hate speech, or might in any way build intolerance or prejudice’.

As BYM supports the right of the state of Israel to exist, and the right to self-determination for Palestinians, ‘we therefore cannot host any groups denying these fundamental rights’, it says.

A document outlining the key principles BYM uses to guide room lettings in relation to Palestine and Israel can be found at: www.quaker.org.uk/documents/key-principles-for-palestine-israel-room-lettings-in-friends-house-2023-11-09.

Britain Yearly Meeting finances in good shape

‘The work discerned by Quakers across the Yearly Meeting (YM) is more vital than ever at this time of climate injustice, a cost-of-living crisis and two violent conflicts on the edge of Europe.’

‘The work discerned by Quakers across the Yearly Meeting (YM) is more vital than ever at this time of climate injustice, a cost-of-living crisis and two violent conflicts on the edge of Europe,’ BYM said in a statement.

Paul Whitehouse, BYM treasurer, said: ‘This year, my first year as BYM treasurer, has been both challenging and rewarding. As many of you know, we’ve struggled with a change to our systems, causing a delay to the accounts. But our financial position is strong – our investments have recovered after a drop last year and income remains steady.’

Registered Friends will have an opportunity to ask Caroline Nursey, clerk of trustees, and Paul Whitehouse, treasurer, about the 2022 annual report and financial statement at a special online session on Wednesday, 29 November, from 7-8pm.

Friends in Wales host ecocide event

'The proposal to make ecocide a culpable offence under international law was received with close attention and led to lively informed discussion.’

The Mid Wales Area Meeting event in Machynlleth on 26 October attracted approximately fifty people, mostly non-Quakers, to hear speaker Rob Monaghan, Stop Ecocide International’s communications manager.

John Senior, from the AM, told the Friend that the illustrated talk on ‘Ecocide – destruction of the natural environment by deliberate or negligent human action’ and ‘the proposal to make it a culpable offence under international law was received with close attention and led to lively informed discussion’.

Meeting for Sufferings has received minutes on ecocide from several Area Meetings. It has become an ongoing concern for Quakers around the country with six Area Meetings (Hampshire & Islands, Bristol, Pickering & Hull, Manchester & Warrington, Cornwall, and Devon) organising events to raise awareness about the campaign to have ecocide recognised as a crime against humanity.

Quaker Peace & Social Witness has provided a platform for those Area Meetings that are keen to engage with this issue to get together.

John Senior said: ‘Mid Wales Area Meeting will be discerning whether it supports the designation of Ecocide as a culpable offence under international law at its meeting for business on 19th November.’

AI aye: Keith Wilson presents a novel view

‘Quakers can play a significant role in shaping AI’s future.’

The Quaker tradition emphasises simplicity, equality, and community. These values can be our guiding compass as we navigate the uncharted waters of AI. Simplicity encourages us to use technology mindfully, avoiding over-complication and excess. Equality reminds us to ensure that the benefits of AI are accessible to all. And community underscores our interconnectedness, inspiring us to use AI to create a better world.

AI’s power to make decisions and predictions can raise concerns about privacy, bias, and job displacement. Here too Quaker values can provide guidance. A concern for peace encourages us to use AI for the betterment of humanity, while equality calls us to ensure that AI applications are equitable and accessible. Integrity means that transparency and accountability should be at the forefront of AI development and usage.

AI is not just a source of concern; it also holds immense potential for good. For instance, AI can help revolutionise healthcare by aiding in diagnostics and personalised treatment plans. It can monitor the environment and contribute to sustainable practices. Moreover, AI can enhance disaster relief efforts by predicting and responding to natural calamities more efficiently.

Quakers can play a significant role in shaping AI’s future. Engaging in discussions about AI’s impact and ethical considerations is a critical step. We should promote ethical AI within our communities, highlighting the importance of responsible AI practices that reflect our values. Furthermore, Quaker principles call for discernment and mindfulness in the use of technology, reminding us to consider the broader implications of AI in society.

Friends stand at a crossroads. AI offers tremendous potential for good, but it also poses ethical challenges. By approaching AI with our core values, we can harness its benefits while addressing its risks. We must be advocates for ethical AI, ensuring that technology aligns with our principles. Our mindful and discerning use of AI can help create a more equitable and just world in line with Quaker values. As we navigate this technological frontier, let us do so with integrity, commitment to equality, and a sense of community, always striving to use AI as a force for good.

What do you think of AI and its capabilities? Maybe you haven’t experienced it yet. Or have you? With the exception of this paragraph, this article was written by an AI bot. It has been edited for length and house style, but otherwise the item largely appears as the AI ‘wrote’ it. It took about thirty seconds. Makes you think, doesn’t it? Please don’t worry though – the Friend team will continue to give preference to human authors. At least it will until the editorial function is taken over by an AI!

Keeping council: Jacinta White, and then Peter C Robinson, attend Quaker Life Representative Council

‘It was memorable and joyful.’

We were joined by around fifteen Friends online.

Quaker Life’s purpose is to support Quaker communities to thrive. It was the first Council meeting since the Covid pandemic that had the option to meet face-to-face. I experienced it as extremely joyful, and got the impression other Friends did, too.

Not staying at Woodbrooke for this event, as we had in the past, felt strange. We spoke of this among ourselves but the food was good (including home-baked biscuits at coffee time). The rooms were spacious, the staff were attentive, and the weather was extremely kind.

On Saturday afternoon, Abingdon Friends had organised a guided autumn walk to the nearby village of Steventon, taking in the local sights and countryside. Not a great walker, I decided to see if I could do the two hours. It was memorable and joyful. It is always worth stepping out of one’s comfort zone!
I have begun this article with the informal side of proceedings. This is because being together again was so important to me. As Quakers, we are more than the sum of our parts when we sustain and nurture our communities. This happens when you look around the circle at our Meeting for Worship and know that the Light shines through all of us – when you listen to others and speak of things you do not often find the words to name.

There was positive energy as we explored ‘Corks & Boulders’ with Zelie Gross. Zelie encouraged us to use coloured paper, scissors, glue and pens (out of my comfort zone again) to cut out boulders and write on them, answering some questions. ‘What anchors your Quaker community?’ ‘What anchors you as a Quaker?’ We then got the opportunity to walk around the room and look at the things Friends had written on their boulders. Some boulders included: stillness, mindfulness, attending peace/climate protests, role sharing, sustainability actions, making changes in our Meetings, and shared lunches.

In my home group afterwards we explored this a bit further. It was mentioned that we may need to navigate our ship through the boulders. This ship carries different things on its journey. Our testimonies could be an anchor, but we also needed a lighthouse…

One Friend remarked that corks may seem weaker than boulders, but they float, so you could make a raft. Our facilitator drew a nice poster with a ship and anchor, writing down what it was carrying at a later session. That was when we thought about how we could feedback to our Area Meetings. Feedback can be made visual: a simple poster can start a conversation. Another suggestion was to travel around your Area Meeting visiting Local Meetings with your story about how you experienced the Quaker Life event. This would be an alternative to having a slot on your Area Meeting business agenda. Maybe doing both would reach more Friends?

Tim Gee spoke to us about the worldwide family of Friends. It was set up to connect Quakers in many countries. He mentioned that 2024 marks the 400th anniversary of George Fox’s birth. This is an opportunity to plan events and activities. He brought his guitar and got us all to sing!

We were encouraged to approach our local development workers if we need help. There are now fifteen of them each in different areas. They can give support and advice about anything to do with your Quaker community.

The ‘Our faith in the future’ leaflet from Britain Yearly Meeting is a word picture of what Quakers in Britain would like the Society to look like in future. It is very colourful, and based on contributions from Quakers throughout Britain. It leaves each individual, Meeting or committee free to discern where they are today, and then decide what actions they need to take to move their part of the Yearly Meeting towards this vision.

Our final session was with Susie Tombs, who facilitated an Experiment of Light session. This helped us to ground ourselves before Meeting for Worship. We had had quite a diverse, lively session that morning, so it was good to enter into silence. I had the feeling that some Friends present were at some sort of crossroads.

Jacinta White

An unexpected idea came to my mind during the recent Quaker Life Representatives Council gathering: ‘Perhaps I should buy a horse and ride it around the British Isles’.

This thought didn’t come as an extreme way of attempting to reduce my carbon footprint. Nor do I have a particular interest in things equestrian. No, it was an engaging presentation by Tim Gee that set my mind wandering to horses and travelling. Tim is the general secretary of Friends World Committee for Consultation, the international organisation of Quakers worldwide. He gave us a fascinating oversight into Quaker life across the globe.

Much of what he told us is based on his own experience of visiting Quaker communities in other countries. He outlined the diversity of expressions of Quaker life and worship, describing differences between conservative, evangelical and liberal Quakers, and also between programmed and unprogrammed Meetings. Singing plays an important part in the worship of many Quaker communities, and a new Quaker songbook is due to be published next year.

It was Tim’s speaking about future plans that opened my mind to the possibility of buying and riding a horse. 2024 marks 400 years since the birth of George Fox. Tim suggested that this would be a wonderful opportunity to celebrate and undertake new initiatives, raising the profile of Quakers. He invited us to consider ways that we might mark this special anniversary, locally, nationally and internationally. One suggestion made was that a person, or group, could travel to all the places that George Fox had visited. ‘Ah’, I thought, ‘perhaps I should buy a horse and ride it around the British Isles.’

Having cast aside my own thoughts, I was aware that the idea of linking communities, and even travel, between those places George Fox visited, is an idea loaded with potential. It could also have an international dimension mindful of George’s wide-ranging travel to other countries…

Peter C Robinson

Letters - 24 November 2023

From Mental health to Peace

Use of Quaker money

I belong to a reasonably wealthy Local Meeting. I proposed that we should donate £1,000 of our money to the British Red Cross Gaza Appeal, but was told that charity law prevents us from doing so.

Can it be correct that Quaker Meetings are prevented from donating their money to a humanitarian appeal by another charity? Can anyone give clarification about this? It seems quite wrong to me.

Name and Meeting supplied

Institutional antisemitism?

A recent letter in the Friend claims that Quakers’ desire to place the recent events in Israel and Gaza in a historical context makes us institutionally antisemitic and contradicts our Peace Testimony. I think the opposite is the case. Our requirement to answer that of God in everyone, to try to understand the circumstances that lead to violence and conflict, seems to me to be central to the Quaker way.

The letter in question accuses Quakers’ approach to this conflict as rooted in seeing Jews as rich, powerful and their own worst enemies. As a Jew who has been to the West Bank with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel, I have never heard any criticism or negative characterisations of Jews by Quakers. I have only heard concern about breaches of international law on the part of the government of Israel and crimes perpetrated by violent Israeli settlers.

And, as for Jews not counting, I have participated in dialogue between Quakers and the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which have always been carried out with respect. To see criticism of the Israeli state as synonymous with denigration of all Jews is wide of the mark.

Sue Beardon

Old tropes

Tim Robertson’s accusation (3 November) that Britain Yearly Meeting’s (BYM) statement of 11 October on Israel-Palestine reveals the Society’s antisemitism needs to be understood, but it should not be excused. Understanding is absolutely not the same as condoning or excusing.

I have eighteenth-century ancestors who ran slave ships. At that time many well-meaning folk failed to see the contradiction between loving one’s neighbour and enslaving them. I understand the fact that such an attitude was easier to accept then than now, but I continue to condemn that action.

I would be very surprised if Tim himself never sought to understand the causes of things he may condemn. Take, for example, the case of a woman in a relationship with a man who controls her movements, her contacts, her financial resources and her body, and has done so for years and years. If she kills him, as some do, society is now rightly minded to take the dehumanising experience she has suffered into account, at least to an extent.

That could be an allegory for Israel-Palestine, of course. Except that the husband in this case is not killed, however fearful we must understand the Israeli people are. And, in their case, the husband enjoys the political, economic, and military backing of most of the most powerful peoples of the world.

No, BYM’s statement is absolutely true to the longstanding Quaker advice to look for the causes of social evils, and, of course, conflicts. Many faith groups and other organisations have restricted themselves to calls for peace. I am profoundly grateful to have spent my entire life in a community which understands that there is always a history to be understood, as our statement demonstrates. Antisemitic, absolutely not. And let’s not diminish the power of what antisemitism truly means.

Jonathan Dale

Israelophobia and Quakers

Thank you, Tim Robertson (3 November), for saying what has to be said. I have often made myself unpopular in various circles by pointing out that when gay people call out homophobia, we believe them; when black people call out racism, we believe them; but when Jewish people call out antisemitism, we find reasons for not believing them.

Further, not only could the reference to the ‘context’ be interpreted as justifying Hamas’ attack on civilians, it also ignores the other ‘context’ – the centuries and centuries of persecution experienced by Jews who had been expelled from the homeland to which they have always yearned to return.

We need to be open to understanding this pain too, and to do the work which is necessary to help us get rid of our institutionalised bias.

Barbara Forbes

Peace

I have recently been given a copy of the booklet The Quaker peace testimony. I deduce that this was issued in 2010, so perhaps my comments are no longer apposite.

The starting point in the booklet is the statement by twelve Quakers to Charles II made in 1660. In a way I think that is a false starting point. The twelve Quakers surely had as their starting point Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:38-44), where Jesus tells listeners that they must forget the way of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, that they should ‘love our enemies’, and that they should ‘turn the other cheek’.

Even the page in the booklet headed ‘The spiritual basis of our peace testimony’ says nothing about where the 1660 Quakers were coming from. Are we now ashamed or frightened of quoting the words of Jesus? A lot of mainstream Christians have found the teachings of Jesus inconvenient and too difficult – from the Crusaders to the Russian Orthodox Church now.

Quakers in 1660 were different: they believed what Jesus had taught. It’s good to recognise what they did, but it would have been better if the booklet had recognised what their spiritual basis was.

Ian K Watson

Eye - 24 November 2023

From Beautiful bunting to Quirky Quaker monikers

Quirky Quaker monikers

Once upon a time, could you tell a Quaker just by how they were introduced? Well, research into Quaker decorative arts has uncovered some extraordinary Quaker names from the seventeenth and eighteenth century.

Isabella Rosner’s thesis was titled: ‘“Women Professing Godliness with Good Works”: British and American Quaker Women’s Decorative Arts Before Ackworth and Westtown, 1650-1800.’

After three-and-a-half-years of original research, she shared the cream of the crop on Twitter and it went viral!

Extraordinary, weird, odd… many adjectives have been used to describe these names. But how ‘odd’ could these names really be? Well, here are just a handful that caught Eye’s eye:

Barb Bee
Charity Jolly
Discipline Matthews
Experience Cuppage
God Blessed
Humble Thatcher
Obedience Waring
Patience Fish
Revolution Sixsmith
Silence Williams.

Isabella Rosner spoke with Thee Quaker podcast in September about her research and about how this list proved exceptionally popular when she shared it in May.

By the time the podcast aired it had been seen by 6.4 million people!

Sourced from records of births, marriages and deaths, along with Meeting minutes, Isabella emphasises that many Quaker names she came across were ‘boring’. This list wasn’t representative, but ‘every so often I would come across a name that charmed me, either because it was a sentence in itself… or it was a name I’d never heard before’.

Isabella speaks about how she handled becoming a viral sensation, reflects on how Quakers and non-Quakers reacted to the list, and explores some of the surprising things that the needlework examples she studied can tell us about the women who crafted them and the society they lived in.

You can hear the whole episode at https://bit.ly/TheeQuakerNames and see all ninety names at https://bit.ly/RosnerQuakerNames.

Conversation peace: Alastair McIntosh on Quaker reconciliation work in conflict zones

‘Here we glimpse the Quaker charism.’

A concern was raised, informally I think, about how we could pass on our experience of working for reconciliation in conflict zones. The generation that had lived through one or both world wars was starting to move on. How could their expertise be handed down to the next?

One figure whose Quaker mediation is credited with helping to avert likely genocide at the end of the Biafran war was Adam Curle. He chronicled his experience in Tools for Transformation, with chapter titles such as ‘The Atmosphere of Violence’, ‘Speaking the Truth’, and, uncomfortably, ‘Unmediable Violence’.

One chapter tells how he was taken to a Biafran marketplace. There, 128 women, ‘mostly with babies on their backs, had been cut to pieces by the sort of bomb which explodes into slivers of metal a few feet above ground’. Back in Lagos, Curle confronted Yakubu Gowon, the Nigerian general and head of state. Gowon was shocked and saddened, but answered grimly: ‘They will realise that rebellion doesn’t pay.’

Curle suggested that the bombing might have had the opposite effect. The Biafrans would say, ‘If the Nigerians are killing women and babies… then the things we have heard about genocide must be true’.

Gowan nodded sombrely. To his relief, Curle was able to conclude: ‘We were still friends.’

Gowan later said that the mediators’ success in de-escalating the impending violence was rooted in ‘a belief in God and humanity’. Similarly, his Biafran opponent, Odumegwu Ojukwu, put it down to their ‘absolute dedication to humanity… an infinite capacity for neutrality.’

I do not know how much such Quaker work endures today. The bulk of it was always behind closed doors. But recently, linked to one of my books, I was invited to a Zoom meeting on ‘a need to know only’ basis, hosted by a small Quaker Meeting in a region of intense current conflict.

There were about thirty participants face-to-face in a safe and supportive setting, and a further dozen of us online. About two-thirds were Quakers. We listened to and discussed the experience of mediators and refugee workers from at least seven countries. I was moved by the depth of sorrow etched into their beautiful faces.

We heard about refugee facilities being set up in nearby countries. These provide care for children, education, spaces of conviviality for community, and psychological support. One woman described her work, right inside the danger zone, as being with ‘traumatised people working with traumatised children’.

We heard that there are ‘narrow passageways between war and peace’, and that our calling is to seek these out. Here are people who have been touched by the abysmal, who have walked through the psalmist’s ‘valley of the shadow of death’, and yet were hanging on, and hanging in. They were living out that ‘active love’ that the Catholic activist Dorothy Day spoke of as ‘the works of mercy’.

An English Friend who had helped to organise the event wrote to me afterwards: ‘My sense of the contributions from all the speakers was that in any way available to them they were preparing the ground for future peace and reconciliation. In this sense, I have a keen perception of the value of working with traumatised children, as their unprocessed terror and rage can be the seeds of future aggression and brutality.’

Several of the speakers run Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) workshops alongside their other work. Here we glimpse the Quaker charism: not just interceding when wars start, or providing relief when they end but, with George Fox, trying to live continuously ‘in the virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion of all wars’.

One speaker was a veteran of a gruelling civil war. He is Roman Catholic but later told me, by email, that he considers himself a Quaker ally and attender. He also works closely with the Mennonites. Adam Curle had influenced him thirty years ago. Today, he works mostly with the leaders of veterans’ organisations, and with the mothers and widows of fallen soldiers.

It is among these, he testified, that he most truly finds ‘the sincere urge to learn’, because ‘the people who have suffered most are often the ones with the most to give’.

These days, he continued, there is a need always to talk about projects. ‘But actually, peacebuilding is not about projects … it is about presence as sharing life together’. Often, when we cannot directly pull the big levers of power, ‘the small steps are the biggest steps’. Peace work therefore means ‘solidarity, sharing experiences and empowerment, but not lecturing’.

I thought back to Adam Curle and the impact that his presence – his comportment, his bearing – had on me when I met him as a student, around 1976. Paradoxically, I have found his understanding of ‘unmediable violence’ very helpful. It is a reminder that we might participate in the work of God, but we should not make the error of thinking that we must achieve things beyond our human limitations. None of us completely shares a God’s-eye-view of the greater cosmic picture.

In the 1970s, Sheila Cassidy, the medic and writer, was tortured by the Pinochet regime. In subsequent books, like Good Friday People, she suggests that sometimes there is nothing more that we can do than to bear witness. Such is the spirituality of the foot of the cross. As a hermit nun who prays constantly for the victims of torture told me: it means ‘holding them in God’.

But what good is that? It means facing times of seemingly-unmediable violence by not giving up, but by holding in and holding with. Like the five wise virgins who kept their lamps trimmed throughout the darkening of the night, it counsels a pregnant waiting that is critically poised – prepared for when the time might bring an opening of the way.

And so, to Russia and Ukraine today, to Israel and Palestine, and to all those half-forgotten sordid little wars that cry for mercy. Let us never forget the laudation that was delivered, in 1947, when the Quakers became the only religious organisation ever to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. It testified that in refugee and wartime relief work, the Quakers ‘believed that spiritual weapons would prevail in the long run – a belief born of inward experience’.

Lest we ourselves forget: the Quakers ‘have given us something more: they have shown us the strength to be derived from faith in the victory of the spirit over force.’ On behalf of the Nobel Committee, Gunnar Jahn closed his speech by quoting the Norwegian poet, Arnulf Överland:

The unarmed only
can draw on sources eternal.
The spirit alone gives victory.

Brought to heal: Sarah Alldred and Penelope Gouk visit the Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art

‘The arts can act as a liberator.’

However, as we have learned from Lancaster Meeting and others, Quakers were not consistent in their opposition to slavery. Some took advantage of, and traded in, enslaved people, especially in the colonies, where slavery was more entrenched and profitable. The involvement of Quakers was a contradiction that reflected the social, economic and political realities of the time. Friends’ complex struggles with conscience and faith are difficult to comprehend today.

With the weight of this acknowledgement, at Yearly Meeting 2022 Quakers in Britain resolved to make practical reparations for their involvement in the slave trade. A project called ‘Racial Justice and Equality in Our Society’ was launched to address this legacy. The objective is not only financial compensation, but about acknowledging the harm done, healing the wounds, and transforming the structures that perpetuate racism and inequality.

Even before this national initiative was launched, Central Manchester elders and pastoral care team were encouraging people in our Area Meeting (AM) to support the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. The death of George Floyd in May 2020 prompted Friends to develop a long-term commitment to becoming an actively anti-racist organisation. This concern led to the creation of an informal BLM group, which organised online book groups and other virtual anti-racist events during lockdown. In April 2022 this initiative morphed into the AM Racial Justice Group (RJG), which, by continuing to direct our Meeting’s attention towards white privilege and its links with other injustices in the world, has generated a shared willingness to educate ourselves about the communities and cultures that continue to suffer from these inequalities.

It was in this spirit of collective exploration and understanding that five members of the RJG (all from Central Manchester) together attended the twelfth edition of Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art, entitled uMoya: The sacred return of lost things. As the curator Khanyisile Mbongwa states, uMoya means ‘spirit, breath, air, climate and wind’. The Biennial was about exploring Liverpool’s complex history with the slave trade through this elemental lens, calling up ‘ancestral and indigenous forms of knowledge, wisdom and healing’ through over 380 artworks.

The artists who were invited to show their work hailed from all over the world, particularly the global south, and represented indigenous cultures as well as descendants of enslaved people in former colonies. The exhibition offered visitors an unprecedented opportunity to experience the wealth of artistic creativity in these often-marginalised communities, and in particular to acknowledge the ongoing legacy of the slave trade.

The weather was fine, so walking between sites was pleasurable – although it was quite a trek from the venues clustered in the city centre to the Tobacco Warehouse, a huge building in Stanley Dock that was designated as ‘Number 1’ on the map that guided us on our tour around the city. The vast warehouse (made from 27,000,000 bricks and standing 125 feet high) originally stored rum and tobacco, and was integral to the violent success of the colonial economy. This site was now given over to artworks that explored themes of repair and healing.

One outstanding installation, the Chorus of Soil by Binta Diaw (pictured), used soil and seeds to map an eighteenth-century plan of a slave ship that originally came from a Quaker tract on slavery.

The sheer scale of this work was breathtaking, being made up of almost-lifesize coffin-like heaps of soil. These represented the bodies inhumanely crammed into the ship’s hold. Importantly, these piles contained seeds, signifying the regenerative potential of soil. Things can grow and flourish even while mourning takes place for the terrible loss of human life on the slave ships.

It is difficult to single out a particular work, but one of the most moving installations for Penny was on the fourth floor of the Tate Liverpool, titled The Echo of an Ancient Form of Knowledge. This work was produced by the Guatemalan artist Edgar Calel, who drew on ancestral knowledge from his Mayan heritage to create a space where stones adorned with fruit and vegetables constitute a sacred site of ritual. It served as an offering to the land and Calel’s ancestors. A text on the wall explained how, for Calel, dreams, art and spirituality are always interconnected. But even before reading it Penny felt a powerful sense of the sacred that was similar to her experience of Quaker worship.

Likewise, for Sarah, these works were incredibly profound in their simplicity. The one artwork that stood out for her was by Sandra Suubi at the Open Eye Gallery. It was called Samba Gown, and made from discarded plastic from Uganda’s rivers, an after-effect of colonialism. The work re-enacts the Ugandan Independence ceremony of 1962 as a wedding ceremony, when Uganda (the bride) entered into a binding contract with its former colonisers (the groom). Sarah was amazed at how beautiful, powerful and defiant all of these discarded items were once pulled together into a dress.

One of the key messages that came out of the visit was that, while the task of reparation and healing is a difficult but necessary act for communities to move forward, the arts can act as a liberator in making the process more bearable. On a more personal level, each of us valued the bond of travelling together as a shared community of Friends, to experience the Biennial while bringing our own histories, expectations and needs, and expressing these openly over the various food and drink stops we had throughout the day.

Infinite possibilities: Daniel Clarke Flynn’s Thought for the week

‘We must put our humanity first for humanity to survive.’

We human beings are unlike anything else we know of in creation so far. We are living things, animals, with choice. As we evolved we created beliefs from what we could see. We attributed godly powers to nature and the heavens. As we developed, we created gods who lived ‘in the heavens above’ and then a single God, the Sun, until the ‘Copernican revolution’ opened our eyes to see more.

We are each called to rise above our beginnings, and add to creation with our unique, temporary, and necessary existence. Necessary because we are each necessary to each other, none of us an island, as John Donne poetically extols. We are all part of the main. And we are all interconnected, to each other and to creation.

To survive, we must stop asking ‘What can I expect from life?’ and start asking ‘What does life expect of me?’

How can I do that? I can’t change life, Marcus Aurelius’ Serenity Prayer suggests, but I can pray for the wisdom to know what I can change. I need to ask at any given moment ‘Who am I and what am I called to do?’

When can I do this? In silence, listening to and observing my own thoughts and behaviour, and that of others, without reaction or judgment.

Where can I best do that? In my experience, in Meeting for Worship. I need to practice this in community.

The more points of view I hear, the broader I see. I begin to experience that of God in everyone. I begin to see from creation’s perspective, and the view can be breathtaking.

In his ‘Varieties of Religious Experience’ lectures (1901-1902) William James concluded: ‘There is a certain uniform deliverance in which religions all appear to meet. It consists of two parts: an uneasiness and its solution. The uneasiness, reduced to its simplest terms, is a sense that there is something wrong about us as we naturally stand. The solution is a sense that we are saved from the wrongness by making proper connection with the higher powers.’

We are each called to experience the infinite and eternal within us, then to go about doing ordinary things in our daily ephemeral lives. We are each called to life by creation, with our unique human capacity to stop, look, and listen – to become ‘practical mystics’ as Jennifer Kavanagh has it, and unite with an invisible power, greater than us, beyond the visible creation from whence we came.

Leighton Park wins national award

‘Leighton Park is a vibrant learning community based on Quaker values, where everyone is encouraged to imagine a better world.'

The co-ed school for girls and boys aged eleven to eighteen achieves the best academic progress among sixth-form leavers in Berkshire. Among the factors considered by the judges were the school’s emphasis on problem-based learning, its values-led education based on the school’s Quaker values, and the focus on nurturing future-ready leaders.

Matthew Judd, head of the school, said it was ‘a humbling and wonderful achievement’, and ‘a phenomenal recognition of all the hard work and dedication of our entire community, including our excellent staff and governors, talented students and supportive parents’.

Eme Dean-Lewis, chair of governors, said: ‘Leighton Park is a vibrant learning community based on Quaker values, where everyone is encouraged to imagine a better world. The school nurtures each student to reflect on who they are and what they want to achieve – helping each individual to distil their sense of purpose.’

The school is also a finalist for the ‘Excellence in Sustainability’ award. It won the ‘Green Senior School Award’ 2023 and was also a finalist in the Independent Schools of the Year Awards for environmental achievement.

FWCC hears ‘tough and painful’ testimonies

‘There will be an ongoing need for trauma counselling.’ Rania Maayeh, head of Ramallah Friends School.

‘Much of the news was tough and painful to hear,’ Lee Taylor, from FWCC EMES, told the Friend.

At the Brussels event, from 20-22 October, Joyce Ajlouny, general secretary of American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), talked to the gathering via Zoom about what AFSC does and what is happening in Gaza.

‘AFSC’s mission is to “bring together people of all faiths and backgrounds to challenge injustice and build peace around the globe”. It has offices in Jerusalem, Ramallah and Gaza,’ Lee Taylor said. ‘AFSC grieves for the loss of all life, regardless of nationality. On the AFSC website there are action points for what people can do now.’

Joyce Ajlouny, a Palestinian and former head of the Friends Schools in Ramallah, spoke about the tiny amount of food and water getting into Gaza. She reminded participants that the power of love needed to come back into the narrative, and said that the present crisis arises from long standing and complex root causes. She urged Friends to contact leaders and policymakers with pleas to end the war.

Quaker Rania Maayeh, head of school at Ramallah Friends School in the West Bank, said that staff were doing all they could to keep the school as ‘normal’ as possible amid very difficult conditions. Asked how Quakers might help, she said that upholding is crucial, and that there will be an ongoing need for trauma counselling, with an appeal for donations now set up (www.justgiving.com/campaign/rfs-wellbeing-support).

With the theme ‘Our Network – Strengthening Connections, Clarifying Responsibilities’, one participant talked about the network in terms of a ‘safety net’ for those undertaking difficult work, with the knots in the net connecting us, said Lee Taylor. ‘Erik Dries of Netherland YM gifted us several cartoons. The dove bearing the sorrows of a troubled world resonated.’

BYM disappointed by king’s speech

'Quakers deeply disappointed and concerned about the UK’s commitment to protecting human rights and to taking urgent action in response to climate breakdown.'

The decisions to introduce a new annual system for awarding oil and gas licenses, and to outlaw action against foreign countries engaged in human rights abuses, are steps in the wrong direction, BYM added.

The decision to ramp up awards of North Sea licences has faced huge opposition, including from Quakers who have held climate vigils up and down the country.

‘Giving the green light to yet more oil and gas exploration contradicts the urgent need to respond to climate breakdown, Quakers believe. It also flies in the face of warnings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and won’t bring the energy security or lower prices the government claims’, a post on the Quakers in Britain website read.

Instead, the statement suggests that the government should invest in clean, renewable energy sources and develop foreign and domestic policies that uphold human rights, equality and peace. It added: ‘The Economic Activities of Public Bodies Bill (Anti-Boycott Bill) will prevent local authorities, universities, and other public bodies from pursuing investment and procurement policies that align with their environmental and human rights obligations.’

Paul Parker, recording clerk of BYM, said: ‘We believe that individuals and organisations should have the right to use peaceful means to protest against human rights violations… By criminalising such actions, the government stifles the voices of those advocating for a more just world.’

BYM welcomed the government’s ‘support for developing countries with their energy transition’ but noted that these words had not been matched by legislation or funding.

‘If the government is serious about its climate commitments, it should be taking concrete action to put financing into a loss and damage fund for global majority countries that are bearing the brunt of the climate crisis,’ said Paul Parker. ‘Together, we must work towards a future where our actions align with our values, fostering a world that respects both the environment and the dignity of all human beings.’

BYM was also disappointed by the new Sentencing and Criminal Justice Bills, and condemned the absence of a ban on conversion therapy in the king’s speech.

‘Conversion therapy has long been discredited as harmful and inhumane, causing immeasurable suffering to LGBTQ+ individuals,’ said Paul Parker.

‘Quakers firmly stand against any form of discrimination and call for decisive action to ban conversion therapy, ensuring the safety and dignity of all in the LGBTQ+ community.’

Manchester Friends highlight inequality

£1,090 raised by Manchester Friends’ inequality party

‘When I first raised the issue of wealth inequality at a meeting of our Area Meeting’s Social Justice Group, I envisaged the usual campaigning format,’ Jonathan Dale told the Friend, referring to: probable discussions asking for the support of Area Meeting (Manchester and Warrington); a vigil on the steps of Mount Street Meeting House; and letters to politicians. ‘But Social Justice Group’s discernment was rather different. It wanted to make sure that the whole body of Friends recognised wealth inequality as critically destructive of Quaker Testimonies and true human community. Area Meeting wasn’t enough. But how could we get a wider involvement?’

Eventually, the Social Justice Group agreed to revive the AM’s discontinued annual garden party with a theme. Helped by the three other witness groups (Racial Justice; Peace Promotions; and the Environment) to join them, the theme was presented each month for half a year. This included ‘showing how badly wealth inequality affects the building of peace and avoidance of conflicts’, said Jonathan, as well as ‘how it’s embedded in historical and present racial disparities, and keenly relevant to reparations and hugely exacerbates global heating’. Friends also explored the destructive effects on society that Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett analyse in their book The Spirit Level. The theme was ‘fairly gently’ introduced into the ‘otherwise relaxed atmosphere’ by games, he said. ‘If you divide into equal tenths the financial gap between the wealthiest and the poorest people in the world, which decile would your wealth entitle you to be in? Most Friends were amazed, as we were all in the lowest decile. This is because the richest person has cUS$180 billion and the poorest nothing or less; so each decile covers US$18 billion. So there are a mere fifty or so people in the wealthiest nine deciles. Everyone else is crowded in this lowest one.’

Overall, the garden party raised £1,090, which will mostly go to organisations dedicated to reducing inequality. Additional donations of £125 each are being sent to the Equality Trust and Tax Justice UK. The petitions with around fifty signatures supporting a wealth tax have been sent to several party leaders.

Park life: Tony D’Souza is a mine of information

‘How does the local government in Perth do it?’

It all started with the parks in Perth, in Western Australia. They are all clean and tidy. Litter bins are everywhere, and they are emptied regularly. They even offer free dog poop bags, right next to the big red bins designed to receive them. As a park jogger, I think this is very thoughtful and hygienic. Pottering down the asphalt path, I give a silent blessing to whoever thought of it. But then a very British question came to mind: who is paying for all this? Well, local government obviously. And here is where you have to hang on to your credulity.

The local government is not in financial difficulty. It has plenty of money. Can you imagine that? It does not have to make cuts to services, or plead poverty all the time, like local governments in the UK. In fact, it has been in credit for years, decades even, and it doesn’t just provide poop bags for your pooch in the park. It runs efficient public schools and hospitals. It is very good at street cleaning and its refuse collection and recycling efforts are excellent. Its libraries are modern and well stocked, with free Wi-Fi. A couple of years ago it even offered free saplings and shrubs to residents for their gardens. Compare that to the average local council in the UK, which is so strapped for cash it has to use the mayor’s three-cornered hat for a whip-round.

How does the local government in Perth do it? That’s easy: royalties from the big mining companies. Mining iron ore is the backbone of the economy in Western Australia, and always has been. The annual sales are estimated at AUD $126 billion (about £66 billion).

Western Australia accounts for ninety-eight per cent of the country’s total iron ore reserves. It’s a massive business, and it demands a massive infrastructure. The open-air iron ore mines there count as some of the biggest excavations on earth; the vehicles used to move the ore from the bottom of the pit to the surface are so huge you need a ladder to get into the cab. Vast private rail lines have been built by the mining companies across the country, to transport the ore from mine to port. The iron ore is transported in box cars. The trains that haul the box cars are probably not the longest in the world, but they are contenders for the heaviest. Almost all of this iron ore goes direct to China to fuel its economic growth and its export market. It is the wealth from the iron ore exports to China that pays for the free dog poop bags in the parks.

It’s hot in the outback. As the days grow longer and temperatures climb, we’re greeted by a familiar chorus of buzzing. It’s fly season again. The Australian bush fly is everywhere, and is so persistent it is credited with inspiring the ‘Aussie Salute’ – a brief wave of the open palm just by the ear. There are also bluebottles, who like to sit on your dinner, reminding me why the free poop bags are so necessary…

Much to recommend: James Nelson, an advisor to the project, on a UNESCO education revision

‘This was my first experience of a UNESCO inter-governmental negotiation.’

At a time of heightened conflict, we might naturally look to education to provide a response. In the UK and Ireland, for example, teachers may be responding to contemporary events by exploring issues of war and peace with children and young people. Indeed, it has been reported that there is particular interest in the peace resources provided by Quakers in Britain. Yet we might also ask what teachers alone can achieve in the face of such global forces.

In countries experiencing conflict, it can be hard to even think about the day-to-day work of peacebuilding through education. One might wonder if our conflict-ridden world is indicative of education’s inability to create peaceful societies. Are not some of the most highly-educated societies also among the most violent? These challenging questions highlight the need to see education as both part of the problem and part of the solution.

Children can be educated into bias or dehumanising views of others. They can have their experience of different groups limited by learning a culturally-narrow curriculum, or they can be subject to approaches that restrict their agency, or their capacity to cooperate and engage respectfully with their peers. In other words, we cannot assume that education will cultivate learners who are tolerant and peaceful by default. For these reasons, states must prioritise approaches to education that have positive effects on intercultural understanding, cooperation and peace, whether through curriculum, teaching methods or assessment. This is a priority that UNESCO has recognised since its inception, and continues to promote.

The potential for education to build peace is made clear in the opening paragraph of the UNESCO constitution. This attests that: ‘Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed’. It further states that ‘ignorance … suspicion and mistrust’ are what fuels conflict, but education can build mutual understanding through ‘the unrestricted pursuit of objective truth, and in the free exchange of ideas and knowledge’.

This fundamental belief in the power of education to cultivate values of peace and tolerance continues to inspire educators. But it also needs to be elaborated in ways that make sense in contemporary contexts.

The original UNESCO ‘Recommendation concerning education for international understanding, co-operation and peace and education relating to human rights and fundamental freedoms’ was written in 1974, almost thirty years after the establishment of UNESCO. At that point, a new generation wanted to create a global vision, and a set of standards for education, in relation to peace, human rights and international understanding. It was hoped that these standards would apply the lessons learned from the bloody wars of the twentieth century, and guard against the escalation of current threats, not least the cold war. In 2021, member states decided it was time to revisit these standards, and refresh them for the twenty-first century. This process was completed when the General Assembly ratified the Recommendation on 9 November.

So, what’s new about the 2023 Recommendation, and what is of particular interest to Quakers?

The Recommendation takes up some major themes developed through UNESCO’s work in education over the last decade. These include: the quality of education; transformative education; education for sustainable development; and global citizenship education. Peace is framed as fundamentally connected to issues of justice, equality, dignity and respect. Humans are understood as inherently interdependent within and across national boundaries, and deeply connected to ‘natural resources and ecosystems’. Further, there is a recognition that peace education involves core skills, including the ability to: think critically; adopt a multi-perspective approach; act collaboratively; engage in intercultural dialogue; practise empathy and reciprocity; resolve conflicts; and strive for collective good. Those Friends familiar with the Britain Yearly Meeting report Peace at the Heart: A relational approach to education in British schools will be particularly interested to know that a relational approach is visible in the UNESCO Recommendation, including the aims ‘to know, value and be at peace with oneself’ and ‘to deal with and contribute to the prevention, mediation and resolution of conflicts in a peaceful, constructive and negotiated manner.’

Unusually for a UNESCO document, there is also a reference to religious education through a recognition that ‘understanding and valuing of diverse perspectives, ways of life, worldviews, religions, beliefs and philosophies of life… has the potential to reduce conflicts that are based on a lack of understanding’.

Naturally, there are things that could have been done better. For example, despite a wide range of categories being included in relation to educational inclusion and equality, sexual orientation is not one of them. Also, the Recommendation is not legally binding on states, although they must provide reports on its implementation at regular intervals.

This was my first experience of a UNESCO inter-governmental negotiation. It was a privilege to be involved. During the event it felt as though we were engaged in a cross-generational dialogue with educators of the past and of the future. In reviewing and dissecting the text of the 1974 document it was possible to feel a connection with the struggles and hopes of that time, including the burden of the twentieth century wars that still weighed on those participants who were involved in drafting the text. I pondered what educators in 2072 might say about what is stated in the 2023 document, and I continue to reflect on what current governments will say and do with what they have agreed. No document can provide a simple blueprint for how to make the world a peaceful place, but this Recommendation places responsibility on states to do more to promote peace, human rights, global citizenship and sustainable development in education. It also provides a source of much-needed hope for educators, who may not be able to change the world alone, but can feel part of a wider movement of people who are working to actively develop transformative education aimed at peace, sustainability and human rights.

Eye - 17 November 2023

From On this day to A friendly mention

Things in common

Friends were mentioned in an episode of The News Quiz on BBC Radio 4 on 20 October.

Many thanks to David Fish, of Rugby Meeting, for pricking up his ears ten minutes into episode seven of series 112.

Andy Zaltzman was joined by Ian Smith, Lucy Porter, Anushka Asthana, and Simon Evans to discuss ‘the language of war, our crumbling infrastructure, and massive rats!’

Understandably, the situation in Israel and Palestine took centre stage as the episode opened, and panellists were asked: ‘What do the following all have in common? The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres; Russia; some American congress representatives; the Quakers; Ireland; the SNP; Tywin Lannister, warden of the west and lord paramount of the Westerlands; China; Mo Salah of Liverpool; the Jewish Voice for Peace organisation; Save the Children, the pro saving children organisation; and Ugly Betty.’

The answer? ‘They’re all calling for a ceasefire.’

A friendly mention

Big Issue readers may have spied a Quakerly mention in the letters page of 23 October.

Under the title ‘Deeper understanding’ Daphne Wassermann, from Glasgow, highlighted Advices & queries 17: ‘Think it possible that you may be mistaken.’ She was agreeing wholeheartedly with an editor’s letter by Paul McNamee that appeared in the issue dated 18 September, which emphasised the need to listen in an increasingly polarised world.

Beneath sufferance stones

Poem by Steve Day

Yousef, what kind of poet
are you? Why waste words on old verse that
speaks so untrue. She is now earthenware, you
are her extended skeletal hand holding
the little bit of a book she knew
off by heart; you taught her to
      read it, believe it and ultimately
own the space of her burial among a pile of stones.
From the comfort of our sofa we went there with you.
Took her scented
candle to a vigil saw your sorrow
in the flame asking us to waste some silence.

But Dalia does not compete
with Death who lies beside her and gradually
makes a bed, pressing on her broken body all
the weight of those adult arguments telling
her, close the book and go to sleep.
She is a ‘good little girl’ does what
      daughters do. She obeys her
father, loves her mother (who wept and wept).
Underneath four more floors of silence gave up the
final words she ever
heard, a closed book of sorrows.

Letters - 17 November 2023

From The indigenous Voice to Ukraine and Palestine

Will we forget?

The state of Israel was built upon bloodshed, during which villages were raised and demolished after massacres of civilians.

The sadness of the current situation in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank continues this cycle of bloodshed. Innocent people of Gaza are no less dead than the innocent people of the kibbutzim in Israel.

While the world is witness to the devastation in Gaza and the negotiations about hostages, where is the humanity in all of this? In three or six months’ time when ordinary people are trying to pick up the pieces of their lives, will the rest of the world have forgotten?

Jill Whitfield

Sensitive and insightful

I am very grateful to Lois A Chaber (3 November) for her sensitive and insightful explanation of the very complicated, wider background to the current Hamas/Israel war. She speaks my mind. The situation is so much more nuanced than the extreme polarised attitude adopted by so many vigorous protesters, however well-meaning they are.

In considering this latest violence, I suggest we need to bear in mind the words of the Balfour Declaration of 9 November 1917, 106 years ago. It is very short.

‘His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.’

It is clear that ‘the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine’ have never been recognised or respected.

My further reading in Wikipedia revealed this statement: ‘The term “national home” had no precedent in international law, and was intentionally vague as to whether a Jewish state was contemplated. The intended boundaries of Palestine were not specified, and the British government later confirmed that the words “in Palestine” meant that the Jewish national home was not intended to cover all of Palestine.’

As Lois indicates, now would be an ideal time for British religious and political leaders to urgently advocate international negotiations for that elusive long-term solution of peaceful coexistence in that troubled region.

With our peace-keeping history, Quakers are the obvious choice to set an example. I pray a way may be found… soon.

Caroline Coode

Logic will be our ally

Tim Robertson (3 November) believes that institutional antisemitism underlies Britain Yearly Meeting’s recent statement on Israel-Palestine. His reason? The inclusion of the phrase that the violence must be seen in the context of military occupation.

Yet I read this as a statement of logic: no conflict in history has taken place in a vacuum. Even the Holocaust itself had a context, and historians, including pro-Israeli historians, have written many words exploring this. To do so is not to forgive or justify the Nazis.

Of course the brutal attacks carried out by Hamas on 7 October demand a response that goes beyond mere logic.

But logic will be our ally in finding peace. It will not, in itself, be enough, but logic tells me that, at some point, people in this conflict will sit down facing those who have carried out atrocities against them and their people. This happened in South Africa, in Northern Ireland, and in Rwanda. Only when it happened did a better outcome emerge for all the people of those regions. They had to listen to the truth as those on the other side understood it.

Alastair Cameron

Ukraine and Palestine

The attitudes of Vladimir Putin towards Ukraine and Benjamin Netanyahu towards Palestine are both reminiscent of a one-liner from The Boys Own Paper about seventy-five years ago: ‘It wasn’t me who pulled the cat’s tail, I just held on; the cat did the pulling’.

Ian McFarlane

Heads down: Molly Scott Cato’s Thought for the week

‘This feels like a story without hope. But that is wrong.’

The body-count in Gaza is horrifying. Many of the bodies are those of children, who should have had decades of life ahead of them. But Hamas does not weep for each dead child; it is not concerned about how many of the dead are Israeli or Palestinian. It is winning in Gaza because it is almost literally calling the shots. It has lured Israel into a ruthless response.

Hamas is not alone in this dance of death. It has long had a partner in Benjamin Netanyahu, who has traded on violence and fear all his political life. While portraying himself as the hard man who could protect Israel, he has – according to the Times of Israel – taken steps to support Hamas and undermine the Palestinian Authority. The result of his strategy is that Hamas has been upgraded to ‘an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad’ (8 October).

What do Netanyahu and the leaders of Hamas have in common? A desire to weaken legitimate political authority for the Palestinians. They are blocking the road to peace for reasons of self-aggrandisement – and they are prepared for thousands of others to pay for it with their lives.

This feels like a story without hope. But that is wrong. There is a way that the international community could defeat the men of blood on both sides. The only way out of this conflict is a peace process that brings justice as well as security.

A cessation of hostilities would be just the first step on the road to genuine peace. Israelis and Palestinians have the right to live peacefully within internationally-recognised borders, and without recurring bouts of extreme violence.

We all know how the path to this peace begins: it begins with an immediate ceasefire and the unconditional return of all hostages. Then the world must demand a true and binding negotiation, rejecting meaningless platitudes. Of course this will not be easy: that is why we say that the making of peace requires much more courage than the making of war.

We, the international community, cannot allow Hamas to win. We cannot allow its brutal attacks to undermine any chance of justice for Palestinian people, and so perpetuate a conflict that will soon have lasted for a century. Only by isolating the men of violence on both sides can we ensure that the lives lost during this heart-breaking conflict are the last, and that the hard work of making peace can begin.

‘Summoned, roused, constrained’: Jonathan Wooding on the ‘Quakerish predisposition’ of William Words

‘It is fit for the unchurched, post-truth, twenty-first century pilgrim.’

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) began the poem in 1798, during a rather bleak time of uncertainty while staying with his sister and soul mate Dorothy in Germany. After an extraordinarily eventful young life, Wordsworth asks, ‘Was it for this that my rapturous childhood prepared me!’. What he means by ‘this’ seems to include his present dispiriting circumstances, his questionable achievements to date, and his mood of regret and nostalgia. Crucially, he may also be referring to Coleridge’s conviction that, after the failure of those revolutionary times, William was to write a national, redemptive poem! (This might remind us, of course, of John Milton, who wrote his epic Paradise Lost after the failure of the Cromwellian revolution, ‘to justify the ways of God to men’.)

The first stirrings of The Prelude are evident in a 150-line freestanding apostrophic poem from October 1798. It is, let us imagine, as if Wordsworth is in a Meeting for Clearness, here attended by, say, Coleridge and Dorothy, his late mother Ann, and also the wise old Ann Tyson, the pious woman who raised him after his parents’ deaths. The subject matter includes (oddly enough) the river Derwent (accompanist to ‘my nurse’s song’), and ‘ye beings of the hills’ of Cumberland, as well as ‘ye spirits of the springs’ – ‘Gentle powers, / Who give us happiness and call it peace’. In true worshipful fashion he mentions ‘the eternal spirit – he that has / His life in unimaginable things’. Wordsworth calls on all that is sacred in his life heretofore, the things that are invisible and eternal, and submits his plea: ‘In the light of such experience, what next?’ He wants neither egotistical fantasy, nor disingenuous or preconceived advice in illuminating his destiny – ‘no gentle dreams / Complacent, fashioned fondly to adorn / The time of unrememberable being’. Apparently puritanical and unworldly, he seeks to put aside vain ambitions, ‘the mean and vulgar works of man’. He returns to childhood experiences, and ‘primordial feelings’, and there he discerns not anger and revolutionary fervour, but peace: ‘even yet I feel / Their tranquillizing power.’

Wordsworth never identified as Quaker, of course. It was a daring person who would gainsay Anglicanism at that time, with its hierarchical establishment and power to confer favours, and its fear of revolution. But Wordsworth’s friend and neighbour Thomas Clarkson, the abolitionist (1760-1846), was at that time working on his A Portraiture of Quakerism (1806). Jessica Fay’s book Wordsworth’s Monastic Inheritance: Poetry, place, and the sense of community (2018) demonstrates brilliantly the role Quakerism plays in Wordsworth’s verse, and how Clarkson even drew on this verse in his own understanding of Quakerism: ‘it would be impossible to distinguish between aspects of Wordsworth’s poetry that were influenced by Quakerism and elements of Clarkson’s description of it that were inflected by his own admiration for Wordsworth’s early work.’

Quakers were not welcome at Cambridge University or in the House of Commons, nor open to aristocratic or ecclesiastical preferment. The Quaker position was open to Wordsworth in a manner we might call ‘theopoetic’, but certainly not theologically (and therefore politically) in its usual sense. What we can say is that, in a striking parallel with George Fox’s elected vagabondage, Wordsworth declined the opportunities of the Anglican establishment; it did not ‘speak to the condition’ of this wandering scholar and malcontent. Wordsworth rather protests about the aristocratic culture prevailing at the university:

and over all
Should be a healthy sound simplicity,
A seemly plainness – name it as you will,
Republican, or pious.

This Quakerish predisposition and percipience may not be surprising in one raised in the Lake District at that time. This was ‘one of the most densely populated Quaker areas in England’, according to Heidi Snow’s William Wordsworth and the Theology of Poverty (2013): ‘When Wordsworth walked out the front gate of his new home at Greenend Cottage he would have looked directly at the whitewashed Friends Meeting House’. Wordsworth’s mother Ann had died aged thirty in 1778, his father John aged forty-two, in 1783. He and his brothers lodged from 1779 with Ann Tyson in Ambleside. When the weather was inclement, William later recalled that he would attend the Quaker Meeting house, saving him a drenching on the longer walk to the parish church. It is possible to feel this formative experience in Wordsworth’s verse even when he is describing fell-walking; one might think fell-walking were code for sitting in an illicit dissenters’ meeting for worship!

Gently did my soul
Put off her veil, and self-transmuted stood
Naked as in the presence of her God.
As on I walked, a comfort seemed to touch
A heart that had not been disconsolate;
Strength came where weakness was not known to be,
At least not felt; and restoration came
Like an intruder knocking at the door
Of unacknowledged weariness.

The fragmentary poem ‘Was it for this?’ grows and grows over the next few years. In the 1805 version Wordsworth remembers his time at Cambridge University, ‘Seated with others in a festive ring / Of commonplace convention’. He finds it wanting in terms of the values already instilled in him. All the time, one feels, Wordsworth was rather ‘seated’ in vision in a less ‘commonplace’ ring:

As if awakened, summoned, roused, constrained,
I looked for universal things, perused
The common countenance of earth and heaven,
And turning the mind in upon itself
Pored, watched, expected, listened, spread my thoughts
And spread them with a wider creeping; felt
Incumbencies more awful, visitings
Of the upholder of the tranquil soul,
Which underneath all passion lives secure
A steadfast life. But peace, it is enough
To notice that I was ascending now
To such community with highest truth.

So, what next? Well, over these five reclusive years Wordsworth works passionately on his great confessional poem, never intended for publication. It is the very model of a latter-day spiritual autobiography, the natural revolution of a self-delighting mind. It is fit, I would say, for the unchurched, post-truth, twenty-first century pilgrim, waiting expectantly on clearness and on peace.

Art the Arms Fair hosts successful auction

'£15,000 Raised by Art the Arms Fair in its recent auction.'

The exhibition also saw a ‘first-time exhibited piece by artist Zedsy, (not for auction), and a Vivienne Westwood final print, double signed’ which sold, she said.

Other artists to contribute to the exhibition, called ‘We Ain’t dED Yet’, included Darren Cullen, Gavin Turk, Kyle Goen and KennardPhillips (a collaboration between Peter Kennard and Cat Phillipps). Quaker artist Jill Gibbon, who has spent several years infiltrating DSEI in disguise, also contributed work.

This year’s art was sold to support Demilitarise Education (dED) which co-hosted the event. Carmen Wilson paid tribute to Ksenya Blokhina, an AAF founder, and Zayna Al-Saleh, the curator, ‘for making this event a success’.

In 2018 AAF was awarded The Observer and NESTA ‘New Radicals’ Award. The fair was co-founded in 2017 by Sam Walton, who previously worked for Quaker Peace & Social Witness.

Previous years have seen contributions from Banksy, with his Civilian Drone Strike selling for £205,000 in aid of Campaign Against Arms Trade and Reprieve.

Eye - 10 November 2023

From Oaty outreach to Inventive insertions

Inventive insertions

Eye’s friend Anon-a-mouse has been peeping out to spot ingenious uses of the Friend’s outreach issue.

Nose a-twitching, they told Eye of some creative adaptations: ‘[Friends have] printed an A4 sheet landscape, two columns and then cut it landscape, and threaded a piece through between the staples. This produced a small sheet between the front cover and the contents page, and between the back page and the back cover.

‘The front one has all the basic information of where the Meeting house is and when the Friends worship. The back one says: “We hope you’ve enjoyed reading this magazine.”

‘They are stuffing sixty copies ready for a three-week Quaker Week! Unless they have a time machine I don’t know how they can stretch a week to three times its length. Quaker ingenuity never ceases to amaze me!’

It warms the cockles of Eye’s heart to hear Friends making such use of the outreach issue, as the team pours so much care and effort into making it.

If you have any events coming up and this has inspired you, there are still a few copies available to snaffle! Just give Imogen a call at 0207 663 1178; they cost just £11 for twenty copies!

Seeking sunshine

With inescapably-grim news and the nights drawing in it can be more challenging than ever to find twinkle, but we all need glimmers of light, Friends. What has made you smile this week?

BYM joins call for end to violence in Israel and Palestine

‘We unequivocally condemn the violence carried out by Hamas in Israel on 7 October...The subsequent Israeli military response in Gaza has added enormously to the toll of civilian suffering.'

The joint statement, with other churches including the Methodists and the United Reformed Church, calls on all governments with influence to help bring an immediate end to the violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory.

Convened by Christian Aid, the statement outlines how this could be achieved, including a ceasefire without conditions, and the release of all kidnapped victims. Signatories include Mike Royal, general secretary of Churches Together in England, and Christine Allen, director of CAFOD. Drawing on their experience of working in the region, the signatories call on governments to offer ‘unequivocal support for the International Criminal Court to conduct a truly independent investigation into all war crimes to ensure accountability’.

They also call for unfettered humanitarian access for aid, as urged by the UN, including immediate reconnection to water and electricity.

Governments should ‘acknowledge the failure of the international community to effectively engage with any meaningful peace process and commit to work ceaselessly from now on to address the root causes of the violence which must include an end to the occupation,’ they add.

The statement says: ‘There can be no justification for the deliberate killing, maiming and kidnapping of civilians, which is a crime under international law and for which the perpetrators should be held accountable. We unequivocally condemn the violence carried out by Hamas in Israel on 7 October.’

It adds: ‘The subsequent Israeli military response in Gaza has added enormously to the toll of civilian suffering. Innocent Palestinians are going through an increasingly grave humanitarian crisis as a result.’

Exeter Quakers hold vigil for peace

‘As Quakers we are strongly committed to nonviolent solutions to conflict and do not support the use of force by any side.'

The event on 2 November at the Exeter Peace Tree welcomed ‘people from all faiths and none, supporters of all groups, but without their flags or banners’.

Laura Conyngham, from Exeter Meeting, said, before the event: ‘We shall be standing in solidarity with all those who have been killed or are suffering as a result of war or armed conflict.

‘As Quakers we are strongly committed to nonviolent solutions to conflict and do not support the use of force by any side.

‘For Gaza, we call for a ceasefire and access to aid for the thousands of civilians caught up in the fighting and for negotiations for the return of Israeli hostages.’

Although the ‘impetus’ was ‘the war in the Middle East between Gaza and Israel’, said the Friends, ‘we will also have in our minds all victims of current wars and conflicts, in the war between Ukraine and Russia and in the conflict in the Sudan’.

This Sunday, on 11 November, Exeter Quakers will lay a wreath of white poppies at the invitation of Exeter City Council for the seventh consecutive year at their Remembrance Day Service in Northernhay Gardens. The centrepiece of the wreath will read: ‘In remembrance of all victims of war, past and present.’

Christmas socks for Wandsworth

'HMP Wandsworth holds mostly men on remand, untried or unsentenced, and frequently very shocked and frightened at where they find themselves.’

Liz Bridge, the Quaker chaplain for HM Prison Wandsworth, told the Friend that the ex-inmate, ‘Jordan’ (not his real name), is ‘helping bag up this year’s socks. He told me that he had done many Christmas days in prison and always found it dreadful’.

‘Jordan’ said: ‘You think everyone is having one of those dinners you see on the adverts. I used to cry, but I am used to it now.’

The sock appeal from Wandsworth Prison Welfare Trust (WPWT) follows last year’s appeal for knitted hats so everyone had a woollen hat at Christmas.

‘Our Quaker network was wonderful and we got hats from the Isle of Bute and even New York and Walthamstow,’ said Liz Bridge, who worked with others in 2022 to set up the WPWT to provide small activities and small comforts to men in the prison. ‘This year we are “doing down”! We are going to keep the feet of 1,628 prisoners at HMP Wandsworth a little warmer and perhaps rather jolly.’

‘As you may have heard in the news, HMP Wandsworth is an old building with serious boiler and staffing problems and is one of the biggest prisons in Britain. It holds mostly men on remand, untried or unsentenced, and frequently very shocked and frightened at where they find themselves.’

This tallies with the experience of ‘Jordan’, who said: ‘When we had the “Socks Christmas”, I was sharing with a kid. He had been picked up in Christmas week and had never been inside before, he was so miserable. I was always on watch in case he did anything to himself, but I made him laugh. I kept the bags ‘till Christmas morning and brought them out like a surprise. They were awful socks, one pair had tinsel Father Christmases on them with diamond noses, and another pair were black and enormous. We put them on and felt much more cheerful. He took one of the old prison socks and made it into a glove puppet, and it was a foul-mouthed little beast.’

‘Prison socks are grey and the numbers can be limited,’ said Liz Bridge. ‘So please can you send us a pair of socks – or two – to give out. It really does not matter the size or the colour. We have young men who are delighted with wild socks, and more pedestrian characters who want plain!’

Socks should be posted to Liz Bridge, Quaker chaplain, HMP Wandsworth, Heathfield Road, London SW18 3HU. The charity is also happy to have socks bought online and sent direct. Money instead can be sent via the WPWT website. ‘Once we reach the 20th December, we will count the socks we have and the socks we need, and buy our shortfall,’ said Liz. ‘If we were in the delightful position of having enough real socks, your money would be used for the wind-up radios and reading glasses and art materials we give out weekly.’

Step towards single London AM

‘All the Area Meetings are ready to move.’ London Quakers on the commitment to forming a single Area Meeting for London.

‘All the AMs are ready to move towards creating a single AM for London, though they have varying senses of how fast this should happen,’ said the London Quakers group in a statement.

‘All seven are also willing to proceed towards creating a single charity, with a single trustee body, bringing together the AMs, with most also wanting to include London Quakers Property Trust and London Quakers. It is clear that there is much worship, threshing and discernment still to be done among all the Friends of London as we develop this proposal further.’
The Pan London Governance (PLG) Steering Group met on 12 October to consider the responses and next steps. More information can be found on the London Quakers website and PLG page (https://londonquakers.org.uk).

Light work: David Harries reports from CCQW

‘I was impressed by the volume and variety of work we got through.’

The indefatigable Lesley Richards, who has helped pilot our ‘Symud Ymlaen/Moving Forwards’ process, reflected on three years of work. She reported that we are ‘inching’ towards registration of the new charity, ‘Cymar’, with the Charity Commission, on behalf of Crynwyr Cymru/Quakers in Wales (CCQW) and our four Area Meetings. ‘Cymar’ means ‘companion’, but it can also be seen as ‘Cymru+Marches’. Lesley pointed out that similar processes are taking place across Scotland and England.

We also covered items such as: communications among ourselves; outreach (including at the National Eisteddfod); relationships with Churches in Wales; our reporting to Meeting for Sufferings (MfS); and our cooperation with other bodies on peace and sustainability. With regard to the latter, our Advocacy and Support Circle has been set up to enable the Quaker voice to be heard. We are signed up to Climate Cymru, and we have a Sustainability Panel. All our Meetings are encouraged to sign up to Climate Cymru, too.

In response to the Yearly Meeting’s consultation on membership, our clerks sent a minute from our CYFAN network (Children, Youth and Families All-age Network) to MfS urging that: ‘in considering changes in membership arrangements, BYM should be mindful of the need to celebrate and recognise the sense of belonging, connection and commitment to Quakerism of young children and young people.’

We have asked our children and young people for their ideas on sustainability issues. Helen Oldridge, our local development worker, has suggested that we think of this like an online scrapbook, with text, pictures, film and source material both spiritual and physical, in both languages, reflective of Wales’ values and concerns. This would be easily accessible and inspirational, and could be added to by Friends, young and old, from across Wales. Helen has produced a mock-up of what such a scrapbook, or ‘padlet’, could look like: https://tinyurl.com/ccqwpadlet.

In the afternoon, we had an illuminating update by Catherine James and Stevie Krayer on the work of the Book of Discipline Revision Committee. Much attention is being paid to ensuring that the language is accessible. The wording of quotations will not be altered. Catherine and Stevie appealed to us to suggest Welsh passages.

I give thanks for the scope of the work undertaken, too much to cover here, on the day and between Meetings.

Unhanded: Lucy Pollard offers some reflections on living and dying

‘Dust returns to dust. And yet. And yet.’

Years ago, I volunteered with a domiciliary hospice service. Every case needed – and received – compassionate attention and loving kindness, but the one that is lodged in my memory is that of a family in which the children, whose young father was dying, were the same age as my own.

So Z and her family have been very much in my thoughts. I hope that her children will have things to remember her by, and that their father will be able to talk to them about her. I hope that she was able to go gently through the door of death, lovingly held by her family.

A few days after I heard about her, just as I was on the edge of going to sleep at night, a picture came into my head: there was a field with a pond in it, and children playing. On one side was a deep forest, into which a young woman, whose face I could not see, was walking alone. When the image recurred to me the following day, I was angry with myself that I hadn’t offered the young woman a torch. Perhaps, my friend said, my prayers were a torch. I hope so.

My mother died in her early sixties, after an accident, when her life support system was turned off. All of her six children were at her bedside, but it was a brutally short goodbye to a person who, until a couple of days earlier, had been totally engaged with living and present to her family. My father died in his nineties, still lucid but gradually fading away. None of the six of us arrived in time to be with him, but we had already been saying a long goodbye. My stepmother was with him, so he did not die alone.

For the six of us, being at my mother’s bedside when she died was very important, but how was it for her? She was deeply unconscious. I have read that even in such circumstances, if you play familiar music, the dying person’s breathing may tune itself to the rhythm of the music. Perhaps we should have played my mother Mozart or Schubert, but we didn’t think to do so. We did talk, both to her and among ourselves. Did the sound of loved voices soothe her? I can only hope so.

I am not afraid of being dead, but I am afraid of the process of dying: I hope someone I love will be there to walk beside me as far as they can. The idea of ‘death midwives’ seems to me a wonderful one, most of all for those who are alone in the world or whose nearest and dearest are perhaps at a distance.

The birth of a baby is a miracle: here is a new person – different from any of the billions that have been born before – taking up her or his own space in the world. When a person dies, it is like a negative of the same image: there is a space where there was a person, but the person no longer inhabits it. Sometimes it’s hard to believe they have really gone: for months after my mother died, whenever the phone rang, for a split second I would think I was going to hear her voice, explaining why she’d been delayed.

We carry our loved dead with us in all sorts of ways, in our memories and in how we are who we are because of them. What is bitterly hard to live with becomes something different over time, as overwhelming sorrow and distress change gradually into an ability to cherish our memories and be glad to have them. As Sasha Moorsom wrote: ‘I hold dead friends like jewels in my hand’.

The idea of life after death makes no sense to me personally, either scientifically or spiritually. I feel that mind and spirit are not separable from body. I am content to think that I am part of the cycle of life as described by Wordsworth:

No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course
With rocks, and stones, and trees.

I love the words of one of the lesser-known Roman poets, Propertius, who wrote ‘What I am, one hand may be able to lift’. Dust returns to dust. And yet. And yet, I remember also the phrase used by another friend to describe his outlook: the ‘absolute perhaps’.

Does the spirit merge with something larger? Perhaps. What is certain is that our loved dead live on in us in some way. Human beings can only experience things through the lens of time, but those loved people were alive and are no less real, and no less loved, for being dead.

The words of The Observer’s art critic Laura Cumming, writing about her father, speak to me: ‘I once glimpsed a picture by my father framed in the upper window of a house as I passed by on a bus, and it suddenly seemed to be leading a separate life of its own, nothing to do with me. Some days this is how he seems to me too, apparently dead for over thirty years but still thinking hard somewhere else’ (Thunderclap: A memoir of art and life and sudden death, 2023).

What is important for me, now, is to seize the moment, to live until I die. I can’t speak for those I love, but that’s what I hope for them too, as well as a kind death when the time comes.

Late blooming: Barrie Mahoney tackles the subject of terminal illness and assisted dying

‘The option should be there.’

Don’t misunderstand me, I currently have no intention of going anywhere and, of course, I am determined to prove the doctors wrong. Despite the bravado that cancer sufferers often display, in those dark hours of the night, like so many in my position, I often wonder how I will deal with those last few days and hours.

It’s not death that troubles me, but the pain, loss of dignity, loss of independence, and the burden that it places upon others – particularly those that are closest – that troubles me most.

In response to my many questions about the issue, my consultant assures me that there will be drugs available to ease any pain (I note the word ‘ease’ and not ‘eliminate’). Nursing support, or indeed a hospice place, would be available if necessary. Despite his well-meaning, kindly, confident assurance, I am not so sure. I know that our local hospice is only accepting terminally-ill patients in the final day or two of impending death. This restriction is due to capacity, funding and staffing issues, which I find alarming since one’s date of death is difficult to determine accurately. Such is the demand for such places that a peaceful end to one’s life in the hospice is not assured, given the lottery of admission and appropriate care. Personally, I would like to die at home, surrounded by people that I love in a place that I feel comfortable. But I know that this may not be possible, or sensible, when the time comes.

So, what’s the answer? To me, it is very clear. Would we let a dog or cat – or indeed any animal – suffer from an incurable illness when we could see that they are in pain or distress? For most people, the answer would be ‘No, of course not’. Would we not try to ease their pain and to make their end as comfortable as possible in a place where they feel loved and secure? (I accept that there is a very different morality when it comes to the appalling treatment of farm animals and their slaughter.) Can we not offer the same compassion to humans, too?

I sometimes wonder if I would be happy to spend around £10,000, if I could afford it, for a one-way flight to the Dignitas Clinic in Switzerland. There I could decide to end my life legally, with a couple of tablets, and at a time and manner of my choosing. Of course, this option is a non-starter for most people, but more enlightened governments in the Netherlands, Belgium and elsewhere have made it much easier for assisted dying to take place in their countries, and this is being seriously considered in many others.

The issue is once again being debated in the UK parliament, and I truly hope that it will not be too long before the UK recognises that it is now time for compassion to be at the heart of a new law to allow assisted dying.

There are often well-stated and passionate arguments relating to the prevention of abuse. Some fear relatives who might be anxious to get their hands on the sick person’s estate. But protections can be, and are, put in place to prevent such abuse in other countries, so why not in the UK?

Although Quakers have not at this stage of the debate definitively stated their collective, discerned view, there are numerous and often reasonable objections from many religious bodies that are already being carefully considered in this debate. But what I do object to is the view that assisted dying is ‘against God’s will’, and as such is regarded as a sin. As a Quaker, I find it hard to balance a loving God, the Spirit, or Whatever, wishing to prolong our pain and misery. This is a view that I personally find difficult to take seriously. It is for this reason that I would like to see well meaning, but often dogmatic, clerics removed from this parliamentary debate, and replaced with informed views from the dying, or the medical profession, as well as lawmakers who have dealt with a similar challenge in other countries.

A young friend of mine has mouth cancer. He has lost his tongue and can no longer eat or speak, and he grows weaker by the day. Over the years that I have known him, we have shared a love of growing orchids. I send messages to him regularly, together with a photo of one of his favourite blooms when I discover a new one to share. Although he is seriously ill, I know that he does not want his life to be ended while his pain his under control, yet the option should be there if and when he can take no more.

If an assisted dying bill were to be eventually passed by the UK parliament, I doubt that patients would be queuing up at the doors asking for their lives to be ended immediately. The will to live is very strong in most of us, despite suffering from some truly dreadful health conditions. I meet and speak to many patients in the cancer ward, as well as online, and I know of very few who would request assisted dying at their stage of illness.

Recent proposals suggest that it is only in the last six months of a terminal condition that the right to an assisted death should be agreed. Many believe that such restrictions are unnecessary given the wide range of serious health conditions and circumstances, but it would be a start.

Garden lessons

Poem by Jennie Osborne

Outside the trellised fence, the frontline
of everyday commits its careless tragedies
and restless feet itch to soldier
in its last chance campaign.

There is more than one way
of banging the drum for the right to be alive.
A woman might sit, on an hour’s furlough,
letting a lime green nugget germinate
in her mind’s mulched maze, look up and see
pinpricks of tomorrow’s colour peppering
the raked earth.

Outside a horsebox is towed from one
worn field to another, while a radio without
a time signature waltzes on in ignorance
of the five o’clock news.

There is more than one way
of dipping into the weed-threaded pool
of stillness. Sometimes a woman might
carry it with her on the streets, a prayer
behind a drum. Sometimes it is her hand
that marches over a page, each word
exploding, a grenade of fearless roses,
over the futile fence.

Letters - 10 November 2023

From Prayers for peace to Sacred gifts

Australian Quaker position

I congratulate Tony D’Souza on his article on the ‘Voice’ referendum in Australia (27 October). He has obviously studied the legislation on Aboriginal relations much more than many who voted.

From my experience, however, the title ‘Splitting the vote’ did not apply to any Quaker groups I was familiar with. All, as far as I was able to judge, voted substantially if not unanimously ‘Yes’.

The Australian Quaker position was expressed in the statement signed by the presiding clerk that can be read at https://www.quakersaustralia.info/news/quakers-support-statement-heart-and-voice-parliament.

David Swain

Armistice day

My idea for Armistice day: ‘The day of reconciliation and peace-making.’ Hang a large white poppy on your front door. Try crepe to make one.

Judith Wright

Held accountable

I note in the reports of settler violence in the West Bank (usually compounded by Israel Defence Forces) that the villages which are attacked are named, but not the settlements from which the attackers come.

Close to Nablus are two particularly aggressive settlements, Bracha and Yitzhar, known for their extreme views and their violence. It would be good to see them named so that some day perhaps they could be held accountable.

I’d like to add that I have personal experience of an attack from Yitzhar while picking olives with a Palestinian family.

Caroline Pickard

Latin and Greek

I read the letter from Keith Denerley (6 October) with interest, but scratched my head remembering my long-forgotten schoolboy Latin.

I’m sure I won’t be the only Friend reader writing in about this, and am sure that many will have much greater Bible study knowledge than me.

‘Peccatum’ is neuter, the plural is ‘peccata’. So I have always thought of it (and sung in choir many times) as Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi – Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

Why in the King James Bible it is singular ‘sin’ rather than plural ‘sins’ (John 1:29) I have no idea. (The next day, John seeth Jesus comming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lambe of God, which taketh away the sinne of the world.)

I’m sure others can enlighten me. (It’s all Greek to me… is it perhaps due to a difference between Greek and Latin?)

Charles Hadfield

Online/in the room

Following on from Kate Gulliver’s plea (13 October) to rethink use of the term ‘in person’, I’d like to ask the clerks at Yearly Meeting (YM) to reconsider their wording when calling for ministry from someone who is attending online.

At present, for ministry from someone in the room, the clerk will say something like ‘Please take the microphone to the person in blue at the back’.

For ministry from someone who is online, however, they are much more abrupt saying ‘Please unmute [Friend’s name]’.
I ask the YM clerks to consider saying ‘Please enable the microphone for [Friend’s name]’ or some other suitable phrase.

Moyra Carlyle

Find common ground

Ol Rappaport, from Ealing Meeting, where I worship, has shared his concern that Israel is spoken about unfairly (28 September). The dismissive response he has had to his concern, in the letters pages of the Friend, is likely to only reinforce his concern.

Many people of different backgrounds and faiths are in pain and are fearful as a result of the situation in Palestine and Israel. We should listen to all those who want to speak and seek to find common ground. If we discourage the sharing of honest opinion, then we are not working for peace.

James Priestman

Sacred gifts

I am glad that you published the letter from Ruth Wilkinson (13 October). That Friend speaks my mind.

It is really important that Friends House staff understand they are not Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) in session and they may not make statements such as ‘Quakers believe…’ without BYM discernment.

I hope Paul Parker will correct this or else there is a risk of enquirers or visitors turning up at a Local Meeting, expecting a ‘party line’, only to be disappointed – or even disillusioned – to find a disparity of views.

I also hope that action can be taken to prevent such misinformation in future.

Margaret Everitt

Quakers talk about it a lot, but what actually is discernment? Roy Stephenson offers his thoughts

‘All Quaker work has a prophetic function.’

Quaker discernment is a group activity. It lies at the heart of every Quaker committee’s work, even though we often feel we can take shortcuts which cut it out entirely, or else disregard its promptings. We practise it best in Meetings for Worship, Meetings for Worship for Business, and Meetings for Clearness. This implies that it takes discipline, because if we put into practice our much-repeated mantra of ‘that of God in everyone’ the other person is just as likely to be inspired as we are. Discipline, then, implies the humility to listen, both to the other person’s words, and to the place from which the other person’s words arise. This may, or may not, be a spiritual inspiration, so we need discernment to distinguish between what’s inspired, and what’s not.

Fortunately, as we’re part of a group we don’t need to do it all ourselves. It’s just as well, because discernment is a family of talents, not just one. I might be good at one part of it, you at another. So what makes up this family?

Well, it all depends on how you describe it. Just as there are multiple ways to cut up a cake, so there are multiple ways to describe what constitutes discernment. Currently I’m cutting up the cake into these portions:

Prayer

I’m not talking about offering our words, the things that we want, to a Someone Out There. Prayer is about holy listening, what Advices & queries describes as taking heed ‘to the promptings of love and truth’. Prayer means relinquishing our mistaken notions of personal control, and being willing to do what God, or the situation, demand. It often means a struggle to put aside personal wants, and accept what must be done. It may come at much personal cost. Think of Jesus in Gethsemane, or the ‘Great Renunciation’ of the Buddha.

Realism

This is about understanding the bigger picture. It means taking into account an enormous range of factors, which may affect the situation in which we live. This can range from climate change through to the ages of the people in our spiritual community and their many other commitments, via foreign wars, the state of local and national politics, public transport and many other factors that need to be considered at any one time.

But realism also demands a closer focus. When we ask a Friend to do something for their Meeting community, we need to know just what we’re asking them to consider doing, so we also need to have a fairly accurate and up-to-date description of what’s needed. Otherwise, Friends may ask for release much earlier than if they had known better what the work entailed.

When we think of nominations committees in particular, the other close focus concerns the nominees themselves. Realistically, how many Friends are there who could do this work? What are their lives like: work? Family commitments? Voluntary activities? There may be many other factors that need to be known, which vary from time to time, and from Meeting to Meeting, to enable a nominations committee to function at its best.

Integrity

Friends often talk about ‘truth’, but I’m not happy with that. These days ‘truth’ is often equated with ‘fact’, and integrity is about so much more. Facts are value-free and objective: I can state them, you can state them. The fact that so many migrants crossed the English Channel last year in small boats does not imply that any one course of action should therefore be followed. What we decide to do about it depends on our values, and it is this which means we act either with, or without, integrity. Integrity, then, shows in our actions. It is about how we live, and how we put our values into practice.

Future-focussed

All Quaker work has a prophetic function. That is to say, it involves looking at present needs from a future perspective. Nothing we do now should be done solely with today’s needs in mind, still less yesterday’s. When it comes to the things for which Friends have been known in the wider society, like our stance on slavery, or the death penalty, or climate change, we customarily speak with a prophetic voice, yet we often forget that we need to apply the same perspective to what we ourselves do within and for our own Meetings. But, Friends, it’s not just the others who need to pay attention to the voice of the prophet… it’s putting what we preach into personal practice.

Empathy

When we ask a particular Friend to perform some service for the Meeting, we need to imaginatively enter that Friend’s life and consider what the effects of asking them to do this may be. Clearly, we cannot know all the circumstances of each other’s lives, still less the inner life on which each of us draws as we face the world. That is why a sympathetic imagination is so important. It’s the other side of the coin from realism – and without realism, imagination and empathy are only the making-up of fairy stories.

Love

I’m with Paul the apostle on this: without love, we are nothing, virtue has gone out from us. Friends sometimes seem to think it’s a virtue to be aggressively forthright in speaking what they consider to be truth, but any truth so spoken can only be at best a small portion of full truth. A complete Truth must be capitalised! So, to take my own advice, truth must begin, for people of faith, from the conviction that this universe is an outpouring of Divine Love, which in the Society we encapsulate as ‘that of God in everyone’. If we try to speak truth in anger, or aggressively, we forget that the person we address is made in the Divine Image – and we also forget that we are, too.

This means that nothing we do should be done by rote. We need to spend time lovingly upholding our Meeting, the people who serve us, and the people who surround them. Then we will come to serve our Meetings in their true purpose, and not merely fill vacant posts. For a nominations committee, bringing forward a nomination may be the end of the work, but it is not its purpose. Its purpose is the living-out of Divine Love, and making that Love obvious to everyone we touch. If our committees do things which prevent the living-out of Divine Love, no matter how efficient they seem to be, they have failed.

I’ve left love until the end because it’s properly speaking the culmination of all we are trying to do. I repeat, our aim is not to ensure that the structures of the Society continue to operate. Our aim is to make the Divine Image more obvious in the world, and we cannot do that unless we live a loving life, because love is the face of God.

Walking wounded: Dana Smith’s Thought for the week

‘Our willingness to be vulnerable is linked to our ability to love.’

In Israel, in Gaza, Christ stands wounded, asking us ‘Put your hand in my side. Feel this reality of being human’. Standing alongside the wounded, feeling our wounds, can be an agonising act. Many of us, in our daily disputes, in our wars, react first and feel only fleetingly. Who wants to wait on the Hill of the Skulls, weep in the garden of Gesthemane, or walk in the way of sorrows? Yet our willingness to be vulnerable is linked to our ability to love. And be loved. If we were impenetrable, would the heart rejoice or weep?

One of the terrible graces of pain may be that it brings us inextricably into the moment. We are alive. We are here. It may be beyond hard, yet here and now are the only places I can make change. Or be changed.

This week a Friend brought three texts to our Openings session, a place to reflect before Meeting for Worship. First, the Sufi Hadrat Ali (598-661 CE), who wrote, ‘Faith is the source of my power… Sorrow is my friend… Love is the foundation of my existence.’ The words echo my Quaker belief. What would it be if I devoted myself to living them?

Then Jonathan Wittenberg, a rabbi: ‘The Shema prayer, the most basic declaration of Jewish faith – Hear O Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is One – is also an appeal to bear witness… To testify to the unity of God is to bear witness to God’s image in every human life; to hurt or to destroy other lives, or to be indifferent to their pain, is to violate God’s presence in them and to hold God’s oneness in contempt.’

Finally Miguel D’Escoto, Sandinista foreign minister and priest: ‘I do not believe that nonviolence is something you can arrive at rationally. We can develop it as a spirituality and can obtain the grace necessary to practice it.’

To not react immediately to any situation, much less a terrible one, must be more than a grace, it is discipline. Hard-won. Daily practised.

Viktor Frankl, the Holocaust survivor, learned that there was something no one could take from him in the Nazi concentration camp. He was free to choose how he would respond to any act, to any violation. To learn such a discipline, to practice it, seems a holy vocation.

What if in this present war in Israel, the entire population reformed their concept of victory? The friends of Dorin Atias, a young woman killed in a kibbutz, are planning to rebuild their community as a sign that ‘peace and love are more powerful than terror’. Perhaps in living their pain, they are transcending failed human law. Maybe something new is being inscribed into the fibres of their being. Maybe they know trauma is healed by bearing our grief; only then can it be born and released. Perhaps they can teach us all that our victories also include our deepest sorrows.

As the psalm goes: ‘Happy are they who, passing through the valley of weeping, make it a place of springs’ (Psalm 84). May I as a Quaker make this my faith. And my practice.

Leap in the dark: Alastair McIntosh looks for inner life

‘Let not the occasion go to waste.’

Meanwhile, almost as if it is a metaphor for the way times are going, the clocks are going back, bringing a sense of evening darkness closing in.

It could all be doom and gloom: but not so fast!

In Scotland in the past, the bardic schools of poetry were held in darkest winter when the inner life comes most alive: for ‘poetry is not a luxury’ said the African American writer Audre Lorde, explaining that poetry represents the light, and that ‘the quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives’, directly affects ‘the changes which we hope to bring about through those lives’.

Her words came back to me on Monday night. My wife, Vérène, is French, and she was on a call to her brother in Paris. He surprised her, saying that the state of things just now had made it dawn on him just what it is we’ve lost. We’ve lost the reverence for life, and the ability to find its beauty in nature and community. In a word, he said, we’ve lost the spirituality that makes everything join up.

I found myself thinking of a song called ‘Melancholy Man’, in a chart-topping Moody Blues LP from 1970, and the words:

When all the stars are falling down
Into the sea and on the ground
And angry voices carry on the wind…

It’s at this very point, goes the song, that:

A beam of light will fill your head
And you’ll remember what’s been said
By all the good men this world’s ever known

Good men, good women ... and so back round to Audre Lorde’s reminder, of ‘the quality of the light’. A darkness might be on the world, but let not the occasion go to waste. For as John’s gospel has it: that beam of light, is the life of humankind, ‘and the darkness did not overcome it’.

Ashes and diamonds

Poem by Roger Iredale

What histories hammered on the anvil of untruth
are broken under tablets hacked from stone? What
fake memories are conjured for the yet unborn?

The yet unborn: hopeful, helpless, hungry for joy,
they grow below the ferment of the times, reach
fibres, roots, networks, branches, leaves above.

Now is the time for wisdom, truth, the power to challenge
ancient orthodoxies, the sagas of interminable pasts
and unkind words. To touch the diamonds of the new.

BYM hosts reparations conference

'The issue of reparations is really gaining momentum; it does feel like we are moving.’

The conference, at Friends House in Euston, brought together parliamentarians, campaigners, institutions and others to discuss reparations and the continued exploitation of peoples of African descent across the world.

Hosted as part of ongoing Quaker discernment on how to make meaningful reparations for the trans-Atlantic slave trade and colonialism, the free conference featured sessions on issues related to reparatory justice from education to environmental justice.

Edwina Peart, the inclusion and diversity coordinator for BYM, said: ‘It was wonderful that we were able to share our building in this way. The issue of reparations is really gaining momentum; it does feel like we are moving.’

The conference showed increasing collaboration, she added, encompassing, not just reparations to Caribbean nations affected by the slave trade, but the impact on African countries.

‘For example, the Caricom group of Caribbean nations, whose ten-point plan for reparations was discussed at the conference, are to meet with the African Union to discuss their view of the issue,’ Edwina Peart said.

Speakers included Diane Abbott MP; Kwame Kwei-Armah, artistic director of the Young Vic; and Kimani Nehusi, a professor at Temple University.
Siobhán Haire, the deputy recording clerk for BYM, also contributed to a panel discussing the complex history of churches in enslavement of African peoples and the need to decolonise the aid sector.

The APPG-AR, founded in 2021 and chaired by Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP, brings together parliamentarians, campaigners and communities. It explores policy proposals on reparations and development and how best to redress the legacies of African enslavement and colonialism.

Quakers oppose Telford Arms Fair

‘The kind of technology and equipment touted at the SDSC is associated with destruction and oppression right now.’

In an open letter to the Telford International Centre (TIC), which hosted the arms fair on 2 November, local Quakers and other peace groups noted concerns that SDSC exhibitors included companies ‘linked to the Saudi-led coalition’s war in Yemen and the resulting humanitarian crisis, to anti-democratic surveillance and repression, and to the drone bombings, night raids and the killing of civilians in many countries’.

The open letter, presented to the TIC on 13 October and calling for the cancellation of the arms fair, said: ‘This is not just another industry show. SDSC-UK is part of the destructive global arms trade which drives armed conflict, oppression and human rights abuses around the world.’

‘We strongly object to an arms fair being held in Telford,’ said Ellis Brooks, Britain Yearly Meeting staff member and Bridgnorth resident. ‘The kind of technology and equipment touted at the SDSC is associated with destruction and oppression right now.’

Fiona McCleary, a Telford resident, said: ‘This deadly trade consumes over $100,000 billion every year which could be used for so many human needs around the world. According to [a 2022 estimate by international experts] an estimated 5.5 per cent of global warming emissions come from militarism. It really doesn’t match our values in Telford.’

After campaigners raised awareness of the arms fair, a popular grassroots live music venue in Southwater cancelled the arms fair’s booking for ‘welcome drinks & nibbles’ planned for the evening before the event.

On the day, Friends joined the regular midweek Meeting for Worship at The Octagon, Meeting Point House, in Telford town centre, and then travelled together to the nearby site of the arms fair, for a half-hour Meeting for Worship for witness.

Other Friends shared leaflets and protested as the delegates arrived and left in the morning and afternoon.

The Stop SDSC open letter is published online and was sent to the TIC by email and on social media, but, according to the campaigners, by 13 October, they had not received a response from the exhibition centre’s management. Campaigners then chose to hand-deliver the letter.

Chichester Quakers host interfaith prayer service

'This was a powerful occasion, at which spells of contemplative silence were broken by readings and prayers from the heart.'

Chichester Friends said: ‘As far as we are aware this is a first for Chichester. The evening began and ended with glorious and moving music from the Volya Choir, a group of Ukrainian women… People wept. No one in the room can have wished for peace more than the Volyas, or the Bahá’í originally from Iran. This was a powerful occasion, at which spells of contemplative silence were broken by readings and prayers from the heart. It was not the power of the tank or machine gun, but that of simple togetherness and hope.’

‘The Church of the Latter Day Saints put it well,’ they added. ‘Each citizen furthers the cause of peace when he or she keeps the commandments of God and lives at peace with family and neighbours. Such citizens are living the prayer expressed in the words of the popular song “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me”.

‘These times seem dark but the vast majority of people throughout the world live peacefully together. We must hope that such a peace can spread even further.’

As well as Quakers, attendees included: ‘Moslems, a Catholic, a Bahá’í, the Church of Latter day Saints, the abbot of Chithurst’s Buddhist Monastery, the United Reformed Church, a Unitarian, and more whose identity we do not know.’

A Quaker at the event quoted Isaiah: ‘There is to be a time when “nation shall not lift up a sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more.”’

Quaker advice to teachers on Israel and Palestine

'When conflict escalates in Israel and Palestine, antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents increase.'

The rise points ‘to a thirst for understanding,’ writes Ellis Brooks, peace education coordinator for BYM, in a post on the Quakers in Britain website, outlining how educators can respond to events in Palestine and Israel.

Recent years have seen a fall-off in teaching of the Arab-Israeli conflict in England, he notes, and, in 2018, Education Scotland was pressured to unpublish resources on the subject for schools.

‘Sadly, there is hate and bullying in schools. When conflict escalates in Israel and Palestine, antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents increase. Teachers, parents, and carers will be concerned about intolerance in their communities and how they navigate these challenges and prevent harm.’
The article details what the government is telling schools. ‘The Education Secretary Gillian Keegan, has written to schools in England reminding them to challenge behaviour that celebrates violence or stigmatises others. She also highlighted schools’ duty to impartiality. Keegan condemned the Hamas attacks and expressed government’s solidarity with Israel. Essential messages, although incomplete,’ writes Ellis Brooks.

New Faith Museum features Quaker teacup

‘It would be the first museum in England to explore a history of faith and belief in the British Isles from prehistory to the present day, using personal histories of faith through rare and compelling objects.’

The item was loaned by Friends House Library to the new museum project at Auckland Castle in Bishop Auckland, County Durham.

Writing on the Quaker Strongrooms blog, Melissa Atkinson describes how she has been involved in the project since August 2014, when one of the project curators contacted her about the development of the Faith Museum. She writes: ‘It would be the first museum in England to explore a history of faith and belief in the British Isles from prehistory to the present day, using personal histories of faith through rare and compelling objects.’

A long list of potential objects to loan was eventually narrowed down to an ‘abolitionist’ teacup and saucer with direct links to the North East. According to Melissa Atkinson, ‘the teacup and saucer were part of a larger tea set owned by Quakers Joseph Taylor (1783-1860) and Elizabeth [nee Harris] (1788-1873) and their twelve children, of Middlesbrough. The family boycotted sugar produced on plantations using slave labour. This tea set and others like it helped raised awareness of the issues and promoted the campaign.’

The teacup and saucer are made of bone china with a transfer print made circa 1820-30 from Staffordshire potteries. Many Quakers joined the campaign to boycott the products of enslavement, such as dyes, cotton and sugar.

‘We’re delighted that a museum object from our collections, with an interesting story shedding light on Quaker witness, can now be on display so close to where it was owned by a Quaker family,’ says Melissa Atkinson.

Taking care: Mary Woodward on the Mental Health Fund

‘I was able to lay down a burden I’d been carrying for decades.’

One Sunday some time later, I found myself bursting into floods of tears on three separate occasions. I had thought that I was pretty OK, but this suggested that I was probably not as OK as I thought. Mindful of my friend’s experience, I sent a quick email to the Quaker Mental Health Fund, outlining my situation and wondering whether I would qualify for their short-term therapy sessions.

The following day I received an email saying, ‘Mary, this is exactly what the sessions are designed for’. I filled in the attached form and by the Wednesday had got an appointment with one of their therapists. The six sessions, spread over a number of weeks, enabled me to look at my life and identify the things that were causing me so much (di)stress, and also work out strategies to help prevent similar meltdowns in future. These strategies were put to the test – I was unexpectedly hospitalised before I had had my final session, and was very grateful for all I had learned about looking after and protecting myself and learning to say ‘no’.

If that were all, I would have reason enough to be grateful to the Quaker Mental Health Fund, but the story doesn’t end there. I realised during a visit to my daughter that I still had serious unresolved issues around my divorce some decades ago. I tried unsuccessfully to get free counselling sessions near where I live – my income is not big – so I thought I’d approach the Fund and see if they could help.

The short-term counselling sessions are a ‘one-off’ offer, but I was told that each individual applicant could receive up to £1,000 from the Fund, so there was still some money I could use to fund some sessions. I was offered sessions with a therapist near where I live, but I preferred to reconnect with the therapist I’d seen previously – I found it most helpful that she already knew me.

Without going into detail, I have to say the sessions were little short of miraculous. With a lot of hard work on my part, and kindly and loving support on my therapist’s, I was able to lay down a burden I’d been carrying for decades – and, incidentally, experience a ‘knock-on’ effect on other difficult relationships. It was amazingly freeing, and I am extremely grateful to the Fund.

Do, please, bear in mind that help exists. It’s not a sign of weakness to ask for it. You don’t have to suffer alone!

Quaker Mental Health Fund can be contacted at: www.quakermhfund.uk; 07395 565 428; or grants@quakermhfund.uk.

Gender assignment: Abigail Maxwell on what it would take to offer a truly welcoming space

‘Much reporting on trans is propaganda.’

I am a woman. I have no idea why I feel this, any more than a lesbian might know why she is attracted to women. I know my transition is an expression of my inner light, which helps me escape the rigid control of my childhood into increasingly-free responsiveness that friends find beautiful.

In the most recent England and Wales census, 48,000 people identified as trans women, 48,000 as trans men, and 30,000 as nonbinary; 262,000 said their gender identity was different from the gender assigned at birth. This is a tiny proportion of the population. Can society accommodate people with an experience of ourselves so different from most people’s? Do we recognise that complex humans do not fit rigid binary classifications? If so, everyone benefits, as everyone’s idiosyncrasies might be acceptable too. Or, do we allow the political establishment to make trans people an ‘out-group’ that it is acceptable to hate and fear, alongside asylum seekers and climate protesters?

Anyone who honestly says she is a woman, is one. We know who we are.

Trans women are entitled to use women’s services from the moment we decide to transition. So says the Equality Act, and the statutory code of practice the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published in 2011. This remains an authoritative statement of the law. If predatory males wanted to use trans rights as a pretext to enter women’s services, they would be there already. So the scaremongering about gender recognition reform – that it would allow predators into women’s services – is false.

The Scotsman newspaper printed an advertisement claiming ‘Self-ID gives predators the green light’, fomenting fear of sexual crime if Scottish gender recognition were enacted. Imagine how horrific that is for trans people. Ordinary people detest alleged sexual predators, and may attack them. Increasingly, we live in fear. A man in the street shouted at me, ‘I’ll kill you, you fucking poof. You need killing.’ A New Zealand tribunal ruled it would be ‘unduly harsh’ to return a trans woman to the UK after she outran her residence permit. I have considered claiming asylum in Dublin.

There were three consultations on the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, showing overwhelming support from Scottish civil society, including the Church of Scotland, trade unions, Scottish Women’s Aid, and Rape Crisis Scotland. The bill passed the Scottish parliament with a huge majority, of all parties except the Conservatives.

Sexual predators have not used trans rights to enter women’s services, but the Westminster government, without evidence, asserted that they might, in its order blocking the bill.

Reporting on the Scottish government’s court petition against that order, the BBC claimed the issue was ‘what it means to be a man or a woman’. That is false. The issue is the Westminster government’s powers to block Scottish legislation. The judge will not define ‘woman’. But the BBC’s account implies women’s rights could be reduced if the definition of ‘woman’ changes. I believe I have found many examples of BBC journalists showing prejudice against trans people and trans rights.

False, trans-excluding interpretations of the law are widespread, including from the EHRC. In 2022 the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions recommended that the EHRC address its vulnerability to political influence in recruitment and funding, and work with civil society organisations including those supporting LGBTI+ people and asylum seekers. The EHRC has failed to do so.

Much reporting on trans is propaganda. When Abertay University investigated allegations that Lisa Keogh had expressed transphobic prejudice, she sued them. The Sheriff dismissed the case as having no basis in law, but The Times published eight adulatory articles about her, including one reporting that she was standing in local elections. She came tenth.

There is a vast amount of money available for anti-trans campaigning. Allison Bailey, a barrister, raised half a million pounds to sue her chambers for objecting to her anti-trans tweets, and won £22,000. The Guardian reported this as a victory for freedom of thought and expression. Bailey failed to get judgment against Stonewall, the LGBTI+ charity, whose Diversity Champions scheme advises employers about LGBTI+ rights in work, so that employers do not breach those rights and become liable to a claim. Success against Stonewall would have made employers wary of seeking their advice, greatly reducing the charity’s funds. The government calls on the NHS and other employers to leave Diversity Champions.

Anti-trans campaigners work to prevent trans people from transitioning, and to exclude trans women from women’s services, but they rarely mention trans itself. Instead, they use a code which Quakers should be aware of, so you can challenge it. For example, they say they want ‘biological men’ excluded, as if cis men generally might enter, or being trans does not matter. Or, they claim ‘sex-based rights’, women’s rights from a rigid definition of biological sex, excluding trans women. Slogans like ‘Sex matters’ or ‘Sex is real’ reinforce their belief that they respect a reality that trans allies wilfully deny, but trans people exist.

Some groups claim to want to ‘protect girls’, but this can mean preventing trans boys and nonbinary children from expressing themselves in their true gender, and encouraging other pupils to refuse to use their pronouns. One had three demands for the local elections, all of which related to trans exclusion. Some Quakers thought they were a women’s rights group – anti-trans campaigners try to make their work sound innocuous and reasonable, to anyone not affected by their fear and hate.

Yes, fear and hate. If I use a women’s loo, I go into a private cubicle then wash and dry my hands. Sometimes I adjust my makeup. It affects nobody else. But some are so triggered by trans women’s mere existence that they work constantly to exclude us, getting enraged on social media, though they rarely see us in real life.

If Quakers want to provide a ‘welcoming space’ for trans people, they should imagine how trans people react to the slogan ‘Sex Matters to Quakers’. When I see that among Friends, I see a person who supports trans exclusion. It is unwelcoming. It hurts to explain this. I would like cis allies to do the explaining.

After years of relentless anti-trans hate, there is a great amount of complex anti-trans argument. Quakers should not get lost in the weeds. If Friends have concerns about trans, they could read The Transgender Issue by Shon Faye, anything by Julia Serano, or Trans Britain edited by Christine Burns. When trans people accept our nature, we are enabled to live fully. When you read such people’s writings, you will see trans enriches society.

Getting the picture: Barrie Mahoney shoots in black and white

‘I was not blinded by the effects of colour and gadgetry.’

I’m referring to ‘real photography’ involving non-automatic cameras, analogue film and chemical processing, which I have not thought about for many years.

Several weeks ago, I bought a camera that I had longed to buy in the late 1960s, when I was a teenager. It was small and highly engineered for its day, as well as very expensive. Indeed, the late Elizabeth Windsor owned a gold version. I couldn’t afford the standard model until I discovered one for a fair price online.

The camera is beautiful, heavy, and well made, and I am thrilled with it. Since it arrived, I have had great fun shooting a roll of black and white film. Unlike photos taken with my iPhone, when I can press a button as many times as I wish, and delete them if they are not to my liking, I had to carefully compose the shot, consider the speed of the film and shutter, adjust the exposure, and judge the distance. As there is no zoom lens, I had to walk closer to or further away from the subject to fit it into the frame; only then did I press the button. Knowing that I had limited exposures made me very careful in selecting the subject, as well as care when composing the shot. How my brain ached afterwards!

When I had finished the roll of now-quite-expensive film, I posted it to a processing company and waited anxiously for the results. Ten days later, a package of prints and negatives finally arrived. I’d forgotten how exciting it was to receive and open the wallet of black and white prints, wondering if they looked alright, or whether I had made some terrible mistakes.

I was fortunate, since all but two photos looked rather good, and I was particularly proud of four of them. I noticed that there seemed to be more depth and clarity than I remember in the creations taken on my iPhone. There was more detail, and I was not blinded by the effects of colour and gadgetry.

As I reflected upon my achievements, I began to realise that I had once again been given another of life’s lessons. How often have I been blinded by gimmickry, pizazz and irrelevance? How often do I move sufficiently close to look at the detail in front of me? Do I ever consider moving further backwards to get a wider view and understanding? Am I blinded by an irrelevance of colour, gadgetry, and cleverness, rather than seeing the unvarnished truth in front of me?

I am not saying that life should be all black and white; it would be dull indeed without colour. Maybe the lesson is to look at the detail more closely, from different angles, and not to be tricked by first glance. It is easy to be seduced by the tricks that gadgets can perform, but maybe from time to time we just need to load our metaphorical cameras with black and white film to fully appreciate what we are seeing in our lives.

Eye - 3 November 2023

1652 country crossword

Letters - 03 November 2023

From New wrongs to In classic Quaker style

Quaker schools

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the Friend. Some content I find very uplifting. Others I am not so comfortable with.
The 13 October issue with a letter entitled ‘Poem for a Quaker school’ really got my hackles rising – sorry Gerard Bane. A very obvious, one-sided view of what a Quaker education means.

I was privileged, yes privileged, to spend five years at Bootham in the late 1960s, and thankfully we can still choose how to spend our disposable income.

This summer I went back to the school to join in with the bicentenary celebrations. How the school has changed and for the better. Now there are hardly any Quaker staff or pupils, even less than in my day. However, the Quaker ethos is everywhere in that school.
I was so impressed with the obvious Quaker values that permeate throughout the school, both staff and pupils. This is not just in words but in actions as well, including work and learning about many Quaker concerns including peace, the climate crisis and racial equality.

We are not good at outreach but one of the exceptions is what happens in our Quaker schools. A group of young people having the opportunity to learn about Quaker worship, values and witness in their formative years. Many of these young adults, as they leave the schools, could be the future of the Society of Friends.

David G Bower

Heeding authenticity

The distinction between authentic and fake ‘Buddha quotes’ (20 October) has to be considered alongside three quite serious caveats. One: according to the surviving texts, the Buddha taught mainly in lengthy discourses and there is no reason to believe that these were recorded thoroughly or accurately at the time. Two: almost 400 years elapsed between the Buddha’s death and the first written versions of the teachings. Three: like all systems of belief that do not originate in English, Buddhism is affected by translation – often as much a barrier or impediment as it is a bridge or doorway.

The reality is that we cannot be certain that any of the various surviving texts – the Pali Canon, the Tipitaka, or any of the collections of Sutras – represent the actual words of the Buddha. They almost certainly reflect the spirit in which he taught, but the way that they were passed down through several centuries of oral tradition (having been memorised by his followers) means that nothing we have can safely be termed a ‘Buddha quote’.

Thich Nhat Hanh referred to the various strands in which the Buddha’s teachings are found as precious jewels threaded on a necklace, as threads woven into a single garment.

They should not be seen as the literal words of the Buddha.

Peter Hart

Hardship within Meetings

I was sad to read the letter on hardship within Meetings (13 October) and think the writer is not alone.

I hope it will raise my awareness of this problem and that of Meetings generally.

While I was on the pastoral care committee of my Meeting I was aware of the hardship grants advertised by the Marjorie McBain Trust in the Friend but never had reason to refer to them.

Unfortunately I think those Friends who might apply cannot buy the Friend so, perhaps, do not see this advertisement.
I hope you may be able to pass the information on to the writer of the letter in the Friend.

I don’t personally know this trust, but I do know of others and understand that sometimes the money is waiting to be spent and finding people to give the money to, in terms of trust, can be the hard part of managing these organisations.

Kathy Bailey

In classic Quaker style

‘Many a true word spoken in jest’, they say. While Alec Davison’s limerick (20 October) does seem at first reading quite outlandish, I will defend it with very fond memories of the popular social events at Leicester Meeting House when I was a member there in the 1970s and 80s. 

Responsible for organising the New Year’s Eve parties several times, I was always careful to have games that were not only fun to take part in but also hilarious to watch.

That way, the ‘all sorts’ as described in the limerick felt equally able to enjoy themselves. To pull it off, I had to be a bit bossy and I remember a rebuke softly clothed in classic Quaker style: ‘It’s so nice to be told what to do’.

Christine McNeill

Listening post

Poem by Bob Ward

Top draw: Kate Cramer on the art of forgetting

‘This is the quiet angel of sorrow and of holding.’

here is a pencil drawing that Paul Klee made in 1939 called Forgetful Angel. It’s like a child’s drawing, and to me, it depicts a child angel. It feels magic. That’s maybe because it is drawn with love; the simplicity of outline (both hesitant and sure) is as mesmerising as the space it lends to what is inside. This angel seems at one and the same time asleep, downcast, ashamed, yet also praying. Look at the hands. Is this where the angel is looking? They are cupped, and touching each other. What they are holding feels precious. Is it the world? Are the hands remembering what the angel has forgotten, what needs to be held on to? What can simply be held. Now it seems suddenly the angel is filled with sorrow. And because Klee has called the angel ‘Forgetful’, this angel is sorrowful for everything, including its own hand in it (the forgetting).

What is it that has been forgotten?

Ramana Maharshi, the Hindu sage, said, ‘If you are abiding within the Self, there are no other people. You and I are the same. When I pray for you I pray for myself and when I pray for myself I pray for you. Real prayer is to abide within the Self… When you know the Self, the “I”, “You” “He” and “She” disappear.’ But Maharshi spent seventeen years abiding within the Self, living in a cave, mostly silent. What do we do if we are living among others? We are beset by our own hand in our history, and by the hand of others. We have forgotten that my unmet needs are the same as yours; we share the same wounds. The critical thing seems to be for us to do what Klee’s angel is doing: to look at, and stay with, our own hand in events, to awake to agency, to refuse the temptation to blame others, and retaliate. To choose sorrow instead of wrath.

When wounds are immense, we cannot do this alone. We need help. Pádraig Ó Tuama, who led the peace and reconciliation body Corrymeela in Northern Ireland, listens out for the answers to these questions in his work: ‘What is it in me that keeps me separate from others?’. And, ‘What conversations am I frightened to have?’ Because unknowns so often become fears, he says it is through relationships that the work of reconciliation has to happen.

The work he and others do is often simple, beguilingly casual: ‘What you see here is everyday conversation that just speaks and presumes and creates the shared ground for human interaction, the environment where both sides can almost with ease and gentle conversation be healed into the possibility of reconciliation.’ This is the art of bringing about a different kind of forgetting: the forgetting, if briefly, of old wounds and blames, the pretence that for now there are not intractable divisions.

To come back to our angel: this is not the angel of history, whom Klee also drew, frightened and overwhelmed. This is the quiet angel of sorrow and of holding, who has perhaps witnessed and experienced both kinds of forgetting.