Britain Yearly Meeting Reminisces

I woke up this morning and as usual, first thing I did was to check my emails and feeds. This gives me the buzz that I used to get when waiting for the letter post. Who gets real letters now? The only mail I get are Bank statements and Insurance forms. Neither really get the heart beating except when burgled and then discovering that we have forgot to renew the home insurance cover. It was time for us to remember that ...simplicity is shunning superfluities of...possessions which...obscure us from our vision of reality. Not sure if it has the same ethical and moral kick if the possessions are taken rather then given away.

Anyway, I have been mulling over a couple of blogsphere posts. One was about pluralism and Friends and the other was about are Quakers Christian? I was all fired up to get into an intellectual rant. You name the doctrine and the practice I am the one saying well... To give you a hint, I question most post Nicene Christian doctrines and have a deep fascination with the history and social struggle of the early Church and how its emergence was based on the suppression of a whole host of very different voices. This includes how the Christian canon came into existence. Read Lost Christianities by Bart D. Ehrman or The Closing of the Western Mind by Charles Freeman if you want to know where I am coming from.

One reading of George Fox and the early Friends and indeed many of the Radical Christian groups of the day was that they intuitively grasped many of these lost visions and practices hidden away in Biblical descriptions. They moved authority away from the Bible and the Church to the spirit or experiential practice(the source of continual Revelation!) This is why John Wolman could challenge slavery, a practice that very few of early Friends questioned as its in the Bible. They would have, if asked , looked to the treatment of slaves rather then the existence of slavery. See http://www.religioustolerance.org/sla_bibl.htm for more background.(Now what has all this to do with Britain Yearly Meeting? Patience Friend I am getting there)

You may be surprised to know that I am not an advocate of the pick and mix from the Supermarket of Religious Traditions. I am rooted in Christianity but as my home not my prison as Lionel Blue (a well known British Rabbi) would say. So I am open to explore and value other faiths. And like any home, its the relatives that you tend to have the most arguments with rather then the neighbours. Read Honest to Jesus by Robert W.Funk to get a feel of the Jesus and Christianity I feel at home with. Or Jesus through the centuries by Jaroslav Pelikan.

As you can imagine, in many Meetings I am not exactly mainstream. Yet in one Meeting a Friend who was well into her 90's and was a very conservative Christian in her theology and language embraced me in the fellowship of Friends. I saw in her the nearest to a "Saint" or someone that burnt with the Light that I have ever seen and experienced. And she saw in me some one that wasn't blowing out the candle but was trying to kindle it brighter. Yet both of us were Friends that you the reader may want to exclude from the Society of Friends.

The BYM blog reminded me of when I went to Yearly meeting(yes got there at last) . I sat in the Gallery of the main hall at the back for one session. The Meeting of several hundred people waiting in silence was one of the most profound I sat in.The minute records what the experience was

Minute 13: A prayerful life: experiencing the inward teacher

‘You will say, Christ saith this, and the apostles say this; but what canst thou say? Art thou a child of light and hast walked in the light, and what thou speakest is it inwardly from God?’

Within the gathered stillness of an extended period of worship we have shared our experience of living, or trying to live, a prayerful life, a life in which we collaborate with God’s love and can experience the presence of God at any time and place. Prayer is the way we face the world. Prayer is how we are with other human beings, an act of love which can turn the world upside down.

My experience of this was several speakers that gave polished intellectual ministry but which washed over me or to be frank felt smug. Then a old man with painful effort got to his feet, and dragged words out of himself to ask those who were struggling with feeling God's love not to be downcast. He spoke of his own struggles from the heart and not from the head, and it was clearly painful. I burst into tears, and as I type this tears drip down my face. He is the reason that I know Friends are my home. John Punshon who I met at Woodbrooke in the 1970s makes my point for me.

Getting on with those I love is often a business demanding patience, discretion, tact and understanding. It gets complicated sometimes. It also gets strained, occasionally to the breaking point. But without expression it is barren. I show my love in the things I do...

In Britain Yearly meeting today what will make you know that you are at home and enjoying the company of neighbours and relatives?

Took the first step...

Well did it. I attended my local meeting(picture on left) for the first time in 2 years, which sounds like I have been moonlighting somewhere else. The truth is that this is the first time I have attended anywhere for 2 years. I was impressed by the warmth of the hospitality of a small meeting of some 10-12 people, many of whom clearly had the independence of mind and spirit that I love about Quakers. The odd little peculiarities of Friends, the door greeter, the flowers on the table picked fresh from the garden, Bible and other faith material on the table near the centre, the handshake, afterthoughts circle, notices felt as comfortable as an old pair of shoes.

The ministry mainly focused on Peace. It here that mixed feelings arose. The first person’s ministry was clearly a heart felt poem, which washed over me but may well have spoken to another’s condition. The second gave me a key into the condition of the speaker as he admitted not knowing what prayer was or who to pray to but did see that attending peace demonstrations was a prayer-in action. It was the third Ministry that got me. She made the point that aggression and war arose out of fear and animal instinct. Well, deep breath... for me a fundamental cause of aggression is the lack of social justice which is a social and political rather then psychological struggle.

But I am a Friend of long standing enough to know that when Ministry engages you like this, then this is the worse time to Minister( Receive the vocal ministry of others in a tender and creative spirit). You need to get below the surface and try and see beyond the words. A sharp tap to the ego raises the point that I may have a range of counterarguments but which of the two of us does more for Peace? So tongue bitten, legs firmly crossed I let it wash over and through me.

In the afterthoughts circle (once meeting is over, people are asked if they have any thoughts to share about that day’s Ministry). Again I rejected the urge to start a debate. But then…but then…A current court case in England is two mothers that filmed their toddlers being made to fight in order to toughen them up. The parents are being prosecuted for child cruelty. Many in the Meeting tutted over the behaviour of the women, which does need challenging but I come from the type of estates these women live in. My own sister treated her son 20 years ago in a similar way. I know that these parents are making realistic assessments of what their children will experience.

One of the other roots of aggression for me is when certainty of knowledge and righteous authority leads to seeing the other person as less then human. For me, to condemn these parents is start down this route. Just to be clear, I condemn the sin but not the sinner. In the day job I advise on the setting up of programmes to work in poor and abandoned communities so that parents can see and learn alternatives to these bleak and negative child-rearing practices. Again, I resisted the urge to get into a debate. Was this me crossing the road as the refusenik Samaritan? Or was I being polite and waiting for a more appropriate time rise the issues?

Pondering what to do, I was greeted by the Clerk, who rushed me off for a tour of the nature reserve that he was building in the waste ground at the back of the Meeting House. Suddenly I was seeing dark woods, a wild meadow, bridges, a natural spring and pools all created and shaped out of a waste acre of land. Truly, a fantastic peaceful natural landscape in a large troubled public housing estate: a real metaphor for what Friends at their best represent for the world. I left walking cheerfully over the world answering that of God in every one...

Citizen as Fool?

Liz Opp (thanks Liz for the suggested change)writes in her blog From spiritual refugee to spiritual citizen

In recent weeks, I have been musing about the phrase "spiritual refugee." While I was travelling in-and-around Boston to get to certain Quaker events, I jotted down this brief phrase:

spiritual refugee -->

spiritual immigrant -->

spiritual citizen

It was a timely post. I have been in and around Quakers for 30 years and have been an Overseer, worked on national committees, been a warden joined, revoked my membership some 25 years ago and yet remain involved. I have had a break for the past two years after a few intense years as a Warden. But two weeks ago reading a non-Quaker blog gave me the nudge to start to reconnect so I leaped into doing a blog and seeking communities to link to. Not found many in the UK yet and the main Quaker web-page seems to need a nudge in this direction. The email I got back seemed to be concerned about moderation rather then pointing me in a direction to hook up with UK friends who blog. But as I write this, a comment appeared that has given me a possible link which I have followed up.

Another sign that my period of exile is coming to an end is that this yesterday a friend rings me out of the blue to ask me to attend our local Quaker Meeting as he is running a group on silence for his local church. Signs aplenty methinks!

Yet as Liz raises, am I still a spiritual immigrant. Strange to say a way of answering that question came in the post this very morning, Roger von Oech is a creative guru who in his book A Whack on the Side of the Head explores the 10 key factors that stop us being creative. With the book comes a set of cards that serve to jolt you out of your thought patterns, and one of these ways is to use the cards as an Oracle. By this is not meant any supernatural appeal but its a tool to use different types of thinking to reflect on a topic. My topic is what would help me re-engage with Friends .

The first card drawn represents the ENVIRONMENT and it explores the external forces surrounding my issues. It is asking how can I be more engaging with Quakers, how can my ideas be of use to them.

Attend Quaker meetings and events to listen and raise my views

Write more so I gain an audience and clarify my thoughts

Champion Friends in other communities

Model my behaviour on Quaker values

This is the MIRROR card and represents resources that I bring and could use for Quakers. It advises me to look for opportunities.

I am engaged with policy making so could help Quakers engage with the political world

I am a Friend by convincement and come to Friends by a non-Christian route so offer links to a wider non spiritual audience

I have come from a poor working class background so offer a window into a world that main stream friends are often unaware of.

This the SHADOW CARD and asks me to look at what I may be avoiding or missing. the drawn card asks me to look at the wider community

Use the insights from the world community in Ministry and link the Meeting to the world

Why am I not using my storytelling links and interests to connect with my interests in Quakers?

Why am I not using my policy interests to link with Quaker campaigns?

This is the CAUTION card asking me what should I watch out for. The card asks to look for the less obvious answer.

Am I concentrating too much on the ideological centre of Quakerism and not enough on its Fellowship

Am I in danger of being arrogant?

Should I seek a buddy to mentor me?

Do I want to belong to a physical meeting?

This is a POWER card. It asks what do I need to do to make it happen. The drawn card asks me what will be the consequences.

I will have to look at the time commitment but it will give me purpose.

I need to awaken old relationships but the years have moved on.

I need to get through the class barrier but this is my barrier?

So some practical ideas emerge to help me move on but what if I think that Citizenship for me is being the "Fool" the one who runs counter to convention, who raises irrelevances, pokes fun at the weighty and serious, mocks the common understanding, questions literalness to jolt us back to when the question and journey was new and the answers and questions not yet fabled

Perhaps the answer is in the Advice and Queries:

Live adventurously. When choices arise, do you take the way that offers the fullest opportunity for the use of your gifts in the service of God and the community? Let your life speak.

Value the words you speak...they are an other's Truth

Laurie Kruczek in her blog I am only average raised being intimated and being overwhelmed...I feel sometimes like I am being dunked underwater, only surfacing when God pulls me up again. Maybe it is the long, drawn out discussions taking place... notations, authors, detailed references... all impossibly out of my conversational reach. I'm a smart girl, and I'm tough, but when all the advanced Quaker debate material starts flowing I think, "This just isn't what I expected. Can't we just simply talk?"...So I must have it wrong. I must be lost and have little chance of finding my blogging way. I honestly don't know if I have the qualifications to post about Quakerism. I am only average, and I wonder if that ever is enough.

I wrote to her, and now to you... never be put off from your journey, I have been around Quakers for 30 years and boy can some of us talk for all our respect for the power of the silence. One member of a meeting I attended was professor of theology, for example, but knowing what to argue isn't the same as having something speak to your condition. Nor is it the same of speaking from God within. Some of the more powerful ministry(apart from silence) often comes from those of us struggling to make sense of the world we live in and the people we share.

Read London (oops Britain)Yearly meeting Advices and Queries No 5. to know where I am coming from.

Take time to learn about other people's experiences of the Light. Remember the importance of the Bible, the writings of Friends and all writings which reveal the ways of God. As you learn from others, can you in turn give freely from what you have gained? While respecting the experiences and opinions of others, do not be afraid to say what you have found and what you value. Appreciate that doubt and questioning can also lead to spiritual growth and to a greater awareness of the Light that is in us all.

You take a leap and ....

This morning I read a blog about the writer's spiritual journey and it reminded me that I have been frozen or suspended in mine since I stopped being a Warden of an historical Meeting House in the south of England. I wrote my "map" in my Books and Reading Blog. After reflection I decided to start a Quaker blog as a way of connecting with the wider Quaker community. If refreshed here then I could re-engage with the local community.

But how? Searching London (oops Britain)Yearly meeting offer no links to the WWQ community but a goggle got me a link with ROBIN M whose pages lead me to various other sites. Then to QuakerQuaker.org and the realisation that I now had a "Meeting" to explore. Ironically 2-3 weeks ago I had no knowledge about Blogs or live feeds and now have key feeds set up and 2 blogs. Its too early to say where the interesting conversations will lead and who I will have them with. But I can and I will.

Where the light shines

I am not one to dwell on may have beens. This morning in my book blog I realised that it was time to reconnect with Friends and Radical Quakerism. I have made the first steps by linking up live feeds to a range of blog sites. This means I can also dive into the debates and issues again. Who knows, today's toe dipping may lead to tomorrow's deep dive. Hence this new blog is going to have occasional reflections and thoughts about George Fox, a founder of Quakerism , key question.

You will say, Christ said this, and the Apostles say this, but what can you say? Are you a child of Light, that walks in the Light, and when you speak is it inwardly from God?

At its simplest, does your experience of life enable you to make difference?