Quaker Alphabet Blog 2014 - L for Learning

How do we learn about Quakers and Quakerism? The obvious answer, for me, is by reading, but when I have thought more I realise that this is far from the only way. Over the years I have certainly read a lot of books about Quakerism but also books - and diaries, letters and other less formal writings - by Quakers both past and present. Some of these have spoken to me more than others but in their variety they have built up a picture of Friends not just in 'Quaker grey' but in a whole rainbow of colours.

When I first fell among Friends I was working in Friends House Library in London  and there I learned a lot about the history and structure of the Society of Friends as well as meeting a wide range of contemporary Quakers - not always a wholly positive experience! I went to meeting for worship - at first to the brief meetings for 'staff' and later to the Local Meeting where I lived.

When I first attended Meeting for Worship in Reading I went on my own and didn't talk to anyone, going straight in to the meeting room and straight home afterwards. If anyone had approached or tried to involve me at that stage I probably would not have gone back. I thought that the worship was all I wanted or needed. Later we made a decision to go regularly as a family and it was at that point that I began to get to know people in the meeting and the way that Quakerism worked in practice. Of course I soon found myself on a committee and that was another learning experience. Working with Friends towards a common goal was not always easy but taught me a lot. I also began to go to Meetings for worship for business and saw the Quaker business method in action. Eventually I learned to take on some roles of responsibility within the meeting.

One of the first things that I had learned about Quakers was that local meetings were part of a whole structure and I have always found my experience of other meetings positive, even when difficult. Yearly Meeting, General (now Regional) Meeting and Monthly (now Area) Meeting were and are all part of my learning experience, even when things do not run smoothly. I have come a long way from the individual on a spiritual journey that I did not see the need to share with anyone else!

So have I learned about Quakers through osmosis (a long-standing excuse for not needing Quaker education)? Yes and No. It is true that sitting in meetings, getting to know individuals, working together, has not involved formal learning but I have also had a lot of things explained to me that I did not understand, and sometimes did not know that I did not understand. Eventually I became more comfortable with asking questions and am now very happy to answer other people's. Learning can come to us in many ways and the important thing I think is to be open to it whenever the opportunity arises.

Quaker Alphabet Blog 214 - I for Intervisitation

This is a long word for a simple practice. I first heard it used by an elderly Friend in my former meeting who was concerned that members of larger meetings in our area meeting should sometimes visit smaller ones in order to encourage them. Another older Friend from Reading, Richard Schardt, was in the habit of visiting meetings around the country and he asked for and was provided with a 'travelling minute' from the area meeting. He brought back an annual report and his intervisitation is explained by him in QFP 13.31

Neither of these Friends saw what they were doing, and encouraging others to do, as 'travelling in the ministry' and in fact Richard quite vehemently denied that this was any part of his concern. They both wanted to support and encourage through friendly contact, to remind meetings that they were not isolated but part of a larger network.

I have visited other meetings when on holiday but my main intervisitation has been alongside the workshops and talks I have given about spiritual autobiography and other subjects over the years. I have travelled all over the UK and often stayed with Friends, attended meeting for worship and built up contacts and friendships.

Another kind of intervisitation can happen at different kinds of gatherings - Area Meeting, Regional Meeting and Yearly Meeting all give us the opportunity to 'see one another's faces', to meet a wide variety of other Friends and talk about our different situations. Woodbrooke too acts as centre where Friends from different meetings, countries and cultures can come together. After all the word intervisitation implies a two-way process. I visit you, you visit me and we both expect to benefit.

Personally the experience of intervisitation which has probably influenced me most has been through my involvement with QUIP (Quakers Uniting in Publications). Not only have I learned a lot about Quaker publishing but I have encountered Friends from a wide variety of Quaker traditions and this has certainly broadened my horizons. I am glad that while I cannot always visit the friends I have made physically we can still keep up our contact through Facebook!

It is good to get to know one another in the things which are eternal and I like the definition of intervisitation given in the Faith and Practice of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting -
'Friendly intervisitation, whether formal or informal, has for more than three hundred years provided an important opening for understanding and cooperation in the affairs of Friends and for mutual ministry and spiritual growth.'

Quaker Alphabet Blog Week 43 - V for Visiting

Over thirty years ago I applied for membership of the Religious Society of Friends, or rather of Reading Monthly Meeting. I was visited by two Friends, both women and older than myself, one from my own meeting and one from another in the area. I knew what to expect from the process and was not intimidated by it or by them. It did not feel at all like an examination, with hoops that I was expected to jump through, but instead was a pleasant evening during which we shared our spiritual journeys. They reported on the visit to the Monthly Meeting and the upshot was that I was accepted into membership.The visit itself gave me a special link with these two Friends who acted in a way like spiritual godparents for this newly-convinced Quaker.

In later years I have taken part in several visits to applying members and have gained several spiritual 'godchildren' myself. Even when the visit has been difficult - and on at least one occasion that was definitely the case - I have still retained a special interest in the future progress of the people I visited. At first the report was compiled by the visitors without reference to the person visited but nowadays it is usually seen and approved by them before being put before the Area Meeting.

At present Britain Yearly Meeting is experiencing a dip in membership which some fear may prove terminal (although I would point out that we have been here several times before over the last four centuries). Is it the prospect of being visited that puts people off? Some people feel that anyone who applies should be accepted without any further enquiry and others are sure that there is really no difference between a long-time attender and a member. For myself I would be sad to lose this way of sharing our spiritual autobiography with others when there are so few other places which give us the opportunity to do it and to deepen our knowledge of one another in 'the things which are eternal'.

An application for membership can be a valuable rite of passage, a commitment to the next stage of our journey and it would be a pity to do away with that, even though it may not be right for everyone and other arrangements can be made by different meetings. Rather than worrying about the age of our membership, or about numbers at all, we should perhaps find more ways in which Friends can listen to one another and speak their own truth in an accepting setting. For me I know that being visited and visiting others in turn has been a really valuable part of my Quaker life.