Here I go again!

Woman at a window. Jacobus Vrel. 1654

In April last year I decided to try to resurrect this blog. I had good intentions but I only managed three posts in 2021, all in April!

Over the years I have often had problems with writing regularly here although, as I said last year, I have been writing regularly elsewhere. I think perhaps that a blog post feels like a substantial piece of writing - and certainly my historical posts do require quite a bit of research - so that I often feel too intimidated to begin.

With the beginning of a new year I feel inspired to try again, but not to be too hard on myself. I will aim to write once a month (or 12 times a year) and I will broaden my range of topics. Sometimes, as I am doing now, I will just sit down and write and see what comes. I will write about Quakers and Quaker history but may change my format. I hope to share some passages of Quaker writing that have helped me and may even suggest passages to the Book of Discipline Revision Committee! I may also share other passages that I have written in my commonplace book over the years.

Another way in which I hope to continue with this blog is through visual images. Over on Facebook I have been sharing art from my Pinterest boards each day without comment. Perhaps here I can comment about the art, the artist and what the image means to me.

I have good intentions but I have had those before and not written. Let's see how I get on in 2022!

Resurrecting My Blog

Still life with books and primroses by the Finnish artist Marga Toppelius-Kiseleff. 1886

 

 

 

Easter seems like a good time to try to put some new life into this blog again. I have written nothing for nearly two years but recently I had occasion to look back at my posts and wonder whether I could make another attempt to continue.

While many people began to write blogs and share their thoughts during the pandemic I went back to my handwritten diary and wrote much more regularly, almost daily, there. I have also spent much more time on social media, sharing daily art from my Pinterest boards on Facebook and expanding my use of Twitter to include more art, humour and even virtual friends.

The isolation of the past year has, in some ways, been easier for me than for many others. I have not been alone and my husband, the driver, has been the one to make forays into the outside world. As we are both retired we have not had any work worries as we are used to working from home on our various projects. We have adapted our routines to include many more deliveries than before and also Zoom meeetings of various kinds. We have also been able (when restrictions allowed) to see family and friends outside in various locations.

I have wondered why I did not include blog writing in my altered routine but can find no convincing answer except that I have always struggled to keep writing here and the uncertainty and fear underlying everything this last year did not improve my tendency to procrastinate!

As the seasons turn however I have found a new resolve to look again at my research into 18th century Quakers, particularly Catherine Payton Phillips, to identify gaps and fill them where I can and to do some writing with a view to publication in some form. I hope that writing here will help with that and that sharing what I write will also be of some use, both to myself and to others.

So here I go, making yet another new start. I hope to find companions on the way.

Quaker Alphabet Blog 2015 - I for Interruption

It has been almost a month since I wrote for this blog and I was behind with my schedule before that. In itself that should not be a problem but this time there was more to it than just my usual procrastination. I was interrupted by a computer crash.

Most of my research and photo files were backed up or could be recovered so it wasn't such a devastating event as it might have been, but I still felt bereft and helpless. It made me realise how much of my daily life and well-being depends on my computer and forced me re-assess my priorities.

Luckily this interruption coincided with a Facebook request (yes I could still access Facebook via my tablet) from a friend facing chemotherapy for soft knitted hats to wear when she lost her hair, so I had a project which needed doing at once. I also got out of the house more in order to look at art, to appreciate the world around me and even to do some gardening.

Now that the interruption is over and I am back in front of my computer the lesson I have learned is not simply to spend less time in front of a screen but to try to balance my life better so that I do not invest my computer with such an overwhelming importance.

I thought that I would end this post by quoting from Advices and Queries 41 about simplicity, but when I considered further it seems to me that number 11 is more relevant -
'Be honest with yourself. What unpalatable truths might you be evading? When you recognise your shortcomings, do not let that discourage you...'

Quaker Alphabet Blog 2015 - A for Alphabet Again

As I have found the discipline of following the alphabet through the year helpful I have decided to continue with it into 2015.

I'm intending to post alphabetically at the same rate as in 2014, once every two weeks or as near to that as I can manage. I want to continue my Quaker biographical posts, introducing some less well known Friends, but I will throw in some other alphabetic posts as before.

If I have other things to say I will slip them into my blog without the Quaker Alphabet heading.

I shall continue to put up links to my own and others' posts on the Facebook page for Quaker Alphabet Blog 2014 and beyond but I am also intending to use Twitter [@gilskidmore] more to spread the word.

I hope, dear reader, that you will find something to interest and engage you here in the coming year and I hope that you will tell me what you think.

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 2014 - F for Facebook

Facebook and other social media often get a bad press in Quaker circles and those of us who use the site are told to go out and find some 'real' friends. But I have plenty of real friends on Facebook, both 'Big F' and 'liitle f' and I find it an excellent way to keep in touch. Of course I don't talk to all my 441 Facebook friends all the time but I do 'know' them all, either in person or through their writing and mine.

Quite a lot of these friends are in different countries, America, Canada, France, Germany, South Africa - and Scotland! Without Facebook I would never have a sense of their daily lives, their ups and downs and the great variety of their activities. I value too the insight into different expressions of Quakerism that this contact gives me. Where Quakers in the past might have kept up a correspondence with individuals I can maintain contact with a 'like' or a short comment.  

The links to blogs, websites and other Facebook pages which my friends post can also expand my horizons, even if sometimes I can feel overwhelmed by their sheer volume. I have also set up groups and pages which I maintain and which help to enrich my life - Skipton Quaker Meeting, Friends Historical Society and of course the Quaker Alphabet Blog 2014 project!

Facebook friendship is a two-way street in the same way as any friendship is. Just as I can send sympathy, prayers and encouragement to my friends in difficulty or distress, so they can do the same for me. I have sometimes hesitated to share my own troubles but whenever I have plucked up the courage I have to say that the response has been overwhelmingly positive and helpful.

Of course I also do quizzes, share silly pictures and videos and generally have a laugh on Facebook. After all that too is part of what friendship is all about!

Quaker Alphabet Blog Week 52 - Z for Zed

Well here we are at the end of 2013and I have come to the end of this year's Quaker Alphabet blog. This post is about Zed, the ending (or not) and what I have learned over the year.

Firstly I would like to say a big thank you to my fellow bloggers, Rhiannon and Stephanie. Without their inspiration and different take on subjects I think I would have given up long ago. Rhiannon has already started a new project based on the liturgy and I look forward to finding out what Stephanie will do next.

The format we agreed on, with two consecutive posts for each letter, allowed me to divide my posts up into one biography and one general topic for each segment. I made a plan at the beginning of the year and sketched out some possible subjects, some of which I stuck to and some of which changed. Sometimes I really did not know what I was going to say until I sat down at the computer to write while other posts took more than a week to research. I also enjoyed finding images to go with the words.

My blog has never been one to attract a lot of traffic. My statistics would normally show me fifty viewings or less although sometimes I seemed to say something that more people wanted to read and my views reached several hundred. For the Quaker Alphabet the picture has not changed a lot, although I have become aware of what a difference sharing posts on Facebook and Twitter can make. However occasionally this year my posts have been noticed by Quakerquaker and this has made quite a difference. I am not expecting to reach vast numbers of people but I have enjoyed the comments, both on the blog and on Facebook, and am glad that sometimes what I write seems to have been helpful.

Having said that I am not playing the numbers game I have done some analysis of the first 50 weeks! My most popular post was on Solitude and Sociability with 730 views, way out in front of the next contender Visiting at 358. 5 posts reached more than 300 views and 8 posts more than 200. The largest group of posts (23) were viewed over 100 times with 13 posts reaching less than 100 views. The least popular post at the moment is Y for Yearly Meeting with 44 views but even that is not bad for my blog. On the whole the topics were more popular than the biographies but I am happy to report that it was a close run thing and my fourth most viewed post was on Solomon Eccles. 

It was good for me to write regularly and I hope to continue to do so. I shall therefore be starting another Quaker Alphabet blog in 2014 although this time I will be writing it every two weeks. I hope that the space between will fill with other posts on a greater variety of topics - let's wait and see! I also hope that more people will take part in this endeavour so that we can share a greater variety of Quaker voices. I have set up an 'event' on Facebook which I hope will have some result and if anyone reading this feels inspired to try a Quaker Alphabet blog for 2014 do please comment. There is no restriction on the form which such an enterprise should take - short or long, words or pictures or a combination of both - just give it a go!

How many friends?

How many friends do I have? Quite a few I think, although I had never been in the habit of counting them until I went on Facebook. That was a few years ago when I wanted a way of tracking the progress of my globe-trotting sons but also wanted to prove my husband wrong when he said I had no friends.

I have never been one to have crowds of close friends. I grew up as a happily solitary only child, isolated further at primary school by the fact that my father was also my headmaster. My parents tried to remedy this situation when I changed schools by sending me to an establishment in a different town, rather than to the grammer school next door to my father's new school. I made a few close friends there but it was difficult to cultivate friendships outside school because of the distance involved.

However, when I make good friends I do try to keep them and am still in touch with two women I have known since I was 10, Fleur and Liz. At university, first in Oxford and then in Birmingham, I made more close friends and have kept up sporadically with a few of them. At Oxford I also met my closest friend, Chris, and eventually married him. I also acquired some of his friends too. I have made friends at work, some closer than others. I have also made friends of Friends in many different contexts, often by working and sometimes struggling together.

What do I mean by a friend? Well for me friendship involves sharing, giving and receiving confidences, honesty and loyal support. It is also about having things in common - a place, a way of life, even a favourite television programme - but not necessarily about always agreeing with each other. A valuable part of friendship for me is the ability to speak and hear uncomfortable things from time to time, although I admit that I almost lost one friendship through being afraid of confrontation.

But is it possible to have virtual friendships, only conducted online and never face to face? I think it is and I have discovered this through reading and writing blogs and through Facebook. Many of the bloggers I read are not known to me in person although we have a friendly relationship online. After all, I can hold a conversation with them through comments as they can with me and blogging is often about sharing one's life as one would with friends in the 'real' world.

At the last count I had 264 Facebook friends. Many of them I know personally and meet quite frequently, others I have met a few times, but some I only know online. Quite a few live in different countries which makes meeting face to face even more difficult. I am very grateful for the opportunity Facebook gives me to connect a little with all their lives. Then there are the reconnections, people I have known but may have lost touch with until an unexpected 'friend request' appears.

The other week I visited my friend James in Leeds. I met him in Birmingham 40 odd (sometimes very odd) years ago and we were close friends and housemates then. I had kept in touch sporadically and went to all three of his weddings but Facebook allowed us to connect on a more day to day level which made our face to face meeting more comfortable. I look forward to deepening this friendship when we eventually move Up North.

I know what Chris meant when he said I did not have any friends. At the time I was in danger of isolating myself from the day to day contact that nourishes friendship. I hope that I am working towards correcting that and Facebook and blogging have helped me keep in touch, not only with friends but with myself.

Ministry or vanity?

Robin's post on Blogging as Ministry has raised several questions in my mind. As I commented on Liz's post I am quite clear about my use of Facebook. That is all about taking me out of my often too comfortable isolation, about making connections with my family and renewing connections with friends old and new. But about blogging I'm not so sure. Why do I write a blog? Is this a Quaker blog or just a blog written by a Quaker - and does the distinction matter?

A lot of what I write is about my life - perhaps a rough draft for the spiritual autobiography that I must one day sit down and write. I have the title - which is also the title of this blog - and have published a few fragments so far. But if I am writing ministry here should I keep away from the trivial and always leave 'the day of small things' to Facebook?

As Robin says, for me reading other people's blogs is part of the process of writing and often spurs me into putting my thoughts into words - as it has today. I want to be part of the Quaker conversation, but for me this can also be a problem. I gain a lot from listening to others, but I realise that part of me also wants to be heard. I want to be recognised by the 'proper Quaker bloggers' who choose which posts appear on QuakerQuaker and sometimes I find myself wondering what I have to write to make that happen!

But as in meeting for worship I know that true ministry is given and has nothing to do with conscious striving for effect. I must be true to myself and to my own spiritual journey and write what I cannot avoid writing with no thought of any audience. Because I am a Quaker to the core of my being this is necessarily a Quaker blog. I know that a few people read what I write and I am always happy to read their comments. Perhaps the nearest comparison between what I write here and ministry is that when I rise to speak I have no idea what effect my words may have on those who hear them and do not ask to know. It is enough if I can be faithful.

What is wrong with 25 things?

I am the sort of person who always fills in questionnaires so when I was tagged over on Facebook by a friend who had written 25 random things about her life, with an invitation to do the same and tag other people, I joined in straight away.

The exercise helped me focus a bit more on the family history which I have resolved to start writing this year and I got some friendly feedback. I have also enjoyed reading other people's lists and their different approach to the same request. However some of the responses were dismissive and very much opposed to the whole idea of 25 (or 30) things. People had been overwhelmed by requests, and of course Facebook can be like that, but there was also a feeling that the whole enterprise was selfish, self-absorbed and irredeemably trivial.

I have to admit that I was puzzled and a bit hurt by this but then I remembered that when I was giving workshops on spiritual autobiography some years ago in which I not only talked about the history of the form but tried to encourage people to write their own, I encountered the same kind of reaction. Any kind of examination of one's own life and certainly any attempt to share it with others was characterised as selfish and therefore wrong.

My definition of spiritual autobiography was encapsulated in the title of the workshop 'Turning Inside Out'. It is the story of a person's spiritual journey written by themselves. But it is more than that because it is written from the first not for the individual alone but for the benefit of others, both now and in the future. The extent to which it is published or shared is the author's choice but the intention to share is always there. In order to write a spiritual autobiography we first turn inwards and examine our spiritual journey and how we have got to where we are. Then we turn the inside outwards and share our experience with others in order to help them if we can.

For me writing lists of 25 random things about my life on Facebook is another way of sharing my spiritual journey and opening a window on my life. It is also, importantly, a way of listening to others who are sharing their lives with me. It is part of the process of writing my spiritual autobiography because as an exercise it helps me to focus on different aspects of what I want to share. So long as I use the lists in this way I don't believe I am being totally self-absorbed or selfish.

I am often encouraged on my way by voices from the past. One of these is Alice Hayes who published her spiritual autobiography 'A legacy or widow's mite' in 1723 partly because she wished that when she was going through the spiritual struggle that led to her becoming a Quaker she could have read about others who had had similar experiences. She says "Truly I have thought that if I had met with the like Account of any that had gone through such exercise it would have been some Help to me."

Even on Facebook!