Waste Not, Want Not

This weekend I am spending time at the annual conference of QUIP (Quakers Uniting in Publications) as I have often done in the past. It is different this time of course as rather than travelling sometimes long distances to greet each other in person, we are seeing one another's faces on Zoom. I used to be much more involved in the running of the group than I am now so in some ways I feel more of a spectator than a participant but it is still good to connect with friends from all over the world and to meet new people too, even if only virtually.

Although I have not been writing my blog for the last year or two I have still been writing, particularly in my diary, and thinking about where to go next. I have come to a point now where I want to continue my research into Quaker history and into spiritual autobiography and life writing more generally. In order to go forward I will need to take stock, to look at what I have done and what there is still to do, to see what I can recycle and reuse from my past writings and research notes and where there are gaps I need to fill.

I joined QUIP as a publisher and 25 years ago Sowle Press (the desk-top publishing enterprise which I ran with my husband Chris) produced a book on spiritual autobiography, Turning Inside Out, based on my experience as a Joseph Rowntree Quaker Fellow. Following this I wrote and we published two collections of short biographies of Quakers through the ages - Dear Friends and Sisters (1998) and Dear Friends and Brethren (2000). I was asked about Dear Friends and Sisters at the conference yesterday but had to report that we have no stock left.

I continue to be a member of QUIP as a writer and there is a crossover in this blog between publishing and writing. I have written quite a lot of Quaker biographies here and many of them are based on pieces from Sisters and Brethren, often added to from further research. In the future I intend to continue this process and to share my researches in other ways. I do not want the work I have done and will do to be wasted so I need to remember the wise words of the historian Barbara Tuchman, 'Research is endlessly seductive; writing is hard work'.

I value my continuing connection with QUIP and the inspiration and practical help that I have received and still receive from the organisation and its members. I look forward to the rest of the conference and to conferences to come - perhaps not all of them virtual.

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 34 - Q for QUIP

In any Quaker Alphabet blog for Q there is a plethora of choice when it comes to acronyms, of which Friends are perhaps too fond. When it came down to it, however, there was really only one I could choose. QUIP - Quakers Uniting in Publications - is a group that I am proud and happy to belong to and work with. Both the principles behind it and the people I have got to know through it have influenced and helped my personal spiritual development in a major way and I would like to make it better known among Friends.

QUIP is an organisation set up in 1983 to allow publishers and booksellers to meet, talk and exchange ideas and expertise. When I first encountered it in the 1990s Chris Skidmore and I had just set up a small desk-top publishing business, the Sowle Press, to publish books about Quaker history, spiritual autobiography and editions of neglected Quaker works from the past. We started going to QUIP's annual conferences and this took me to the USA for the first time.

A 'Quaker Tapestry' panel for QUIP

QUIP is an international body with members in the Americas, the UK and Europe. It also covers all the varied approaches to Quakerism, both evangelical and liberal. This might have led to awkwardness between people from different religious backgrounds, but given a common purpose - as Quakers put it, publishing the truth - in my experience that has never been the case. In fact QUIP meetings were where I learned in more depth about the range of Quakers in the world family of Friends and got to know some of them as individuals. I hope that QUIP has made me less insular in my attitudes and I do try to communicate that as much as I can.

As well as being an organisation for publishers QUIP, in partnership with Friends General Conference, has also produced some books itself. Perhaps the most influential of these have been the two 'youth' books, Whispers of Faith in 2005 and Spirit Rising in 2010. These anthologies allow all Friends and others (not just the young) to hear the voices of a wide range of young people from many countries and a great diversity of traditions expressing their spiritual experience in their own words.

The process of producing these two books has helped QUIP to embrace a new direction, including writers as well as publishers and investigating how best to use new ways of publishing and communicating. Several of the recent conferences have been following aspects of this new way of doing things.

Whenever I talk about QUIP I usually find that very few Quakers in the UK have heard of them, but if you want to know more I recommend  you to visit their website or read the inspiring report of the last conference written by Sarah Katreen Hoggatt, one of the editorial board for Spirit Rising, and find out!

Fare forward voyager

I have been putting together a book of contacts - mostly Quakers - for my sons which I hope will be a help for them on their year-long jouney round the world. On Sunday I will give it to them and say goodbye. I know that we will be in touch through email, Facebook and even this blog, but of course I will miss them. I am glad that they are going on this adventure and I expect it will be the beginning of a new phase in their lives and perhaps in mine, but it is hard not to worry.

On Monday my husband and I are going on a journey too - to America for nearly 3 weeks. Our main reason for going is to attend the QUIP [Quakers Uniting in Publications] conference in North Carolina but we are having a holiday too and going to Chicago, Cleveland and New York. I have to admit that I am worrying about this too. Partly this is my usual anxiety about flying but there are also difficult issues to be addressed at the conference and as the recording clerk I feel partly responsible. The changing face of Quaker publications means that our organisation will have to change too and I know that change can be difficult. On the other hand of course it can be liberating and even exciting. I will report back here later!

One part of the conference I am really looking forward to is a panel on Quaker blogging with Robin M and Will Taber which I am moderating. It will be great to meet with some of the bloggers I have encountered through their writing face to face and to talk about all things blog. One of the questions I would like to explore is why it seems there are so many more American Quaker bloggers than British and European ones. It is such a pity that I could not persuade another British blogger to attend.

Yesterday I was copying out more of Mary Waterhouse's diary when I came upon this passage -

"I have frequently thought lately that I must make mention of the mercy shewn me in being, as I trust, less anxious than I used to be. When a careful thought comes over me – anxiety about any one or anything, it is often turned into a prayer, before it resolves itself into a care. For this surely I may say 'Bless the Lord O my soul! & forget not all His benefits'."

Yet again this voice from the past speaks to my present condition and I will try to emulate her if I can.