Turning Inside Out again?

For the second time a course on 18th century Quakers which I had hoped to run for Woodbrooke has been cancelled because of a lack of bookings. This has led me to consider what to do next. I am not going to abandon the 18th century but perhaps the time has come to approach it in a different way. I shall continue to try to 'introduce you to my friends' through this blog and I will look into the possibility of creating an online course for Woodbrooke for 2020.

At the same time I will put some more effort into research and writing and try to make progress on my biography of Catherine Payton Phillips. I have ideas for some journal articles which I will focus on. I know from long experience that, as the historian Barbara Tuchman put it, 'Research is endlessly seductive. Writing is hard work'. I think that now is the time to do some of that work.

Also, for a while now I have been feeling nudged towards a new direction - or rather to a new approach to an old path. It is twenty-five years since I set out as a Joseph Rowntree Quaker Fellow to give workshops on spiritual autobiography up and down the country. I talked about this in earlier posts on this blog - first of all ten years ago and then later when I was wrestling with some difficult questions.

Having published my book Turning Inside Out; an exploration of spiritual autobiography in 1996 and given up the workshops after ten years, I thought that spiritual autobiography, although still an interest, had faded into the background of my life, except in its connection to my historical research and writing.

Recently though I have been contacted by a few Friends in different parts of the country who had read my book and wanted to use it as a basis for workshops in their meetings to allow people to share their spiritual journeys. Encouraged by this I got out my notes and at long last transcribed the two background talks I gave as part of the workshops from longhand to the computer. Of course they need updating but I may now look at ways of publishing them as I originally intended to do.

I am also putting together a new Woodbrooke course with Rhiannon Grant on 'Spiritual Blogging' which is due to run in May 2019. It will be a new experience to work with someone else on different approaches to spiritual autobiography and I am looking forward to it.

I am also aware that I need to do more work on my own spiritual autobiography. I have a title - and used it for this blog - but so far I have only written fragments in different places. I was inspired by some of the writers I met at the QUIP conference earlier this year, especially Iris Graville and her memoir Hiking Naked, both to read more and to go back to writing about my spiritual journey. I need to turn inside again before I can take the next step, turn inside out and share what I have found with a wider audience.

So it seems to me that what I am being led to do is not so much a change of direction as a closer integration of the two strands of my endeavour - spiritual autobiography and 18th century Quakers. I need to allow what appear to be stumbling blocks to become stepping stones.

Quaker Alphabet Blog 2015 - N for Emilia Fogelklou Norlind

Emila aged 14

Emilia Fogelklou was born in 1878 in Skane, Sweden, into a large family. Her childhood was spent in the countryside which, together with the influence of her grandmother, had a great effect on Emilia's spiritual development. She would climb up on the garden gate to gaze at the sea or the sunset and lose herself  'in endless beholding.' However, when she was twelve the family moved to the town when her father got a better job, and although she found it difficult at first Emilia appreciated the intellectual stimulation of her new school.

In 1896, when she was eighteen, Emilia went to teacher training college for three years and then took up a succession of teaching posts. She enjoyed the work but felt under-qualified, especially in her chosen subject of religion. She was oppressed by the failure of her search for the reality of God and felt despairing and like an empty shell but then in 1902 she experienced something that was for her the central event of her life. While sitting quietly under trees preparing for her class she says 'she experienced the great releasing inward wonder. It was as if the "empty shell" burst. All the weight and agony, all the feeling of unreality dropped away. She perceived living goodness, joy, light like a clear, irradiating, uplifting, enfolding, unequivocal reality from deep inside.'[QF&P 26.05] Whatever happened to her after that she never lost the certainty of the reality of God that came to her that day.

She enrolled in the University of Uppsala in 1906, first taking a liberal arts degree and then studying theology. She also began to publish books and to write poetry. Her reading and also her life experience led her to grapple with the 'woman question'. In 1909 she became the first woman in Sweden to be awarded a degree in theology. This distinction led to a great deal of misunderstanding and hostility as it was apparently difficult for many to see why anyone would take such a degree unless they intended to enter the ministry and this path was still closed to women at the time.

Emilia next travelled to England, France and Italy in order to study religious movements and in 1910 she attended her first Quaker meeting. In 1911 she returned to Sweden and took up a teaching post. She was uncomfortably aware of the difference in salary between men and women staff and tried to make a stand on the issue but with no success.

Emilia (centre) at The Hague in 1915

During the First World War, although Sweden remained neutral, Emilia became involved in the international effort that women were making for peace. She attended the Women's Peace Conference in The Hague in 1915 from which emerged the Womens International League for Peace and Freedom and through this work again came into contact with Quakers.

Emilia continued to support herself by teaching and writing but in 1920 she became ill with eye trouble which forced her to stop her research work. Her mother was ill and Emilia went home to care for her, only to find that her sister was dying of cancer. These sorrows all brought Emilia to a low ebb but then  she met Arnold Norlind, a distinguished scholar and geographer with whom she had been carrying on a friendly and literary correspondence for several years.

Emila and Arnold

They agreed that what they felt now had slowly become more than friendship and they were married in 1922, when Emilia was 44 and Arnold 39. Their years together were happy but full of anxiety about Arnold's health. He had been diagnosed as having tuberculosis of the throat and there were several crises. In 1920 they were encouraged to hope that he was cured but in fact his disease had entered its final phase and Arnold died early in 1929.

They had lived a life full of books and writing and after the first devastating shock of grief Emilia's way forward came through writing Arnold's story. She continued to teach and write and was also becoming more involved in Quakerism. She joined a group in Stockholm which met for silent worship and in 1931 she applied for membership as a foreign member of London Yearly Meeting and was accepted. In the same year she published a book about James Nayler that led to her being invited to take up a fellowship at Woodbrooke in Birmingham. She spent a year there in 1933 researching a book on William Penn and in 1939 she visited America and spent some months at Pendle Hill.

Travelling to America was one way in which Emilia tried to get over one of the greatest disappointments of her later years. In 1938 she was encouraged to apply for the post of professor of history and religion at Uppsala university. Not only was she passed over in favour of a man younger and less qualified than herself but because her main expertise was in the psychology of religion rather than history the authorities felt it necessary to publicly declare her incompetent to hold the post. This led to a loss of income as her lecturing work dried up.

The outbreak of the Second World War however meant that Emilia put her personal worries aside and engaged in practical work for peace. She helped to set up the IAL (International work camps) and as soon as the war ended was involved in relief work in Germany. Working in Hamburg she wrote in her diary, ' Now I feel I've got work. All daylight hours are filled and [I feel] an almost constant inner joy, right through the thickening darkness out there...I walk in a whirlwind of life, and I reach out for more'.

Emilia aged 90

As she grew older Emilia became a well-known public figure in Sweden. Her writings were very popular and she was still called upon to pass on her wisdom. She longed to retire quietly but her public was reluctant to let her go. When she was past ninety she was troubled with increasing deafness and longed to die. 'Hope to be out of school soon' was one of her frequent expressions. At the last a severe fall and broken hip meant that she had to go into hospital where she suffered on untill she died in 1972 at the age of 94. Even in her last uncomfortable weeks, a friend said, she 'influenced people to the very end just by existing, without words'.

Emilia Fogelklou Norlind is buried beside her husband in a quiet village churchyard. On her headstone are three words in Swedish meaning - There is light still.

For many years most of Emilia's writings were only available in Swedish but extracts are now available in translation and there is also a biography of her, translated into English by the Swedish author.

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 - B for A Neave Brayshaw

Drawing of A Neave Brayshaw in 1930

Alfred Neave Brayshaw, generally known as Neave, was born in Manchester in 1861, the eldest son of Alfred Brayshaw, a prosperous grocer, and Jane Elizabeth Brayshaw, born Neave. Both his parents came from established Quaker families and followed the habit among Friends of that time of emphazising the fact by giving their sons family surnames for first names. Alfred Neave was followed by Elizabeth, named for her mother, then Stephenson, Edith Jane, Shipley Neave (a double dose) and lastly Edmund Russell.

When he was nearly 10 years old Neave was sent as a boarder to the Quaker school Sidcot in Somerset. He thrived there, excelling academically but also enjoying sports, especially any kind of ball game, and various hobbies. He later recalled that 'there were few flowers in the district - hills and plains - which I could not name at sight'. From Sidcot Neave returned home to study at Owen's College, Manchester where he obtained a London B.A. degree before he was nineteen and then entered a solicitor's office, being destined for the legal profession. He continued his studies and in 1885 was the first to win a Bachelor of Law degree from the new Manchester University.

Oliver's Mount school Scarborough, now a hotel.

Between 1885 and 1889 Neave practised as a solicitor in Manchester but in the evenings he also acted
as a tutor to the younger students at Owens College who were resident at Dalton Hall. He befriended the young men too, playing and watching cricket with them and juggling four or five balls for their amusement. Eventually Neave decided to give up the law in favour of what he felt was a call to teaching. He learned his profession first as an assistant at Oliver's Mount School in Scarborough which had been opened by Thomas Walton, another Quaker. When Neave was there this was a very popular school for the sons of the principal families in the Society of Friends both in England and Ireland. Then, in 1892 when he was 31, Neave became a master at Bootham, the Quaker boy's school in York, and remained there for the next eleven years.

Neave Brayshaw was an inspiring teacher in several subjects, remembered for his reading of poetry and for the earnestness with which he told stories of Quaker history. He also invited groups of the boys, who he referred to as his 'laddies', to take part in archaeological excursions and informal discussions about the life before them. The boys fondly remembered the 'hot toast and potted meat in his room, and the books there, and his kind chatty way'.

Bootham School in 1880

As well as a good education Neave was particularly concerned that the boys he taught should become leaders of the Society of Friends. He was himself inspired by John Wilhelm Rowntree to become part of the movement for a new Liberal Quakerism, questioning and reacting against the evangelical tradition in which he had been brought up. He was not trying to indoctrinate his 'laddies' however but to give them the tools and confidence to make their own way and to show them the possibility that if they followed the Inward Light they might be called to serve the Society of Friends.

While still teaching at Bootham Neave became a leading  light in the Young Friends movement which began at the beginning of the 20th century. As Thomas Kennedy says, Neave believed the purpose of the Young Friends Movement was 'not simply to expend excess energy or to make new friends, but to inject renewed life and vigour into meetings for worship, the central spiritual exercise of Quakerism'. He also wanted to encourage a depth of vocal ministry as well as silent worship. This was a noble aim but it has to be said that Neave's vision for Young Friends did not encompass the contribution of girls until the Yorkshire 1905 Committee made a point of ensuring female participation in all its activities. Some female Friends of the period felt that Neave had little use for women in general.

Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre today

In 1903 the new Quaker College at Woodbrooke was set up and Neave left Bootham to become a
lecturer there. Although he still inspired those he taught he did not always see eye to eye with his colleagues and only stayed for three years. From 1906 he settled in Scarborough and devoted the rest of his life to the service of the Society of Friends, travelling all over the country visiting meetings, lecturing and attending committees. He actively promoted Woodbrooke and served on the Home Service Council (the forerunner of the present Quaker Life committee). He was also an enthusiastic member of the Sidcot Old Scholars Association, the Friends Historical Society and the Friends Guild of Teachers.

During the 1914-1918 war Neave's convictions on war and peace became gradually stronger until he reached an 'absolutist' viewpoint. He would travel to tribunals to speak for those of his 'laddies' who were trying to register as conscientious objectors, but he refused to withdraw his support from those who felt compelled by conscience to take a different path.

After the war Neave Brayshaw wrote two books which still repay reading today. His knowledge of George Fox and his writings was deep and expressed in The Personality of George Fox first published in 1919. He also wrote a short but very approachable history of the Society, The Quakers, their Story and Message which appeared first in 1921, with editions revised by the author following in 1927 and 1938, and was then reissued into the 1950s.

Neave Brayshaw at the seaside, possibly in Normandy

Although no longer on the staff, Neave's links with Bootham school remained unbroken for the rest of his life. He visited regularly both to lead archaeological expeditions and to lecture on Biblical Criticism to the older boys. He organised reading parties for Bootham boys at Scarborough and Whitby and sometimes entertained groups of three or four in his home. One institution for which he was long remembered were his Normandy tours when he would take a group of boys, at first just from Bootham but later from other Quaker schools as well, to France for two weeks in the summer. The tours began in 1895 and continued for forty years, broken only by the First World War and then by the shadow of the Second in 1939.

All the burden of organisation fell upon Neave but he was glad to see his 'laddies' growing together. One participant remembered the Sunday evening worship particularly - 'He would quietly and earnestly speak, out of the depth of his own experience, of the things of God. He would remind us of the homes and schools from which we came and to which we owed so much, of the sacrifice made for us by parents and friends, of the need of the world and the call which comes to each of us to leave the world better than we found it. He called us to no impossible task, but to begin with what experience of good we have, to "mind that which is pure within you to guide you to God" and to consecrate ourselves'.

Neave Brayshaw never ceased in his labours to inform Friends about his vision for the Society of Friends and to inspire new generations who he hoped would carry on his work and bring 'healing in the sickness of the world'. At the beginning of 1940, at home in Scarborough, he was struck by a car during the black-out and died from heart failure not long afterwards at the age of 78.

Quaker Alphabet Blog Week 21 - K for Knitting

 I have just returned from Britain Yearly Meeting where I observed several people knitting during sessions, although usually only during introductions and reports. I sat next to one woman and asked her why she was doing it. She replied that having something to do with her hands stilled her mind and stopped her becoming distracted. That seemed reasonable to me but unfortunately others found her hands' constant movement distracting and asked her to stop.

Illustration to QWG Swarthmore lecture

I have never knitted in meetings, partly because I am not proficient enough to knit without giving it most of my attention, but I do have some history with Friends and knitting. I was part of the Quaker Womens Group who were asked in 1983 to give the Swarthmore lecture. Over the next three years we read, researched and wrote. We met together to talk, edit and make decisions. During that process some of us also knitted and in the end we joked that we had produced not only a lecture and a book but several sweaters. We even used two of them to punningly illustrate part of a quotation from Mary Elson about the London women's meetings ' blessed be the name of the Lord who hath quickened and made alive unto himself and hath knit and tyed and bundled up and hath united us together in one spirit.'

An Ackworth School pin-ball with ribbon

Historically Quaker women and girls have sewn and knitted useful things, such as stockings. Pupils at Ackworth School sewed distinctive 'plain' samplers with geometric designs and subdued colours. They also made round knitted pin-balls (pincushions) in two halves, sometimes with a strip between to make them fatter and with a ribbon attached as a handle. Their designs often included mottos and initials and there are examples made to promote the anti-slavery cause.

Anti-slavery pin-ball front

Anti-slavery pin-ball back

Shetland knitting sheaths

The pin-balls were knitted in silk on very thin needles or 'makkin [making] wires'. To protect the knitter from the sharp ends of the needles and to make them easier to handle knitting sheaths were sometimes used. The narrow end of the knitting sheath was tucked into the right side of the knitter's skirt or apron, and the knitting needle was inserted into the open end among the quills.

Modern finger loom

When Rebecca Jones visited England from1784-8 she kept a memorandum book with a note of her expenses among other things. In Birmingham in 1787 she bought 3 pairs of ivory knitting pins for 2 shillings and 3 ivory finger looms (another way of knitting) for the same price. Rebecca also notes the 'Tokens of Love' which she was given by the Friends she travelled among. These include 'silk for knitting' from Elizabeth Hoyland, a 'Tin Case for knitting' from Esther Tuke and a 'Knitting Sheath' from S. Baker. Rebecca was an accomplished needlewoman so perhaps on her travels she was knitting pin-balls to give as tokens of love to others. She visited Ackworth School too and shared her experience of running a school so there may have been some cross-pollenation of ideas going on there!

Knitting then and now has both practical and spiritual aspects, as the introduction to the Woodbrooke course to be held in October this year called Knitting your Peace reminds us. 'Knitters know that the knitting process is a short cut to the bubble of inner peace. Whilst hands carry out the steady, rhythmic, repetitive movement of making each stitch with needles and yarn, hearts and minds are released to reflect on the here and now within ourselves, within our day, within our lives.' 

Sorry is the hardest word

Last weekend I went to a wonderful workshop on 'Creativity and Shadow' run by my friend, the sculptor Vivien Whitaker, at Woodbrooke in Birmingham. A small group of women, based in the Art Room away from the main conference centre, worked on the subject using our hands and hearts and for all of us it was an intense experience. As some of us said afterwards, questions like 'Did you enjoy it?' and 'Did you have a good time?' were not really relevant!

In order to approach and understand our shadow-side we looked at our strengths and how these might tip over into 'over-strengths'. For me this involved taking responsibility. I know that I can do this but I also know that I have reached the stage of over-strength, when I try to take responsibility for everything and cannot let go and allow other people (and especially my family) to take responsibility themselves. All my children are grown-up people but I am having problems letting go of my 'mother' role, especially the mother who tries to make everything all right.


For me this is encapsulated in the word 'sorry'. Whenever anything goes wrong I say sorry. Sometimes I just mean that I am sorry a bad thing has happened but that is not how my family hear it. They hear me taking everything on myself - again! My elder son got very annoyed with me over the phone a couple of weeks ago when I was saying sorry for his car failing its MOT. 'It's not your fault. It's nothing to do with you, it's my problem.' he said. 'I wish I could take the word Sorry out of the dictionary!'

So it is not surprising that when Vivien gave each of us a plain white paper fan and asked us to depict our shadow on one side and our dream of the future on the other I immediately started on the shadow side and produced this. I wrote the word Sorry everywhere I could and outlined the whole thing in black, like a Victorian mourning letter

I wanted to acknowledge this shadow side of myself, partly so I could try to change it but also because I really am sorry for a lot of my failings and weaknesses. I am also still carrying around a lot of guilt for things done, undone or not done well enough in the past which will take time to work through.

The shadow is part of me and my task is to integrate it so that it becomes part of my wholeness instead of threatening to overwhelm me with depression and feelings of worthlessness. The weekend helped me to realise the effect that my shadow has had and is sometimes still having on my family and I am really putting some effort into working on that. I have displayed the shadow side of my fan in my study where it can act as a constant reminder and I am trying to remove that word from my personal dictionary

The last piece we made at the weekend was an expression of our hope for the future. I made a shape in clay based on a seedcase I had picked up in Kew Gardens with two halves, one open and gold and one closed in and black, although with a few bits of glitter even there. The 'seed', made with a shell, combined both colours, dark and light. I placed it on a piece of printed velvet and wrapped the whole thing in card and tissue paper, black and dull on the outside, gold and shiny within, all tied together with a multicoloured thread.




The whole group explained their pieces to the others and as I did this I unwrapped the parcel. When I got home I took all the outer casings off and put the clay on a low shelf where I can see it every day

The song says that 'Sorry is the hardest word to say'. For me it is the hardest word to stop saying but I am resolved to try. One way in which I am going to do this is not to say sorry when I don't write this blog. I am going to stop imposing 'once a week' or 'once a month' rules on myself which set me up to fail. I will write when I have something to say and I will not apologise for that.