Quaker Alphabet Blog 2015-2017 - V for Verses

As I said in a much earlier post, Friends in the past have felt ambivalent about both reading and writing poetry. Some, like Mary Southworth Mollineux, did write in this form but only on serious subjects and they hesitated to publish their work widely or under their own name.

In the 18th century poetry was often copied by Friends into commonplace books for their own use. This might be written by Quakers but works such as James Thomson's The Seasons were also popular. As the century progressed a few Friends ventured into the public domain with their poetry. In 1794 Catherine Payton Phillips published The Happy King; a sacred poem which was addressed to George III. The main subject of the poem is to urge the monarch to do away with slavery and was part of mainstream Quaker campaigning at this time. In her Memoirs Catherine states that when she became a minister she stopped any reading other than the Bible, but perhaps towards the end of her life she allowed herself more latitude, as her poem is very much in the contemporary style.

In later times many Friends wrote poetry and even published it, although like W. C. Braithwaite's volume it was often referred to, self-deprecatingly, as Verses. There were Quaker poets, such as the Americans Walt Whitman and John Greenleaf Whittier but it was only in the 20th century that this became an acceptable description in the UK. Poets who are Quakers do not always identify as Quaker poets but a modern anthology has recently been published. A Speaking Silence; Quaker poets of today came out in 2013 and was advertised as the first of its kind for over a hundred years.

So what is the difference between poetry and verses? Is one more serious than the other? There is certainly a continuing tradition of both forms appearing in local newsletters and blogs and both are now equally acceptable. I would like to end this post with an extract from a verse published in 2007 by the Sheffield Quaker Simon Heywood which is part of another tradition - verse which pokes fun at the idiosyncrasies of Friends - usually in a loving spirit.


I'm a lonely little Quaker
and I'm feeling very small.
I'm the clerk of Monthly Meeting
and there's no-one here at all.
I've got all the minutes drafted
and I'm ready with my pen
but the sense of Monthly Meeting
is they've stayed at home again...

If it wasn't for the Quakers
in the Quaker burial ground
then I'd be the only Quaker
for a hundred miles around,
for the buses stop at seven
and there's something on TV
and this month it's nominations
and there's no-one here but me.
I could minute they're prevented
but they never said what by.
I'm a lonely little Quaker
and I think I want to cry.

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!

Hebdomadal thoughts

Yet again it has been a very long time since I wrote on this blog. Last time I was feeling the possibility that I might start writing again but then life intervened. I now have a beautiful granddaughter called Hope, born in Leeds in November, and I had a long bout of flu over Christmas and the new year, so one way and another I have been a bit distracted. I have written on my other blog but not here.

However in this new year I have decided to try to write more regularly. The word 'hebdomadal' leapt out at me in a question on University Challenge and then I read this post on one of the craft blogs I follow. Jane Brocket is proposing cutting back from writing daily to writing weekly while I am going the other way, stepping up from very infrequent to weekly!

In order to do this I have also decided to approach this blog differently. Perhaps I have worried too much in the past over what to write here and that may have stopped me writing. Probably I have been too conscious of my strapline and afraid of falling short. I hope that writing something every week will help me to loosen up. I am a Quaker - I write a blog - so this is a Quaker blog whatever I write.

I look forward to exploring this further in the weeks to come and I hope you will join me hebdomadally.

Blog award

My friend Heather writes two great blogs, one Doodles about knitting and other craft and the other Still Life about her life as a Quaker, although in true Quaker fashion the subject matter often crosses over. She has kindly given me a blog award for which I am truly grateful, not just because of the glory - although of course I do feel that! - but because this is the kind of award that comes with strings attached and has managed to kick start me into writing here again when guilt and inadequacy and the need to get other writing finished had all but silenced me.


The strings are first to nominate seven other blogs for the award and then to meme seven things about myself, so here goes!


Most of the blogs I read are Quaker ones and these are only a few of the many which really inspire me and make me think and feel and sometimes write. So in no particular order I would like to give this award to wise Shawna from Ohio for her blog Mystics, Poets and Fools, Harriet from England at Jumping the brook whose pithy entries I always look forward to, Angelina from Philadelphia who is Not afraid of thunder or indeed much else, Ashley, living in Seattle, who is pursuing A passionate & determined quest for adequacy with great honesty and Sarah in Oregon whose faith and many talents shine through her daily writing at Walking the Sea.


And then there are two more blogs I would like to give the award to which have different emphases. I spent my working life in libraries and can often relate to Mike, The Surly Librarian and I am now trying to spend more time on craft and find Alissa's words and pictures at Handmade by Alissa cheering and motivating.

And now for 7 things about myself, again in no particular order:-

1. I have a weakness for soft toys and have three teddy bears in my study.

2. I wanted to be an actress when I was a teenager and have a LAMDA gold medal for acting - the breath control is still useful for public speaking.

3. I would love to wear high heels but can't walk in them.

4. I dream of living in a house with a turret so that I could have a round study - preferably overlooking the sea.

5. I put on eye-shadow every day unless I'm really ill.

6. My favourite occupation is research.

7. I need to stop taking responsibility for everything and everyone.

So over to you award winners! Please feel free to interpret the strings attached as loosely as you like and thanks again Heather, for getting me writing here again.

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!

Hello all those British Quaker bloggers out there!

I've been talking to Jeremiah and Robin about what other British Quaker blogs exist and Robin suggested that I do a list. So, as a kind of addendum to Martin's list, here goes.

Martin mentions Simon's Under the Green Hill and Jez of The Friend's Quaker Street. I have a few more favourites including Jeremiah's Fire in the Bones , Heather's Still Life and Daniel's Sitting Down for Something.

More blogs I have just found, added to my Bloglines subscriptions [thanks for the tip Robin!] and am enjoying are A Tentative Quaker, Mister JTA's Electric Quaker II, Ray's Quaker-Buddhist Dharmakara's Prayer, Laura's Silentblog and M. Willis Monroe.

As Jeremiah notes quite a few British Quaker Meetings have blogs although most use them more as a kind of newsletter than in a personal, reflective way. Two exceptions to this rule which both have several contributors writing thoughtful and often challenging posts are Beeston Quakers and Sheffield Quakers.

So who have I missed? If you are a British Quaker and have a blog of any kind or if you would not give yourself the BQ label but still blog about British Quakerism or Quakers in general I would love to get in touch. Are there more of us out there and if not why not I wonder. Over to you!

A Happy Return

Today is my 60th birthday so I thought this was an appropriate time to get back into blogging. Obviously I haven't said anything here for a long time but I have been reading other people's blogs - especially via http://www.quakerquaker.org/. Thanks a lot Martin for helping me keep in touch with the Quaker conversation.

60 feels signficant to me. I'm officially an Old Age Pensioner from today with a state pension and a free bus pass - not to mention free prescriptions, eye tests and lots of other goodies! I'm determined to use all the opportunities I have and to keep thinking and learning all I can, but at the same time I am on a continuing journey to discern what I need to do, rather than what I think I should.

I retired from paid work in the middle of 2006 and I am still getting used to that. I'm doing some 19th century Quaker research which is taking me in unexpected directions. I have decided that I need to write my family history in order to understand where my parents came from as well as myself. There is a lot to write about here so I will try to do that as well as reading other blogs.

Good intentions

Sometimes it seems as though I blink and a month goes by – or several months or a year sometimes. Does this happen to other people?

I was so happy when I discovered blogging and I really meant to write something regularly but lately I haven’t managed it. I began just reading other people’s and I did respond a couple of times but for several weeks now I haven’t even managed that. It’s been a case of ‘Life is what happens to you when you are making other plans.’ But I have just sat down and read through the Quaker blogs I’ve bookmarked with the help of Quaker Ranter and I’ve been so moved and realise what I’m missing so I’m going to try again.

Perhaps I should worry less and read and write more (or less) and see what happens. I’ll try to give myself a regular slot in the day too and try to share my life a bit more. Please bear with me and keep reading.