Quaker Alphabet Blog 2015 - H for Hope

Speaking as someone who has often been tempted to give in to depression and despair, part of me is surprised that I now find myself called to hope -  and not just to stand still in that hope but to travel hopefully.

Britain Yearly Meeting this year was particularly inspiring and we wrote minutes that committed us to work for peace, justice and  equality. It is easy to be cynical and think of these as just words but I am convinced that there is a spirit alive among us that will lead us on to action. I hope there is.

For me the decision to hope, while still acknowledging the despair around us and the obstacles that we will have to overcome, is one I can unite with. I found it best expressed in the concluding minute to Yearly Meeting.

"'I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness. And in that also I saw the infinite love of God.'
(George Fox, 1647)

We have set off once again from this Yearly Meeting on the long journey illumined by the Love of God, to challenge the principalities and powers of this world, and to work towards the establishment of the peaceable Kingdom. May we travel in hope, loving both our fellow travellers and those who will oppose us, and pray that in our travellings the light may break in upon us more and more."

Quaker Alphabet Blog Week 45 - W for Weighty Friends

Another piece of Quaker jargon that I feel really ambivalent about is the term 'Weighty Friend'. The Quaker Jargon Buster defines a Weighty Friend, with tongue firmly in cheek, as 'one who is influential (i.e: their opinion carries weight) within the Society (while remaining consistent with our testimony on equality, of course).' 

I think my main uneasiness with the term stems from that problem of equality. Of course I have known weighty friends, whose spiritual depth and experience gives weight to their words, and I have turned to some of them for wisdom and advice, but I do not see them as being 'better' than I am. I am more comfortable with the term 'Experienced Friends' as this is more plainly descriptive of someone who knows more and has done more than I have and whose thoughts are worth listening to for that reason.

My problem with the term comes to the fore whenever Weighty Friends are deferred to as authorities in any matter, either locally or centrally. All of us have a right to be listened to, even if the discernment of the meeting does not in the end agree with us. Deferring to the opinions of Weighty Friends is even worse when their 'weight' comes from belonging to a Quaker family, going to a Quaker school or even having been a Young Friend in the past!

For myself, I may answer to the name of Experienced Friend in some contexts but never to Weighty Friend. In fact I believe that if anyone sees themselves as a Weighty Friend (except in the context of a joking reference to avoirdupois) then they are certainly not one!

Quaker Alphabet Blog Week 17 - I for Image

Q for Quaker by William Nicholson 1898

For a group so concerned with simplicity and plainness, Quakers have been surprisingly concerned about their image over the years. Friends could be disowned if they acted in ways that were perceived as bringing the reputation of the Society of Friends into disrepute. Friends' testimony for simplicity meant that they were not supposed to pay too much attention to how they looked or to fashion but in practice this led to a kind of uniformity, a 'Quaker grey' that was increasingly policed. Quakers dressed, spoke and acted in ways that set them apart from the rest of Society and to outsiders they sometimes appeared intimidatingly serious and lacking any sense of humour.

Present day Quaker Oats logo

First image of 'Quaker Oats man'

Of course one of the most iconic Quaker images, the Quaker Oats man, has absolutely no connection with the Religious Society of Friends. He was created to embody the perceived honesty and straightforwardness of Quakers and to associate these qualities with the products he advertised. The first image used is reminiscent of portraits of William Penn but the latest incarnation is jolly and smiling - not the older image of a Quaker at all.There are other examples of this advertising association, such as Quaker Maid motor oil which uses the image of a demure young girl in a Quaker cap to tell buyers that their product is pure.

Nowadays the image of a Quaker is often that of a campaigner for peace, equality or the environment. Quakers are seen as 'good people' if perhaps rather naive. I worry about the condescension of this view and would rather ally myself with the message of the recent outreach posters produced for Quaker Week in the UK - here are a wide range of people who are all Quakers whether they fit the Quaker image or not!

Quaker Alphabet Week 10 - E for Equality

Equality as a Quaker testimony derives from the conviction, as George Fox put it, that there is 'that of God in every one'. As with the other testimonies, to peace, truth and simplicity, equality is a work in progress which we do not always live up to either individually or corporately.

When I think of equality in a Quaker context what first comes to my mind is equality between women and men. It is often said that there has always been equality between men and women in the Society of Friends, but this is only a partial truth. While in general there has been spiritual equality, Quakers have often retained the temporal attitudes to the roles of the sexes that have been part of the world in which they lived and live. There are examples of this scattered through the biographies that I am writing as part of the Quaker Alphabet.

Back in the 1980s I was a member of the Quaker Womens Group and helped to write and present the QWG Swarthmore lecture Bringing the Invisible into the Light at Yearly Meeting in Exeter in 1986. The fact that Quakers had sometimes fallen short in their testimony to equality was one of our themes and we encountered a very hostile reaction from some quarters for daring to question an accepted truth.

There are other areas in which Quakers have not always managed, consciously or unconsciously, to be true to their testimony to equality. Friends in Britain have exhibited some racist attitudes as Lilamani Woolrych found when she was a Joseph Rowntree Quaker Fellow in 1993 and published in her report Communicating across cultures.

More recently Vanessa Julye and Donna McDaniel have looked  at the record of American Quakers in this area in their 2011 book Fit for Freedom, not for Friendship and found it less than perfect. Although Quakers worked to right the wrongs of African Americans they were uncomfortable about living with them as equals or accepting them as full members of the Society of Friends. Black Friends were expected to take their place on the 'back benches' and had to fight for full acceptance as members.

In the same way lack of equality related to social class or educational differences was and perhaps still is an issue among Friends. When the Adult School movement was at its height among Quakers in the 19th and 20th centuries some of the working-class pupils wanted to be

An application form for Quaker Associate Membership

come Friends but it was felt that they were not ready for full membership and a new category, associate membership was created for them. No doubt the Friends concerned thought they were being kind but
they were not accepting these people as equals.

I feel that it is important for Friends to recognise that we have failed to live up to our testimony to equality in the past and may be failing always to live up to this and other testimonies today. If we do not recognise this we run the risk of falling into the trap of self-righteousness. It is salutary to remember that Quakers are no more perfect than the rest of humanity and never have been.