A way forward

 

In the Library. Thomas Pole. 1806

I have been giving some thought to what effect Britain Yearly Meeting 2023 has had on me.

I have been going to Yearly Meeting now, fairly regularly, for nearly 50 years. Sometimes it has been inspiring, sometimes difficult, even depressing, but I have kept on going as I always find something there to feed my spiritual life.

This time I found that, beginning with the introduction on the Book of Discipline Revision by Rosie Carnall, I was often reminded of my good intentions which I had not followed up on. I meant to send in possible extracts to the committee, particularly from the 18th century which is woefully under-represented at the moment - but I have not got round to doing it.

As I listened to Rosie - and to William Penn - the words of the pragmatic 18th century Quaker John Bellers came into my mind. In 1714 he said 'He that doth not write whilst he is alive can’t speak when he is dead.' Death is always a possibility but at 75 years old it feels closer than it once did. I have researched extensively and given talks and workshops on spiritual autobiography and 18th century Quakers. I have written blog posts on a variety of Quaker subjects but increasingly infrequently.

Sitting in the Yearly Meeting sessions I had an experience I have had before, an inward 'voice' prodding me, pushing me forward, repeatedly reminding me that I must write. If not now, when? I must send extracts to the Revision Committee. I must get on with my 18th century researches and put them into some order. I must write and even publish - articles or even a book - and I must come back to this blog.

So I have made a start by sitting down at my computer and returning to the work of transcribing the 18th century letters which I photographed in Friends House Library many months ago. Once that is done I hope I will see where to go next.

It was becoming clear to me before Yearly Meeting that I needed to step back from the many Quaker roles which I had undertaken and by the end of this year I will have let most of them go. At first I could not see a way forward from this but after Yearly Meeting I do. What I am working on may seem to others too personal, irrelevant to the wider world, but I have a sure sense that this is the path that I am being led, or 'pushed', to take. I will try to be faithful to that leading.

 

 

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.

Words from the past

One of the things I am doing in my retirement is transcribing four volumes of manuscript journals written between 1825 and 1880 by the Quaker Mary Bevan Waterhouse (1805-1880), mother of eight children including the architect Alfred Waterhouse. They are mainly concerned with her spiritual life as an evangelical Quaker and recorded minister in 19th century Britain but also give insights into her family and social life.

I came upon this manuscript while working in the Special Collections of Reading University Library and was really excited to find that it still existed. I had read the extracts that had been privately published by her son Edwin in 1907 but in his preface he said that he intended to destroy the original as it was no longer needed! I am so glad he had not done that and that Mary's handwritten exercise books, bound later into 4 volumes, had been presented to Reading in 1968.

I am working through the manuscript slowly, going to the reading room about one day a week, and transcribing in chronological order. So far I have got to 1847. I expected to find the task interesting, to find out more about 19th century Quakers and Quakerism. I expected that what I read would fit in with my long-standing interest in spiritual autobiography. What I didn't expect was that Mary would speak to me personally.

Mary has a lot to say about being thankful for God's mercies and often rejoices in the loving-kindness of the Lord. I know that I too have much to be thankful for and that I need to be more mindful of this loving-kindness in my life. The last time I was working on her diary Mary was anxious about the safety of her children when they were away from her and reminded herself to leave them with confidence in the care of God. My two sons, aged 29 and 25, are about to go travelling round the world for a year and I needed Mary's words myself.