Quaker Alphabet Blog 2014 - O for Obedience

St Martin of Tours, Chelsfield, Kent

Going to a family wedding last week reminded me of my own, almost 44 years ago. Chris and I were married in the Church of England parish church near my home and what a trial we must have been to the vicar! To begin with, although we knew that we wanted (and our families expected) a religious ceremony, our relationship to the church was ambivalent. I had been baptised into the Church of England but had refused to be confirmed as I didn't see why I needed any priestly intermediary between myself and God - you can see why I was so happy to find Quakers later on! Chris had not even been baptised as at the time of his birth his father was a Baptist, later becoming a URC minister. The vicar accepted my position but Chris had to produce a letter from his old college chaplain (at that time conveniently a bishop) to prove his qualifications.

On top of this we had the certainty of youth (we were 22 and 23) that we did not want to use the 'modern' marriage service but insisted instead on the traditional 1662 version, the language of which we both preferred. We swept aside the vicar's objections, assuring him that that we understood what we would be saying, even though it meant that I would promise to 'obey' my husband. After all it was a safe promise to make, as Chris would never ask me to do anything unreasonable!

Lucretia Mott

Looking back, a wife's obedience to her husband has indeed hardly figured in our marriage. I hope that we have so far managed to live up to the aphorism favoured by the American Quaker (and feminist) Lucretia Mott. 'In the true marriage relationship the interdependence of the husband and wife is equal, their dependence mutual and their obligations reciprocal'.

But perhaps the importance of the possibility of obedience was always there and it has always been an important part of my commitment to Quakerism. Our worship and testimonies are based on a willingness to be led by the Light, by our Inward Guide, into action and behaviour that, individually and corporately, we might not choose for ourselves. I know that when I have felt led into a new path on my spiritual journey at first it often seems impossible. The leading is not demanding, but it is insistent. It may recede from the forefront of my consciousness for a while but it does not go away. In the end, with the help of my friends, my family and my community, I have found a way forward in faith - I have obeyed. Corporately too Quakers have been led to positions which are often uncomfortable, which are sometimes too difficult for some individuals, but which are still spirit-led.

Obedience is not something to be entered into blindly but it is an important part of the Quaker way. As Isaac Penington put it in 1661, 'Give over thine own willing, give over thy own running, give over thine own desiring to know or be anything and sink down to the seed which God sows in the heart, and let that grow in thee and be in thee and breathe in thee and act in thee'.

Quaker Alphabet Blog Week 48 - X for Xmas

I know that I'm cheating for X here and that Xmas isn't even really a word, but it's almost December and I wanted to write about Quakers and Christmas as well as my own rather ambivalent attitude to the festive season.

Quakers' rejection of Christmas celebrations has always been part of their testimony regarding times and seasons, which states that all days are equally holy and that particular times for celebration should not be seen as 'special'. In this they were not alone but part of the particular time and place from which they sprang. When Quakerism first emerged in the 1650s in England Parliament itself had banned the celebration of Christmas as 'a popish festival with no biblical justification' and this very unpopular law remained in force from 1647 to 1659. In America the Puritans of New England carried on where the British Puritans left off and outlawed the celebration of Christmas in Boston from 1659 to 1681.

Friends continued to ignore Christmas, opening their shops and continuing their schooling throughout, until well into the 19th century. Over time however the testimony regarding times and seasons weakened.  The problem with making no difference between days is that the element of celebration, which might equally happen every day, in practice tends to be lost and we long for excuses to celebrate with our families and communities. In the UK too the nature of the Religious Society of Friends has changed radically with most members now coming in by convincement as adults rather than being brought up in Quaker families so that we have learned different Christmas traditions and wish to continue at least some of them. Many Quaker meetings now organise some sort of programmed meeting involving all ages in carols, seasonal readings and plays. Some also have a meeting for worship on the day that the world calls Christmas.

There are elements of Christmas celebration which I was brought up with and which I would miss if Friends went right back to their puritan roots. I enjoy the celebration with family, sharing food and giving and receiving cards and gifts. I love decorating the house with a tree and lights and looking at the decorations in the places around me. These things bring back my childhood excitement and wonder and they mean Christmas to me. I do not have to spend a lot of money or to take part in the rampant materialism which I would label Xmas, but I refuse to feel guilty about what I do.  Oh yes and I also count down the days with an advent calendar - very unquakerly!

Quaker Alphabet Blog Week 32 - P for Piety Promoted

In 1701 John Tomkins published the first part of a book usually known as Piety Promoted, the full title of which was Piety promoted in a collection of dying sayings of many of the people called Quakers. His intention was to inspire his readers for, as he says in his preface,

 'Having, in the course of my reading, met with many excellent sayings of our dying Friends, that afforded me much satisfaction of mind, I have collected some of them together for the benefit of others: knowing that usually the words of dying persons make deeper impression on the minds of men, than words spoken at other times.'

Tomkins acknowledges that he is bound to give some account of his subjects' lives as well as of their deaths but stresses that his purpose in this is not to 'exalt men but to exalt the great God, and his grace in Christ Jesus, by which they were what they were.' He was building on a tradition of collections of dying sayings which were popular in the 17th century and later, especially those relating to children and young people. Piety Promoted found a wide audience and eventually appeared in eleven parts, each of which was reprinted several times.

Title page of revised edition by John Kendal

The work was carried on by several editors over the years. Tomkins published three parts from 1701 to 1706 and his successor John Field another three from 1711 to 1728, followed by John Bell who published the seventh part in 1740. Thomas Wagstaffe brought out two more parts in 1774 and 1796 then Joseph Gurney Bevan put together the tenth part in 1810 which includes a helpful 'historical account of the preceding parts or volumes and of their several compilers and editors.' Finally in 1829 the eleventh part of Piety Promoted appeared compiled by Josiah Forster. 

Not only were these books popular, they were approved by the Quaker establishment and printed by official Quaker printers such as Tace Sowle, Luke Hinde and James and William Phillips. As time went on however the emphasis on a 'good death' became less important than the example of a good life. Testimonies to the grace of God in the life of deceased Friends had been written from the beginning of Quakerism by the local meetings of the deceased and in time the practice arose of sending these to Yearly Meeting for collection and publication. At first only recorded ministers were memorialised in this way but that distinction fell away in the 20th century together with the custom of specially recording those with a gift for vocal ministry.

There was another source for information about the lives and deaths of Friends in Britain and Ireland. This was the Annual Monitor, a mainly statistical volume which recorded all deaths of Quakers in these Yearly Meetings each year from 1812 to 1920. Some entries give the bare facts of name, meeting, age and date of death but others add memoirs of the Friends' lives, sometimes in considerable detail. These memoirs often concentrate on the end of life but include many other details of their lives and service. As with Piety Promoted the intention is to inspire the reader.

In our own times 'dying sayings' are no longer considered edifying reading and indeed the practice of writing and publishing testimonies is not as prevalent as it once was. There seems to be a fear that in writing testimonies for some and not for others we are failing in our testimony to equality, but is this in fact the case? As John Tomkins said, the aim is not to exalt individuals but to point out examples of the grace of God as seen in individual lives. We have good advice available about the writing of testimonies and I hope that we will follow it and so produce more inspiration for succeeding generations.