Quaker Alphabet Blog Week 43 - V for Visiting

Over thirty years ago I applied for membership of the Religious Society of Friends, or rather of Reading Monthly Meeting. I was visited by two Friends, both women and older than myself, one from my own meeting and one from another in the area. I knew what to expect from the process and was not intimidated by it or by them. It did not feel at all like an examination, with hoops that I was expected to jump through, but instead was a pleasant evening during which we shared our spiritual journeys. They reported on the visit to the Monthly Meeting and the upshot was that I was accepted into membership.The visit itself gave me a special link with these two Friends who acted in a way like spiritual godparents for this newly-convinced Quaker.

In later years I have taken part in several visits to applying members and have gained several spiritual 'godchildren' myself. Even when the visit has been difficult - and on at least one occasion that was definitely the case - I have still retained a special interest in the future progress of the people I visited. At first the report was compiled by the visitors without reference to the person visited but nowadays it is usually seen and approved by them before being put before the Area Meeting.

At present Britain Yearly Meeting is experiencing a dip in membership which some fear may prove terminal (although I would point out that we have been here several times before over the last four centuries). Is it the prospect of being visited that puts people off? Some people feel that anyone who applies should be accepted without any further enquiry and others are sure that there is really no difference between a long-time attender and a member. For myself I would be sad to lose this way of sharing our spiritual autobiography with others when there are so few other places which give us the opportunity to do it and to deepen our knowledge of one another in 'the things which are eternal'.

An application for membership can be a valuable rite of passage, a commitment to the next stage of our journey and it would be a pity to do away with that, even though it may not be right for everyone and other arrangements can be made by different meetings. Rather than worrying about the age of our membership, or about numbers at all, we should perhaps find more ways in which Friends can listen to one another and speak their own truth in an accepting setting. For me I know that being visited and visiting others in turn has been a really valuable part of my Quaker life.

Quaker Alphabet Blog Week 42 - U for 'Unknown, unhonoured and unsung'

This quotation from an almost forgotten poem by a little-known Californian poet, Samuel John Alexander, who garnered one favourable review from the New York Times in 1912 before vanishing into obscurity, sums up my reason for researching, writing and sharing the history of Quakers and others.

I never cease to be amazed at how little most Friends know about the history of the Quaker movement or of the faithful lives of our foremothers and forefathers. A few names will be familiar - George Fox, Margaret Fell, John Woolman, Elizabeth Fry - but what of the less well known? I have gained immeasurably from reading the writings, published and unpublished, of earlier Friends, from listening to these voices from the past, and I want to share that experience with others.

I know that some Friends today think that Quaker history is irrelevant to how we live our lives now but this is very far from the truth in my experience. If we can understand the shifts in emphasis over time, the differences in tradition and how they have developed, then we will be better equipped to face the difficulties of our own time. Do we worry about becoming an aged Society with no appeal to the young? - Friends in the 17th, 18th, 19th and even 20th centuries did too. Can their explorations and solutions help us now?

Our Quaker faith is based on faithfulness - to God, to our Inward Teacher, to our leadings and our testimonies - and it can help us in our struggles to hear stories of what has gone before. As Alice Hayes put it in 1723 '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.'

Over the years, with varying levels of success, I have tried to encourage Friends to share their spiritual autobiographies as a help to others. I have also published the writings of earlier Quakers and written about their lives in many different places including this blog. All this is because I do not want these people, who I think of as my friends, to remain 'unknown, unhonoured and unsung' and also because I am convinced that they have much to say which can be a Help to us today.

                                                                                            

Quaker Alphabet Blog Week 41 - U for Unquakerly

I have a problem with the word 'unquakerly'. It derives from the word 'quakerly' or 'quakerlike' - looking or behaving like a Quaker - but what does a Quaker look like today and how does a Quaker behave? Does it hark back to Whittier's 'Quaker of the olden time' and is 'being quakerly' the same for everyone?

One of the things that makes me uncomfortable about the word 'unquakerly' is that it is always used as a criticism. The person using it assumes that they know what 'quakerly' is and what it is not. Over the years many different things have been called 'unquakerly' - violence, conflict or disagreement of any sort, anger - colourful clothes, make-up, jewellery - drinking, gambling - dancing, singing, learning to play an instrument - programmed worship, Quaker pastors - paying taxes, not paying taxes. The list is endless and endlessly contradictory.

Most Quakers try their best to follow their leadings, to be guided by their Inward Teacher and their community. This endeavour is helped by mutual encouragement, not by criticism and by being divided into 'quakerly' and 'unquakerly'. For me the use of the word 'unquakerly' about someone else is where our famous Quaker tolerance breaks down.

Of course each of us is aware of our own lapses and failings and we can use the word 'unquakerly' defensively against ourselves, jumping in to criticise ourselves before others can do it. But rather than being negative there is a debate to be had about those positive quakerly qualities that we have in common.
 
I have another blog dedicated to the crafty things I make and perhaps some of them are rather unquakerly. On the one hand I am recycling material and making things rather than buying them, but on the other hand my beading is very sparkly and over the top and I enjoy it so much! For myself I think that the word 'unquakerly' is a bit like the word 'feminist.' It makes me want to say "This is what an unquakerly Quaker looks like - let's explore what that means!"