Qualification

Unable, unwilling, a game of Quaker nominations

I have written here before about my experience of Quaker nominations from the point of view of someone on a nominations committee. I am returning to the subject because something I was told recently has made me think about nominations from the other side of the fence and also about the vexed question of 'qualification' for a post.

A while ago I was asked to take on a Quaker role which seemed to me to fit my 'qualifications' perfectly. I thought that both my professional qualifications and my personal and professional experience were likely to be useful to the body on which I was being asked to serve. I was also convinced of that body's importance and hoped that my enthusiasm might be useful. In the end though, as I have written here, I was proved wrong and had to accept that others had a different view.

Having let go of that commitment I was at first a bit wary when asked if I might be willing to serve in another way here in Yorkshire. I hesitated but again I felt qualified by experience in both my professional and personal life and it seemed to me that I might fit and be of some use. I said yes and have just been appointed so I have yet to find out whether this is the case.

After the meeting at which my appointment was accepted one of the nominations committee thanked me for taking on the task. I replied that in the end I did not feel able to refuse as it felt as though the job had my name written on it. Perhaps I came across as too self-satisfied because he hastened to assure me that my name had in fact been at the bottom of the list and I was only asked when everyone else had refused! I had not in fact given a thought to who else had been asked but it was a salutary reminder that Quakers have to take what they can get!

I hope that I will find that I can fulfil my new role and that my qualifications of all kinds will be useful. I hope too that I will continue to learn and grow and become more qualified for whatever task (if any) I am asked to undertake in the future.

New Year, Old Blog or Here I Go Again

Yet again I return to this blog after a long gap. In fact I see that I only wrote three posts last year when I had meant to write monthly. I do not want to castigate myself for this however but instead want to look at ways in which I can go forward into the new year.

This blog has had several different strands. First and foremost it has been a way of continuing to write my spiritual autobiography - a project I have been engaged in for many years. I am looking at different approaches and hope that I can share some of that work here.

I have also used this blog to share my passion for Quaker history - and especially for the eighteenth century and particular Quaker characters - with others. The Quaker alphabet structure helped me with that but it also limited my choice of subject, although without it I only managed one Quaker history post last year so something needs to be done.

As well as writing here I have other outlets for my thoughts. I write a diary, also irregularly, in a series of A5 blank books using a rollerball pen. This is just for my consumption but sometimes what I write in my diary can feed into what I write here and in fact for the last few weeks I have been considering with pen and paper how I can continue this blog.

There is something else that I do regularly elsewhere. As well as reading and writing the visual arts are also important to me. I am a devoted fan of Pinterest and use my 'boards' to collect images for my eighteenth century research but I have created many others for art that I love. Some are devoted to a particular artist - for example Eric Ravilious, Emily Carr, Felix Vallotton and Giovanni Boldini - while others cover subjects that attract me - trees, the sea, windows, landscapes, abstraction and still life to name but a few.

Eric Ravilious. Cuckmere Haven 1939

Nearly two years ago I decided to share some of this art on Facebook as an antidote to all the doom and gloom about the world appearing there. So every day, usually when I first open up my computer, I share a piece of art from my Pinterest boards. At first I wrote a bit about the chosen image from my perspective but after a while I decided to leave each image open to whatever interpretation my friends wanted to give it. I now just give the title, the name and nationality of the artist and the date it was made if I can find it. I think this is right for Facebook but for a while now I have been wondering about finding a way to expand this description, to give more background or to explain why it appeals to me. So I have decided to add this to my possible subjects for this blog.


So I am expanding my subject matter but realistically I know that actually sitting down to write is likely to remain a problem for me! I need a prompt but I also need to be flexible. Aiming to write once a month, as I did last year, is obviously not enough but weekly writing feels like too much pressure, so in 2019 I will aim to post something every two weeks and allow myself to do more if I can. I will also set a reminder on my phone for every other Sunday and see how that works!

Blogging is a personal thing for me but, unlike my diary, this blog is written for an audience. I welcome dialogue and hope that I will hear from some of my readers in 2019 - if only to act as another sort of prompt!

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.