23 November 2018 £2.00 thediscover the contemporaryFriend quaker way

Let’s talk about peace the Friend Independent Quaker Journalism Since 1843

Contents VOL 176 NO 47

3 Thought for the Week: Windrush exploration Our community Alison Leonard To make a safe home for small 4-6 News children, to comfort one person 7 Are we aroused to action? in sorrow, to do one’s work as Barbara Forbes efficiently as possible, to listen with understanding, to be gentle with the 8-9 Letters old and courteous to the young – these are the humble tasks to which 10-11 Not a notion but a way most men and women are called. Henry S Thompson They build the home or the meeting 12 France Yearly Meeting or the community which is the first step towards the Kingdom of Heaven Richard Thompson on earth. The second is to be aware 13 A journey into Uganda of greater tasks and to be ready to Louise McCann be used in solving them – ready, not worried or anxious or envious, but 14 Support and nurture content to wait, exercising a ministry Jane Muers of prayer to sustain the healers and the reconcilers already at work in 15 Let’s talk about peace their thousands Rebecca Hardy Olive Tyson 1966 16 q-eye: a look at the Quaker world 17 Friends & Meetings Quaker faith & practice 10.18

Cover image: A tree of peace created by children at a recent event at Friends House. Photo: Anne van Staveren, Quakers in Britain. See page 15.

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2 the Friend, 23 November 2018 Thought for the Week

Windrush exploration

ith great absorption and considerable shame, I’ve been reading stories of the Windrush generation: how they were called to serve the ‘mother country’, and how that turned out. Why ‘shame’? In 1965-66, I was a child care officer Wfor the London Borough of Hackney, where many West Indians settled after coming over in the previous decade. I visited Afro-Caribbean families in their rough terraces and windblown high-rise flats, and, qualified by nine years in a girls’ boarding school and four years at university, I had the power to inspect their child care practices and, if necessary, take their children into care. The social work profession was in its infancy, and it took only my decision and that of one senior officer to embark on such drastic action. I’d had one day’s training in ‘West Indian culture’. I knew nothing of slavery and little about patterns of migration. I was terrified. Fast-forward a few years, and I discovered Quakers and joined them. Brought up in a staunch Conservative family who believed in king/queen, country and empire, I now met people who interpreted the swathes of pink on the world map in terms of unbalanced power relationships, and took steps to right some wrongs. In the following years I met such heroes as Adam Curle, Diana and John Lampen, and Friends who worked for Quaker Cottage and Quaker House in Belfast, the Quaker Bolivia Link, the Quaker Congo Partnership – so many things. I learnt what racism was, and found it in my background. In the last two and a half years, I’ve seen racism in Britain rediscover its voice. One member of my original family has gone UKIP; a dear neighbour, after I’d confessed that I came from a family who thought English people could run other people’s countries better than they could themselves, said, well, sorry, but he agreed with my family, not with me. So, this is Brexit. The UK government’s position is embattled at every turn, wracked with ignorance even of the details of its own border with Europe, in Ireland. No one has any idea of the outcome. But I guess that in the long term it may usher in, for Britain, an era of humiliation. Our politicians’ proud stance will reveal itself as the hutzpah of a few has-been islands off a minor western continent, as the real power moves eastwards – that is, if climate change has not wrought a more global resolution. How can we, as a spiritual community, respond to this shift in our national self- worth? We may dread the social upheaval it will bring, and the loss of our treasured liberal values. But were these not largely a mask, while colonial realities still power our smartphones? I think we’ll need to start with that most difficult of spiritual virtues: humility. Our culture, during the last 500 years, has exploited other cultures and lands for its own purposes. We must step back, and let others try their hand. It will be extraordinarily painful, but it needs to be faced. I will start with my Windrush exploration and hope to go on from there.

Alison Leonard Hebden Bridge Meeting

the Friend, 23 November 2018 3 News Kindertransport anniversary marked at Friends House

As 1,000 guests gathered at Friends House in London for a Kindertransport eightieth anniversary commemoration, survivors of the rescue operation called for a new Kindertransport for today’s child refugees. The Quaker-hosted event on 15 November was organised by the peer Alf Dubs and Barbara Winton, whose father Nicolas Winton organised Kindertransports that saved 669 children from Czechoslovakia. Sixty ‘Kinder’ guests attended, many of whom signed a statement urging the government to ‘match

the efforts of the Kindertransport by committing to Passage. Safe Photo: Dinendra Haria for resettle 10,000 child refugees over the next ten years 10,000 children to safety in ten months on the eve of from Europe and conflict regions’. world war two. The Kinder, who were amongst 10,000 mostly ‘Our history shows us we can and must do better. Jewish children brought to the UK from Nazi- There are thousands of highly vulnerable child refugees occupied Europe as unaccompanied child refugees, are in Europe whose lives are on hold because they don’t supporting the ‘Our Turn’ campaign, led by refugee have access to secure accommodation or education.’ charity Safe Passage and Alf Dubs – who at the age of Speakers and guests at the commemoration included six arrived alone on the Kindertransport from Prague. the Chief Rabbi, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Beth Gardiner Smith, CEO of Safe Passage, said: the immigration minister, Esther Rantzen, David ‘Through Freedom of Information requests, Safe Attenborough and Vanessa Redgrave as well as council Passage has discovered the UK has resettled just leaders from across the country, who have pledged twenty unaccompanied children from conflict zones over 700 places for child refugees if the government in the past two years. The Kindertransport brought provides the funding. Dismay at theft of white poppy wreaths Friends were dismayed when Meanwhile, Worthing Quakers acknowledgement of the British two white poppy wreaths from the also had a white poppy wreath Legion, we have laid a white poppy centenary of Armistice Day were stolen from the local war wreath for the last two years. Each stolen from local war memorials. memorial. time the wreath has been removed Bath Quakers had their white The PPPU said it was ‘disgusted in the days after the event. poppy wreath stolen for the fourth but not surprised’. ‘We are hurt by this action and time, according to the Peace Bath Quakers Jane Stephenson would like to take the opportunity Pleadge Union (PPU). and Lin Patterson had a letter to explain the origins and purpose Their two wreathes had been published in the Bath Chronicle of the white poppy.’ detached, with the white one being before the incident, in the days The letter goes on to detail removed, leaving the red one leading up to 11 November. the historical background of the behind. It said: ‘With the respectful symbol. Nobel Prizewinner speaks to Paris Peace Forum The Quaker Council for European Affairs conflict resolution and said leadership is not enough, (QCEA) took part in the Paris Peace Forum this it also takes will to stop war. month. Olivia Caeymaex, from QCEA, answered questions The event included a talk by this year’s Nobel Peace on Radio France International about what happenes Prizewinner Nadia Murad Basee who spoke about at a peace forum and what constitutes ‘peacemaking’.

4 the Friend, 23 November 2018 reported by Rebecca Hardy [email protected] BYM will not invest in firms that profit from ‘occupation’ Britain Yearly Meeting beliefs compel us to speak out example in the illegal exploitation (BYM) has become the first faith about injustices wherever we see of natural resources in occupied group in the UK to announce it will them in the world, and not to shy Palestine, and the construction and not invest any of its centrally-held away from difficult conversations. servicing of the separation barrier funds in companies profiting from ‘As Quakers, we seek to live out and Israeli settlements. ‘the occupation of Palestine’. our faith through everyday actions, ‘We look forward to the The decision, made by BYM including the choices we make publication of the UN Business trustees in consultation with about where to put our money. and Human Rights Database Meeting for Sufferings (MfS) , ‘We believe strongly in the which will list companies fits into a long Quaker history of power of legitimate, nonviolent, involved in settlement-related pursuing ethical investments. It democratic tools such as morally activities in occupied Palestine. follows earlier pledges not to invest responsible investment to realise We recognise the help this – and funds in, among others, the fossil positive change in the world. We others, including the Investigate fuel industry, arms companies, want to make sure our money and database compiled by the American South Africa in the apartheid years, energies are instead put into places Friends Service Committee – will and – going even further back – the which support our commitments to give our investment managers in transatlantic slave trade. peace, equality and justice. implementing this new policy.’ Paul Parker, recording clerk for ‘We hope that by announcing In their minute, the trustees BYM, said: ‘Our long history of our refusal to profit from these said: ‘We hope this policy might be working for a just peace in Palestine companies it will encourage useful to Area Meetings interested and Israel has opened our eyes to others to think about their own in adopting a similar approach.’ the many injustices and violations investments, and help challenge In their minute last monh, MfS of international law arising from the legality and practices of the reaffirmed their 2011 decision to the military occupation of Palestine ongoing military occupation.’ boycott goods produced in Israeli by the Israeli government. Ingrid Greenhow, clerk of settlements built in occupied ‘With the occupation now in its BYM trustees, said: ‘While we Palestine ‘until such time as the fifty-first year, and with no end do not believe we currently hold Israeli occupation of Palestine is in near sight, we believe we have investments in any company ended’. a moral duty to state publicly that profiting from the occupation, we MfS added that they continually we will not invest in any company will now amend our investment prayed ‘for both Israelis and profiting from the occupation. policy to ensure this remains Palestinians, keeping them together ‘We know this decision will be the case in future. This includes in our hearts, and looking forward hard for some to hear. We hope companies – whichever country to a future of loving and generous they will understand that our they are based in – involved for cooperation’. New editor for the Friend The trustees of The Friend Publications Limited editors have sought to be useful, courageous and (TFPL) have expressed their delight at welcoming curious, and I’m eager to continue that work. The the new CEO and editor of TFPL on board. Joseph modern world can be a challenge to our moral Jones will be the twentieth editor of the Friend since it imagination, and we need the Friend to help meet that began in 1843 and is currently publications manager challenge. Quakerism has a distinguished history but I for Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM). He was previously want us to build a fruitful future, too.’ managing editor of the faith-based current affairs Paul Jeorrett, clerk of trustees for TFPL, told the magazine Third Way and has worked for The Church Friend: ‘Joseph brings a breadth of both editorial and Times and Olympic News Service. managerial skills and experience, and staff and trustees Joseph Jones said: ‘Working at the Friend is a are looking forward to working with him in this rare privilege and responsibility. It’s a wonderful exciting period of development for TFPL.’ opportunity and I’m very grateful for it. Successive The new editor is planning to start in the New Year.

the Friend, 23 November 2018 5 News Thirsk Quaker link to Oskar Schindler A Quaker credited with helping save countless four and a half years at Friends House in London and lives after the first world war is being celebrated with the Brotherton Library in Leeds. displays in the North Yorkshire town of Thirsk. He knew the family, who he described as Displays on Jed Hall have been shown at Thirsk ‘extraordinary’. Museum and St Mary’s Church detailing the role he Geof Sewell told the Friend: ‘During the 1930s, played in saving lives and his links to Oskar Schindler. Jed would take a ‘meal train’ up to the moors to the Jed Hall was awarded a medal by the League of labourers who lived there in appalling conditions, Nations for his humanitarian work, helping many of the basically to stop them from starving. He would buy up hundreds of thousands of civilians starving to death in land to use as allotments for the unemployed, so they the seven months between the signing of the Armistice could grow their own food.’ and the Treaty of Versailles. The displays show that Oscar Schindler’s family were Quakers were instrumental in this work, which the among the thousands of people saved by Jed Hall’s Germans labelled Quakerspeisungen: ‘Quaker Feedings’. massive effort. The displays were put together by Thirsk Friend Geof Oskar Schindler went on to help hundreds of Jews Sewell who has been researching the Hall family for escape from Auschwitz in the second world war. QPSW campaigner takes to the airwaves Ellis Brooks, from Quaker Ellis Brooks told the Friend uses archive and observation to Peace & Social Witness (QPSW), that he hoped the film would ‘challenge the narrative of war’ has spoken on the radio this month ‘encourage debate and denormalise and features QPSW members, about the new documentary War the idea war is unavoidable’. He including Ellis Brooks, Marigold School, which previewed at Friends said: ‘One question I was asked Bentley, Sam Walton and Isabel House in London. a lot was: why is the film being Cartwright, as well war veterans The peace education coordinator released now, during the world and Veterans for Peace UK spoke to Radio Bristol, Cumbria, war one centenary? My response members. York, Coventry and Warwickshire, was: what better time? If we are Ellis Brooks said the presence Lancashire, Leeds, Norfolk, engaging as a nation in reflecting of these people made the film Wiltshire, and Radio Three on war and its consequences, then ‘authentic and representative’. He Counties, as well as Radio Kent what can we learn about the causes added: ‘We wanted to amplify where he took part in a follow-up of war and how we can prevent the these voices because they’ve debate with the Falklands veteran next war from taking place?’ experienced being in the cadets, Simon Weston. The Radio Kent War School was made by being deployed and trained, presenter, Duncan Larcombe, is a Mic Dixon and part-funded by and the consequences of those former defence editor for The Sun. Network for Social Change. It memories.’ Interfaith Week 2018 Activist Gathering Quakers enjoyed a lively Inter Faith Week from Friends met for the Quaker Activist Gathering at 11 to 18 November with a wide range of events and Lancaster Meeting House on 3 November. The action- activities. From a death café, organised by Leicester focused day was for ‘Quakers who identify as activists, Friends on 18 November, to a Liberal Jewish Interfaith framed in worship’. Shabbat Morning Service at Friargate Meeting House, It included workshops on: ‘Hope into action’, Friends found unusual and creative ways to mark the ‘Who we are in the world, and the changing face of celebration. solidarity’, ‘Working with others to sustain and escalate Lichfield Quakers held a meal for all local faith our work’ and ‘The ministry of resistance’. communities, while Uxbridge Friends hosted a poetry workshop and salon. Peace Lecture Quakers also took part in a ‘Festival of Peace’ in The Quaker MEP Molly Scott Cato delivered Stafford, organised by Stafford and District Friends the annual Peace Lecture for Huddersfield Meeting, of Faith, along with representatives from Baha’i, ‘Democracies don’t go to war’, on 1 November. Buddhism, Christianity, House of Bread, Humanism, A Huddersfield Friend described the talk as ‘far- Islam, Mormons, Sikhism, Spiritualism and Street ranging’. He told the Friend: ‘She brought in the fact Pastors. that war and environmental destruction are linked.’

6 the Friend, 23 November 2018 Report

Are we aroused to action?

Barbara Forbes discusses the recent Q-CAT conference

orture is something we can be reluctant to in people’s minds and everybody has their own think about. We don’t like to countenance the memories. Mine include: idea that people will deliberately inflict pain on Tothers for whatever reason, and we don’t like the idea • In some countries police have monthly that ‘civilised’ countries collude and even carry out performance targets, so you’re more likely to be such behaviour. tortured if the police pick you up towards the The Quaker Concern for the Abolition of Torture end of the month. (Richard Carver) (Q-CAT) was set up in 2004 to take forward the • If you can’t initiate a conversation and engage concern thathad first been raised at Yearly Meeting with the suspect, leave the room and get thirty years earlier. Q-CAT is an independent charity, somebody who can. (Ray Bull) with three official supporting Area Meetings, to which • Regimental culture could increase the risk of Meeting for Sufferings has delegated this work. torture – ‘survivability’ is regarded as giving As part of our activities this year, we held a prestige, and those who endure psychological conference at Friends House in early November torture successfully learn how to use it on entitled ‘Preventing torture – effective action’. We others. (Elizabeth Stubbins Bates) were fortunate to engage four experts to help us • The UK’s National Preventive Mechanism to look at this topic from different angles. Richard (obligatory for all countries that have signed Carver, co-author of Does Torture Prevention Work?, the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention outlined the research on the effectiveness or otherwise against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or of prevention mechanisms which governments are Degrading Treatment or Punishment) is the supposed to put in place; Ray Bull, a world expert largest and most complex in the world, making on non-aggressive interview techniques, provided a thousands of visits to places of detention in the wealth of detail on the ‘PEACE’ model of interviewing UK each year. (Anna Edmundson) that he created many years ago and which, to his surprise and pleasure, was referred to in a recent The Q-CAT trustees are very excited about having United Nations report; Elizabeth Stubbins Bates, made these contacts and we fully intend to follow from the University of Oxford, reminded us of the them up in our mission to bring this concern to the obligation to train armed forces in international forefront of Friends’ minds. humanitarian law, and how this is or is not being put In 1974 London Yearly Meeting minuted its concern into practice; and Anna Edmundson, coordinator about torture as a ‘moral contagion which has spread of the UK’s National Preventive Mechanism, told us throughout the world’, involving both systematic about the work done by this organisation and how physical ill-treatment and the misuse of psychology people can get involved. and other sciences and technologies. Yearly Meeting With such a barrage of high-level information, it asked the question: ‘Is this evil one that will arouse us was no wonder that the participants felt somewhat to action as our Society was once aroused by the evil overwhelmed by the end of the day – but the different of slavery?’ (Quaker faith & practice 23.30). perspectives gave clarity to the present situation in Given Q-CAT’s struggles to raise the level of Friends’ Britain and the rest of the world. We will be picking active engagement, it seems that even after more than up on individual topics in future newsletters and forty years, we still have a lot to do. briefings, which are sent to individual supporters and supporting Meetings and put on the website – so Barbara is a Q-CAT trustee. please do look out for them. As usual, it is individual snapshots that remain Further information: http://qcat.org.uk

the Friend, 23 November 2018 7 Letters All views expressed are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the Friend

Spirituality the brain is developing the connections between its Stephen Feltham’s article on ‘Humility’ and the role of different faculties. the ego in war (26 October) touches on a yet deeper This type of training will not produce the creative issue: our disconnection from each other, from life minds we will need in the future, because it is on this the planet and ultimately from God. This is fundamentally structured ‘top-down’. We need all our one way of understanding the biblical fall – the loss of faculties, intellect, imagination and emotional energy connection with the oneness of creation. to make things happen. We need to esteem all children The good news is that we are not stuck in an and young people for their own qualities as human endless cycle of destruction and self-destruction, war beings, and give them a stake in ‘making the world a without end. Joyce Gee’s poem in the same edition better place’. puts it beautifully: ‘That I am a small evolving part/Of No wonder many youngsters switch off, and some the Creative whole.’ find their way to drugs, or knife gangs, or retreat into Although terrible carnage in places such as Syria self-harm. We have promised education for all and not and Yemen persist, this planet is more peaceful and delivered – no wonder an outlet for protest was seized prosperous than it has even been. New generations and the Brexit balance was tipped. increasingly embrace a sense of connection to the Janet Sturge environment, to each other, to all the peoples of this Maidstone Meeting, Kent world and even beyond. Spirituality – ‘spirit-in-reality’ – is in evidence everywhere. Remembrance and reconciliation Humanity is awakening. One hundred years has gone by and throughout the Simenon Honoré country it has been a time to remember wars and 28 Old Mill Court, Pine Grove, Crowborough, sorrows. East Sussex TN6 1DZ Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday fell on the same day this year. However, this is not often the case, Equality so let’s think of Armistice Day in future by its real We should be wary of confusing equality with meaning. An armistice is the start of a reconciliation sameness or uniformity (24 August and 14 September). – a time to patch up differences, a time to shake hands To speak of the equality of human beings is not to over old quarrels and a time to make peace. suggest they are the same in any empirical sense, but This is how I believe it should be treated in future to say that they are of equal worth, whether before years – a day for everyone to try to make a little peace God or humankind. This also means that equality and in the world around them. It might just help the whole diversity are completely compatible. world. Just for fun, let’s revisit the parable of the triangles. We shall still have Remembrance Sunday, so that Whilst isosceles and right-angle triangles are not the would give Friends two occasions to wear a white same they are equal in their triangularity – that the poppy. sum of their angles is always 180 degrees. Judith Wright Peter Knight Alton Meeting, Hampshire Evesham Meeting, Worcestershire Red and white poppies Patricia Gosling (2 November), in identifying how the One of the interesting aspects of remembrance of class gulf came about, is getting to the heart of our past and present wars this year has been the growing social disease. I believe this estrangement from the significance of white poppies. Nevertheless I have ‘elite’ – government, religion, education – is, rather heard many recent media comments suggesting that than logic, the main cause of Brexit: a protest against white poppies simply represent pacifism and nothing authority in the hands of a few. else. Even on a Radio 4 religious programme there In secondary schooling, this has stymied a true was no inclusion of the countless numbers of innocent comprehensive approach, but the situation has now civilians killed in wars, just an extension of sympathy become acute. from soldiers to their families. Young people whose abilities lie in making and The extent of civilian deaths can perhaps be creating can be dismissed as ‘failures’. Only ‘grammar’- exemplified from an unusual source. My wife Anne- type subjects are now to be counted, it seems, and Marie makes art quilts, and some years ago we visited these are themselves treated in a highly controlled a quilt exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum manner so as to produce economic units. Only literacy in London. One quilt included photos of the first 100 and numeracy are allowed to be the ‘building blocks’ British soldiers killed in the Iraq war, surrounded by – this for those aged fourteen to sixteen, just when over 30,000 hand-sewn squares, the estimated number

8 the Friend, 23 November 2018 [email protected]

of Iraq’s civilians, some in extended families, killed responsible) roles, for which they are paid a fair salary during the same period of time. – one they could probably greatly exceed in other Thankfully, more people are using white poppies to walks of life remember everyone killed in wars, not just soldiers. For As for the suggestion that we might have had the first time this year, Ipswich Meeting laid two white consultants in to frame the advertisement, is it thought poppy wreaths in nearby Christchurch Park, one on the that we do this for all our appointments advertised in Cenotaph, the other in the Peace Garden. the Friend? What nonsense! Michael Morpurgo, the author of War Horse, said Nick Francis he would be wearing both red and white poppies Bradford-on-Avon Meeting, Wiltshire this year. However, the three illustrations of poppies in the article he wrote for Radio Times were all red Support and goodwill ones. This appears to be a stumbling point at present. I shall miss our Friend and editor’s wise and I have yet to see any presenter of a national television sometimes humorous words (2 November) at the programme wearing a white poppy. beginning of the Friend in the ‘Thought for the Week’. Richard Stewart Ian Kirk-Smith and Trish Carn and those who Ipswich Meeting, Suffolk followed have been a great team in continuing the tradition of stimulating, informative and challenging Robin Waterston (2 November) speaks my mind. I independent Quaker journalism. have been wearing a red poppy and a white poppy Recently, while watching Simon Reeve’s television together for a number of years now, and thereby documentary on Ireland, I felt very ashamed of the contributing financially in each case. English landowners’ part in the Irish famine. However, I agree that it is now time to put it behind Ian Kirk-Smith has reminded us of the Quaker us and just contribute financially at home to the initiative of the ‘famine pots’ – huge cauldrons of various relevant appeals. soup, which helped people to survive at that time. He The emphasis on war that comes to a head in has more than repaid these gestures of support and November has become ostentatious, and it encourages goodwill. the government to treat money spent on armaments as May we express our gratitude to him and his wife, a normal opportunity for display. We want to work for and send them best wishes across the water for a full a different world. I shall not wear a poppy next year. and stimulating retirement. I am glad he enjoyed his Elaine Miles ‘God job’, and I suggest he now treats himself to a Chilterns Area Meeting dishwasher. Christine Hayes ‘Something there’ Wokingham Meeting, Berkshire Many thanks to Derrick Whitehouse and Noël Staples for their articles, and to Mary K Stone for her letter (9 November), for reminding us of the unity of our diversity. Our Meetings for Worship have been described as acts of ‘corporate mysticism’. In Meeting at its best – as In essentials unity, well as in many other situations, individual as well as in non-essentials liberty, corporate – I feel we experience the mystic’s sense of oneness with everything, including with a mysterious in all things charity. ‘something there’, which we call by many names. For me, it’s William Wordsworth’s ‘spirit… [that} rolls through all things’. The Friend welcomes your views. The quotation from the Sufi mystic Rumi, which Derrick Whitehouse offers us, sums all this up. Do keep letters short (maximum 250 words). Judith Smith Central Yorkshire Area Meeting Please include your full postal address, even when sending emails, and specify whether you wish for your postal or email address or Meeting Witness and worship name to be used with your name. I was sorry to read the letter on ‘Witness and worship’ (9 November). As a recent trustee of Britain Yearly Letters are published at the editor’s discretion Meeting (BYM), I can say that we do have staff in and may be edited. London and some of them take senior (and extremely

the Friend, 23 November 2018 9 Spirituality

Not a notion but a way Photo: Tom Swinnen / flickr CC. / flickr Swinnen Tom Photo:

Henry S Thompson, to coincide with the first anniversary of the publication of God, words and us, writes about faith and practice

he book God, words and us, edited by Helen understood in terms of belief, and recognising that Rowlands, is a good thing to have done. It is points us towards a better way to distinguish ourselves, thoughtful and worth reading but, for me, by shifting the focus from belief to practice, from Tultimately disappointing – an opportunity missed. orthodoxy to orthopraxy. Maybe focussing on the language that divides us was I do not claim originality in suggesting this, because necessary, and the light this book shines on the nature it is at the heart of what Ben Pink Dandelion has been of that division is valuable. However, it feels to me as if saying for some time. Also, this is what John Punshon it got trapped by its own success and never got past a pretty much exactly writes in Quaker faith & practice fundamental assumption that guaranteed its eventual 20.18: limitations. The key – but mistaken, in my opinion – assumption Ever since I first came among Friends, I was is that what we need to talk about as Quakers is what attracted to the testimonies as an ideal. I wanted we believe. In my view, that is not the right way to look to belong to a church which made the rejection of for what unites us as Quakers. After all, the single warfare a collective commitment and not just a thing we can confidently say unites Britain Yearly personal option. I admired a simplicity, a devotion Meeting is that we go to Meeting for Worship. Our to equality, and a respect for others which reflected identity is not determined by what we believe, but by what I already knew of Christ. In a deceitful world what we do. I warmed to those who did not swear oaths and strove to tell the truth in all circumstances. But this Choices was a beginning in the spiritual life. The seed that was sown in my mind and my politics struck root in If you only look at the language of belief, you miss a my soul and my faith. whole different way of looking at religious identity. The choice of the word “testimony” is instructive. Choices with respect to the language of belief are The testimonies are ways of behaving but are not what distinguish many – even most – Christian ethical rules. They are matters of practice but imply denominations, but that’s something Quakers have doctrines. They refer to human society but are stood aside from: we don’t do creeds. about God. Though often talked about they lack an Further, we’re not the only religion that is not best authoritative formulation…

10 the Friend, 23 November 2018 A “testimony” is a declaration of truth or fact… that historical Christianity and contemporary Judaism It is not an ejaculation, a way of letting off steam were and are founded on practice, but we’re not about or baring one’s soul. It has a purpose, and that is water baptism or keeping kosher. to get other people to change, to turn to God. Such What is so special about Meeting for Worship that an enterprise, be it in words or by conduct and it can sustain us in unity, preserve the effectiveness example, is in essence prophetic and evangelical. of our business method and allow our disagreements about ‘belief language’ to be recognised without fear? Some well-known phrases also make my point: It’s simple, really. In Meeting for Worship, on a good day, we experience two things: a presence and a Let your life speak… possibility. That’s why we keep coming back, because at some level we know we need that experience. Be patterns, be examples… What presence? The technical term for it is ‘transcendence’. We’re not very good at talking about Testimonies to the grace of God in the lives of… it. We refer to a ‘gathered’ Meeting. We say ‘Meeting for Worship is not just meditation’. We know it when As Friends we commit ourselves to a way of worship it happens. It’s elusive, and if we try to pin it down … in the manner of Friends… we lose it, that feeling that we are joined with one another into something more than just our physical Swear not at all… co-location.

Try to live simply… The truth of experience

Our historic testimonies… challenge us to alleviate Accepting that it is ‘not just me’ isn’t easy in the suffering and seek positive social change resolutely individualistic culture we live in now, but if there is one item of faith we must confess – at least Live in the virtue of that life and power that takes to one another – it is the truth of that experience, away the occasion of all wars… embracing 350 years of history and hundreds of Meetings around the world today. Our distinctive nature What possibility? The technical term for it is ‘immanence’. We see and hear it in the witness of those It’s not surprising that, surrounded as we are by around us: the possibility of living an inspired life. churches for whom orthodoxy is fundamental, we We recognise it most vividly when we hear authentic should have fallen into adopting their language for our ministry, coming from someone we know is speaking own internal discourse. However, we need to shake as they live. that off and embrace our distinctive nature. It cannot be be faked, it is unmistakable, terrifying Emphasising what we do puts us, according to Karen and uplifting in equal measure. It calls us to what we Armstrong in her book The Case for God, in line with aspire to, here and now. These are neither historical the origins of the great monotheist religions: figures, nor contemporary celebrities nor distant missionaries.They are each one of us. Religion as defined by the great sages of India, This is what we need most to be talking about, and China, and the Middle East was not a notional we don’t need to agree about the words in order to activity but a practical one; it did not require belief get started. There’s nothing wrong with talking about in a set of doctrines but rather hard, disciplined belief – it’s natural to want to dig in to why we do what work… we do, and belief language creeps in to this, precisely because we’re not sure of ourselves. Karen Armstrong suggests that contemporary Judaism Therefore, guard against being consumed in such and Islam have retained their original self-definitions talk, and remember that it is the experience that centred on orthopraxy (‘a uniformity of religious matters, and matters deeply – the reality of this practice’), whereas Christian denominations have and its significance are not compromised by our shifted much more towards defining themselves in unsatisfactory attempts to talk about it. We know that terms of orthodoxy (‘correct belief’). what we do works for us. What does that have to do with us, you may well So, certainly, keep trying to figure out why. In the ask? That old language may give us a warm feeling of meantime, keep cheerfully practicing. in-group-ness when we hear it, but what does it mean to us now? It may be of intellectual interest to hear Henry is from Central Edinburgh Meeting.

the Friend, 23 November 2018 11 Friends in Europe

France Yearly Meeting

Richard Thompson reports on a recent gathering of Quakers in France etween sixty and seventy of us met together In this time of xenophobia and anti-migrant in Paris at the L’Enclos Rey, a Catholic centre, publicity, we remembered how the first Quakers surrounded by the teeming streets and avenues coped with their period of huge violence. They found Bof the fifteenth arrondissement just behind the Eiffel strength in meeting and taking action together. Amidst Tower. Our meeting room looked onto a beautiful the intimidation, they practised patience. I thought park, with even a prehistoric grotto, to help us find our of Anthony Benezet, the Quaker who set up evening perspective! Finding this calm amidst the noise of the classes for black children in his own home after his world was an excellent place to consider our theme daily work and convinced Friends to open the first ‘Despair or Confidence.’ free day school for African Americans in 1770. In the afternoon we just had fun, singing together and valuing Two important committee meetings preceded the works of Quaker composers. In the evening, Paul the opening of our Annual Assembly (Yearly Parker, recording clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting, asked Meeting). On Saturday morning, 27 October, at the us two important questions: ‘What is your personal International Quaker Centre, three tube stations ministry, aim, testimony?’ and ‘What are those of your away, an Extraordinary General Meeting was held, group?’ Two big questions for all of us to answer! envisioning the eventual move to a new centre where resident Friends could offer a welcoming Monday morning took us all further along the presence to visitors. In the afternoon, back at the path of our testimonies – les epices de lavie: egalité, Enclos, there was a full agenda for the France Yearly paix, intégrité, communauté, ecologie/environnement, Meeting (FYM) Committee. The main item – ça y simplicité. For me, the necessary link is love. est! – was the publication of our own Faith & practice entitled Quakers en France Expérience et Pratique, the Our Assembly concluded with a challenge: /What culmination of ten years’ work and delivered just three action can we take together?’ We had good examples days before the Annual Assembly. Over 200 copies of Quaker action: humanitarian aid during and after were purchased during the weekend! the first world war, and the work of Secours Quakers in the concentration camps in France during the In the opening session on Saturday evening, Olivia second world war. There were two fascinating inputs Caeymaex, from Quaker Council for European Affairs from Norway Quakers, one about work in Gaza and (QCEA) in Brussels, shared with us the inspiring in the Congo, the second by Skype from Oslo about developments of the QCEA, summed up in the booklet collaboration of different European Quaker groups in Construire la paix ensemble. The FYM Committee had Alternatives to Violence Projects. It is now up to our just taken the decision to finance the Arabic version of local groups in Paris, Nantes, Toulouse and Congenies, the same booklet. and to individual Friends throughout France to send in their response to our request ‘What action can we take On Sunday, a morning full of Quaker political together?’ activities, Jonathan Woolley, of the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO), Lee Taylor, of Friends World We each need to face the question ‘Despair or Committee for Consultation Europe and Middle East confidence?’ George Fox had an uncomfortable but Section (FWCC EMES), and Holly Spencer, of Stop effective response. I summarise: See your negative Fuelling War, focused on activities such as ‘discrete tendencies, but don’t be taken over by them. Meet diplomacy’. That involves offering quiet conditions together. Be patient. Come into a new world! for opposing groups to meet, and standing up to the ‘powers that be’ who promote the sales of armaments Richard is from Languedoc Group, France Yearly to anyone with a cheque book. Meeting.

12 the Friend, 23 November 2018 Friends in Africa A journey into Uganda

Louise McCann describes an inspirational project Photo: Louise McCann. Photo: Louise

n 2016 Northampton Meeting adopted as its charity and which would be affordable to them. The Meeting the community of Butta, in the district of Manafwa, generously donated £20,000, sufficient to build a three Uganda. An attender at our Meeting, Alex Gyabi, classroom block. Iis a long-term resident of the UK who comes from The community had a primary school, which was that area and was concerned about the situation there: free to all, but no secondary education. Children could subsistence farming made precarious by soil erosion find secondary education only by making a hazardous and flooding, with not much by way of opportunity for cross-country trek, which included a river in which the young people of the area. He wanted to help. people occasionally drowned. Parents of girls, in An idea emerged to help the young people to gain particular, were not willing to allow this. The other skills which would enable them to earn a living: to alternative was to attend a private boarding school, but begin a furniture makers’ association. Tools were that is too expensive for most. obtained from a local charity, Tools for Self Reliance We visited the community in 2017 and were touched (Northampton), including woodworking tools and by their friendliness, but also by the stark realities manual sewing machines for people to make clothing. of their poverty. We were shown, with pride, the We also began to raise funds for a workshop and workshop and classroom which they had built with classroom. As a member of our Meeting’s peace and the QPSW funding, and the land on which the new service committee, I worked with Alex to apply to school would be built: land donated by the Church of Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW) for a grant to Uganda. help complete the building, In February 2017 the new school opened its doors In 2015, Alex reported back on the completion and has a roll call of fifty-eight pupils – thirty boys and of the project, and how needs remained for water twenty-eight girls – spread across three year groups. provision and sanitation. My husband and I were We have just recently sent funds to build a fourth struck by how much could be achieved for the classroom, allowing space for the school to recruit community with relatively little funding in UK terms. another year group at the start of the new school year We felt moved to do more. (February in Uganda). We talked at length with Alex about the needs of All buildings have been built by local labour, the community, about the lack of opportunity for meaning that, even at that stage, people gained new education and training and eventually, in 2016 with skills and a source of income to the community. two other trustees from Northampton Meeting, It has been a very interesting, humbling and moving established a new charity to allow us to raise funds to journey, being able to help so many people. As for do more for this community – Friends Community the future, we look forward to bringing the school to Development Trust (Uganda), which became a Quaker completion, and then to help develop other training Recognised Body at the end of 2017. opportunities for the community. In order to get started we went back to Northampton Meeting and asked for funds to begin building a Louise is a member of Northamptonshire Area Meeting community secondary school – a school which would and a trustee of the Friends Community Development be owned and controlled by the local community, Trust (Uganda).

the Friend, 23 November 2018 13 Quaker life Support and nurture

Jane Muers discusses experiences of moving into membership ur Local Meeting has recently welcomed three experience. The questions ‘Why Quakers?’ and ‘Why new members – Friends who had been part of now?’ were considered. We learnt a lot about each our Meeting community for some two to five other and about the Meeting. This was reflected in the Oyears. It was a ‘joyful occasion’ (Quaker faith & practice minutes, which each group sent to both Local and Area 11.12). The process of their moving into membership Meeting: had been a very positive experience. We had thought carefully about this process, referring to chapter eleven A community in which differences are recognised in Quaker faith & practice (Qf&p) as it appears in the and valued, a community which creates the fifth edition. worship… The whole of the time with the Meeting Qf&p says: ‘Variety and flexibility in procedures are on a Sunday morning is full of ministry from the needed to reflect individual and local circumstances. moment she walks through the door. Each Area Meeting will develop one or more such procedures.’ Our Area Meeting had done this some She is pleased to be part of a community where years ago and we built on this flexibility. people like to talk about religion and have a variety It was important to involve the Local Meeting of approaches. in the process. Qf&p outlines three ‘stages of the process’: nurture and support, initiating the process Each time she was ready to move on the right and discerning the rightness of the application. We opportunity presented, without any sense of considered each of these. Groups in the Meeting, coercion, for both her spiritual and practical needs. involving newer and established Friends, had met to This has given spiritual growth. explore Quakerism together through the Woodbrooke study pack Becoming Friends. There was lively Membership is of an Area Meeting and membership discussion and questioning, building on relationships decisions rest with that Meeting. Friends from other formed through other Meeting activities. Local Meetings were given an opportunity to meet A session, open to any Friends, was held to discuss those moving towards membership through an membership. Lots of questions were asked about the invitation to join us for Meeting for Worship and a commitment involved in membership. Reassurance picnic. Visitors came, two of whom had not previously was given that there is no fixed financial contribution visited another Meeting in the area. Conversation over associated with membership and that it is not primarily lunch was lively but not trivial, exploring informally about taking on roles. We highlighted what each and with joy aspects of our faith and life together. person present already contributed to the Meeting. The membership process had developed our wider A turning point was the statement that the Meeting fellowship. would ‘sponsor’ any Friends present through the The minutes were presented to Area Meeting and the process of becoming a member. The individual would applications accepted. This had been a process drawing move with the support of the Meeting; we would on the opportunity for flexibility, a two-sided process journey together. There was a wonderful smile of with both the Meeting and the individuals very actively apparent relief on one Friend’s face. ‘Yes, I am ready involved, which provided support and nurture for all. to become a member,’ was the immediate response. ‘I am ready too’, was another more tentative sounding Coming into membership is a two-sided process reply a few minutes later. A third Friend later asked for involving the individual on their spiritual journey such ‘sponsorship’. The ‘applications’ to Area Meeting and a community of faith. were to come jointly from the Local Meeting and Qf&p 11.05. the individual. Small groups of two or three Friends met with each potential member. These were very Potential members should be supported and thoughtful and reflective sessions. nurtured before, during and after the process. Members of the Meeting shared their perception of Qf&p 11.06. the individual’s contribution to the community, and the Friend moving towards membership spoke of their Jane is a member of Leicester Area Meeting.

14 the Friend, 23 November 2018 Younger Friends

Let’s talk about peace

Rebecca Hardy reports on some uplifting activities

ake 1,000 children, five primary schools and singing the peace anthem ‘Last Night I Had The what do you get? Answer: a room full of noise, Strangest Dream’ nearly manages it. By the time an which is ironic, considering we have come here illustrated The Day the War Came is narrated (‘War Tto talk about peace. I am sitting in ‘The Light’, the took everything/war took everyone/I was ragged, Large Meeting House at Friends House in London bloody, all alone’), I am seriously choked up. When on 9 November, two days before the centenary of ‘Imagine’ chimes out, I am virtually inconsolable. Armistice Day. Bob Marley’s ‘Redemption Song’ ‘Today you are a party of huge national movement,’ strums gently over the tannoy as the room fills cries out the compere Julie Payne, before leading with the bustle of children. The air has an excited, a round of ‘If you’re happy and you know it’ and anticipatory feel. encouraging them to ‘make some noise’. The children We are here as part of the INSPIRE project, of are told that ‘it’s not just about remembering’, but which Quakers are one of the organising partners, ‘thinking about how we can build a peaceful future’. alongside the Oasis Charitable Trust. Covering a Then the children stand up and make their own wide programme of events, from Finsbury Park statements. ‘It’s natural to have conflict but we need Mosque to Coventry Cathedral, hundreds of schools to be able to disagree without a fight,’ says one are holding assembles and activities all in the name preternaturally wise junior pupil, who I immediately of ‘peace’. According to Isabel Cartwright, peace want to take home to meet my twins. Another says: education programme manager for Britain Yearly ‘We need to stand up for people who are suffering’, Meeting (BYM), it’s about building a ‘new generation while another chips in pithily: ‘We need to give pick- of peacemakers’. ups and not put-downs.’ She says: ‘Talking about peace at remembrance The morning also brings out some peace-world needs to be more than a moment of melancholic heavyweights. Maya Evans, a councillor in Hastings reverie. It needs to be about what we do next… who runs a peace group called Voices for Creative For Quakers, INSPIRE is not just about the day of Non-Violence UK, talks about the work she does remembrance – it is about a peaceful future.’ with street children in Kabul, Afghanistan. ‘This is Aisling Griffin from Pax Christi, which, like Britain probably the best use of my time,’ she tells me, ‘to Yearly Meeting (BYM), is part of the Peace Education show the perspective of the young people I’ve met in Network, agrees: ‘It’s a good way to look at how we Afghanistan and how war has impacted their lives. It’s remember. We tend to forget that side of remembrance such an honour to be invited to this event. It should be – particularly with young children, when their minds something that every school child has an opportunity are so enquiring. It’s a good chance to look at what to do.’ peace actually means.’ Marigold Bentley, of Quaker Peace & Social Wtiness The children certainly seem to be engaged (QPSW), talks about conscientious objectors and this morning, with a programme of peace songs, the children wave symbols of white feathers in the performances and speakers, as well as contributions air. They’re then encouraged to turn around and say from the children themselves. One pupil reads ‘In ‘good morning’ to everyone around them – whether Flanders Fields’ by John McCrae, while another group they know them or not – and ‘do it with a smile’, as ‘it tells the story of Japanese girl Sadako, who folded makes people feel warm and included and welcome’. paper cranes for peace. There’s a Peace Tree, specially Then the morning draws to a close with a rousing created by students, and a performance based on rendition of ‘This is Me’, from the musical film The one school’s experience of training pint-sized peer- Greatest Showman, and does the room glow a little mediators.The result is a surprisingly powerful hour- brighter – or is that just me? and-a-half, with emotional highs and lows. I like to think it takes a lot to make me cry, but 1,000 children Rebecca is the journalist for the Friend.

the Friend, 23 November 2018 15 a look at the Quaker world [email protected]

Respect, remembrance and peace

Friends have been telling Eye how they marked the of peace and war were read out, before a wreath of centenary of the end of the first world war. white poppies was laid on the memorial by Metford On 7 November Friends from Manchester and Robson and nine-year-old Leo Pirt. This year, on his Warrington Area Meeting sold white poppies outside own initiative, Leo obtained permission to sell white Central Manchester Meeting House. Ursula Sharma poppies at his primary school.’ said: ‘We distributed around 400 leaflets over the lunch Dorothy Searle, of Southampton Meeting, described hour and offered cups of tea or coffee to anyone who how white poppies made for the Collateral Damage wanted to stop and talk with us.’ project became an unusual centrepiece in the Meeting: The Dublin Quaker Peace Committee organised a ‘Some of the poppies had labels commemorating commemoration, including poetry from the first world individuals who suffered as a result of war… A Syrian war, on 11 November. Friends and passersby were refugee family lives in what was once our warden’s invited to make poppies from white cloth, which were cottage, and we invited them to write a label for their planted in the ground. family and friends who are suffering from war now – Dilys Cluer, a Friend and deputy mayor of the and they filled the label with names.’ borough of Scarborough, carried a wreath of white In Stockport poppies created for the project were poppies. When told she would be laying a wreath she part of a wreath Friends laid. Phoebe Spence says that requested that it should include white poppies and the wreath will also be on display at Stockport War ‘was surprised and delighted that the Royal British Memorial Art Gallery for most of the year. Legion made the wreath entirely of white poppies, and Quakers in Welwyn Garden Meeting ‘planted’ heartened by the references to peace in the services poppies outside their Meeting house. Philip and which I attended’. Margaret Baker told Eye that a labyrinth was created Melanie Jameson, of Malvern Meeting, described to mark 100 years since the start of the first world war Friends’ role in the town’s ‘Festival of Remembrance’ in 2014: ‘[This year] we embellished it with poppies, and how it ‘enables us to respectfully convey our mostly white but with some red; some from the Peace message to remember all victims of war and to Pledge Union, others handmade by local Friends.’ promote peace’. Roger Matthews, of Stratford-upon-Avon Meeting, Graham Gosling and Jill Segger told Eye about writes that Quakers held a vigil ‘on Monday 12 laying a white poppy wreath at Bury St Edmunds’ war November… as a reminder that people continued to memorial: ‘A selection of quotations on the theme suffer and die after the formal end of hostilities’.

Clockwise from top left: ‘Southampton Meeting’ – photo: Dorothy Searle. ‘Welwyn Garden City Meeting House’ – photo: Philip and Margaret Baker. ‘Metford Robson and Leo Prit’ – photo: Graham Gosling and Jill Segger. ‘Malvern wreath’ – photo: Melanie Jameson. ‘Stockport wreath’ – photo: Phoebe Spence. ‘Dilys Cluer’ – photo courtesy of Dilys Cluer.

16 the Friend, 23 November 2018 23 Nov 18/11/18 21:41 Page 7

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