Category Archives: Quakerism

Getting going again

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As I said in my last post I’ve decided to set up another blog and have been spending time thinking about that. I’ve also been considering what to do with this blog and how to get myself writing here more regularly, which I have tried several times before.

On consideration I don’t think that giving myself hurdles to clear, or more likely not to clear, is very helpful at the moment. When it comes to day to day thoughts I have a handwritten diary which serves me better and has done for years.

So I will write here when something happens that I want to write about in greater length or when I am looking for a reaction to help me onwards. I will also write a bit about my latest writing project – a biography of an 18th century Quaker travelling minister which I expect to be working on for several years to come.

As well as getting on with writing however I am also getting more involved with my meeting again. I fell into a long period of very irregular attendance when my mother was ill and even after she died I found it difficult to go back. It has taken me years to begin to reconnect with my local Quaker community and to go to meeting for worship regularly once more. Living in community has always been the part of Quakerism that I have found most difficult and have had to work at – but I know that I must [not should] do it.

My Inward Teacher has, as always, been gently but firmly pushing me onwards and made sure that a couple of weeks ago I went to a specially called meeting about nominations in our local meeting. Among other things I heard that all three of the clerking team were standing down and the committee had not been able to find replacements. Although it was not usual to ask for volunteers that was what they were doing. As I sat there I knew that I was going to have to put my name forward and it seems that another Friend was thinking the same thing. So I went home  and wrote an email and so did she and now we have both been appointed – as she said ‘Now we’ve really done it!’ We look forward to welcoming another member of the team and setting up more of a ‘one off one on’ continuity.

So now I am going to be much more a part of my meeting than I have been for a long time and hope that I – and they- will survive!

The Ministry-Life Balancing Act

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Reading Robin’s post the other day got me thinking about the struggles I have had with recognising and finding ways to follow my own ministry.

It took me a long time to feel that my interest in spiritual autobiography could be seen as a kind of ministry. It was only when I moved from an academic and personal view of the subject to the development of a workshop that aimed to tell others about the form and tradition of this kind of writing and to encourage them to attempt to write their own that the thought that what I was doing was ministry entered my head.

I was ‘released’ to follow this ministry more intensively by a combination of the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust awarding me a fellowship and my employer promising that I would have a job to return to after a year. At the time, having gone through the experience of being made redundant twice, I would not have been brave enough to proceed without that safety net.

Afterwards I went back to work but also continued giving workshops and wrote an account of the fellowship. This brought me into writing and publishing both of which I now see as part of the same ministry. I know that I have been led along the path I have taken and sometimes I have been gently but firmly pushed into taking the next step. Looking back I realise that it is always when I have turned outwards, shared my experience and the experience and words of Quaker foremothers and forefathers with others, that what I have done has become ministry.

Along the way I have sometimes taken false steps. There was a time when I really wanted to find a job in the Quaker world. I thought that this would free me from having to balance my Quaker calling with other paid work. Failure and rejection were hard lessons but in time I learned from them. I remained independent and gained much from the work that did come my way. All the time I know that my Inward Teacher has been providing me with lessons that I needed to learn and has been patient with my slowness to understand.

Many years ago in meeting I was given three phrases which I understood were messages for me and not to be shared at that time. I wrote them down and they have travelled with me as lessons and encouragement in my ministry and my life. They are – ‘Count your blessings’ , ‘A way will open’ and ‘My time is not your time’.

I understand more about what my ministry is and how I should express it as time goes on. Now that I have retired from paid work my view of it is slowly changing again. I am trying to be open to new possibilities but I am also continuing to write and publish, if only infrequently, here and elsewhere. God knows where I will be led next but I am still waiting to find out.

Hello all those British Quaker bloggers out there!

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I’ve been talking to Jeremiah and Robin about what other British Quaker blogs exist and Robin suggested that I do a list. So, as a kind of addendum to Martin’s list, here goes.

Martin mentions Simon’s Under the Green Hill and Jez of The Friend‘s Quaker Street. I have a few more favourites including Jeremiah’s Fire in the Bones , Heather’s Still Life and Daniel’s Sitting Down for Something.

More blogs I have just found, added to my Bloglines subscriptions [thanks for the tip Robin!] and am enjoying are A Tentative Quaker, Mister JTA’s Electric Quaker II, Ray’s Quaker-Buddhist Dharmakara’s Prayer, Laura’s Silentblog and M. Willis Monroe.

As Jeremiah notes quite a few British Quaker Meetings have blogs although most use them more as a kind of newsletter than in a personal, reflective way. Two exceptions to this rule which both have several contributors writing thoughtful and often challenging posts are Beeston Quakers and Sheffield Quakers.

So who have I missed? If you are a British Quaker and have a blog of any kind or if you would not give yourself the BQ label but still blog about British Quakerism or Quakers in general I would love to get in touch. Are there more of us out there and if not why not I wonder. Over to you!

British Quakers and convergence

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Reading Robin’s blog started me thinking about where British Quakers stand in relation to the convergent conversation. These are just a few introductory thoughts and I intend to write a bit more about my own ‘convergent’ experience later.

From where we are the whole idea can seem very distant from our day to day reality. After all in our country we do not have different Yearly Meetings with different traditions and so do not need to make an effort to talk to any traditions outside our own – do we? It is all too easy to think that 21st century British Liberal Quakerism is the only way to be a ‘real’ Quaker.

We forget – or more often we never learn – that while American Quakerism in the 19th century reacted to the different claims of Hicksite, Liberal and Evangelical views by splitting into different groups with different traditions, we in Britain changed from one orthodoxy to another. While retaining the unprogrammed tradition of worship, in the 19th and early 20th centuries British Quakerism was Evangelical. The increasingly Liberal Quakerism which we inhabit now took over as the new orthodoxy in the 20th and 21st centuries.

So what does our history have to do with where we are now and does any of it matter? I think it matters a great deal because if we look around us and see only like-minded people then it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to listen to other Quakers ‘out there’ who do not agree with us. There is an assumption that we are true Quakers and other yearly meetings who do not share our traditions are somehow second-class. Our very liberalness can make us narrow minded and even make it hard for Friends within our own yearly meeting who want to express their faith through Christian language to do so for fear of hurting others.

I know that it is not always easy to hear strongly-held beliefs that differ from our own. I am not saying that we should not disagree but that we should make an effort to hear ‘where the words come from’. British Friends need to be part of the convergent conversation because in this way we can listen to the voices of other Quakers from different traditions outside our own country and our own comfort zone. We can speak about what Quakerism means to us but also hear the true Quaker faith expressed in other ways. We must not isolate ourselves but try to share the hope that is in us all.

Words from the past

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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.