Thought for the Week: Being Friends
Ian Kirk-Smith reflects on being Friends
‘We did conclude among ourselves to settle a meeting, to see one another’s faces, and open our hearts one to another in the Truth of God once a year, as formerly it used to be.’
Yearly Meeting in London, 1668
Quaker faith & practice 6.02
The Yearly Meeting Gathering in Bath will be held in the shadow of history – one hundred years after the start of the first world war.
It was called the ‘war to end all wars’. Sadly, it was not, despite leaving approximately seventeen million dead. The first modern, industrialised, war merely pointed the way to the future.
The Quaker response to the first world war will be one of many subjects raised and explored at what should be the most vibrant Quaker event in years. The past is important because it has shaped who and what we are. We can learn from it. This is true both for society and our Society.
One aspect of Bath will be an outward looking one dealing with Quaker engagement in the world: the faithful witness being done in areas, for example, such as criminal justice and peace. The other aspect, a more inward looking one, is also vital.
2014 marks the end of a three-year project looking at what it means to be a Quaker today. This theme is addressed by Ben Pink Dandelion, honorary professor of Quaker Studies at Birmingham University, in his Swarthmore Lecture. The lecture – a lucid, perceptive and achieved work – is a significant contribution to British Quakerism.
Contemporary Quakerism is sometimes talked about in terms of an ailing patient that was once in wonderful health. I wonder if this was ever the case. As with all institutions and movements, it evolves and changes. Friends in Bath will be casting a thoughtful eye on the patient, discerning symptoms and enjoying the space and time to reflect on creative remedies.
In the past the word ‘Friend’ was, perhaps, more widely used in the Society. It is a word with rich associations and meaning – both within Quakerism and in society: ‘A friend in need is a friend indeed’; ‘to be-friend’; ‘a friend to strangers’.
Friend is a word, as Irish Friend Ross Chapman has written, that ‘implies fellowship, camaraderie, concord, fraternity, shaking hands, holding out an olive branch.’
In John’s gospel 15: 15 it says: ‘I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.’ We are called to be friends of Christ – of a living Christ – of a spirit of love, peace, compassion, kindness and charity towards others. We are called to be Friends in the way we live our lives.
Yearly Meeting Gathering in Bath will be a great coming together of Friends, a time of fellowship, a time to ‘see one another’s faces’. The team that have put it together have worked with enormous dedication and energy. Bath was once a mecca for people who sought renewal. Hopefully, it will be for some days a place of worship, joy, productive business and lively discussion among Friends. As Thomas Jefferson said:
‘Difference of opinion was never, with me, a motive of separation from a friend.’
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