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In the opening session of Yearly Meeting Gathering Mark Russ, of Woodbrooke, had hundreds of Friends stamping their feet, clicking their fingers, patting their hands on their chests and singing. Everyone in the huge Butterworth Hall at the University of Warwick seemed to be smiling: the young, teenagers, young adults and older adults, the middle aged and the elderly and all those in between. Everyone seemed, in that communal enterprise, to be ‘young at heart’ and ageless – swept up in a surge of sound and action – united in fellowship, love and belonging: a community come together.
The main business sessions of Yearly Meeting 2017 began on Sunday morning with the appointment of the clerk, Deborah Rowlands, and the assistant clerks, Clare Scott Booth and Siobhan Haire, who were to direct affairs in the main auditorium with a combination of efficiency, quiet authority and humour.
Peace and security
An impressive panel of Friends was assembled on Monday afternoon for a highly stimulating session on peace and security.
Andrew Tomlinson, of the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) in New York; Jonathan Woolley, of QUNO in Geneva; Lucy Roberts, regional director of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC); Andrew Lane, of the Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA); and writer and peace worker Diana Francis talked about the key areas of work that they were involved with.
They shared thoughts on what peace and security looked like from their point of view in the USA, Britain, Geneva and Brussels.
Andrew Tomlinson stressed that peace was increasingly, in QUNO work, linked with other subjects such as human rights and climate change.
Lucy Roberts explained that peace must be implemented at local, regional, national and international levels if it was to be effective. AFSC works in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. She talked about the presence of the Committee in North Korea.
Jonathan Woolley agreed that ‘everything is connected’ and referred to the Quaker tradition of looking at the causes of conflict. He talked of the fear of ‘water wars’ but stressed that often fear is not based on reality.
Diana Francis spoke from her experience and stressed the importance of listening.
Living our beliefs
Members of Junior Yearly Meeting (JYM) led a lively workshop open to all those aged thirteen and above on Monday that explored Friends’ personal and shared journeys as Quakers.
The workshop was based on the 2015 book Living our beliefs, which features contributions from over 300 Young Friends, as well as links to video and music content.
The ice was broken with spiritual ‘speed dating’, which saw pairs of Friends discuss a thought-provoking question – such as ‘What does Meeting for Worship mean to you?’ – for a minute before moving to a new table to delve into the next.
Groups of four were then set the task of considering a variety of scenarios and discerning which testimony, or testimonies, could be most applicable to each: peace, truth, equality, simplicity or sustainability.
Friends then considered three challenging questions that sought to explore how their ‘beliefs are grounded in the Quaker faith and how that belief can translate into action’: what about the world makes you uncomfortable and/or angry; how do you/might you challenge these things in the way you live; and is there a next step you might take towards living your beliefs in the world?
Rembrandt’s etching Christ Preaching (1652) is a remarkable work of art, but it is also a penetrating essay on the nature of spoken ministry, which can provide us with valuable pointers as to its role and purpose today.
‘Isn’t it nice to have some young people at Meeting’ is one of the most repeated phrase that Young Adult Friends (YAFs) hear in Meeting – a well meaning phrase but one that points to a great sense of loss that is symptomatic of the deeper problems facing YAFs within British Quakerism.
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