A close encounter: Eoin McCarthy visits Northwest Border Meeting in Strasbourg

‘An enthusiastic energy arose among us.’

Last month, fifty-two Friends from eleven countries met in Strasbourg for Northwest Border Meeting, a gathering of Friends from across Europe. Having missed the joy of being gathered in person for the last two years, there was much joy and many new encounters.

Thirty of us were first-timers, and we had an eleven-strong Young Friends gathering, too. Some of us were day-participants, and this helped to ground the meeting in place, in Strasbourg. Our group was made up of participants from Austria, Britain, Northern Ireland, Czech Republic, Slovenia, USA, Switzerland, Georgia and Estonia, as well as the core Northwest Border countries: the Netherlands, Germany, France and Luxembourg. Plenaries were held with English as the main language (in small groups and one-to-one, five other languages were also in use). On Sunday morning, we had twenty-seven extra guests for a wedding, between two Friends who had met at an earlier Border Meeting.

Our theme for the weekend was ‘Encounters: With God, with one another, with the environment’. Without encounters we would have no opportunities to develop the deepest of all feelings and motivations of life: love.

At Meeting for Worship on Saturday morning we were encouraged by the spoken ministry and an enthusiastic energy that arose among us. A sense developed that the Border Meeting was coming into a renewed flowering. After Meeting, Young Friends split off for their own activities. Having some younger adult Friends among us lightened our task.

Before we started off with group sessions on the theme, we presented some without-words sketches on the theme of ‘Encounters’. These had been prepared in small groups the night before, after our introduction session. All were pithy and discerning – some piquant, others hilarious. Encounters are fundamental to Quakerism: they may lead to changes in our life, involving a direct encounter with the divine, with another person, or with the environment.

Once we had enjoyed lunch, we had two options: to visit a garden that straddles the river Rhine, occupying space in both France and Germany; or have a guided tour of Strasbourg.

Five of us took the tram to the garden along the River – ‘Le Jardin des deux rives’. The Rhine is known to be the dividing line between countries, between people in Western Europe. This particular garden crosses a national border and enfolds the Rhine as the middle, the centre, the connecting link. We got off the tram in Kehl, which is the small city on the German side. We walked along the bank, enjoying the vastness of grassy meadow, a playground, and sculptures. Behind some trees we discovered a tourist climbing tower. We crossed back into France via the special pedestrian bridge, enjoying the view of the calmly-flowing water and the French well-cut hedges and plants. Back in Strasbourg’s old city centre, we enjoyed historical stories while relishing an ice cream and espresso.

The guided tour took in some of the many new people-friendly spaces that have been created in this very old city. These changes were enabled when Strasbourg became one of the first cities in France to re-introduce trams, in 1992. The city tour revealed fine examples of what can be done once a city determines to eliminate cars from at the centre, and to accommodate pedestrians and trams.

Our two-hour walk around this medieval city, ably guided by Mike Zipser, was delightful. In the old neighbourhood of tanners, called ‘La Petite France’, we saw how, in earlier times, the innovative and efficient use of water was central to the industries of the time, as well as the wellbeing of the residents. Close to our conference centre were the impressive International Court of Human Rights, European Parliament and the new EU commission buildings. These are all harmoniously set in the landscape of the city.

Also on Saturday afternoon, Jasmine Piercy delivered a workshop presentation entitled ‘Our Friends and Other Animals’. It was based on her recent Eva Koch scholarship research with the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham. She is testing a leading which considers transforming our relationship with animals and explored with us the possibility of extending our Quaker testimony and witness to all species. The workshop actively engaged around twenty Friends, including some from the youth group.

Later on Saturday evening, at the ‘Bunte abend’ (the ‘colourful evening’), we entertained ourselves with games, dance, music, and poetry contributions. As well as two cello solo pieces, and some old-time favourite songs, we listened to a contribution sung in Georgian. We also heard what it would have been like to hear George Fox speak in a seventeenth-century accent.

On Sunday morning we were seventy-two joyful witnesses at the wedding. After Christiane and Martin exchanged their vows, a large number of those present shared ministry out of the depth of the silence. In Quaker tradition, everyone present signed the certificate as witnesses to the couple’s commitments to each other.

The Border Meeting programme allowed generous amounts of unstructured time, so it seemed that almost everyone resident found an opportunity to spend quality time with all the other residents at least once. As the weekend proceeded, this had the effect of binding the group ever closer. Plans will be announced soon about the venue for next year’s Border Meeting, to be held in Heeren in the south of the Netherlands in September 2023. In view of the success of the experiment this year, Friends World Committee for Consultation – Europe and Middle East Section is already planning to hold the youth group gathering again at the same time and venue as the Border Meeting.

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