Being a Friend
Ian Kirk-Smith reports on the first sessions at Yearly Meeting Gathering in Bath
The sun shone on the huge white tent and Quakers, who had descended from near and far, made their way into the largest indoor space British Friends had ever worshipped in. It was huge. It was dramatic. There was a sense of expectation in the air as Friends took their seats. Yearly Meeting Gathering, held on the beautiful campus of the University of Bath, was about to begin.
The major theme for the Yearly Meeting was established. It was the culmination of a three-year exercise in which Friends had addressed the question: What does it mean to be a Quaker today?
Deborah Rowlands, first assistant clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting, reflected the mood inside the space – a sense of openness, anticipation and potential – when she talked of the ‘wealth of possibilities’ and the ‘rich banquet’ that the event held. It was a moment of promise.
Promptings of love
Indeed, the opening days of Yearly Meeting Gathering offered a bewildering variety of choices. Friends were invited to stretch their legs with circle dancing or exercises based on yoga, engage their fingers with knitting, their eyes and hands with art and craft activities, their voices with singing and, of course, their minds. Their minds. These were constantly being engaged and challenged, stimulated and provoked. Here was a true ‘Quakerfest’. A spiritual Glastonbury or Hay-on-wye. A celebration. A community coming together and reinforcing bonds of belonging, identity, concern and purpose.
The extraordinary range of ways in which Quakers are putting their faith into action were to be found in small rooms and tents all around the campus: in economic justice, sustainability, human rights, disability issues, housing, refugees, peace work, intentional communities, interfaith relations… Here was passion, commitment, political engagement, witness and an acting out of the promptings of love.
The clerk of Yearly Meeting, Chris Skidmore, pointed out the importance of young people and their contribution to the Yearly Meeting Gathering. They were a significant, lively and valued presence.
In the main opening sessions there was, as ever, the nourishment of inspiring and moving ministry. Some was prompted by the centenary of the start of world war one and others by conflicts in the world today. We are still living in the context of war. A Friend echoed a sentiment felt throughout the ‘Big Top’ when he reflected on the dead of 1914-18 and those in Gaza and Israel today. His heartfelt ministry reminded us that ‘there is a light that we must bear’. Our calling, he said, ‘is to be light bearers’.
Membership
Marisa Johnson, in a session on Sunday, introduced the subject of what it means to be a member of the Religious Society of Friends today. She began by asking: ‘What is the purpose of membership?’
Her thoughtful and well-crafted talk raised important questions about identity, commitment, belonging and belief. Why do more attenders not become members? Do some Friends hesitate to apply for membership because they cannot commit to the obligations it requires of them or are they torn by a sense of ‘unworthiness’?
Why bother, she suggested, with membership if it merely acknowledges an existing relationship between an individual and a community? In what way, she suggested, is the issue linked to explicit acceptance of a common religious practice or a shared understanding of what it means to be a community of faith?
While membership may, for some, be a lifeline, she explained that for others it is ‘simply a divisive, un-Friendly, exclusive practice’ that can introduce artificial barriers to participation in the corporate life of the Quaker community.
She asked: ‘So, is membership a pragmatic arrangement to enable us to operate as a corporate body, is it the culmination of a process of coming to belong, or is it first and foremost a spiritual experience?’
Spiritual journeys
Marisa talked of her Catholic roots, her encounter with Quakerism, her family situation and how her views had changed. Her husband is an active attender in their Local Meeting, having attended for over twenty years and served on many committees and in different roles, but has never felt the need to become a member.
‘His belonging to the Meeting in fellowship is a matter of fact and introducing membership application processes is only likely to unearth theological misgivings which are best left undisturbed… Besides, he views the distinction between members and attenders as exclusive.’ He wondered: ‘Isn’t walking the walk enough?’
In her talk she introduced two young people, her son Rob and then Rose, who answered questions about their experience of Quakerism, their service and sense of belonging, and their feelings about membership. Marisa, after two short conversations with them, suggested that the distinction between members and attenders was, in some ways, not a real one and that it might be more helpful to describe both active formal members and attenders as ‘participants’ in Meetings.
Convincement, she stressed, was, for early Quakers, an experience of transformation, a sudden or unfolding realisation of deep truths, with life-changing significance. Such ‘convincement’, she argued, is no longer a prerequisite for membership.
Finally, she said that membership of the Religious Society of Friends, or any religious or spiritual community, is a means to an end and not an end in itself. She urged Friends to ‘sit lightly to the letter of any mechanism we choose to adopt, tending first to the Spirit always’.
Walking the talk
The topic of membership was then brought before the Meeting. A Friend said that he had been a member for thirty years. ‘It had not’, he admitted, ‘been an easy ride’ and at times he had felt estranged and lonely, especially when the opportunity to serve had been denied. ‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘it does look a bit “clubby”.’
A Friend then made a passionate plea for attenders to come into membership. She said she ‘felt a sense of transformation, a sense of empowerment’ when she came into membership. ‘I feel a sense of Quakers in the past in our Meeting. I felt I was blessed. It made me feel an inheritor of their wisdom.’
The sense of ‘feeling at home’ was mentioned by a Friend who had been a member for twenty-five years. When she and her husband joined together, she said, ‘it suited us. It was natural. Other societies – you join them – and we are a Society. That is still my feeling’.
A Friend, who had been a member for forty years, said ‘the issue of the importance of walking one’s talk’ was central, ‘rather than being labelled’. She said that she was in sympathy with the two young Friends who had spoken and who had not become members.
She added: ‘For me, the label “Quaker” means values such as simplicity and integrity – but for others it can mean Puritanism and being killjoys.’ The label, she explained, is not a useful shorthand: ‘What is important is what we do.’
A Friend, who had been brought up in the Church of Scotland, talked of the absence in society of ‘rites of passage’. He felt that Friends did not have the ‘level of structure’ that they once had. He referred to Quakerism in Kenya, where they had a six-month ‘catechism course’, as something that he felt was helpful.
He also stressed that membership was only the start of a process that involved years of learning. ‘The important thing about membership,’ he said, ‘is that you still have a lot to learn. When you become a member you are committing yourself to lifelong learning. Our life is a life of progress. I would hope that we can support Friends in all the different parts of their lives.’
Transformation
George Fox was quoted by a Friend. She referred to his words ‘give over thine own willing’ and said that these were very significant when she became a member. She explained: ‘Over five years I did a lot of thinking and learning. I knew that I was letting go and that I was going to submit. I had to accept that my point of view might not be realised.’
She explained that, after she had been accepted into membership, the moment she stood up in Meeting to minister was transformative: ‘I said “whither thou goest I also will go” and they are, I feel, very beautiful words of commandment. Coming into membership was a considered decision but also a very transformative experience. I felt different.’
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