Apologies for discord. Photo: Photo: Megan Allen / flickr CC.
Eye - 04 April 2014
From fellowship to apologies
The fellowship of Friends
A source of consolation and strength, a deep personal bond… what does friendship mean to you?
In Five hundred years of friendship, a new series on BBC Radio 4, the history of the meaning and experience of friendship is being explored by Thomas Dixon, director of the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions.
In episode three, broadcast on 26 March, Thomas takes up the story during the civil war, with Quakers featuring prominently throughout.
He begins with the unusually well documented friendship between two Quaker women, Katherine Evans and Sarah Cheevers.
In 1658 they decided to follow in the footsteps of saint Paul, ‘hoping to reach Alexandria and Istanbul and to convert the sultan’. However, in Malta, during the first leg of the journey, their activities resulted in incarceration by the Catholic inquisition.
‘Sick and malnourished, with only their faith and friendship for comfort,’ Thomas highlights the deep bond reflected in the accounts that were smuggled out during their three-and-a-half year imprisonment.
This is followed by an interview with Terry Waite about his experiences in Lebanon. After being taken hostage in 1987, Terry was kept in solitary confinement for over four-and-a-half years, ‘so I had to make friends with myself.’
He recalled that, when he was moved into the company of other captives, he was: ‘really extremely ill… one of my fellow captives, namely Terry Anderson, the American hostage, he could just about reach over, because he was chained also, during the night when I was struggling for breath.
‘He never said anything. He just stretched his hand out and put it over mine… it was when he did that I realised that you can be linked to another person in a deep bond of friendship without actually saying anything. Words are not the only vehicle which make meaning of friendship.’
Terry goes on to speak about his faith: ‘I think, as far as Christian friendship goes, that is, in some ways, best exemplified through the Quakers because there, of course, all people who attend Quaker Meetings are called Friends and that signifies that we share, under God, a common humanity and stand together and, although you may not agree with everybody in a Quaker Meeting, you listen to them with respect, you have respect for their humanity, you have respect for their individuality and you treat them as a friend and I think that is essentially a Christian position.’
Friends keen to hear the full programme can find it at: http://bit.ly/FriendshipBBC
Apologies for discord
Eye would like to apologise for hitting some wrong notes in ‘Making Music’ (28 March).
The ‘lack of music that was both current and professionally recorded’ was in relation to music that was suitable for that particular programme and not intended as an insult to other Quaker music-makers.
David L Saunders, of Wells-next-the-Sea Meeting, wrote in to highlight other lyrical initiatives that might be of interest to Friends, including:
‘Sing In The Spirit, a book of 191 Quaker songs recently republished by The Leaveners, available from the Quaker Centre Bookshop at Friends House, and its companion CD, There’s Music in the Air, containing thirty-three of those songs sung by Quaker singers.
‘Belonging to a Meeting that has many visitors I’m always surprised at the reaction of visitors when the clerk announces on fourth Sundays that there will be thirty minutes of singing after refreshments. Many say they didn’t know Quakers sang or that there was a Quaker Song Book!
‘The recent publication by The Kindlers, Visioning New Fire, contains in a pocket at the back a CD entitled The Living Spirit, a recording of a new piece by Quaker composer Tony Biggin…
‘Inspirational words by Alec Davison are matched by Tony Biggin’s equally inspirational music. Sung by a quartet of young, fresh voices with accomplished piano support this is a powerful and beautiful evocation in music of the experience of Quaker worship.’
