Eye - 10 May 2013

From daffodil ministry to being found

Daffodil ministry

Spring has certainly sprung, if this photo is any indication.

Martin Williams, warden of Llandrindod and Pales Meeting, sent it in with the caption ‘Pales burial ground rises late to give daffodil ministry’.

He writes: ‘It is tradition round here to have daffodils for St David’s Day, 1 March – not this year! They’ve only just come.’

Being found

‘A history helped’ (19 April) has inspired other Friends to share stories.

Isobel Lane, of Streatham and Brixton Meeting, got in touch with an extract from the late Wanda Hayman’s unpublished book. She describes Wanda as ‘a very dear Friend’ who ‘grew up in Poland and survived world war two with her mother being moved around Russia and Germany’. When Wanda returned to Warsaw, she joined the Union of Independent Youth, a group that was invited to send a member to the International Voluntary Work Camp organised by the Anglo-American Quaker Relief Mission.

Wanda wrote: ‘I was the only one who showed any interest in that invitation. I thought, “Quakers, who are they?” I knew it was some religious sect, pacifists… I was at that time very much a “lapsed” Catholic, I actually called myself an atheist, though that name was somewhat exaggerated – I was a nonbeliever who would have very much liked to be able to believe.’

The camp kicked off with pitching the tents for that night’s rest. ‘It was July, and the Polish nights can be hot in summer, too hot to stay under canvas. I decided to pull my mattress out into the open. With the starry sky seeming low above me, and an occasional falling star to see… I was awakened in the morning by something hitting me. There was a beautiful green frog sitting on top of me. That nearness to nature, which I scarcely ever experienced before as a city child, moved me. It felt as a foretaste of more good things to come.

‘On our first morning we had our breakfast sitting in a circle on the grass. After breakfast, the leader, an American Quaker, David, suggested that we should start every day with a short, fifteen minutes, silence. This was accepted. So, after a short reading, silence fell. I looked around. The two Quakers present closed their eyes, so I did the same. The silence had a good feel. I thought, “This is heaven”. This was the moment when the God I could not find, found me.

‘After that morning, I threw myself into the camp experience with gusto. I liked the atmosphere, the work and the leaders… They never spoke to us about their faith; they were definitely not going to “ram their religion down our throats.”

‘But one day the right question was asked of one of the “Quaker” group, actually a young American man from a Baptist family… “Why have you come here? What would make you leave your comfortable life in a wealthy country, your family and work, in order to do hard, unpaid work here for Polish peasants with whom you can’t even converse?” He had to answer that. And he did: “It is because of my faith in the way of Jesus.”

‘That was the first time that I heard an ordinary person, not a monk or nun, say that his life was motivated by his faith in Jesus. I was tremendously impressed. “If that is Christianity, then I could accept it.” I, too, never stopped loving and admiring Jesus, and trying to follow his teaching, even while I did not believe in God.’

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