Playing with Quaker balloons in Palestine Photo: Photo: Stuart Wallace.
Eye - 16 November 2012
From balloons to Voltaire
Bobbing balloons
Many thanks to Stuart Wallace, Wimbledon Meeting, for sending in this delightful photo taken in the Palestinian village of Dair Ghassanah.
He writes: ‘I was a member of a group from QVA (Quaker Voluntary Action) helping with the olive harvest in the village. These two children certainly appreciated the Quaker balloons I gave them – older family members blew up the balloons and grandad kept a watchful eye.’
Ethics of Friends
The public profile of Friends in Ireland has always been much greater than would be expected for a faith group numbering only two and a half thousand.
This is due to their actions over several centuries. In the mid-nineteenth century British and Irish Friends made a massive contribution to help relieve suffering during the Irish famine. Irish Friends have also maintained a reputation for honesty and integrity.
This was illustrated recently in the book review pages of The Irish Times when a distinguished former editor, Conor Brady, was reviewing Independent Newspapers: A History. The book was a history of one of the most important newspaper groups in Ireland. In searching for an example of honesty and integrity, one that would be commonly understood and accepted by his readers, he cited, in his opening paragraph, Quakers.
He wrote: ‘Newspapers are conflicted institutions. Obliged to trade in a viciously competitive marketplace, they are frequently castigated because they do not always behave with the ethics of the Society of Friends’.
He went on: ‘They have to operate commercially as businesses’. Does he imply that it is impossible to operate commercially as a business, in a competitive marketplace, and to maintain the highest standards of ethics’?
Quakers would, Eye suggests, beg to differ.
Aromatic outreach
The tantalising aroma of that sweetest caffeinated nectar, coffee, could be deployed as a new outreach tool, suggest Arlo and Polly Tatum of Wadebridge Meeting. They write: ‘On Sunday mornings Wadebridge Friends meet in the John Betjeman Centre as do the members of the local Church of England while their church is being rebuilt. Wadebridge Meeting is small so a large cafetiere is big enough for them to enjoy real coffee after Meeting. One morning, after the church service had ended, one of the Anglicans put his head round the kitchen door. “Mmmmm! I smell real coffee,” said he. “I think I shall have to join the Quakers.”’
Startling a philosopher
Laurie Andrews has unearthed an intriguing tidbit. Voltaire, the French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher, visited a Quaker during his stay in England between 1726-29. In his book Lettres Philosophiques, he describes an exchange: ‘“My dear sir, have you been baptised?” “No,” answered the Quaker, “and neither have my fellow Friends.” “What? Good God!… So you are not Christians?” “My son,” he gently expostulated, “do not swear. We are Christians and try to be good Christians, but we do not think Christianity consists in throwing cold water on somebody’s head, with a pinch of salt… Art thou circumcised?” I replied that I had not had that honour. “Very well,” he said. “Friend thou art a Christian without being circumcised, and I am one without being baptised.”’
