A modest pedestrian crossing. Photo: HeyRocker/flickr CC.
Eye - 22 April 2011
From pants to park benches
You and your underwear
The common stereotype of the Quaker is the hat-wearing, oat-selling, peace-loving Friend with staunch values. There’s not much truth in that for current Quakers, you might say, and there’s nothing raunchy about it either. When this popular image was referred to by a guest on the Radio Four show You and Yours, the station received a letter of complaint that eventually found its way into Eye’s inbox.
In an interview with Johnnie Boden, London-based designer of practical and casual clothing, the presenter tried to get to the bottom of the lack of underwear produced by the company. They noted that Boden did not produce any ‘raunchy underwear,’ to which Johnnie B gave the brief response that it was ‘not because of some weird Quaker values.’
Eye was pleased to read the letter from a non-Quaker listener who suggests that this below-the-belt stereotyping should not be left unchallenged by presenters. Albert Beale, author of the complaint, did not get his knickers in a twist about it, but explained that although he is not a Quaker he is ‘sensitive to the issue of stereotyping’.
He raised the point that ‘both Quakers and pacifists tend to be talked of in the media as though they’re adherents of very passive and ascetic philosophies’, going on to describe how in his experience of pacifist circles there is ‘what you might call sex and drugs and rock and roll pacifism’. Finally, he commented that ‘there are plenty of (both Quaker and non-Quaker) pacifists who are extremely raunchy – with or without their underwear.’
A brief response
Eye was amused to hear from Sally Mason, from Forest of Dean Meeting, this week. She wrote in with answers to the querying of queries posed by John Anderson in last week’s column (15 April).
Writing on behalf of Quakers’ Unambiguous Response Group (QURG) she offers the following replies to his questions: ‘yes; no; yes; no; yes; no; neither; yes; yes; no; yes’. QURG offered a final statement saying ‘we hope our brevity has relieved his mind!’
Parked for worship
Friends who have visited Hanoi in Vietnam may be familiar with the lakes that lie within the bounds of the city. Eye’s friend Rod Harper got in touch to tell of the time when he and Sarah Feilden sat on a park bench looking out over one of these lakes for worship.
He says: ‘The lake was very peaceful; the silence was deep against the roar of the traffic and sounds of the city. During the course of the hour butterflies flittered around the nearby trees.’ It all sounded very peaceful to Eye. However, Rod goes on to explain why this Meeting for Worship may have been unique. The worshippers soon found themselves beset by Vietnamese locals, flittering around the nearby trees, hunting western tourists on the banks of the picturesque lake. Rod wonders whether this was the only Meeting for Worship in the world where postcards were offered for sale every five minutes!
They continued to worship, and ‘the importuning vendors, confronted with our silence, were alternately perplexed and frustrated, but mainly amused,’ Rod told Eye. He also felt that it was a missed opportunity for outreach.
