The Pales. Photo: Jules Montgomery.
Gathering at a ‘thin place’
Julia Lim reports on the recent Meeting of Friends in Wales
The October 2018 gathering of Meeting of Friends in Wales took place at The Pales Meeting House on a brilliantly sunny but cold Saturday. We were over forty Friends from all corners of Wales. Friends made their contributions in Welsh or English, with the usual excellent simultaneous translation. Holding a Meeting for Worship where all present can minister in their first language is important and enriching. For me, it intensifies the sense of being part of a shared undertaking to learn what is eternal in each other’s inner lives, in this culturally and spiritually rich place that is Wales.
My heart lifted to be here again, as there is a special sense of spirit on this high hillside facing an extinct volcano. The Pales is very much a ‘thin place’, as this is understood in Celtic spirituality. It is now being developed to host small-scale spiritual and creative events, in addition to its role as the oldest Quaker Meeting house in continuous use in Wales. The Pales Management Group had prepared a display of draft plans to make the adjoining cottage more efficiently heated and plumbed, with additional visitor accommodation, for us all to see ahead of the open meeting to discuss on 31 October. These improvements would enable The Pales to host longer-term events, so that as many people as possible – Friends and others – can benefit from this spiritually saturated place.
One part of the role of Meeting of Friends in Wales (MFW) is to represent Quakers in Wales to Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM). As this dialogue continues, MFW clerk, trustees and focus group have been working with Friends House on a Welsh language policy to form part of a shared Memorandum of Understanding. In preparation for this, the Wales Focus Group had put together a document on the cultural differences between England and Wales. It seeks to explore cultural differences other than language that shape the needs of Friends living in a society that is both bilingual and bicultural. While it has been written initially to inform staff at Friends House, it is also an important starting point for Local and Area Meetings in Wales to consider our own responses to the challenge of offering spiritual hospitality that is biculturally and bilingually sensitive.
MFW trustees and the Wales Focus Group reported jointly that alongside the work with Friends House, MFW is looking at how it can connect more with the four Area Meetings in Wales, how to develop its website (with help from the Vibrancy in Meetings worker for Wales and Southern Marches), and how it can simplify and deepen its gatherings to complement the existing Area Meeting arrangements. MFW holds a number of special responsibilities for representing Friends within the cultural life of Wales, participating in the very active ecumenical, interfaith and social policy work of Cytûn (Churches Together in Wales). This includes offering spiritual hospitality at the annual Royal Welsh Agricultural Show and National Eisteddfod, and joining various networks of independent chapels in their business and celebrations.
Gethin Evans, of Aberystwyth Meeting, was our afternoon speaker, fittingly in the season when the end of the first world war was being commemorated. He has been researching the Friends whose conscience led them to volunteer for active service, and how Britain Yearly Meeting and Meeting for Sufferings responded to Friends’ differing leadings in response to the war. It was sobering to learn that some of our public statements were worded opaquely enough to be used at times in support of military recruitment.
After deep listening and questions, the Meeting sent a minute to Meeting for Sufferings about the importance of our fully understanding our Society’s response to the 1914-18 war.
We left after tea in the late afternoon sunshine, our last chance to experience this at the end of a day-long Meeting before the clocks were turned back, Friends in shared car-fulls of companionship and commitment.
