'I have also come to believe that getting to know one another and witnessing the divine in each other does build community.' Photo: Bewakoof.com Official / Unsplash.
‘I see differently than longer-time Quakers… I see a need to get to know one another better.’
Conversation piece: Daniel Clarke Flynn gets people talking
I I have been interviewing people for more than fifty years. It is amazing what we can learn from others when we ask respectful open-ended questions and simply listen and record. At a Belgium and Luxembourg Yearly Meeting last summer, in Meeting for Worship for Business someone asked if our newsletter could publish interviews of members, so we could get to know one another better. What a good idea, many thought. As editor, I posed five questions:
- How would you describe yourself at this point in your life?
- When were you first attracted to Quakers and when did you become a member?
- What does being a member mean to you today?
- Where do you find most inspiration today inside and outside the Quaker world?
- How do you put your faith into action today inside and outside the Quaker world?
How would you respond to these questions?
I invited the two longest-serving members to be the first interviewees. Just like that, members and attenders learned more about people they thought they already knew well. I then opened the invitation for all members and attenders. That immediately produced three more responses: one in French, one in English, and one in Dutch – languages used in ministry in our Meeting. The results were fascinating.
At the end of the day, however, what is important for all involved – the interviewee, the community, and the interviewer – is that the process aids spiritual growth. Community is important to me. I have come to believe that we all crave certainty in life and acceptance in a community. We hate being shunned. Since my university days in the 1950s, I have been a student of sociology, the science of human behaviour in groups. I have also come to believe that getting to know one another and witnessing the divine in each other does build community.
I am witnessing the reluctance of some, however, to become vulnerable by speaking about themselves. We build walls to avoid getting close – to avoid emotional hurt based on self-centered fear. As I have witnessed and learned in other aspects of life, satisfaction of the need for intimacy requires willingness to become vulnerable, to ‘take it on the chin’ from time to time. For me, it is only through practice of spiritual habits – connecting with Power Greater than myself, which brought me into existence eighty years ago and keeps me alive – that I can pursue getting close to others, starting with the woman I have called my partner for the past thirty years.
I am in the fifth score of my life and a recent Quaker. I see differently than longer-time Quakers. And what I see is a need to get to know one another better. As Advices & queries suggests: ‘Our diversity invites us both to speak what we know to be true in our lives and to learn from others’. If you like the five questions, you are very welcome to use them. I would be keen to know what you learn.
