Inspiration at The Pales

Jeff Beatty reports on a recent Meeting of Friends in Wales

As clerk for Southern Marches Area Meeting for some time now, it is with regret that I attend the Meeting of Friends in Wales so infrequently. Southern Marches has a split personality, so to speak, with three Meetings in Wales and others in Herefordshire and Shropshire. This dichotomy is such a blessing, actually, which was truly borne out on Saturday 25 June when thirty-five Friends from all over Wales, and a few from England, met in the spiritual setting of The Pales Meeting House in Llandrindod Wells.

The welcome, as at all Quaker gatherings, was warm, with the sense that we knew one another, though most Friends I had not met before. Familiar, too, was the business method, as well as the support given to the clerk throughout. However, the worry was the language problem, since I do not speak Welsh. This was soon resolved as simultaneous translation was provided. Listening to the spoken Welsh was a joy and the translation spoken quietly and melodiously added to the emotion felt on the day.

The Welsh language

Later on one Friend spoke about the need to spread the Welsh language, using the example of John Edward Southall, who started to learn Welsh in the late nineteenth century when a boy at Bootham School in York. Later he moved to Newport, where he wrote and published books on education and religion, among which were publications on the Welsh language. Gethin Evans, as reported in the Friend (18 March), is to lecture at the National Eisteddfod this year. The lecture will be on 2 August, in the Societies Tent, and given in Welsh.

The speaker for the day, Mark Bryant, addressed the topic of ‘Muslims in Britain: Change and Challenge’, and during our period of silent worship a Friend read from sections of Surah 4 from the Qur’an in both Welsh and English. The reading included a section on ‘speaking kindness and justice’, setting the scene for the afternoon. In the morning we learnt of the work undertaken by Friends in Wales, including advocacy towards a greater understanding of issues such as children and young people, death and dying, Wales remembers, Cytûn (Churches Together in Wales), the ‘Wales 2050: Delivering for Future Generations’ conference and addressing Concerns.

We received a report from the Meeting of Friends in Wales’ support advocate, who provides support for children and young people’s advocates. He contrasted the active engagement of Young Friends at the UK level, as witnessed at Yearly Meeting this year, with the patchy representation more locally. Engagement with the young, particularly during their adolescent years and beyond, remains problematic.

Nevertheless, in his report our advocate support outlined ways in which the Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) children and young people’s staff team could support Friends’ Meetings more locally and he advocated that all Meetings should consider children and young people and provide facilities for them whether or not any attend Meeting for Worship.

Wales for Peace project

Angela Ormrod, from Mid-Wales Area Meeting, presented her report on a conference on death and dying that she had attended at the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham. It was over-subscribed and extraordinarily well organised. At the conference, keynote speakers gave personal experiences of grieving and dying, sometimes quite emotionally. Death, she said, is something we all have to meet sometime and somewhere, but we all too often push the subject of death and dying into the background. She recommended the Britain Yearly Meeting leaflet Love and loss.

The sense of war and peace is never far from our minds during the 2014-2018 commemorative events of the 1914-1918 ‘great war’. There is too much emphasis on war and not enough on peace and reconciliation. Friends in Wales are attempting to redress the balance with the launch of the ‘Faith in Action’ exhibition at the National Eisteddfod this year and through the Wales for Peace project, which includes a digital record of all conscientious objectors in Wales, not just those from the Religious Society of Friends.

Friends continue to find difficulty sometimes in being incorporated into Cytûn groups at local level and Friends advised documentary support, such as Quaker faith & practice and the Quaker Committee for Christian and Interfaith Relations (QCCIR) document A Spirit-led church, in enabling by ‘gentle persistence’ full participation.

Britain Yearly Meeting

We were reminded of the work of the Welsh Assembly in developing a sustainable future and of our part in it. At the Wales 2050 recent conference, attended by a number of Friends, the issues of climate change and sustainable development were addressed. Our Meeting for Sufferings (MfS) representative reported on the need for Area Meetings to test Concerns before minutes are sent to MfS so that it can be more effective in the world.

Also in the morning, a Friend spoke about her experience at Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) this year and we learned more about our outreach at the National Eisteddfod in Abergavenny in early August and at the Royal Welsh Show in Builth Wells in mid-July. Catherine James found BYM a deeply moving experience, with attention to being Spirit-led, to the testing of a sense of Concern and to supporting those who carry out our work.

In the last Meeting of Friends in Wales report, which was published in the Friend (18 March), projects were outlined at the National Eisteddfod and at the Royal Welsh Show. Practical work for the Eisteddfod is well advanced and there is much support for it, especially from Abergavenny Friends. We will have a presence at the Welsh Show on each day and there will be opportunities for Meeting for Worship in the Christian Centre for Rural Wales.

Visioning the future

In the afternoon Mark Bryant, from the Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK, spoke about Muslims in Britain. Friends learned about the variety of Muslim practice in the UK and beyond. The details of this session are published as a separate article in this week’s edition of the Friend (‘Justice and kindness’).

At the end of the day Southern Marches Area Meeting (SMAM) gave an update on the current management of The Pales Meeting House and on the visioning for the future. Recent history was reviewed and we were brought up to date with recent developments.

This time last year SMAM held a Threshing Meeting at The Pales after which, in November, the Area Meeting established the Pales Steering Group, which meets monthly and is currently in discussion with Powys County Council. Meanwhile The Pales continues now, and will do so in the future, to provide spiritual nourishment to all who visit.

What are my overall reflections of the day? Where do I begin? I was overwhelmed by the quiet clerking, by careful and thoughtful language in both Welsh and English and by the agenda.

However, looking around the Meeting I observed the grey hair and, in my case, felt my bald pate and wondered how long Meeting for Worship could continue without a more varied constituency. I will attend again, bald head allowing!

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