Language matters
Frances Voelcker writes about a recent Meeting of Friends in Wales
Meeting of Friends in Wales meets in February, June and October each year in different parts of the country to give the widely scattered Friends a chance to worship together and to learn about and develop work of particular relevance in Wales – whether this is in geographical Wales, or in our relationships with the other home nations, or in the wider world. The latest gathering was held at Llanbedr Pont Steffan/Lampeter on Saturday 24 February.
As devolution gathers pace, policy developed and decided by the Welsh government in the Welsh Assembly covers most ‘domestic’ functions (health, education, transport, business and industry, local government, housing, planning and construction). Although the purse strings are still largely held by Westminster, the way in which the budget is allocated is decided in Cardiff.
Priorities in Wales differ from those in England, as is natural when physical and human geography is different. The same is true for Scotland. In recognition of this, Paul Parker, the recording clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting, Anne Ullathorne, clerk of Meeting for Sufferings, and Deborah Rowlands, Britain Yearly Meeting clerk, recently met in Scotland with the representatives of General Meeting for Scotland and Catherine James, assistant clerk of Meeting of Friends in Wales.
A language policy
Amongst the matters they discussed was the need for a language policy to be agreed between Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) and Meeting of Friends in Wales. This arises because in Wales the native language survives to a far greater extent than elsewhere in Britain. Approximately one sixth of the population uses Welsh as their first language.
I was born in Wales and am three-quarters English and one-quarter Welsh. I was brought up in England without the language, and came to live in Wales, so I learned Welsh as an adult. I know, therefore, from my experience that many English have an unconscious bias against things Welsh and the Welsh language, and that monoglot English (in Wales as well as England) take the attitude ‘they understand English so it’s easier for all to use English’ without thinking what a barrier it is to be expected to pray and minister in what is not your mother tongue.
The natural default for all is the mother tongue. So, of course, the communications department in Friends House designs lovely outreach materials in English only. When we in Meeting of Friends in Wales ask for material in Welsh, and provide Welsh equivalents (not just translations, for wordplay and cultural references won’t always translate) these are provided gladly by Friends House. Then staff change and Meeting of Friends in Wales has to ‘push the rock up the hill’ again.
Identity and values
Where I worship sixty-five per cent of the population are Welsh speakers, while nearer Caernarfon the figure is eighty-five per cent. We simply cannot use English posters only, and our Welsh posters are getting battered. So, Meeting of Friends in Wales has charged its Focus Group with drafting a language policy. We need to get to the position that Friends House – and indeed, all Friends – think ‘Wales – oh yes, bilingual.’ This, Friends, is also diversity.
Being Welsh is not only geographical: Oswestry (Croesoswallt) lies just over the border in England, but opted to be part of North Wales Area Meeting when the Area Meeting was set up, feeling more in common with Wales than with Wirral and Chester. In Southern Marches, Meetings such as Clun Valley and Almeley Wootton are in England but have members and attenders that live in Wales, so they participate in Meeting of Friends in Wales.
Brecon (Aberhonddu), Llandrindod Wells and Pales, located right in the middle of geographical Wales, have nevertheless opted to belong to Southern Marches Area Meeting rather than to Mid-Wales. Montgomery (Trefaldwyn), geographically in the Marches, belongs to Mid-Wales Area Meeting: there are personal and Meeting histories behind these decisions, and much longer traditions of trade and travel routes; even which areas were ruled by Normans and which were not.
You are never far from a long, long history that gives rise to particular identity and values. This is not a peculiar Welsh/Borders condition. There are borders of one kind and another everywhere. We all want BYM to become a community in which it is possible and comfortable for all kinds and conditions of people to work and worship together.
Eisteddfod
The main cultural festival each year in Wales is the National Eisteddfod. This is the culmination of a whole year’s cultural events held in chapels, village halls and schools throughout the land, in Welsh. Meeting of Friends in Wales currently presents a series of three lectures at the Eisteddfod.
The first, in 2016, was by Gethin Evans, on Edward Southall, an English Quaker who learned Welsh, campaigned for the language and was a Welsh-language publisher.
The second lecture, given by Huw Owen in 2017, was entitled Yr Eiliad, Yr Awr, a’r Twll yn y To (‘The moment, the hour, and the hole in the roof’). At Meeting of Friends in Wales on 24 February 2018 Huw Owen gave his lecture again in Welsh with a simultaneous translation in English. It referred to particular poems by Waldo Williams, a renowned poet who was a Quaker and a conscientious objector in world war two, and by R S Thomas, who learned and spoke fluent, correct Welsh, but wrote poetry only in English: poetry like prayer comes in the mother-tongue, which is why, in Wales, Quakers need to value and honour the Welsh language.
Huw Owen is an architect and artist. In his talk he reflected on psychological and philosophical perceptions and referred to the American Quaker James Turrell’s remarkable series of skyspaces – enclosed pavilions open to the sky. He spoke of not understanding or being able to name the spiritual experience, but of recognising it when it happens. You look for it, but, as often as not, it happens unexpectedly, in family moments, or playing music, or while designing. It is not necessarily a conversion experience. It can be gradual. It is experienced rather than achieved rationally, although you can prepare for it by ‘having one foot in the space’ and being willing to respond, and to move. It is beyond space. It requires us to do some work, looking with our current scientific understanding for what along the pilgrim way is significant.
Any of us can have this experience, whether it is momentary or lasts an hour. The poet’s skill lies in bringing it forward and describing the second, the hour; the architect’s skill is in creating and holding the space in which to perceive the light. Huw Owen feels that the search itself may be worship. We can be Quaker without formal structures and guidance if we are sincere, and exercise strict discipline.
Theresa Haine told us about Money for Madagascar, a charity started by Quakers as a result of a concern held by Barbara Prys Williams, a Swansea Friend. Madagascar is roughly two-and-a-half times the size of the United Kingdom. We heard that the first Christian missionaries who went there, in 1818, were from Wales. Theresa Haine talked about the history of Quaker involvement in Madagascar and how Friends’ response to poverty on the island. She described the work carried out cooperatively in areas such as tree-planting, the help given to prisoners, and work with street children.
The future
Quakers in Wales are, like many other Quakers in the UK, mostly older, mostly part of small Local Meetings, and mostly finding it hard to find people willing to fill roles. We are looking at which roles are essential, and how to share those roles that are essential in order to reduce the time and energy demands on people.
Happily, in Meeting of Friends in Wales the clerks work hard to prepare the more formal business so that we can (in right order) whizz through it, freeing up most of the day to be inspired and uplifted by hearing about the spiritual and practical life of the Meeting.
Welsh and English versions of Huw Owen’s lecture are available at: http://bit.ly/HuwOwen17
