Letters - 01 December 2023
From Finding love and support to Meetings
Finding love and support
Barrie Mahoney is troubled by the expectation that, resulting from the cancer, as well as pain he will experience ‘loss of dignity, loss of independence’ and will be a ‘burden’ on others (10 November).
Loss of independence does not necessarily mean loss of dignity. The definition of dignity is the ‘state of being worthy of honour’. It’s when a person is not treated with care and compassion that dignity is lost; it’s not dependent on their ability to do things for themselves. There are people who have to depend on others for almost everything who retain dignity because they are cared for with respect.
I understand that Barrie is expressing his very real fears about the future but I’m concerned that he should feel that he may become a burden to those who love him. I have been involved in the care of relatives towards the end of their lives and it was at times a very difficult and painful experience. However it has also been a privilege to be present with them on that journey. It’s a precious gift to care for and support another in these circumstances.
Perhaps our western culture which so highly values independence has made us blind to the fact that we need each other. In cultures where more emphasis is on community, I think there is more acceptance of the inevitability, at some stage of our lives, of needing to be cared for by others.
With regard to the debate in parliament, I’m surprised that Barrie would wish to remove clerics from the debate because he doesn’t agree with them! I understood that as Quakers we try to listen to and understand people whose views are different to our own.
Barry states that ‘as a Quaker, I find it hard to balance a loving God… wishing to prolong our pain and misery’. I have found that God indeed loves us and of course does not wish to prolong our pain. He is not a God who controls everything but a God who works through the love of others. I too am afraid of what the future might hold but I hope and pray that, as I have had experience of God sustaining and strengthening me through my life, I will also experience that at the end.
I hope Barrie will find that his fears will not all become reality and that he may find love and support perhaps in unexpected places.
Anne Macarthur
Proceed with sensitivity
Are you an experienced Friend moving to a different Meeting?
You may quickly see ways in which you might be useful, or things you long to change. Please, Friend, be cautious. Wait a while and study the dynamics of the Meeting before you put yourself forward. Give yourself time to learn who has been accustomed to doing what.
This is particularly important in the case of a Meeting without designated elders or pastoral carers, as individuals may have been unobtrusively fulfilling a particular function for a long time and be shocked and hurt to find themselves undermined by a well-meaning newcomer.
Your opportunities will come if you proceed with sensitivity. The Meeting may seem jaded and in need of a tonic, but please don’t assume you are what’s needed. Remember that a new broom can raise dust as well as sweeping it away.
Name and address supplied
Old tropes
I write as a Jewish Friend, in response to Tim Robertson’s letter (3 November).
He is probably correct in asserting that many mainstream Jewish organisations would see the Quaker position as rooted in ‘old tropes’ about Jews. For many Jews, their identity is so bound up with Israel that criticism of Israel’s actions is experienced as a personal assault, no matter how privately uneasy many Jews may feel about the occupation (and many do).
I understand those painfully-ambivalent feelings. But it would simply be dishonest to pretend that the cycle of violence started out of the blue on 7 October or that Israel is purely a victim and bears no responsibility. In fact, isn’t the accusation of antisemitism yet another ‘old trope’, intended to discredit and silence anyone who tells the truth about a lengthy, brutal, illegal military occupation? We do have a Truth Testimony as well as a Peace Testimony.
So is Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) ‘institutionally antisemitic’? To me, the statement offers no evidence for this. It seems to me measured, truthful and compassionate, and it upholds our traditional testimony by calling for an end to violence and a just peace based on international law. It is unequivocal in condemning all indiscriminate violence. To suggest that BYM has abandoned the Peace Testimony in order to give a thumbs-up to Hamas murders would be an appalling and unjust slur if it were not so patently absurd. The fact that crimes are not committed in a vacuum does not mean they cease to be crimes; no amount of suffering can confer a ‘right’ to oppress or kill in turn. I’d like to see some genuine evidence that the official Quaker position departs from that principle.
I will say that during my thirty-plus years among Quakers I’ve encountered hurtful individual examples of everything from mere crass insensitivity to unabashed antisemitism. In 2003 I stood on the platform at Yearly Meeting and reminded Friends that ordinary Israelis were human too. That seemed to come as something of a revelation to some Quakers. Perhaps there were some listening that day who even thought I was ‘providing justification’ for Israel’s violence.
As I write this, the slaughter of civilians in Gaza has intensified and newborn babies are dying for lack of functioning intensive care units. I’m not sure that an investigation into BYM’s position vis-a-vis Jews is the priority right now.
But I do think it might be helpful for each of us to drop our defences, stand still in the Light and check whether we honestly believe that every human being is equally ‘unique, precious, a child of God’.
Whether a murdered child is called Leah or Laila, whether she is one of thousands from her community or only one of tens, the agony for her parents is the same.
Stevie Krayer
Simple outreach
I came to Quaker Meetings in later life, a result of watching in a London City church where William Penn’s parents were married.
My first Meeting was instrumental in encouraging me to return regularly. The welcome I received following the Meeting for Worship was so kind and thoughtful.
I am still an attender but now feel confident and pleased to share my Quaker experience with others I encounter in my various roles.
Outreach can be simple but, performed with a generous heart and mind, very rewarding.
Sian Edwards
Meetings
Some time ago I went to a Quaker event at Earlham, Indiana. We had the Sunday choice of five Meetings for Worship, two silent and three programmed.
We Quakers in Britain can be seen as a self-selected and somewhat exclusive community, at a loss in how to widen our membership and our delivery of witness. It strikes me that many who might feel at one with Friends are not temperamentally attuned to an hour of silence as their main manifestation of membership.
I don’t know whether there are already Meetings in this country which follow the programmed format, perhaps with singing. My proposal is not that new programmed Meetings should be set up. Instead, existing Meetings might offer programmed sessions, presumably led by a minister, as an add-on to our customary mode of worship.
The Young Adult Friends programme in Oxford may have something of the feel of this. Some events led by the local development workers may be steps in the same direction. Victorian, patriarchal Friends offered somewhat analogous evening classes, though not inviting participants into their actual Meetings.
(I have to say, however, that for some Friends the silence is a blessed escape from regimented observances.)
Richard Seebohm
Comments
It is interesting to read Anne Macarthur’s response to my recent article about Assisted Dying, and it is heart-warming to read that she has such a positive view about her involvement in the care of relatives towards the end of their lives, and that “it has also been a privilege to be present with them on that journey. It’s a precious gift to care for and support another in these circumstances.”
I may be wrong, but I suspect that Ann moves in very different circles to myself. Sadly, the reality for many cancer suffers and other terminally ill patients is a very different story. Fellow patients in groups that I am involved with often live alone, some caring for partners and friends when they themselves are frail. Others have no surviving relatives, or close friends to help them, and end of life care has become increasingly scarce to access, either within a hospice, at home or in hospital. I should also add here, before someone picks me up, that lack of resources for care alone should in no way influence the decision to end life.
I wrote my article following a very moving meeting with fellow patients, and ‘loss of dignity’ however Ann wishes to define it, as well as ‘loss of independence’ were very much at the top of our list. I doubt that that giving others “the privilege of being present with them on that journey” will rank as highly as effective pain control, being warm, washed and cleaned to the end. Yes, Ann is right, independence is valued highly in our culture. Our view on independence is difficult to shed yet, for some, there is little left other than to cling to our self-respect and some independence.
Sadly, Ann has misrepresented my views regarding removing clerics from the Assisted Dying debate. As Quakers, it is important to listen to the views of all, yet even a little research into attempts to move forward with such a bill reveals that it is the views of clerics representing the collective view of ‘the Established Church’ and other churches in the House of Lords that have blocked the progress of an end-of-life bill, usually claiming it is against ‘God’s Will’. How do they know this? Does a loving God really want us to suffer needlessly? My God is clearly on a different page.
Yes, I may be a Quaker, but that does not prevent me from disregarding meaningless archaic language, challenging, arguing against and asking for evidence and clarification when I hear it. As I said in my article, in my view the Assisted Dying debate is best left to those who know, the medical professions, those who work with end-of-life patients, legislators from other countries who already have such a law in place, as well as patients.
Yes, Ann, God does not control everything, but gives us the wisdom to make choices and to decide for ourselves, and as you say, “a God who works through the love of others.”
By barriemahoney on 30th November 2023 - 10:31
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