Letters - 05 August 2022
From 'From heads to hearts' to 'Feet'
From heads to hearts
I really enjoyed Michael Saunders’ ‘Back from the Dead’ (8 July). Whenever I reflect on ‘Death of God’ theology I am, in a very roundabout way, reminded of those words of Eckhart von Hochheim: ‘I pray to God, to rid me of God’.
In so many ways this statement from the twelfth-century German mystic speaks more deeply to me, as it holds above all the longing for God and not the concepts of God that so cumbersomely cause division and discord.
The late great Zen Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh once said that if we go deep into the roots of our own tradition (and by this he meant embracing the contemplative dimension) we will find there a river that can carry us to the one ocean where all rivers converge.
For me, the tensions between theism and non-theism pale into insignificance when we can make that giant leap from our heads to our hearts.
Chris Goodchild
Green credentials
Looking at current estimates/available statistics, less than 0.5 per cent of the electorate are members of the Conservative Party. In a few weeks’ time, those fellow citizens have the important and, some might say, awesome task of electing our new prime minister.
Some Friends may be among that number or have good social or other contacts within it. In discerning whom to vote for, or helping your associates decide, please pay great attention to what each candidate is saying and consider how these relate to our testimonies.
I would venture to suggest that both candidates need to be tested hard on their green credentials. If it seems likely that progress towards net-zero and sustainability will be abandoned, reduced or only achieved at the expense of others then consider how this might impact on our longer-term ability to continue to live and witness to our other testimonies.
And, for the rest of us, let us hold the candidates, their electorate, and all lawmakers in the Light.
Helen Carter-Shaw
Sad statistic
I find it hard to comprehend how Sue Holden (22 July) can seriously ask the question concerning the breaking of the rules with their Downing Street parties by Boris Johnson and his fellow politicians – ‘Could it just be they were showing us in the only way they were able that the virus was nothing to be afraid of?’
The Covid pandemic has killed in excess of 200,000 people in the United Kingdom since March 2000. This sad statistic includes an attender from my own Meeting and inevitably a significant number of other Friends across the country.
The flagrant breaching by Johnson and his cronies of the rules that the government had itself agreed is another example of upper-class entitlement – that they can behave exactly as they please while everyone else (including Elizabeth Windsor) has to do as they are told, make the necessary sacrifices, obey the rules or face the consequences. Johnson is the worst prime minister in British history and we will be well rid of him.
Deryck Hillas
‘Privilege’
I am writing having been dismayed but not surprised by the recent letters to the Friend regarding the focus of British Quakers on race. I am not surprised because our Society reflects the wider society in which we live. This is a society that has many of the positions shared by Friends (and others similar). I am dismayed because of how far it shows we still have to travel.
Letter-writers felt that we are spending too much time and energy addressing structural racism and inequality. I hope that they will consider carefully the implications of the arguments they make.
There is no question that people of Irish descent have suffered injustice and continue to do so. This does not negate the existence of racism and white privilege.
To share my own experience: at work all three people immediately senior to me are from one part of Ireland or another. At the same time there are no people of colour above my grade, at my grade, nor at the grade below mine. Progress has been made in some aspects of reducing inequality, and we must work for more, but active antiracism does not prevent addressing other issues. We can work to address poor education outcomes for white working-class boys by working to address the education outcomes of all working-class children.
A recent letter suggested that in their town all the people who are homeless are white. How does being antiracist reduce our support for the people they describe? Should we not be antiracist until there are no white people who are homeless? Would it make a difference if the homeless people were black?
A continuing misunderstanding is apparent around the use of the term ‘privilege’. I think this stems from the common definition of the term as privilege in the sense of wealth and high social standing. Privilege is rather any advantage available only to a particular group. It is not restricted to a narrow set of attributes. I find privilege more helpfully understood through the concept of rank. We receive rank through no particular work on our part – purely through accidents of birth.
Some attributes can be perceived by society as carrying a higher rank – this might be the colour of our skin, our sex, age, height and so on. Everyone has rank from different attributes and these interact (intersect).
White privilege does not mean you will have an easy life – but if you are white in the UK that confers a privilege.
I urge Friends to be open to learning about these questions.
Alan Fricker
Population
Friends may remember that Jonathon Porritt, the well-known sustainability campaigner and writer, addressed Friends at Yearly Meeting last year on the subject of population. A precis of this talk is now on the website of Quaker Concern Over Population, on http://qcop.org.uk/j-porritts-talk-to-friends.
He has now published a paper with the heading ‘Revisiting the Population Debate: you know you want to!’ The opening passage lists these following facts:
Half of all pregnancies are unintended, and the number of women affected by this continues to rise.
More than sixty per cent of these unintended pregnancies end in an abortion, and almost half of these abortions are ‘unsafe’.
Between 250 million and 300 million women around the world have an unmet need for proper contraception.
Gender inequality is the strongest of all predictors of unintended pregnancies. Teenage girls are particularly hard-hit by this: thirteen per cent of all young women in developing countries begin childbearing when they themselves are still children (in other words, below the age of seventeen).
Complications in pregnancy are the leading cause of death for adolescent girls worldwide.
Women’s reproductive health rights are under greater threat today than at any time in the modern era.
Is this not a matter of concern for those interested in sustainability, equality, human rights, environment, justice?
Roger Plenty
Feet
Thank you for publishing another of my poems (22 July). Unfortunately, something went wrong, and I’m not sure where the glitch originated. In any case, the last line of my poem has been chopped off and a full stop put at the end of the penultimate line.
Puzzlement has been expressed – am I being more abstruse than normal? Finally I thought I had written something a bit easy to understand, but no, the gremlin thought otherwise!
There’s also a rogue indent.
The last two lines should read:
‘but then time is something
feet do well’.
Angela Arnold
Comments
Please login to add a comment
