Letters - 13 January 2023
From Putin to Cover and smile
Putin
‘Love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be.’
Would it be too childish to imagine what effect there might be if hundreds of us sent birthday and Christmas cards to Vladimir Putin, wishing him the gifts of the Spirit, love, joy and peace? Might he realise he’s missing something?
Dorothy Woolley
In a militarised society
In the 8 December 2022 issue Barbara Forbes asked how many Quakers think about the effect of the Israeli population living in a militarised population. It’s a good question.
I have recently joined Women in Black – for justice and against war, and discovered that it was founded in 1988 by Israeli women protesting against the occupation of Palestinian land.
This is only one way in which Israelis can work towards peace. In 1953, Bruno Hussar, a member of the Dominican Order whose work took him to Israel, built a vision of creating a place where co-citizens of Israel, Jews and Arabs, would live together.
Young Israelis and Palestinians were soon attracted by this vision of peaceful living between two peoples, and from that time the organisation has been called Neve Shalom-Wahat Al-Salam (NSWaS). Both words mean ‘Peace’, and for some time there has been a NSWaS School.
Sometimes an Israeli and a Palestinian come to our country together to speak about what they are doing and hoping to achieve.
There is in our country an organisation called Oasis of Peace, which supports Neve Shalom-Wahat Al-Salam and passes on donations to it.
These are not the only ways in which there are opportunities for Israelis and Palestinians to come together: for example, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra.
Janet Toye
Climate challenge
I can’t agree with Arne Springorum (16 December 2022). I don’t think irritating people and creating traffic jams is a good idea.
I doubt the government would come to the negotiating table if the Just Stop Oil non-violent but disruptive people stopped traffic in London.
I doubt if anything will make this awful government see sense – for instance that increasing nurses’ pay will not increase inflation, which seems to be their obsession.
Money is the root of all evil.
Irene Gill
End and means
Two editions of December’s the Friend arrived together last Friday.
Having read the very powerful article by Arne Springorum (16 December 2022) on protesting, I am left with the question ‘Are we now being asked to agree with the concept that the end justifies the means?’.
Margaret Sadler
Collections
The ‘collections’ question raised by Richard Seebohm (16 December 2022) is answered by Reading Friends, too, by the circulation in the Meeting diary of the name and purpose of the recipient charity of the week and how to donate to it.
I donate from my deposit with the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF). Each donation is sent anonymously with the note ‘from a Reading Quaker’. This avoids getting my name and address on the charity’s list of donors but credits the Meeting instead.
Tom Heydeman
A guiding light
Barbara Forbes’ point (9 December 2022) about an inclusive statement is well made. It leaves one to ponder more deeply. Yet all of that, I feel, is implied in the statement, although not explicitly stated.
The Quaker Peace Testimony itself seems to me to be a kind of spiritual guide, a way of being in the world. It is nuanced and universal, and warns against the cruelty and alienation of war destroying life.
The Peace Testimony seems to be an encouragement to live our lives with care for each other, with deep compassionate awe, at the sacredness of all life. There is no condemnation of individual choices. It sounds to me that we have a responsibility to bear witness, foregoing blame, with compassion for all of humanity and our precious Earth. There are no absolutes but a dwelling in the grey area of love of all of humanity.
Yet I feel we are called strongly to reject the military industrial complex and the militarisation of societies, which often results in conscription, child soldiers, propaganda of cruelty and insanity of war. Very rich profits are always made from war, while so many people are murdered and tortured.
The recent UN report on the US backed war in Yemen, states that thousands of children have been murdered and many die of starvation, and lack of medicine, due to the Saudi port blockade, where seventy per cent of the local Houthi population live.
The report states: ‘Ultimately only a sustained peace will allow families to rebuild their shattered lives, and begin to plan a future.’
Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu said that wars happen because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. ‘I used to believe that prayer changes things but now I know that prayer changes us and we change things.’
Margaret Fell and George Fox and many others have offered a guiding light for humanity, to end war itself, turning fear and hatred into enlightened care and compassion for reconnection to the Earth beneath our feet.
Miriam Ryan
Bullying
Lee Dalton (2 December 2022) asks if bullying is a Quaker issue and, if so, how to deal with it. Perhaps Area Meetings could have members trained in conflict resolution and restorative justice methods to help resolve such problems before they escalate. Employees, including Meeting house wardens, are especially vulnerable to bullying. I’d agree that bullying is common wherever people gather and organise.
It takes various forms and can occur on all levels: in the home, the playground, the workplace and between nations. Large organisations can be infiltrated and dominated by a self-interested, often angry, bullying individual or clique.
No organisation is immune. At the national, extreme end of the scale is fascism, in all its guises. Like cancer, it’s virulent when unchecked. The problem is lust for power (and hence status) over others. Machiavelli cynically described how to ruthlessly acquire, manipulate and cling to power.
Quakerism confronts power with truth. This is love, something the insecure bully sadly seems to have missed. Jesus said: ‘Love your enemy’, for love overcomes power – which, before Pilate, He repudiated in silence. However, victims of bullying can be left distressed, dispirited and heartbroken – though careful reflection may reveal that living in truth can be deeply liberating for all concerned.
Dave Dight
Process of revision
I had quite a different response to the idea of the ‘voice of the book’ than that expressed in the letter from Jonathan Wooding in the 23 and 30 December 2022 issue of the Friend.
For me one of the joys of Quakerism is the process of discernment whereby lots of contributions from individual Friends are held in the light, and out of this process a way forward often emerges that is different from any individual contribution but is somehow respectful of them all.
I was delighted to gather that the revision committee were using such a process to arrive at wording for core sections of the new Quaker faith & practice, thus taking heed of the ‘promptings of love and truth’ wherever possible and avoiding the danger of dominant or ‘celebrity’ voices taking the limelight.
Anne Brewer
Cover and smile
The cover picture from the 6 January 2023 edition of the Friend brought a smile to my face.
With the Greens out in front, the Liberal Democrats in second place and Labour just ahead of the Conservatives.
John Arnison
