Letters - 15 June 2018
From violence against women to grammar
Violence against women
How exciting to read Joel C Wallenberg’s article (1 June). It reiterated a concern adopted recently by West Scotland Area Meeting to raise the issue of violence against women.
In the West of Scotland we participated in the sixteen days of activism against gender-based violence campaign in 2017, which ran from 25 November (International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women) to 10 December (Human Rights Day). Seeking to inform, we had three talks: ‘Female Genital Mutilation’, ‘Underage Marriage’ and ‘Women and Power’. We held a workshop with the Alternatives to Violence Project and two vigils of Thursdays in Black (Churches’ Advocacy against Sexual, Gender-Based Violence supported by the World Council of Churches).
We are also working with Side By Side, a faith movement for gender justice initiated by Christian Aid. This was supported with a meeting at Holyrood with five members of the Scottish parliament (MSPs). A touring exhibition has the stories of sixteen women, eight from the UK and eight from all over the world. Through these groups we have access to all the Christian women’s organisations in Scotland and are developing contacts with other faith groups, including Sikh and Muslim.
We encouraged the men in our Meetings to wear the white ribbons – as in the White Ribbon Campaign of men against violence against women. Through our LGBTI Friends we have learned to include not just women. Our hope was to have enough white-haired old women (‘Raging Grannies’) to hand out white ribbons outside football matches – there are few volunteers as yet.
We welcome Joel’s article, especially bringing this hidden aspect of violence within the Peace Testimony.
Kate Arnot, Mary Kennedy, Margaret Roy, Clare Phillips
Charities and policies
I was distressed by the letter headlined ‘Charity’ (1 June) on a number of counts and as I was already considering whether to continue my long-time subscription to the Friend it almost tipped me over into cancelling it (I haven’t yet done so).
The attitude of some Friends that Quakers give more than others to charities is, I think, arrogant and holier than thou. The fear of some charities that they will be criticised for spending too much on administration and salaries can, perhaps, lead them not to spend enough and therefore be less efficient. A friend working for Oxfam remarked: ‘I wish they spent more and we would get the job done better.’
Clearly, the Friend writing the letter has a bee in his bonnet about overpopulation. How does he imagine someone living in fear, famine and probably in flight is going to access birth control?
Christian Aid is one of the few charities still working in the South Sudan and it employs local people to do their work as part of their policy.
Susan Sawtell
Membership offering
Thank you to all those who took time to reflect and write to the Friend about my discernment of joining Quakers (13 April). To me, this all adds up to a need for Friends to welcome everybody in becoming a Quaker and to make this easy. I am going to ask Meeting for Sufferings to invite all Area Meetings to consider a two-year plan and to report back on the difference this has made after two years.
The plan includes funding Quaker Life to publicise that all are welcome to join Quakers, and asking Area and Local Meetings to adopt vibrancy in offering this to all who share our Meeting for Worship.
Under the plan, Meetings for Sufferings would restate how to join Quakers and ask Area Meetings to follow the procedures of Britain Yearly Meeting. These should include a readily available application form – perhaps as simple as a tick box with space for details of name, address and email. We could adopt this in 2018 and see how it helps our vibrancy in 2019.
In the long term, the revision of Quaker faith & practice is timely. I heard that the chapter on membership is singled out for particular revision. Our recording clerk says that Quakers are out of step with membership when compared to similar organisations. I hope Quakers will address this in coming years. Being a Quaker is something so wonderful that – like our work with Quaker Quest – we should offer it to everybody.
David Fish
Farfield of dreams
It was delightful to see the front cover of the Friend (1 June). It showed the same Meeting house chosen the previous week for York Area Meeting’s newsletter.
Like Barbara Henderson in that edition, I noted the very welcome news that Historic England has chosen a Quaker Meeting house as one of the most significant faith buildings in England.
I entirely concur with her comment that Farfield emanates spirituality and peace. Even so, I could not help adding in the newsletter’s editorial the following comment (which I trust will not seem detrimental to Farfield but only a recognition of actuality): ‘I confess this leaves me with somewhat mixed feelings. While I’m glad that Historic England has selected a Quaker Meeting house as part of England’s faith story, I really regret the choice of one that has been effectively dead for two centuries. At the best of times, those many people unfamiliar with Friends are all too likely to assume that we all died out long ago, alongside Quaker bonnets and plain speech, leaving only a porridge brand name behind. I should hate this latest “accolade” to be a means, however unintentional, of perpetuating – indeed spreading – such a damaging myth.’
Barbara Windle
Ethos and education
The Mount School is to lower its fees. It was mentioned (18 May) that teachers and doctors are being priced out of the private school market. This might help the school’s diversity objective and will be good news to some parents. However, although Quaker schools may offer more bursaries than some other private schools, there is a much more important principle involved: how can we possibly uphold our testimony to equality when we are part of the exclusive world of private education?
Why not have our schools brought into the state system, where pupils can attend them without money being the deciding factor? There are precedents for this and the Quaker ethos can be retained. Private education does not sit at all well with our core beliefs.
Jennifer Armstrong
Beyond the cringe
I was interested to read Maria Grace’s letter (25 May) and pleased to hear that Yearly Meeting was a success.
She describes the bravery of a contributor deploring archaic language, for example ‘worship’ instead of silence. Maria and her husband apparently cringe at the use of these expressions. I looked up cringe in the dictionary and concluded that the definition was being used informally, meaning something like an embarrassed reaction, like watching your dad dancing at a wedding.
I guess we cannot use words to describe the ineffable but, for me, ‘glorifying an other-worldly body’ – as Maria seeks to define worship in this context – is part of what I try to get up to in Meeting for Worship. I think the inclusivity of Friends is an important aspect of who we are. I have plucked up courage, like the contributor at Yearly Meeting, to express my views, which are possibly unusual now in the Society of Friends, but I suspect not unique.
I hope Maria and her husband won’t mind and won’t take me too seriously if I say that I trust my response is not too cringeworthy.
John Clarke
It’s a wrap
I was wondering if other Friends have found uses for the wrapping the Friend arrives in every week?
So far, I use mine to line my bathroom bin, wrap vegetables in before storing in the fridge and until recently as a bag for rubbish in the car – until I realised that leaving my name and address in the car is not a good idea: my partner had his car stolen.
Any other ideas?
Maureen Rowcliffe-Quarry
For some time I have been endeavouring to reduce my use of plastic – one regular item is the wrapper in which the Friend is delivered. I was glad to read the information given on page 2 of the 4 May edition. It seems to me that while one can be careful in ensuring that all domestic recyclable items are separated into the correct bins for removal, they are then subject to the whims of wind, weather and others. I am sure that we have all heard of plastic causing damage to both the land and marine environments.
I would feel happier if the Friend were to come in a paper envelope with the address printed direct onto the latter.
Peter Moore
(Ed: Please see the update in ‘Mailing the Friend’.)
Grammar
Please do not use a plural noun with a singular verb (8 June). ‘Words kill’ is correct; ‘words killeth’ is not.
Kay Schlapp
(Ed: Thank you – excellent spot! The headline should have read: ‘The letter killeth’.)
