Letters - 16 February 2018
From reflections on death and God's love to diversity
Reflections on death and God’s love
Recently I have been thinking about death. Not for the first time, in the winter of life, one is prone to reflections on this, one of the greatest mysteries of nature.
What a waste, I thought, so much learning, acquired wisdom, feelings of love and wonder. All the things that have been witnessed, the sufferings, all the laughter, the music, the beauty that those eyes have beheld. All gone in the instant of death.
Cruelty of cruelties, I thought. What kind of God allows such loss, such a waste? Surely all this is irreplaceable?
A while later I remembered that Charles de Gaulle once said that cemeteries are full of irreplaceable people. Then I pondered that even the most irreplaceable of men and women have to die, and the world is – and will be – enriched by their lives.
As I thought of the people that I have known, and who have died – how much I treasured the precious memories of what they shared with me. The word ‘waste’ no longer seemed to apply.
There must have been a certain amount of indulgence, of self-pity, in my musings. As I reflected further, it occurred to me that irreplaceable and indispensable people are born every minute of the day. Nothing is wasted; God’s love never dies.
Giampiero Zucchelli
Members and attenders
I was saddened to read Jamie Wrench’s letter titled ‘Membership and attendance’ (9 February). The implication seems to be that all attenders are without obligation and responsibility and conversely that all members of the Society are responsible and committed. Is this true? Surely not.
How many attenders do we know who are committed and contribute fully to the life of their Meeting? Indeed, many Meetings are kept going simply because of the support of their regular attenders, many of whom hold various positions of responsibility. My own Meeting is a good example of this.
Jamie himself states: ‘Time was when merely standing alongside Friends in public established one as a Quaker…’ I believe that this is still true today.
When will we rid ourselves of this false division between members and attenders? For me, anyone who identifies with Quakerism, and shows that by regularly attending Meeting for Worship, or by regular involvement in a Meeting activity, in other words who plays an active part in the life of a Quaker Meeting, and who lives a life based on Quaker values, is a Quaker.
I realise not everyone will agree with this viewpoint, but please, at the very least, let us not make statements that imply that attenders lack a sense of obligation and responsibility. It simply is not true.
Gordon Smith
Overseers and elders
‘Do we care about how our Meetings are organised and run?’ asks Raymond Hudson (12 January). Yes, we do. My Meeting is one of those where attenders ‘have been made’ not only overseers, but elders. In fact they have not ‘been made’; they have agreed to serve, as best they can – willingly, though with considerable trepidation – because the Meeting had a need and no others were available to fill it.
Our Meeting reflects the trend over the past century in Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) as a whole: we have many active, enthusiastic attenders and relatively few members. Of the members we have, many have served long and faithfully, but are now prevented by circumstances. Our attender elders and overseers have made great efforts to learn and fulfil what is expected in their roles: it is not a question of not knowing what ‘the Book’ says.
But although it is possible to become a Quaker by convincement by reading a book, it is not possible to learn how to be an elder or overseer in the same way: it needs an apprenticeship, learning on the job from others who have been doing it for a long time. There aren’t enough seasoned Friends to go around! (I am not one myself.)
As to why, in BYM as a whole, so many attenders are remaining attenders and not applying for membership – that is a matter for another day.
Anonymous
Name and address supplied
The word ‘overseer’
I was interested to read Eric Walker’s comments about the word ‘overseer’.
It’s true that I can’t help connecting that word with cruel images of slavery and, as someone who has been attending Quaker Meetings for what feels like a relatively short time, I find it disturbing.
Interestingly, the verb for overseer (presumably meaning ‘what an overseer does’), used in Quaker faith & practice and elsewhere, is ‘oversight’. Both my old Collins Concise English Dictionary and online searches give the primary definition of this word as ‘an omission or mistake, especially one made through failure to notice something’.
My online search gives a secondary meaning as ‘the action of overseeing something’. This latter definition is, of course, the one intended for our Quaker overseers and must, once, have been the first and obvious meaning. However, I think it is rarely used in this way today. Perhaps, as Eric Walker suggests, it is time to rename what is actually a very caring and attentive role – surely the opposite of ‘cruel’ and ‘failure to notice’.
Joy Kenward
I think Eric Walker is right in his letter (2 February) to draw attention to the unfortunate association of the word ‘overseer’ with slavery. In addition, there is the association of its connection with the Poor Law system: overseers played their part in controlling the ‘lower orders’.
I hope that Britain Yearly Meeting can engage with this matter. I believe that continued use of the word ‘overseer’ sits uncomfortably with our commitment to equality and social justice. The past casts its shadow over the present.
Paul Henderson
The ‘God’ experience
If Quakers like me say that we are trying to know and do the will of God and to answer it in others, does that make us theists? Those preceding words point to the way we react to a force or power that acts on and in us, but which we cannot fully understand with our limited human intelligence
This ‘God’ experience is supposed to lead to an active and practical response. So, it is the key to our understanding of what it means to be human. We know our ‘God’ in a deeply personal way because we are persons, but a God of everything cannot be an objective person as we are even though we may ‘see’ and ‘answer’ God in another person for we also have to recognise the divine in the whole of creation
Our idea of God must include the personal, but go way beyond that if we are to respond to this in the multiplicity of creation. As human beings we are friends of Jesus if we respond in the way indicated by him (John 15:14-16). Then we form a Friends’ church or Meeting.
I very often refer to myself as a Quaker instead of as a Friend or a Christian, but for me this very English nickname has a more limited cultural and historical context although reflecting something of worldwide importance.
Michael Langford
Belief and truth
Tony D’Souza’s article (2 February) presents for us a courageous and important challenge. At the sharp end, competing religions are nothing short of warfaring gangs. Each has its own dangerous, energising core: the ‘Great Beast’.
As many Quakers will know, making first hand contact with the authentic transcendental does not depend on any religious dogma whatever; that is secondary and putative. All beliefs are necessarily contingent – in other words, they may or may not be true.
If I say: ‘I believe I live at 96 Park Avenue’, I must be drunk, drugged, tired or dotty. I believe, I am doubtful, unsure. I do not know. Beliefs are not facts – for example: I believe that in Heaven, Jesus sits on the right hand of God the Father. That may or may not be true. However, if I say – as many do – Jesus sits on the right hand of God the Father, the claim is this is true. How can I possibly know? The minister says so. That’s hearsay, not accepted in a court of law as it is necessarily contingent.
Some humility and realism from religious dogmatists would be helpful and might support world peace.
Peter Boyce
Diversity
It was interesting to read the profile of Friargate Meeting in York by David Rubinstein (19 January).
However, there did not seem to be a question about race. As diversity must surely be a concern to all Friends nationally this was a curious and important omission from the survey.
Simon Newton
