Letters - 23 August 2024
From an imprisoned Friend to Meeting for Sufferings
An imprisoned Friend
You may know that our Friend Gaie Delap, who is aged seventy-seven years, has been jailed for twenty months for her controversial action with Just Stop Oil in November 2022. With five others, she climbed the gantry over the M25 to protest further oil exploration in the UK.
Stopping such exploration in the UK has subsequently become government policy. Gaie spoke truth to power, in the only way she considered available to her.
A couple of months ago, I asked Gaie that if she had known she would go to prison for her action would she still have done it? She thought for a moment and responded: ‘Absolutely, yes.’
Here is a quote from Gaie as reported in The Guardian on 1 August 2024. ‘I’ve had to read the evidence of people who were stuck in traffic, it hurts me. I’m sorry I had to do this. But we really have no other option. They didn’t listen to the scientists, they didn’t listen to their constituents, so we had to cause disruption in order to communicate the seriousness of humanity’s predicament.’
We may not all agree on this method but James Nayler and John Woolman spring to my mind. Nayler was criticised for his behaviour and imprisoned but remained firm in his principles. John Woolman urged: ‘Be diligent in seeking the truth and following it, no matter the cost.’ Not all Quakers agreed with their actions either. Whatever our personal opinion we can be sure that Gaie has acted with the good of all in her heart and mind, and it is now our responsibility to support her in whatever ways we can.
Gaie is in membership of the Society, attached to the Redland Meeting in Bristol. Many Redland Friends have formed a support group for her and we have come up with fifteen different things we could do to uphold her, with more ideas probably yet to follow.
Perhaps your Meeting might consider doing something similar?
Fran De’Ath
Britain Yearly Meeting
I have not had much experience of Yearly Meeting, though I have been familiar with Quakers all my life, and joined as a member five years ago. I expected to hear more in this year’s sessions about current national and international issues, as I know that Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) does great influential work being involved in such affairs and making statements. But I was disappointed. The biggest issue today, the climate and nature crisis, was hardly mentioned.
I, personally, would like to have seen a better balance between BYM sorting out our own structures, and paying attention to these important issues which are affecting us all now. I know it’s important to get the structural changes right, but I would like to have talked more about what we do, resisting those who are making it all worse, and how we behave when the crisis hits us more and more, how we talk to other people, offering our essential testimonies and resources to build resilience and see how to care for people affected in future.
Perhaps there could be a series of articles in the Friend on important topics, summarising past minutes and information from BYM. Perhaps I would have felt less sad and frustrated if, after one session on the structure, we could have opted for more of the same, or for another room with a different topic. With much appreciation of all who were able to contribute to BYM, I look to the future.
Sue Clarke
Simplicity and transparency
I felt small and significant at Britain Yearly Meeting. Thank you, Yearly Meeting. I had been so worried I wrote to the Charity Commission twice and several national newspapers. I said: ‘Save Meeting for Sufferings’, our Quakers’ representative body. On Saturday I ministered that I was now convinced and content. I am always so afraid of ministering. Congratulations to all involved.
We do need further Quaker simplification and Quaker transparency. We need the centralisation of £150 million-plus Quaker reserves to create marginal money available for Quaker needs – Britain Yearly Meeting reports that Quaker work outstrips our ability to fund it, slavery reparations and fifty per cent towards the refurbishment of any of our Local Meeting houses.
Our professional senior staff need to be respected and recognised. Quakers need a clear structures diagram so that every Friend can see how Quakers are run. Finally, and perhaps most important, our independent Quaker journalists of the Friend need open transparent access to all things Quaker.
In 2014 Ben Pink Dandelion said that every Quaker business minute should be ‘written supportive’. Ben Pink Dandelion’s mantra runs though all I have written, and every one of our Quaker testimonies. Simplicity and transparency create time for all of us to have more spiritual nurture.
David Fish
Quakers' concerns
My copy of the 19 July Friend has just arrived thanks to postal mayhem. Though too late for Yearly Meeting, its overview of preparatory events gives a fascinating picture of what British Quakers are currently concerned about.
To take just one topic, the overview reports several Quaker projects and concerns relating to needy communities in the wider world. Several of these may or may not be under the Africa Interest Group, and the Quaker South Asia Group had a ‘Groups Fair’ stall.
I look forward to Friends sharing their concerns with the new government’s development department of the Foreign Office now that it is in the hands of Anneliese Dodds, who will be well aware of Oxford Friends.
Peace issues, of course, loom large for us – my mind goes to unsung work in Nagaland – which makes me a tiny bit less worried by the loss of independence of her department.
Richard Seebohm
Languages
There have been some impressive stories in this year’s Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) World Plenary, the first in several years. A big thank you for all those doing service who have made this global event happen. It is a genuine breakthrough with online technology being used for the first time to unite us in one event from all around the world.
One Quaker challenge that arose for me, however, is that of language.
While it is encouraging to see two of the most widely spoken languages in the southern hemisphere, Spanish and Swahili, used in addition to English as the languages for the event, I wonder what consideration was given to two of the most spoken languages in Africa, Arabic and French.
Some of our French-speaking African friends have expressed concern. Were they heard?
In terms of outreach, might Quakers consider how to reach speakers of the top ten worldwide languages as identified by Middlebury Language Schools, Vermont, US, a school that has an excellent reputation for preparing people for international service (www.middlebury.edu/language-sc...
Daniel Clarke Flynn
Reconciliation
Much of the media encourages us to take sides. Sometimes they are owned by vested interests. Often they are designed to reflect our opinions back to us and so retain our attention. They know that we like stories that have ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’.
Quakers are also called to see that of God in everyone, and to seek reconciliation. We know from our personal lives that we don’t turn opponents into friends by judging them and calling out their faults.
So it is when groups and organisations want to find common purpose, or when we hope to bring enemies to the negotiating table.
This does not mean that we disregard atrocities or bad intentions. We remain wise to the world and its ways.
But, individually and collectively, as Quakers we need to decide if we want to judge a situation and make plain our opinions about who the goodies and the baddies are, or if we want to help bring about reconciliation between opposing parties. We cannot do both.
Alastair Jackson
Meeting for Sufferings
Didn’t Meeting for Sufferings used to be known as ‘Yearly Meeting between sessions’?
Peter Smith
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