Letters - 25 October 2024
From trustees to Tyndale
Trustees of Meetings
Richard Pashley’s belief (11 October) that charity law means trustees of Quaker Meetings must be members is a common misunderstanding. The requirement actually comes from Quaker faith & practice, not charity law. If Yearly Meeting wanted to allow attenders to be trustees, there’s no legal barrier.
Recently, Meeting for Sufferings considered appointing attenders to central committees but stopped short of including trustees.
A different question to ask might be: If someone is so trusted enough in our community as to be asked to handle responsibilities like our buildings, money, and children’s safety, why haven’t we already recognised them as a member?
Paul Parker
Recording clerk, Britain Yearly Meeting
World Peace Day
Following on from Gillian Wilson’s letter about their World Peace Day [International Day for Peace] event (4 October), here in Chesterfield we have built up a tradition of holding an event on the day itself, whenever that falls. We have the support of our council, and the leader of the council is happy to be one of our speakers, as is also the mayor.
We begin in the marketplace when the Nottingham Clarion Choir starts us off with a rousing chorus. The mayor then leads a procession up to the war memorial, carrying a wreath of white poppies. These are given out in great quantities, along with a sprig of rosemary for remembrance.
We hear more songs of peace, and there are speakers from a range of community groups, including a woman from our Ukrainian refugees, who spoke on behalf of all the refugees in the town. We had an Israeli speaker from Jews for Palestine, a veteran for peace, and a Methodist. We finished by singing John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ together, then the wreath was laid on the cenotaph.
It is a very rewarding experience organised by CND, and supported by local unions and Friends from our Area Meeting.
Lyn Pardo
Freeing faithfulness
I used to find the call to be radical discouraging. The Friends around me lived with great integrity, but I couldn’t see where to find the inner strength to live that way. Nor could I tell what I was meant to be radical about.
Slowly, I came to see that the first Friends had found themselves radically transformed by a healer and helper within, and their relationship with Jesus made them unafraid to share what they’d found. They were as radical in their willingness to wait on the Lord as they were in dramatic witness, all to hold up the power of God that the apostles and prophets had known.
They were ‘radical’ in the old sense of ‘rooted’, as in the old Quaker advice to ‘stay close to the Root’. Staying close to their teacher, they were led to live adventurously – not in their own power, but in faith and with help.
I’ve begun to see that I’m not called to be radical for its own sake, and I don’t have to live up to the measure of Light I’m given in my own strength.
When God shows us what to do, we’re helped to do it. There’s an inward power that comes with divine guidance. Living out of that guidance in each moment, being radical is just what happens; we begin to care less about what people will think, and more about being faithful to our guide. Isn’t that freeing faithfulness what a Quaker life is all about?
Matt Rosen
Joseph Conrad
As a lifelong Joseph Conrad reader and scholar, I was fascinated to read Jonathan Wooding’s article of 20 September, and I am looking forward to the second part.
There are two little points, the correcting of which may actually help to supplement Friend Jonathan’s piece. Conrad did not join the French merchant service [before joining the British merchant marine]: his maritime experience was strictly private enterprise, to the point of his probably becoming involved in gunrunning for the Carlist cause in Spain.
Second, Heart of Darkness never refers to Belgium or the Congo, though since we know that Conrad’s employment began in Brussels and occurred in the Belgian Congo, we assume that the novella has those settings. However, we should remain aware that there is an intermediary between Conrad and the reader: it is Marlow who is the narrator, and that it is he who is recording and reflecting on his experience.
Of course, Conrad is narrating Marlow, and drawing on his, Conrad’s, experience, but Marlow is not necessarily exactly expressing the author’s own autobiography. It is, therefore, Marlow’s spiritual responses to the African nightmare adventures which are in question. For instance, the character Kurtz is fictional, and it is his degradation and ultimate despair which Conrad is evoking through Marlow.
It is especially timely that Jonathan Wooding is calling upon Conrad, because Conrad’s fiction has lately been much drawn upon by journalists and writers. Heart of Darkness has been much discussed, though the work perceived as especially relevant to our time is The Secret Agent (1907), with its brilliant portrayal of a bomb plot, instigated by a sinister figure called ‘Mr Vladimir’. This invocation of Conrad as commentator on events a century after the author’s death, is the subject of a paper being delivered at a Conrad conference in Cracow [https://krakow.travel/en/55057-krakow-conrad-festival-202].
John Crompton
Jeremy Corbyn
Like many Friends I was baffled by the decision to disinvite Jeremy Corbyn [from speaking at Friends House during Yearly Meeting] and the reasons given. One was ‘reputation’ – that is presumably how the Society is viewed by the general public. I would have thought that Quakers would have wanted to be aligned with Jeremy Corbyn, a politician who has throughout his career been opposed to war and militarism.
He founded the Peace and Justice Project which brings people together for social and economic justice, peace and human rights in Britain and across the world.
Recently the Project sponsored the publication of a book, The Monstrous Anger of the Guns: How the global arms trade is ruining the world and what we can do about it, edited by Rhona Michie, Andrew Feinstein and Paul Rogers and Jeremy Corbyn, which I would strongly recommend for Friends.
In his preface, Jeremy Corbyn states: ‘So many times in my political life journalists from corporate media have asked me if, as prime minister, I would “push the nuclear button”, but I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I have been asked how we can reduce the threat of nuclear conflict and build a world of peace.’
The book, he says, ‘exposes the market of death, known in polite society as the arms trade’.
It seems to me that Jeremy’s principles are in line with Friends’ testimonies. Certainly our reputation would not be damaged by standing with Jeremy Corbyn; rather the opposite.
Rae Street
William Tyndale
I was so happy to see a review of the facsimile edition of William Tyndale’s New Testament (20 September). Friends should indeed read it, for its muscular, direct language – the words are often more immediate.
In 1994, the 500th anniversary of Tyndale’s birth, the children and I at Muswell Hill Meeting worked with his story through drama and art, and finally brought his legacy into all-age worship where the children led textual comparison of different versions of the story of Adam and Eve.
The children all opted for this one – so direct, so colloquial, so persuasive, compared to the weedy New English Bible – ‘You will not certainly die’.
‘And the woman said unto the serpent, of the fruit of the trees in the garden we may eat, but of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden (said God) see that ye eat not, and see that ye touch it not: lest ye die.
‘Then said the serpent unto the woman: Tush ye shall not die.’
Legend has it that Anne Boleyn carried this book to the scaffold with her. Her name Anne is handwritten across the closed pages…
Nicola Grove
Comments
I must thank Matt Rosen. When someone speaks so clearly to my heart and mind, I am prompted to say so. This is the Quaker faith I was saying yes to 40 years ago and my affirmation has not changed. Marjorie Ball
By Marjorie Ball on 24th October 2024 - 9:51
Dear Joseph Jones and George Osgerby cc Paul Parker cc Leicester Area Meeting membership improved process; govenance group; young adult quakers (Leilani R)
Paul Parker speaks my mind. (Letters The Friend 24-10-24)
Might Quakers have an alternative journey into members where Quakers invite all worshipers
in their Quaker meetings to join Quakers formally? Currently Quakers expect non Quakers to apply to ask to become Quakers formally,
and this stops a lot of people belonging to Quakers. Quakers are better together (Ben Pink Dandelion 2011) and
Quaker will be more sustained with more people belonging to Quakers.
Young Adult Quakers (Friends House tells me) never become Quakers formally. They are the Quakers that
need most support to become Quakers formally. Young Adult Quakers are our Quaker future.
Britian Yearly Meeting could invite Young Adult Quakers to form a task and finish group to advise
Yearly Meeting 2025 of an alternative process, an alternative journey into membership
based on Young Adult Friends (QFP 10.25). “Young Adult Quakers see Membership is more positive
simply our commitment to attend, willingness to participate”.
Membership is belonging. Belonging will sustain Quakers. Quakers are rightfully proud of Quaker’s long tradition of
our membership process - has our emphasis on process has lead us to forget to invite
people to join Quakers. When did you last see a poster inviting people to join Quakers?
Quakers, with all changes we need to remember “we are a faith group, our worship with different opportunities” If Paul Parker’s
suggestion is taken forward - this could be the biggest ever change in Quaker Governance. A real bottom up change.
thank you best wishes david fish rubgy local quaker meeting .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
By davidfishcf@msn.com on 11th November 2024 - 20:18
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