'Faith is outreach – you turn up and people start to see you.' Photo: David Clarke / Unsplash.
‘The Light said: “I did not bring you here to sit alone”.’
One size fits no one: Jacinta White tells a personal story of her journey into Quakerism
There are many ways that lead to God and Quakerism. As with my autism, my story is only one of many and one size fits no one.
My parents were from Roman Catholic families but by the time I was born they had stopped attending church and I was not baptised. My father studied theology years later, after he retired, and for a year or two he was a practicing vicar with a small congregation in the Dutch village of Brummen. Then in his early seventies he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. After volunteering for years to support people affected by the condition he knew what this meant, and what could happen. Shortly after he found out he told me: ‘I no longer believe in God or anything like that.’ So it is true to say I have some Christian roots but all four of us children were left to do with that as we saw fit.
I was a very autistic child. My earliest memories are of the many hours I would sit on the living room floor rocking backwards and forwards. I was tested and observed. I remember a large glass wall, and sitting by myself on a cold floor on one side of it. On the other side was a row of chairs with grown-ups in white coats, watching me. When I was five years old my parents were told I would never make any friends and that I would never be normal. Who wants to be normal anyway?
My mother was ashamed and kept me indoors whenever I was not at school. That was fine by me. At school I was bullied rather badly because I could not make myself be anything else than what I was. I did try.
I loved reading and working with numbers – they were so predictable, unlike everything else. There was an awful lot about other children, school and the world around me that I did not understand.
One thing I never doubted – never questioned, always knew, as far back as I can remember – is that there is a God who walks alongside you even if you have no understanding of the steps you are taking or where you are going in your life. I was never alone, never forsaken, but upheld and supported. For years, I thought everyone else felt the same way. Only in the last few years have I come to discover that to always feel God within and beside you is a great privilege.
For the best part of twenty-five years I was not involved with any church. About eight years ago I started to feel that I wanted to be with other people in some shape or form to share and develop a spiritual life. I wanted to hear their stories about God, faith and the things that moved them. I wanted to make peace with organised religion and with the rest of the world. God made it clear it was time to go and find him in the world – in other people.
Where could I go?
Jesus said that from the fruit you will know the tree. I am a member of the Amnesty International Horsham group in West Sussex, which meets at Horsham Meeting House every month. The Quakers invited us to come in at other times and bring our Amnesty actions to ask people to write in support of human rights. So we came to a couple of ‘Ecover refill sustainability mornings’ and I started to ask Helen, the Horsham resident Friend, about Quakers.
She was very open about it and suggested I could always come to Meeting. Sometime after that, Martin, another Horsham Quaker, visited one of our Amnesty fundraising events. We were drinking tea in someone’s garden when I asked him about Quakers. What spoke to me was that he was most kind and did not tell me about any dos and don’ts. He just invited me, like Helen did, to come and see if it was for me, or not.
None of this would have happened if Quakers had not reached out by offering support to an Amnesty group. Faith is outreach – you turn up and people start to see you. Faith is about all of life – you need to live it for it to mean something. Love is action.
So I attended my first Quaker Meeting. I was going to sit in the corner furthest away from anyone but the Light said: ‘I did not bring you here to sit alone. You need to be inside that circle with my people.’ So I sat down next to someone else. The silence was reassuring but also very confronting. In silence there is no hiding place. After Meeting I decided to run off as quickly as possible. Social situations are challenging for me at times. Martin turned as I was leaving and said: ‘It was good to see you, Jacinta.’
People do not usually remember my name. As I walked down the Quaker garden path a line from the Bible – ‘I have called you by your name’ – sounded inside my mind. Something was shifting and it felt very final, like a permanent change, like it was my time to step out and grow up.
I had become an expert in participating in things without drawing attention to myself. I always stayed between the lines on the safe spot by the side of the road. Doing tasks to the best of my abilities but never ambitious. I once handed in my notice at a job because they asked me if I wanted to become head of department. I felt unable to be in charge of anything or to step up for fear of not being qualified to do so – not good enough, not as clever as all those other people who understand how the world works.
I have learned a lot since then, about Quakers and myself. Some precious words my new Friends have spoken to me are safely stored in my heart. Inside the Quaker silence I discovered that I do have a voice and things to say.
A most important lesson was the testimony of equality, that we are all unique and precious, children of the same God. When I started to take that in, amazing out-of-comfort-zone things happened. I was asked if I would become chairman of a sizeable nature conservation society. I felt I could say ‘Yes’. I was asked in the same week to become chairman of a new local volunteer fundraising group for Marie Curie. I said ‘Yes’. Why not me?
Quakers encourage you to go out into the world and live adventurously. It felt like I was finally joining in because I learned that I am as good as anyone else. With weak and strong points, failures and successes, every day – and every day is a special day.
I have found my spiritual home at Horsham Quaker Meeting and try to make a positive contribution to it. I look at the world beyond and see that there is more work to do and I can play a part. I learned from Quakers that I can.
I feel supported and directed by our testimonies of Simplicity, Truth, Equality, Peace and Sustainability: the STEPS.
I finally took a step through that glass wall and joined the grown-ups on the other side. I will not go back to hiding indoors again. There was no need to be ashamed. I might never be normal but who cares! I have made friends.
I have something to give. I am a Quaker.
Comments
I found this very moving. Thank you, Jacinta
By doreen.osborne@outlook.com on 17th November 2019 - 18:57
What an honest and powerful personal story.
It taught me a lot and I appreciated it being shared - thanks, Jacinta.
By helengamsa on 3rd December 2019 - 17:07
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