What does love require of us at Canterbury?
Martin Smith explores the query
On Friday 5 August Britain Yearly Meeting Gathering in Canterbury will decide what to say or do – if anything – about sustainability. Unusually there are no proposals or discussion papers from Friends House to guide the Meeting. Whatever comes forth will be ‘as led’ by those present and the moving of the Spirit among them. In preparing for this – as we should – it is worth considering the challenges we face, what we can offer and our options for action.
Challenges
We face several interconnected challenges. First, we live in a world in physical trouble – not just from global warming but in many ways, such as a dangerous accumulation of waste and a loss of biodiversity. Scientists point to a bleak future with the potential for suffering on a large scale. Moreover, change is less likely to be gradual, occurring in a linear way, but rather in abrupt steps that may not be initially apparent and are difficult to reverse. These problems are unlikely to go away in our lifetime and will preoccupy Friends for generations. Arguably we need to gear up to this.
A second challenge arises from the root cause of all this trouble: excessive and unsustainable consumption. People in the affluent West already consume far more than they need to survive or even flourish. But, ironically, excessive consumption – with its dire consequences – is not providing an adequate sense of wellbeing. Instead, for many people, it is associated with one or more of the following: absence of meaning in life, overwork and time poverty, deprivation in personal relationships, indebtedness, anxiety, clutter and so on. There is a widespread feeling that our conventional ‘work and spend’ way of life is not good enough. Nor should we be surprised. Major religions, including our own, have long recognised that excessive consumption is not the path to good living.
Overall, therefore, the major challenge for humankind – in our time and far beyond – is to create a sustainable world order, characterised by sustainable consumption and wellbeing for life, peacefully and without undue suffering, and to bring the relief that is possible to lives distressed or damaged in the process of change.
Our offering
What have we got to offer in meeting this challenge? While we are a small faith group we do have some special gifts to contribute:
• an established ethic of simplicity that is authentic, highly relevant and beneficial in application
• an ability to speak inconvenient truths to power
• people among us capable of thinking through difficult issues
• potential to create Meetings as sustainable communities across the UK
• capacity and experience in peacemaking
• capacity to work with Quaker communities across the world
• an inclusive business method capable of bringing wide participation and unity in decision making
At present these gifts are not being exploited to their full potential. For example, at a time when uncomfortable truths should be spoken we not saying them, nor are we harnessing the intellectual resources of Friends in finding our way forward. Our testimony to simplicity has never been more relevant but its great value as a road to good living is not proclaimed even among ourselves.
Options
A recent meeting of Kindlers ‘threshed’ on six broad lines of action, some with radical possibilities.
• First: each of us can try to live sustainably. This is a challenging yet essential witness, which is being widely pursued but needs to be taken further. It fits in with the arguably outmoded notion among Friends that sustainability is entirely a personal matter. We could be radical by setting targets – at individual, Meeting or national level – and declaring commitment to them. But is this witness enough? Unless there is change in the economic system, overall cutting back on consumption can inflict unemployment and poverty on others.
• Second: individuals in Meetings can work with each other in promoting change – as ‘sustainable communities.’ This can be more effective in achieving change than by individuals acting by themselves and it could reach out into local communities. But we will need to come together to make it work, not just leave it to ‘green Friends’ and go beyond limited projects such as ‘greening’ of Meeting houses.
• Third: we can promote change in the world as we did with slavery and prison reform. We will need, however, to ‘box clever’ in doing this, perhaps by emphasising the positives of sustainable living and by inviting people to new action rather than telling them what to do. We can call for change in a world economic order that promotes unsustainable consumption.
• Fourth: we can promote peacemaking, for instance through sustainable security initiatives.
• Fifth: we could alleviate distress caused by change, perhaps through active partnerships with Quaker communities overseas and/or by creating a new support fund.
• Finally, we can decide at Canterbury to start an active process of discernment by establishing a working group to prepare proposals for action for wide consideration in the Quaker community.
Discussion
What does love require of us? There were seventeen of us at the Kindlers Threshings meeting and clear support among us for getting a national process of discernment underway. Some said that the working group should involve Friends across the UK in carrying out its work. Although in spiritual terms we are dealing with easy to understand problems of destructive greed, which is encountered in all ages, the issues of bringing about change are complex, there are no easy solutions and it is worth exploring further how we can work with others. We need, therefore, to work at finding our way forward. This may do us good over time in helping us to avoid incremental decision-making in response to each crisis as it comes along. Already, serious issues are emerging such as the coming shortage of oil, which is worrying Governments.
Moreover, there is the reality that new action at a national level would need new resources – or existing work would suffer. We could make a start here by supporting a discernment process by general subscription and involving volunteers – without major central funding.
Friends cannot avoid making a decision or decisions on sustainability. Even the absence of decision-making at Canterbury is itself a decision. Taking an overall perspective, I feel that there is an adventure in witness to be had. Perhaps it could be our greatest adventure.
You need to login to read subscriber-only content and/or comment on articles.