'There is no reason why community cannot be found in a swimming pool on a Sunday morning...' Photo: Angelo Pantazis / Unsplash.
‘What’s your perfect Quaker Meeting?’ ‘A swimming pool.’
How do we include more people in our Society? Shivani Daxini reports from Quaker Life Representative Council at Woodbrooke.
‘In a true community we will not choose our companions, for our choices are so often limited by self-serving motives. Instead, our companions will be given to us by grace. Often they will be persons who will upset our settled view of self and world. In fact, we might define true community as the place where the person you least want to live with always lives.’ Quaker faith & practice, 10.19 (Parker J Palmer, 1997).
In this extract, Parker Palmer reinforces what is so vital to our faith as Quakers: the acceptance, love and nurture, not just of our friends, but of all people. When was the last time you attended a non-Quaker meeting – an event, gathering, focus group or sports club – and found that your Quaker values operate in many ways outside Sunday morning? Our Meeting for Worship is so special to our faith, but it is also just one part of a jigsaw. For some, it might not even be a vital part.
At the Quaker Life Representative Council (QLRC) at Woodbrooke in October 2018, a young child highlighted this quite clearly for everyone. When asked what the ‘perfect Quaker Meeting looked liked’ to him, he replied immediately: ‘A swimming pool.’ Amid the laughter and smiles from Friends, he had offered us something powerful and true. A Quaker Meeting can indeed look like a swimming pool. There is no reason why community cannot be found in a swimming pool on a Sunday morning, if this is how some people can engage in a community, if this is where they feel welcome, accepted and connected. We have much in common with those we may not first think are our companions. We also have the ability to place ourselves in environments we may not think are obvious, or in which we are uncomfortable. We must enrich our community and if that works in a swimming pool then let’s make it happen – let’s make someone else’s ‘perfect Quaker Meeting’ come to life.
For so long, I thought of my Quaker community as right in front of me, on my doorstep. It seemed like the common sense thing to do as soon as I got to university – join the Quaker society, and attend the Local Meeting. These communities were very nourishing for me and continue to be to this day. But I also began to see that Quaker communities are everywhere. Once you remove the word ‘Quaker’, you realise that many others share your values. Just last week, a lecture room packed full of students eager to hear the economist Benny Dembitzer talk on ‘The famine next door’ reminded me of so many of my experiences at Yearly Meeting or Junior Yearly Meeting. The audience engaged in a discussion on how we must create positive change in society. People are eager to live out Quaker values, it’s just that, to many of them, these are simply ‘their values’ not just Quaker ones. We can share our integral values regardless of whether someone may name themselves a Quaker or not.
QLRC focussed on the inclusion of young people within our Meetings and beyond. In order to ensure the youth participation rate in young people’s Quaker activities – which was highlighted at the conference to be rapidly declining – we must realise that our values are everywhere, and children with shared values who do not know about Quaker Meeting are still searching for the kind of world many of us envision. We can’t just rely on Local Meetings to ensure a young person makes the most out of the Quaker summer school or Yearly Meeting experience. We must engage with those who have never heard of our community, allow them to bring their special gifts to these events, and go home and share their experiences with their community. It is not enough for one’s young brother or sister to have the same wonderful experience as ourselves at Quaker summer school; these opportunities are also for people who have never heard of them before – this can help our young people feel included, as they immerse themselves in a diverse and young community that brings new ideas and interpretations to our values.
Our Quaker community is enriched when we understand that we have more in common than that which divides us. The Dalai Lama perfectly highlights the value of difference as he says: ‘Different religious traditions really help humanity… so, therefore we have to accept several truths, several religions.’ We can do this, whether through a swimming pool, or a conversation. Inclusion and diversity go hand in hand.
Quaker faith & practice 10.10 reads: ‘If we take seriously the nurture of our children in the worshipping group, we must start by re-appraising the whole life of the group. What kind of communication exists between us all? Do we know one another as people sharing joys and sorrows?’ How is the child and the stranger received amongst us? Are we across all ages a community living together?’ QLRC affirmed a single message, which was made apparent through the voices of our young people but also the wider community – that we must recognise the needs of everyone, and this cannot be done by assumption. Only when we asked a young person about their perfect Quaker Meeting did we find out it involved a swimming pool.
Quakers cannot get too comfortable. Our history isn’t comfortable, and we must instil this history into our present and future when we consider how to nurture people of all ages. All members of our Society should be in meaningful touch with each other, because through these engagements an inclusive future will develop. We can’t expect the newcomer to always come to our door. Sometimes we may find them in another environment and we can engage in their setting, not necessarily our own. Each day brings a different challenge, and each Meeting for Worship, each newcomer, is a gift.
