Yearly Meeting 2022: Session 3 - Our Quaker Communities: Grounded in faith and challenging us to act

‘Being pushed or pulled is uncomfortable, but it is necessary.’

Saturday afternoon’s Session Three focussed on Our Quaker Communities: Grounded in faith and challenging us to act. In opening worship, one Friend reflected on the ‘wealth and riches of the ministry’ in the previous session. Two things were fundamentally important, said the Friend: ‘one is acknowledging our own vulnerability, and the other is learning how to trust’. Another quoted the Sufi poet Rumi: ‘Wherever you stand, be the spirit of that place.’ Then someone took the Meeting back to the previous theme of waiting, and how that operated in community: ‘Sometimes that community can encourage you to wait because they don’t like the idea of what you’re suggesting… or alternatively encourage you to action where you’re not sure it’s the right thing to do.’ Being pushed or pulled was uncomfortable, said the Friend, but it was necessary.

Fred Langridge enjoyed ‘Joyfully welcoming guests from our inter church community’, including Mike Royal, the general secretary of Churches Together in England. Nicola Brady, general secretary of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, offered a question: ‘What are we called to do together as Christians for the communities that we serve?’

Lucy Parker, the clerk to Central Nominations Committee, spoke to its report. Less than ten per cent of Friends had filled in the expression of interest form, for service. These had been made more user-friendly now, she said, but she knew that ‘taking on one more thing may seem too much’. She recognised that there needed to be more flexibility in how things are done and that things may need to change. ‘Sending in a form doesn’t mean that you can’t refuse’ if approached, she said.

After receiving the Tabular Statement, the Meeting then heard Yvonne Dickson speak to the Quaker Stewardship Committee report, which will be its last after being laid down. Friends expressed gratitude for all those who had worked on the committee to support the essential running of Meetings around the country.

In an item not on agenda, the clerks thought YM would find it helpful to hear part of a minute they were sent by Junior Yearly Meeting. Read by JYM clerks, it said: ‘We believe that Quakerism is a faith grounded in conscientious action and positive change… As Quakers we should take time to discern the root of oppression and inequality in order to be able to carry out effective action and not get caught up in loud yet superficial action… Additionally, as Quakers we must individually acknowledge the privilege we have… We should consider how we can lead by example but equally make efforts not only to act but to recognise and amplify the actions of others… In the last few decades the Religious Society of Friends has had a lot of conversations about oppression, persecution, and namely racism. While we’ve recognised the important work done by Friends on these matters we feel that not enough tangible action has been carried out… We are running out of time. We must now apply ourselves and create conscientious action and positive change.’

After a shuffle break, Adwoa Burnley gave a content warning on the forthcoming prepared ministry. It would contain descriptions of severe mental illness and suicide. The preparatory session had been very helpful, she said, in which Edwina Peart, the inclusion and diversity coordinator for Britain Yearly Meeting, had facilitated a conversation with two Friends who are researching uncomfortable aspects of Quaker history. And a quote from Qfp (23.48) had been fundamental to how Agenda Committee had set about planning this part of the Meeting: ‘God comes to us in the midst of human need, and the most pressing needs of our time demand community in response. How can I participate in a fairer distribution of resources unless I live in a community which makes it possible to consume less? How can I learn accountability unless I live in a community where my acts and their consequences are visible to all? How can I learn to share power unless I live in a community where hierarchy is unnatural? How can I take the risks which right action demands unless I belong to a community which gives support? How can I learn the sanctity of each life unless I live in a community where we can be persons not roles to one another?’

Leilani Rabemananjara then offered her prepared ministry, which began by looking at the ‘important dynamic’ within the Society of Friends, being made up of ‘both individuals with our own promptings of love and truth in our hearts, and as a community continually trying to find our shared direction… It is a tension from which I have seen great life and power burst forth’, she said, ‘yet I’ve also seen it be a door to great barrenness and disconnectivity for us.’

Leilani talked of the ‘continuing act of creation’ that is Quaker community, but there was a longing for more mentorship and accompaniment between different ages. This would be a ‘restoration of something we have lost’.

Jason Evans was a recently-released mental health patient when he walked out of a job in the defence industry and into a Quaker Meeting. ‘I don’t remember a single occasion when I felt stigmatised… or having my mental health problems held against me or trivialised’, he said. When he fell ill again he was visited every evening during a stay under section. Friendship of the Meeting helped him out of the hole he found himself but he reminded Friends that ‘If you really accept mentally ill people as human beings, you must recognise that too little responsibility can be as harmful as too much’.

Jason had gone on to be a Quaker chaplain and developed a listening ministry. He finished by suggesting that Meetings think carefully about how mentally ill Friends, chaplains, and others at the margins might need more support.

In open worship, clerks were announcing when they were ready to hear more ministry. Some Friends found this distracting, but it was essential, said Adwoa, for those who were visually impaired. ‘If you don’t like those words, don’t listen to them.’

Friends thanked Jason for being open about mental health and mental illness. Someone working in the area said that many of the people he works with struggle to be part of a community. He felt Meetings needed, ‘as a matter of urgency’ to do more worship sharing to get to know each other again; he was confident it would happen because it is ‘in our nature’.

Another Friend thanked Leilani for her message of deep connections and friendships. He offered a challenge to Friends to strive to ‘do things that make us happy with people that perhaps we don’t know and perhaps we don’t even like’.

One Friend referred back to the Tabular Statement, which recorded that there were only around 1,000 children across the country. How active are we being in trying to welcome children and young people in our spaces? Do we embrace the noise and richness and variety they bring?

One minister, who had been a Quaker for forty-five years, thought the ‘community side of the Meeting was an optional extra’. But she had ‘come to realise [it] is essential’.

Another Friend echoed the value of accompaniment, which had been especially valuable ‘at times when my face did not fit’ elsewhere.

One Friend who rose to speak said she was unattached to a Meeting. ‘In a way that’s what I want to speak about… I would love to be accompanied, there are a lot of young people who would love to be accompanied.’

Referring back to mental health, a Friend talked of how ‘social power imbalances can be stressful and isolating… if we recognise people with less power and really listen and accompany them in good faith, we will all be richer for it.’
Another Friend did want to point out that, on mental health, ‘sometimes we need to accept that we are not the experts’.

One Friend with autistic burnout was grateful for blended options to Meetings. While they understood the pandemic had been a difficult time for many, ‘over the past few years in many regards my mental health has improved… because remote options were made available’.

‘What some may call God’, said one Friend, ‘is in each and every one of us, but also in the space between us… a place where we can rest’.

There was a lot here to put into a minute. When it came it was mostly questioning: ‘How can our communities operate in the power to be found beyond shallow relationships instead deepening into the seeking and fulfilment of love between us? … Even if our needs aren’t met, we might trust that in the space between us we can still belong.’

It isn’t quite Quakerly to say so, but Sunday morning was extra special. Alongside Friends present at Friends House, more than eighty Local Meetings joined in groups via Zoom for a mass Meeting for Worship, together with the Young People’s Programme in Hemel Hempstead, and almost 300 individuals around the country and the rest of the world. Other Meetings eschewed technology to meet in spirit. ‘We can’t quite say that this is the largest Meeting for Worship ever’, said Siobhán Haire, ‘because we don’t know for sure. But it is large.’

It was an ‘All together’ Meeting, for all ages, with even the New Shoots (up to two years old) settling into stillness. Rosie Carnall began by reading ‘Sharing in the silence of us’, a poem written in a creative writing space for young people aged eleven to eighteen:

It’s secret friend hugs and the hokeycokey at sunrise. / It’s silence seeping through the being of me. / It’s turning the pages (in my mind). It’s expanding my views. / It’s challenging myself: thinking about / EVERYTHING. / It’s stimulating, concentrating, contributing, supporting, reflecting, thinking, feeling, hoping. / It’s crafting and folding. Making paper cranes for peace. / It’s listening. / It’s loving. / It’s sharing. / Where do you see faith? /  How do you grow community? / Can you build trust through action? Sharing in Quaker meeting. The warmth of banana bread brown. / Exploring in Quaker meeting. The righteous red of Advices & Queries. / Challenged in Quaker meeting. The needs of sustainable green. / Listening in Quaker meeting, to the fluttering yellow of an epilogue candle. / There’s a jittery, nervous hubbub.

Awkward bursts of laughter push through the silence of newness. But silence thickens quickly and twists itself into the ropes that tie me to you, into us. The creaky floorboards of being late settle into the same sighs as my neighbour and our breaths synchronise. / When I’m engaging with Quakers, I’m uprooting the certainties that smother me. / When I’m connecting with Quakers, I feel a peaceful green. / When I’m hoping with Quakers, I see past the window pane. / When I’m contributing with Quakers, I feel a candle glow of light inside. / Our inner love, inner light, can shine here. / We can be bright; warmth spreading and connecting us together. After I leave here, I will be the together we made. I will listen to the silence the world offers and hear the silence of us. / What do we do, and be, and find, with Quakers? / Hope; / Listening; / Humour; / Feeling safe; / Being who we are; / Difference; / Variety; / Sharing; / Hope / Hope is the ending and the beginning. / The last to come out and the start of what we are. Perhaps, in the end, all we can trust, must trust, is that we will have hope. / And as long as we do, we will. / If you have no hope, how can you believe / change is possible? What do you hope for? / Faith; Community / Action.

After a welcome in English and Welsh, an elder described what would be ‘an exciting new venture’ in Quaker Meeting. Friends were quick to express pleasure at being able to take part, referring to the presence of younger people among them, and how Friends must share the love and accompaniment discussed yesterday.

After the children had left, one Friend talked hearing references to the ‘Light’. Early Friends referred to an inward Light, rather than an inner Light, he said. The Light wasn’t something already in us, but ‘came through us and to us’. If we were reliant on our own light, ‘our candles would burn out’, but inward Light ‘came fresh every day… All our power sources don’t add up to as much as that eternal Light.’

A member of one of the Meetings online welcomed the technological changes the pandemic had brought about ‘I know many people were just fine the way they were’ but ‘we have something else in addition now’ that meets many other’s needs, whether ill health, being too far from Meeting, or ‘simply being the sort of people who, made by God, find it easier, more possible to participate fully from the safety of their own homes. There can be an intensity and an immediacy and an intimacy in online conversations and Worship.’

Someone from the YM pastoral care group said that, for them, ‘spirituality has two essential components: personal transformation, and connectivity with others’. He had ‘never felt so animated. My soul has never felt so enlightened than by seeing so many Friends worshipping together’.

Another Friend shared a verse that spoke to him of faith and community: ‘I sought my lord, my lord I could not see. / I sought my soul, my soul eluded me. / I sought my friend, and found all three.’

There was a call to hold in the Light those who might soon be placed on a Home Office deportation flight, and a children’s worker talked of the fascinating questions children asked. ‘What is the Big Bang and how is it made?, asked one. He showed them images from the Hubble telescope and related a friend telling him later that ‘seeing the universe in all its vastness and magnificence makes my worries feel very insignificant… and makes the love I feel for other people feel very significant’.

Another Friend heard, in the final words of the children’s poem, an echo of Brahm’s German Requiem: ‘Oh Lord, what then can we hope for, my hope is in thee’. He was conscious that ‘God is present in our faith, God is present in our action, and God is present in our community’.

There were, inevitably, some technical difficulties hearing from some online ministers (as someone said in the corridors later: ‘It mostly worked, but then MfW only ever mostly works’). But there was time for one last ministry. The Friend hoped Quakers could see through the window pane that sometimes gets obscured by the water vapour caused by ‘a cosy following of the spirit of the age’: ‘We need to be vigilant, not to be caught by those snares as we mostly are to some degree… we all need God’s help.’

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