Renewal
I agree with the other Friends who have previously written to the Friend to support the idea that young Friends should be deeply involved in discerning the way forward for our Religious Society of Friends. Why are they not central to envisaging how we can evolve and change our structures to answer the challenges we face?
Discerning the way ahead needs people who are able to look with fresh eyes at the world that we now live in and be inspired by what they see and have experienced. Young Friends inevitably see and think differently from older Friends as they grew up in radically different times. They are part of this new era.
Older people think and see in habitual ways that are in tune with a world that is no longer there. That is why I believe that young Friends need to have a major voice in discerning new paths to nurture our spiritual lives and new ways to run our organisation.
Think of the early Quakers, there were not many of them, and the active and influential ones were young people when they started out. George Fox (1624-1691), William Penn (1644-1718), Robert Barclay (1648-1690) were young when they arrived at their revelations about human’s potential relationship with the Divine.
Like-minded, talented preachers had gathered around George Fox by the time he was twenty-seven. When he preached to such great effect at Balby and later at Firbank Fell, he was twenty-eight.
William Penn was twenty-five when he published his influential ‘No Cross, No Crown’. He was only thirty-eight when he sailed to Pennsylvania in 1682 and created one of the early colonies in the land ‘given’ him by James II, through thoughtful negotiations with the settlers who were there.
Robert Barclay joined the Religious Society of Friends when he was nineteen, and wrote his impactful treatise ‘An Apology for the True Christian Divinity’ in 1676, barely a decade later. It was he who noted his belief that people are illuminated by the ‘inward light of Christ’ and this inward light is more, much more, essential, than any external source of information.
I would like to ask, are we older Friends inadvertently getting in the way of the radical changes that we know we need to make in the Society of Friends? Older Friends have much to offer in terms of ensuring support, encouragement, but we need new visions.
Can we stand back and entrust the young ones to discern how our Society can be inspiring, sustaining and ‘fit for the future’? I hope so, and trust we will do so.
Juliet Morton
Heed the promptings
I am perhaps mistaken but I have a different idea of the role of an elder than seems to be that of the writer of the letter headed ‘Elders and overseers’ (29 November).
I am not sure ‘facilitator’ is a better term than ‘elder’. ‘Elder’ hints more at the role the holder should adopt than the title itself. The role is defined in some detail in Quaker faith & practice (Qf&p). It includes ‘encouraging suitable ministry’ and ‘taking responsibility for the right holding of meetings’. The elder’s role is little more than ensuring the environment is conducive to allowing God (or God’s Spirit) to teach and transform us.
Also, we do not decide an issue on the basis of a majority in a Meeting, Quakerism is not a form of democracy. The writer then suggests a process for selecting a Friend for a role. Why not simply accept the wisdom and experience behind the advice in Qf&p?
Rather than continually re-inventing the wheel, I suggest we spend more time and effort on heeding the promptings of love and truth in our hearts, and trusting they come from God.
Stephen Petter
Worship and justice
Shanthini Cawson asks Friends to put aside our focus on racial justice and concentrate on worship (6 December). I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive, but I also don’t think Quaker worship is a cure-all, especially when it comes to issues of racism and other inequalities. If we believe our world is fractured by systems of oppression and violence, then we are not separate from those fractures. Our worship is broken too. The silence of Quaker worship has rules about when and how to speak, and we often leave newcomers to work these out for themselves or discover them when they break them. People who are used to being listened to can use the silence as a soapbox, giving repetitive or ego-driven messages that don’t come from a deep place.
We talk as if Quakers have no leaders, but there are unspoken power dynamics swirling about in the silence. In Christian terms, Quaker worship is as much a site of sin as anywhere else. Instead of worship displacing our conversations on racial justice, the two can inform each other. The light of Christ we encounter in worship can reveal our complicity in the brokenness of the world and help us see that there is no justice today while the injustices of the past go unfaced and unrepaired. In turn, we can view our worship with a critical eye, asking how racism and other forms of discrimination manifest even in our most treasured spiritual practice.
Mark Russ
City limits
Friends who have read Tony D’Souza’s article about Hiroshima (29 November) and the effect upon him of visiting the Peace Park might like to read John Hersey’s 1946 New Yorker article ‘Hiroshima’. It took up the whole issue and was the first time many Americans knew of the real horror of Hiroshima.
It was also perhaps the earliest example of news being given as a narrative, as a story if you will.
A copy of the old Penguin paperback can probably be got from a secondhand online book dealer. Alternatively, it can be read online or downloaded free as a pdf here: https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/lesson/503/John%20Hersey%20Hiroshima.pdf?rev=1910.
It is a harrowing read.
Noël Staples
The Lord’s Prayer
I was fascinated to read the Neil Douglas-Klotz version of the Lord’s Prayer in the 22 November edition of the Friend. It bears no resemblance to the traditional version of course.
I did some research on Neil Douglas-Klotz and discovered he’s done several versions of translations from the Aramaic. I much prefer the one below.
Abwoon d’bwashmaya.
O Birther! Father-Mother of the Cosmos/you create all that moves in light.
Nethqadash shmakh.
Focus your light within us – make it useful: as the rays of a beacon show the way.
Teytey malkuthakh.
Create your reign of unity now –through our firey hearts and willing hands.
Nehwey sebyanach aykanna d’bwashmaya aph b’arha.
Your one desire then acts with ours, as in all light, so in all forms.
Habwlan lachma d’sunqanan yaomana.
Grant what we need each day in bread and insight: subsistence for the call of growing life.
Washboqlan khaubayn (wakhtahayn) aykana daph khnan shbwoqan l’khayyabayn.
Loose the cords of mistakes binding us, as we release the strands we hold of others’ guilt.
Wela tahlan l’nesyuna.
Don’t let us enter forgetfulness.
Ela patzan min bisha.
But free us from unripeness.
Metol dilakhie malkutha wahayla wateshbukhta l’ahlam almin.
From you is born all ruling will, the power and the life to do, the song that beautifies all, from age to age it renews.
Ameyn.
Truly – power to these statements –
may they be the source from which all my actions grow. Sealed in trust & faith. Amen.
Dorothy Ainsworth
Comments
“Older people think and see in habitual ways that are in tune with a world that is no longer there.” Some do, and some don’t. This sort of generalisation is ageist. Workplace decision-making that was informed by this kind of stereotypical assumption would give rise to a serious risk of unlawful discrimination. We need to draw on the wisdom of all Friends: old, middle-aged, and young. We also need to recognise that many Friends come to the Society in their 40s, 50s, 60s or later. Their prior experience has much to offer.
By tpittpayne on 2024 12 12
I agree that the perspectives of young Quakers are useful, and that there may also be ways in which they bring new insights through diversity, for instance through their understanding and experiences of gender and sexuality. However it is possible that there may be ways in which young Friends are, as a group, less diverse than the Society as a whole. I have done no research on this but wonder whether they are more likely to be middle class and privately educated (for example, at Quaker schools) than members across the Society as a whole. It is possible that they are also less diverse in their political opinions and religious understanding. In addition, many will have found the Society through their family, even if they are no longer considered “birthright Friends.” I’m not saying this as an attack on young Friends whose contribution to the Society I welcome. However if we are to be a truly welcoming Society, we need to consider difficult matters such as class (and who is implicitly made to feel less worthy and less welcome among us). We also need to value the contribution and insights of Friends who join our Society through convincement in adulthood, and whose Spirit-led perceptions may offer just the discomfort and challenges that will help our Society to grow.
By kazbel on 2024 12 12
I agree with the 2 previous comments, from tpittpayne & kazbel.
I am particularly worried about the stance of Young Friends on trans identities.
The fact is that those identities are not the same as physical sex and should not be treated as if they are.
Yet, how likely is it that any Young Friend who believes that fact would feel able to speak up & say so, given the prevailing view?
By Moyra Carlyle on 2024 12 14
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