Well, this is where is gets difficult! So, X is the way we mark a mistake, and X is the Roman numeral for 10. So here are ten ‘mistakes’ about Quakers, all fairly common:

I      We all died out years ago.

I’m still alive and I wasn’t the only Quaker at the meeting house last time I went there.

II      We are like the Amish, the Mormons, the Shakers.

Not really, we live in the modern world, don’t knock on doors trying to convert people, aren’t really that weird. Though we are a small group that a lot of people haven’t heard of.

III      We’re hidden, secretive and don’t let anybody join us.

We’re trying hard not to keep our existence a secret, and we’d love you to join us.

IV      We all eat porridge.

See O is for Oats.

V We don’t allow smoking, drinking or having fun.

We don’t have any rules against smoking or drinking, though many Quakers give up (or never take up) these things. We find that we can have fun together without needing to consume alcohol. And we like cake 🙂

VI      We’ll all die out by 2034.

This has been predicted by projecting the statistics – but I don’t intend to be dead by then, and nor do a lot of other Friends (especially all those still below 60 or 70!).

VII      We’re all hippies.

Depends a bit what you mean by hippy: peace loving – yes, drug-taking – mostly not, prone to joining demos, marches and ban-the -bomb protests – quite a few of us.

VIII      We all wear grey, or black, and funny hats.

Most of us wear colours, a few wear hats, we mostly try to avoid being drawn into the latest fashions.

IX      We all have grey hair.

We can’t help getting older (and few of us would dye our hair to disguise our age), and a lot of people are already grey-haired when they find us – we need to work on letting younger people know of our existence.

X       As a Quaker, you can believe anything you like.

Anyone is welcome to attend our meetings for worship and they won’t be quizzed about their beliefs or told what they ought to believe. However, we do expect those in membership to agree in essentials with certain beliefs, although these are not a form of words, more a way of life. To me personally, a person who comes regularly to meeting for worship and who participates in our meetings for worship for business, where we seek ‘the will of God’ for this group, at this time, in this situation, is effectively believing what I believe – even if we describe our experiences of this in different words.

Walking mindfully in the garden with my camera

Irises, colour, form, bud pointing upward, yearning

bloom standing in glory, reaching upward, trailing petals

flower dying, folding inward, regenerating

Perfume, the scent of roses, almost before I see them,

later, the water, overflowing from the lake, the

aroma of yesterday’s rain

The sound of the coots, the fluffy cootlings,

reflections in the lake, the new reflection of

the garden lounge barely discernible

The slip of my feet on the slippery stones

near the lake, the feel of the ‘rabbit’s ears’

furry leaves of my childhood.

My father’s eyes, my grandfather’s fingertips,

the past? my past? my self? all inter-are

Woodbrooke HH72 12/6/2012 2.55pm

Meeting for Worship. The heart of the Quaker way. I’d go every day if that were a practical possibility (which it is when I stay at Woodbrooke). I do usually go twice a week. Sometimes I look at myself on a Wednesday, re-arranging my work hours, walking for half an hour to the meeting house, to sit in silence, possibly alone, for half an hour and then spend at least that long getting home, and I wonder: why I am doing this? I have to conclude that ‘it matters’, because no-one is making me go to this trouble to be at meeting for worship, but it clearly matters a lot to me.

So what I am actually doing when I go to meeting for worship, what do we mean by ‘worship’ and why do I do it?

On one level the answer is that I’m setting aside time for God, time to align myself more closely with that loving creative force that I am aware of from time to time, but more strongly if I set aside time specifically to be aware. I’m also setting aside time for the community, even if I am the only person physically present. I am keeping the meeting. I sense a continuity with those who are prevented from being present at that time (by health, weather, other commitments) and with those who have been there before or are worshipping elsewhere. In our meeting house we have put up photographs of most of the people who regularly attend out meetings for worship. Sitting quietly in the room with the photographs it is easy to feel that they are, in a sense, present with me. It is important to me that worship is a communal activity. The actual numbers do not matter. Apparently alone; with 2 or 3 others; with 30 or 40 (as my meeting usually is on Sunday morning); with 90 others at a conference; with 1000+ in a big top at yearly Meeting Gathering, it is still essentially the same experience.

When I arrive at the appointed time and place, I’d like to be early, though I rarely am. I try to calm my busy brain and begin to settle into silence before I enter the room. That helps me to enter the worship and minimises disturbance to others who are already present. The contribution of those who arrive and settle into meeting before the appointed time is a very valuable ministry to the whole meeting. I like to sit somewhere that I can see others arriving, so that I can notice who is there, and offer a greeting smile if they look my way. I like to notice how many we are, who is absent, who may need some prayerful or practical support. Sometimes I will quietly step into the role of an absentee and act, perhaps, as doorkeeper, or fetch the collection bowl in the treasurer’s absence. Settling into meeting I adjust my posture so that my body is not bothering me. Like many others I find straight back, hands loosely in the lap, or open and receptive, feet both in contact with the floor, helpful – but worship is perfectly possible in other postures.

Then I need to quiet my busy mind, so I may concentrate on my breath, or silently recite a mantra (‘be still and know that I am God’ Psalm 46:10 is a personal favourite). My aim is to be inwardly silent and open, to be ready for whatever I may hear or be called to do.

Another phrase I now, somewhat to my surprise, find I use frequently as I settle deeper into worship is ‘here I am Lord’ Isaiah . I am waiting and ready for the unexpected, possibly the transformational. Often I will gain some small insight, very rarely is anything dramatically transformational – but other the years the small insights have added up and I have been changed a lot. That possibility of change, of transformation, of the unexpected, even, though it seems strange to say it about sitting in silence together, the exciting, is why I keep going to meeting.

I first went to Woodbrooke in 1981 for a job interview. The post was assistant cook to Elizabeth Holmgard. At the time I was with Community Service Volunteers on a year’s placement in Edinburgh in a community for people with learning disabilities, unsure what I might do next, but cooking for 20 people twice a week and enjoying living in a community setting.

I didn’t get the job, but that didn’t matter at all. The visit to Woodbrooke was a formative experience. I was invited to stay overnight because of the travelling distance and encouraged to join in what was going on while I was there. That included a talk and slide show about somebody’s trip abroad (I forget where) on the evening I’d arrived. It made me feel very much part of the ‘extended family’ of Friends, being so similar to what my own family would do, but for a bigger group.

More significantly, the next morning I was able to join a group of students on the, then, term-time programme. The topic for the ‘seminar’ was industrial relations. It was something that had been on my degree syllabus only a year or two before. But this was so different to the way we studied at university. There, the lecturer told us what to think. Here the tutor sat in a circle with the students and listened to their views and experiences, even mine. Everyone was genuinely treated as an equal. I was really amazed at the difference, and this insight into the Quaker way has stayed with me. It is, to me, the essence of the Woodbrooke experience.

I went to Woodbrooke several more times in the early 1980s and then had a long gap while bringing up a family, returning with a MM weekend in 2003. Since then I have been on many courses and completed Equipping for Ministry. Occasionally I have the privilege of being ‘tutor’, though I am still learning whatever my role.

Over the years there have been many changes at Woodbrooke. Meals are now self-service, whereas we used to all sit down at the same time, but we still pause for a few moments of grateful silence together. Bedrooms are nearly all en-suite, though there are still some additional, spacious, bathrooms. We are no longer asked to change the beds ready for the next guests, though I still like to leave a prayer for their comfortable rest as I depart my room. The garden lounge is a very obvious change, and a delight – to be able to enjoy the garden whatever the weather; to sit and chat over coffee or knitting; to see small groups having informal meetings, or cheerful, trivial (or very earnest) discussions; to read the paper or wait for a friend.

Other more important things have not changed. The day is still framed by meeting for worship in the morning and epilogue at night. The welcome, from staff, Friends in Residence, and other course members and guests, remains as warm. And the attitude towards learning, that we are all learning together and all have a contribution to make, that so struck me on that first visit, continues as strongly as ever. I was at Woodbrooke very recently with Ben Pink Dandelion, Doug Gwyn and Tim Peat Ashworth providing most of the input and leading our course. It was delightful that they were all also full participants in the course, sharing their uncertainties as well as their knowledge.

As a friend said to me, back in 1980, ‘if you have the opportunity to go to Woodbrooke, do go.’

Among Quakers the proportion of vegetarians is much higher than in the general population, but Friends are far from being universally vegetarian. So are they vegetarian because they are Quakers, because it’s a trendy middle class thing to be, because they are idealistic, or squeamish, or some other reason? Probably for all of these reasons and others, varying from one person to another.

My own journey to becoming a vegetarian, and currently towards being vegan, has been very slow, and informed by a variety of reasons. I normally date the beginning of my interest to a friend offering to cook me a meal and asking if I minded if it was vegetarian. I certainly didn’t mind, and the meal, I remember, was delicious. I was rapidly converted to being a fan of Rose Elliott‘s cook books (and Dave’s cooking), but I didn’t become a vegetarian. I did cook vegetarian by choice when I cooked, but I didn’t tell my hall of residence that I wanted vegetarian meals, I still ate fish and meat.

Late in 1980 I encountered ‘The Scottish Eco Cookbook’, a booklet put together by Friends of the Earth Scotland. It told me very plainly how much food went to an animal to produce a given quantity of meat for me to eat, and advocated reducing our meat intake to help the world’s resources go round. I promptly resolved to give up beef entirely (which I’ve stuck to about 99.99%) and to reduce my intake of other meat. When cooking for the community I then lived with I increasingly offered vegetarian meals (Rose Elliott and the Scottish Eco Cookbook being a great help in that). Getting married and bringing up a family, I persisted in a low meat diet (several meat free days a week). My daughter became completely vegetarian in 1999, and I announced my intention to do likewise at New Year 2001. At that point I felt I really didn’t want to eat other mammals, and my motivation included concerns for animal welfare as well as the effects on the environment.

Later in 2001 I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Reading the dietary advice for MS patients, which recommended a high intake of oily fish, I felt I should return to eating fish regularly, though not every day as was suggested. A few years later, consulting my GP about a problem with excessive, very smelly wind, she suggested that I give up eating fish because such high protein foods could cause that problem in some people. We discussed how I would get the essential nutrients, especially the essential fatty acids, and agreed that a fairly high intake of seeds should be sufficient. I modified my diet accordingly (and added some supplements to be certain) and now only eat fish once or twice a year (fish and chips at the seaside, an occasional prawn or a few prawn crackers).

In 2010 I formally received the Buddhist ‘five mindfulness trainings‘ which are very clear about not killing (Quakers are very clear about not killing people, the Buddhist teaching is clear about not killing anything – though I struggle with what to eat if I’m not even going to kill a carrot …). This made me consider my diet again and I began exploring how I could reduce my consumption of milk, cheese and eggs. I now eat more peanut butter, whole nuts and hummous, and a lot less cheese and eggs. Since Quakers made the ‘Canterbury commitment’ in 2011, I have moved even closer to a vegan diet and use soya milk and yoghurt at home in place of cow’s milk products. However, I don’t yet make a fuss about a drop of cow’s milk in a cup of tea when I’m out and often don’t even ask if a dish is vegan or not.

So my reasons for my dietary choices are complex, they include concern for the environment and a desire to lessen the effects of global warming; a distaste for eating other sentient beings; a concern for animal welfare; an aspiration to avoid killing other living beings and issues about my own health and well being. Some of this is directly linked to my being a Quaker, especially more recent decisions influenced by the Canterbury commitment, some of it is more loosely the result of taking ‘heed of the promptings of love and truth‘, and some is just really enjoying eating vegetarian and vegan food so much that I mostly don’t miss meat and fish at all.

I am like a seed. I have a hard outer coat that must be cracked open, making me vulnerable, if I am to grow.

A Friend shared with me recently how, after years of feeling that in his meeting he was not really known and did not know others ‘in the things that are eternal’, this metaphor had helped him to realise that the problem lay in himself, rather than in the things the meeting was or was not doing. He has been a Friend for sixty plus years, belonging to several meetings during that time and in the current one for more than ten. He was delighted to share that he had been able, this year, to invite a group of attenders to his home. Using ‘Becoming Friends’ as a basis, the group had begun to know one another in the way he had hoped for. In doing this he had opened himself and his home, both making himself vulnerable and creating a safe space to do that in, and thereby opening the possibility for others.

In worship too we need to be prepared to be vulnerable. To let the Spirit move through us, to be a channel for the Love of God, we have to be open and that leaves us vulnerable. We need the support of others to do this.

Some among us have a particular gift for vulnerability.

A few weeks ago a Friend in my meeting sat and sobbed quietly throughout meeting for worship. Few in the room would have heard her, but I went and thanked her afterwards for her ministry. It had opened up awareness and compassion in myself.

Most of us who worship regularly in expectant waiting silence will have experienced the hesitant stumbling words of the Friend called to minister from the heart. Their words may be hard to understand in any intellectual sense, but they release something in others by their willingness to be vulnerable and to be used by the Spirit. Such ministry often leads to other spoken contributions, but also move something non-verbal within others who hear it.

May we all be a little more willing to crack open our hard outer seed coat and let the Love of God move in us and through us, so that we grow in the Spirit and help others to grow too. Let us also support those who offer us their vulnerability. We might offer time to listen, a cup of tea or a clean handkerchief. It will not be easy, it will be distressing and painful at times, but let us give thanks for the distress and pain too, knowing that it is helping us to grow together and to become more fully who God wants us to be.

Rhiannon tackled this topic last week, but what I wanted to say is an addition not a duplication so I’m going ahead anyway.

The parable of the vineyard workers (Matthew 20:1-16) has been much in my mind this year. Early in the year everyone in our meeting was struggling somewhat with a regular attender who is persistently late and tends to arrive noisily. We know that he has mental health problems and over a long period we had, mostly, come to accept him. It still came as a revelation to me when I realised that this was one meaning of the parable that in the Kingdom of Heaven everyone is valued equally, however late they arrive for meeting, So, if I believe, as I say I do, in the Kingdom being here and now, I am called upon to love the latecomer equally with the rest of my meeting. ‘Thus the last will be first, and the first, last.’ (Matthew 20:16)

Interestingly, when this persistent latecomer was absent for a couple of weeks he was much missed, and everyone was asking after him. There was no response to phone calls and eventually we found out that he had been admitted to hospital. We plan to visit when his social worker says that he is well enough to cope with visitors (his family are not in contact with him).

More recently I was reading ‘God’s Hotel’ by David Wood (a collection of articles previously published in ‘Egremont Today’ as a column titled ‘Godspot’). David’s column for September 1998 included a retelling of this parable, placed in a Cumbria that some of his readers would have heard of from their parents or grandparents. He observes that “Those who had been left hanging around all day were those nobody wanted – the sickly, the disabled, the weaklings, those with learning difficulties – the ‘poor’ specimens’. Always the strong, the vigorous, the well-favoured, would get chosen first. Real community is a bit of heaven, where no-one is excluded, where all are equally favoured and a place is found for them with all the others. Their place. Their unique and equal place.”

I’d not actually thought about who these late-comers to the vineyard were, this opened my eyes again. It has implications for our meetings, and for wider society. To bring the Kingdom of Heaven into its full glory here and now we need to value everyone equally. We need to do this individually, in our churches, mosques, meetings, schools, workplaces, hospitals, neighbourhoods, countries and all over the world. We can start locally, but also need to influence the government – ‘the sickly, the disabled, the weaklings, those with learning difficulties’ need enough money to live on as much as ‘the strong, the vigorous, the well-favoured’ do, surely a statement that we need a minimum wage for all, that is, a minimum allowance per day (something like a citizen’s income but for everyone) rather than a minimum payment per hour. We need to turn our ways of organising society upside-down if the Kingdom is to be realised in truth.

If you recognise Karl Marx ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his need’ (German: Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen!) in this, that’s fine by me – my spouse was just saying last night that Marx should be considered to stand in the line of the old testament prophets.

I’ve probably always been a Universalist, though I wouldn’t always have recognised the term. My mother is a Universalist, though she may not use that word, and has been since a teacher, reluctant to teach conventional RE, taught ‘comparative religion’ and instilled a respect for all faiths in at least one of her pupils.

I’d better clarify what I mean by ‘Universalist’, since there are different understandings of the term. I go along with the Quaker Universalist Group  in saying:

‘… our understanding [is] that spiritual awareness is accessible to everyone of any religion and none and that no one person and no one faith has the final revelation or monopoly of truth. We acknowledge that such awareness may be expressed in many different ways. We delight in this diversity …’

I always felt that this was self-evident from a Quaker perspective, especially given the ‘Advices and Queries‘ which say such things as ‘Remember the importance of the Bible, the writings of Friends and all writings which reveal the ways of God.’ and ‘Are you open to new light, from whatever source it my come?’

I was a bit surprised to discover, about five years ago, quite how threatened Christo-centric Friends felt by Universalist Friends. I have, as I say, always been a Universalist, but much of the time I would also have identified as Christian – while being increasingly wary of the different ways that term can be understood. I still struggle to actually understand, in other than a theoretical way, how being Christian conflicts with being Universalist. When people ask me ‘How can you be a Buddhist AND a Quaker?’ I can see where the question is coming from. And, to be fair, I ask myself the same question sometimes. Though it is the rituals that I encounter as a Buddhist that trouble me more than the apparent atheism. I suppose that to Christians who believe that Jesus Christ is ‘THE Way, THE Truth and THE Life’ John 14:6 there is a conflict. I’ve always gone more with ‘in my Father’s house there are many mansions’ John 14:2.

Over the years I have had a few experiences that confirmed, for me, that ‘ spiritual awareness is accessible to everyone of any religion’. Chanting at a sufi gathering, chanting with Nichiren Buddhists, singing traditional Jewish melodies, I have experienced that same stillness that I find in meeting for worship, that same sense of Presence. Listening to Thich Nhat Hahn, studying Jewish texts, reading Rumi’s poetry, I sometimes have those moments of insight that also come to me through spoken ministry.

The God(dess) I believe in loves everybody and would not exclude anybody just because they had never read a particular holy book, learnt about a particular teacher, followed a particular guru, or participated in a particular ritual.

My (Quaker) understanding is that everybody, yes everybody, can, if they wish, have direct access to that love, and direct communication with that God, whether they perceive that Divinity to be within themselves and others, or something external, or both, and whatever they may or may not name that unnameable Love.

We don’t like to own up to our talents, boasting is not approved of – at least, it wasn’t in my upbringing. But if we don’t acknowledge our gifts it is hard to use them fully for the benefit of ourselves, others, our community.

So I’ve been trying to identify mine and I’m going to record them here, in no particular order. Some of them may prompt you to recognise your own and some of yours will be very different, but just as valuable.

I have an aptitude for organising things, especially events and activities eg a series of study groups, a meeting, a holiday, a guide camp. I enjoy the challenge of bringing all the strands together – finding out what people want; arranging accommodation, food, transport; organising the finances and so on.

I have a natural talent to attending to detail and enjoy record-keeping. I am happy to do simple accounts, medical records, agendas and minutes.

I’m good at speaking loudly and clearly, excellent for reading notices!

I can express myself clearly in words, written or spoken, which is useful for clerking, secretarial duties and writing blog posts.

I enjoy listening to people, especially when we can share deeply and am willing to set aside time to do this. This ‘listening’ may be face-to-face, but can also be online via the written word.

I have a desire to learn and a willingness to share the skills I have – especially the practical, hands on ones.

I have an awareness of the spiritual dimension of life and, increasingly, feel able to talk about this and to encourage others to do so.

I enjoy practical activities such as cooking, sewing, gardening and am good at some of them.

I am generally optimistic and calm, or as we used to say at guides ‘cheerful in all difficulties’.

Of course, you can just say I’m bossy, loud, unrealistic and boastful, and that’s true too.

Trust. Trust the process. Serving a clerk to my meeting I sit at the table as we begin our meeting for worship for business and remind myself to trust the process, to hand matters over to God. We’ve done our preparation, the Quaker business method is tried and tested, and, if we trust in it and use it faithfully, it works. God may not care what colour we paint the walls, but we’ll ask her and see, not make the decision alone.

Trust. Trust the process. In the silence as we begin our study group, I remind myself to trust the process, to hand things over to God. I’ve done the preparation, my introduction will be clear, I’m ready to listen. Creative listening and worship sharing work well, if we trust and use them faithfully. Some participants find these activities quite scary, but it is these deeper, scarier, spiritual works that they come back for month after month.

Trust. Trust the process. Some one once asked me about meeting for worship ‘why don’t you make sure that something happens?’. She had been to meeting once and ‘nothing happened’ so ‘next time I’ll take my knitting’ she told me. I forget exactly how I replied, but it was along the lines of that isn’t the way it works. If it is unprogrammed worship we have to sit in silence, be open and wait, wait for the Spirit to move, and that movement may not show outwardly. What happens is not ours to determine, but if we tamper with the process we will lose that openness to possibility. Thinking about it later I was reassured that this enquirer had said ‘next time’ even if she did intend to ‘take her knitting’.

Trust. Trust the process. I must also trust that taking my practice, any inner stillness I can achieve, any understanding that comes to me, out into the world with me, will work. Trust that the Spirit will be with me, not just in meeting, but all the time, and if I listen, if I am open, if I am aware, I may be guided to act in alignment with the purposes of a greater whole. Then, maybe, I’ll begin to truly ‘walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone‘. Trust also, that if I keep practising, I might manage this for more than five minutes.