posted by kathz
In the past fortnight, online Meetings have not all gone well for me. There have been some really good Meetings that nourished me. But there have also been occasions when i couldn't get past the technical glitches.
For one Zoom Meeting for Worship, I couldn't get the video linkup to work for half an hour. For another it didn't work at all. And when I tried a Meeting using adobe connect it kept failing - and I couldn't, in the short time when the connection was good, work out how to manage the video or the microphone.
It's hard to express how painful it is to try to attend a Meeting for Worship and then be distracted or turned away by a technological glitch. It's as though I came to a Meeting House and was told I couldn't go in, or entered a Meeting and was continually distracted by someone whispering in my ear and my own stomach rumbling.
But it has made me think more about those without the technology to attend, or those who choose instead to find stillness on their own. I haven't got a pat solution to offer. Those who find stillness on their own may yet find a way of sharing what they find with the wider Meeting.
The question of those who can't attend for other reasons is one which concerns me more deeply. There are many reasons why people might be unable to join any online Meeting for Worship. These reasons include poverty (the technological equipment and the broadband or data necessary all cost money); a crowded household in which a shared time of stillness would impinge unfairly on others and their needs; and a situation of abuse in which that time of stillness with others will be either prevented or punished by physical or psychological violence.
All these things - poverty, a crowded household with demands, and abusive relationships - affect members of the Quaker community and those who would wish to worship with us. Quite often those in such circumstances feel unable to share those aspects of their lives. And, as a Quaker community, we are poorer for not hearing from them. It is possible that they have spiritual insights which we are currently losing. It is possible that hearing of their experience - their expertise on their own circumstances - could teach the rest of us.
I don't have a solution to this. I wish I did.
Sunday, 26 April 2020
Thursday, 16 April 2020
Helplessness
posted by kathz
I'm used to being a helper. I'm used to doing things for other people. And suddenly the best I can do for others is nothing at all - or what seems like nothing at all. At the same time lots of people - often people whose work has been barely noticed - are doing a great deal to help people like me. They are the shelf-stackers, the shop assistants, the cleaners, the transport workers, the people who make deliveries and so many others as well as the porters, pharmacists, care workers, nurses, doctors and others within the health and social care sectors. Members of the armed forces - now working to build hospitals that may save lives - are doing more than I am. I'm mostly staying home.
At home I have enough to eat. I can cope with the lack of flour or tinned tomatoes. I'm warm. I'm safe. Others are going without food, have no home or are in places that are not safe. I am privileged.
I am privileged without the power to help anyone or to change the world.
As a Quaker and as a human being I care about equality. At the moment Quakers in Britain are considering questions of privilege and inclusion and it is an uncomfortable process. No-one likes to be reminded that they are more privileged than others - and people who are less privileged often find it painful to talk about their experiences of exclusion. Some people will argue that privilege is allied to power and that power can be used to achieve change for good. They can point to cases where this has happened.
The effects of the Covid-19 virus remind me how profoundly unequal society is in Britain and in the wider world. My privilege is not earned. It is a matter of luck - and it isn't accompanied by power.
Some of the people doing vital work at the moment may be among those who lack a safe place to live. They may be dependent on food banks. At the same time they are risking their lives for people like me.
Helplessness is hard to live with. How much more pleasant it is to help people than to receive help. But if I'm able to to offer help again, I hope I remember this experience of helplessness. I may find I know a little more about how those needing help feel. I must remember that those needing help may be among those who worked to save lives or make other people's lives bearable.
As Quakers, we look for that of God in everyone. We need to see what we can learn from the words and experience of others, whether or not they are Quakers. We don't own the whole truth - we are seekers. And we don't practise equality yet thought we value it - we're just trying to get there. Helplessness may turn out to help me on the way.
I'm used to being a helper. I'm used to doing things for other people. And suddenly the best I can do for others is nothing at all - or what seems like nothing at all. At the same time lots of people - often people whose work has been barely noticed - are doing a great deal to help people like me. They are the shelf-stackers, the shop assistants, the cleaners, the transport workers, the people who make deliveries and so many others as well as the porters, pharmacists, care workers, nurses, doctors and others within the health and social care sectors. Members of the armed forces - now working to build hospitals that may save lives - are doing more than I am. I'm mostly staying home.
At home I have enough to eat. I can cope with the lack of flour or tinned tomatoes. I'm warm. I'm safe. Others are going without food, have no home or are in places that are not safe. I am privileged.
I am privileged without the power to help anyone or to change the world.
As a Quaker and as a human being I care about equality. At the moment Quakers in Britain are considering questions of privilege and inclusion and it is an uncomfortable process. No-one likes to be reminded that they are more privileged than others - and people who are less privileged often find it painful to talk about their experiences of exclusion. Some people will argue that privilege is allied to power and that power can be used to achieve change for good. They can point to cases where this has happened.
The effects of the Covid-19 virus remind me how profoundly unequal society is in Britain and in the wider world. My privilege is not earned. It is a matter of luck - and it isn't accompanied by power.
Some of the people doing vital work at the moment may be among those who lack a safe place to live. They may be dependent on food banks. At the same time they are risking their lives for people like me.
Helplessness is hard to live with. How much more pleasant it is to help people than to receive help. But if I'm able to to offer help again, I hope I remember this experience of helplessness. I may find I know a little more about how those needing help feel. I must remember that those needing help may be among those who worked to save lives or make other people's lives bearable.
As Quakers, we look for that of God in everyone. We need to see what we can learn from the words and experience of others, whether or not they are Quakers. We don't own the whole truth - we are seekers. And we don't practise equality yet thought we value it - we're just trying to get there. Helplessness may turn out to help me on the way.
Wednesday, 15 April 2020
Online first-timers
posted by kathz
I've been wondering what it's like to attend your first Quaker Meeting online - and how best to welcome newcomers to an online Meeting. This post doesn't have easy answers but it does attempt to give some advice on how a newcomer might approach an online Meeting for Worship.
If you came to your first Meeting for Worship before lockdown, you were probably welcomed at the door. You might have been given a leaflet about what happens in Meeting. Even if you arrived a little late, there would still be someone on the door. You would have the opportunity to ask questions - and then there would be a chance for more conversation and questions after Meeting, usually over tea and biscuits.
Online Meetings can't do this. There might be a short opportunity for chat if you get there early - but there will probably be a fair number of other people, making conversation difficult. And if you're a little late - or quite a lot late - as may easily happen with a tricky internet connection, you are plunged straight into the experience of being silent while seeing the faces of strangers. And faces seen on the internet rarely seen as friendly or approachable as faces encountered in real life.
But you may still want to join an online Meeting for Worship - and you would be very welcome to do so. I'm going to make a few suggestions about how you might approach it. These are based on my own experience and they are not the only possibilities.
First of all, once you have got through the technicalities and arrived, try to settle into the silence. It won't be complete silence. There are always other sounds. You may, if you're lucky, hear birdsong. It may be traffic, voices from outside or a dog barking. Take these sounds into the stillness with you.
Being in Meeting for Worship is often about listening - but that doesn't mean straining to listen. It's a kind of openness to what may come. Don't worry if your thoughts wander or if worries come to mind in the stillness - perhaps that wandering or coming face to face with a worry is what you need to happen. Let it be there and try to rest in the stillness you are sharing with others.
Don't worry if you become restless or if you lose a sense of the stillness. This happens to all of us from time to time. Gradually take yourself back into any stillness you may find. Try to be comfortable despite the technological apparatus.
Someone may speak - it's what we call "ministry" - and this should be because they feel led by the Spirit to do so. Ministry isn't for the individual alone but for someone else or some others in the Meeting. It may respond to your needs. If it doesn't, think it possible that someone else in the Meeting is helped by what is being said. And if you feel an overwhelming urge to minister, try to do so clearly and briefly (remembering to unmute your microphone before you speak and to must it again when you have finished).
Online Meetings usually have an opportunity for conversation at the end. You may welcome this or wish to reflect on your own. Choose whatever is right for you.
Many Meetings, like Beeston, have gone online for the first time and Quakers are still getting used to the experience. Woodbrooke Quaker College in Birmingham have been holding online Meetings for a long time and have added a number of new times. These often include Quakers from other countries and in different time zones. They use Zoom and Adobe Connect. If you want to find out about their Meetings for Worship, click on this link.
You may also enjoy hearing what some young Quakers have to say about Meeting for Worship in this short video.
I've been wondering what it's like to attend your first Quaker Meeting online - and how best to welcome newcomers to an online Meeting. This post doesn't have easy answers but it does attempt to give some advice on how a newcomer might approach an online Meeting for Worship.
If you came to your first Meeting for Worship before lockdown, you were probably welcomed at the door. You might have been given a leaflet about what happens in Meeting. Even if you arrived a little late, there would still be someone on the door. You would have the opportunity to ask questions - and then there would be a chance for more conversation and questions after Meeting, usually over tea and biscuits.
Online Meetings can't do this. There might be a short opportunity for chat if you get there early - but there will probably be a fair number of other people, making conversation difficult. And if you're a little late - or quite a lot late - as may easily happen with a tricky internet connection, you are plunged straight into the experience of being silent while seeing the faces of strangers. And faces seen on the internet rarely seen as friendly or approachable as faces encountered in real life.
But you may still want to join an online Meeting for Worship - and you would be very welcome to do so. I'm going to make a few suggestions about how you might approach it. These are based on my own experience and they are not the only possibilities.
First of all, once you have got through the technicalities and arrived, try to settle into the silence. It won't be complete silence. There are always other sounds. You may, if you're lucky, hear birdsong. It may be traffic, voices from outside or a dog barking. Take these sounds into the stillness with you.
Being in Meeting for Worship is often about listening - but that doesn't mean straining to listen. It's a kind of openness to what may come. Don't worry if your thoughts wander or if worries come to mind in the stillness - perhaps that wandering or coming face to face with a worry is what you need to happen. Let it be there and try to rest in the stillness you are sharing with others.
Don't worry if you become restless or if you lose a sense of the stillness. This happens to all of us from time to time. Gradually take yourself back into any stillness you may find. Try to be comfortable despite the technological apparatus.
Someone may speak - it's what we call "ministry" - and this should be because they feel led by the Spirit to do so. Ministry isn't for the individual alone but for someone else or some others in the Meeting. It may respond to your needs. If it doesn't, think it possible that someone else in the Meeting is helped by what is being said. And if you feel an overwhelming urge to minister, try to do so clearly and briefly (remembering to unmute your microphone before you speak and to must it again when you have finished).
Online Meetings usually have an opportunity for conversation at the end. You may welcome this or wish to reflect on your own. Choose whatever is right for you.
Many Meetings, like Beeston, have gone online for the first time and Quakers are still getting used to the experience. Woodbrooke Quaker College in Birmingham have been holding online Meetings for a long time and have added a number of new times. These often include Quakers from other countries and in different time zones. They use Zoom and Adobe Connect. If you want to find out about their Meetings for Worship, click on this link.
You may also enjoy hearing what some young Quakers have to say about Meeting for Worship in this short video.
Saturday, 11 April 2020
Locked down Quakers
posted by Kathy
There was a time, back in the seventeenth century, when it was not unusual for Quakers to be locked up - usually for disturbing the peace, for worshiping in a different way, or for refusing to pay tithes (subscriptions to the Church of England). British Quakers have been locked up since then, most recently for protests against the arms fair or for involvement in Extinction Rebellion. But now we're all under lockdown and what Quakers experience is part of a general imprisonment which we try to endure for the sake of the greater good.
Conditions of our locked down lives vary. Some are in the highly vulnerable category, so unable to leave their homes at all. Others make the most of their daily walk or bike ride for exercise. Some struggle with mental or physical ill health. Some live in crowded conditions or lack a secure place to call home. Some endure difficult or abusive relationships. Some don't have enough money for food, for electricity - let alone for some of the small pleasures (books, games, etc) that make life feel worth living.
It's important to realise how various our experiences of life under lockdown can be - and how reluctant some of us (even some Quakers) may feel to share the difficulties they are experiencing. That's a sad thing for those of us in more fortunate circumstances because we urgently need to learn from the experiences of others.
Meanwhile Beeston Quakers continue. In the years since I last wrote, Beeston Quakers has grown and, until lockdown, Meetings for Worship averaged around fifteen attending every week - not the same fifteen every week and there are probably between thirty and forty people associated with the Meeting.
But in lockdown we're unable to meet in person. Instead, those of us who are happy to do so gather online and hold Meeting for Worship online via Zoom. That's right - pause for laughter - we actually share silence online! And our Meetings have been mostly silence although there's time and space for chat before and afterwards.
This change in approach has made me think more about what we're doing in our Meetings for Worship and the difference between a Meeting and individual meditation. I don't think the online experience is vital - I know that some Friends choose instead to sit in a quiet place (even a garden if they have one) and experience a sense of connection with others at the usual time for Meeting for Worship. Some Friends don't have the technology to go online or find it unhelpful - having a computer, phone or smartphone has never been a prerequisite for Quaker worship. But I use my netbook and headphones because I like to see the faces of others and know who is worshiping with me - and because I'm lucky enough to have this equipment. Others connect on phones.
So what exactly am I doing? I can't speak for others but I think that what I''m trying to reach is a place of deep listening. Quakers used to say they were listening for God's guidance but that's a tricky phrase - whatever God is or may be has become caught up in the limitations of human imagination and what I'm talking about is something much harder to define. Words like "Spirit" or "Light" may be better but I'm really talking about an experience that has always resisted being put into words - or into my words anyway.
I don't just sit down and let this listening happen. I let myself be aware of other people, I notice odd details around me, I let worries and concerns surface and then, very gradually, I find myself slipping into to the deep place of listening. I don't always know I'm doing it. Sometimes it's only when I surface at the end of Meeting that I realise things around me have made a slight rearrangement and I've adjusted my relationship with the world.
Occasionally in Meeting someone is moved to speak. This may be by speaking - and that's not aways clear with my dodgy broadband connection - or they may type into the chat area. I take what I can from this, recognising that what doesn't work for me may, in Quaker-speak, speak to someone else's condition. Or I may be filled with an overpowering urge to say something or read something - often something that arrives quite suddenly in Meeting and that wasn't on my mind before. When that happens, I speak as clearly and briefly as I can - but I may let the words order themselves in my mind before I begin so that it's clear to others. When the words order themselves, I find myself stripping out the inessentials.
Of course, online Meeting has its technical problems - microphones that need to be muted, video connections that fail. And it can be hard to find a quiet space. But some people will also worship with cats, dogs and small children around them, or may choose to join a Meeting just for the few minutes or half hour they have.
Online Meetings for Worship are taking place all around the country and elsewhere. They may include friends abroad and people whose disabilities have previously prevented them from reaching a Meeting. It's not the same as attending a Meeting in the same physical space as other people - but it's not as different as I feared it might be.
There was a time, back in the seventeenth century, when it was not unusual for Quakers to be locked up - usually for disturbing the peace, for worshiping in a different way, or for refusing to pay tithes (subscriptions to the Church of England). British Quakers have been locked up since then, most recently for protests against the arms fair or for involvement in Extinction Rebellion. But now we're all under lockdown and what Quakers experience is part of a general imprisonment which we try to endure for the sake of the greater good.
Conditions of our locked down lives vary. Some are in the highly vulnerable category, so unable to leave their homes at all. Others make the most of their daily walk or bike ride for exercise. Some struggle with mental or physical ill health. Some live in crowded conditions or lack a secure place to call home. Some endure difficult or abusive relationships. Some don't have enough money for food, for electricity - let alone for some of the small pleasures (books, games, etc) that make life feel worth living.
It's important to realise how various our experiences of life under lockdown can be - and how reluctant some of us (even some Quakers) may feel to share the difficulties they are experiencing. That's a sad thing for those of us in more fortunate circumstances because we urgently need to learn from the experiences of others.
Meanwhile Beeston Quakers continue. In the years since I last wrote, Beeston Quakers has grown and, until lockdown, Meetings for Worship averaged around fifteen attending every week - not the same fifteen every week and there are probably between thirty and forty people associated with the Meeting.
But in lockdown we're unable to meet in person. Instead, those of us who are happy to do so gather online and hold Meeting for Worship online via Zoom. That's right - pause for laughter - we actually share silence online! And our Meetings have been mostly silence although there's time and space for chat before and afterwards.
This change in approach has made me think more about what we're doing in our Meetings for Worship and the difference between a Meeting and individual meditation. I don't think the online experience is vital - I know that some Friends choose instead to sit in a quiet place (even a garden if they have one) and experience a sense of connection with others at the usual time for Meeting for Worship. Some Friends don't have the technology to go online or find it unhelpful - having a computer, phone or smartphone has never been a prerequisite for Quaker worship. But I use my netbook and headphones because I like to see the faces of others and know who is worshiping with me - and because I'm lucky enough to have this equipment. Others connect on phones.
So what exactly am I doing? I can't speak for others but I think that what I''m trying to reach is a place of deep listening. Quakers used to say they were listening for God's guidance but that's a tricky phrase - whatever God is or may be has become caught up in the limitations of human imagination and what I'm talking about is something much harder to define. Words like "Spirit" or "Light" may be better but I'm really talking about an experience that has always resisted being put into words - or into my words anyway.
I don't just sit down and let this listening happen. I let myself be aware of other people, I notice odd details around me, I let worries and concerns surface and then, very gradually, I find myself slipping into to the deep place of listening. I don't always know I'm doing it. Sometimes it's only when I surface at the end of Meeting that I realise things around me have made a slight rearrangement and I've adjusted my relationship with the world.
Occasionally in Meeting someone is moved to speak. This may be by speaking - and that's not aways clear with my dodgy broadband connection - or they may type into the chat area. I take what I can from this, recognising that what doesn't work for me may, in Quaker-speak, speak to someone else's condition. Or I may be filled with an overpowering urge to say something or read something - often something that arrives quite suddenly in Meeting and that wasn't on my mind before. When that happens, I speak as clearly and briefly as I can - but I may let the words order themselves in my mind before I begin so that it's clear to others. When the words order themselves, I find myself stripping out the inessentials.
Of course, online Meeting has its technical problems - microphones that need to be muted, video connections that fail. And it can be hard to find a quiet space. But some people will also worship with cats, dogs and small children around them, or may choose to join a Meeting just for the few minutes or half hour they have.
Online Meetings for Worship are taking place all around the country and elsewhere. They may include friends abroad and people whose disabilities have previously prevented them from reaching a Meeting. It's not the same as attending a Meeting in the same physical space as other people - but it's not as different as I feared it might be.
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