Meeting in August - and afterwards

posted by kathy

For many years, Beeston Quakers haven't met together in August. This started because it was hard to organise when many members had young families and it gave the small core of Beeston Quakers, who took responsibility for the Meeting week after week, a chance to enjoy other weekend activities and to attend other Meetings.

The people involved with any Meeting change over the years and so do their needs and commitments. This August we're experimenting. There will be a Sunday Meeting for Worship on the first three Sundays in August (the 1st, 8th and 15th) at 10.30 a.m. (but not on the last two Sundays). Visitors are, as always, welcome.



Meanwhile there's a danger that the Day Centre (properly the Middle Street Resource Centre) where we meet will be closed in the current round of County Council cuts. This won't be a disaster for Beeston Quakers who can move to another building or attend other Meetings. However it presents a serious problem for the people who use the Centre in the week - and they're busy campaigning against it.

The Middle Street Resource Centre is used by people with mental health difficulties - and, judging from what we see at Meeting on Sundays, it's well used. In the time we've been meeting there - 18 years, I think - we've seen the centre grow from a functional institution to a place that is loved and cared for by its users. We've seen and enjoyed the wonderful gardens that have been planted. We've read the notices on the walls and seen the signs of a supportive social life in which the people who come to the centre help and teach one another. We've seen that people do art and creative writing, go on outings together, learn a huge range of subjects. It's a place which people value - and where they feel valued. The centre is a living witness to what we as Quakers recognise as "that of God in every one" - though the users of the centre would probably have different language to describe it. The centre as it is now doesn't feel like a place of difficulty and illness but a place of healing and health.

Visiting the centre on Sundays, we've read the notices and information about mental health on the walls and tables and have become much better informed. Some of us have talked about our own experiences. 1 in 4 of the population have mental health difficulties at some point in their lives - the centre helps people with the kind of problems that everyone encounters in themselves, their families or friends. I've never seen a centre set up to help people that so evidently does a good job.

The county council is proposing to give centre users an individual account so that they can still get help. But this would deprive the users of the support they have now and the network of friendships they have built up. The centre is a sociable place. It feels loved.

The users are campaigning to keep the centre which means so much to them - and to which they have given such care. Readers of this blog may wish to sign their petition. There's a copy in the Oxfam shop on Beeston High Road and you can also sign it on-line, HERE.

Ethical Dilemmas in the Shops

posted by Rhiannon

This theme may be old to many f/Friends, but I am feeling it afresh, spurred on in part by a green issues home group in Leeds and in part by reading about Cat Chapin-Bishop's plastic fast. In seeking to be ethical consumers, how do we make choices?

Here are three considerations - not the whole picture, but enough to get us started.

On the one hand, I believe in social justice, and that movements such as Fairtrade are worth supporting.

On the other hand, I see good reasons to think that we need to reduce our use of fossil fuels, and hence of fossil fuel powered transport, plastic, and other related products.

And in a third corner, sitting behind me because I am reluctant to admit to it, I have a need to look after myself to a certain extent: to feed myself healthy food at a reasonable price, to travel sometimes, to use products which come in plastic packets.

Now let me tell about my local supermarket. It's the cheapest place with the widest selection within a walking distance which is reasonable at my present level of health. They sell, for example, two kinds of bananas: fairly traded bananas in plastic bags, and ordinary bananas which are loose. (Should I be sad or thankful that they don't complicate this further by selling organic bananas?)

Sometimes I want to buy bananas - I like them and they're good for me. I want to buy fairly traded bananas because, well, I want to be fair. However, I don't want to buy a plastic bag. Which kind do I buy?

For bananas, I have developed an arbitrary mechanism. I like my bananas greener than most people do, and it takes me a week to eat a bunch, so I buy the greenest ones. This seems to produce about the same result as if I flipped a coin to choose between the two kinds.

Needless to say, I find this solution intellectually unsatisfying and non-transferable, although it satisfies the hunger better than not buying bananas at all. Almost every food comes with a similar dilemma: all fresh fruit and veg in the shop is a plastic/fair trade/organic/food miles toss up (I'd grow it, but I rent a house which only has a tiny concrete garden). The frozen veg is in plastic, and though it might be brought by boat rather than plane, freezing requires fuel. Putting things in tins takes energy, too. Pasta, rice, many potatoes, and bread all come in plastic, and who knows how far? I'm vegetarian, but milk and cheese come in plastic, possibly a long way; even if I went vegan, the rice milk or soy milk (which might be GM...) would come in a Tetrapak - as does my fruit juice now. I can drink water but I can't swallow tablets with it, and when you take them every day, you get through juice. In any case, water's good but it's hardly full of vitamins and doesn't count as one of your five a day.

Sometimes this makes me want to throw up my hands in horror and give up eating entirely. Other times, it makes me want to move to a smallholding in Wales and try desperately to grow everything for myself. Mostly, I just sigh and feel a bit guilty while I eat my banana - whichever kind it is.

Which bananas would you buy? Why? What buying choices do you struggle with?

Britain Yearly Meeting 2010: a personal report

posted by Rhiannon

Firstly, I'd like to welcome any visitors who are here because I mentioned this blog in a Yearly Meeting session.

Secondly, I'd like to apologise to Beeston Meeting for writing so little for you in recent months; actually, I have been writing, reams and reams, but it's almost all been essays and papers and my dissertation. I'm enjoying my course, though, and being in Leeds, and Carlton Hill Meeting.

On to today's real topic: Britain Yearly Meeting 2010. This write-up will be rather impressionistic and very personal, and should not be taken as more than that.

I arrived on Friday evening, met my family at Kings Cross, and was instantly swept into Friends House Restaurant and the gathering throng. One of the chief pleasures of Yearly Meeting is seeing again old friends (later in the weekend, I met a woman whom I once knew well, but hadn't seen for at least ten years. Apparently I haven't changed much!), but another of the pleasures is getting to know new people - sometimes old hands whom one hasn't happened to speak to previously, but also those attending for the first time.

The most important business grouped around three topics: our engagement with the political process, our ministries of giving, and the question of allowing journalists to enter Yearly Meeting sessions.

My main reaction to the first two of these was tears. It's good to hear about other Quakers who are engaging in political work internationally, nationally, and at their local level; but my personal engagement with the political process is at the moment extremely frustrating. I don't think this is the forum in which to go into details, but I will just say that I tend to feel misunderstood, alienated, and lacking in power. I'm glad that not all Friends feel this way.

There are, of course, many kinds of giving: those chiefly under consideration are the gifts we make to the Yearly Meeting, which mostly consist of either service or money. I give some service to my Local Meeting, but none nationally unless we count presence at Yearly Meeting itself; as a student, what money I have has been given by someone else and is firmly marked for a specific purpose, so what I can give on a weekly or monthly basis is peanuts (sometimes literally).

The power of the business method was very clear to me in these sessions. To be open in that way, in that great silence, for nearly seven hours a day, is to make oneself very vulnerable. Nowhere is that clearer than when one is called to speak. I spoke twice to the issue about journalism, and one in non-business worship on Monday afternoon.

On Saturday afternoon, we failed to reach clarity about allowing journalists into Yearly Meeting; I felt that the contributions were, taken as a group, confused and fearful - sometimes for good reason, sometimes not - and this showed again on Monday morning. It becomes clear that when many Friends imagine 'a journalist' they are thinking of a man from a daily newspaper, someone who writes, and whose interests are more secular than spiritual. They aren't thinking of the citizen journalist whom the internet has created - they aren't thinking of me - and they aren't thinking of the religion and ethics correspondents who may be Quakers already. They're thinking of people who probably wouldn't want to come anyway: no sensible fashion correspondent is going to sit through a three-hour silent session in order to be able to report that Quakers frequently wear socks with their sandals, and if they did want to report that, they could stand on the Euston Road and find out the same thing in ten minutes.

This was the point to which I was speaking when I mentioned this blog. Some suggestions had implied that journalists were a distinct breed and could be set apart or asked to introduce themselves: what about me? I asked. Do I count as a journalist, since it's been requested that I write a blog post, which will be published for the whole world to see?

In the end - and I think this was the right choice - we have written a minute which sets out that in principle journalists could be allowed to sit in on some sessions of Britain Yearly Meeting, and asked our Clerks, Agenda Committee, and others to consider how best this could be handled. I hope that we will uphold those doing this service as they seek to discern the best advice to give to Friends on maintaining our discipline while meeting non-Quaker journalists and being themselves citizen journalists, the best briefings to give to any professional journalists who do wish to attend, and which sessions will need privacy or be most interesting for a visitor.

I'm tired now - long days, long commutes, and the trembling that goes with ministry will do that - but happy, and feeling empowered and energised to go forward in my own little tiny involvements in local and national politics, interfaith and ecumenical work, and giving what I can when I can. My thanks to everyone who made Yearly Meeting (and my attendance) possible.

Votes and testimonies

posted by kathy

Sometimes life gets in the way of things we plan to do. I've been busy with work and Rhiannon with her studies. There were things to say, but we didn't say them on this blog. .

There were plenty of conversations in between, especially after Meeting. Lately we've been discussing the general election. We're not unanimous and many of us are undecided. One of today's attenders summed up the question as whether to vote strategically or vote your conscience. I suspect that's a dilemma many voters face.

There's no one party particularly favoured by Quakers. I've known Quakers in all three mainstream English parties as well as a number of fringe parties. Most aren't members of political parties at all but they usually vote, take a strong interest in politics and may support causes where they think they can make a difference.

Quakers don't have a creed or a body of shared beliefs. We do have what we call "testimonies," which are perhaps best explained as areas of concern. We consider these important when making choices and decisions in our own life. They are also important in our relationship as a body to public life and are therefore bound to influence the way we vote and talk to people in positions of power.

There are different interpretations and descriptions of the testimonies but most Quakers in Britain agree on four core testimonies: truth, equality, simplicity and peace. We agreed today to ask the six candidates for Broxtowe to say where they stand on these testimonies and to post their responses as comments to this blog. Tony, a member of our Meeting, has agreed to draw the attention of all the candidates to this blog.

Because the testimonies are broad, it seems sensible to explain how they have currently been interpreted and prompted action among friends.

People are most likely to encounter the Quaker truth testimony in court. Quakers don't swear oaths - they hold that they are required to speak truth all the time and oath-taking implies more than one standard of truth. In the last twenty years, Quakers have been concerned with the question of integrity in public life, including the pressure on public servants to be dishonest in various ways. Last year, when British Quakers finally decided, after 22 years of consideration, to hold same-sex marriages in Meetings just as we hold opposite-sex weddings, the truth testimony was at least as important as the testimony to equality. Those present - about 1700 Quakers - were reminded of George Fox's words on marriage: "This is the Lord's work and we are but witnesses." We saw that our duty was to witness to what we already saw as marriages.

The Quaker testimony on equality is rooted in the belief that there is that of God in everyone. Sometimes this is described as "the Light within." Quakers are as fallible in acting on this testimony as on any other. However the idea that we should see value in all humans has led us to oppose discrimination and cruelty prompted by such differences as race, gender, sexuality and disability. It has also led us to care for justice between individuals, groups and nations. Quakers are involved with prisoners and asylum seekers and have recently been involved in the Circles of Trust scheme, working with dangerous offenders after their release from prison. You may find it helpful to know that many Quakers refuse to use titles and address all people directly by their names.

The Quaker testimony on simplicity seems particularly apt in a time when there are concerns about the depletion of natural resources and damage to the environment. Historically it has also been linked to the testimony to equality with past Quakers, including William Penn and John Woolman, urging Quakers to avoid the acquisition of wealth for its own sake or for the sake of ostentatious display, especially in the face of poverty. Many Quakers are very concerned for the environment and sometimes care for the environment is listed as a separate testimony.

The Quakers' peace testimony is probably the best known. Almost all Quakers are pacifists. This isn't just a matter of refusing to support or fight in wars. Quakers look for what they term the "seeds of war" in their own lives, in society, in political structures and public actions. Quakers are involved in opposing war through a range of activities and organisations. These include work against military recruitment in schools, opposing the recruitment of child soldiers in Britain and overseas; campaigning against nuclear weapons and the arms trade and also working in schemes which offer training in conflict resolution to children and adults.

It's not possible to offer a summary of all Quaker concerns but I hope this post helps readers to consider some of their own priorities. I also that all the candidates will reply and explain where they stand in relation to the broad points raised by the testimonies. This will help Beeston Quakers and other readers of this blog to decide how best to cast their votes.



I am posting responses as comments, as they arrive. Click on "comments" below to read them.

Being human

posted by kathy

I first came across Amnesty International when I was a student. My college adopted a prisoner of conscience in Chile. These were the days of the Pinochet regime and he was a student and anti-fascist. He had been tortured, which was routine in Chile's jails - many supporters of Allende had been killed and others simply "disappeared." Eventually we were told that the prisoner we had adopted would be released if we could find a country to accept him. Of course, we wrote to the home secretary - it was Roy Jenkins, I believe. Britain said no on the grounds that the country was too small. We wrote to other countries. Canada said yes and so did Luxembourg. The student was set free. I don't know what happened to him after that - I wasn't the one writing all the letters but just a member of the college students' union committee. However the events taught me that writing letters could make a difference to someone's life and could even save a life.

Since then, I've occasionally sent cards to prisoners or written hasty emails to governments on behalf of prisoners. I've never managed to do enough. So I was pleased to meet someone involved in Beeston's local Amnesty International group at Meeting on Sunday. The group has monthly meetings in the local library as well as letter-writing sessions in the Commercial Inn. The group is also looking for help in their street collection on Saturday, 10th October. Click here for details of forthcoming of events with contact details. According to the Beeston Express there will also be a letter-writing session in the Commercial Inn from 7.30 p.m. on Monday, 5th October.

If you would like to be involved in Amnesty and don't live anywhere near Beeston, a web-search will help you find either a local or national group. It's possible to support Amnesty as an individual as well as through a group.

Book review: Kundnani, The End of Tolerance

posted by Rhiannon

As so often, I missed International Blog Against Racism week this year, due to a combination of holidays and volunteering work. However, as oyceter notes, "blogging against racism should not be contained to a week" and so I thought I'd go ahead and blog against racism now.

As some of you may be aware, I've worked with City of Sanctuary in the past, and grew up in a strongly Muslim area. This gave Arun Kundnani's book, The End of Tolerance: Racism in 21st Century Britain (London: Pluto Press, 2007) a personal edge for me: without having really been aware of the patterns and historical causes which Kundnani discusses, I had begun to see in some places the evidence to which he refers. As you'd expect, my middle-class white privilege shielded me a lot, but like many people I had been worried about whether the causes of terrorist attacks (9/11, 7/7, etc.) were really as simple as made out, and I'd been nursing a concern that our asylum procedures were racist as well as inhumane. This book essentially confirmed some things I was already thinking, therefore, and added some extras about policing, the economic system, actual statistics about the treatment of people seeking sanctuary here, and the biased presentations of history given by government and many media outlets. By outlining more clearly the situation in the UK, it also points up some of the differences between the situation here and the situation in the US which many anti-racist bloggers are discussing - though perhaps I feel that the tendency to deaden and flatten cultures when selecting pieces to teach as 'multiculturism' in schools is a British phenomenon only because I was educated in the UK and saw it in action.

I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in human rights, the causes of migration and 'terrorism', or who is trying to understand how racism comes about. (I trust this makes it clear why it is of interest to Quakers.) I'd like to leave you with two paragraphs from the book which I found especially telling.
In Chapter 8, Kundnani discusses the way that 'British values' and 'Islamic values' have been framed as in opposition to one another (despite the fact that neither is clearly defined). On page 129, he writes:

"The White Paper [Secure Borders, Safe Haven- pdf] shattered the framework of official tolerance of cultural diversity that Roy Jenkins had inspired with his 1966 definition of integration. The Jenkins formula had been based on a balancing act of integration (defined as equal opportunity and cultural diversity) and immigration, in which the existing non-white population was to be peacefully integrated while potential new 'coloured immigrants' were to be excluded (see Chapter 1). For most of its life, this formula had been made to work by not allowing the official endorsement of tolerance for 'ethnic minorities' to get in the way of the barely concealed racism that underlay immigration controls against non-whites. With a degree of separation introduced between race and immigration, an important concept of being black British or British Asian could emerge. In the normal course of events, race policy was discussed as a separate area from immigration policy; home secretaries could be outspoken in their tough lines on immigration and, at the same time, adopt a tone of multicultural tolerance with regard to settled non-white communities. Of course, the contradiction was always precarious - it was family members of the existing non-white population who bore the brunt of state racism in immigration controls - but, nevertheless, it made possible a multicultural society in which it was unlawful to exclude Asians and blacks from pubs but essential to exclude them from the country. The state licensed one form of racism while nominally outlawing the other."

There are other, similarly strong, sections throughout the book.

The other paragraph is the final one of the book. In Chapter 12, Kundnani concludes by examining the 'secularism' which demands that people leave religion behind when they enter the public sphere, contrasting it with the US (where church/state separation clearly does not demand that politicians be arreligious) and India (where the key principles are those of religious freedom, the government's "celebratory neutrality" between religions, and government intervention operating only to ensure human rights). The final lines, pages 187-8, give some pointers at where future anti-racist work in the UK may need to go:

"In the final analysis, the test of a secular society is whether it is capable of safeguarding freedom of belief and eliminating racisms based on religious difference. Today, driven by the attempt to legitimise a deeply unequal global order, racism has taken on new forms, at present directed specifically at Muslims and others perceived as 'alien'. Ultimately, the struggle against these forms of racism is not a fight for a particular religion or culture but a fight for universal human rights and against the vast economic and political inequalities of our world. It must involve a battle of ideas, in which alternative narratives - rooted in the experiences of migrant and Muslim communities - of the origins of terrorism, segregation and migration are advanced. At the same time, it must involve the building up of independent community-based organisations that are capable of empowering victims of racism, taking up cases, raising issues, and creating a movement for justice based on real solidarity, rather than imposed and divisive identities. It is only through such a struggle that genuinely integrated and cohesive communities with emerge."

Truth, Equality ... and Friendship

posted by kathy

I wasn't looking forward to Yearly Meeting Gathering. I considered ducking out of the sessions and spending my time as a tourist in York. Rhiannon persuaded me to attend, offering to turn up in Goth clothes at every session where I was present.

What's so scary about Yearly Meeting? Well, to begin with, it's the numbers. I learnt at the end that 1700 people had been present, and that's an awful lot of Quakers, especially when we rarely manage ten at Meeting for Worship. The thought of so many determinedly nice, good, sandal-wearing people was particularly alarming, even though I was wearing sandals myself. (I make no claims for niceness or goodness though of course they're a good idea.) I didn't even feel keen about reflecting on "committed relationships", one of themes for the week, since the main focus was partnerships and I'm not in one at present. And then I'd booked into a self-catering house which meant I'd be sharing kitchen and bathroom with people I didn't know - the spectre of loneliness loomed.

In the end, it wasn't at all as I'd feared. It was the best Yearly Meeting I've attended. And the self-catering aspect turned out very well since I was able to reflect on my own when I wished but also had plenty of opportunities for conversation and friendship. The discussions in the shared house were a valuable way to reflect on the subject of Yearly Meeting but also a chance to learn about other people, share jokes and explore ideas and opinions. There was even an occasion when, quite by chance, three of us pooled ingredients and shared what turned out to be an excellent meal (pasta with vegetables in tomato sauce topped by cheese followed by gooseberries with Greek yogourt).

I've learnt by now to pace myself at big Quaker events. Rhiannon may have been dancing with the larks before breakfast but I felt it was OK to miss one morning session entirely so that I could arrive in the afternoon with an unclouded mind.

Unclouded minds were important as were a willingness to listen, an openness to the words of others and being prepared to be led in unexpected directions. Consideration of committed relationships mostly centred around the question of what marriage is. The question wasn't just whether same-sex couples should hold Quaker weddings but how we recognized and defined marriage. But it was the question of same-sex marriages that was expected to lead to the most disquiet and uncertainty so we determined to listen to one another's experience and leadings.

This listening began with a talk from an older friend who discussed his own experience of marriage and the relationships and hopes of his four children. The next day, individuals and couples spoke of their relationships. The assembled Quakers became aware of the hurt that was caused to Quakers whose loving and committed partnerships were marriages in everything but name but not treated as such, even within the Religious Society of Friends. While we remained concerned for the very few within Britain Yearly Meeting who remained unhappy and doubtful, the sense of the Meeting was more overwhelming than anything I had experienced before. Minds were changed during the week. But openness and listening worked in more than one way - one young, gay man in favour of same-sex marriage wanted to seek out people who were opposed not in order to argue with them but simply to listen discerningly to their views.

At the beginning of the week there was no plan to make major changes - just to listen to one another and continue the usual lengthy Quaker process. But for once Quakers outran the original plans. In the Thursday afternoon session, one young Friend was called to speak. "You've been discussing this for twenty-two years," she said. "That's longer than I've been alive. Let's get on with it. It's not exactly a snap decision."

By the end of that session, the leading of the Meeting was plain, even to those who couldn't share the decision. We had explored the subject in big meetings (the main hall held 1200, I think) and in small response groups. We'd been asked to think about the history, language, theology, social aspects and law about marriage. We returned to the words of George Fox on the subject: "This is the Lord's work and we are but witnesses." The decision we made had as much to do with our testimony to Truth as our testimony to Equality: we saw that many same-sex relationships were marriages undertaken in a religious context and it we had no choice but to witness to what we understood.

The Minute wasn't written till the following day - not perfect but, as we accepted "good enough." But from the moment we saw where we were going the mood was overwhelmingly joyous. I had a small video camera with me, and I think you can see some of that in the small clips below, despite the shaky camera work (I haven't yet got used to the technology).

This is my home group - a "walk and talk group" in a garden on Thursday, just after we realised that we'd reached the decision. The garden was open to the public in aid of the Salvation Army and, once we'd done a little walking, we sat down and were served tea.



This is the epilogue on Friday night. We left the ceilidh and other evening activities to stand round the lake singing while young Friends launched huge, fire-powered crepe balloons into the dark sky. Those who are concerned with such matters may be pleased to know that the event was checked for health, safety and environmental impact.



And here Gordon (from another Meeting) and Rhiannon (contributor to this blog) comment on the week and their experience of Britain Yearly Meeting Gathering 2009.