THE FRIEND - HEAR, HEAR: BOB JOHNSON AND HUGH MCMICHAEL WORK WITH PRISONERS
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the Friend 8 January 2021 | £2.00 Hear, hear: Bob Johnson and Hugh McMichael work with prisoners
QUAKER
NATIONWIDE
DAY OF HEALING
SATURDAY 6thMARCH 2021
11.00am to 1.00pm
A Meeting for Worship for Healing
To be Covid compliant, set aside this time for distance healing and prayer either on your
own at home, meet in small socially distanced groups if practical, or arrange your own
local zoom meeting. Help to make this a powerful, corporate nationwide day of healing.
Focus on a wide range of healing concerns including:-
Family and friends, our Quaker community, our Society
its conflicts, the environment and
All life on our fragile planet.
HOLD YOUR CONCERNS ‘IN THE LIGHT’
RADIATE PEACE, LOVE AND LIGHT.
REMEMBER - ALL HEALING is LOVE IN ACTION.
Further details
www.quaker-healing.org.uk
friendshealing@gmail.com
Supported by the Friends Fellowship of Healing
the Friend
INDEPENDENT QUAKER JOURNALISM SINCE 1843
8 January 2021 | Volume 179, No 2
www.thefriend.org
News 4
A round-up of 2020 Rebecca Hardy
Letters 6
Light reading? 8
A leap in the dark Abigail Maxwell
Thought for the week 9
A singular third person Paul Oestreicher
Companion planting 10
Contemplating the mystics Anne Watson
Conversation peace 12
The pathology of violence Bob Johnson
Hear hear 14
Listening in prisons Hugh McMichael
Occupational hazards 15
Remembering Palestine Michel Goodwin
Review 16
A Book of Psalms Jonathan Wooding
Friends & Meetings 18
Love liberates us from the prison of ourselves.
Rosie Bailey, 2014
From Quaker faith & practice 16.10
2020 news round-up
news@thefriend.org
Quakers grapple with Quaker doctor leading
pandemic the Oxfordshire End of
2020 was dominated by Life Care response to the
the Covid-19 pandemic. pandemic put together a
As the UK ended the year, series of videos for frail
and the official death and at-risk people. The Woodbrooke also Woodbridge Quakers
rate approached 75,000, Quaker-founded Penn announced that it needed sent a ‘statement of
Friends continued to Club in London also to make cuts. solidarity’ in July to the
meet in ‘blended’ online stepped up, housing five organisers of a local
and in-person Meetings. NHS staff. Leighton Park Black Lives Matter BLM protest after white
Despite the restrictions School in Reading also 2020 was also marked by supremacist graffiti was
in place since March, created thousands of face the Black Lives Matter found in nearby villages
Quaker worship and work shields to protect NHS (BLM) movement, and BLM posters were
continued, providing frontline staff, an initiative which swept the world removed. Disley Meeting
sustenance and support that was supported by following the death of had its BLM banner set
for those most isolated. nine schools in Berkshire. George Floyd in the US. on fire (see photo above),
Some much-loved The Brighton Friend The Quaker organisation and, in August, Central
Friends died with the and composer Sally American Friends Service Edinburgh Meeting
virus, while many rallied Beamish – who was Committee (AFSC) House hosted artwork in
to help. As the pandemic awarded an OBE in 2020 condemned the police support of BLM.
hit and demand surged for – took to the doorstep to violence surrounding Meetings around
foodbanks, Quaker Social perform music throughout the killing, branding the country pledged to
Action (QSA) offered the ‘Clap for our Carers’ it ‘the consequence of tackle racism and look
deliveries and collections. appeals, raising money a racist system that deep within themselves
Giles Robinson, from for Help Musicians UK’s disproportionately targets to understand its roots,
QSA, told the Friend coronavirus fund. people of colour for with Central Manchester
that the delivery driver As the year drew to violence, imprisonment, Friends committing to an
for its furniture re-use a close, the effects of and premature death’. anti-racism programme.
shop Homestore, Steve, the pandemic were still As people gathered In July, the US group
had been collecting being measured. Thirty- to protest, the BLM Friends of Color released
donations and delivering one members of Friends movement led to deep an epistle calling on
to vulnerable households House staff opted to take reflection over systemic Quakers to heed its
across east London. Some voluntary redundancy, racism within the Society. ‘Call to Action’ on the
Huddersfield Quakers with more expected, after Quakers joined socially- racial pandemic. ‘To
started a community a consultation period in distanced protests with our Friends in the wider
network, with 500 November to consider one Friend from St Neots Quaker world, we the
members. Meanwhile, how Britain Yearly Meeting sparking a rally Friends of Color, can’t
Friends from Sidcot Meeting (BYM) can meet for racial justice after breathe,’ said the outgoing
Meeting supported new financial challenges a session on lockdown epistle of the 2020 virtual
elderly residents at Sewell and the shift towards activism prompted her pre-gathering of Friends
House, and a Wallingford more local working. to get down on one knee. of Color and their
Other Meetings, including families. ‘Friends of Color
Clun Valley, held short need respite from the
WORDS demonstrations, while systemic racism too often
Melanie Jameson, co-clerk found in our American
‘Hard choices to of Quakers in Criminal
Justice, spoke out at a
Quaker community that
often goes unseen by
be made’
BLM rally in Malvern many white Friends.’
about her experience of The year ended with
being a prison tutor in Britain Yearly Meeting
rural Suffolk in the mid- (BYM) pledging that
Caroline Nursey, clerk to BYM trustees, 1980s, where half of the Quakers must tackle
at Yearly Meeting in November. population was black. racism, saying that
4 the Friend 8 January 2021
‘racism exists among vowed to ‘hold politicians NUMBERS
Quakers in Britain and and corporations to
£27 billion
must be tackled at all account’.
levels, individually, in Quakers joined the
their committees and Build Back Better (BBB)
structures and in the movement in spring
church’. with London Quakers
‘Although Quaker gathering for a BBB event The amount pledged for roads in the 2020
commitment to racial featuring author and Spending Review.
equality and racial justice Quaker descendant Mark
is well recorded, there has Thomas, founder of the and said: ‘We will need development workers were
been little focus on this The 99% Campaign. Many to maintain pressure on promised to be within
in recent years and some Friends supported the nuclear weapons states to reach of all Friends by
language (in minutes latest wave of Extinction act responsibly and make 2023, and a new regional
and other writings) is Rebellion protests. Bristol nuclear disarmament a hub is to open in Leeds.
outdated,’ BYM trustees Area Meeting published political reality.’ Britain Much of the ministry
said in a statement. a new booklet to help Yearly Meeting urged reflected on the pandemic
Friends respond to the the government not to and its impact, but the
Green shoots climate emergency, while boycott the Treaty, with mood remained upbeat.
Friends continued their Quaker environmental recording clerk Paul The joy of being together
witness on the climate campaigner Chris Parker saying: ‘Love for continued with the
emergency, following the Martin from Cotteridge our neighbour is the very online 2020 Swarthmore
ominous warnings of the Meeting contributed heart of the Christian way Lecture by social scientist,
UN Intergovernmental to a guidebook on of life. How can we love writer and broadcaster
Panel on Climate Change climate-related financial someone, and yet have a Tom Shakespeare.
report in 2018 that there disclosure. Meanwhile, nuclear weapon, a horrific Almost 2,000 Friends
are just twelve years to almost one hundred instrument of death, gathered online to hear
limit the most devastating people signed up for a primed and ready for ‘Openings to the Infinite
impacts of global ‘Re-imagining Society launch, pointed towards Ocean: A friendly
warming. The year ended Sustainably’ online them at the same time?’ offering of hope’, in
with disappointment conference in July As 22 January approaches, which Tom Shakespeare
as campaign and faith to consider how to Quakers across the UK considered hope in an
groups, including rebuild society after the are stepping up their era of pandemic, climate
Quakers, said that the pandemic. In January, campaign to put pressure emergency and right-wing
government had failed to Huddersfield Quakers on the government to sign populism.
put the climate emergency declared a climate the Treaty.
at the heart of its 2020 emergency via the Culture Friends welcome
Spending Review. BYM Declares Emergency Yearly Meeting online Biden
tweeted: ‘We urgently website, which aims to Around 760 Friends US Friends welcomed Joe
need a climate plan with provide arts and culture gathered for the first Biden’s US presidential
public investment in green providers with a way of online Yearly Meeting in win in November, saying
jobs, public services and working towards a zero- November, glad to come that there was much
climate justice.’ carbon future. together after months work to be done. The
With the 26th of Covid-19-induced Friends Committee on
UN Climate Change Breakthrough on anti- separation. ‘This is National Legislation
Conference of the Parties nuclear ban exciting, isn’t it?’, said (FCNL) tweeted its
(COP26) cancelled There were reasons to Clare Scott Booth, as congratulations to Joe
due to the pandemic, celebrate, however, as she opened YM 2020 Biden and Kamala Harris,
BYM joined more than news broke in October with an image of The adding: ‘Democracy has
seventy organisations in that the UN Treaty on the Light at Friends House prevailed. We can’t wait
the COP26 Coalition to Prohibition of Nuclear as a backdrop. Matters to work with you and the
launch ‘a year of climate Weapons (TPNW) had considered included some next Congress – there’s a
mobilisation from the been ratified by the fiftieth ‘hard choices to be made’, lot to do!’
ground up’. In a statement state. With Honduras said Caroline Nursey, In the UK, Christian
released to coincide with signing, the treaty will clerk to BYM trustees, Aid urged Joe Biden to
the days when the COP26 enter into international with Covid accelerating swiftly embrace a green
climate talks were due to legal force on 22 January. the need for change. This agenda, highlighting
take place, the coalition The Northern Friends included ‘a thirty per that, for the first time in
highlighted the power Peace Board called the cent reduction in costs, history, climate change
of grassroots action and news a ‘breakthrough’ by the end of 2022’. Local was a major election issue.
the Friend 8 January 2021 5
the Friend Letters December 2020). I sat down to
read it a few days after Christmas,
173 Euston Road a time for writing thank you
London, NW1 2BJ letters, but this came first.
020 7663 1010 Was it the experience of
www.thefriend.org Covid-19 on us all? Perhaps, but
The Friend welcomes your views,
something seems to have been
Subscriptions to letters@thefriend.org. Please
released, strong and heartfelt,
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subs@thefriend.org name or other Quaker affiliation. humility in recognising our
continuing complicity with racism
In essentials unity,
Advertising and exploitation of the world and
in non-essentials liberty,
Contact George Penaluna: its beings; generosity in tributes
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Woolly hats needed! labour for the wellbeing of others;
Editorial Get out your knitting needles! humour, insights, cheerfulness
Articles, images, correspondence We have an urgent request from and compassion.
should be emailed to the prison chaplains at HMP So thank you to all who work
editorial@thefriend.org Wandsworth. for and contribute to the Friend,
or sent to the address above. The residents at this old, cold and for the gift of this issue,
prison are exercising outside in which seemed to me so right at
Editor prison tracksuits. Indoors it’s not this particular time – light for our
Joseph Jones much better with central heating darkness, a light from the infinite
Journalist described as ‘ineffective’ at best. source.
Rebecca Hardy So, the chaplains have come up Kit Welchman
Production and office manager with the project of providing a hat Bury St Edmunds Meeting,
Elinor Smallman for every man – 1,476 in total. Suffolk
In the coldest sections of the
Sub-editor
George Osgerby
building these hats will even be Thoughts at Christmas
worn in bed. These hats can be Tuesday night was cold, wet and
Arts correspondent knitted, bought or second hand so windy. At 8.30pm in a pleasant
Rowena Loverance long as they comply with prison part of Newcastle a man was
Environment correspondent rules, namely: NO black hats; going from door to door trying
Laurie Michaelis NO peaked hats; NO hats with to sell dish cloths. I guess his
Clerk of trustees ear pieces; NO hats with slogans. sales were few and far between. It
Lis Birch However, beanies and bobble hats distresses me that anyone should
are welcome. have to resort to hawking like
ISSN: 0016-1268 Please send hats to: Visitors this.
Centre, Wandsworth Prison, 17 Possibly he had been put out of
The Friend Publications Limited Heathfield Road, London SW18 work and on this dark night was
is a registered charity, 3HR. Can we rise to the challenge doing what he could to support
number 211649 to do something to help ameliorate his family with what little money
this disgraceful situation? he might receive.
Printed by Melanie Jameson There are so many families in
Warners Malvern Meeting, Worcestershire absolute destitution in the north
Midlands Plc, Co-clerk of Quakers in Criminal east, and elsewhere, and it seems
The Maltings, Justice that our government has little or
Manor Lane, no care for them.
Bourne, Light for our darkness The Christmas story tells how
Lincolnshire Thank you for an inspiring Mary was denied the shelter she
PE10 9PH Christmas issue (18 & 25 hoped to find at the inn; the story
6 the Friend 8 January 2021
of the dish cloth seller will add to understanding is that the fourth which are too high?
the significance of this story for me. gospel was written near the end of Most chairs in the UK are
Ken Veitch the first century, at least sixty years designed according to European
Stocksfield Meeting, after the crucifixion. standards in countries where
Northumberland That alone makes it extremely people are taller!
unlikely that the author ‘actually Anne MacArthur
Friends’ burial grounds knew’ Jesus and was thereby better West Scotland Area Meeting
T Roger S Wilson’s letter (11 informed than the other gospel
December 2020) asks about writers. Local and global ‘we’
Friends’ burial grounds still in use. John writes in a sophisticated One of the important aspects of
Preston Patrick Meeting can’t offer literary Greek and presents Jesus as Quaker activity for the two of
one still in use, but we do have the the incarnation of the Greek logos. us is the preference for specific
care of an ancient one at Birkrigg, The textual evidence places the personal experience over abstract
Gatebeck (not to be confused book at the end of the century. generalities.
with the Birkrigg Common one at Each of the gospel writers We (by which we mean the
Swarthmoor, where Margaret Fell wrote from their own particular two of us) have been surprised at
is buried). perspective, ‘relying on traditional the number of published articles
It was used to bury the stories’ and reflecting the views which, perhaps unwittingly, slip
Westmorland Seekers, many of of the faction of the early church from a local ‘we’ to a global ‘we’,
whom became Friends. Two of the to which they belonged. None apparently speaking for (all?)
‘Valiant Sixty’, both local farmers, claimed to have known Jesus Quakers in general.
John Camm (1605-1656) and John personally. The impact of such articles is
Audland (1630-1663), are buried John’s gospel is beloved by considerably weakened as we (the
there. millions. Like Mark, Matthew, two of us) find ourselves reacting
Their stories are well told in Luke and Paul, John may be said to against being ‘spoken for’, and
a book The Rise of The Quakers have ‘known’ Jesus spiritually; but questioning whether and to what
– Revaluing the place of Preston having analysed the work of more extent the assertion applies to us.
Patrick in the Early Movement than sixty scholars in my book Furthermore, in a community
by Peter Lucas, a local historian, Who on Earth was Jesus? I have to which promotes itself as a place
which I highly recommend. say it seems extremely unlikely that for ‘seekers after truth’, we (the
It sits in the corner of a stony he knew him in the flesh. two of us) find articles consisting
field which was recently given David Boulton largely of a sequence of assertions
planning permission for a site Kendal & Sedbergh Area Meeting about the past, about meaning,
for the burying of biodegradable and about Quakers in general,
funerary urns. Racism much weaker than articles which
We hope this development might The nightmare reminder of our focus on the lived experience of
help draw attention to the history racism occurred forty years ago in the author(s).
of our ancient plot, and will stop the large auditorium of Warwick John Mason & Anne Watson
the walls being knocked down by University. A young black woman Oxford Meeting, Oxfordshire
the cattle in the field. got up to minister. When she sat
The first burial in 1691 in down 2,000 white Quakers burst Sydney Carter
the ground beside our Meeting into applause. In case someone is misled by the
house at Preston Patrick was that The problem persists. A reference to him in your end-
of Mabel Camm, John Camm’s distinguished black academic of-year issue (18 & 25 December
widow. It is still in use. gently told our Meeting that 2020), I should point out that the
Meg Hill Canterbury society, as she songwriter Sydney Carter was not
Preston Patrick Meeting, Cumbria encountered it, was a world apart a Quaker (despite the Wikipedia
from the one we encountered. Take entry on ‘Quaker music’).
John’s gospel heed dear friends… But he did serve in the Friends
Elaine Miles (18 & 25 December David Birmingham Ambulance Unit in the second
2020) asserts that John was Canterbury Meeting, Kent world war, and he once told me:
the only one of the four gospel ‘I’ve never been a joiner. But if they
writers ‘who actually knew Jesus Crossed legs could make me join a church, it
in life. The others were relying Could it be that Friends cross would have to be the Quakers.’
on traditional stories.’ This is their legs at Meeting for Worship John Lampen
not a view shared by the great because it’s the most comfortable Stourbridge Meeting,
majority of scholars. The prevalent thing to do when sitting on chairs West Midlands
the Friend 8 January 2021 7
‘D
Light reading? Abigail
arkness is not dark to you,
and the night is as bright as
the day. Darkness and light
Maxwell takes a leap to you are both alike.’ Psalm
139:12 lives with me as a
in the dark statement of the power and
Otherness of God. I quote
the version from the Church
of England’s Celebrating
‘If darkness is evil, or the
Common Prayer. I used that book for some time, praying
daily in familiar poetic words. I loved the verse, though I
never understood it. That was unimportant: it explains God
bitterness and pain we not by bringing God down to our level but by seeking to
raise us to God’s. God for me then was a reality apart from
find in life, it is covered me, the Creator of heaven and earth, whom I worshipped
with beautiful words, alone or with others.
over by light.’ Then I felt driven out of the Church of England, and came
to Quakers, who gave me Quaker faith & practice. I read
George Fox’s journal, and found another great statement: ‘I
saw also that there was an ocean
‘God is with us of darkness and death, but an
infinite ocean of light and love,
in darkness.’ which flowed over the ocean of
darkness.’ If darkness is evil, or
the bitterness and pain we find in life, it is covered over by
light. Or it is like light, for God. Depressed and unable to go
on, I felt I was in encompassing darkness, yet Something put
a blanket over me, to keep me warm. ‘Darkness is not dark’
was reassuring. God is with us in darkness.
Then I did The Hoffman Process, a personal growth
workshop. I had a vision of moving down a dark corridor,
with doors off it into incomprehensible, unbearable light
and colour. I could not bear the light, so stayed in the
corridor, which became darker and more constraining.
I pretended, even to myself, that I was someone other
than I am, even after transitioning male to female –
someone rational and trustworthy, not the fey, eldritch
something that shocked others and frightened me. I craved
the apparently level, solid floor of the corridor.
Quakers told me I had an inner light, which I believed.
A light or ‘that of God’ must be good, surely, helping me
do what I ought to do, stopping me being bad. So my
conventional morality stops me seeing the Light, which is
so much greater.
My despair grew. Unhappiness was a burden I dragged
about with me, heavier and heavier. It was like the rucksack
of stuff from my childhood bedroom which sat unopened
in my living room for months. I could not look at it.
Photo by Cherry Laithang on Unsplash
I could not enter silence, alone. The burden would be
too much. In worship I explored and grew, but also shook,
rocked, sighed and wept, which bothered others.
I can’t do it all the time, but if I accept my feelings of
pain and hurt, they cease to be a burden. I step out of
the corridor into the Light. There is pain and joy at the
same time. The psalmist was saying what they knew
experientially. I accept the things I cannot change, joyfully,
because their darkness becomes like light. The light and
colour are only unbearable until I surrender. n
Abigail is from North West London Area Meeting.
8 the Friend 8 January 2021
I
Thought for the week:
see that contributors in these pages have been
discussing the term ‘It is what it is’. Friends
might not know that these words are the title
Paul Oestreicher on a of one of the most read and loved poems in
modern German literature: ‘Was es ist’ [What
singular third person it is], by Erich Fried. Erich, who died in 1988,
was one of my closest friends. He was the
closest to being a non-Quaker Quaker that is
imaginable.
Erich was born in Vienna to Jewish parents in 1921.
‘The word that best After Hitler’s annexation of Austria, he fled to London.
The Nazis had murdered his father but he managed to
describes him is organise the escape of his mother and a good many other
Jews. He lived in London for the rest of his life. Erich was
compassion. He hated a natural wordsmith in his mother tongue. He earned his
living by translating Shakespeare, TS Eliot and others.
no one.’
By the late 1960s Erich had become the most popular
German folk poet. A radical young German generation sat
adoringly at his feet. His razor sharp political mind led to
many volumes of poetry. It was his love poems, however,
that became bestsellers.
From the early years of the cold war, Erich was employed
as a political commentator by the German service of the
BBC, broadcasting largely to an East German audience.
That job hit the buffers because his radical critique of
both East and West was too much for the Foreign Office.
By then, he had more than found his cultural feet. His
lifestyle in north London – and his home, open to all
and somewhat chaotic – is perhaps best described as
bohemian. He married three times and kept close to all
his wives, with children from each. The word that best
describes him is compassion. He hated no one.
Once, a producer at Radio Bremen invited Erich to
debate with the leader of the local neo-nazis. When Erich
arrived, he found that the director had uninvited the
right-wing extremist because it was bad form to expect
a Jewish victim to debate with a known anti-semite.
Contrary to expectation, Erich was far from pleased. On
air, Erich expressed his regret at not having an adversary.
After the broadcast, Erich visited the man, who had never
before met a Jew. They talked long into the night. Was
his mind changed? Whether or not, he (though not his
mistaken ideas) was respected.
‘Was es ist’ has outsold any collection of poetry in
present day Germany:
It is nonsense says reason
It is what it is says love
It is calamity says calculation
It is nothing but pain says fear
Erich Fried, photo © Jörg Briese
It is hopeless says insight
It is what it is says love
It is ludicrous says pride
It is foolish says caution
It is impossible says experience
It is what it is says love. n
Paul is from Brighton Meeting (though stranded by Covid-
19 in Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand).
the Friend 8 January 2021 9
Companion planting: Anne
Watson contemplates the
mystics
‘The rose and the cabbage unfold
together within Quaker life.’
D
uring the recent curtailments and then becoming a monk and advising other people
of daily life I have been how to redeem themselves? There are several mystics who
grappling with a difficulty have gone through this kind of life change and then tell
that has been nagging at me us, in their writings, what Christianity should be, or can
for some time. In early life be. But one passage grabbed me. Merton had attended a
I realised that I could be Quaker Meeting and been unimpressed by some ministry
swept along by a tsunami about someone’s holiday in Switzerland. He wrote: ‘I
of religious awareness, and went out of the meeting house saying to myself “They are
that this could affect my life like all the rest. In other churches it is the minister who
choices. I was unconvinced that being swept along in hands out the commonplaces, and here it is liable to be
this way would bring me happiness. So, while I half- just anybody”… If I had run across something by Evelyn
admired those who allowed themselves to be swept, Underhill it might have been different.’
I stubbornly refused to go with them. I wanted to So I began to read The Mystic Way by Evelyn Underhill.
experience the fullness of life, some of which would She wrote more specifically about Quakers in other
be denied me, or made difficult, if religious discipline books, but it was good discipline for me to read her
– holiness – was to dominate my life. I was not a bad generalities about mystics in this one. These weren’t just
person, I merely followed my own hunches while people who had behaved badly and ‘come to good’ as
trying to live in a way that allowed human love to contemplatives, but also other variants, such as Julian of
grow. I did my best, in the world as it is, not to harm Norwich, Francis of Assisi and George Fox.
others. I felt that commitment to a totally spirit-led Underhill takes the reported life of Jesus as an
life would be like falling over a waterfall and losing example of many people called ‘mystics’. They espouse a
aspects of myself. I thought I could probably work mysterious unity with divine guidance and a wholeness of
out what love required of me intellectually, without perception that permeates their mind and behaviour. This
submitting to an unknown. I wanted to be free to starts with illumination beyond words. Fox wrote that ‘all
choose my Teacher when I was ready, but did not creation gave another smell beyond what words can utter’.
think about how to recognise readiness. That is why Many report similar experiences, but that is only the
my analogy for spiritual development is not a journey start of a process. What am I supposed to do with such
but an unfolding – sometimes like a cabbage, worthy an experience? Is doing what I can for the environment
and dutiful; sometimes like a rose, fragrant and its sole use? For Jesus, the next move after illumination
beautiful. Ready or not. was to go into solitude for a while and, while there, face
I cannot recall now why I started to read Thomas temptation. He began preaching and behaving in ways
Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain but when I did I that broke the strictures of his society, acting with love
was not impressed. How could I learn anything from rather than in the law. Of course this attracted opposition,
this story of a misbehaving man making a mess of life and he explained his actions to the disciples in terms of
10 the Friend 8 January 2021Photo by Agnieszka Kowalczyk on Unsplash
a higher law of love and equality and redemption. This more than this analysis, because contemplation arises in
teaching led to his crucifixion, and to confusion among silent worship, thus combining the natures of these two
the disciples about what they could do next. ‘ends’ of the mystic pathway. They are not separate. This
For many people, this pathway – of illumination, is what prevents me from getting lost in the tsunami.
solitude, temptation, teaching, being with others, facing The rose and the cabbage unfold together within
opposition, undergoing self- Quaker life. George Fox and other Friends saw this, and
‘I wanted to be doubt and frustration, and Quakers have institutionalised the connection.
then a dramatic destruction Friends worship together. The disciplines of worship
free to choose of their sense of self followed and of discernment are how I decide whether what I say
my Teacher by ‘resurrection’ – is a way and do is spirit-led. They help me listen to ministry with
when I was of achieving unity and an open heart and mind, sustaining the connection.
wholeness. In the writings Meetings for Clearness also sustain the connection.
ready, but did of the mystics there are two In our traditional writings and practices Friends are
not think about different ways to complete assured that discernment tests words, decisions and
this path. We can become actions. I am invited to wonder whether I am mistaken;
how to recognise contemplative – individually I might ask whether I am swept along in truth or in
readiness.’ or separately from the world fashion; others’ experience and testimony can teach me;
– or we can live life as it I also learn from my own experience; I strive to discern
is in the world but become more loving, more giving, what love, evidenced through peace, justice, truth,
more communal, less judgmental, more generous of sustainability, simplicity and equality, requires of me.
heart, and more joyful and creative. So I need not hold What is more, I can share all this with others, support
back from that tsunami. Instead I could push aside my them in sufferings, frustrations and uncertainties and
unwillingness to submit and make room for the Spirit. can celebrate the illuminations and resurrections that
This is what Evelyn Underhill saw in Quakers. Rather provide the Light. No one need be alone.
than put faith in a liturgy that mimics the life of Jesus, It is a delightful relief and joy to realise that, while
Friends try to follow his actions: sharing food (real and wondering about what I was missing, I had not been
metaphoric), loving all, appreciating creation, being paying full attention to the background unfoldings
humble, acting with courage, charity, and not attaching that have always been going on among and alongside
ourselves to possessions or to aspects of self that can Friends, and which sustain the spirit-led life.
be beneficially abandoned. She also saw the Quaker I look forward to the time when we can once again
understanding of God as inward, the battery that makes share tea and biscuits, and rejoice that many have found
such a life possible, as well as outwardly manifested creative ways to share the metaphorical bread and wine. n
through actions. Of course you don’t have to use the
word ‘God’ here, but I do. There seems to me to be Anne is from Oxford and Swindon Area Meeting.
the Friend 8 January 2021 11Conversation peace: Bob
Johnson on the pathology of
violence
‘The fifty murderers I worked with
confirmed for me the validity of the
Peace Testimony.’
I
knew little of violence. Certainly I’d never glorious religious insight of them all. It is a conception of
been to prison before I went to Parkhurst. enormous wonder, a miraculous piece of insight that – if
Even then I was only hit once during we could only propagate it further – would enrich the
five years there – and that was entirely whole world.
due to my own inadvertence. I did know Some will find such voluble exuberance unQuakerly.
something of peace. I was brought up Although helpful for me on my own spiritual journey
in a Quaker family. My aunt worked in it shouldn’t be something waved around publically. I
Friends House during world war two and fully respect such a position. This is indeed an entirely
it was expected that I would register as personal opinion, a belief that I’ve come up with myself
a conscientious objector – though the decision was (with indispensible help from others, and especially from
exclusively mine. Quakerism, but entirely limited to what I can see at this
When I did go to work in prison, it was after moment). And I’m happy to admit that none of us can
lengthy professional training. I had spent twenty years ever see more than a very small fraction of what’s really
as a GP, studying family structures and wrestling going on.
with why so many people worried over nothing, or I can only say that the biggest professional challenge I
did other irrational things. Perhaps my experience faced in my working life was to unpack one apparently
of bombing had something to do with it – York, my simple string of words: ‘peace of mind’. I needed to find
home town, was a prime target. I well remember, as a an answer, not only for me, but for my work. I’d wanted to
toddler, sitting on a German bomber pilot’s knee, in a cure psychotic symptoms – the holy grail of all psychiatry
local prisoner of war camp, singing Christmas carols – since working at The Retreat as a holiday job before
in German. We had visited them as a Quaker family. going to university.
You might call that ‘cognitive dissonance’ now, being From my training, I knew that childhoods mattered.
friendly to someone who had just been trying to kill Freud taught me that. My apprenticeship in family
us. medicine enabled me to identify where childhoods went
At school fighting was common, so I suppose wrong. When you think about it, it’s only too obvious.
violence was always around. In fact, people talked as Teach a child violence, and that’s what they learn. And it
if we were only a few steps away from the jungle. So tends to stick with them for the rest of their lives, unless
where did this odd search for peace come from? A someone comes along with an alternative (and even then,
Peace Testimony of all things? How would that help? such teachers have to be utterly trustworthy and reliable).
Surely the way to stop violence was to be even more But there’s something else going on, a deeper pathology
violent – to carry a bigger stick. just below the surface. Here we have to get medical.
Today, I find the Peace Testimony to be the most The human brain can cope with an infinite number of
12 the Friend 8 January 2021Photo by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0
challenges – the changes in technology alone since my king that, despite the internecine civil war all around,
father’s day testify to that – but there is one challenge they utterly denied violence. What a glorious assertion
that defeats it, every time. Terror. Irrefutable scientific of a basic human truth, in vastly more challenging
evidence of how it does this became available twenty- circumstances than I have ever had to face. Human
five years ago. Play a trauma tape to someone in a brain- beings thrive by cooperation, not by coercion. We need
scan machine and their frontal lobes and speech centre to teach everyone, infants onwards, that violence is not
simply stop working. Once only ‘wrong’, in Martin Luther King’s heroic declaration,
‘Human beings terror hits, their nervous but myopic, which, for a thinking species, could prove
system shuts down and they terminal.
are never born can no longer think or talk Quakerism taught me another fundamental. Words
violent. They about the worst thing that can get in the way, so let your lives speak. You can read
have violence ever happened to them. It’s in the Bible that killing people is wrong, but do you
called ‘speechless terror’. And believe it? I didn’t tell the prisoners to stop because the
thrust upon terror continues unabated, Bible said so. I had to bring something more direct.
them.’ as a result, at least in their But before I could do that I had to find out where their
minds. ‘disease’ had come from. They didn’t know. And because
It’s like having a stroke. Part of you is paralysed, and of speechless terror, they simply had no way of finding
tends to remain so unless you can get physiotherapy. out. They had to learn that their ruinous childhood was
This physiotherapy is never easy, and entirely dependent now, in actual practice, over – time for them to grow up.
on the enthusiasm, skill and trustworthiness of the Curbing speechless terror allows peace-of-mind to
physiotherapist. But when it works, that part of you blossom. This enables the coercive ‘thou shalt not’ to
which you couldn’t use before comes back into service. mutate into ‘social delight defeats social harm’. Here’s an
This is what I took with me into Parkhurst Prison – incentive not to kill. You can only kill another human
though verbal exercises rather than muscle ones. The being when you don’t really know what you’re doing –
fifty murderers I worked with confirmed for me the if you could get rid of speechless terror you would see
validity of the Peace Testimony. More, they taught me your victim as a source of delight, as every single human
where all violence comes from, and how to eliminate it. being ever born is.
Human beings, they showed me, are never born violent. What those 1660 Quakers were saying was, grow
They have violence thrust upon them and, given half a up and smell the roses – something they’d done, and
chance, much prefer to be sociable. devoutly recommended. When will we all catch up? n
After years of this work, what do I find? Those early
Quakers got there before me. They told the English Bob is from Hampshire and the Islands Area Meeting.
the Friend 8 January 2021 13I
Hear hear: Hugh
have spent three of the last eight days in a
local prison, training Listeners. Listeners
operate in every British prison, acting as
McMichael works Samaritans for their fellow inmates. Prisoners
are at the highest risk of suicide in the general
with prisoners population. This is not because they are in
prison but because of the poor quality of
their lives outside prison. Almost all suicidal
prisoners have made previous attempts to take
‘The three days I spend
their own lives before incarceration. In other words, it
is a population with very high levels of chronic distress
and personal trauma. And it is their misfortune that
training Listeners their traumas often lead to criminal acts. This is now
widely understood, as a result of ‘Adverse Childhood
are some of the most Experiences’ studies. These have now covered tens of
thousands of people, way beyond what might be criticised
rewarding of my life.’ as soft left-wing wishy-washy thinking.
The three days I spend training Listeners are some of
the most rewarding of my life. The trainees arrive from an
environment where they have almost no control over their
own lives, in a regimen which has security as its primary
aim. They want to help their
‘Suicidal feelings fellow prisoners. Most are
nervous, expect to be told
are not signs of what to do and say, and to be
weakness but tested and pass or fail.
are a natural The first ‘lesson’ is being
asked to focus on their own
consequence of feelings at that moment (as
the lives many a model for what they will
be offering to others). They
prisoners have begin to realise that their
experienced.’ feelings matter too. They
realise, for example, that the
suicidal feelings many of them have experienced are not
signs of weakness but are a natural consequence of the
lives many of them have experienced to date.
Violence, murder, suicide and the early death of siblings
(often through addictions) are commonplace. And these
are the same sorts of backgrounds shared by the people
they will be supporting.
We model much of the training on the support they
will be offering their fellow prisoners: respect for their
autonomy and listening to feelings and stories.
Over the three days of training, the Listeners develop
Photo by Franco Antonio Giovanella on Unsplash
from (about) ten anxious individuals into a group with
a high degree of trust – this among people who might
never have really trusted anyone before. They trust
us, the trainers, and might even stop calling us ‘Sir’ or
‘Miss’! I am reminded of M. Scott Peck’s definition of
love, being concerned for the spiritual growth of the
other.
The trainees are as ready and as prepared as they can
be to respond to their fellow prisoners’ distress. They
have learned that the caring, concern and love they can
offer is the greatest gift of all.
We are all caring human beings and that potential for
loving is present and accessible for us all. n
Hugh is from Malvern Meeting.
14 the Friend 8 January 2021M
Occupational hazards: y SatNav doesn’t give an
option to estimate the
time to travel by donkey.
Michael Goodwin But by foot it would take
thirty-three hours to walk
remembers Palestine from Nazareth in modern
-day Israel to Bethlehem
in the occupied
Palestinian territories.
The challenges of living under Roman occupation
‘Would the magi be may have felt familiar to modern-day Palestinians.
But the modern-day Mary and Joseph, as Jews, do not
able to travel from afar need to apply for permits to travel in the same way
that Palestinians do – they will be waved through the
this Epiphany?’ roadblocks and flying checkpoints that are part of the
everyday experience for Palestinians in the Jordan Valley.
At the moment, because of the pandemic, the little
town of Bethlehem does indeed lie still under a more
dreamlike sleep, with a seventy per cent reduction in the
tourist trade. But the reality of the separation barrier, the
growth of settlements, regular military incursions, and the
poverty of the refugee camps, haven’t disappeared. At least
there would be room at the inn for them as all the tourists
have gone this year, but the shepherds might not be in
their fields – the movement of the shepherds I met at
Khan al Ahmar is greatly curtailed. As modern-day Mary
and Joseph travel through the fields of olive trees around
Bethlehem, they may notice that the increased number of
settlements has squeezed the land available. Palestinians
have had an even more difficult harvest this year, without
an international monitoring presence because of Covid
restrictions.
Would the magi be able to travel from afar this
Epiphany? It feels to me that there has been a dearth of
international wisdom, so the cynic might conclude that
the wise men might just talk about bringing their gifts.
They might claim that restricted access into the promised
land, and close monitoring at Allenby Bridge from Jordan,
makes movement difficult. Anyway, Israel can deny entry,
The Walled Off Hotel, Bethlehem, by Gerald Schömbs on Unsplash
as it has to other international observers in recent years.
So, no stable, no shepherds, no kings. Would modern-
day Mary and Joseph still need to flee with their newborn
child? Right now UN human rights experts are calling for
an independent investigation into the killing of a fifteen-
year-old boy by Israeli security forces at a West Bank
protest this month, saying they are deeply troubled by the
overall lack of accountability for the killings of Palestinian
children. Over the past three years, ninety-three children
have been killed by Israeli forces. It might not be safe, but
in fact, Mary and Joseph can’t in any case flee to Egypt as
the border through Gaza is closed.
Perhaps we should look to the angels and their hopes
for the coming of that Prince of Peace. n
Michael is from Aylsham Meeting. He was an ecumenical
accompanier in the occupied Palestinian territories for three
months in 2019, but writes here in a personal capacity – his
views do not necessarily reflect those of the World Council
of Churches or the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme
in Palestine and Israel.
the Friend 8 January 2021 15A Book of
D
o Friends still know the
Psalms? They aren’t mentioned
in the subject index to Quaker
Psalms, by faith & practice. Do we still
care about Myles Coverdale’s
Edward Clarke translations of them in the
Book of Common Prayer
(transferred wholesale into
the King James Bible)?
Review by Jonathan If Quakerism is a flowering from the stem of the
mediaeval Devotio Moderna – the rediscovery of
genuine pious practices such as humility, obedience,
Wooding and simplicity of life, bringing God home to roost in the
individual’s heart – then so surely are such courageous
and tragic translators of the scriptures in the sixteenth
century. Where would any reasonable dissenter have
been without their Englishing of the texts?
As a schoolboy, I heard these lines one morning
during school assembly, and they’re orienting me forty
years later: ‘When I consider thy heavens, the work of
thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast
ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
and the son of man, that thou visitest him?’
They’re from Psalm 8, verses three and four, in
the King James Bible translation, and I still care
about them (just as they seem to care about me).
But what is a psalm? And why, for most, have they
become unnecessary? Is it our post-Christian failure
to remember one function of poetry, the one that
addresses itself to something beyond ourselves? This
function enables the author to advertise the state of
one’s self (inadvertently, or otherwise – it’s a gamble),
even to seek a renewal of that self. It isn’t a way of
engaging in an empirical investigation into the existence
of the proposed recipient. Atheists take note: it doesn’t
matter if no one’s listening. Give it an embarrassing (or
even an ironic) go. What’s the worst that can happen?
Edward Clarke certainly knows and remembers the
function of the Psalms. He has even learnt to read them
in Hebrew, a language he has described as a ‘compacted,
gnarly language of the desert, fit for meaningful
conversation with a shepherd’. He hasn’t done this to tell
us about God, but to advertise the state of his twenty-
first century self, placed as it is within the ‘eternal
silence of these infinite spaces’, as Blaise Pascal wrote.
There’s play and gravitas in equal measure, Clarke
being both weighed down with it all, and flying
away with the spoils. His preface tells us that ‘These
poems are not translations or versifications [of the
Psalms]. They are conversations with, and hesitations
about, these ancient texts.’ It is a gift to us, and an
encouragement too to do likewise – that is, to write our
own psalms.
So, what does Clarke make of Psalm 8? A Book of
Psalms is technically brilliant, ingenious, witty and
decorous, so his Psalm 8 does not disappoint. In fact, it
is amazingly apposite to the scale of the task involved
in putting psalms at the heart of our religious identity.
These psalms are not songs of protest but, as Clarke
said in a recent webinar, an attempt ‘to get to the
16 the Friend 8 January 2021metaphysical heart of our problems rather than protest’. were important, after all. I could respond to that
Things are pretty much broken, and yet they can break Quaker challenge that haunts all who write, and who
free for us, even now: minister: ‘What canst thou say?’ In this spirit too, Clarke
engages each of the Psalms in turn, giving them titles
And yet the things which we have heard and unique poetical forms, which will remind you of
Run out as broken vessels the ingenuity of George Herbert, or of Thomas Hardy.
Upon forgotten missals These are not casual or earnest effusions (psalms, not
Under our feet: they break like schemes of rhyme spasms!), but well-wrought and hard-earned raids on
Through layers of verses to flower in the word. the inarticulate, as TS Eliot’s ‘East Coker’ will have it.
Their meaning’s dense inside us, folded up What does Clarke make of Psalm 56, dare I ask? I
Like cloth of starlight at the end of time, read it, and I marvel at its response to that remaining
In beaks of birds, in case we let it slip. ‘rumour of God’ which troubles our universe. As
Clarke writes in his wonderful poetry manifesto, The
OK. I need a moment. This is a lucid and layered Vagabond Spirit of Poetry: ‘Poetry matters. It is of
offering – see how the ‘word’ is ‘heard’ still across central importance to our culture and we endanger
space and time, even though the ‘missals’ have failed ourselves when we forget that. No other art form brings
us. ‘Time’ is perfected in a back messages from the silence that is at the heart of
‘If you believe ‘rhyme’, and the memory our being by using the half-material something that
of birdsong won’t let us go, makes us human.’ Edward Clarke’s Psalm 56 is a real
that God is even beneath the terrifying showstopper, as a great poem must be – it carries
a God-built- silence of the starlit spaces – us with it into a parallel (circumscribing?) time-free
with-words, a sculpted pebble, or an ark dimension. We’re no longer telling time-bound tales,
(a ‘vessel’) dropped into a we’re free as birds:
always was and gathered silence.
ever shall be Some years ago, I was on The Dove
a ‘Poetry & Prayer’ retreat Of David
(and that this at Ripon College, at which
recognition it was suggested that psalms The silent dove of distant places
occupy a kind of middle Alights upon a mast,
does not ground – not exactly lyric Is swayed into the dawn upon
spell God’s poetry, but poetry which A melody we’ve lost:
addresses an ‘other’ of some The sight of her is like a fresh petition
redundancy), kind. While enthralled Inside a song of commonplace expressions.
then Clarke’s by the divine poetry that
was served up, we were all She is that song’s unspoken word,
psalter may be struggling to put pen to The gesture of assent,
a life-enhancing paper and make our own Which makes assurances of faith
supplement to offerings. It’s that sense of Of petition and complaint:
presumption, isn’t it? Look The consonant that went again and plucked
your ordinary at the giants who have gone The flitting vowel in her imperial beak.
devotions, and before; who am I to raise my
voice in footling song? And And if you send her out once more,
a goad too for religious people, isn’t this She’ll only reappear
to your own altogether exacerbated, too? When there is no more sea at last
What, should I compete with And doves are here and there:
religious self- scripture, with the song of It is the Spirit that moved upon the deep
expression.’ creation in Genesis, with the That makes this window through which it might escape.
whirlwind-consciousness
of the Book of Job, with ‘Yea, though I walk’ and with If you believe that God is a God-built-with-words,
‘Take no thought for the morrow’? Surely not. always was and ever shall be (and that this recognition
I was reminded of that retreat this morning as I does not spell God’s redundancy), then Clarke’s psalter
read Psalm 56 (prompted by the Church of England may be a life-enhancing supplement to your ordinary
Common Worship Lectionary). I did eventually get up devotions, and a goad too to your own religious self-
a poem, it turned out, and it was ‘out of ’ this very Psalm expression. Clarke should have the last word, also from
56. These are Coverdale’s lines that inspired me to speak The Vagabond Spirit of Poetry, and, as if in self-fulfilling
up: ‘Thou tellest my flittings; put my tears into thy prophecy, ‘Poets dispose words, in lines that make you
bottle: are not these things noted in thy book?’ pause at their ends, to help you lose yourself to find that
Suddenly, I was able once more to ‘take God out of greater self that reposes within.’ n
the dictionary’ and ‘listen for God’s breathlessness’ in
a poem called ‘The Scholar at Cuddesdon’. My flittings Jonathan is from Totnes Meeting.
the Friend 8 January 2021 17Friends&Meetings
Births Ursula WATTS (née Ward)
Currently closed
The Penn Club
8 December. Peacefully at Hartrigg
Tara Sian GHOLAP 14 December. Oaks, York. Widow of Joshua, mother Due to recent Covid rules
Daughter to Rajit and Rachael of Sarah, Jane and Christopher. Central, quiet location,
Gholap (née Harrison) of Friends Member of Acomb Meeting, formerly convenient for Friends House,
House Local Meeting, formerly Ross-on-Wye and Gloucester. British Museum and transport.
Aged 94. Memorial Meeting to be Comfortable rooms tastefully
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Deaths Diary
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