2009 > > August

Avoiding Fundamentalism: A Quaker View

Roy H W Johnston

This was published in the July-August 2008 issue of Humanism Ireland, arising from some questions raised in discussion at earlier meetings of the Humanists attended by the author.

I welcome the publication of Humanism Ireland. I was a member of the earlier all-Ireland Humanist movement in the 1960s, and observed with regret how it was wrecked by the tensions of the ‘troubles’. I subsequently joined the Quakers, feeling the need for a community with shared philosophy, and I found much common Humanist ground. There is need to develop this common ground, and to explore the essentials of the positive aspects of the Christian message, which to my mind the Quakers over the centuries have succeeded in doing, in a mode which is basically Humanist.

In my philosophy, God has a mode of existence, as a force to be reckoned with outside of us, because of a shared belief, among many people in the community, in a common aspiration to perfection, which belief influences human actions. This I suggest is basically a Humanist mode of belief. In other words, I joined a community in whose (Humanist) God I can believe. This I am convinced is basically the same as the early Quaker rejection of Church and State as it emerged in the context of the English republic in the 1640s.

It can perhaps be argued that the ‘Trinity’ emerges naturally in the context of a ‘Humanist theology’ in the form of:

  1. the mystery of the origins of the Universe, as embodied in the precision of the values of the basic physical constants which underpin the complex chemistry of carbon which makes life possible;
  2. the teachings of Jesus, immortalised by the metaphoric Resurrection, still living in the minds of those who follow them;
  3. the collective aspiration to perfection in the minds of the community, which by common consent exercises positive influence on human behaviour.

Thus we have, in effect, a Humanist interpretation of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

There is thus much common ground between Humanists and Quakers, and some comparative analysis of the nature of beliefs and practices in the two communities is long overdue. There are also perhaps many parallels between Humanists and the 17th century Seekers who rejected official religion, and from whom the Quakers evolved.

In the current context, the key area needing to be developed is ‘all-Ireland thinking and networking’ and I see many positive starting-points for this. I suggest however that an important area to be avoided is any superior atheistic disparaging of Catholicism or Protestantism. Similarly, blind support for Dawkins is another problem area; he is somewhat of a ‘fundamentalist’ atheist, and to my mind he does as much harm to Humanism as Christian fundamentalists do to the Christian message.

It is important to make the case for total separation of education from religions sects; although there are Quaker schools, these are part of the historic legacy. Quakers however currently tend to support their local schools where they can. Schools should be integrated and serve the local community, under local government control; the VEC (Vocational Education Ccommittee) Community Colleges are the makings of a good model, and the tentative move of the VEC into primary education is to be welcomed.

(I should mention in passing that Quaker schools have tended to be broad-based and inclusive; their evolution into elitist fee-paying mode is a consequence of the historical background, and many Quakers are uncomfortable with the current situation, including the present writer, who had long been advocating the VEC model.)

Critical analysis of Sinn Fein is needed; they need to be reminded pointedly of the Protestant and Dissenting roots of the Republican tradition, and indeed of Tom Paine’s Humanist background. The problem is how to decouple Republican politics from the ‘Catholic Nationalist’ tradition. If they were to do this they would perhaps attract, in political mode, the many dropouts from various religions who question Church-State relations, and who evolve philosophically towards Quakerism or Humanism. After all, were not the early Quakers the ‘anarchist fringe’ of the English republican movement?

The problem of how to introduce geological time-scales and evolution to biblical fundamentalists is indeed difficult, and will depend on long-term reform of the education system, and good science teaching.

Ann James in the first issue gave a good overview of the church-state situation. On the meeting with the Dublin Government she indicated that the Humanist position paper was published; this could be a useful starting-point document for a critical political approach to church-state relations. The Quaker meeting with the Government has been internally minuted but not published. It would be interesting also to explore here the common ground.

The ‘intelligent design’ issue, I suggest, needs to be addressed by means other than ridicule and polemic. The negative ‘atheism’ concept needs to be dropped; after all there are a variety of modes of existence and of belief. What is the nature of ‘existence’ of ‘virtual reality’?

Biblical criticism, I suggest, needs to be approached in the spirit of understanding the Bible as an evolutionary document, dealing with the changing nature of human perceptions of total reality. By ‘total’ I mean not just the physical world, but also the socio-cultural world, in which belief-systems exist and influence human behaviour.

Critical analysis of various religions bodies such as the Iona Institute are welcome. But please spare us abrasive ridicule of trans-substantiation, holy water and the other Catholic rituals, many of which are de facto metaphoric; the many who have dropped out from literal belief in them will not have their crypto-humanism enhanced, and those who have not dropped out will simply be antagonised.

To conclude, I welcome the new all-Ireland Humanist journal, and look forward to it contributing a constructive approach to the development of an inclusive all-Ireland cultural space in which the philosophies of the Enlightenment will be able to thrive, and the traditional theologies to adapt to modernity.

From Experience, What Can I Say?

Helen Haughton, Churchtown Meeting

Public Lecture, delivered at Ireland Yearly Meeting, April 22, 2006

In choosing what I wanted to say this evening, I am returning to an important early event in Quakerism.

On one occasion, George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, attended a church service at which he was permitted to speak from the pulpit. He pointed out that the prophets, including Jesus, and his apostles, spoke from what they understood God to be saying to them, – not from readings or from the scriptures. This spiritual individualism and the acceptance of diversity, is at the core of Quakerism. So, from my experience, what can I say?

I want to examine a few lives, and what they said, and how they have influenced what I can say.

The Book of Ecclesiastes is categorised as a Book of Wisdom. Such books were popular in Egypt about 1000B.C., and it appears to have a link with these. The beginning of Ecclesiastes seems to indicate that it was written by Solomon. Let me read this to you:-

“The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. I, the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all that are done under heaven; this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith.”

Much of the book could have been plagiarised from another book of wisdom and the attribution to Solomon could merely be what we would call an advertising stunt. Whatever the authorship, I find this book grips me, – as it reflects the thinking of 3000 years ago. It is largely a secular book, with only occasional references to God or things spiritual. It is full of excellent advise for living a good and honest life based on the work ethic and duty to the family and society. Some examples are:-

“Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.
Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry, for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.
A good name is better than precious ointment.
He that loveth silver will not be satisfied with silver.
The righteous and the wise,- their works are in the hand of God.”

A major theme running through the book, which only has 12 chapters, is the meaninglessness of life. The preacher reviews his life and all he has done, – “the works that my hands had wrought and the labour that I had laboured to do, and behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit and there was no profit under the sun.” If this is Solomon’s writing, we must remember how much effort he put into the building of the Temple, not to mention his other achievements, – bringing a peaceful time to his country so that it could develop economically; the admiration of his wisdom by so many leaders throughout the Middle East, so that they visited him for advice. Indeed to this day, we speak of the wisdom of Solomon.

Throughout the book, the lack of meaning is repeated many times. Initially, the Preacher asks, “What profit hath a man for all his labour? One generation passeth away and another generation cometh. All things are full of labour, man cannot utter it, I have seen all the works that are done under the sun and they are vanity and vexation of spirit “For in much wisdom is much grief.” For a time, he turns to pleasure, but this is no different, and he writes, “I builded houses. I planted vineyards. I made me gardens and orchards and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruits; I made me pools of water. I had great possessions I gathered me also silver and gold.. So I was great and increased more that any man before me in Jerusalem, and also my wisdom remained with me.” all was vanity “Therefore I hated life. Therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair.”

When the word “vanity” is used, I take it to mean two possible things. Firstly, that pride in one’s work is unjustified. We should be humble. Secondly, that the work is of no importance or meaning because it has no lasting relevance.

There is another aspect to this book that I find fascinating, and this is the insertion of poetic passages. David was a poet, but what Solomon writes is very different from the Psalms.

The most famous passage is this one, which I will read in part:-

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven;
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill and a time to heal; a time to break down and a time to build up;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace;”

By Chapter 12, the book is reaching conclusions, and there is a lovely piece:-

“Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days are come not, nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; When the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain… Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return to God who gave it.”

There is finally a sort of addendum to the book. It says:-

“Moreover, because the Preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge; yea he gave good head and sought out and set in order many proverbs; The Preacher sought to find acceptable words, and that which was written was upright, even words of truth;..And further by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter; Fear God and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgement, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.”

I always feel a sense of sadness from Ecclesiastes. Perhaps the melancholy of ageing pervades the Book. There is plenty to urge steady living, but the thread of uselessness rather than purpose weaves through it.

If it is written by Solomon, it is the work of a man of high intelligence, …yet a man who, as he ages, is troubled by uncertainties, and tries hard to cling to basic principles. He sees work as oppressive and yet claims it should be done with enthusiasm; .we should enjoy life and be thankful for all its benefits. Clearly he believed in God, but what attributes did he place on God? I find judgement of man’s behaviour high on the list. The Commandments and obedience to them are primary, but also he insists on the value of wisdom in all things. Men and women must ponder on the meaning of their lives, and do good rather than evil He himself worked so hard, and yet found no satisfaction, – the elixer of life had somehow eluded him.

What is the missing piece in all this? Well, perhaps we can compare this book of wisdom to the life and thought of a man who followed 1000 years later.

This man was also born in Palestine; the eldest son of a carpenter; and lived most of his life in Nazareth. Although there are some charming stories about the birth of Jesus, I want to focus on his visit to Solomon’s Temple in his teens for the ceremony of Bar Mitza.

Imagine the family scene… the excitement. You may be sure the younger children were mad with envy. Maybe the boys would have their turn in due course, but what about the girls? I expect there were preparations for some weeks. Who was going to look after the children during the absence of Mary and Joseph? Did Mary’s mother live with them?

Anyway the big day arrives and they set off, together with a number of together families with their youngsters. They arrive at the capital city, surrounded by high walls, and only a few gates for entry…and inside,- ..oh my, ..such a jostle of humanity as you never saw in Nazareth,.. And then the Temple. It was visible from some distance, but now coming into it was staggering. The boys would have been quite overcome and awestruck by its size, its majesty, its beauty. In this place of wonder and sacredness, the traditional rites would have been performed, and been deeply moving. I can imagine the sense of dedication and commitment that the boys would have experienced that day.

Then, it seems, Jesus observed the groups of men, perhaps Rabbis, sitting discussing, and he went to sit with them. Maybe they were discussing some of the things Jesus had spoken with his father about …things Joseph could not explain, but they had shared. Now, Jesus was with experts, and could hope to learn and get answers. He realises that the Jewish religion encourages debate and argument, and the intellectual excitement of this to a bright young man is irresistible… He is enthralled.

So, when his parents and friends all set off for home, Jesus cannot tear himself away from the debate. I believe this to be one of the crucial moments of his development.

We are told in St.Luke’s Gospel that Mary and Joseph spent 3 days looking for Jesus. Just imagine their worry… their eldest son disappearing in a city with the usual mixture of desirable and undesirable elements, including foreign soldiers. Eventually they find him – I quote: “in the Temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions”. They were amazed, and his mother said,”Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing?” Now listen to his answer, “How is it ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my father’s business?” Well, well… The parents were left speechless. ..How typical of a teenager… totally uncaring about adults… they seem to live in a world of their own. No sign of sainthood here.

When Jesus refers to his father’s business, is it possible that he is referring to those discussions with Joseph? Anyway, he returned home a different person, leaving childhood behind him, and with much on his mind.

The next we hear of him is when he is adult, and visits his cousin John, who is baptising people at the river Jordan. This too seems to have been a seminal moment.

I have often pondered on this event, and have an unprovable theory that Joseph had just recently died. Jesus loved his father dearly, and even called God Father. We presume he worked alongside him in the carpentry business until then, though there are references to him preaching regularly in the synagogues. In his distress at the death, he may have wanted to get away by himself to think and pray and seek the way forward. Was his future to remain in the family business or not? What better was there than to visit John and listen to his message,…and then go into the wilderness to work it through for himself. Did he have a calling? If so, what was his message? Was this the time to go ahead? What kind of power was involved. The temptations all centre around power. Possibly he already knew he could heal people, which is a kind of power, but what about secular power? He rejects this and returns to Gallilee “in the power of the spirit.”

So, what was the message that this young man felt entrusted to deliver?

Firstly, let’s compare his experience to that of the Preacher. One is born to high office and was chosen to be king of his nation. Thus, he forges a lonely furrow. The other is an ordinary man, brought up in an unusually loving family of conventional Jews, and remained a Jew throughout his life and death. He is a very sociable person, and chooses intimate friends to be with him during his ministry.

Both men had a message for their time. One ends his days in disillusionment, and the other becomes more and more spiritual as time passes, being faithful to his vision of a loving and caring nature to which man is called,..right up to his horrific death.

What an amazing difference.

Whether due to the loving background and his close relationship and bonding with both his mother and his father, Jesus focuses on one topic throughout his life and preaching, – the topic of loving, and in this he sees the outpouring of the spirit in all our lives. It is through loving that God speaks to us and it is through loving we must dedicate our lives to others. This brought Jesus at times up against the formality of the Jewish tradition. He challenged this on a number of issues, including his belief in the equality of women before God. I visualise the shock of the apostles when Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well. This woman was an outsider, and a wrong-doer, butJesus can turn the conversation from the sexual and worldly to the spiritual domain, using his awareness that she is deeply troubled and wants to change. Their brief encounter demonstrates Jesus’ interest and commitment to every person, whatever their history, and the implication that there is no time when we cannot respond to the best in our nature.

There are so many examples of Jesus’ loving spirit in the Gospel stories . He was a master of story-telling. He had the power of healing. He lived simply, and remained a modest person in spite of the adulation of crowds. His preaching speaks as clearly to us now after 2000 years as it ever did. His life changed the world. What more can one say, except that his message of loving has not been followed even by those who have studied his life, and all Christians must hang their heads in shame at the evils perpetrated in his name.

I move to the 17th century. By this time, reading the Bible in English was possible. However, the Christian churches had formalised their structures and services to such an extent that it was not only men like George Fox that found them unacceptable. He saw the central message of Jesus had been lost, – smothered by ritualism and orthodoxy. He had the courage to challenge the establishment, and to place the teachings of Jesus in a central position. He reaffirmed the equality of men and women, which amazes me when I think of the society in which he lived. He knew the Bible intimately, but still could ask that vital question, “What canst thou say?”, implying that each one of us needs to allow time to work out our own philosophy.

Fox introduced the practise of meeting together in silence… “Be still and know that I am God.” …which I find so powerful, especially in a world of rush and bustle and noise. There are other innovations in Quakerism which particularly appeal to me. One of these is the Queries, which are read to us each month. Let us try one of them… No 6:

“Do you cherish an understanding and forgiving spirit? Do you avoid unkind gossip and the spreading of rumour? Do you avoid damaging the reputation of others? Do you cultivate an appreciation of each individual’s worth?”

George Fox also reminded us that war, and violence generally, was against the very core of the teaching of Jesus How can one love and fight at the same time? This must have been an astonishing statement during England’s Civil War, but clearly resonated with many people,- some of whom left Cromwell’s army as a result. A few of them settled in Ireland.

The three main testimonies also are a help. They are to peace, simplicity and integrity. Similarly, I love the General Christian Counsel, which ends with a famous quote from the Elders of Balby, written in 1656: “Dearly beloved Friends, these things we do not lay upon you as a rule or form to walk by, but that all, with the measure of Light which is pure and holy, may be guided, and so, in the light walking and abiding, these may be fulfilled in the Spirit, not from the letter, for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.”

The Golden Rule, “Do as you would be done by” has influenced Quaker action over the centuries. The custom of slavery was seen as evil. Later, the care of the mentally disturbed developed, and later still, prison reform. All these aspects of Quakerism have affected my thinking, and indeed my actions and work experience.

This brings me to the last section of my talk… From my experience, what can I say? A little history is necessary.

I was born in Belfast, but spent my early years in India, where my father worked in the Geological Survey of India. By 1939, I was back in London, where my maternal grandmother had gone to live. I was brought up in the Anglican Communion, although my sister and I attended a Roman Catholic convent during WW2, when we were evacuated to Carlisle.

Here I have to acknowledge my indebtedness to the Church of England. When in Carlisle we went weekly to the Cathedral. Firstly, it is a wonderful building, made of soft yellow and pink sandstone, which introduced me to the beauty of architecture. Secondly, the magnificent singing stays with me, and I still listen to Songs of Praise on television, ..and, thirdly, the exquisite language of Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer is a continuing source of delight.

During my school years I was lucky to have English teachers who opened my mind to poetry, and with this the whole realm of that other world of imagination, and creativity. At some stage I read “The Hound of Heaven”, by Francis Thompson. This shook me.

The hound is, of course, God.

“I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind, and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter,
Up vistad hopes, I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic gloom of chasmed fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.

But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat, and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet,
“All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.”

I move to the end:

“Halts by me that footfall:
Is my gloom after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?
“Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He Whom thou seekest!”

After the War, I went to a boarding school near Hastings, run by Anglican nuns. Religious Education was taken by Sister Helen, whom we all loved dearly. Among other things, she introduced us to the poetry of the psalms. I have many favourites:-

“The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart…

Or, again, Psalm 27:

The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?

Or No.19:

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showed his handiwork.

A few of us seniors were allowed occasionally to attend Nones on Sunday evenings. This is the final office of the day. The nuns would file into the chapel, and , in the hush of evening, would intone the office, often using plainsong. One of the psalms was no.91:

“He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High, shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God, in Him will I trust.
Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.
He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust; his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.
Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the destruction that wasteth at the noon-day.”

and so, feeling secure and at peace, off we went to bed.

You may have noticed that I use the word God, as Jesus used Father. Some use “Lord”, others “The Light”, or “the Spirit”. There is no word that resolves this issue. For me, there is an all-pervading presence that I cannot attempt to describe, but has me in awe. I look at a flower, at a child growing, the complexity and beauty of many things, and I learn about creation. Perhaps there was a Big Bang, but for me that is no explanation for the development of our world, either physical or spiritual, and does not go nearly far enough in exploring that extra dimension that has been apprehended by man since time began.

In my teens and later, I spent many of my holidays with my aunt in Tipperary. She was to have a lasting impact on my life. My father’s sister, Livie, married a farmer in 1918, and became deeply involved in rural development. With her friend, Muriel Gahan, and others, the Irish Countrywomen’s Association was founded. Livie and Jack lived in a huge Georgian mansion with cold, echoing room, and few comforts. When there, I had to go to the weekly meetings of the local branch of the I.C.A. There I learnt Irish dancing, how to make soda bread, to arrange and name wild flowers, sing Percy French ,act in short plays, and so on.

Livie worked tirelessly for the needs of country women. Including rural electrification, and water supply schemes. She persuaded the government that women needed chiropody and blind services, somewhere to learn about poultry management, horticulture, and handicrafts. She finally got the Kellogg Foundation to buy An Grianan for the I.C.A.

But Livie was far more than this. She was a dedicated member of the Church of Ireland in Fethard, where she played the organ, chose the hymns, and sang them with verve. She read the Bible frequently. She had no hesitation in objecting to the very institutionalised Catholic Church of her time. Thus, I was made aware of the Mother and Child scandal, the Fethard-on-sea school fiasco, the barring of Catholics from Trinity, and from Protestant churches. Sadly, to the day she died, in her 90’s, Livie remained anti-Catholic Church,.. being unable to accept the changes since Vatican 2. Her influence on me was to act, and not to wait for others to do so.

So, I came through my teens a predictable and straightforward member of the Church of Ireland, but this changed when I went to College. Here I began to challenge all I had been taught, and to analyse the need for half of the doctrines I had learnt. I will list just a couple of these:-

Firstly, the Virgin birth seemed to me irrelevant and unlikely, together with the myths and legends that have accrued around Jesus’ birth, even though they are charming and give great pleasure.

Secondly, did Jesus see himself as God, or sent by God, and representing the spirit of God?

I hope I have not upset too many of you in stating these things bluntly, because I am aware that for many millions of people around the world these beliefs are immensely important, and I would not wish to damage their certainties. I can only speak for myself, and not for Quakers generally.

In my twenties, I married, and had 4 children in hot succession. At that time, I saw my life as a dark tunnel of daily toil.

One June Bank Holiday, we went to Brittas Bay,- a glorious sunny day, and the children had a wonderful time running up and down the sand hills and splashing in the sea. After a picnic lunch, I stayed with the youngest, who fell asleep. I had an experience which sounds banal, but had, for me, a transcendent quality and changed me for good. I heard a question in my head saying, “when will you start enjoying your 4 lovely children?” I never looked back.

Where did that voice come from? I don’t know, but I realise that probably in everyone’s lives there are such moments. There are private experiences that maybe they cannot share, but have an inner meaning and significance .I think this is why I chose this topic for tonight’s talk. We need to treasure and reflect on such moments of revelation, and see them as opportunities to do things differently.

Another occasion was when my mother was dying, I had arranged to leave work early, so I could visit her. This particular day, she had received a card from my eldest sister in England, and I read it to her again. Soon my sister Anne arrived, with whom she lived, so that in a way, all three of us were with her. She was settled for the night, and we left the room. As I shut the door, she waved a frail hand from the bed. She died that night. For me, it was as if she knew she was leaving, and was saying goodbye. Again, one can give many explanations, but I think she knew something other-worldly and comforting, and was content to go.

Some years earlier, I had taught in Rathgar Junior School. I was struck by the great differences between children’s ability to learn. So I went to UCD to study psychology. I learnt there to understand and appreciate the burden that many carry, not only in childhood but on into adultcy. The experiences that rumble in the mind and take up energy are almost always linked with relationships: Do our parents love us? Will we be abandoned? Can we trust our parents? Are we lovable? How much harm, both physical, verbal, and sexual do some carry? In contrast, how much love, protection, happiness, and sharing have we had in our family life?

This brings me back to the Samaritan Woman at the well. She needed healing, and a new chance. She found someone who talked to her as a person worthy of respect, and this gave her the courage to change.

As we know, many of the young people in our society who have not had the benefits of a happy family life, get into trouble with the law, and find themselves in prison. They have done something wrong which society cannot tolerate. We have all done something wrong, so it is a matter of degree.

In our society we have a number of paradoxes. It is seen as the height of evil to commit murder, and yet we train soldiers to do just that. Clearly soldiers do other things than kill, but equally murderers do other things than kill. In fact they rarely kill more than once, which cannot be said of soldiers. Many times, when talking to murderers, I have realised that I too would have killed had I been in their shoes. There is so much pressure each of us can take before we reach breaking point.

In prison, I have found so many lives blighted and shrivelled by their experiences, be it with alcohol, or drug abuse, family violence, or all of these issues. And yet, these same people, given a chance, can start growing,.. and blossom. However, they need this chance, and I find myself campaigning for the better training of prison officers, and the change from custodial sentencing to Restorative Justice conferencing.

The current attitude is that those who have done wrong must pay the price. If I do wrong, I want someone to listen to me, and to help me return from the misery of it,- as Jesus did at the well. I would want the opportunity to say sorry, to acknowledge my errors, and the hurt I have done to individuals and society. Restorative Justice methods integrate these ideas and attempt to bring healing to both victim and offender.

In conclusion, what am I saying? What has my experience taught me?

Solomon’s remarkable life shows me what one does may be more valuable than you may think at the time. Duty is certainly important, and the Commandments are a useful guide line, but there is no need to feel oppressed by a critical and vengeful God. Solomon was right in emphasising that work should be enjoyable, and done with a happy heart.

Secondly, the wonderful freshness of Jesus’ message of love, mercy, understanding and caring still fills me with joy and happiness. His regard for each person as valuable is hugely important to me. Thirdly, George Fox speaks to me about the courage needed to stand up against accepted norms… when necessary… and to find new ways of doing things. This I saw demonstrated in a contemporary setting in the life of my aunt.

Finally, I am left with a conviction that the unseen forces of spirituality are ultimately what we all seek and need to strengthen us in our daily lives. This I can come to know only if I am still and open and receptive.

From your experience, what can you say?

Reflections on a Home-coming

Doreen E Dowd

Address to Ministry and Oversight at Yearly Meeting, 2005

Good Evening, Friends;

For those of you who do not know me, I am a life-long member of Ireland Yearly Meeting, Dublin Monthly Meeting and attend Eustace St. Meeting. In 1992 I left my job as a respiratory physician in Dublin, and went to work in a Salvation Army hospital in Zambia. My work permit described me as a missionary. In 1998 I moved to Lesotho, which is a tiny mountainous kingdom, completely land-locked by the Republic of South Africa, and worked for six years as the Flying Doctor. I was officially a civil servant, but as I was flown several times a week to various remote mountain clinics by the pilots of Mission Aviation Fellowship, I was close to the missionary community in that country.

I have been asked to describe my reactions on returning to retirement in Ireland, in May 2004, both to society at large and to the Religious Society which has always been my spiritual home.

Having visited Ireland at roughly two year intervals, I had had sequential views of the progress of the Celtic Tiger. Last year, I found a very affluent society, where one cup of coffee and a bun cost more than two people would pay for hamburger, chips, salad and coffee in Lesotho. But direct price comparisons are unrealistic when Lesotho had so many people unemployed, struggling to live on maize grown in a rocky field, and to find money from haphazard employment to clothe the children, and perhaps send them to school.

Another feature of Irish society is of course corruption. Some of the Basotho used to say to me “but we far too corrupt to make democratic government work in our country”, whereupon I would show them the Irish Times, sent to me once a week by a benefactor, and tell them that if they wanted the post-graduate course in corruption, the Republic of Ireland would be a good place to apply! Here in Dublin, when my bungalow needed some repairs, I discovered too late the significance of the words “This is the price for cash” prefacing verbal quotations from tradesmen. It might have been a better witness to Quaker integrity if I had challenged them, but at the time I genuinely did not realise the implication.

I discovered on previous trips home that a quick way to catch up on the “vibes” of local culture is to watch TV. Many programmes were devoted to “make-overs”, in which gurus offered to upgrade your garden, your house, your wardrobe, even your sexual prowess. Everyone wants the “Good Life” With a disturbed sleep pattern, I found myself channel hopping, at odd hours of day and night; and it was an eye-opener. Sexual innuendo no longer amuses, because terminology is so explicit. Four-in-a -bed sex, with any blend of genders, is not difficult to stumble across. Then I wondered whether TV was a true mirror of living society, but two incidents persuade me that it is not far from reality.

My octogenarian aunt, rather a prude, enquired for her grand-nephew, and asked, not whether he has a girl-friend, but whether he has a partner. A much broader view of Irish society is presumably given by our Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, who caused some stir when she commented on “…the vulgar fest that is modern Ireland. The rampant, unrestrained drunkenness, the brutal random violence, that infects the smallest of our townlands and villages, the incontinent use of foul language with no thought to place or company, the obscene parading of obscene wealth, the debasement of our civic life, the growing disdain of the wealthy towards the poor,…”. Later she suggests that we “…recognise the new religions of sex and drink and shopping for what they are and tiptoed back to the churches..”.

Many Friends of the older generations may continue to live in an ordered society, where work, family, hobbies, Sunday Meeting, and perhaps Monthly Meeting, and often considerable good works, make for a civilised life-style, but our younger Friends are exposed to a very different world, and it behoves us all to be aware of the world that we live in. We know William Penn’s . “True Godliness don’t turn men out of the world but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavours to mend it” But what about the next sentence: “Christians should keep the helm and guide the vessel to its port; not meanly steal out at the stern of the world and leave those that are in it without a pilot to be driven by the fury of evil times upon the rock or sand of ruin.” Is that now politically incorrect? Are we older Friends living in the present world, or in earlier, safer times?

I do not want to suggest that Irish society is all bad. There is a refreshing openness. Despite episodes of racism we have welcomed many non-nationals into our communities; social mobility and education is available for most of those with ambitions, awesome medical technology is available despite problems in the health services, and we still expect to live peacefully and well. The generous donations to victims of the tidal wave in SE Asia show that we can still have compassion. Concern for the environment is blossoming.

And what of our Religious Society in Ireland? When I received a letter asking me to talk about my reactions to returning to Irish Quakerism, I was quite surprised by my own thought when the word that came into my head was “lonely”. Let me try to explain by describing a few details of my recent life, particularly in Lesotho.

Every working day, I joined the pilots of MAF in a short devotion, to ask God’s blessing on the activities of the coming day. We were all comfortable to speak of Jesus as “Saviour”, but none of us saw ourselves as evangelists. We “knew each other in the things that are eternal”, believing in personal salvation, divine guidance in daily situations, and the relevance of scripture.

However, I do not want you to think that I had found Paradise, a communion of saints united in thought, word and deed. The general attitude was to avoid discussing areas of disagreement, and these were highly practical people, some of them not greatly interested in the secular world.

As several were American , war was a very sensitive issue, even before 9/11. When a group of their supporters visited, after the Iraq war had started, I found it much better, rather than bandying Scripture verses, to ask, “”Do you think Jesus would fly a plane to bomb an Iraqi village?”

If sensitive subjects were off limits at work, the same did not apply to the Friends and attenders of Lesotho Allowed Meeting. Traditionally, the hour of silent worship was followed by “After words”, in which discussion was encouraged, on activities of the previous week, or concerns or problems. When the Meeting grew from a quartet of expatriate Friends over the age of fifty to a dozen or more, of several nationalities, of all ages, the talk was often fast and furious, with no holds barred. If your next Elders’ meeting is dragging, try to decide whether a Quaker bridegroom should be expected to pay a “lobola” or bride price for his intended, and estimate the monetary value of the traditional twenty cattle, an acceptable alternative for town dwellers!. Answer a young man’s question, “But what are you actually DOING during Meeting for Worship?”.

At the time it was all very stimulating, but it is in looking back that I sense the desperation of people in their twenties and thirties, some of them too poor to eat properly, conscious that many of their friends had died or were infected with AIDS, possibly worrying whether they themselves were infected. Western style advertising and access to the Internet made them aware of the Good Life, as expressed in material possessions, and often associated with the supposedly Christian First World, but they were also aware of the corruption and power struggles that were ruining many of the local churches.

Ireland Yearly Meeting loves to boast of its diversity, but Central and Southern Africa Yearly Meeting spans at least as broad a spectrum of outlook, and are much more articulate about their diversity. During YM 2004, a Friend rose, reminded us that it was Easter Sunday, and continued, “Christ is Risen”, to which many in the Meeting responded, “Christ is Risen indeed”, while the rest of the Friends kept silent. Another Friend asked in a Worship Sharing group, “But what do you mean by “Grace”?” Another is a practising Buddhist. As far as I could determine, Friends were not just willing but eager to share their spiritual experiences and values.

So what of Ireland Yearly Meeting?

It seems that the administration of our Society is suffering badly in several parts of the country. This may in part be to the ridiculous, archaic bureaucracy that has not moved with the times, also to changing demography, so that people have less time for committees and business meetings: but I think too that we have devalued such activities, seeing them as a boring necessity rather than an avenue of divine service.

What of our local Meetings? Why do most have a static or decreasing membership? I suggest it is in part due to our failure to present a clear message about who we are. I can imagine that a stranger coming amongst us might wonder whether there is a secret pass-word that would unlock a clear and articulate description of why we do the things we do. And when we do venture into words, we assume that everyone else will understand our meaning..

If all the newspaper articles that were written about our 350 year celebrations were analysed, would any clear picture emerge? If it did, I suspect it might be a picture of absences, if such is possible, rather than a positive image. We do not have a creed, no liturgy, no paid clergy, no consecrated church buildings. While much was said about our contributions to Irish industry and business, our stance on non-violence, our emphasis on integrity, I felt that there was little explanation of the reasons why or how we have reached these values. And if somebody had pursued such enquiry in different Meetings, I suspect they might have been confused by the diversity of answers.

Since coming back to Dublin I have joined in some discussions about the revision of our Book of Christian Experience, and gather that the Friends who form the committee of revision have had much deep exchange of ideas, but there are many of my contemporaries, Friends I have known since we were all Young Friends, who are as closed books to me. I have no idea what they really think about Jesus, about this life or the next. It was very interesting to read in the Friendly Word of one Friend’s willingness to spell out his beliefs; and although some of his ideas are not my ideas, yet I was grateful for his honesty and openness. If my memory is correct, we were advised at a past Yearly Meeting to “be more articulate about our faith”, but have we heeded this advice?

Friends who do try to express their beliefs assume that their language is quite clear to anyone who speaks English, but some comments I have heard about the revision of “Christian Experience” illustrate how false this is. I am told that one Friend announced that only those who were “Christians” should be allowed to participate. I suspect that Friend had a very clear definition of what he or she means by “a Christian”, but needs to be reminded that the name of Christian is claimed by a vast spectrum of believers, from George Bush to Mother Teresa, from Greek Orthodox to Closed Brethren. I have also heard a suggestion that the word “Christian” be dropped from the title, and be replaced with a term such as “spiritual”. Is there a risk that each Meeting will develop its own outlook, and as Darwin found that each of the Galapagos islands had its own sub-group of finch, so Irish Friends will become so diverse that dialogue is impossible, and it would take an anthropologist to discern their common ancestry? A younger Friend commented to me that Young Friends from different parts of Ireland had no common terminology to describe their spiritual journeys. At least they are trying to talk to each other, while I feel older Friends have given up the attempt.

It is said that when you point the finger in accusation, three fingers are pointing back at yourself, so I am challenged to declare my position. Like George Fox, I am compelled to declare that Jesus is my Saviour, my mediator with God the Father. Because I am a sinner saved by grace, I am also part of “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that I may declare the praises of him who called me out of darkness into his wonderful light”. The Jesus, who lived in first century Palestine, was crucified and rose from the dead, is one with the Eternal cosmic Christ, and He is also the light that lighteth every person who comes into the world. I realise that I am fortunate in being able to accept a traditional faith quite easily, but, I hope, not facilely.

Incidentally, could I also make a plea that we stop using the phrase, “Northern Friends”, to describe those who share my understanding of the role of Christ. It is not geographically truthful!

This is the only interpretation of the role of Christ that makes sense to me, but I am well aware that there is controversy in many Christian denominations about the divinity and/or humanity of Jesus, and the meaning of the Cross. I believe we need to spend more time considering what was the message of Jesus, whether as mystical prophet, social reformer, ethical teacher, or Saviour of the world..

I have said that there is controversy in almost every denomination. However, I suspect that Friends have a particular difficulty, in that we have become very hazy about our source of Authority. We speak, sometimes rather diffidently, of being “led by the Spirit”; however we must have sympathy for the Friend who recently outlined two very different views of a topic, and added, with some exasperation, “and both those groups claim to be led by the Spirit!”

On what do we base our Society? We trot out isolated Bible verses when it suits us. Many Friends justify our silent worship, and absence of liturgy with Christ’s words in John, 4, 24, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth” but are very uncomfortable with his claim in the next verse to be the promised Messiah. Whatever the vegetarians’ reasons for not eating pork, nobody is bothered if women come to Meeting without hats, despite 1 Corinthians 11 5! . Where is the line between a literal belief in every word, and a pick-and-choose use of Scripture? Some Friends hint at belief in reincarnation, or pantheism, or a version of universalism that is inconsistent with the Judeo-Christian scriptures.

What about George Fox? We quote “answering that of God in every man”, but some would slide rapidly over the paragraph in one of his epistles. Quote “But, I say, you are redeemed by Christ. It cost him his blood to purchase man out of this state he is in, in the Fall” End quote. Some of us will quote Fox “Christ has come to teach his people himself”, but I suspect not all Irish Friends would be willing to see themselves as Christ’s people? Others dismiss Fox as irrelevant to the 21st century.

I will not enter here into any discussion of homosexual orientation or behaviour, but this controversy is the most vivid illustration possible of our uncertainties.

What do Quaker parents say to a child who is excited by a neighbour’s winning of a large amount of money on the Lottery, or to a teenager who wants to redesign her bedroom on the principles of Feng Shui?

I am not by any means advocating a witch-hunt for heresy, but rather pleading for more open communication amongst Friends, and then by Friends to those around us. Ministry at a recent Meeting for Worship described how recollections of the gentleness and integrity of a neighbouring Quaker farmer had been partly instrumental in the speaker, many years later, joining our Society. While it is likely that our neighbours will take more notice of how we live than of what we say, this need not exclude us giving to those around us a clear declaration of faith ….if we have one. St Francis may have said, “Preach the Gospel; use words if you have to”, but his hearers were not bombarded by words, from TV and radio, corporate logos, advertising jingles. Out of our silent worship should grow a coherent, ever maturing, expression of faith, as many of the writings of early Friends bear witness.

We are told that Fox’s words were for his generation, and we must find the words for our generation, seeking to be guided by the Spirit of God, and I have much unity with that outlook, but surely, if we believe we have a divine message, we should not be so coy about declaring our convictions, nor so secretive about their source?

May I add that when I started to write down these thoughts some months ago, I did not know that the question of “Authority” would crop up in other parts of our Yearly Meeting, as I believe it will.

Another term beloved of Friends is to call ourselves “Seekers”, or “Seekers after Truth”. If we mean that the nature of God is beyond our understanding, and that many of our questions will be answered only when we get to heaven, then, like Job, I have no difficulty with this term. However, if I have to face serious illness, or major decisions in life, or to-morrow morning, I want to feel I am stepping into this new situation with a faith that will sustain me. To use a metaphor from my previous career, my patients wanted to be told, “reliable authorities say that this will work, and it is for you to try it for yourself” Better still if I could say “I have tried this, and it works for me” rather than telling them that we are all searching!

Part of the explanation may be that Irish Friends are very respectable, serious, law-abiding, and with a few exceptions, we attract our own likeness, and indeed worship a God who is as vague and liberal as ourselves. The life stories of those attending Lesotho Allowed Meeting included murder, theft, drug dealing and prostitution, and I believe they were, consciously or otherwise, looking for “true Conversion of heart”, to quote from the Query that is so seldom read in our Meetings. It may surprise you to learn that it was Rufus Jones who pleaded for “the overwhelming sense of God, the staggering consciousness of sin, the transforming discovery of divine grace, the joyous assurance of forgiveness”.

It is now timely for me to make a statement, before anyone else does, that I am somewhat of a hypocrite! In about forty years of attending Eustace St., Meeting, I have spoken in Meeting for Worship probably less than ten times. This is partly because I have a firm conviction that to speak in Meeting is to declare that you have a message from God. But my reticence is reinforced by the realisation of how words can mislead and confuse, especially when brevity is expected. I also fear offending Friends who do not think as I do, none of which is being faithful to the Lord’s leading.

So, why am I still in Friends? Firstly, the Lord has not told me to go anywhere else, and anywhere else might not be thrilled to have me. When I went to conventional church services in Lesotho, because, PLEASE NOTE, everyone else in the Meeting had gone to Yearly Meeting, I had little sense of participation, and described it as like being at a rather boring concert. Since nobody ever handed me a Quaker creed, I have been forced to work out my faith for myself, and decide how to apply it to daily living. In this aspect, the diversity of Friends has indeed been a challenge, and I appreciate Friends who devote their abilities to considering how Gospel order relates to nuclear power, race relations, right use of the earth’s resources, and many other issues, but would like them to be more forthcoming about their motivation. And of course, there is the profound experience of a gathered Meeting for Worship.

I value the concept of the Light that lighteth everyone who comes into the world. The weary old grandmother in Lesotho caring for her grand-children orphaned by AIDS, the heroic workers in the aftermath of the tsumani, all are responding to the Light.

I like to think that Irish Quakerism could claim one of the titles George Fox used for his associates, “Primitive Christianity Revived”. At a time when the old certainties are breaking down in Ireland as least as fast as in the rest of the world, I would like to think of our Meetings as resembling the early churches. Imagine a street in Ephesus, and the neighbours collecting in one of the houses to find out why the family had changed since the two strange Jews had taught there last month. Why did they no longer go to the temple, why had they melted their silver statuettes of Diana and given the money to the leprosy-smitten beggars? Why had the son decided not to join the army? Who is their leader? Whose was the Spirit from whom they seemed to asking for direction and strength? Why were they so cheerful? What’s this stuff about not having anyone set aside as a priest, because everyone is expected to be a minister of the Gospel?

So, Friends, despite my former career, I suspect I am better known for afflicting the comfortable than for comforting the afflicted, and some desk-bound officials in the Ministry of Health in Lesotho can confirm this!

I would like to end by reading the passage of Scripture that I often used to close the Meeting when the Salvation Army invited me to preach “under the flag” in Zambia.

Ephesians 3. 17-21

In and Out the Meeting House

David Butler, Britain Yearly Meeting

A talk delivered at Ireland Yearly Meeting 2004. David is the author and illustrator of the definitive book on Quaker Meeting Houses in Ireland, past and present, which is about to be published.

These remarks are lightly-connected incidents in Quaker life, mostly from Ireland, gleaned from a life-time spent looking at meeting houses and reading about them, and from a mere five years enjoying Irish meeting houses. They include many small events, few of which one would wish to make permanent, but which I thought you might like to hear before they sink back into the sands.

I would like to start by looking at one aspect which is uniquely Irish. This concerns the esteem in which earlier Irish Friends were held. In Britain, Friends were persecuted for many years by the government, town officers, and all and sundry with the common intention that the movement should be totally destroyed. Here, though, Friends were part of the Protestant minority, whose support the government needed in order to maintain its supremacy. Thus Friends found themselves in a position of political privilege which they had done nothing to earn, and at a time when political action was anathema to them. As a result, Friends here were to some degree protected from government-led persecution, including the particularly vicious ‘Conventicle Acts’. They were, however, still open to other trials, such as demands for tithes and church rates, and to the independent actions of local government.

This situation led to a perception of Friends, which appeared not at all in Britain. It shows in the way that Friends were sought by landlords and businessmen who were not Quakers. A travelling minister wrote by 1750 how Friends in Ireland stood in this respect. ‘..Many considerable men in this country, that have great quantities of land to set, do very much covet to have Friends for their tenants, for many of our Friends have been so diligent and industrious, and have made such fine improvements upon the farms that they have taken, and have also been so punctual in paying their rents, that they are much respected by their landlords..’. This was an enviable reputation.

At the very early date of 1680, the Earl of Mountrath wanted Friends to settle on his land. He knew how to attract them: he offered them a site in the town for a meeting house. The town flourished, and Mountrath grew to become a considerable meeting. Forty years on, a new meeting house was needed, one hopes because the old one was out-grown. This time that same family gave Friends another plot, quite large and very central, on which a new meeting house was built, to be replaced by a larger one another forty years on. Three people present here today have stood in that very building. We return to Mountrath later.

In 1721 a group of Quakers moved to Newport on the west coast of Connaught, where Captain Pratt had established a linen weaving works a few years before. I suppose that they were invited direct by the Captain. So this small group of Quaker families upped sticks and moved right across Ireland from Ulster, to start a new life.

However, all did not go well, either for the proprietor or for the settlers. For the Friends, they were too far from the support of any nearby meeting, and one wonders whether the mill was too far away from its markets. So it was that twenty years later they had to leave Newport and make their livelihood elsewhere. They moved half-way home again, and settled at Ballymurry, which was still a long way from the Monthly Meeting of Moate. In Newport they had met in their homes, but they left behind a burial ground, of which nothing at all is now known locally. On our visit to Newport, Ross Chapman enquired at the village supermarket for the local historian. We were at once told: ‘…here she comes through the door now…’, a very happy coincidence. She did her best to help us, but her small local history group could find no residual recollection of our former presence in Newport. So this is one of several of our burial grounds now wholly lost to us.

At Ballymurry they joined another small group of Friends from Sligo, who had gone there a few years before, and between them they built a meeting house. Ross took me to see it a while ago, when it was in a precarious state, at risk from a nearby tree. It was a neat small building, with arched openings for door and windows. It made an unusually attractive country meeting house, pictorially diminished by its current use as a cattle-shed.

The very early country meeting at Ballyhagan in Ulster had a mud and thatch meeting house, which stood on land rented from the Archbishop of Armagh. In 1744 the then archbishop renewed Friends’ lease of the site for �30 a year, which to me seems a lot of money for not very much. However, at the same time he signed a new document remitting the rent during his lifetime, because he thought ‘…the inhabitants of Ballyhagan, being of the Quaker persuasion, were persons of quiet and good behaviour ‘. What better reason for foregoing the rent?

Sadly for the meeting, he lived only two years more, and we do not know how his successor felt towards Friends. I only found this interesting document by accident. Sadly, it was not known to George Chapman, when he wrote his account of Ballyhagan and Richhill meetings in 1979. I am sure he would have enjoyed it, and he would have been able to read more into it than I could. Much later, Ballyhagan meeting decided to move into the nearby town of Richhill. The proprietor of that town thought that the presence of Friends would enhance his estate. Therefore, to encourage them, he offered a good large site for a new meeting house, which is still in use.

The landlords from whom Friends obtained land for their meeting houses and burial grounds were in a strong position, as almost all early Quaker sites were leased, not bought. They had a strong influence on what was built in their territory, and some defined the nature and quality of the building materials and the form that the building took. A good deal of watchfulness, time and energy was needed when a lease was due for renewal, so as to preserve the continuity of the meeting. Then when Friends ceased to use the meeting house, it was usually surrendered to him. In a way, this may have been beneficial to Friends, as they were thus relieved of the burden of caring for empty property.

I have mentioned our enquiries for the missing burial ground at Newport. The search for lost Quaker sites can be a very satisfying and enjoyable experience. I was in a small market town where I knew there had been a meeting house, but just whereabouts was it, and did anything remain? So I stood in the market place, looking for the right person to ask. ‘Excuse me, sir, have you lived here very long?’ ‘Seventy years or so, will that do, young man?’ (this was a year or two ago). And it did too, spot on. He showed me where to find the bright little building which was now used by an evangelical church, in good order and unmistakably recognisable for what it had once been.

Another visit took me to a small country village, at noon on a hot summer day. Total silence, nobody moving, no-one to ask. At last a man appeared, who knew just what I wanted. He took me to a garden that he looked after, and showed me all that remained of the meeting house. This was a single slab of stone lying in the lawn. You might think that it would have been disappointing to find so little, but not at all. The stone had been the threshold of a corrugated iron hall, which has long since rusted away. It had been preserved by its present owner in remembrance of past service, just as he had re-named his old house Quaker Cottage. The meeting house in which my guide once worshipped, had been erected for one of the several mission meetings in that part of Herefordshire. So here I got not only the meeting house, but the story too. Incidentally, the only corrugated iron meeting houses I have come across in Ireland were at Rathfriland and Drumgask. The former was still in very good order when I last saw it. They were quick and cheap to erect, and were very well suited to mission meetings. At home, there was once a great vogue for tin tabernacles for all denominations. You bought them from a catalogue, along with sea-side cabins and veranda’d bungalows for tea-planters in India.

More recently, on a tour with Glynn and Ross, we were in a town in mid-Ireland. We knew there had once been a meeting house there. We knew nothing of its appearance, but we did know roughly where it had stood, and there we stood too, beside a derelict old building on which workmen were beavering away, an unprepossessing place. But this was exactly what we sought. The meeting house had been almost destroyed by fire some time before, and was now being rebuilt as a workshop. Had we been there a day earlier, we would not have been able to see inside it; a day later, and there would have been nothing of the meeting house left. As we watched, the workmen were concealing the remaining Quaker features beneath fresh plaster. So by that happy timing the latest of the three meeting houses at Mountrath is recorded in the book much more fully than it might have been, and with a survey too, to our great satisfaction.

Elsewhere, the meeting house has been altered by other users before I could get there. One was that great warren at Eustace Street, where Glynn Douglas and I tramped along countless corridors and small staircases, no doubt well-known to you, but an exploration to me. The Irish Film Institute has made many beneficial changes which give light and colour and new interest to the old place, and they have put up a splendid new glass roof to the yard, exposing to view the old brick walls around it. Now it very properly looks like the covered yard it one was. My only real problem was that the large meeting room had been completely blacked-out, which made it difficult to take photographs. The manager of the institute was very helpful and tolerant of the pair of us wandering around, he seemed to be very pleased with the premises, which was good to know.

Looking for old Quaker burial grounds is another matter altogether. As Friends did not use headstones for so many years, how do you know when you have arrived? I have spent hours driving around country lanes, only to end up looking at the corner of a field which had absolutely no distinguishing features, neither headstones nor grave-mounds. I was assured that this was it, but was it worth the petrol? What a delight it was then, in very remote mountainous mid-Wales, to find a gate bearing a cast iron plaque reading Quaker Burial Ground 1687, just where I thought it should be.

The response of local people to our old sites is an interesting matter, as we have found several times on our travels. At rural Quaker sites, its neighbours with whom we spoke showed no interest whatever in the ruins of the building, but they cared much for the disused burial ground beside it. It was as if they regarded the latter as part of their local history, perhaps too it was part of their own family history. And everywhere, so often, I have found that people enjoy sharing with strangers what they have at their own back door.

Let us turn now to the interesting question of who is in your meeting house. We may think we know, but do we? At one level are the people we put there ourselves. For example, Friends have never relied on the local poor law system, the workhouse nor whatever, but always made their own arrangements. This applied particularly to the poor of the meeting, its elderly and widows, who were housed in the meeting house at the expense, and at the inconvenience, of the meeting. ‘Put into the meeting house’ was exactly what so often happened, not into somewhere near it.

In 1692 a meeting which had so housed a poor widow Friend, was getting rather tired of it all. ‘…The widow French is to be acquainted that Friends are troubled to see that she does not put things out of sight during the meeting time, such as her pots and things on the shelves and cheeses on the beams which are for all to see..’. To add insult to injury her children ran up and down stairs during meeting time. Let us stop there for a moment. Pots and things are the least that may have to be accepted in a dwelling, but cheeses on the beams? And anyway, how many cheeses would a widow have at one time? And what beams are there in a small meeting house? The only likely one is the tie-beam of the roof truss, but this would usually be out of reach. Can you see the widow French hopping up on a bench with her carving-knife, to slice off a hunk of cheese for her supper? It looks to me as if some Friends were getting it all rather out of proportion.

Under another meeting house was a cellar where the meeting allowed Sarah Lyne to live, but soon after she arrived, the Prepartive Meting could not make a decision, and the Clerk had to write one of those minutes, we’d all rather not: ‘..it was agreed by the meeting that Eleanor White with her child do inhabit the meeting house with Sarah Lyne, as they two can best contrive..’. Just imagine, Sarah thought she was settled for life, but here was this young child, running up and down stairs. It is little wonder that, not long afterwards, Friends were whitewashing that bit of the meeting room itself where ‘Ellen White’s bed did used to stand’. So she had moved out of the cellar, and the meeting had to put up with her bed, as well as her pots and things.

The larger Irish meetings made good provision for their poor, particularly at Dublin and Cork, but not, so far as I have found, in the meeting house itself. My examples are from Britain, but I an sure that others will be found eventually, tucked away in the Monthly Meeting minute books held at Swanbrook and Lisburn.

Think of Dublin meeting house many years ago. The site was still being acquired in bits and pieces. It had no street frontage, but was entirely surrounded by neighbours, all of whom it seemed were intent on making the most of the opportunity this offered. It was thus a source of endless problems for the meeting, and especially for those Friends who had the care of it.

In those days the meeting house was reached from Sycamore Alley by a long covered passage. In 1712 a neighbour, without asking, made a doorway from his dwelling into this passage. He then complained when he and his lodgers were inconvenienced by the presence in it of a wholly unauthorised ‘mohair twister’ who carried on his trade in the same passage. ‘Twisting’ was much the same as ’spinning’. The job could I suppose be carried out wherever the twister was comfortable, out of the wind and the rain, and preferably free of rent. He was still at it over a year later, when ‘..David Newlands, the twister, promises to leave the passage after he had finished the work on hand..’: a pretty cheeky response from a trespasser.

Soon afterwards, David had penetrated further into the meeting’s territory: ‘…the young man is not to twist mohair in the meeting house, and the women are not to suffer women to hang out clothes to dry in the meeting house yard, and Nicholas Carter is to get a good lock on the door that opens from the alley, to keep the boys out..’. Nothing changes. More still was needed; and at about this time ‘..a lock is to be put on the door of the waste ground at the back of Sycamore Alley meeting house [where you used to park your cars] to prevent the rabble annoying Friends on their 6th day meetings..’. The key was held by the woman who kept the coffee house on Sycamore Alley, she was a tenant of the meeting. This was surely handy for the coachman, who could pop in to revive himself after he had parked the coach [I was told afterwards that this might have been an early Bewley coffee-shop]. But enough of Dublin.

Country meetings were not exempt, and among them Wexford has a rather memorable story. Firstly, the meeting’s caretaker managed to acquire squatter’s rights over the burial ground. Granted, the meeting had used it only twice in a century and a half, so perhaps not many members even knew that they had one. But it was not remote, it lay within the town walls, and one would like to think that one of them might have noticed. You can just hear the caretaker being helpful and saying ‘..don’t you worry, Friends, I’ll see to it for you..’. Now a Catholic Church stands on the spot.

But there is more. The same meeting closed for half a century around 1800, and shortly after, while the old building was thought to be standing empty, Monthly Meeting was told ‘..it appears that the Methodists have had meetings for some time in Wexford meeting house, without the consent of Friends..’. One supposes that Friends would not have objected, but it would have been nice to have been asked. A while later the new meeting house was built on the same site, which Clive Allen and I visited. We were glad to see that it was in very good hands, well used and much valued, as the rehearsal hall for the local Loch Garman brass band.

Incidentally there are other meeting houses which now accommodate music. One is at Clara, erected by the Goodbody family a century and a half ago, and which still stands, virtually unaltered. This is an elegant little meeting house in a rather sombre formal setting, justly described as ‘an Italianate pavilion surrounded by yew trees’. It is now used by the Clara Musical Society as its meeting room. And I am sure that the great meeting room in the old Waterford meeting house, now the arts centre just down the road from here, has echoed to all sorts of music. And echo it might once have, for when it was first built the acoustics were terrible, and the remedy proposed at the time was expressed in a rather opaque minute. This present use of some of our former meeting houses for music is rather ironic, given the testimony of Friends past against music in their lives and in their worship.

Minutes of a meeting can also be rewarding. Take this one from Cork, and dates from the time when the New Building Committee was preparing Friends to accept the idea of having a new meeting house. It was trying, perhaps rather too hard, to make a good case. ‘We your committee, having taken into consideration the state of the premises, not only in reference to the leaky and decaying state of the roofs, the bad state of the window frames and sashes and other parts of the timber work’ and so on and on. The building committee got its way, of course, but at the cost of rubbishing the reputation of the entire premises committee, under whose care the building had been until that time. So that splendid meeting house was built, which still stands.

Over the years I have read through dozens of journals and memoirs of travelling Quaker ministers. Some scarcely notice where they are, and recount only their spiritual journey. Others were very aware of where they stood, and tell us of local circumstances of all sorts, people, agriculture, scenery or the state of the roads and of the inns. What they really liked was to be at the first meeting in a new meeting house, which is very useful to me, as it gives a fairly reliable date for a sometimes hazy event.

It is salutary to follow them as they went through the country. Some made a point of visiting every meeting in their chosen area, some would stop for several days while they visited, or ’sat with’, every family in that meeting, ’speaking to their condition’, this was a daunting service. Some, who had been delicately brought up in comfortable Victorian homes in England, chose to comment with regularity on the mud floors which they found here so often. I can think of no feature in Ireland that gets such regular comment. One was Martha Braithwaite of Oxfordshire, who was an experienced traveller in the ministry. Of a meeting at Cabra, she wrote in 1850 how ‘we sat down in the little room built for the purpose. The cottage to which the meeting room adjoins, has mud floors, and those in deep holes’. Incidentally, this quotation, short as it is, tells us rather more than we would have otherwise known about Cabra meeting house.

The effort required of a ministering Friend to get around could be daunting, and not merely the physical effort. William Forster was an English Friend, never physically strong, who travelled much in Ireland in 1813. When he found himself led to travel further west than he had already been, he wrote ‘in looking forward towards proceeding into the counties of Mayo and Galway, the mind is in unutterable conflict, I tremble at the idea of penetrating further into the cloud’ of darkness, bigotry and superstition.

The difficulties that Quakers experienced in integrating with the local population is illustrated by the experience of the same man. He reported in 1814 the experience of a family with whom he stayed briefly in the course of his travels. ‘…I readily accompanied my kind Friends, Samuel and Deborah Neale, to Newington. They have a noble mansion in a beautiful demesne, and afford a valuable specimen of Irish hospitality; but they live in the midst of the most undesirable neighbours. I think there are but one or two Protestant families beside themselves in the parish..’. I do not suppose for a moment that this is the whole story, but this is the message which was thought right to publish at the time.

On a more agreeable note, the Grand Canal was used much by Friends, and the company laid on special boats for those attending Quarterly Meetings. An American visitor commented of her journey on one of the boats: ‘…it was a very easy way of travelling, they cook on board, the dinner and accommodation are equal to a hotel..’. She, of course, was travelling in the first-class cabin.

These travellers reported disasters too as they found them, but always in a very quiet and urbane tone of voice. For instance, in 1803 a long-disused old English meeting house was opened up at the request of a minister, Thomas Shillotoe, and the place was crowded. ‘While I was on my feet, engaged in addressing the assembly, a circumstance occurred which, for a short time, broke in upon the solemnity that the meeting was thus favoured with. The main beam of the upper gallery, which was crowded with people, and crowded underneath, on a sudden gave a loud crack, and broke short off at one end. My feelings of dread for a short time for those who were under the gallery were much excited. But none of our company sustained any injury except from fright. The people, such as could, coming into the meeting house again, and the meeting settling down quietly, we closed under a precious sense that Holy help had been near to us during our sitting together’. Who would put like that nowadays? Thomas Shillitoe was a great man for following his guide, even in the most daunting service, he spent some time in Ireland, where he found himself required to visit every gin-shop in Dublin..

Another Friend who travelled widely in Ireland was Thomas Story, a lawyer from Cumberland. Thomas became well-known in Ireland as he was brother of the Dean of Limerick, so that despite himself he drew large numbers wherever he went in that city. The meetings he called were crowded, by people with quite false expectations, to his great embarrassment. He had the rather agreeable and inclusive way of calling his brother’s wife ‘his sister’. You can’t do that nowadays, you have to get it right. He went to the deanery with a company of Friends, where they met a company of churchmen. He commented of this visit: ‘no offence or occasion was given or taken on any hand, but all was free and friendly. And my sister being a person of excellent natural temper, and very discreet. we were fully and kindly entertained’. His visits were not always so easy.

Thomas Chalkley’s first encounter with Ireland, was by being nearly shipwrecked on the west coast. He traded between Philadelphia, England and the West Indies, and held meetings wherever he landed: Barbados, Bermuda, St Kitts, Nevis, Montserrat and Antigua. The list reminds me of my stamp-collecting days. Most travelling ministers did either one thing or the other, Thomas was very conscious of his duties, divided between his family and the Lord. ‘…My business at no time hindered me in my more weighty service. My hand, when need required, was to my business, but my heart was, and I hope is, and ever shall be, freely given up to serve the Lord…’.

Local memory of the former presence of Friends could be fickle. There had been a regular meeting at Sligo until 1717. Eighty years later, Mary Dudley arrived there after a journey, as she comments, of seventy miles, for Sligo alone. She reported that she was given a ready reception by the people, but that she found no recollection at all of the former Quaker presence there. But she continued: ‘…my very soul cleaves to some of the inhabitants of Sligo, and the remembrance of having been there is precious, whether any fruit may appear or not..’.

And upon that thought, I would like to close.

Copyright David M Butler, iii 2003

‘All bloody principles and practices we do utterly deny’

by Christopher Moriarty

This article was published in Teaching Religious Education Issue 3 December 2008

Christopher Moriarty is Clerk of the Historical Committee of the Religious Society of  Friends in Ireland and a member of a group of volunteers who care for the archives and library of the Society at its headquarters in Ireland: Quaker House Dublin, Stocking Lane, Dublin 16. The library is open to the public on Thursday mornings from 10.30 am to 1 pm.

The Religious Society of Friends was founded by the 17 century Christian visionary George Fox.  Its members came to be known as ‘Quakers’.  Their beliefs were based firmly on the doctrine revealed in the Bible, and particularly on the teaching of Jesus Christ as recorded in the Four Gospels. They adopted a belief, in distinct opposition to the feelings of the times, that the meaning of the Commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ was unequivocal.  Even more important was the instruction of Jesus to ‘Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you’.  As early as 1651, Fox was jailed for refusing to fight in the English Civil War.  William Edmundson, who established the Society’s first meeting for worship in Ireland in 1654, had served as a Cromwellian soldier but renounced violence soon after the end of hostilities in 1651.

In 1660, following the Restoration of King Charles II, Quakers put their views on non-violence in a formal declaration addressed to the king in person.  Known over the centuries as ‘The Peace Testimony’ its first paragraph reads as follows:

Our principle is and our practices have always been, to seek peace, and ensue it, and to follow after righteousness and the knowledge of God, seeking the good and the welfare, and doing that which tends to the peace of all.  All bloody principles and practices we do utterly deny, with all outward wars, and strife, and fighting with outward weapons, for any end, or under any pretence whatsoever, and this is our testimony to the whole world.  That spirit of Christ by which we are guided is not changeable, so as once to command us from a thing as evil, and again to move unto it; and we do certainly know, and so testify to the world, that the spirit of Christ which leads us all into all Truth will never move us to fight and war against any man with outward weapons, neither for the kingdom of Christ, nor for the kingdoms of this world.

The declaration was prompted in part from a legalistic angle. Loyalty to the king was required from all his subjects – disloyalty was treason and punishable by death.  To refuse to enlist in an army and fight for the king could be construed as treasonable.  Quakers were not engaged in any subversion of the legal status quo and insisted on the truth of their claim that they were loyal and law-abiding subjects.  The reasoning behind their refusal to bear arms therefore needed to be expressed very clearly.  For this and for a number of other points of principle, many Quakers suffered imprisonment.

The Williamite warfare in Ireland in the 1690s saw the first serious test of the peace testimony and the great majority of Quakers acquitted themselves honourably.  Four took part in the fighting and they were disowned by the Society.  Of far greater importance was the fact that Quakers gave help to people on both sides in the conflict.  This seems to have led to a recognition and respect rather than to any attempt at revenge by the victorious Williamites.

A hundred years later, the impending rising of 1798 brought about a vigorous campaign within the Society to take practical steps to ensure that its members would both privately and publicly renounce violence.  The all-Ireland National Meeting in 1797 agreed:

The Subject of some in profession with us having guns in their houses, which might be made use of for the destruction of mankind, as well as other instruments of a like nature, having come weightily under the consideration of Friends in the three provinces, this meeting, under a solid feeling, is of the judgement that all such should be destroyed, the more fully to support our peaceable and Christian testimony in these perilous times…..

A committee was appointed to visit Quakers around the country and make sure that they had destroyed their firearms.  At least one of them made a public display of his voluntary disarmament.  Joseph Haughton, a member of the committee, took his fowling piece to the main street in Ferns and broke it up.  Once again, the more positive – and extremely hazardous – practice of giving help to people on both sides of the conflict was followed in 1798.  But, with few exceptions, it seems that the reputation of Quakers was so well established that their communities survived the hostilities without reprisals being taken.

The 20th century, with two world wars, the War of Independence in Ireland and the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’ imposed a succession of major challenges.  During and after both world wars, Quakers, amongst them a number of Irish members of the Society, were involved in two international movements.  The first was the Friends Ambulance Unit in which young men enlisted.  While they would not take up arms to fight any enemy, they were equally determined not to shelter from danger by staying away from the fighting.  The Ambulance Unit, serving only to give help to the wounded – without discrimination as to whether friend or enemy – was a solution to the dilemma.  The second came after the wars, when Quakers played an active role in bringing relief to those who suffered in the conquered countries – putting into practice the ideal of loving their enemies and establishing a reputation for their humanity.  They continue to lobby the United Nations and the European Union, through Quaker offices in new York and Brussels.

In Northern Ireland, from 1969 onwards, Quakers became deeply involved in a variety of efforts to achieve reconciliation between the parties in sectarian strife.  Quaker Cottage, on the outskirts of Belfast, was established to provide holiday breaks for families from both sides of the divide.  The essential was that adults and children who, in the normal course of things, would avoid each other, were brought together.  They discovered that the differences between them were remarkably few.  As with the broader thrust of a world-wide renunciation of violence, Quakers have not been so na�ve as to believe either their international work or the example of Quaker Cottage would convince a majority of people within a short time.  The point is that their devotion to the cause of non-violence has changed the thinking of many individuals, actually saved the lives of others and is an essential step in spreading the message of peace.

The Quaker House project in Belfast city was –and still is – a centre giving fulltime employment to a small number of Quakers with skills in bringing national and local political figures together and, in an uncounted number of cases, defusing difficult and dangerous situations.  It is easy to count the numbers of people who died during the Troubles.  While it is impossible to enumerate the numbers saved by behind-the-scenes actions, there is no doubt that Quaker House was instrumental in averting countless tragedies.  The need for unpublicised handling of such situations has meant that the institution rarely achieved public recognition for its achievements.

Another seminal activity in Ulster was the establishment of visitor centres, initially at the Maze and later at Long Kesh prisons.  The abhorrence felt by the involved Quakers towards the violent actions that had led to the imprisonment of the inmates, was equalled by their belief in the humanity of each and every one of them. The ideal had been expressed poetically by George Fox in the 17th century; ‘Walk cheerfully over the world, answering to that of God in every man’ and it continues to be a core belief of Quakers everywhere.  The visitor centres were places where the families who came to visit the prisoners could find shelter, relax over a cup of tea and, if they wanted, find someone willing to listen them.  The work of  the centres developed from an outside fringe activity to being accepted by the authorities who understood their value, not only in supporting people in great difficulties, but also in helping to keep families together and rehabilitate the prisoners when their eventual release came.

Meanwhile, in the Republic, individual Quakers, with official support from the Society, have been active in parallel activities to those of their northern counterparts in attempting to nurture a spirit of peace, even amongst people who are undergoing punishment for violent behaviour, often of an extreme nature.  Quakers, with other religious groups, have been active in establishing and staffing visitor centres in prisons.  At a more direct level, Quakers have been in the forefront of implanting AVP, the Alternatives to Violence Programme, which involves practical training sessions with prisoners.

This article gives some examples of the work undertaken by Irish Quakers towards sowing the seeds of peace and nurturing the rather delicate flowers that spring up.  Similar projects are taking place in all countries in which there are Quaker communities.  The Mission Statement of South Africa Quaker Peace Centre in Capetown gives an excellent summary of essentials that are applied throughout the world:

Our mission is to build a non-violent society where diversity is celebrated, the energies of conflict are turned into a positive transforming power and where the democratic rights of every individual are respected, protected and pursued.

Further Reading (more obtainable from ‘historicenquiries@quakers-in-ireland.ie’)
Maurice J Wigham (2nd Edition 2006) The Irish Quakers, a short history of the Religious Society of Friends in Ireland Dublin: Historical Committee of the Religious Society of Friends in Ireland.

Richard S Harrison (1986) Irish Anti-war Movements 1824-1974. Dublin: Irish Peace Publications.

Glynn Douglas (1998) Friends and 1798: Quaker witness to non-violence in 18th century Ireland. Dublin: Historical Committee of the Religious Society of Friends in Ireland.

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