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the FriendDISCOVER THE CONTEMPORARY QUAKER WAY

Poem by UA FanthorpeEssay by David YountEye launches the bookclub

Friend writers share 2008 highlightsQuaker jokesTwo-page quiz

Culture at Christmas

2

the Friend

the Friend 173 Euston Road, London NW1 2BJ Tel: 020 7663 1010 Fax: 020 7663 1182 www.thefriend.orgEditor: Judy Kirby [email protected] • Production editor: Jez Smith [email protected] • Sub-editor: Trish Carn [email protected] •

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INDEPENDENT QUAKER JOURNALISM SINCE 1843

the Friend, 19-26 December 2008

Vol 166 No 51CONTENTS

3 Eye presents

‘Follow the star’ Colin George

Now UA Fanthorpe

4 Babylon: memory and survival Rowena Loverance

5 Beatrix Potter: an exceptional life Mary McKerall

6-7 Launch of the Friend book club Eye and Friend writers

8 Rothko’s influence James Hugonin

9 A valediction by George Fox Barry McGibbon

10-11 No jokes please, we’re Quakers!

12-13 A Quaker appreciation of human nature David Yount

14 Every day is a sacrament – or is it? Keith Minton

15 Saluting a literary perfectionist Stephen Taylor

16-17 Our 2008 highlights Friend writers

18-19 Christmas greetings and Friends & Meetings

20 Christmas quiz: brain teasers for post-prezzies

Cover image: An interpretation of ‘Now’, the poem by UA Fanthorpe. Drawing © Cally Gibson. www.callygibson.co.uk. Cally’s illustrations feature throughout this edition. See page 3.

Illustrations this page: AN413345 The Tower of Babel; 1595, Oil on panel. Artist: Lucas van Valckenborch (Inv. No. MRM M31) © Mittelrhein-Museum Koblenz. See page 4. Reflections on Grasmere lake. Photo: ArtToday. See page 5.

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Merry Christmas and a happy new year from

everyone at the Friend. See page 18 for more greetings.

3the Friend, 19-26 December 2008

NowAfter the frantic shoppingThe anxious roadAfter the office partiesThe crowded inn

Before the quarterly billsThe stones gatheredBefore the January salesAnd Stephen, broken

After the carols and lessonsThe psalms, the prophetsAfter the gifts are wrappedThe swaddling clothes

Before the Queen’s speechA baby’s cryAcross the morning suburbsThe Light of the World

UA Fanthorpe

UA Fanthorpe and RV Bailey are a book club choice, see page 6.

Eye has devoted this special edition to the arts. We hope that during the peace and joy of Christmas there will be time to reflect on how culture can be the link that connects us to our creative voices. On this page Colin George describes how music, drama and art are the great enablers, and with this in mind we have a poem from UA Fanthorpe exposing the hidden messages of Christmas. Right through to the quiz on pages 20-21, Friends give their interpretation on various aspects of the arts. We hope that you enjoy it.

Already it has arrived: the Christmas card with the three wise men on their stately camels following the star. I have followed a star from my youth, not in the sky but on this earth. It is the theatre. There have been several articles in the Friend this autumn about Art and the Quakers. Misguidedly some define an artist as someone who puts paint on a canvas. Friends from Glasgow were the first to point out what a narrow view this is. It ignores the sculptor, the dancer, the actor and all those in the world of music and drama and literature, and the performing arts. In a theatre contract, for example, the performer – whether a leading actor at the National Theatre or a comedian playing the clubs or busking the streets – is described and dignified by the word ‘artist’.

As for the artists who create great literature or music – how can anyone say that Mozart or Chekhov have not directly contributed to the betterment of humankind? To take the word ‘betterment’ literally and prosaically: since his death, the works of Shakespeare have been used and adapted by revolutionaries all over the world under the guise of classical theatre to fight dictatorship; and the music of Mozart has a scientific record of influencing the mind – inspiring the student or sometimes bringing harmony and peace to those disturbed or confused.

What can serve as a guide to the true artist? From my perspective as an actor, our Quaker testimonies. Simplicity – the innate quality of a great performer. Equality – between members of the best theatre companies. And above all – Truth. What about Peace, you say? Well, that may come when a good performance connects with and influences the audience. But I would deceive you to say that there is not a lot of fierce fighting on the way. If any one of the three wise men had been seduced by the star of the theatre, he would have had a far more uncomfortable ride than on the road to Bethlehem.

Colin GeorgeColin is a member of Luton & Leighton AM.

The Friend Christmas issue

presents…

‘Follow the star’

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Jewish exiles hanging their lyres on willow trees by the waters of Babylon; mad king Nebuchadnezzar on all fours eating grass like oxen (below); a doom-laden finger tracing Hebrew letters on the wall plaster at Belshazzar’s Feast; it is quite extraordinary how much European myth and legend, much of it commemorated in great works of art, has derived from a period of little more than two generations, the mid-sixth century BC, and from a single city, Babylon on the Euphrates, which, even before the recent efforts of Saddam Hussein and the US army, had left little archaeological trace.

The British Museum’s latest exhibition seeks to address this conundrum. It is not a blockbuster like the terracotta army, it doesn’t command the historic Reading Room but squeezes into Norman Foster’s modest exhibition space, and it’s not all the museum’s own work, having already been seen in Paris and Berlin. It does, however, provoke reflection about the relationship between the ‘real’, biblical and mythological pasts.

Opening the exhibition are the most spectacular survivals from Babylon, the blue- and gold-glazed brick relief panels that adorned the processional way into the city through the northern Ishtar Gate. They depict, alternately, a roaring lion (above right) and an elegant mushushu, the Babylonian dragon. Thereafter, however, it is a matter of a cuneiform tablet here (several of them, however, helpfully enhanced with audio) and a Blake or Burne-Jones picture there, as the curators struggle to span the 2,500-year divide.

Perhaps the most interesting section for Friends is that dealing with the Tower of Babel (see page 2). The exhibition explains that this tale of men trying to build up to heaven may enshrine a folk-memory of the ziggurat of Babylon, a mud-brick multi-stepped temple built up over many centuries and known as Etemenanki, ‘House platform of Heaven and Earth’.

Babel was a staple theme of seventeenth-century Quaker moralising. George Fox warned of the dangers of over-reaching oneself, of out-running one’s Guide. Margaret Fell condemned the teachers and ministers of the established churches who drew people ‘from the light and spirit of God within them, unto their inventions, imaginations, meanings and expositions of the scriptures without them: so they have been building Babel in many languages’. Isaac Penington drew a rather different analogy: openness to the Light may be so terrifying that we

fall to building Babel all over again. ‘But when the Eternal stirs in him, then he has some little glimmerings of his estate… Then he gathers stones and makes mortar to build up a wall and raise a tower, that he may not be open to the deluge of wrath.’

The Babel story in Genesis 11 reads as if, originally, people had a single language, which God then deliberately confused. Fox, though, characteristically goes one better. Restoration to the pre-fall situation, achieved by the crucifixion and witnessed for the first time at Pentecost, is to a state in which people can perceive spiritual truth directly, without relying on natural language at all.

One cuneiform tablet rang a bell with me about another contemporary language row. Time for one of those Christmas cracker-type questions: What do beetroot, leek and turnip have in common? Answer: they feature in a Babylonian plant list but they no longer feature in the latest edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary. We can’t be sure whether this tablet was used, as many were, to teach Babylonian children their letters. But we do know why beetroot and the rest (including, appropriately for the time of year, holly and ivy), have been omitted from the OJD: it’s to make room for such essential words as blog, broadband and bullet point. Babel, it seems, is with us still.

Rowena LoveranceBabylon: Myth and Reality, continues at the British Museum until 15 March

Babylon: memory

and survival

exhibition


Beatrix Potter: The extraordinary life of a Victorian genius by Linda Lear. Penguin/Allen Lane, £11.99.

Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) led a life of simplicity, truth, devotion to her community and the environment and a belief in equality.

Beatrix summered with her family in the English Lake District and Scottish countryside, delighting in nature. Her wealthy cotton manufacturer relatives were ‘liberal’ Unitarians who believed in universal education as well as art education for all children. The Quaker politician John Bright was a frequent visitor in the Potter home.

Beatrix kept a journal in a secret code. At eighteen she observed that: ‘All outward forms of religion are almost useless, are the cause of endless strife. What do Creeds matter, what possible difference does it make to anyone today whether the doctrine of the resurrection is correct or incorrect, or the miracles, they don’t happen nowadays, but very queer things do that concern us much more. Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself and never mind the rest.’

Beatrix took an interest in fungi and their study. In 1897 she presented a paper to the prestigious Linnean Society, but her theories were not accepted until proven

many years later.Her love for writing, sketching

and painting animals and nature ultimately became ‘pretty’ little books that provided an income allowing Beatrix to live independently.

Her engagement to publisher Norman Warne met with fierce family opposition as Norman was ‘in trade’. Norman’s sudden death left her heartbroken.

While Beatrix did not abandon her demanding parents, she used her Peter Rabbit royalties to buy Hill Top Farm in 1905. More book royalties led to the acquisition and preservation of more farms with the advice of William Heelis, a solicitor, whom she later married at age forty-seven. Beatrix was concerned about whether his Anglican family would accept her, as she was ‘uncomfortable with any sort of organised religion, preferring a simple Quaker meeting above any’.

Beatrix Heelis lived simply at Hill Top Farm, without electricity, dressing in sturdy Herdwick sheep woollen garments. When able she worked the farms along with her shepherds.

In 1919 the great influenza epidemic led Beatrix to find a nurse for Hawkshead District. As Linda Lear writes: ‘[Beatrix] found a congenial ally for this endeavour in her friend… Emily Fowkes. Emily’s family had been members

of the Quaker community at Colthouse for generations, and Beatrix sometimes accompanied her to the Quaker Meeting there. In accordance with the best ideals of the Dissenting tradition they shared, Beatrix and Emily decided to do something about the lack of nursing care.’

Beatrix continued to write her little books, using earlier stories and paintings after failing eyesight made new work difficult. Before her death she arranged for most of her estate to go the National Trust and requested no memorial other than her ashes be scattered near her beloved Lake District home.

Linda Lear’s detailed life of the Quakerly Beatrix Potter is recommended.

Mary McKerall

Mary is a member of Live Oak Friends Meeting, Houston, Texas.

Beatrix Potter’s home, Hill Top, when visited by members of Quakers Uniting in Publications, April 2007.

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biography

Beatrix Potter: an exceptional life

6

Book club books for 6 FebruaryKeith Ward: Why there almost certainly is a God, Lion £7.99

Margaret Elphinstone: Voyageurs, Canongate Books £7.99

UA Fanthorpe, RV Bailey: From Me to You, Enitharmon £8.95


The Friend invites readers to join us

in a literary adventure Book clubs have been a phenomenal success in Britain. They’ve encouraged reading within a social context and have revived interest in a variety of literary forms. The Friend announces its own club today and from a small start we hope we will inspire readers to participate and to help develop it themselves.

One of our aims is to look more closely at Quaker writers and poets and possibly discover some little-known gems of writing by Friends. We want to look at Quaker themes in fiction, to carry profiles of spiritual writers and to tackle some of the more complex theological works. But there will always be a choice of books each month.

The first club will be in the issue of 6 February and the book titles are in the box on this page. You can buy the book you choose from the Quaker bookshop with free postage and packing for the Friend book club. If you feel inspired to write a review of the book, please keep the review to about 300 words (three examples follow) and submit to our office no later than 28 January; earlier if possible. At a later stage we hope to open a discussion forum for the club on the Friend website.

We also invite you to nominate titles you think would interest a Quaker audience. Happy reading!

The Quaker Bookshop can be contacted on 0207 663 1030, [email protected] or by post: Quaker Bookshop, Friends House, 173-177 Euston Road, London NW1 2BJ.

A Book of Silence by Sara Maitland. Granta Publications. ISBN: 978 184708 042 4. £17.99.

‘Speech is often barren, but silence does not necessarily brood over a full nest.’

George Eliot, Felix Holt

‘The cell of the monk is the furnace in Babylon.’ Helen Waddell, Desert Fathers

If you approach Sara Maitland’s A Book of Silence as a commonplace book, packed with fascinating literary references wrapped up in some highly lyrical prose of her own, then this can be an enjoyable read. If, however, you’re looking for a manual to the spiritual life, then this is probably not the book for you.

Let’s get the defensive stuff over first. The Religious Society of Friends is dealt with in just three pages. There is an interesting attempt to define a gathered Meeting and a lovely quote from Pierre Lacout. Sara Maitland clearly warms to Quakerism, especially if it presents itself, in ancient country Meeting houses,

in an aesthetic guise. But she perceives our Meetings for Worship as ‘a silence waiting to be broken’. Metaphysically speaking, she is probably right. But this excludes us from her quest.

Women Friends of a certain age will remember Sara Maitland as a feminist, Anglo-Catholic, novelist. In middle life, with her marriage dissolved, her children grown and her religious affiliation shifted, she began her pursuit of silence. Her book is a fascinating testament to some of the psychological results, such as decreasing inhibition and a decreasing sense of the self. The latter is of particular concern to a writer, especially a novelist. ‘In prayer one is trying to empty oneself of ego… whereas in the act of making art one needs the silence… to strengthen the ego.’ But this is Sara Maitland’s first report from her, thus far only eighty per cent, silent life. We can hopefully look forward to further instalments.

Rowena Loverance

Rowena is a member of London West AM.

In quest of silence

books

7

Just Me by Sheila Hancock. Bloomsbury. ISBN: 976 0 7475 8882 5. £18.99.

Sheila Hancock picks up again two years after the death of her husband John Thaw in this sequel to The Two of Us. She opens sitting in her bed in their house in Saignon writing this book and realising that it is a time of ‘transformation’, a word that ‘speaks to

her condition’, drawing on her Quaker experience.The book continues with her realisation that John

wasn’t coming back and that she needed to pick herself up. Struggling to light the recalcitrant stove – a job that had always been John’s – she is startled by a bird emerging from the flue and flapping around the room until she can get it out the window. Following a vivid dream about John drifting away from her, she wakes to realise that her ‘mother’s maxim: “Pull yourself together” had a lot to recommend it. Never mind therapy, religion, AA – eventually it is all down to you.

‘“Live adventurously”, a Quaker advice, was also whirling around somewhere.

‘Well, what about it, Sheila? As John would say, “Put your money where your mouth is”. Be a depressed

widow boring the arse off everyone, or get on with it. Your choice.’

Realising that ‘grannying’, gardening and grumbling weren’t satisfying her, she picks herself up and starts travelling, signing up for a cooking course while in Italy, fighting against invisibility as an older woman travelling alone and contending with the staff of budget airlines.

Finally she travels out of her comfort zone and visits Germany, while contending with the antipathy her experiences during the second world war had given her towards that country and its people. Looking back at her generation and their experiences she came to terms with the person she had become.

The book is an easy but captivating read about Sheila’s various adventures travelling and working. Despite slips into sadness and loneliness, she does what we all have to do eventually: pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again.

I found the book thoughtful, inspiring and thoroughly enjoyable. I recommend it.

Trish Carn Trish is a member of North West London AM.

See page 23 for information on ordering Just Me.


Happiness: Lessons from a New Science by

Richard Layard. Penguin. ISBN 978 0 14 101690 0. £8.99.

This little book caused quite a stir when it first appeared in 2005 and has continued to arouse curiosity ever since. Why? The thought of happiness being capable of measurement, rather than existing as a purely ad hoc quality no-one can predict, is intriguing; plus it is written by an eminent economist. When such professionals start saying that money doesn’t bring happiness, people tend to take notice.

Richard Layard founded the

Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics and has advised the government on policy. The welfare-to-work approach was credited to him, but more recently Layard has got into happiness in a big way. He has found a hero in Jeremy Bentham and the common good. While the salaries – for some at least – have stacked up over the past decades, any sense of feeling happy has either diminished or remained the same. What is happening?

You can look at all the statistics offering insight into this sad fact (that we are no happier now that we are more materially successful) but they don’t really help, I find. I own

up that I skipped a lot of the stats in favour of the cartoons, which always find the right explanation. Take this one – two dogs conversing in a garden, the resident pooch explaining: ‘I’ve got the bowl, the bone, the big yard. I know I should be happy.’ Or this, illustrating how the modern obsession of ‘optimising’ every opportunity available is the true enemy of happiness: two small girls playing together in a plush bedroom with one declaring: ‘Sometimes having to have the happy childhood my parents never had is just too much of a responsibility’.

Judy KirbyJudy is a member of

Northumbria AM.

Two books on moving towards happiness

8

Rothko, Tate Modern, Level 4, London until 1 February 2009.When I was an art student at Chelsea School of Art in the mid- 1970s, the work of two painters from New York, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, was much discussed and their influence clearly apparent in what many of us were concerned with at that time. Many paintings were made on the studio floors, with much emphasis placed on gestural expression, and the paintings were often very large. It seemed to us then that it was important to acknowledge the way in which both Pollock and Rothko had extended and dramatically identified a new and exciting way of making paintings that was impossible to ignore.

The Rothko room at the Tate Gallery had opened in 1970 and I remember seeing the Seagram murals that Rothko offered to the Tate Gallery after withdrawing from a commission by The Four Seasons restaurant in New York. I was both confused and enthralled by what I saw. These paintings needed to be experienced, felt and

absorbed. I had never seen anything like this before.

Recently at Tate Modern, seeing Rothko’s late paintings, including the same Seagram series I’d seen thirty-five years before, altogether different thoughts and feelings became apparent when I was standing in front of them. I spent a long time looking at the series of acrylic works on paper that he made in 1968 and his last paintings on canvas from 1969. They are obdurate, difficult and extraordinary; they are about what actually happens at the meeting point of darkness and light, when these two forces are moulded and nuanced into having to exist together. Darkness and light form the fabric of our existence in the world and Rothko’s insistence on the total exposition of this reality is palpably present in these paintings.

Every mark, every agitated, urgent gesture of his hand matters. Except for Untitled 1969, owned by his son Christopher, each of these last dark, brownish-black and grey paintings on canvas and the acrylic works on paper are contained by a very thin white border. This stark framing

edge had never appeared in his work before and it totally alters the way in which the paintings are apprehended. They are austere works of great subtlety, which also reveal a warmth and deep humanity.

It is now impossible to see these paintings without the knowledge of Rothko’s suicide in February 1970, but it is important to point out that he also made a number of very pale pink, grey and blue acrylic works of an altogether different nature in the last two years of his life. These particular works are not included in the current exhibition at Tate Modern but remain part of the same series, which evokes yet another aspect of this complicated man. His last paintings are a poignant summation of a dark tonal density balanced with a form of hovering lightness that is totally compelling and enriching.

James Hugonin is an artist living and working in Northumberland. His work can be seen in the Tate, Victoria and Albert Museum and in private and public collections in the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and the USA.

painting


Rothko’s influence

James Hugonin reflects on the poignant intensity of Mark Rothko’s

last paintings

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To all Friends’ Meetings everywhere

This is for all the children of God, who are led by his spirit, and who walk in his Light, in which they have life and unity, and fellowship with the Father and the Son, and one with another.

Thus starts the message from George Fox read out at Yearly Meeting in 1691 following his death. Written in his own handwriting and sealed until his death, this valedictory message was later published by Thomas Ellwood. It was then forgotten and ignored until rediscovered by Hugh McGregor Ross during his detailed research on Fox’s papers. This work culminated in his new publication George Fox – a Christian Mystic in which the message appears in full.

Keep all your Meetings in the name of the lord Jesus, that be gathered in his name by his light, grace, truth, power and spirit. By which you will feel his blessed and refreshing presence amongst you, and in you, to your comfort and God’s glory.

Now all Friends, all your Meetings, both men’s and woman’s, monthly, quarterly and yearly, were set up by the power and spirit and wisdom of God. In them you know and you have felt his power, spirit, wisdom and blessed refreshing presence among you, and in you, to his praise and glory and your comfort. So that you have been a city set on a hill, that cannot be hid…

Fox reminds Friends of the true Source that encompasses us all when we gather together. This exhortation to ‘centre’ on Jesus as our true Teacher is as valid today when many Meetings report a diminishing of the Spirit in their Meetings for Worship.

As for this spirit of rebellion and opposition that has arisen formerly and lately, and is not of the kingdom of God and heavenly Jerusalem. It is for judgement and condemnation, with all its writing, words and works. Therefore Friends are to walk in the power and spirit of God, that is over it, and in the seed that will bruise and break it to pieces. In which seed you have joy and peace with God, and power and authority to judge it. Your unity is in the power and spirit of God, and does judge it. All God’s witnesses in his tabernacle go out against it, and always have and will.

From down the centuries comes this timely reminder of the perils of tension and division within any democratic organisation. When many members have strongly held opinions the result is either confusion and inaction or the adoption of the views of the strongest or loudest personalities.

Similar problems beset the early Quakers, who were only one of the tens of religious communities and sects of that time. Only two survived beyond the end of the seventeenth century: Quakers and Baptists. And the reason for their survival was the nature and strength

of their organisations. Thus Quaker Meetings, founded in the Spirit, have endured down the centuries, accepting small changes while recovering from such excesses that occur from time to time.

This is the true ‘ground’ of all our Meetings: Local, Area, General and Yearly. For Quakers to thrive through this century we must ensure that our decisions are truly led by the Spirit and not by some form of corporate-style modernisation.

Barry McGibbon

Barry is a member of Dorset & South Wiltshire AM.

Italic text is extracted from George Fox – A Christian Mystic by Hugh McGregor Ross. The website www.george-fox.info has further information.

last words


A valediction by George Fox

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No jokes please, we’re Quakers!A Friends Meeting hosted an interfaith conference. During a break, the Meeting’s clerk fell to talking with a priest, a rabbi and an imam about the nature of God.

Despite everyone’s good intentions, they soon began to argue: God was a trinity, contended the priest; oh no, the imam retorted, Allah is One; the rabbi nodded at this, but insisted the Most High was truly revealed in the Torah, not the Qur’an. And so it went, growing more heated with every exchange.

The clerk sat mostly silent, wringing her hands and trying to remember the main points of the Alternatives to Violence workshop she’d attended the previous month.

The argument was interrupted by a sudden thunderclap that shook the building and rattled an open window. As the four believers trembled in awe, a piece of paper blew through the window and floated to the table in front of them. The clerk cautiously picked it up and looked it over. ‘It’s a message’, she said, and began to read: ‘My children’, it began, ‘why do you wrangle over words? My glory and mystery surpass all your human imaginings and I love each of you equally. Now cease your senseless quarrels and get on with my work in your wonderful, needful world.’

The abashed clerics bowed their heads in prayer.After a moment, the clerk cleared her throat. ‘Um’, she added quietly, ‘it’s

signed, “Thy Friend, God”’.

When the family dog produced a large litter of pups, mother and father decreed that one hound was enough, and directed son Tommy to give the little ones away. A couple of Sundays later, Tommy showed up outside a local church, which loudly advertised itself as firmly rooted in literal biblical interpretation,

personal salvation and sanctification. He was carrying a cardboard box with a sign taped to one side that read ‘Fundamentalist Puppies’.

When he came home there were still several pups left. So the next Sunday, he and

the box were sent off in another direction, towards a Quaker Meeting house. This time, though, the sign on the box said ‘Quaker Puppies’.

As he sat waiting for the Friends to emerge from the building, an older woman walked by and stopped when she saw the sign. ‘Young man’, she said, ‘didn’t I see you outside the Bible church last week?’ When the boy nodded, she said: ‘And didn’t your sign say then that they were Fundamentalist Puppies?’

Another nod. ‘Well then,’ she exclaimed,

‘how did they go from being Fundamentalist to being Quakers in one week, I wonder?’

The boy thought, then did his best. ‘Well, ma’am,’ he answered, ‘now their eyes are open’.

More on best Friends No kiddingA group of second world war conscientious objectors (COs) was assigned to the Byberry State Mental Hospital near Philadelphia.

The COs lived at the hospital and were subject to a wide range of government regulations, under which they often chafed and grumbled.

With this in mind, one wag put up a banner outside their dormitory for the benefit of the patients, which read: ‘We are as committed as you are’.

Thanks to the late Bob Lyon.

Christmas crackers


Who is the best Friend of them all?

Eye offers a special thanks to Chuck Fager for helping

to gather these jokes.

11

No jokes please, we’re Quakers!Friends are advisedChuck Fager, this issue’s resident jokesmith, admits that humour has not always had a good Quaker press. He’s been looking through some Faith & Practices and reflects on the following:

‘It is not lawful to use… among other things comedies among Christians, under the notion of recreations, which do not agree with Christian silence, gravity and sobriety: for laughing, sporting, gaming, mocking, jesting, vain talking etc, is not Christian liberty, nor harmless mirth.’

Robert Barclay, The Apology, 1676

‘This Meeting being sorrowfully affected, under a consideration of the hurtful tendency of reading plays, romances… and other pernicious books, it is earnestly recommended to every member of our society, to discourage and suppress the same.’

Dublin Yearly Meeting, 1811

‘The wise man… is never captious, nor critical; hates banter and jests: he may be pleasant, but not light; he never deals but in substantial wares, and leaves the rest for the toy pates (or shops) of the world…’

William Penn, Fruits of Solitude

‘I felt thankful that I had been preserved from gross sins in… my youth, but I was convicted of much lightness and emptiness from having given way to the natural liveliness of my disposition.’

Hannah Taylor, Journal

Time will tellHistorian J Travis Mills, in his book John Bright and the Quakers, recounts the story of two Friends who paid a visit at the turn of the twentieth century to the speaker of the US House of Representatives, Joe Cannon.

They found ‘Uncle Joe’ sitting at his ease, smoking a big black cigar, thumbs under his armpits and feet on his desk. ‘Did thee know’, said Cannon, ‘that I used to be a Quaker?’

‘No, Mr speaker, I did not.’

‘Well, I was, and I married out of the

Meeting and I was visited by a delegation of Friends. They said to me: “Joseph, thee will have to come before a Meeting and say thee is sorry”.

‘“I can’t do that just now”, I told them “seeing I’ve been married only three days. But if you will call again at the expiry of twelve months, mebbe I shall be better able to satisfy you.”’

The Friendly old westA drunken cowboy charged into a frontier saloon one day, waving a gun and yelling: ‘All right, you mangy varmints, clear out and give me some elbow room!’

All the customers fled except for one man wearing a broad-brimmed hat. The cowboy sauntered over to his table and said ominously: ‘Maybe you didn’t hear me, partner. I said for all the mangy varmints to clear out.’

The other looked up from his glass of milk and replied: ‘Yes, I heard thee, Friend. And I must say, there certainly were a lot of them, weren’t there?’


Christmas crackers

Putting a president in his placeThe story goes that Herbert Hoover could be rather gruff in manner when he felt irritated. At one private White House dinner he became piqued when one of his guests, a Quaker, responded to his request for a blessing by praying in a very low tone.

The exasperated president finally interrupted the prayer with a curt: ‘Louder, Fred – I can’t hear!’

Without looking up, the Quaker paused, then said distinctly: ‘Herbert Hoover, I was not talking to thee’.

12

The late English pundit Gilbert Keith Chesterton holds the dubious distinction of having produced the shortest essay in history, consisting of but one word.

In the immediate aftermath of the first world war, The Times asked some of Britain’s greatest thinkers to submit an essay to the newspaper responding to the question: ‘What’s Wrong with the World?’

Chesterton replied simply: ‘Me!’

In personally accepting the blame for the world’s evils, Chesterton was not implying that others were faultless. Clearly, there was plenty of blame to go around for the violence, poverty, and distress of humankind that continues to our day. What the pundit was criticising was the human nature we all share.

He acknowledged that he was an accomplice in evil, most often passive and unwitting, of course, but an accomplice nonetheless. Good intentions do not suffice.

Which prompts the questions: are we at the mercy of our habits, impulses, passions and sloth? Can we change human nature for the better? Or, at the very least, can we

change human behaviour for the good?

Human nature remains a mystery because, when each of us is born, we enter life with neither a lifetime warranty nor a book of instructions. You and I expect warranties and operating instructions with every major appliance we purchase – but not with the offspring we produce and raise.

When our own children were born, I went out and bought a copy of child care instructions by paediatrician Benjamin Spock. The good doctor suggested how we parents should act and attempted to be reassuring, but he did not really tell us what to expect. Indeed, each child, despite being raised under roughly similar conditions and with similar expectations, has turned out to be very different from each other.

A mother squirrel or bird, cat or dog, is spared this uncertainty. Her offspring, like herself, operate from instinct. In this important respect, our Scottish terrier and two cats are vastly more predictable than their owners. Whereas human beings spend vast amounts of time pondering their identity and questioning their motives in an attempt to ‘find themselves’, animals typically act without taking thought. For that reason we

cannot blame a wild animal for acting beastly (that’s its nature), but we do punish human beings who act beastly.

My wife and I are cat-lovers. But in my very first book, Growing in Faith, I argued that ‘Cats Are Not Christians’. Here’s what I wrote: ‘My family’s cats are object lessons in natural, amoral behavior, so let us examine them. Each has his or her own personality, to be sure, but Rufus and Ginger are alike in being creatures of instinct – which seems to serve them well except for getting out of the way of moving vehicles. The cats sleep, eat, purr, lick themselves and hiss at our Scottish terrier. The younger cat, Rufus, also hunts moles, frogs and baby birds and presents us proudly with his carnage. Rufus is an affectionate pet but he is no Christian.’

That is to say, Rufus never has second thoughts. He does not question what is expected of him or ponder whether he has done the right thing. In short, he has instinct and affection, but no conscience. By contrast, our dog has an artificial sense of shame that prompts her to crawl into a dark bathroom when she has left something that we must clean off a carpet. But she, like the cats, lacks an ethical sense; she is only sensitive to our displeasure and prefers to punish herself before we


Essay

A Quaker appreciation of human nature

David Yount says that humans are a little lower than the angelsAre cats Christian?

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think of something more drastic.It is men, women and children

alone who agonise over whether they have done the right thing. According to human nature, what sort of animal is each person? Good? Evil? Indifferent? Or all three depending on the circumstances? Or is each one of us morally unique? Finally, what do we have a right to expect from ourselves and one another?

In the Bible, the Psalmist speaks to God: ‘What is man that you should care for him? You have made him a little less than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him rule over the work of your hands, putting all things under his feet.’ That sounds pretty complimentary.

Shakespeare’s prince Hamlet borrowed from the Psalmist and went even further in exalting human nature: ‘What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals!’

Still, in his very next sentence Hamlet dismisses all he has just affirmed. ‘Yet, to me,’ he complains, ‘what is this quintessence of dust’ that is humanity?

Just in case you suspect that all this talk about human nature is idle speculation, the fact is that we Quakers take a strong position on the matter.

Friends are inclined to think the best of everyone. At the same time we are equally prepared to fault ourselves and each other for our shortcomings. Our Quaker legacy recognises the power of evil to seduce us.

However, it was the genius of our early Quaker forebears to affirm the essential innocence of human nature, dramatically breaking with Christian tradition. Our founders argued that no baptism was needed because each human was conceived innocent and capable of perfection in this life. No sacraments were required because God graces us at every moment in our lives.

People who are ignorant about Quakers tend to lump us in with the Protestant reformers. They are mistaken. The original sixteenth century reformers, among them Martin Luther, John Calvin and John Knox, concurred that every person bears the burden of original sin and is incapable by his or her own efforts of accomplishing any good. Human nature, they believed, was corrupt from the moment of one’s conception in the womb. It was only through a total reliance on God’s forgiveness that we could

be saved – never through our own efforts alone.

As Martin Luther rudely depicted it, human nature is a dungheap unchanged by God’s grace, but only covered up as by snow. Baptism is necessary as the sign that the burden of sin’s inheritance has been lifted. Confession and repentance of sin is necessary for the sinner to continue calling on God’s grace. The Reformers’ argument with the Roman Church was that Catholics were too easy on themselves, acting as if they could help to achieve their own salvation with the aid of the sacraments, ‘good works’ and borrowing from the church as a repository of grace.

George Fox, a century later, took an entirely different tack. Baptism was unnecessary, he said, because each person is graced at the moment of conception. To be sure, we are each capable of evil, but it is not our legacy. Rather, we are innocent until proving ourselves guilty. Indeed, we are called to perfection during our earthly lives and, by following God’s leadings, are capable of achieving it.David Yount is a syndicated columnist, TV commentator, and author of thirteen books, among them How the Quakers Invented America. He is a member of Alexandria, Virginia, Monthly Meeting, USA.


A Quaker appreciation of human nature

David Yount says that humans are a little lower than the angels

14

It hardly seems a year since a group of Quakers and attenders in Newcastle Friends Meeting House ‘made merry’ on Christmas Day 2007. After a thirty-minute Meeting for Worship, we brought in mince pies and coffee and sang well-loved carols. It was wonderful to have Friends together, celebrating the greatest birthday in the Christian world, the birth of Jesus.

I have long felt that Friends, like all Christian groups, should celebrate Christ’s birthday. It does not matter that we do not know exactly the date, or even if it took place. Christ’s legacy is a pattern of life, incomparable and unattainable; it is a true ideal and in our age of practical cynicism we could do with a few ideals. To celebrate His birthday, real or mythical, can go a little way for us to give thanks for this gift from God, not for the person of Christ but for what He represented to us then and should still now.

Every day a sacrament? But where do Friends stand in this? Why is it that Christmas Day is optional for many Quakers and for some even ‘wrong’? The materialistic and debased treatment of Christmas is undeniable, especially by traders, many of whom do not even profess to be Christian. But however imperfect our celebration of Christmas may be, there still remains that spark of light when,

on the day especially, most of us can at least try to be a little better, a little more caring and loving to our family and our neighbours.

Friends say, following the guidance of George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, that if every day is a sacrament, Christmas, Easter and the other religious festivals should not be treated differently from any other day. To set aside one particular day for celebration is unnecessary and, in the view of some Friends, unethical. It gives too much importance to one day compared with the others, which should be all of equal value.

Every day is a sacrament – or is it?This seems to me unrealistic. If we took this approach logically, we would not choose Sunday as a special day for Meeting for Worship, any day would do. And we would not have any of the ‘celebrations’ that Friends openly enjoy. Almost every week in Newcastle there is celebrated the birthday of someone, and of course there are plenty of funerals…

That every day is a sacrament is also an impossible ideal and does not take into account our humanity. It is hard to be even half as good as one would like to be one day in the year. To be expected to be equally good every day is impossible – there

are limits even to ideals. This may sound cynical, but cynicism has its own truth and I would say let us spread our virtue over the whole year but leave an extra helping for special days. That way we achieve at least something at some time, rather than feel we have failed to live up to our ideals continuously.

Christmas was celebrated by Newcastle Friends mid-December with music and bells. And their Meeting House will also be open for Meeting for Worship on 25 December. I am delighted about both and hope Friends as standard practice will soon be celebrating Christmas everywhere on Christmas Day. That way, as well as Friends, lonely people who need the comfort of Christmas can share its happiness… I would like to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas!

Keith is a member of Northumbria AM.

Keith Minton takes a ‘Quaker’ view of the Christian year, especially with regard to Christmas


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Every day is a sacrament – or is it?

Reflection

15

James Logan Pearsall Smith, writer, social observer and philologist, was born into a wealthy Philadelphia Quaker family on 18 October 1865. He was an Anglophile who spent most of his life in England, where he acquired a reputation as a fastidious stylist and a passionate advocate of correctly used English.

His Quaker antecedents were notable. His paternal grandfather, John Jay Smith, editor and librarian, traced his descent to William Penn’s secretary, James Logan. Both parents were celebrated preachers and his mother was a gifted writer. His father, Robert Pearsall Smith, was a partner in a glass-making business owned by John Mickle Whitall. Robert married John’s daughter Hannah. High-minded, cultivated and with a strong social conscience, the Pearsall Smiths typified a Quaker family of that period. Walt Whitman was one of their friends and an early influence in kindling Logan’s interest in literature.

Logan was educated at Penn Charter School, Haverford College and Harvard. After university, he spent a year working at the New York branch of the family firm, long enough to convince him that his career should be in literature and not commerce. With no need of gainful employment as his father had provided him with an independent income, Logan and his mother settled in England,

where this eager Anglophile took a degree at Balliol College, Oxford. His became a favourite of Balliol’s legendary vice chancellor Benjamin Jowitt while admiring the exquisitely crafted prose of Walter Pater, one of the leaders of the Aesthetic Movement.

Logan’s first book, a volume of short stories entitled The Youth of Parnassus, owed much to that master of the genre Guy de Maupassant. Meanwhile, his elder sister married Bernard Berenson, the great art connoisseur, while his younger sister Alys became the first wife of Bertrand Russell. A niece married Virginia Woolf ’s brother and another niece the brother of writer Lytton Strachey.

He followed his first book, which wasn’t commercially successful, with an admired biography of Henry Wotton. But it was with his next two books, The English Language and Words and Idioms, that Pearsall Smith signalled his lifelong passion for the English language and what he considered should be its correct usage. With the poet Robert Bridges, he launched the Society for Pure English, contributing many articles to its journal. In 1913 he became a naturalised British subject.

Despite losing his faith, he remained strongly influenced by Quaker ideals. Robert Gathorne Hardy, who contributed Pearsall Smith’s entry in the Dictionary

of National Biography, wrote: ‘He retained a large residue of Quaker virtue; apart from occasional divergences from commendable conduct, he often performed acts of thoughtful and unostentatious generosity’.

Although he wrote an autobiography and a scholarly study of John Milton, he is best known for three books, Trivia, More Trivia and Afterthoughts. All were notable for their perceptive – and sometimes waspish – opinions on a host of subjects and written in the beautifully balanced sentences that became his life’s quest.

His independent income enabled him to travel widely and pursue a literary life that was the envy of contemporary writers. But he was no dilettante; he took his work seriously and was rarely satisfied with what he wrote. Gore Vidal has spoken admiringly of the three books on which his reputation depends. So too did Cyril Connolly, who for a time was Pearsall Smith’s secretary. Leonard Woolf, Virginia’s husband, giving a dissenting view, thought his writing rather precious.

James Logan Pearsall Smith died on 2 March 1946 aged eighty-one at his Chelsea home. He never married. Although his output was small, it continues to give pleasure. His reputation has retained its lustre.Stephen Taylor is a member of Kingston & Wandsworth AM.

Saluting a literary perfectionist


language

Stephen Taylor looks back at a lapsed Quaker pedant

16

I was thinking back over this past year at what had moved me the most of the many events I have attended. I

could say that I was extremely inspired by the Kaos Signing Choir that I saw and heard at the South Bank Centre at the end of November. The choir consists of children from about five years old to late teens, including both deaf and hearing singers. Everyone in the choir signs the words while they sing, thus teaching the children and the audience about inclusion. Inspiring, yes, but most moving? No.

Then I thought about the Tutankhamen exhibition at the O2 centre during the early part of the year. It was fascinating, historically interesting and enjoyable, but not the most moving.

Well, what about the First Emperor exhibition? It was impressive and I learned a lot about that period of Chinese history but… The Viking living history day? The visits to Kew

Gardens? The butterfly exhibit at the Natural History Museum – shimmeringly vibrant colours on tiny beings, encouraging conservation of our planet, but…

What about the wonderful exhibition of American prints at the British Museum during the summer? It took a fascinating look at the development of printmaking and the use of light – wonderful.

My visits to the Museum of Pottery and to several potteries around Greensboro, North Carolina, with the varieties of shapes, colours and methods of making the pieces were again marvellous.

But, when it came down to looking for the most moving and uplifting evening I experienced this year, it was a simple panel of nine young adult Quakers coming together from four continents at the Quakers Uniting in Publications annual meeting. Through the support of many corporate and individual donors, they are working together to bring out a book

written by many young Quakers of all varieties of Quakerism giving each person’s experience of our faith. The panel’s individual introductions about what they hope to accomplish with this book were really overwhelming. Coming from both programmed and unprogrammed backgrounds, as well as a range of evangelical, liberal and pastoral Quakerism, the panel members had spent just a week together in the mountains of North Carolina. They had come to respect each other and to realise that each person had something different to offer to the project.

This simple evening discussion with the panel’s enthusiasm and excitement truly was the most exciting, inspiring and hopeful event I attended this year, despite the wealth of other ‘cultural’ exhibitions in museums and galleries, the music I heard and the places I visited. It gave me faith that our Society is in good hands for the future.

Trish Carn

Inspiration and hope

Earlier this year I came across a game lurking at the back of my computer. Like many computer games, it has the kind of name (Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar) no self-respecting film could ever get away with and, at first glance, ‘retro’ would be the kindest word you could say about it. Made in 1985, it’s ancient in computer terms and even modern remakes use only about 250 colours, compared to the millions utilised in new games. The music consists of a few electronic squeaks and is better turned off. The whole thing would probably have been long forgotten were it not for one thing: it’s brilliant.

The genius idea of the game was

to shun killing things or acquiring wealth and riches as an aim, the mainstays of so many other titles. Instead, the goal is to inspire the people of the land by becoming an embodiment of the game world’s eight virtues: honesty, compassion, valour, justice, sacrifice, honour, spirituality and humility, and through them live a life that is truthful, loving and courageous. You become more compassionate by giving to the poor, more honest by offering a fair price for the things you buy, more just by refusing to attack non-evil creatures and so on. As you progress through the game, it becomes ever more important to uphold the virtues and even a small slip – such as a proud boast made

in an unguarded moment – can set you back.

But Ultima IV is more than mere entertainment with a novel twist, because many of the good works can be repeated in the real world. In the game, as in reality, leading a good life is something that happens slowly, incrementally, through small everyday actions. And while some aspects of the game have no real world parallel (how many people run into trolls every time they go into the woods?), many of them do and I am challenged by the actions of my in-game character to be a better person. My life may not imitate this art, but I’m working on it.

Oliver Robertson

Games to live by

2008 highlights



From art shocker to human being

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‘Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.’ The truth of this old adage struck me forcibly as I reeled out of Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. As a museum education person (not a very elegant expression, but I can’t bear ‘educator’), I have long advocated more interpretive material in museums and art galleries – what an American friend calls ‘didactics’. Kelvingrove is a massive Victorian edifice with global collections. When it reopened in summer 2006 after a three-year refurbishment, it became clear that its curators had subjected their objects to a once-in-a-lifetime reappraisal. Why are they there? What do they say? Who might be interested in them and what would they need to know? They’d then set about

creating displays that both encouraged their visitors to ask such questions and started to provide answers.

Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age – how could such a tiny country support so many world-class artists? Cue: model of a Dutch galleon and examples of imported Chinese ceramics.

French Impressionists – how did Pissarro and the rest construct their vivid Parisian street scenes? Cue: a selection of children’s building blocks at floor level in front of the painting.

Italian Renaissance – what do those symbols actually mean? Cue: audiovisual presentation of a St Laurence panel, which demonstrates how to put someone to death on a gridiron. It was about this point that admiration gave way to total exhaustion.

The new Kelvingrove is not without its detractors – cries of ‘dumbing down’ and ‘too child-centred’ abound, and not just in the scholarly community. Nor have all its objects benefited from the treatment – its single most famous painting, Salvador Dali’s Christ of St John of the Cross, unaccountably languishes at the end of a dark landing, with its sightlines marred by an obtrusive heating grill. But overall this is definitely my museum visit of the year – and I shall go on wishing that other museums learn some lessons from it.

Rowena Loverance

Kelvingrove gets it right

This was the year that I stopped disapproving of and started loving Tracey Emin. Visiting Edinburgh one day and curious, I dropped into her twenty-year retrospective at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. There indeed was the horrid bed with all the detritus cluttered about it, encouraging prurience from the crowd, but the rest of the show revealed a simplicity of emotional honesty and compassion that was breathtaking. There were the confessional, handwritten letters giving an Exploration of the Soul, complete with spelling mistakes, which tore at the heart; the appliqué blanket work with stark messages (did you know Tracey Emin embroidered?), which gave a whole new dimension to folk art. There were the installations dwelling on domestic themes, like the garden birdhouse with a DVD inside of her father, and the video of a conversation between Tracey and her mum, which had the enfant terrible leaning on the kitchen table attempting to persuade mother that children were not such a bad thing. ‘We turned out all right, didn’t we?’, she asks a sceptical parent. This was strangely touching, knowing as we do of Emin’s own abortion, detailed elsewhere in the collection. But the item in this multimedia collection that really caused me, finally, to fall in love with this much-misunderstood artist was the video of Tracey dancing superbly to the beat of the Sylvester hit ‘You Make Me Feel Mighty Real’. This was a gift to all the boys in her youth who gave her a bad name. I watched it six times. Don’t ask ‘is it art?’ When you are completely captivated, it certainly is.

Judy Kirby

Raymond and Mary Abbotson sendtheir loving greetings to all withwhom they have shared in fellow-ship and worship throughoutBritain Yearly Meeting. They are gratefulfor all the kindness they have received.

To Friends everywhere, includingSt Albans and especially Winchmore HillMeeting for their help this year, and alsoto Heather Hawkins of Derby Meeting,from John Arnison of Carlton Hill LM.

Love and best wishes to Friends every-where for a happy and peacefulChristmas and 2009. Jane (Constance)Brown 26 Redvers House, Union Road,Crediton EX17 3AW.

Margaret Burch sends cheerful and lov-ing greetings to Friends in StaffordshireArea Meeting, Banbury & Evesham AreaMeeting and Berks & Oxon RegionalMeeting, and to all others who know her.Abbeyfield House, The Hawthorns,Banbury OX16 9FA. 01295 269510.

Roland and Trish Carn wish all theirfriends around the country a very happyChristmas and a peaceful New Year.56 Alexandra Grove, London N12 8HG.

Christmas and New Year Greetings tomy Friends everywhere, especially inNorfolk, Bath and Kendal. Memories aretruly precious. Vicky Carter, GrandyNook Cottage, Kendal LA9 4NZ.

Le Centre Quaker de Congenies souhaitede joyeuses fetes de fin d’annee a tous sesvisiteurs passes, presents et a venir.Francoise, Libby et al. 00 334 66 71 46 41www.maison-quaker-congenies.org

Magda Cross sends loving Christmasgreetings to her Friends everywhere,especially those in Exeter, Dundee andthe Quaker Women’s Group.

John and Mal Derricott send Christmasgreetings and wishes for a happy andpeaceful New Year to all our F/friends atShaftesbury, Poole, Bewdley and inAmerica, and many others we have metalong the way.

David and Helen Edwards send warmestChristmas greetings from the heart ofSomerset to all F(f)riends we have madeover the last 20 years. Email:[email protected]

David Edwards Insurance Brokers sendswarm Christmas and New Year greetingsto our many Quaker clients. We aredelighted to serve many church andcharity groups and thank you for yoursupport. David Edwards 01564 782400,[email protected]

Lewis Edwards sends warmest Christmasgreetings to all his friends, with manyhappy memories.

Jill and David Firth wish a year of hopeto all Friends and blessings on the Friendand all who sail in her.

FWCC is especially grateful for Friends’generosity to Kenya Peace Teams andFriends House Georgia during 2008.Your support for this peace work andFWCC’s work to keep us connectedmakes a difference! Best wishes to all in2009. In the Spirit of the holydays, NancyIrving, Harry Albright, Cathy Rowlands,Kim Bond, Brian Odell - World Officestaff and volunteer.

Grainger & Platt, Chartered CertifiedAccountants of Carlisle, wish all ourclients, past, present and future aPeaceful Christmas and Exciting NewYear. Richard Platt 01228 521286.Email: [email protected] www.grainger-platt.co.uk

Best wishes for 2009, love Jez and Laurel.

Warm Greetings to all readers ofthe Friend from Marisa Johnson,Secretary of Europe and Middle EastSection of FWCC, and member ofCambridgeshire Area Meeting.

Mary Jones of Inverness Meeting, livingin Mull Hall Care Home, Barbaraville,Ross-shire, now 96 and with a new pace-maker, sends loving greetings to all ‘OldF/friends.’

To all my F/friends everywhere. Greetingsat Christmas and best wishes for 2009. Asyou have enriched my life, so I pray Imay have helped you. With love fromElmay Kirkpatrick, 9 Mount Haviland,Lansdown Lane, Bath BA1 4NB.

Doris Lee sends loving Christmas greetings to all F/friends everywhere,especially to all at Westminster Meeting.Still at the same address.

Joyful greetings to all - what a world tobring us to, O’ F/friends. Let us build theworld anew in 2009 - not trite but sense.Strengthen our faith this Christmastidewith greater love, hope, joys, and caringfor all, from Orion.

Plain Quakers thank all Friendswho made our autumn tour such

a success. Thanks for arrangingperformances and finding

audiences, and for generous hospitality.To all who joined us to reflect OnHuman Folly, warmest greetings from

Arthur and Mike.

Quaker Concern for Animals wishes ahappy, peaceful and compassionateChristmas to all. To join QCA, seewww.quaker-animals.org.uk or contactMarian at [email protected] 0151 677 7680.

Quaker Quest Network in seasonalmode, joins all QQs throughout BYMcelebrating their 2008 adventures, withhigh hopes that Meetings not yet part ofthe movement, will dare to seize theopportunities to share truth with theworld in 2009.

Farrand and Laura Radley wish allFriends we know, especially atHammersmith Meeting, the merriest ofChristmases and the brightest of NewYears.

Donald & Gillian Robertson send lovinggreetings to all our Friends from ournew home at 6 Lodge Gardens,Harpenden AL5 4JE. We hope to meetmany of you again during 2009 - if nothere then perhaps at Woodbrooke or York?

Having just returned from two weeks(re)discovering Sri Lanka, where Annwas born, the Strausses’ SeasonalGreetings missives will be a little laterthis year than usual, but rest assured thatyou will be in our thoughts and prayers.

Walk cheerfully and leave your carbehind this Christmas. Greetings fromJames Taylor & Son, bespoke shoemakerssince 1857. 4 Paddington Street, LondonW1U 5QE. Tel. 020 7935 4149.Good soles all.

Pip (Phyllis) Turner sends greetings toFriends in Wolverhampton and PennMeetings, Staffordshire and CentralEngland Area Meetings, and to all myfriends scattered around the country.1 Woodlands Paddock, 434 Penn Road,Wolverhampton WV4 4DY.

Jack Unite of Wincanton Meeting sendshis (and Marjorie’s) loving Christmasgreetings to all our Quaker friends andSpicelanders still here, and, ahead, maythe wonderful experiences we’ve sharedenable us to spread divine hope in thesetroublous times.

Christmas Greetings are continuedon the next page.

Ad pages 19 Dec 15/12/08 22:37 Page 2

the Friend 19-26 December 2008 19

Friends&Meetings

Deaths

Alterations tomeeting

RATCLIFF LM From Sunday4 January 2009 MfW will start at10.30am (11am until then). Seewww.londonquakers.org/ratcliff orcall our clerk on 020 8986 5510 fordirections. A warm welcome to allour visitors in 2009.

Births

Diary

THE SHEPHERDS PLAY Traditionalnativity from Oberufer. Meetingmembers will perform the play as agift to the children and community.Sunday 21 December, 10.30 Meeting,12.30 Christmas Shared Lunch, 2.30Play. Walthamstow FMH. 020 89267853. www.londonquakers.org

Tony BEAMISH 11 December.Husband of Theo, father of Sally(Glasgow LM), Oliver and Chris-topher, son of the late Lucia Beamish.Member of Worthing Meeting. Aged83. Worthing crematorium Friday19 December 1.20pm, WorthingFMH 2.15pm.

OUTDOOR MEETING FORWORSHIP Speakers Corner, MarbleArch, London. Sunday 28 December,2-2.45pm, and on the last Sundayof each month in 2008. Come andjoin Westminster Quakers! Detailsfrom: Jez Smith, 0798 007 2003.

RAF FYLINGDALES MEETINGFOR WORSHIPSaturday 3 January, 12 noon - 1pmunder the care of Pickering andHull AM. Followed by picnic atPickering FMH. Contact 01751432416 or 01751 472827.

NEW JORDANS CHALLENGESFOR OUR TIME Lecture Series.7.30pm Thursday 15 January.Michael Bartlet & Laurel Townendwill speak on Quakers and HumanRights. Tickets £10 from Janet May-Bowles on 01494 876594 [email protected]

LONDON QUAKER LESBIANAND GAY FELLOWSHIP meet onthe second Saturday of each monthfrom 5 - 7pm at Westminster FriendsMeeting House, 52 St. Martin's Lane,WC2 (Hop Gardens side entrance).Tea, MfW and discussion.

CHRISTMAS DAY MfW ATWIMBLEDON LM Christmas DayMeeting for Worship 10.30-11am atWimbledon FMH, 40 Spencer Hill Rd,SW19 4EL. All welcome.

DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DOFOR NEW YEAR? Why not take aspiritual focus and come on theretreat in Bath, 29 Dec. - 2 Jan.Contact Emma on 01225446972 orvisit www.ei-bath.info

BURNHAM-ON-SEA LM FromSunday 4 January 2009 MfW willonly be held on the first Sunday ofthe month. Other details unchanged.Please ring the Correspondent on01278 78883 for last minute changes.

Elspeth (Elsie) Caldecott MILES3 December, a daughter for Gaby Caldecott and Barney Miles, grand-daughter for Cressida Miles and great granddaughter for Carol Shawof Ealing Meeting.

Hugh FLATT 7 December. Aftershort stay in hospital. Member ofWellington Meeting, Somerset. Aged91. A Memorial Meeting will beheld Saturday 31 January atWellington Quaker Meeting House,2.30pm. Enquiries Jane Ruell 01984624898.

Jeff LEMON 13 December. Suddenlyat home. Brother of Eunice Lemon.Former Attender at WansteadMeeting. Enquiries Eunice 01483578991. [email protected]

Elizabeth WATERFIELD 7 December. Wife of Kenneth(deceased), mother of Lisa andHilary, grandmother of Christopher,Susannah, Sophie, Lucy, Matthew,Luke and Hester, greatgrandmotherof James and Alea. Aged 80.Memorial Meeting Streatham FMH,11am Saturday 3 January. EnquiriesHilary 07891 561683.

For details of how to place a notice on this page, see p. 23

Beatrice Watson now at 7 ChurchRoad, Dartmouth TQ6 9HQ, sendsgreetings for Christmas and the NewYear to my many friends. Peace andblessings.

Elspeth Wollen sends warmest goodwishes for Christmas to all theFriends she’s met and known atWoodbrooke and other Quakergatherings. Looking forward tomany reunions in York next summer.

Woodbrooke staff, volunteers andtrustees send Christmas greetings toall readers of the Friend. We hope tosee many faces, familiar and new, inthe coming year. May it bring youcontentment.

Changes of clerk

NORTH CUMBRIA AM (formerlyCarlisle & Holm MM) Clerk: JoKirke, 9 Lowry Hills Road, CarlisleCA3 8JJ. [email protected]

GARSTANG LM From 1 January,Co-clerks: Tricia Clark and JohnMay. Correspondence to:32 Greenacres Dr, Garstang PR3 1RQ.Email: [email protected]

CHILTERNS AM From 1 January,Clerk: Rodney Houghton, 34Hundred Acres Lane, Amersham,Bucks HP7 9EA. Tel. 01494 [email protected]

Ad pages 19 Dec 15/12/08 22:37 Page 3

20

Seventeenth century1. Founder and hat honour refusnik.2. Political economist, educational theorist and

visionary.3. This seeker after truth was first an Anglican rector,

then a Baptist, finally a Quaker.

Eighteenth century4. Kindly and tireless campaigner against cruelty and

slavery.5. Prison reformer.

Nineteenth century6. MP who opposed capital punishment.7. Theologian with a German middle name and a

chocolate connection.

8. Chocolate manufacturer who built a village.9. Poet and hymn-writer.

Twentieth century10. Disgraced president.11. Funny actor.12. ‘Quanglican’ cleric and peacebuilder.13. His writings on Quakerism are often given to

enquirers.14. Specialist in conflict resolution and reconciliation.15. Missionary in India, writer and Woodbrooker.16. Co-founder of Child Poverty Action Group.17. Biblical scholar whose name sounds a bit like a

lesser prize or a blue-footed bird.

A Christmas QuizQuaker quiz: John, Paul, George… and RichardAll these well-known Quakers have one of the first names above. They are arranged according to the century in which they lived the greater part of their lives. Some are still alive! Can you identify them? (Apologies to the feminists: next time Eye’ll do Elizabeth, Margaret and Joan – maybe.)


More Quaker questions (without help…)1. Who was the first Quaker MP? 2. Who was the second? 3. Name four Quaker scientists

and their areas of expertise.4. Which Quaker drained St

Petersburg’s marshes? 5. Which Quaker suggested a

nationalised health service? 6a. Which Quaker was the child

of the author of Tom Brown’s Schooldays?

b. What was he/she famous for? 7. Which Quaker doctor became

an MP from south London? 8. How many children did

Margaret Fell have? 9. Where was the first purpose-

built Meeting house that has been in continuous use from its being built to the present?

10. Where is Willam Penn buried? 11. Which is the nearest Quaker

Meeting to Fenny Drayton, where George Fox was born?

12. Which Quaker Meeting is furthest from Fenny Drayton?

13. Where is George Fox buried? 14. How many countries in Europe

and the Middle East have Quakers in them?

15. British Quakers started supporting EAPPI in 2002. How many BYM-supported peaceworkers have gone out to Palestine-Israel since then?

16. In which city is the newest worship group in Europe and Middle East Section?

17. How many countries in Africa have Quakers in?

18. Which are the only two publications of the Friend

Publications Ltd?19. Which department at Friends

House publishes Quaker News?20. Which department publishes

Quaker monthly?

History:1. What was the name of

the Indian ruler who commissioned the Taj Mahal?

2. In which year did Russia emancipate its serfs?

3a. Who was the last reigning English monarch to take command in battle?

3b. And for a bonus point, what

21

was the battle?4. Who was the seventh-century Anglo-Saxon king

of Northumbria who restored Christianity in his kingdom?

5. Which London area where Edward III kept hunting hounds is now best known for its newspaper industry connection?

6. Who was the French emperor, nicknamed ‘The Corsican’ after his birthplace, who died in exile on St Helena?

7. Which religious movement favoured by Charles I was opposed to Calvinism and aroused great hostility for advocating obedience to royal power prior to the English civil war?

8. Which battle, in June 1645, marked the defeat of Charles I in the English civil war?

9. Which public school was founded by Henry VI in 1440?

10. Which eighteenth-century French philosopher wrote ‘Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains’? And for a bonus – what was the name of his most famous work of non-fiction?

11. Name the youngest daughter of czar Nicholas II killed with other members of her family in 1918.

12. In which castle was Mary, queen of Scots executed in 1587?

13. Which English prelate and statesman dominated the early reign of Henry VIII?

14. What nationality was Marie Antoinette?

Medicine and Science1a. Whose theory clashed with the church’s view of

the earth being at the centre of the universe?b. Who backed him up?2. Who said that matter can be subdivided endlessly

but the soul cannot be divided, even once? 3. Who was the professor of social history and

medicine who collapsed and died while cycling to his allotment in 2002?

4. What was the drug that conquered TB?5. Which psychotropic drug emptied locked wards in

hospitals for the mentally ill?6. Which physiologist was so furious that his

research assistant had been overlooked that he shared his Nobel Prize with him?

7. Which nation was first to pass legislation regulating animal experimentation?

8. What was the name of the first recipient of a heart transplant?

9. How many lobes does a human brain have?

Religion (general)1. What is the name of the leader of Tibetan

Buddhism?2. What was the religious sect that believed

humans have a lifelong choice between light and darkness, body and soul and good and evil?

3. Name the breakaway Anglican grouping that held its founding conference in Jerusalem in June.

4. In which Hindu festival do people throw coloured powder at each other?

5. In which Muslim festival do worshippers throw rocks at the devil?

6. What is unusual about the eleventh Sikh guru?7. What does the word Apochrypha mean?

Arts 1. Which writer, who began his career as a policeman

in Burma, now gives his name to an annual award for political writing?

2. In which book and musical does the eponymous hero eventually reject both optimism and pessimism in favour of making his garden grow?

3. Which note on the piano keyboard has only two names (not three)?

4. Which musical instrument has the largest range?5. Who invented musical notation?6. Which Pulitzer prize-winning novel takes the form

of a letter from an aging father to his young son?7. In Arthurian romance, which position did

Arthur’s brother Kay hold in Arthur’s court?8. Name the two main horses in Michael Morpurgo’s

War Horse.9. Who said: ‘People who look for symbolic

meanings fail to grasp the inherent poetry and mystery of the image… The images must be seen such as they are’?

10. Which British painter worked on camouflage for royal navy ships in the first world war?

11. Which writer and airline pilot disappeared over the Mediterranean in 1944, never to be seen again?

12. Which satirist and confidant of ministers in Queen Anne’s government can be regarded as one of the first ‘spin doctors’?

Thanks to those who helped formulate the questions: Ron Kentish, Annette White and the staff of the Friend.

Answers will appear in the 2 January issue.


54a Main St, Cononley, Keighley BD20 8LL T&F: 01535 630230 E: [email protected]

Classified advertisements

where to stay HOTELS, GUESTHOUSES, B+BS

OVERSEAS HOLIDAYS

SELF-CATERING HOLIDAYS

the Friend 19-26 December 200822

HIGH CHAPEL HOUSE, RAVENSTONEDALE,Cumbria. www.highchapelhouse.comPeaceful, rural B&B in stunning walkingcountry. Yelly 015396 23411. Cookery daysalso available: www.cookincumbria.com

job vacanciesClassified ads inThe FriendStandard linage 47p a word, semi-display 72p a word. Rates incl. vat.Min. 12 words. Series discounts 5%on 5 insertions, 10% on 10 ormore. Cheques to The Friend.

Ad Dept, 54a Main StreetCononley, Keighley BD20 8LLT&F: 01535 630230E: [email protected]

NEWVATRATE

BEAUTIFUL, RUGGED PEMBROKESHIRE.Two eco-friendly, recently convertedbarns on smallholding. Each sleeps 4.Coastal path 2 miles. 01348 [email protected]

RESIDENT FRIENDS(Two posts) required for

Lincoln and Spalding Meetings10 hours service per week in early

mornings and evenings in return forrent free accommodation in adjoining flat.

Ideally starting in May.Duration of post negotiable.

For details contactAndrew James, 38 Northgate

Newark NG24 [email protected]

01636 642803 daytime01949 20512 eveningsClosing date 9 January.

THE QUAKER UNITED NATIONS OFFICE,New York invites applications for its2009-10 internship program. The intern-ship provides an opportunity for candidateswith an interest in international affairs,and a commitment to Friends’ principles,to work at the UN. Further informationand applications are available onlinewww.quno.org. Deadline for submissionof applications and references: 6 February2009.

RUGGED SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS LochTorridon. Comfortable house. Log fire.Panoramic mountain views. £275 (inclusive).Brochure: 07818 [email protected]

A QUAKER BASE INCENTRAL LONDON

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Central, quiet location,convenient for Friends House,British Museum and transport.Comfortable rooms tastefully

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Discount for Sufferings andClub members.

21 Bedford PlaceLondon WC1B 5JJTel. 020 7636 4718

[email protected]

COTSWOLDS. Winter/Spring vacanciesstill available. Spacious barn conversion inCharlbury. Sleeps 2+. Convenient Oxford,Stratford. Tel. 01608 811558 or [email protected]

THINKING OF RECRUITING A WARDENor Resident Friend? Contact Quaker Lifefor friendly, helpful advice. RichardSummers 020 7663 [email protected]

WARM, FRIENDLY NEWCASTLE B&B Jesmond. Quiet, adjacent Metro/city.Veggies welcome. 0191 285 4155.

TUSCANY, CAMPIGLIA MARITTIMA.Garden apartment, medieval village.15 min. Populonia, Etruscan ArchaeologicalPark. Near coast overlooking Elba.1 hour south Pisa. Sleeps [email protected]

CENTRE QUAKER de CONGENIES, nearNimes. Not only attractive bedrooms(self-catering) and garden in tranquilvillage, but also the new programme,"1788 Country" or music at Christmas.See www.maison-quaker-congenies.org+334 66 71 46 41.

CROMER. First floor apartment over-looking sea. Sleeps 4. Ideal for exploringthe North Norfolk coast. Price? What youcan pay! Call 07867 955336 or [email protected]

SWARTHMOOR HALL. 1652 Country,South Lakeland. Flexible quality accom-modation sleeping maximum 16. Fullycatered, self-catered or B&B for groupsand individuals. Retreats, pilgrimages andholidays. Maps for cycling and walking.Details 01229 583204.

LONDON: B&B IN CENTRAL, quiet com-fortable family homes. Double £25 pppn.Single £36 pn. Children’s reductions.020 7385 4904. www.thewaytostay.co.uk

EDINBURGH. City centre accommodationat Emmaus House. Tel. 0131 228 1066.www.emmaushouse-edinburgh.co.ukEmail: [email protected]

SUFFOLK COAST, WALBERSWICK.Self-contained annex. Sleeps 2/3. £100-175pw depending on season.Not available during school holidays.Tel. 01502 723914.

SOUTH WEST FRANCE. 2 houses; 1sleeps 4/5, the other 6/7, sharing largegarden and swimming pool, in peacefulrural setting. Beautiful views. Eachcomfortably furnished and well equipped.May be rented together or separately;High season: (July-August) £500-£600pw. Less in low season; longer letswelcomed. Contact: 01235 [email protected]

WEST ALGARVE (NATIONAL PARK).Attractive country house. Unspoilt coastalvillage. Accommodates 4-10. Pool,gardens, bird watching, walking, secludedbeaches. Tel. 01832 275395.www.vilad.com

WEST CORNWALL. Studio flat, sleeps 2.Near south coast. Walking. Beautifulbeaches. Contact 01736 [email protected]

TRANQUIL NORFOLK VILLAGE,near Blakeney. Delightful artist’s cottage,accommodates 5+. Sunny orchardgardens. Bird watching, sailing, walking.Available all year. Tel. 01382 275395www.thornage.com

1652 COUNTRY, HOWGILL, SEDBERGH.Comfortable 4 star holiday cottages inYorkshire Dales National Park overlookingFirbank Fell. Walks and Quaker trails fromthe door. 30 minutes to Lake District.www.AshHiningFarm.co.ukJim Mattinson 015396 20957.

ISLE OF HARRIS. Simple, peaceful,open-plan cottage, sleeps 1-4. Beautifulsituation. £110-375pw. www.4cliasmol.net01859 560250 [email protected]

ORKNEY, WEST MANSE, WESTRAY.Dramatic seas and skys outside: peace,security and friendship inside. Self cateringcottage, and rooms. 01857 677482www.millwestray.com

Ad pages 19 Dec 15/12/08 22:18 Page 4

the Friend 19-26 December 2008 23

room wanted

miscellaneous

WALK CHEERING OTHERS UP this Christmas in shoes from James Taylor & Son,Bespoke shoemakers, 4 Paddington Street,(near Baker Street), London W1U 5QE.Telephone. 020 7935 4149. www.taylormadeshoes.co.uk

study tours

JULIAN OF NORWICH Beautiful silverpendants and brooches, made to raisefunds for The Julian Centre, Norwich.Wonderful gift. Tel. 01603 767380.www.FriendsofJulian.org.uk

QUAKER BOLIVIA TRIP 13-27 June 2009.Study Tour and Community Service. Visitprojects of qbl.org and bqef.org. Workwith villagers on Quaker funded projects.Meet leaders of civic reform. Hike Incaruins, Lake Titicaca. Optional Peru-MachuPicchu or volunteer service. Reserve early.www.TreasuresoftheAndes.com(001) 707 823 6034 (California).

i.eworking with you to plan a secure financial future

without exploitation, repression or pollution

New baby in the family?Ask us about an

Ethical Child Trust Fund!Telephone: 01603 30 90 [email protected]

Authorised and regulated by theFinancial Services Authority.

Member of the Quakers and Business Network

investingethically ltd

LEISURE LEARNERS. This website startedby a Quaker fills the gap left byrestrictions on government funding foradult recreational learning. FreeMembership/Students. Free Trial/Tutors.www.leisurelearner.comNB amended web address.

AFRICAN SUMMER WORKCAMPS 2009.AGLI - The African Great Lakes Initiativeof Friends Peace Teams is sponsoringintergenerational workcamps in Burundi,Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda June 24 -July 25. Workcampers assist building orrepairing clinics, schools, peace centers -no skills required. Open to all ages.Details at http://www.aglionline.org orcontact [email protected].

LOVE TO SING and improve your health?Try visiting www.classicalvoiceteacher.com

FLY FROM STANSTED. Leave your carwith a Friend. Free transport. Reasonablerates. 01279 870407.

FINSBURY PARK/ISLINGTON. Roomrequired with kitchen/bathroom access,£100pw max. inclusive, for woman carerof disabled Quaker. Alec 020 7226 5448.

FRIENDS FELLOWSHIP OF HEALINGRestoring the Quaker tradition of healing.www.quaker-healing.org.uk

EFFICIENT LIGHTING. Change your lightbulbs and fittings. Save money and theplanet. Less maintenance. Bright, long-lasting lights, all shapes and sizes, indoorsand out. For Meeting Houses, homes andoffices. www.efficientlight.co.uk0800 043 8893.

Just Me by Sheila Hancock

Sheila Hancock ‘lives adventurously’ in thismoving, honest and charming account of herlife after the death of husband John Thaw.In this latest chapter of her life she facesdown burglars and EasyJet staff, makes friends with waiters and taxi drivers,unearths secrets in Budapest and gets arrested in Thailand. Just Me is abook about moving on, but it is also about looking back, and looking anew.Honest, insightful and wonderfully down-to-earth this is the story of awoman seizing the future with wit, gusto and curiosity.

Please send me _______ copies of Just Me at £15 each (5 copies to one address £60) incl UK p&p.

I enclose a cheque payable to The Friend for £_______ Your name_____________________________________

Address____________________________________________________________________________________

______________________________Postcode____________________Daytime tel________________________Return to: The Friend, 54a Main Street, Cononley, Keighley BD20 8LL. Subject to availability. Expires 31.01.2009.

1 copy £155 copies £60

incl. UK p&p(rrp £18.99 each)

to letNEAR HAMPSTEAD HEATH. Single roomto let in flat, £550 a month inclusive.Good transport. Zone 2. Must like cats.020 7485 7649.

Friends & Meeting notices,usually on page 17Births, marriages, deaths, anniver-saries, changes of clerk, new wardens,changes of address, diary items,etc., should preferably be prepaid.Personal entries £15.40 incl. vat,Meeting and charity entries £13.40(zero rated for vat). Max. 35 words.3 Diary entries £35 (£30.63). Add£1.70 to receive a copy of the issuewith your notice.Entries are accepted at the editor’sdiscretion in a standard house style.A gentle discipline will be exerted tomaintain a simplicity of style andwording which excludes terms ofendearment and words of tribute.Please include a daytime phonenumber. Deadline usually Mondayam. Cheques payable to The Friend.The Friend, 54a Main Street,Cononley, Keighley BD20 8LL.Tel. 01535 630230.Email: [email protected]

Christmas & New Year greetingsto all our advertisers, and to allthose who reply to them!

Ad pages 19 Dec 15/12/08 22:18 Page 5

EDITORIAL173 Euston RoadLondon NW1 2BJT 020 7663 1010F 020 7663 11-82E [email protected]

vol 166

No 51

ADVERTISEMENT DEPT54a Main Street

Cononley, KeighleyBD20 8LL

T & F 01535 630 230E [email protected] the Friend

Ramallah Friends Schoolsays

Thank you

Dear Friends

Your continued kindness and generosity gives us great encouragement and has beeninstrumental in making it possible for nearly two hundred Christian and Muslim children,from ninety-two families who see the future together, to join our Quaker School.

Despite all the challenges we face, with you we are working towards our goal that nochild should be denied a place at Ramallah Friends School because of a lack of money.Thank you.

All of us at Ramallah Friends School wish you aHappy and Peaceful New Year.

Joyce AjlounyDirector

Ad pages 19 Dec 15/12/08 22:11 Page 6

fd 1912 ee · 2 the friend the friend 173 euston road, london nw1 2bj tel: 020 7663 1010 fax: 020...

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