Here in Britain Yearly Meeting, we are faced with
a call
to revise our Book of Discipline, which some fear will bring
painful differences to a head. We have a declining, ageing membership
– where anecdotal reports suggest that many of our newly convinced
Friends join us, as members or attenders, in middle age or later. We
have quiet, but increasingly vocal concerns being expressed about the
quality of our discipline in Quaker processes.
In this context, then, I will answer the question
– why do I blog?
It started when I began to receive what I term
written
ministry. Things I felt compelled to write down – and to
share. Eventually I was persuaded that putting them
on a blog made sense, and I decided that it would also make sense to
do some deliberate writing as well, such writing now making up the
majority of posts on this blog.
I blog because I feel led to do so. While it may
have started with the written ministry, I now feel a calling to this
sort of communication, and it may branch out into other forms as
well, in order to get Quakers talking more, thinking more, about
things that we might shy away from. To help people know what other
Friends are thinking about and talking about. To help me find out,
through comments – be they here, or on social media where posts are
shared – what sort of thing other Friends, hopefully outside my
personal circles of contact, think about the issues of the day.
I blog because I believe that having these
conversations between as wide a group of Friends as possible will
help move them forward. Rather than concerns being expressed in
mutter conversations over coffee, vented to family, or grumbled on
Facebook, these conversations can happen openly. By happening between
people across a wider geographic range, they can happen without the
sort of stress on individual Meetings that might occur if they were
had intensely, without support and structure, in such a local
community.
I don't believe that any of these issues are
things that can't be overcome, by approaching them in a spirit of
love and discernment, and by finding the right ways to enable
communication without confrontation. I don't claim to be able to come
up with those ways, but talking about what has worked that people
have tried will help to refine them. I can share what I've learned
from people who are good at coming up with such things – I will
always remember a particularly good exercise for sharing terms we use
for the Divine from Rhiannon Grant, available on Being
Friends Together.
By talking about things on this blog, I hope to
encourage more Friends to engage with these issues to the extent they
apply in their Meetings; some of what I write is highly
Britain-specific, but similar issues arise in other Yearly Meetings,
and Friends elsewhere can find both interest and benefit in learning
from our experiences here in Britain.
Some of what I write here also has an outreach
role, and an educational role, helping to explain Quaker practices –
always as I understand them, and with the benefit of others'
insights. Some advocates for spiritual enrichment in our Meetings, of
embracing different practices or symbolism to widen our experience
and seek new light. I want more people to try more things, because I
believe that this will renew our movement and enrich our
spirituality.
I am prolific, by comparison with many other
Quaker bloggers, because I want to reach people and have these
conversations. I invite support, as I have explained
regarding my use of Patreon, because my financial situation means
that I cannot put time and effort in, sufficient to feel I am
satisfying the calling, without attempting to make some sort of
living from it. With things as they are, this may lead to not being
able to keep putting as much into it as I am, which would put me in a
terribly difficult position – but I'll cross that bridge when I
come to it.
I want more people, Quakers and others, to know
more about Quaker traditions and teachings. If there's a focus on
those that particularly chime with my experience, it's only because
that's what I know most about it. I want us to understand all sorts
of experiences, and how they relate to one another, to Quaker
practices and history. I think that more of us should be doing this
sort of sharing, so we can understand one another's experiences and
the richness of our living tradition.
I blog because I can't not, because something
drives me to do this, for the benefit of all I can reach. I hope that
I am achieving at least a little of what I am driven to seek, but
it's hard to know. Still, I go on in faith, that this drive would not
be inflamed in me without a reason, yet knowing that that reason
might not be as it seems to me.
I can only keep trying, keep writing, keep doing.
Time will tell.