Quakers and Practical Action

I have a very strong feeling about this, as strong as that when I am called to minister. I reflected and tested it, however, and it was clear to me that it is actually simply a strong feeling of my own. Nonetheless, like other deliberate writing on this blog, it’s something I want to share – something I feel is of value to share among Friends, and to be public about to any non-Quaker audience who happens upon my blog for whatever reason.

We Quakers can talk a good talk. But when it comes to practical action, we often seem to struggle. Oh, when we do take practical action we can be very good at it (and we can be ineffective – no-one is effective all the time), but actually taking the step of trying to take practical action seems to be difficult for us. I cannot count the times, in Meetings for Worship for Business, that I have been frustrated – we have a clear leading that something needs to be done, but ministry on what to do or how to do it is sparse, and often, to speak plainly, wishy-washy. Where it does occur, it is often in such a minority that, quite understandably, the clerks do not feel able to see it as the sense of the Meeting and include it in the minute.

Status, Power, and Betrayal of the Spirit

Not every decision can be referred to the whole of a body corporate, such as a Quaker Meeting. It is impractical in some cases, for instance because of the need for a decision in a short time; it is implausible in others, for instance because of the need for those making the decision to have a clear understanding of certain facts or law; it is simply impossible in others, because it is not ripe for discernment in a large group, in the Quaker case, or for a vote or consensus decision in most other contexts, because it requires preparatory work. That preparatory work will inevitably mean making preliminary decisions, excluding some possible options.

So we have people in positions that, though we may hesitate to use the term, are positions of leadership. Elders lead our spiritual development, clerks lead the process of discernment, premises committees lead on the maintenance and use of our property, even librarians lead by making decisions on what to deliberately acquire for the library – and occasionally what to deliberately exclude when a copy is donated. They are positions of status, as respect is not unreasonably given to those whose names have been discerned to serve in certain roles – though we serve most faithfully when we deny, especially to ourselves, the status of a role in which we serve.

My Experience of Gender

A note in advance: this is categorised as both ‘writing’, the tag I use for deliberate writing, and as ‘ministry’, the tag I use for things I am led to write in the same manner as being led to speak in Meeting for Worship. This is not a typical tagging pattern on my blog, and it arises for a simple reason. I am strongly led to write about my experience of gender at this time, but there is much more leading as to what I should write – though I was still guided by the Spirit more than I am generally in deliberate writing. This has been written deliberately, not entirely with the guidance of the Spirit, but definitely at the prompting of the Spirit.

I grew up in about as much of a gender-expectation-free environment as one could get, in the time and place I grew up. This is, I think, largely a result of my mother; my father never had any objections to it, as far as I was aware, but I’m not sure he would have been as encouraging without my mother’s influence. I had ‘boy’s toys’ and ‘girl’s toys’. As a small child playing dress-up, I gleefully mixed costumes and costume elements without regard for the conceptual gender that they belonged to. I even experimented with makeup as a small child, as well as in my teens within subcultures in which such exploration was acceptable. I may have grown up in a mostly male household, but my mother was always the most dominant figure in it.

Nominations, Mandates, Power and Service

Engraving of Vespasian, Roman Emperor,
by unknown artist circa 17th-18th century

We Quakers have a somewhat idiosyncratic way of getting a lot of our work done. In any organisation, in any community, there will be certain jobs that need to be done for that community – and some way of deciding who does the jobs and in what way.

In your stereotypical secular organisation, the main ongoing jobs are codified into specific positions – chair, secretary, treasurer, social secretary, communications officer, and so forth. Any work that needs doing is either in the remit of one of these people, or an executive committee decides who will do it. Who serves in the various named positions is usually a matter for election, though it is not unheard of for an executive committee for one year to designate the executive committee for the next, subject to ratification in general meeting, or for some or all of the positions to be filled ex officio by people with positions in other (typically constituent or affiliated) organisations. By and large, though, it comes down to something to some degree typically democratic – there is a vote of the membership to determine who serves in what role.

In less formal organisations, work is often done by whoever shows up. Decisions, be they by vote or consensus, are made at meetings by a self-selecting body of those who cared enough to show up. If the organisation wants a newsletter, someone volunteers to do it, and does so if no-one objects; when they cease to do so, someone else will offer – or not, and the work doesn’t happen, for good or ill.

An Unpopular Truth?

I know this won’t be popular with some Friends, though I don’t know how many, but I have to say it anyway.

I know this won’t be popular with some Friends, but that’s part of why I have to say it.

I understand why there’s a debate among British Friends about trans rights. About trans inclusion. About trans affirmation. I might not agree with it. I might think it’s been driven by interest groups who have deliberately provoked fear in society at large, who have played upon particular insecurities – well-justified insecurities – among some people. I might think that some of the groups against trans rights have unlikely bedfellows supporting them, and that they will regret it soon enough. Still, I understand it about as well as I think I can.

It's Been a While

I’ve been away from this blog for a while. I thought it might be appropriate to talk a bit about why. An exploration and reflection on the past 9 months or so. I also want to thank those who have continued to support my Patreon despite the lack of output for so long; this might be a matter of not noticing, forgetting they had supported it, but it might also be a deliberate decision to continue to support me in this small but very tangible way in spite of my output. For that I am profoundly grateful.

I did post some written ministry recently, but if you read the note at the bottom on when it was written, you will see that it was written as far back as June 2020. I was not completely dysfunctional by then, but was already struggling.

Dispute, Difference, Division

Division is inevitable,
Dispute unavoidable.
Unanimity: a pipe dream.

Every group, large or small,
Has from time immemorial,
Faced the same inevitable wall,
A contest adversarial.

The outcomes of dispute are few,
Though each seems different, too many to name.
Either one side conquers, the other gives way,
Or terms are reached irking both sides the same.

A Choice Between ‘Are’ and ‘Aren’t’

“Trans women are women”.

That’s a statement I agree with. Also that trans men are men.

I acknowledge that it is a little simplistic, it misses nuance. There are things that differentiate trans women from those assigned female at birth, of course there are. But there’s one thing that makes me quite sure that it’s right to say that trans women are women.