Quaker Business Method and Democracy

When people hear that Quakers don't vote, they often jump to the wrong conclusion – that we don't vote, ever. Like in elections and things. As Advices and Queries recommends, however, we are urged to be involved in local, national and international affairs – and the fundamental way of doing that, for the first two, is at the ballot box. In my experience, Quakers vote fairly reliably.

What we don't do is vote internally. Decisions are made through the Quaker Business Method, which very much involves no voting. Given that I'm writing for a primarily Quaker audience here, I'm not going to fully explain what our business method involves, just cover some key points as seems necessary. A business meeting is a Meeting for Worship, simply one held in order to make some decision, or receive a report, or various other purposes. People speak (ideally) as they are moved, and all ministry is heard and weighed by all present, until the clerk is able to discern the sense of the meeting and write a minute. That minute is offered to the Meeting, who have the opportunity to indicate acceptance or not, and suggest tweaks to wording.

Note that there's no voting there. If there's a disagreement as to whether the minute reflects the sense of the meeting, we don't have a show of hands – we place great trust in our clerks and elders to guide us through business even when it is difficult. That's what we mean when we say that Quakers don't vote.

Perfection

No-one is perfect.

No-one and nothing can be.

Do not set impossible goals, do not seek perfection.

That does not mean we should be satisfied with the way things are, for while we are not perfect, and the world is not perfect, and never can be, they can always be improved.

Like an asymptotic function, the limit can never be reached, but can always be approached more closely.

But be wary, Friends! Improvement is not a matter of simple mathematical optimisation. Human outcomes are complex, many-faceted, and often there is no objective way to say “this is the better result”. To make a room better for performance may make it worse for conversation. To make a building more secure may make it less welcoming. To make a person more efficient may make them less sensitive.

Be ambitious for the right change, and do not forget what you haven't thought of.

Written April 2017

Service

Service is a great part of out tradition.
Service to our Meetings, service in the world.
Service to one another, service to those in need.
Desire to serve can be frustrated,
Our gifts unrecognised, or so we think.
But the service we should give is often a surprise to us.

So often we ask, “what can I do”, “let me serve”, neglecting the service that can be given without formal call. Thinking too much of ourselves, of demonstrating our worth.

Are you so great that your service must be seen, must be something you think commands respect?

Are you so petty that you think some service mean and beneath you?

All service, rightly given, flows from – and to – the Spirit. The Spirit cares not for status and respect, for weight or prominence.

Ask not what you can do, but what we can do. No service is reserved to one person, and no-one gives service rightly without their community behind them, though they may not know it.

Your service may be to support others, perhaps those acting under concern. They may be the ones recognised, but the same Spirit that drives them may be calling you to support them. You may resist, and the spirit cannot compel the unwilling, but do not be fooled by ego or unfamiliarity into ignoring its call.

Written November 2016

Righteous Transformation

I am told that Friends are made uncomfortable when one Friend ministers often, when that ministry feels like a sermon, when it asks what we should be doing, asks whether we are truly doing as we should.

Do we come to worship for comfort? Certainly, I'm sure many of us have experienced a meeting where we came full of doubt, pain, or fear, and we were held, sheltered and uplifted by the Spirit as shown in that meeting, in the ministry of Friends, and in the invisible yet palpable love of the Spirit itself, brought close to us by the faithful waiting of the meeting.

Yet as we are a gathered people, we are not gathered for our own comfort and uplifting. We are gathered to be made a people of God. That does not mean, for us, going through prescribed motions, as in the liturgies of mainstream churches. Nor does it mean merely helping and uplifting one another. Nor is it enough to take the spirit of righteous transformation into the world, exciting our efforts to mend it.

Righteous transformation must begin with us, and is never done with us. None of us shall ever attain our full potential as children of the Light. Faithfulness to that Light means ever striving, within our faith community, to make it reflect light and love, and yes, to comfort those who will benefit from comfort; in our wider community, to relieve suffering and share the fruits of the Light; and also in ourselves, to let the Light fill us, and transform us, and never think we have reached a final destination.

This does not mean that we have failed, or that we are not good enough. Were that so, none could succeed, and none would be good enough. In the Spirit, love flows freely to all who will take it.

Written March 2017

Countless Paths to God

Do not admonish them to be godly, but to be good.
Do not tell them to have faith, but to be faithful.
Do not advise them to follow your way, but to find their own.

For there are countless paths to God,
   and no-one can know them all;
And true faiths are innumerable,
   yet all are lived faithfully;

And the ways of God cannot be fully understood.

Yet this does not mean you should not speak.
Goodness speaks to goodness, and a faithful life speaks of God to all.
To share your way does not mean to seek to draw others to it.
Your way will be enriched by sharing theirs, and theirs by sharing yours.

Written March 2017

Love

Love does not exclude
    but nor does it embrace indiscriminately

Love does not compel change
    but it does transform

Love does not condemn
    but it does admonish

Love does not instruct
    but it does educate

Love is not forceful
    but it is powerful

Love will not cure illness
    but it will bring life joy regardless

Love cannot be taught
    but it can be learned

Love cannot be demonstrated
    but it can be experienced

Written February 2017

Darkness

One of the great lessons of early Friends, too often neglected, was that as well as that light we often speak of, we also all have impulses and tendencies that we should not follow. That we all have the capacity to commit horrible deeds, and to attempt to justify them to ourselves.

Now is perhaps the time to return to this lesson. As Fox found “that it was needful I should have a sense of all conditions, how else should I speak to all conditions”, so we may find that it is needful that we understand the drives and motivations of those who commit acts that we would condemn, that we may speak to their conditions and know at least how they might react to anything we might do to address their depredations, and at best how we might teach them to love the light, even if they may not see it as we do.

The lesson goes beyond that, however, and this time of difficulty also provides us a great opportunity for our own spiritual development. For how should we defeat our darker impulses only by ignoring and denying them? We cannot. It is only by acknowledging them we may overcome them, accepting them as part of ourselves, and as much as any other part of ourselves deserving of love – but not of indulgence. For if only light can drive out darkness, certainly wilful ignorance cannot.

Written January 2017

Religious Dress

Many faiths have associated manners of dress. Turbans and skullcaps, robes and stoles, many forms of clothing express the values or traditions of people of faith. What, then, is Quaker religious dress?

The Quaker faith is practical while being mystical; it is grounded in ordinary life and community, while it reaches to comprehend the divine. We seek to do good in the world with our hands, not just our words and our beliefs. We celebrate the equal standing of all people, and the availability of the divine to all. Our faith does not seek to glorify itself with worldly trappings, but to glorify the world by hard work.

True religious dress for a Quaker, then, is that which is practical. It is that which serves its goal most effectively without ostentation – except where that purpose requires ostentation. The world being what it is, sometimes it is necessary to dress to impress, but only in a good cause.

Religious dress for a Quaker does not attempt to set any above others. It does not say “this one is closer to God”, or “this one has greater social status”. Yet it does not seek uniformity, as we are each different, and that difference it precious.

Religious dress for a Quaker does not attempt to stand out. After the traditional dress of our forebears came to do so, it was set aside. Our work is in the world, and so are we, and we should not attempt to suggest, even by clothing, that things are otherwise.

Religious dress for a Quaker is economical and ethical, but achievable to each person by their means. It balances different concerns by the conscious effort and faithful discernment of each of us.

Religious dress for a Quaker is individual and expressive, allowing each to be true to their nature and their connection with the divine.

Religious dress for a Quaker is a means to an end, not an end in itself. As the ends vary, so must the clothes.

Written January 2017

On Tolerance

If you wish to be tolerated, you must tolerate.

This does not mean that you must be silent and put up with intolerance. It does not mean that you cannot decry the misdeeds of those who do not tolerate. It merely means that, if you wish not to be excluded, you should not exclude.

This does not mean that you cannot sometimes set yourselves apart, especially if those times and places in which you do not exclude you. But seeking acceptance and toleration cannot rightly succeed if it does so by seeking to exclude others who are not set to exclude you. The only thing that should not be tolerated is intolerance.

Written January 2017

What is the Quaker Way?

You may ask, what is the Quaker way?

It is a path through a forest, thickly grown, yet with shafts of light breaking through the trees. The path branches often, it loops back upon itself. It brings you to quiet glades, and leads you through brambles. It crosses babbling brooks and roaring rapids. It is sometimes wide, and sometimes narrow; sometimes smooth, and sometimes strewn with roots and rocks.

Sometimes it takes you where you expect, and others it leaves the forest in unexpected direction; sometimes, you end back where you began, but you are never unchanged.

A thousand people can wander it, and each find a different route. And yet, as we each walk our separate way along the path of many paths, we can always reach out our hands and touch one another, support one another, tell each other of our journeys.

Though the path is different for each of us, we talk it together and in unity. Though we see different things and reach different destinations, we share the path. Even where we cannot agree what may be found in the forest, we know that there is one forest, and one path.

Written May 2016

Light

There is a light in each of us.

We call it by many names – Inner Light, Holy Spirit, Divine Principle, the Light of Christ, and many more besides. Still, it is the same light in each of us, and if we can heed its promptings, it will show us the way to right actions – how we arrange our own affairs, how we are to govern our community, and how to act with love towards all.

When we gather in the silence, each of us willing to heed that light, it grows in us. Each light grows, reaching to one another, joining and binding us, allowing us to know it, and one another, with greater joy and clarity than we ever could without it.

Written December 2016

Work and Play

There can be no doubt that faith can be a serious business. We have sombre work to do, important issues to engage with, work to do in our communities and in the world.

However, that is not all there is to faith. The breath of the divine is at work in joy and in laughter as much as in our works in the world, be they great or small. Indeed, it is more easily felt in frivolity, in games, in sharing and fun than it is in works of seemingly greater importance, even if we do not recognise it as such. The divine can give us strength to deal with great troubles, our own or those of others, or of society or the world, but it also gives us capacity to smile, love and laugh.

Do not let your work prevent you from enjoying life, and sharing that with others. Where possible, join the two together, and feel the divine sing in your heart.

Written September 2016

Times and Places

People of many faiths make a physical space for the sacred, be it a temple or church or a simple home shrine. Likewise, people of many faiths set aside time for the sacred, in daily prayers or weekly divine services.

All places are equally holy; no time is more or less divinely appointed than any other. Nonetheless, the discipline of increasing conscious awareness of the divine can be aided by these practices. If you do make use of such practices however, remember two things.

Firstly that these times and spaces are for your benefit, not that of the divine. They are not offered to the divine, nor are they sanctified above other times. Do not become bound to the time or the place, as the divine most assuredly is not so bound.

Secondly that your goal in so doing is to increase your awareness of the divine at all times and in all places. There is nothing wrong with being more aware at certain times and in certain places, provided that those times and places grow, and with them the sense of the divine in your heart.

Written August 2016