T is for Tillsammans (Together)
My sister-in-law visited us the other week and
during a walk with standard poodle Irma we talked about Quakers and politics. She
is not a Quaker, but her mother was and her brother is. I was talking about
collective witness, and she said that she had always understood Quakers as a
bunch of individuals all doing their own thing, and not as a collective. I was
somewhat taken aback, but when I thought more about it, was not all that
surprised by her words. We do come across as a bunch of individuals and this is
something that we need to address.
After her visit I listened to Ben Pink
Dandelion’s Swarthmore lecture on the Woodbrooke website: https://www.woodbrooke.org.uk/pages/swarthmore-2014.html
In the Lecture, delivered during the Britain YM
Gathering in Bath, Ben talks about Quakerism as a Do-It-Together religion, rather
than a Do-It-Yourself one. His message is
that we are not individuals in our individual meetings and yearly meetings, but
a collective body of Friends worldwide that is gathered and caught, as in a net
(as Francis Howgill said way back in 1663).
Ben highlights 4 insights into what it
means to be a Quaker, which he regards as inherently collective:
- We have a direct encounter with
the divine
- We have developed ways of
interpreting this experience – discernment
- We have developed forms of
worship that nurture the direct encounter with the divine
- We feel called to live a
particular kind of life due to this encounter.
He goes on to say that we can’t encounter the
divine without being changed – transformed. This transformation makes us see
and feel the world in a new way. This can be uncomfortable, but leads us into a
more spiritually authentic place. Our lives are transformed both individually
and collectively in order to become agents of transformation in the world. That
is what it means to be a Quaker.
In his lecture Ben points to areas where we
have become fuzzy, more individualistic, more secular and much more permissive
– and have been affected by wider societal trends. Our sense of belonging to
our Meetings has changed. He suggests that we are no longer accountable to the
group as we were earlier, that we can decide what is and is not Quaker and that
we have a huge amount of freedom and permissiveness in terms of faith. We
present ourselves as an option in the option of faith – attendance at Meetings
for Worship is optional, service is optional (we are now more likely to say no
to nominations committee) and supporting
the Meeting financially is optional. We thus have an optional sense of
belonging, which leads to a diffuse, rather than gathered, community.
According to Ben, in developing our own individual
versions of Quakerism we have lost our Collective Voice.
What can we do? What Ben suggests is not new. He
encourages us to resist the individual, resist the secular and reclaim the
spiritual and the joy and passion that go with this. He thinks that we need to inhabit the Quaker tradition, be bold,
think radically and live adventurously. And we need to do this together. Tillsammans.
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