Forum, February 2025

Appreciation for global Friends’ gatherings

I appreciate Gabriel Ehri’s editorial comments in the January 2025 issue (“Where Our Treasure Is”). Having been appointed as a representative multiple times to Friends World Committee for Consultation’s (FWCC) World Gatherings of Friends, I feel it is an experience many more Friends in the United States need to be part of. Those of us who attend our monthly meetings and feel that’s “all there is” need to know that FWCC is a world family of Fiends whose bright light gives deeper meaning to the Religious Society of Friends.

I have always often felt FWCC was never a high priority in the life of our Society of Friends. This is very unfortunate. Friends need to rethink the importance of FWCC. A way to start is to attend a regional gathering of yearly meetings. There is also the annual meeting of the FWCC Section of the Americas. Finally, one can become a representative to a world gathering to feel, to see, and to be part of the different ways we worship. To feel, to see the different languages in which we communicate. To feel, to see, to be part of the silence, the ministry, and the singing will give you a new perspective on the vitality of our Quaker family.

At the world gathering held in New Hampshire in 2000, I had the privilege to be part of a conversation called by Simon Lamb of Ireland Yearly Meeting (who recently passed away). He was struggling with a concern: should he ask his yearly meeting to release him so that he could travel among Friends with a personal spiritual concern as to our future. This was a very moving experience to me, one that I would not have had if I had not been a part of this world gathering.

George Rubin
Medford, N.J.

Finding words for our faith

Pamela Haines articulates the modern dilemma of the despair inherent in modern individualistic culture (“To Dance with Openness,” FJ Dec. 2024 online). The strength of Quakers, and other religious groups, is in community. We are not alone. We share our values and spiritual being with others who are in sync with us. It’s a community that has allowed us to survive for 372 years. Alone we are ineffective, but together we have impact on the world around us.

We are called to be faithful to our spiritual vision and mission, not necessarily to be successful. The outcome is beyond our control, but being true to our testimonies is something each of us can do with the support of the community.

Joseph Anthony Izzo
Washington, D.C.

Thank you, Pamela, for your clear-headed and full-hearted article. You spoke to my condition and I will be re-reading this frequently.

Lynn Huxtable
Albuquerque, N.M.

Pamela, your article is most apt and wise, supportive and good teaching throughout for those to whom it is naturally accessible. But I am beginning to wonder if this style works any more beyond a limited, shrinking circle. Is it possible, I wonder, to find a form of written utterance that is closer to the experience of silent worship. Thoughts and images do not flow there like prose, or even poetry. If the experience of silent worship is more powerful than listening to preaching or reading or hearing scripture, then perhaps as writers we need to find ways to emulate it in text. I confess that at this stage I do not quite know what I am talking about, except that I am striving myself to write without wasting words, as I think conventional prose can do, perhaps inevitably.

Paul Conway
Northern Bruce Peninsula, Ontario

Laboring against great indifference

Benjamin Lay thought he and his wife Sarah Smith’s crusade to convince Friends to disavow slavery was a failure. Sarah died in 1735 when American Friends’ meetings accepted Friends owning people as slaves as commonplace. Benjamin was disowned by multiple meetings for his disruptions of meeting for worship with his loud condemnation of “Negro-masters” in meetings. It was not until 1757 that Philadelphia Yearly Meeting began calling for an end to slavery. Benjamin died in 1759.

When the Quaker Initiative to End Torture (QUIT) was laid down last July (News story, FJ Dec. 2024, Nov. 2024 online), some Friends involved in the group felt their work was a good effort but a failure. But any witness against dehumanizing people, both physically and mentally, is valuable. It is through repeated witnessing that steps to stop war, physical and mental cruelty, and injustice become visible to others—visible to those who are not aware of, or want to ignore, the harm and pain each causes. Just as Benjamin and Sarah Lay were witnesses laboring against great indifference, facing great anger for their repeated witnesses, QUIT’s efforts were seen, and are steps toward rousing that of God in everyone.

Edna Whittier
Floyd, Va.

Listening to the inner voice

I love the dual interpretation of Jesus’s second commandment (“A Joyful Abandon to Love” by Barbara Birch, FJ Jan.). Both/and equality is better than either loving your neighbors as much as yourself, or loving yourself as much as neighbors.

George Gore
Chicago area, Ill.

Once I have learned meditation, and then using meditation to concentrate on solving particular problems, I then turn to loving others as I love myself as another problem to be solved. What are their issues and how can I help them with their problems?

Jeff Brotemarkle
Hillsboro, Kans.

Meetings using money

Yet another use for our money came to me as I was reading your insightful stories on how meetings use money in the January issue of Friends Journal. In a word: outreach. We want to spread Quaker principles and practices to more people.

Here are some ways that come immediately to mind. Post directional signs on the major streets nearby. Adopt a street in your community, which usually entitles you to a sign posted on that street saying something like this to passing motorists. Make sure the sign in front of your meetinghouse is conspicuous. Design and print bookmarks, then distribute them through your public library. Host public events that draw others to your meetinghouse.

Tom Louderback
Louisville, Ky.