Missing Ministry

 

mezzo-tint 1683-8 (c) The Trustees of the British Museum

Last week I picked up a book I haven't read for ages. It was George Gorman's 1973 The Amazing Fact of Quaker Worship. Flicking through its pages I came across a passage from Robert Barclay's 1676 explanation and defence of Quaker practices and beliefs, usually called his Apology. I've never read Barclay's Apology but two passages struck me. The first is also included in Quaker Faith and Practice:

" it is left to the free gift of God to choose any whom he sees meet thereunto, whether rich or poor, servant or master, young or old, yea male or female."

The words may not seems so dramatic in the present day but in the 17th century, during the Restoration period, the distinction between classes was sharply marked, In particular the subservience of servant to master and woman to man in the workplace, family and society was taken for granted and often strictly enforced. The idea that God might choose to address a master through a his servant of a man through a woman was revolutionary. It didn't just call into question the restored hierarchy headed by the king; it was akin to the levelling movements that had been suppressed during the Commonwealth period under Cromwell. 

But Barclay goes further in a passage I eventually found in Barclay's Apology online, and which I'm quoting here at greater length than George Gorman does:

"in our day God hath raised up witnesses for himself, as he did fishermen of old, many, yea most of whom are labouring and mechanic men, who, altogether without that learning, have by the power and Spirit of God struck at the very root and ground of Babylon, and in the strength and might of this power have gathered thousands, by reaching their consciences, into the same power and life; who, as to the outward part, have been far more knowing than they, yet not able to resist the virtue that proceeded from them. Of which I myself am a true witness, and can declare from a certain experience, because my heart hath been often greatly broken and tendered by that virtuous Life that proceeded from the powerful ministry of those illiterate men: so that by their very countenance, as well as words, I have felt the evil in me often chained down and the good reached to and raised."

This startled me because it indicates something which I haven't, to my recollection, heard said in Quaker circles: that the majority of God's witnesses in the 17th century - by which Barclay almost certainly means Quakers - were members of the "labouring and mechanic" class. In other words, they were manual workers. Barclay goes on to say that he has direct experience of their ministry, and it has had a powerful effect on his faith, life and actions.

I wonder how many Quakers today can say that they have responded like this to the ministry of working-class people. 

I could extend this to wonder how many Quakers today can say that their lives have been changed, as Barclay's was, by the active presence of exploited, despised and marginalised people in their Meeting. Are there any Meetings in Britain today where the most frequent and most effective ministry comes from people who are poor?

We are missing a great deal of ministry - and it may be ministry that would, in Barclay's words, break and tender us - and by tendering he means softening us, making us tender to the call of the Spirit and the needs of others.

It's worth imagining what a Quaker Meeting might be like if we regularly received ministry arising, through the Spirit, from the lived experience of queuing at a food bank, or from fearing the loss of insecure housing or casual work. Ministry may arrive through an individual but it speaks through that individual's experience, knowledge and understanding, just as it uses that individual's words and language. Let's go further and imagine that all Meetings in Britain included a number of members who shared their experience of homelessness or, like many Black youths and adults, of being regularly stopped and searched by the police. Suppose most members of Quaker Meetings experienced, on an almost daily basis, the casual cruelty of a society that looked down on them and treated them as people of little worth. I wonder what Quaker Meetings for Worship would be like if that were the case, and whether we would, in such circumstances, build a stronger community and draw closer to the Light. 

Towards a Quaker view of work?

 

Quaker Oats advertisement from The Strand magazine

Quaker Oats have nothing to do with Quakers, apart from being an occasional source of annoyance. But an advertisement which labels Quaker Oats as "the work food" and tells readers sternly "You have your work to do" plays into the Protestant work ethic that has, at times, played a part in Quaker thinking. For instance this quotation from Quaker John Bellers in 1714 is still in Quaker Faith and Practice and I've heard it quoted on numerous occasions:
"The poor without employment are like rough diamonds, their worth is unknown."

The more I look at that line, torn from its context for present-day edification, the stranger it seems. Why is the worth of the poor specifically only known if they are employed? And by whom does it have to be known? In the early 18th century when he wrote those words John Bellers would have been well acquainted with Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount as given in Matthew's gospel:

"Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? ...

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

"And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." (Matt. 6, 26, 28-9)

But John Bellers was part of a world that was very concerned with idleness - especially the idleness of those who were forced to depend on the charity of others. His scheme for providing poor Quakers with flax to spin, at home or in prison, led to other plans including for a College of Industry which never came into being, and a Quaker workhouse, which did. From 1702 the fifty-six "Friends and Orphans" who lodged there were kept busy with various kinds of manual labour, although the boys were taught to read, write and keep accounts. They were also fed a decent diet including bread, meat and beer and kept clean by the provision of cold baths.

Bellers' statement about the poor stands out because there is so little in Quaker Faith and Practice about the experience of being employed. By comparison, a great deal is included about Quaker businesses and business ethics - from the point of view of those who own, run and invest in them. But many people and many Quakers today engage and struggle with the world of work as employees. Even more live valuable lives outside paid employment - and if we really believe in "that of God" in everyone, this might also help us to see the value in the work people do, whether it is paid or not.

When I was having a tough time at work I looked through Quaker Faith and Practice to see if there was any help to be found there. I didn't find much. It helped to told not to lower my standard of integrity but not what to do if I saw a lack of integrity in some of the things that were done by those in charge at my place of work. Bosses often present a false picture of themselves and their work to the world, particularly under the stressed conditions of a competitive market place. This seemed at times to compromise my own attempts at "strict integrity."

And how about bullying, inequality and injustice? These are commonplace in many workplaces today and Quakers are both subject to these and lookers on. It would help to find advice on how to respond and how to stand with those fellow employees who are having a hard time. Not all jobs are rewarding in any way other than in providing the employee with pay. Much work is experienced, with justification, as mere drudgery. When many people (including Quakers) are in precarious jobs we are all in need of useful, ethical and spiritually-informed advice to help us navigate the world in which we live. It's good to read the kind of over-arching vision that Quakers more than a hundred years ago articulated when looking towards a new social order but it would be helpful to accompany this with a sense of how to deal with the realities of daily life until and in order that such a vision might be achieved.

Quakers can easily be tempted to place higher value on the rich and those in well-rewarded jobs than those who earn little or nothing - as though money really was the key to understanding individual wealth. The history of poor Quakers is less recorded than the history of rich ones which is a shame. As a society we probably have more knowledge of the thoughts and spiritual insights of Quakers who owned and traded in slaves, or profited indirectly through slavery, than of how Quaker paupers, labourers and servants understood their faith. This is a considerable loss and it would be a greater shame if we continued to neglect the insights of those less valued in the world beyond our Society. 

I wonder if it's possible to separate the idea of what constitutes work from ideas that connect wealth and income with status. Work might then consist not just of something that gains a transfer of money into a bank account but might also cover housework and other domestic chores, planting a garden, cooking a meal, caring for a child or other dependent, listening to a neighbour, running an errand. It might even include activities that have no worldly value but are spiritually nourishing or simply make life seem worthwhile. Someone might work by listening to music, going for a run, playing a game with others or observing with pleasure something in the neighbourhood - a tree, a flower, a bird or a fine design on a house or wall. Could we really challenge the values of the contemporary world so far?

I don't think we can do any of this without a lot of serious listening - the kind of listening that turns many preconceived values and assumptions upside down. Instead of listening to the practised words of bosses and owners, we need to make space to hear those whose work is not so highly valued and those who have been taught not to recognize what they do as work as all. I don't know if this is possible in the Religious Society of Friends but I'd like to think that it is.

Quaker Mother and Child by Horace Pippin c.1935-40 

Quaker Mother and Child | RISD Museum 

Money, time and something else

The website for Quakers in Britain includes a section on giving.  It indicates two ways in which members of the Religious Society of Friends can contribute to Quaker work: by giving money or by giving time. Both money and time are useful and can be used well. But there are many people who have neither time nor money to spare and there's a risk that such people may come to feel they have nothing to offer the wider Quaker community - and that the Quaker community as a whole may forget what those without time and money actually provide.

Many people in Britain have less than no money. They are in debt. This isn't their fault. We live in a system where debt is a way of life. Some kinds of debt are respectable, even among Quakers who can be quite critical of debt. A mortgage is a debt. A student loan is a debt, although a debt that may never be repaid. A bank loan that underwrites a business venture is a debt. 

The debts that people working in insecure low-paid jobs or relying on benefits tend to be smaller but it's much harder to get by when these debts are incurred. Many people who have incurred debts through poverty or crisis find themselves working extra hours in an attempt to reduce of pay off the debt. These people often have caring responsibilities or illness or disabilities as well. They can't offer Quakers time or money but they are just the people we should welcome in our Meetings and as members. They have much to teach the wealthier and more fortunate people in our community. 

Some of what we might learn is purely practical. The book of  Pam Lunn's 2011 Swarthmore Lecture, Costing not less than everything, includes the following passage:
    "In the town where I live the local climate change action group recently had an interactive exhibition. ... I spent about three hours there, helping visitors use a simple online carbon footprint calculator. The people who were showing low carbon emissions and coming very close to one-planet living (in carbon terms) were the poor - people unemployed or on low incomes, with whole families living in small houses, in what many of us would regard as over-crowded conditions. I was surprised at how low some of their carbon footprints were. ... I don't regard my own home as luxurious, or my lifestyle as affluent - but on a global scale they most certainly are."

That passage is a useful reminder, and not just that poorer people in Britain may be doing less harm to the planet than the majority of Quakers. It's an uncomfortable reminder that Quakers are, by and large, affluent and liable to be surprised that poor people might set a good example. And while the paragraph draws back from suggesting that the author is herself living an affluent lifestyle in a luxurious home in local terms, that is precisely what her example suggests. If there were more people in our Meetings setting a good material example by their low carbon footprint because of their relative poverty, and if their example were valued, admired and followed, they would provide something of worth to the community of Quakers as a whole.

I think we sometimes pay too much attention to those who are able to offer time and money to Quakers, and too little attention to those among us who struggle and lack both. Because we don't have a paid priesthood, we depend on those who can afford to donate time to Quaker work and perhaps also to those whose money can fund Quaker projects. Of course their time and money is a useful and generous gift. But just as we worry about big donors to political parties wielding undue influence and power, we need to be concerned that big donors to Quakers (in terms of time as well as money) might exert too much influence on the decisions and direction of the Society. Those who possess spare time and money are often those whose life experience has been limited. There is a difference between observing need (even when we respond to it) and actually experiencing need.

There is no single experience of poverty and need. People who are poor or in need are complete, fully-rounded human beings. Each of them has something individual and specific to offer us, should they wish to join us at Meeting or become a member of the Religious Society of Friends. Each has particular spiritual insights. We can learn at least as much from those who lack time and money as from those who have both in abundance.

watercolour from the commonplace book of Quaker Elizabeth Clay