Cartoons helped with preparation. Photo: Both by Erik Dries.
Building community
Lee Taylor reports on the FWCC Europe and Middle East Section Annual Meeting of representatives held at Woodbrooke. It addressed the theme of pilgrimage.
A sunny long June weekend at Woodbrooke provided the setting for the Annual Meeting of FWCC Europe and Middle East Section (EMES) representatives, joined by other Friends from Britain Yearly Meeting, and the Central Executive Committee of the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC).
A Friend expressed the views of many participants in summing up the event as ‘a fantastic experience, an opportunity to learn, share and meet with others with similar issues, find out more about available resources and talk through concerns with others’.
A community of Quakers
Many Meetings in the Section, especially in continental Europe, are small, and Friends travel long distances to worship together and share fellowship. A Friend said that it was ‘wonderful to be part of a large community of Quakers’.
Annual Meetings have business to transact. We heard from our executive secretary, Marisa Johnson, and our ministry and outreach coordinator, Julia Ryberg, about the work undertaken on our behalf over the past year, particularly their wide travels and visits. How has the Spirit moved among Quakers in Europe and the Middle East in 2014? The EMES Annual Report offers insights.
We welcomed the joyful news of the Small Grants Fund, which is generously funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. This is given, initially for a three year pilot period, to support initiatives within the Section to strengthen Quaker identity and connections and bring Quaker values to the wider community in Europe and the Middle East (outside Britain).
Ben Pink Dandelion, one of our keynote speakers, reminded us that we are ‘a do-it-together’ religion, and offered the Amish query: ‘does this action build community?’ as useful in discerning matters great and small. This captured Friends’ imaginations, especially in view of our strivings to strengthen our communities and collective voice in the world.
Pilgrimage
The theme of our Meeting was pilgrimage and in my home group we started by talking about how we had travelled to Woodbrooke. For some, like me, it was an hour or so up the road; for others it was a journey involving hundreds of miles, several changes of transport and many hours. Pilgrimage offers opportunities for exploration and for physical and spiritual journeys. Who is alongside us? What nourishes us along the route? Who helps when feet get sore and spirits flag? What is the ‘end’ of a pilgrimage? The World Council of Churches has called for ‘a Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace’. Many EMES representatives are planning to join the FWCC World Plenary Meeting in Pisac, Peru in early 2016. What challenges, inspiration and unexpected gifts will be revealed?
Erik Dries’ witty cartoons helped both our preparation (alongside written queries) and the weekend. What a gift to be able to summarise visually complex matters.
For many who attended hearing about the range and extent of social witness was inspirational: ‘I have realised how long it has taken Quakers in the past to work on a specific issue and achieve their purpose’..A Friend, talking about the slave trade, explained: ‘it required dedication and commitment.’
We heard about the ongoing support for the Am’ari play scheme in Ramallah, Palestine, concern for peace building in the Ukraine, and plans for innovative work with young people in Hungary this summer, together with the work of the Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA) and the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) in Geneva.
Experiment with Light
The incoming clerk of FWCC EMES, Sue Glover Frykman of Sweden Yearly Meeting, offered two early morning Experiment with Light sessions. She stripped the steps down to: ‘Be still’, ‘Wait in the Light’, ‘Open your heart to the Truth’, ‘Submit to the Light’, ‘Be open to new possibilities’ and ‘Closure’.
Sue noted: ‘It surprised me that no-one had used Experiment with Light on the Meeting before. Those who were already familiar with Experiment with Light had concentrated on the individual focus… even the very short version yielded valuable insights for those taking part. A delightful surprise was that many people said that they wanted to use it in their own Meetings and even translate the words into their own languages.’
This was clearly valued by those attending and for many the experience reflected a new sense of direction in their own pilgrimages: ‘I enjoyed the Experiment with Light experience. It was short, but powerful’; ‘during the meditation I saw new ways of approaching the conflict in our Meeting’; ‘I could say it was a turning point for me both in my life and in my commitment with the Religious Society of Friends’. Woodbrooke’s green environment and the warm hospitality offered by Sandra Berry and the whole team, alongside the Friends in Residence, helped people to enjoy being together and building community.
Fellowship
Central England Area Meeting welcomed representatives through offering an imaginative craft activity – making prayer flags with ‘footprints’ – and showing the range of social witness in and around Bournville, including the Northfield Ecocentre, and the world war one peace exhibition and Peace Hub in downtown Birmingham. There was energetic country dancing to the lively Cotteridge Meeting ceilidh band. Who knew that Betty Hagglund is a skilled caller as well as historian and archivist? It is wonderful that Quakers have been able to reclaim music, art and dance as expressions of the joy of communing with life and each other.
The evening epilogues were led by each of the other Sections, as the Meeting was fortunate to be joined by the Section clerks and secretaries prior to their Executive Meeting. We were invited by Asia West Pacific Section to make paper cranes and place them on a map of the world to mark an area of our own concern; to sing and listen to a powerful story by Africa Section; to reflect on our own gifts and to say out loud the name by which we call the divine, the beloved, by the Section of the Americas.
The next stage of the pilgrimage is the meeting of Friends from around the world to consider different ways of tackling key injustices that arise from climate change, to make decisions about future arrangements for FWCC and to experience new ways of worshipping and deepening fellowship.
Nurturing encounter
The World Plenary Meeting in Pisac in January 2016 represents an increasingly rare chance for Friends from different traditions to get to know each other and grow in mutual understanding and appreciation of the variety of our traditions. There will be a strong emphasis on developing leadership in younger people and a living ministry to strengthen the Religious Society of Friends. It offers the opportunity for a coherent, worldwide Quaker voice on the most crucial issues of our time – economic and ecological justice – from a spiritual basis.
Marisa Johnson writes: ‘mutual encouragement, accompaniment – and challenge are what makes a “holy” community, not one that is “perfect”, but one that is complete, because different aspects of the divine, embodied by different people, come into communication with each other. Therefore nurturing encounter is the basis for strengthening community.’
Friends in Britain are warmly invited to uphold Friends from Britain Yearly Meeting who are on the next stage of the pilgrimage, and to consider the very necessary financial support to enable young Friends and Friends from isolated or economically challenged Meetings to attend.
Lee is a member of the Quaker World Relations Committee and a member of the EMES Executive.
The World Council of Churches ‘Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace’: http://wccpilgrimage.org
