Structures and spaces
Janet Quilley reflects on faith, boundaries and continuing revelation
It is interesting that the alternative ‘public’ name chosen for our Large Meeting House is The Light. It feels unfinished: a light what? A light hall or room? A lighthouse perhaps! Ironically, it is expected to mean more to the non-Quaker users of Friends House than to Friends. It seems to me, however, that the term is more significant to us as Quaker language than it will be to others and it has already prompted strong feelings about its appropriateness in this context. But perhaps others will discover something new about us just because of this new name. It does, at least, prompt some theological reflection about its meaning.
Boundaries and frameworks
‘The Light’ emphasises the space rather than the structure of the building. It prompts thoughts about aspects of our Quaker lives that are currently under discussion. Frameworks and structures have an important place in helping us to identify and understand the nature of the Quaker animal that is Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM).
It is often hard for us, as a non-credal faith group, to hold together the wide variety of insights among Quakers, let alone to explain ourselves to others.
We have come to recognise and value our processes and ways of working as the key to understanding what it is to be a Quaker. We find we need boundaries and frameworks to help us recognise what we are and what we are not. But we also prize tolerance and believe there is something of God in everyone – on whichever side of the boundary they find themselves. Being open to new light involves respect for and the valuing of others’ views.
Continuing revelation
We continue to need structure – most obviously in the church government, which is integral to our Book of Discipline, currently in the fifth edition of Quaker faith & practice. And we are beginning to sense a need to embark on a more radical revision of that book, to try and discern whether we have a clearer picture of where we stand on some issues.
I think it is important to recognise that being a Quaker is always going to be unfinished business – what the theologians might call ‘continuing revelation’.
It is not necessary to resolve the issues on which we have a range of differing perspectives within our Yearly Meeting in order to express them as ‘the Quaker view’ in a new Book of Discipline. Whenever we revise the Book we will, I hope, aim to hold the diversity under the discipline of our process for decision-making. When the time is right we will reach clearness – as we did in 2009 concerning equal treatment for same sex and opposite sex relationships.
I see it as an essential characteristic of our Quaker tradition that we hold on to our differing perspectives; our differences can be grounded in the unity of our common purpose. The challenge for any future revision committee will be to find the writings that express this.
Quiet processes
Another example of our need for structure in the organisation of our affairs is our regularly reviewed five-year plan, currently entitled A Framework for Action, which is approved by Meeting for Sufferings and overseen nowadays by our BYM trustees. There is certainly a yearning for structure in that title!
It seems to me that it is important not to see this framework simply as a set of boundaries – rather that it is a means of protecting the spaces in between and allowing the Spirit to lead in unexpected directions, albeit tested according to our discipline.
I think of those spaces as the fabric of our Quaker way, often not spelt out but understood to be central to our ways of working: our ‘peculiar’ business method; our distinctive discernment and decision-making in the context of worship; our emphasis on listening rather than on rhetoric; our valuing of ‘quiet processes and small circles’; our frequent preference for working quietly, and often without publicity, in order to encourage understanding of differing views.
Quaker faith
These characteristics of the Quaker way of doing things are rather taken for granted in the present framework. It is easier to concentrate on the structure than on the spaces between – the actual fabric of our non-credal and difficult-to-pin-down Quaker faith.
It is crucial that we do not lose sight of the fabric of Quakerism just because we cannot easily define it. We have the prospect of re-expressing our Quaker faith for the next generation, in the immediate future, through our next five-year plan. It will be an expression of the work that we want to commit ourselves to – on a longer timescale and in greater depth – through the revision of our Book of Discipline. I hope we will not strive for a Book that is cut and dried. I hope that we will preserve and nurture those spaces in our structures that allow new Light to come in and that enable our ways of working to flourish and bear fruit. These ways of working are integral to our Quaker faith and must not be lost by default.
‘The Light’ means more to us than merely the labelling of a room for the convenience of others using our building. Perhaps others’ convenience could better be served by a more ‘concrete’ name for the main meeting hall or room in our building than by what many still see as the misuse of a significant Quaker concept.
It feels right, for me in any case, to link the idea of the Light with the spaces in our structures where the Spirit can flourish and where the essential elements of our Quaker way will be preserved.
