'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

Quaker gathering

I am still here at the annual session of the Baltimore Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). I have been a fan of Quaker process for a long time, have worshiped with Quakers for some years now, and finally joined the RSF in early 2001.

What I love about Quaker process is the embodiment of the idea that every woman and man on the earth has a connection to the spirit and can, through quiet, spirit-led discernment, connect with a portion of it; the embodiment of the idea of human equality (i.e. no ministers!); and then, the fact that this strange body of people has found a way to continue in existence, bearing witness to the traditional Quaker testimonies of truth, peace, and simplicity, for just over 350 years now. And has done it--in my branch of Quakerism, anyway-- without having any paid clergy or mammoth, cumbersome bureaucracy to maintain.

The way the RSF has done this is through a strong emphasis on congregational self-governance. For example, in Charlottesville, members of the Meeting community have a total of around eight to twelve opportunities to worship quietly together each month. But in addition we are encouraged, once a month, to take part in a Meeting for Worship with a Concern for Business at which the business of our Meeting (congregation) gets decided. So we are called a Monthly Meeting.

Then all the Monthly meetings in (roughly) the Chesapeake watershed area are part of what is called Baltimore Yearly Meeting. So once a year all the Quakers in Monthly Meetings in this area are encouraged to take part in the BYM session, which takes larger-scale decisions.

And so, through many periods of persecution, the Religious Society of Friends has survived, and has supported some pretty inspiring social witness by individual Quakers and groups of Quakers even at times when the costs for such witness were high.

This was the first time I was able to get to Yearly Meeting sessions, and it's been a great experience...

There are nearly 300 people signed into the register. Every morning we have a lengthy Meeting for Worship with a Concern for Business, and in the afternoons and evenings there are various workshops, games, activities in conjunction with the very active young people's program, etc.

For example, Thursday afternoon after I got back here from Charlottesville, I saw a great video that my friend Dave Zarembka helped put together, about the sorely needed peacemaking activities of the Friends in Burundi (who are Burundians), and we had a little discussion of that. Yesterday afternoon I took part in a really interesting workshop about the antiwar work of the Friends Committee on National Legislation (there's a link to their website on the main page of this blog). And this afternoon, I took part in a great workshop on some aspects of the peace testimonies of the 18th-century North American Quaker John Woolman.

One of the exciting things I learned at the Woolman workshop is that Woolman's very important journal is now available on-line. Wow! This was the single work that, more than any other, brought me to Quakerism.

Back in February, I wrote a post here about one tiny aspect of what it was that I thought Woolman had to say that was relevant to our present time. But now, I can tell you that if you click here, you can read the whole Chapter in which the quote I used there appears. It's on pp.270-271.

As I said, wow! Woolman online! What would he himself have thought, I wonder?

We had a great discussion about JW in our workshop. It was mainly about his reflections on and moves towards war-tax resistance. He is best known, probably, for the witness he bore against slaveholding and the whole institution of slavery. But he also reflected, prayed, and acted quite straightforwardly and publicly on questions of war and peace, and on simplicity and the need to avoid holding too much material property, which he considered both to be a "cumber" for the property holder and also, because of the greed and divisiveness to which property-acquisition gives rise, a major cause of warfare.

No blood for oil, John Woolman!

He was truly (1) a very advanced systems thinker, and (2) a prophet for our own time.

Now that I know folks can access his key text online, I can give more points to it in the blog.

Alternatively, you can just go to the Table of Contents page, dive into the text, and start reading it yourself. You'll notice that this text comes to you thanks to the excellent e-text program provided by my favorite library, the Alderman Library of the University of Virginia.

Anyone want to start a separate John Woolman discussion blog with me?

Anyway, if you've read this far, I will now share with you that tonight I'm leaving the BYM meetings here and driving home. Then tomorrow I leave for a two-week vacation in Europe. France, Belgium, and the UK.

Can I justify this by saying it's my "globalist duty" to go spend money in France and assure the French people that there are some (many) US citizens who have been appalled at their government's actions this year?

Nah, I guess that isn't really convincing.

I'll be having some fun with Bill; catching up with old friends and my sisters; and observing the situations I see. But I recognize that this activity is not part of a simple lifestyle, and I shall labor more with that fact.

I'll try to put a few posts up on the blog meanwhile. But in any case, I'll be back at my desk August 19th.