Quakers - Seeking the Light Within - Compass - ABC Religion & Ethics

Quakers - Seeking the Light Within - Compass - ABC Religion & Ethics

Quakers - Seeking the Light Within

A look at the history and experiences of The Society of Friends - Quakers - in Australia and their disproportionate contribution to education and peace activism.
Broadcast: Sun 28 Sep 2003, 10:00pm
Published: Sun 28 Sep 2003, 10:00pm


Transcript


Intro:

Hello and welcome to Compass. I'm Geraldine Doogue.



In the current climate of international tension the threat of hostilities never quite goes away.

Tonight we profile a religious organisation whose response to the challenge of war is the vigorous pursuit of peace.



It began over three hundred and fifty years ago but most people know little about the organisation called the Religious Society of Friends, better known as the Quakers. Throughout history their numbers have been small but their influence considerable.



Tonight we meet a group of people who may not have met but who all call themselves "friends". They're on a shared journey that reflects both their beliefs and their determination that their lives be a testimony to those beliefs.
Peter Jones
Quakerism represents a road that you walk on. It's a search.

Sarah Davies
For me being a Quaker is definitely something that involves a lifestyle

Jo Vallentine
It's like a spiritual well into which I dip for renewal.

John Green
And in Quaker speak we would talk about that of God in every person.

Narrator
In Sydney's leafy north Quakers have gathered for their weekly Meeting for Worship. For Quakers world wide this practice is both integral to their faith and central to their lives. There is no priest or pastor, no sermon, hymns or spoken prayer.

It's a form of worship conducted largely in silence ....broken only when an individual feels called to speak.

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Speaker

Each of us in our relationships with people every day can provide a model for how communities and nations and cultures might and can relate to each other.

Narrator

Quakers believe the experience of a shared active and listening silence brings them closer to their God....and that God is present in each and every individual.

Sheila

When you are really centred in a meeting with a group of people it's a very powerful experience

Pera

I think a sense of oneness it's not just a brotherhood or sisterhood or whatever. It's actually being part of each other. That's my experience.

David

The notion that the spirit is there to be encountered, to be heard, to be listened to is the heart of it.

Narrator

Quakers accept Christ's teaching but not Christian dogma.

Their daily lives are geared to upholding testimonies of Peace, Truth, Integrity, Equality and Simplicity.

Ro Morrow

One of the strongest testimonies for me, and perhaps one of the hardest is the testimony of simplicity.

Narrator

Ro Morrow lives near Katoomba in the Blue Mountains district of NSW where she teaches permaculture.

Searching for something more she abandoned the Anglicanism of her childhood to find a spiritual home in Quaker belief and testimonies.

She tries to live simply with no car, television or refrigerator....It's a way of life she finds rewarding.

Ro Morrow

So to live simply is to live as much as I can from the garden; to live simply is to be a very low low consumer. Like not to consume packaging and be part of the big buying thing.

To live simply is also to consume locally and support local people. To live simply is to try and speak simply and to think more purely.

In fact it's a joy, it's so less cluttered. Your shopping list goes down to about six or eight main things and that's it. Most of your supermarket is in your garden. No life is much much better living simply.

Narrator

Through her work with Quaker World Service Ro Morrow is passing on her horticultural skills to women in third world countries so that they too may become more self sufficient.

Ro

In Cambodia I was involved in a project to teach district women, all women, how to grow food. And when they could grow food they had to go and teach poorer women.

So I basically taught them permaculture. And they had to practice it before they could teach. It's a sort of nutrition that takes people out of chronic persistent hunger into better health. So it's food gardens and fruit.

Poverty is an injustice against the spirit of God or the inner spirit of all those people. And at least if they have food they can rise a little above that terrible gut feeling of being hungry and worse for many people is seeing their children hungry.

Narr

Quakers do not prosyletise. They believe people can't be converted but must discover for themselves whether they are Quakers or not. The great majority are Quakers of conviction who have come to the belief from different beginnings.

This was not the case for Sarah Davies.

Sarah Davies

My mother is a Quaker so it was a natural process for me to become a Quaker. When she went to meeting I just came along. Her father actually was a Quaker. I don't have a process where I went from knowing something else or going to a different church and then becoming a Quaker like a lot of people have. For me it was just a natural process, I was always there.

Narrator

Sarah Davies' grandparents were Quakers. The advent of World War II was to herald very challenging times. The attacks on Britain both tested her Grandfather's Quaker convictions and isolated him when other men were rallying for their country.

Sarah

My grandfather was a conscientious objector during the 2nd World War. And this was due to his being a Quaker. Quakers believe in pacifism, and I know stories about my grandfather. During that time he would be given white feathers by people, such as a symbol of being a coward. But I think often it is the person who says no, and who says this is wrong is the person who is much more courageous.



Narr

Sarah Davies is a media studies graduate but her career path has taken a very different direction from that of her fellow students.

As a consultant with the Geneva based World Council of Churches she spent 2002 working in their peace building and disarmament section.

In 1999 she went to Israel and Palestine as part of a Quaker peace observation team

Sarah

For me to be able to see these people and talk to these people face to face was just an unbelievable experience.

We went as part of a peace observation team, sponsored by Quakers, but not all the people there were Quakers. And people on either side of the fence if you like in Israel and Palestine were told we were coming, were invited to come and talk to us.

And it really really opened my eyes to how the situation was. I think it was a harrowing experience as well to be able to witness what they're going through, and then how easy and wonderful our lives are here.

Narrator

For Sarah Davies being a Quaker determines how she lives her life.

Sarah

There's one famous quote which is from George Fox which says Live Adventurously and that's something I really try and do with my life. Don't stand back, don't hesitate. Live adventurously and let your life speak when you're doing that. Let your life be what you're trying to do or trying to be.

Narrator

The Quaker movement was founded by George Fox, the shoemaker son of Puritan parents in the mid 17th century.

In the midst of a spiritual crisis Fox experienced what he believed to be the voice of God speaking directly to him.

He began expounding the gospel of the inner light which emphasised the immediacy of Christ's teaching within each person. He argued that all human beings had the capacity to know God directly and had no need for consecrated churches and ordained clergy.

Fox and other early Quakers were persecuted and imprisoned for their radical beliefs.

But the movement grew and underwent various name changes.

Peter Jones

Quakers originally called themselves Publishers of the Truth, or Children of the Light. And they are both phrases I really enjoy.

But in 1652 George Fox was on trial before Judge Bennett, and I think he was an Anglican - or you had to be in those days if you were a judge- in Derby in England. And the judge was laughing. He wasn't a very religious Anglican. And Fox turned around to him and said, Thou shouldest quake at the name of the Lord. And Judge Bennett thought this was so funny he called George Fox a Quaker, and the name stuck.

Narrator

Peter Jones has been a Quaker for 30 years. He was born in Britain to peace activist parents. The family were staunch protestants, his father a lay preacher

Peter Jones

Historically Quakers undoubtedly came out of 17th century Christianity. They're one of what we call the three historic peace churches. We're part of the radical reformation if you sort of trace it from the Catholics through the Anglicans and the non conformists, and the Puritans. And then right at the end of this you've got the Society of Friends. And everybody hated the Quakers and that's why so many of them went to gaol.

Narrator

Quakers were denied access to university and the professions.

Instead they turned to business and manufacturing. Cadury's Chocolate was established by Quakers...and great banks like Lloyd's and Barclay's.

The movement spread to America.

In 1862 William Penn founded Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Quaker principles.



In 1832 it came to Australia when two London Quakers were sent to report on conditions in the colony.

Sheila Given

Well of course I consider Tasmania to be the cradle of Quakerism in Australia because this is where it began when the two English missionaries George Washington Walker and James Backhouse came here in 1832. They had the first meeting, Friends Meeting for Worship in Australia here on 12th February 1832.

Narr.

Sheila Given is a former teacher and historian at the Friends School in Hobart. Originally an Irish Anglican it was through teaching at the school that she was drawn to Quakerism 25 years ago at age 50.

Sheila

I have been all my life fascinated by children and education. And I believe and always have that a child is not born in original sin but is an original blessing. Has a core spirituality, magnificent mystery inside them and that you build on that.

And when I came to this school Friends School I found my educational beliefs aligned really well with the beliefs of, the underlying beliefs of this school.

I feel that that of God whatever that God is I'm not sure whether I'd even put a capital G to it ..is in everybody. That's not to say they don't have the reverse, evil or wickedness or wrong. But it is up to the individual to nurture that of God in themselves.

But the mystery of it intrigues me and the seeking after whatever it is that the spirit, the inner light, or whatever one wants to call it, is exciting to me and has been from the start and continues to be.



Narrator

Since retiring Sheila Given has been busy.....A grandmother of five, she gained a Ph.d at 64; a place on the Council for the Ageing;

A column on aged issues for a weekly newspaper; and Presidency of her local University of the Third Age.

Sheila

There are two aspects to being a Quaker. That is 'being' a Quaker and two is 'doing' from that belief...action to do with the community or following through on any of the testimonies. People are often astounded at their commitment and where has that come from. Where does anyone's commitment come from? It comes from their basic beliefs. And I think the Quaker basic beliefs inspire one. They're an inspiration.

Narr

Originally financed by London Quakers, The Friends school was established in Hobart in 1887.

The Cadbury family were ongoing benefactors.

Whilst the school does not aim to produce Quakers, it does aim to inspire students with its Quaker values....and to instil a sense of service.

On the surface it may look like many other schools but what distinguishes the Friends' School is its emphasis on the practice of silence.

John Green

I think this is very distinctively Quaker. And it makes us a Quaker school. We live in a world that very rarely gives a great deal of value to times of quietness and reflection. But I think in those periods it's a time when we become aware that there is something greater than self. And it is a time when we start to realise that fulfilment is more than the narrow pursuit of self interest.

Narrator

John Green is school principal and one of only three Quakers on the staff. But he believes the Quaker principle of the 'light within' shapes the culture of the school.

John Green

In this school it's a commonly held idea that there is something special inside oneself and in others. And that I think has a profound influence on the way relationships develop in a Quaker school. Because if you start to believe that there is something intrinsically good or that of God in someone else you treat them with less arrogance and with more respect. And so if you actually believe there is that of God in someone else then obviously it produces a more egalitarian feel in the whole place.

Peter Jones is also on the staff of the Friends School.

From a young age he took part in anti war demonstrations and at 16 attended his first Quaker meeting.

As a student at Oxford University his commitment to Quaker ideals was cemented and at age 23 he became a full member.

The road he's travelled has led Jones to full time work in the peace movement and has brought him in touch with Quakers around the globe. He's taught in Quaker schools in Yorkshire and Romallah and now teaches comparative religions at the Friends School.

Peter

What's happened is that in the last hundred years there has been a sort of difference amongst Quakers. There's those Quakers that are very Christocentric, equally there are those who are drawn from other faiths. We call them universalist, who wouldn't probably call themselves Christians. And those of us who are everything in the middle. And I'm somewhere in the middle.

Peter

As a teacher of comparative religion I value a lot what I learned from my Jewish friends, my Muslim friends, my Buddhist friends, my Hindu friends. But I have always seen myself as a radical Christian, and I rather accept the idea of God as sort of the top of the mountain. But there are many ways to walk up the mountain, and nobody has a prerogative of the truth.

This inclusivity underpinning Quaker belief is one of the features that attracted overseas aid worker Mark Deasy.

Mark

I think the meeting at its best is very inclusive, very accepting. And I think if we go back to that doctrine of the inner light, of recognising there is that of God in every person it becomes much easier to be inclusive.

Narrator

He comes from a long Anglican tradition. His grandfather and father were both clergymen and he grew up happily in a strong parish community. But in adolescence he began to question both his sexuality and his church.

Mark

I think one of the key things though for me was going to an elite church school. And there seemed to be a dissonance between the values that the church officially professed and what was in fact supporting in terms of this elite institution which seemed in some ways to be about the perpetuation of difference, of injustice, of inequality in society that got me asking some serious questions about the church.

Narrator

On the advice of his school house master, at age 16 he attended his first Quaker meeting.

Mark

It was the time I was really coming to terms with my sexuality, recognising that I was gay when I was about 15 or 16. And not being at all satisfied with what was coming through in terms of official church doctrine about that.

It was at that time that Quakers were somewhat in the news because they'd put out in Britain a couple of publications which were the first to come out of any long-standing mainstream church, which was to suggest that homosexual relationships were not intrinsically sinful.

So I went along to a Quaker meeting. And I think the sense that I had there was what a lot of people will describe when they first come to Friends. That it's not a sense of conversion - we never really talk about that. It was a sense of homecoming.

Mark Deasy's spiritual homecoming was to hone his concern for social justice issues and steer his working life.

Much of it has been spent in relief and reconstruction projects in areas of conflict or its aftermath in Asia and the middle east. He's been with Quaker World Service, the Middle East Council of Churches, and for the past decade with the strictly secular Oxfam community Aid Abroad.

But it was his work with Quaker Service Australia that took him to Cambodia when few others had been allowed entry.

Mark

Quakers see themselves as having a mission particularly to work either in areas of conflict or in the aftermath of conflict. And of course in Cambodia this conflict continuing there was also the aftermath of genocide.

Narrator

Deasy's experiences influence his views on the proactive demands of pacifism.

Mark

I think being a pacifist is not about waiting till the conflict happens and then saying, I'm not going to take up arms. It's about in all the stages previously, looking at the sources of injustice, the sources of conflict of exploitation of aggression and giving the rule to work against others. Also working on mediation, working on conflict resolution.

Narrator

Fundamental to Quakerism is the Peace Testimony, a testimony first proclaimed to Charles II in 1660.

It is this principle that most clearly defines Quakers in the public mind.

Jo

Well the peace testimony is very important to me. And I think that's one thing that I was very interested in about the Quakers when I first started going along in 1972. At that stage we were involved in the Vietnam War. I'd been to moratorium marches. I'd seen these people who were marshals and I like the way they were in the marches. They were quiet and dignified and weren't ranting and raving and so on. So that appealed to me.

And that really led me to going along to Meeting for Worship. And so it was the first testimony that I became aware of, and it has given me a framework in which to lodge all of the feelings that I had about non-violence and not wanting to fight and so on, that came from the teachings of the people like Jesus. Because he was a great exponent of non-violence.

Narrator

She was raised a Roman Catholic but thirty years on former Greens Senator Jo Vallentine has become one of Australia's better known Quakers.

It was the issue of nuclear disarmament that first saw her elected to the national Parliament.

A long time activist her passion for peace and social justice issues has twice landed her before the courts and produced short stints in prison.

Jo Vallentine

I think civil disobedience should be taken through to its logical conclusion. For me that's not paying a fine to get out of going to goal. For me it is going to gaol and bearing that witness right in the gaol system. It's also helped me with my AVP work of course.

It has given me a perspective that I would otherwise not have. Of what it's actually like to be locked down, to be deprived of liberty. Not to have any of your own personal things around you. To have to live in very crowded situations.

Narr

Through history Quakers have been no strangers to prison. In the 19th century Quaker Elizabeth Fry wrought wide-sweeping reforms in the prison system thoughout England and Europe.

These days Jo Vallentine works on the "Alternatives to Violence" Project.

Now mainstream, it was initiated 30 years ago when prisoners at a US gaol invited Quakers to devise for them a "non violence" program to help bring about personal change.

Jo

So that's really how it began. And I think from that light within that the Quakers believe is in everybody. No matter where they've been or what they've done, no judgments, out of that a loving atmosphere could be engendered. A spirit of community could be built in a workshop, even in the darkness of prisons. Even with people who had done the most dreadful things.

You see we're all capable of violence, and I believe we all actually do violence in our lives.

Another way must be found to deal with conflicts from the personal to the international. And that's what Quakers really work on very hard.

Quakers are famous for setting up meetings between diplomats of countries that would not normally talk to each other. And they will come to the Quaker house in New York and have these lovely lunches and sit and talk off the record no media no reporting back. They just provide the opportunities for people to get together and know each other. Because then they can really begin to talk about the things that separate them if they've found some common ground first.

Narrator

Quakers believe that all life is sacred and war is not the way to resolve conflict. Whilst their calls for peace may seem idealistic to some, Quakers insist that their peace testimony is not merely about abstaining from violence. Instead it's about seeking a process that can lead to a different way of being in the world.

Jo Vallentine

Sometimes I've been called an armchair pacifist and I guess that's the case for a lot of us if we haven't actually suffered repression at the point of a gun. But I do think that it's important to be a witness.

We're called to be faithful, to be witnesses to what we know is true. We're called to be faithful to be witnesses to what we know is true. We're not necessarily called to be successful. And so we stand out there on street corners week after week saying non violence is the way, let's not go to war. Let's address the underlying causes of terrorism that is in front of everybody's minds at the moment. Let's look at what's behind all of that. Address those issues. We're never going to have peace without justice. So as well as being an idealist and saying well let's not have war, Quakers really put that into practice by looking at the underlying injustices

Peter Jones

Quakers don't deal with the concept of evil very well, and I'm acutely aware of that.

And I think it's something we really have to come to grips with.

I can understand why people turn to war. In many ways it's actually the easy option because it represents a black and white view of the world. I'm good you're bad. But the world isn't like that. It's different shades of grey, and all that war breeds is more hatred and more war. It's not the answer.

I think the problem for Quakers is we can warn about the conditions that create war. That is why we put the emphasis on equality and simplicity and the sharing of right resources and so on.

I think what a lot of Quakers are wrestling with today through groups like Peace Brigades International and the global peace force is trying to find some way of dealing with some of the dictatorships, some of the injustices in the world in a way to say we have got a non violent solution but we certainly don't claim to have an easy answer. War has never worked either.

Narr

Peter Jones believes that much of the conflict in the world today is shaped by a refusal to respect the beliefs of others.

Peter Jones

Probably the greatest evil facing the planet today is fundamentalism. It doesn't matter if it is Jewish fundamentalism, Christian fundamentalism, Hindu fundamentalism or Muslim fundamentalism. It is the position that simply says, I am right and you're all wrong, and I'm going to shove my religion down your throat whether you like it or not, and all the ideas that go with it.

And I teach comparative religion because I want students to understand that that's actually the opposite of what religion stands for.

So I take my students to the synagogue, I take them to Muslim prayer. I bring people to come and talk to the school. And we try and celebrate the festivals and Holi is one of the is one of the most fun loving joyous festivals in the Indian calendar because it is the spring festival. So I bought the power back with me from India. We filled the dust bins with water and we throw water over each other like one billion Indians are doing today.



Narr

As Peter Jones' religion class reinvents the Hindu spring festival of Holi, he sees it as just another small step that can build bridges to other faiths and peoples. Quaker numbers have always been small yet their influence considerable. They believe Quaker values lay the groundwork for a wider vision of society... The task of individual Quakers is to communicate their testimony by the way they live their lives.

Peter Jones

If you look through the history of the world, the only things that have made the world a better place are the little people who did little things. There's very few of us are going to be great leaders. But it's all those little cumulative acts.

The first women who demanded the vote, you know. The first trade unionists. The first people who demanded equality for black and white people, or spoke out against slavery. Those are the people who make the world go forward.

Ro Morrow

I think your lives need to speak. I think it's much more powerful than words.

Ends
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