This is the story of Stephen Hobhouse (1881 – 1961), who became one of the most respected English Quakers of the twentieth century.

Stephen’s leadings emerged slowly. He was born into a wealthy family. His father, Henry Hobhouse V, was the squire at Hadspen House, a large manor-farm and mansion with 1,717 acres. Henry had a distinguished career in Parliament as a Liberal or Liberal-Unionist, and served as Chair of the Somerset County Council and its Education Committee. His mother, Margaret, was the sister of the famous social reformer, Beatrice Webb.

There were seven children in the family, but Stephen remained aloof from his siblings, in part because he struggled with ill-health all of his life. He had an enlarged heart, which made him very frail, and he suffered from dyspepsia and nervous breakdowns. He received a sound classical education at Eton and the University of Oxford. Although frail, he was a keen participant in cadets at Eton and the University Rifle Volunteers at Oxford. As the eldest son Stephen was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps and study law and enter politics.

At age 17 his worldview began to change. He visited the East End of London for the first time and was astonished to see the squalid living conditions there. He expressed his indignation to his parents that such conditions should be tolerated in a civilized Christian country. His mother’s reply, that the laws of economics necessitated that many should live like that for the whole country to prosper, didn’t satisfy him.

Another challenge occurred when he was 18 and the Second Boer War broke out. Being immersed in the philosophy of Empire, he originally supported the war, but his views were soon challenged by his cousin Emily Hobhouse, an outspoken opponent of the war. This experience began a process of reflection for Stephen. He became disturbed by the aggressive nature of the wars carried out in the name of Empire and by the miserable conditions in which the London poor lived. Stephen decided he would visit Toynbee Hall, where people of privilege would pay for the opportunity to live in the poorest area of London. Seemingly by accident while he was there, he happened to come across a pamphlet, How I Came to Believe, written by Leo Tolstoy. Reading this pamphlet transformed his life and caused him to reject all participation in war and violence, and the pursuit and possession of wealth; he became a lifelong pacifist.

Edmund Harvey, Warden of Toynbee Hall and prominent Quaker, introduced Stephen to Frank Lenwood. Lenwood was someone with whom Stephen could share his feelings about Tolstoy, and doubts about the Church. Lenwood invited him to attend the summer conference of the Student Christian Movement where he was speaking; other speakers included the Quaker Rendel Harris.

Upon graduation from Oxford with a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Classics, Stephen’s father arranged a job for him with the Education Office. Stephen worked in this field for seven years, although he really wanted to work at Toynbee Hall to serve the poor. When he left his job, his father was distressed that Stephen had given up a promising career, but he was willing to give Stephen an allowance on which to live.

In 1905 Stephen started to attend Friends Meeting at Hampstead. An opportunity arose for him to travel to the United States in 1912 with a group of young Friends, including Corder Catchpool, in an attempt to heal some of the divisions among Quakers there. Soon after he returned Stephen was invited to go to Constantinople to assist Rendel Harris in providing relief to the Christian Armenians who were under attack in the Balkans War. In spite of the rigours of such a trip (he was not in robust health) and the threat of violence and cholera and smallpox, he accepted.

Stephen returned by way of Belgrade, Serbia. His heart was charged with bitterness against the Great Powers of Russia and Austria-Hungary for inciting the corrupt governments of the Balkan states to marshal their subjects to bloodshed and hatred. He left Serbia with a feeling of foreboding. Joshua Rowntree, the Quaker Liberal MP and Mayor of Scarborough, took a keen interest in Stephen’s journey and they had kept in close touch. Joshua was supremely gifted with wisdom and loving kindness. He radiated sympathy as of Christ himself. Joshua arranged a series of meetings for Stephen to recount his experiences and the lessons he learned as to the conduct of pacifists in wartime, while appealing for aid for the victims of war. Stephen also visited the Cadbury family at Birmingham, and came away profoundly disturbed by their high standard of luxurious living.

Stephen now felt the kind of work he did was of minor importance compared to where and how he lived. He decided to live in the London slums but close to a Friends Meeting. He chose Hoxton because its poverty included being deprived of a view of any natural beauty of trees, grass and flowers. It was at this time his friend and mentor, Edmund Harvey, recommended him as a suitable person to write the biography of the great Birmingham Quaker, Joseph Sturge. Sturge was a pioneer in the abolition of slavery movement, in the peace movement and the moral force section of the Chartist Movement, Adult Schools and among other causes.

Stephen looked for ways to keep England out of World War I. He brought the matter of providing assistance to aliens who had lost their livelihoods, because their employers felt it was unpatriotic to pay them, before the Meeting for Sufferings. The Emergency Committee for the Assistance of Germans, Austrians and Hungarians in Distress (i.e. innocent ‘enemy’ aliens) was set up three days after the outbreak of the war. In spite of popular opposition and media attacks as being ‘Hun-coddlers’, the work flourished and the Committee was usually on good terms with the police, the Home Office and the War Office. Stephen was Chair of the Executive Committee for the first two years of the war. The Committee provided regular allowances to alien families who had lost their bread-winner and a regular visiting program of interned civilians and prisoners-of-war.

It was at this time that Rosa Waugh came into his life. Rosa was a member of Westminster Monthly Meeting and knew of Stephen through his articles published in Friends Fellowship Papers. She had independently taken up the task of visiting Germans in distress. Stephen and Rosa met at a gathering of Christian pacifists and were married six weeks later. They shared the high Christian ideals of voluntary poverty and identification with the oppressed, and the absolute rejection of any kind of war service. With her support Stephen renounced his inheritance and they adopted a lifestyle of voluntary poverty.

When conscription was introduced in 1915 Stephen did everything he could to encourage the absolute resisters among Quakers and in the ranks of the No Conscription Fellowship. His own position was unique. As Chair of the Emergency Committee for Innocent Alien Enemies he was doing work of which both the Home Office and the War Office approved. His family was in touch with members of the Government and began to pull strings behind his back to secure his exemption. Foreseeing this, Stephen resigned from his work with the Emergency Committee and spent his time helping other COs. Rosa completely supported him, but his family was distressed and showed their disapproval. In contrast to him, his three brothers joined the military. His brother, Paul, would later be killed in the war.

In August 1916 Stephen went before the Tribunal to make his protest against war and conscription public, rather than plead for exemption. He refused to appeal the decision and refused to taken a medical examination. He was offered the opportunity to join the Quaker Ambulance Unit which he did not accept. Stephen ignored the summons he received. He was handed over to the military and refused to put on the military uniform. He was court-martialled, and imprisoned in Wormwood Scrubs. In May, 1917, after a second Court-Martial, he was returned to prison. Stephen decided that he must make an open protest to the Governor against the inhuman rule forbidding prisoners talking. “The spirit of love requires that I should speak to my fellow-prisoners, the spirit of truth that I should speak to them openly.” To prevent him from talking openly he was put into solitary confinement in Exeter Gaol.

His health was badly affected by his imprisonment. He was medically examined by the Army doctor, and found unfit for hard labour; nevertheless, he was given hard labour. By mid-1917 his health began to fail rapidly and the authorities obtained a medical report on Stephen and some others who had fallen ill. Fearing the effect of public opinion of the deaths in prison they released five COs, including Stephen, unconditionally in December 1917, after fourteen months in prison.

On the initiative of the Beatrice and Sidney Webb, Stephen’s aunt and uncle, a Prison System Enquiry Committee was appointed to produce a comprehensive report on the state of the prisons with suggestions for reform. Although Beatrice had no sympathy with conscientious objectors, she suggested Stephen be invited to become secretary and editor of the project. She mistakenly thought it would be a kindness to him. Stephen was interested in the challenge because prison reform was very much on his heart. After collecting all of the necessary information Stephen found his capacity for working on the Report was diminishing. He hadn’t really recovered from his fourteen months imprisonment. The editing of the Report was completed by his fellow anti-war activist, Fenner Brockway. The Report had a major impact and led to a wave of prison reforms which still continues.

So what can we learn about leadings from Stephen’s life? First he was sensitive to the world around him. When he first saw the poverty in the East End, he was appalled and asked why it was allowed to exist. He felt a desire to take action to eliminate it. Secondly his life was transformed by reading the writing of Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy’s ideas about nonviolence and poverty gave him a vision by which to live. He became willing to move out of his comfort zone and the life he had known, and live his beliefs about voluntary poverty and solidarity with the poor. Stephen was influenced and mentored by many people, including his cousin, Emily Hobhouse, Edmund Harvey, Frank Lenwood, Rendel Harris, and Joshua Rowntree. They each perceived something special about him. His wife, Rosa, was especially important. She provided vital support and guidance, and gave him strength and encouragement. She shared his vision and allowed him to test his leadings. And lastly, he had a deep spiritual faith which provided him with a solid base that sustained him. These factors also enabled him to take an absolutist position in regard to conscription, when he could have chosen the easier option of exemption.

So far the process he used to test his leadings relied on personal contacts with Friends, mentors and his wife. At the time of World War I, he also used a formal process. He brought his concern about the welfare of enemy aliens formally to the Meeting for Sufferings to be tested.

Yet even with these support systems, it was not easy for Stephen to follow his leadings, which went counter to the understanding and wishes of his family, and society in general. He had to live with this tension. The way forward emerged only slowly. He was 30 years of age before he reached a stage of independence that allowed him to follow his dream. His health was always fragile, and it was made worse by his imprisonment. He was unable to work full time afterwards, and had to give up his vision to live in voluntary poverty without diminishing his health further. He and Rosa were unable to earn sufficient income to support themselves. Fortunately Stephen’s family came to their rescue. Two trust funds were set up and Stephen and Rose lived chiefly on the dividends from these two trust funds.

Although Stephen and his family held different worldviews they seemed to respect and love one another even though they didn’t fully understand the other. His mother supported World War I and worried about the safety of Stephen’s brothers serving in the Army, yet she lobbied tirelessly in Parliament on Stephen’s behalf while he was in prison. She was unable to understand why he was an absolutist, yet she wrote a book, So I Appeal unto Caesar, which told of the injustice of the prison treatment. It sold 14,000 copies.

Stephen spent his last forty years in retired seclusion gardening and doing some writing on faith-based pacifism and mysticism. He also wrote a biography of his mother. He had to live with the tension that he was no longer able to follow his leadings of living in solidarity with the poor and be actively involved in social and peace movements, but instead was reliant on the wealth of his family. The trust funds were set up as a safeguard, because the family feared that Stephen and Rosa might give the money away to the poor otherwise. Stephen and his family apparently came into an acceptance of their different worldviews. The family showed its concern for others in a top-down approach, and Stephen and Rose showed their concern for others in a bottom-up approach. He adjusted to not being able to pursue his original leading, and found a new one.

Stephen was happy to pursue mysticism, especially Jacob Boehme’s and William Law’s writings. Yet, sadly, for all of his interest in mysticism, he never had a mystical experience. . He contributed an invited essay for celebration book, honouring Gandhi on his 70^th birthday, Essays and Reflections, and wrote Christ and our Enemies, an essay on loving our enemies.

In spite of living in seclusion for so long, Stephen nevertheless had a profound impact on English Quakers and the wider community, including Muriel Lester and her work at Kingsley Hall in London’s East End. He is usually described as ‘the saintly Stephen Hobhouse’, and it is said he was revered and beloved by all who knew him.

Early Friends

Recently I’ve been reminded about early Friends and their “experimental” practice with discernment. Early Friends shared their inner journeys with each other, even sending to far-off Meetings the news of each other’s spiritual experiences and visions. From this deep knowledge and trust arose Friends’ leadings and concerns (as individuals and as communities). Their open sharing about what they would and wouldn’t do in their lives led to the testimonies that we follow today. Their corporate activities bubbled up from the living source, not from previous generations’ words, wisdom, and structures.

Writing this article feels like my own version of “sending out” some of my own spiritual experience.

I do see a renewal of “experimental” or experiential practice among Australian Friends, through courses at Silver Wattle, local Light groups, small groups using Parker Palmer’s processes, and of course the Meeting for Learning retreat program that began back in 1995 and with which I’m very involved.

There are many different pathways to seeking what is true for each of us. Some of us become clear after long practice of centring down and waiting in stillness.

Some of us say that we simply live our apparently mundane lives with deliberate attention to what “flows.” I’ve recently heard this described in a beautiful way: “All day every day what I do is the groundwork for my link with the Divine Spirit that flows through and with me.”

Others of us experience sudden sacred moments of insight. It’s important to see the value and validity of our own pathway, rather than longing for someone else’s.

Some of what follows is my own example of longing for someone else’s path at times. Now, after nearly 30 years among Friends, I feel easier about recognising and honouring my gifts, my path and personality.

My leading about convening Summer School for Yearly Meeting 2014 seemed to arise quite quickly during last Yearly Meeting in Canberra, when I saw and felt discernment happening all around me. Friends everywhere seemed to be seeking and speaking truth and love with courage.

When I returned home from Canberra Yearly Meeting, I waited and read and walked half hoping that the nudge towards convening Summer School might stop pushing me. When it didn’t, I turned to our wonderful Australian Advices and Queries. The very first item seemed to form itself into an invitation for Summer School.

“Take heed dear Friends to the promptings of love and truth in your hearts. Trust them as the leadings of God whose Light shows us our darkness and brings us to new life.”

There’s the Summer School theme, as agreed by Queensland Regional Meeting – “Promptings of love and truth in our hearts.” Elsewhere in this issue of the Australian Friend you will see some of the interesting groups being planned for Yearly Meeting 2014.

Promptings of truth with less love!

When I first came to Quakers nearly 30 years ago, I sat in Meeting for Worship wrestling with my anger over the state of the world. For the first time in my life, I sensed an inner yet not-quite-me voice, which said, “Do what YOU can and then be quiet about it.”

I was so impressed by this prompting that I took it very literally for perhaps too long. I engaged in social action through Amnesty International and what is now Oxfam Australia, until five years later I was exhausted from trying to save the world part time while teaching at TAFE full time.

Looking back now, I realise that actions fuelled mainly by anger and desperation are unsustainable and unlikely to better the world. True leadings don’t bend us out of shape with exhaustion or distress but align us with the Living Spirit.

Promptings laced with guilt!

Slowly I learnt not to let anger or guilt be my prime motivator. “Guilt” is such a little and belittling word, quite out of place among Friends. Yet I know it’s very real in many Friends’ lives. Although at last I allowed myself a more balanced life, I continued to doubt what else I might usefully do if not the unsustainable (for me) social justice work.

Despair over no promptings

At one Yearly Meeting, I actually went to my room for a stormy half hour of crying. My friends were so busy and effective being Friends in many different ways. What was my way of being a Friend? How could I belong unless I said Yes to the important peace, justice, and committee work?

I understood by then the need to follow my own leadings from a centred place, and not to live my life through other people’s judgements. But where was my leading?

I knew that I wasn’t alone, and that many Friends share my struggle to find their place without feeling pressure to take up things they are not called to do!

Promptings of love and truth through imagery

Then, about fifteen years ago, I received one of the greatest blessings of my life. Surprisingly, this was a series of images during Meeting for Worship and other quiet times at home.

In the image, I was sitting beside a stream, watching a procession of pilgrims crossing the stream and going up a distant mountain. One of the pilgrims would sometimes sit beside me to tell me their story. I began to feel unworthy – I should be a pilgrim too. I should get up and follow, or at least be one of the useful helpers offering food along the way.

What amazed me most was that Jesus came into the image and knelt to wash my feet. Then the Jesus figure made this clear, challenging and yet loving statement: “Your job is to reflect in the stream. You lose the stream too easily.”

Over the years this image often returns, slightly different each time but always confirming that powerful message. I think it strengthened me to take up the invitation that came soon after.

Leadings by invitation

In the year 2000 I was invited to become a facilitator for the Meeting for Learning retreat program. I felt honoured, terrified, and certain that this was a path for me to take. This continuing commitment is the most wonderful work that I’ve done among Friends.

Fifteen years of following a leading

All the same, as my image of reflecting in the stream continued to sustain and challenge me, a small part of me went on secretly waiting for the image to turn into something bigger. Perhaps I hoped to become one of the pilgrims or one of the providers – someone more obviously “useful.”

During a Meeting for Learning retreat week, it felt as if the essence of the image finally dropped fully into my inner being, after many years.

The point is that the Jesus figure tells me that reflecting in the stream is my JOB, so that I will take it more seriously than anything else. It’s time to accept that among all the needs in this complex world, this is somehow my part, at least for now. In my own way, I’ve been as faithful as those pilgrims on their tiring journey. I’ve patiently gone on trusting my image and the discernment it helps me with.

Another vital point is that I’m to reflect in the stream not because I’m good at it but because I need it! As Jesus says in the image, “You lose the stream too easily.”

It takes some humility to see that I have to receive from the Living Stream before I can give anything back to other people. I have a feeling that I’m not alone among Friends in sometimes needing this reminder.

Peri Coleman (SANTRM) owns and operates Delta Environmental Consulting, which provides environmental services in the areas of coastal ecosystems, water quality assessment, wetland management, botany, marine and coastal ecology education and salt field biology. She also operates a laboratory for water, soil and air testing.

She lives and works beach-side at St Kilda, a historic seaside town near Salisbury, 45 minutes north of the Adelaide CBD, where she has created an extensive garden  

Peri Coleman in her beachside garden

I had a boss who used to refer to me as the ‘last of the amateur naturalists’. In fact, ‘amateur naturalists’ were the start of a whole new breed of people interested in the environment as a whole, rather than different aspects of it.

Plants are what I remember best. I’m hopeless remembering people; they move too fast to stick names to them. Our family came to Australia in 1964 when I was six. My Dad couldn’t make up his mind where to live so he got a caravan and we travelled for years. Plants everywhere. My mother was interested in birds. I can remember this one place we settled called One Tree Hill which years later I was able to find because I could identify the trees.

You see, you’ve got the geology and the soils, and that’s the backbone of the world. Plants are like the fuzz on the backbone on the world. The plants that grow in a place are an expression of that underlying backbone. And depending on the plants that grow, you have different animals. It’s all interrelated.

I’ve been very fortunate. People are prepared to pay me for what I’m interested in doing—providing environmental services. It’s been wonderful—not the kind of living to make you a millionaire, but if you want to be satisfied at the end of the day… I’ve done a master’s degree in environmental science. To be perfectly honest, I did the university degree because the Environmental Protection Agency said they needed me as an expert witness, and it would help to have letters after my name when I appeared in court.

I grew up in the Wallum swamps of south east Queensland around Labrador on the Gold Coast, now all houses. My sister and I used to go to school through the swamp. It’s an interesting area because it burned during the dry season and in the wet season, the burnt trees would fall over, so there were these really tall sedges and a maze of old fallen trees which we’d run along like roads to get to school—a lot shorter than going by road and more fun.

I was very close to my Dad who was an amateur naturalist too. He used to catch snakes for David Fleay, a naturalist who set up a wildlife sanctuary in the Tallebudgera estuary on the Gold Coast [now the David Fleay Wildlife Park, owned and operated by the Queensland Government]. David Fleay milked death adders and other venomous snakes for the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories to make antivenins.

My first ‘environmental’ job was as a beekeeper’s labourer for my first husband’s family. They had me do herbarium training in Western Australia in the early 1970s so I could find the magical mystical ‘honey prionotes’ that beekeepers talk about. There’s a common banksia in south west Western Australia called Banksia prionotes, but it does not produce much nectar. The so-called ‘honey prionotes’ I discovered is actually Banskia hookeriana. I found it after years of searching because lots of insects were flying around it. To this day, most beekeepers can’t pick the difference.

It was work on salt fields that brought me and my first husband to Adelaide in 1993. We had developed a reputation for fixing salt fields, after solving biological problems in salt fields in Western Australia and Queensland. When I decided to stay on, I ran into Colin Pitman, then Salisbury Council’s city projects manager [now retired] who was trying to build wetlands as part of a massive rainwater collection and storage system. One half of the world was telling him wetlands only work in fresh water. I said to him, ‘What’s wrong with a saltwater wetland? It’s called a salt marsh. It’ll do the same work. It’s just as big a carbon sink.’

The reason salt marshes are such good carbon sinks is that a slime grows on the mud surface and that traps lots of little bits of dirt and all of the carbon in that is buried, then more slime grows, and because it’s grown in saline conditions it doesn’t rot down and create methane. Consequently the carbon that’s buried in a salt marsh can’t escape. Once it’s buried, it’s essentially locked up for 100 years or more so salt marshes are a very good carbon sink. The tide flows in, the right plants grow.

The State Government has now adopted the idea of water sensitive urban design that uses wetlands, and permeable paving to reduce water run-off. Everything that Colin had done has become quite standard.

Colin Pitman later commissioned me to write the interpretive signs on the Mangrove Trail here at St Kilda, then he started using my company, Delta Environmental Consulting, for flora surveys. When I do flora surveys I also go to the Lands Title Office, to look at who owned the land and what they did with it. The site history can explain a lot about the state of land.

Once Colin Pitman started hiring us, others did as well. And reputation builds from familiarity. It’s been easier and easier. I don’t even advertise any more. Over the years I’ve mentored a lot of people—my daughter worked for me for 15 years before starting her own business, and my niece worked with me for 5 years while she was studying. My stepdaughter who helped me for years has now gone on to buy a florist shop. My clients often ‘steal’ recent graduates who’ve worked with me in the environmental area. But that’s alright—they think of me when there’s some consulting work to be done!

Reducing the carbon footprint of Adelaide Local Meeting

In 2007 Adelaide Local Meeting joined with its neighbours, including St Peter’s Cathedral, St Mark’s College, the Adelaide Oval and the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, to work towards establishing a local green precinct, the Green Cathedral Precinct that aims to be sustainable in its use of water and power. It was a bottom-up initiative, started by St Peter’s Cathedral.

Friends Meeting House in Adelaide.

It’s fallen into something of a heap because of the Adelaide Oval redevelopment and now that the Glenelg – Adelaide pipeline brings sewage-recycled water into the city, people are less worried about water supply. Once the Adelaide Oval Redevelopment is over, we hope the Cathedral Green Precinct will go ahead again.

There were two parts to the Cathedral Green Precinct—a power part and a water part. Although the State Government spent a quarter of a million dollars doing a very detailed study of the water side of things, they never got on to power.

Adelaide Local Meeting asked me, as part of its commitment to the Cathedral Green Precinct, to work out the carbon footprint for the Meeting House. The Meeting House is quite an amazing little place. Its carbon usage is very small and the building itself is very old [erected 1840] and made of wood.

I decided to include the carbon embodied in the building as well as the operational carbon. Normally when you do a carbon footprint, you look at the carbon it takes to operate your lifestyle and the building component often gets left out. You don’t tend to look at the materials in the building because a building exists for such a long time that a building is theoretically quite a small component.

I get a bit cranky about the building being left out because, in truth, especially with our modern buildings, they’re not designed to last very long. Therefore the embodied carbon might be a decidedly larger component than you might think, especially with these new lean-up concrete buildings. Concrete in its production is very carbon intensive.

As a result of the audit, the Meeting identified a range of energy, waste and water-saving initiatives. About 4 – 5 years ago, we installed a photovoltaic system of 10 x 205 watt solar panels on the roof of the library and the children’s room at the Meeting House. A Commonwealth Government grant covered roughly half of the cost. The solar panels generate more than the Meeting House’s electricity requirements for most of the year. One of the grant requirements was to maintain a website that included details of our photovoltaic system. This can be viewed on my website www.deltaenvironmental.com.au/archives/Solar/Index.htm

The Meeting has adopted the principle that when a piece of equipment, like the fridge, dies, we’ll replace it with one with a lower energy use. Being ‘conservation-conscious’ Quakers, we realise that there’s embodied carbon in the appliance, so we wouldn’t throw out a working fridge! The Premises Committee have been asked to only buy good quality items, so the embodied carbon doesn’t become an issue.

Also as a result of the audit we looked at water usage and put in rainwater tanks. We now direct all water in excess of the rainwater tanks into the spoon drains surrounding the Meeting House. The run-off in the spoon drains has been redirected away from the storm water discharge to the street and now goes into giant underground tanks beneath the parking area of our neighbour, St Mark’s College. These underground tanks can store over 90,000 litres of water. The work to connect our storm water to St Mark’s tanks was part of the recent refurbishment of the Meeting House driveway, jointly conducted through a Memorandum of Agreement with our neighbours, St Mark’s College and St Peter’s Cathedral. Thus our ‘widow’s mite of water’ helps maintain the aesthetic amenity of the streetscape of Pennington Terrace, through our neighbour’s extensive gardens.

“Going forward in Faith and Clarity”, (Elaine Polglase, Wahroonga Local Meeting).

The relationship between leadings and wilfulness is intriguing as well as contentious. Are they twins, siblings, second cousins or distant acquaintances?

A Friend’s leading can concern one’s individual life and may only impact upon close family members. Acting on such a leading may not even be noticed by many others. Acting on a leading can affect several Friends, a Local Meeting, and the Friend’s family. Acting on a leading can also affect a larger group of Friends, a local community, Australia Yearly Meeting. When, through a discernment process, a leading is recognised, what are the implications for other F/friends or family? When a leading affects others, discernment needs to take into account what may be required of them e.g. spiritual, practical, financial, emotional support. As these implications unfold, further discernment needs to take place so that Friends are clear where support for the leading is taking them.

Where do leadings come from? Did the Friend have a physical and deeply emotional experience, one that the Spirit, Jesus, God has communicated in such a way that the Friend now needs to follow? Or can it be less of a “Road to Damascus” experience, and instead a slowly growing sense of a new direction in one’s life that is unfolding and retains a clarity that the Friend starts to experience as a leading. Can it also be an affirmation that, despite difficulties, the Friend needs to continue on their current path? The Friend may experience a sense of being guided; being led by the Spirit or a deep sense that this is right and good, a congruity of self and purpose.

Why test a leading in a Quaker Meeting, in a meeting for Worship for Business or a specially convened Meeting with several Friends? Friends can act upon their leading and not ask for discernment and support from their Meeting. This leading may have a Quaker foundation and the Friend acts on this leading in their personal life without involving the Meeting. One would hope that Friends make decisions in their personal life that are based on Quaker values and that could, at times be called a leading.

It may not be because of “wilfulness” when a Friend acts in their personal life without discerning their leading in the Meeting. The Friend may be happy to share what they are doing without expecting support from the Meeting. It could be “wilfulness” if the Friend realises that it is unlikely that the Meeting will support their leading and therefor goes it alone. The name “Quaker” is not protected and can be used by Friends when they act upon a leading and use the name Quaker to the wider world.

It is important to de-mystify leadings and to avoid the difficulties that pour from leadings having a status that should not be analysed or contested. It can seem inappropriate to ask questions about “who, what, where and how much will this cost” when a Friend, or a group of Friends give an articulate and authoritative presentation or an emotive presentation about their leading. Such questions will ground and test the leading and its significance for the individual or the group of Friends. Often the consequences and implications are not clear and the Friend may not have the answers. By asking for clarity about the consequences and implications, the individual Friend, as well as the Meeting , becomes clearer in their discernment. The Friend may ask to “be held in the Light” as they discern what their leading may mean and actions that could follow. Further discernment can be offered.

There are some positive inferences in the definitions of wilfulness but the definitions indicate that wilfulness results in significant difficulties and needs to be curbed so that the person themself, other people or circumstances are not negatively affected, or that no damage is inflicted. When wilfulness is applied to pursuing “good causes”, it would mean a strongly held belief in one’s leading and not being distracted or open to different ways of doing things, following a course of action regardless of the consequences.

On the continuum of being risk-averse and risk taking, the “wilful” Friend would be regarded as taking such risks that are very likely to require the Meeting to pick up the pieces later on. However, bold new leadings require risks and the Friend or the Meeting need to identify if these risks can be accommodated. These conversations need to be open and frank and not be overshadowed by the spiritual “mystique” of the leading. By naming and discussing the implications and risks in accepting a leading, confidence about the strategies and ways forward can be developed. This may strengthen the leading and the support from the Meeting, not reduce it. Friends need to act in faith but also with clarity.

Wilfulness comes into the process when a Friend or group of Friends expects that the leading will be supported and that most Friends will provide the support that the leading requires. This Friend may already have made the decision to accept their leading and act upon it. Can a Meeting support the Friend in this leading but distance itself from the consequences or implications? Does the Meeting become morally responsible by association, by its support for the leading, by financially supporting the Friend to act on their leading? It may depend on the risks that acting on the leading may involve. Early Friends acted on their leading to travel in the Ministry to America and some were executed there. James Naylor survived torture, but the early Quakers realised that acting upon one’s leadings can bring such disrepute that the movement may not survive. Corporate discernment and decision making became the norm to contain or disown “wilful” Friends.

What is the relationship between leadings and wilfulness? In the discernment process it will become clear how closely they are related, what the leading is about and if the consequences and implications of the leading are understood by the Friend and the Meeting. The Friend may be so strongly convinced of their leading that risks are minimised or do not enter into their discernment. However, from twins to distant acquaintances, leadings and wilfulness might not be far away from each other when it is difficult for a Meeting to support a Friend’s leading.

I must confess that the notion of “leading” is something I’ve struggled with. In fact it’s one of the things that scared me away from Quakers at one stage.

I had discovered among Friends an insistence on the importance of our choices being Spirit-led rather than the result of our own ego-driven impulses, whether that is for ministering in meeting or embarking on some other enterprise. George Durham is fairly typical in describing it as “responding to the Spirit… allowing myself to be led, not deciding for myself” (1). And it seemed that every other Quaker I came across, in writing or in person, said much the same thing.

What wasn’t the same were the accounts of what being led felt like and how I could know from whence an impulse came. I found it all very confusing. Some insisted that a real ‘leading’ clearly came from a source outside oneself, others that it came from deep within. Some said the impulse was overwhelming – that one was propelled into action almost against one’s will, others said they experienced the gentlest nudging which could even go unnoticed unless you paid close attention.

I found this all most perplexing. How could I know if it was the Spirit calling or just me? In the end, I decided it was all too hard and gave up. However much I tried, I just couldn’t distinguish between me and non-me, at least in relation to the source of promptings. I really couldn’t make sense of it, couldn’t relate it to my experience. I decided that I might be like someone who was tone deaf or colour blind, and simply didn’t have this capacity. And if you needed it to be a proper Quaker, then perhaps this wasn’t the place for me.

It was only when I began taking some tentative steps back to Quakers again that I shared my dilemma with a Friend. Don’t stress over it, she said, think of it all as metaphor. So I breathed a sigh of relief and let go; stopped worrying about whether the impulses came from within or without, whether they were loud or soft, whether the source was me or Other. I simply sought to find a way to be, to act, to live, that was guided by a spirit (I don’t know about Spirit) of love and integrity. This involved a process of stillness and reflection on my part and sometimes, too, a drawing on the wisdom of others.

While I’m at it, I might as well confess to another difficulty which is probably related to the first. I really can’t ‘get’ the phenomenon people call the Will of God. Does that mean that God has a detailed blueprint for the way I should live my life, one for every choice I should make, and that it’s my job to figure out what this blueprint is? And if I don’t succeed in figuring it out then will it be the case that things won’t go well if I get it wrong?

I’ve been in classes and workshops where the teacher or presenter asks a question of the group and has a particular answer in mind, and persists in asking the question until someone comes up with the ‘right’ answer – more or less dismissing other responses that emerge along the way. They seem to be playing a game of guess-what’s-in-my-head, and I resent it every time. Surely God wouldn’t be so mean as to play that kind of game with us on a life-scale.

Even if he did, there’s still the problem of knowing whether you’d got it right. To say “It’s God’s will” is hard to argue against, but how do you know with any certainty – for yourself or for anyone else – just what that is.

The wonderful Quaker-based Susan B Anthony said, with reference to those involved in religious persecution at the time, “I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do to their fellows, because it always coincides with their own desires” (2). Yet apparently God’s will isn’t always what you might desire for yourself.

I know a woman – in her eighties and perhaps not as frail as she looks – who’s in pretty constant communication with God. He’s always telling her, in no uncertain terms just what his will is for her. Often it’s that she should not indulge in the luxury of living in a house. So she’ll wander off and sleep goodness knows where. Most recently, it’s that she should visit every Aboriginal community between Darwin and Alice Springs, though she’s arguing with him about that one. How is she to know? How am I to know?

What I do know is that I have experienced, have heard about, and have observed in others, two distinct ways of knowing, of decision-making. The one is the way of deliberation; the other is intuitive and insightful. We can work our way, sometimes ploddingly, step by step or we can suddenly arrive at a place we weren’t at before. I also suspect that the two interact with and inform each other.

It was when Archimedes put aside his calculations and relaxed in the bathtub that his Eureka moment came (or so we’re told). More reliably, perhaps, it was when Kekule took a nap and dreamed of a snake biting its own tail, that he ‘saw’ the ring structure of the benzene molecule. It can happen, too, in the silence of a Quaker meeting. We may be struggling with an issue, with no apparent resolution in sight. Then, if we let go of the struggle, something emerges in the stillness; what emerges is a new way forward. Collectively or individually we tap into wisdom we did not know we had. But is it the Spirit leading us?

I don’t know.

Intuitive knowing used to be regarded rather dismissively as fanciful women’s ways, but it is now being taken rather more seriously, even by hard-nosed management types (3). And there is a vast amount of research being done by neuroscientists into intuition, insight, and implicit learning – the knowledge we don’t know we have, and the learning we don’t know that we have done – when and how it happens and what parts of the brain are involved (4). Perhaps that’s one more gap that God doesn’t have to occupy.

I’m grateful, though, that whatever explanation we might or might not have for our sudden insights and impulses, we Quakers have processes for testing them as possible paths to follow. We can draw on our collective wisdom, through our meetings of various kinds, to try to discern if a proposed course of action is loving and wise (maybe even if it’s the Will of God).

For me, I’m content now to simply honour the experience and not try and explain the process. I’ve let go of stressing over what labels we can put on it all. I’m neither a theologian nor a neuroscientist and I’d rather leave the explanations to them. I’m content now to just live it; to know it experimentally.

1. Geoffrey Durham, Being a Quaker: a guide for newcomers, Quaker Quest, 2011.

2. Susan B Anthony, Speech to the National-American Woman Suffrage Association, 1896. http://www.thelizlibrary.org/undelete/library/library005.html

3. Eugene Sadler-Smith, Intuition, neuroscience, decision making and learning, Personal reflections following the Meeting of the Society for Organisational Learning UK, Triarchy Press, 2006. http://www.triarchypress.co.uk/pages/articles/Intuition-neuroscience-decision-making-and-learning1.pdf

4. Matthew Lieberman, Intuition: A social cognitive neuroscience approach, Psychological Bulletin, 2000, Vol 126, No 1, 109-137. http://www.scn.ucla.edu/pdf/Intuition.pdf

A few years ago when I was in Indonesia as part of the project on introducing non-violent conflict resolution training for the Indonesian Police [1], I was introduced to a Dutchman, a senior official working for the European Union. He wanted to know why I was doing what I was doing. I said “I am a Quaker”. “Oh” he said, “I understand –say no more”.

He knew that for Quakers, peacemaking is part of our history. Peace is part of Quaker ‘DNA’. We have a long history of working to prevent war and the threats of war, to resolve conflict non-violently, and to ameliorate the consequences of violence. It goes back to George Fox’s time and there is a steady stream of stories in every century since. They appear in all the Quaker histories, in the stories of our role models such as John Woolman, in the academic literature (examples: Kenneth and Elise Boulding), Advices and Queries, in the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize. My EU official in Indonesia knew enough about this to open his door and offer to do what he could to help. I was able to draw on the efforts of many Quakers before me to give me credibility and status because that is what Quakers are and do.

If I had been on a project to do with earthcare rather than peacemaking, what would have my EU official have said? Most probably something like “Well that’s interesting, I didn’t know Quakers were into that sort of thing”. Quakers are not known for their concerns for earthcare. Anne Adams in introducing an anthology of Friends’ writing on earthcare stated that:

There is a huge gap in Quaker writing about the earth between the seventeenth and late twentieth centuries (apart from the remarkable John Woolman in the eighteenth)[2].

So if we believe that the crisis of energy, climate warming, and ecological degradation generally is at heart a spiritual one, what can Quakers bring to the efforts to deal with this crisis that is inherently spiritual and Quaker?

Ninian Smart in his book The World’s Religions describes seven dimensions of religion [3]. One of those is an experiential or emotional dimension. This dimension deals with what Smart calls “the perception of the invisible world” and involves personal experiences often containing heightened feelings. An oft quoted example of such an experience is described by Wordsworth in his poem, Tintern Abbey[4]:

And I have felt       

A presence that disturbs me with the joy       

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime       

Of something far more deeply interfused. …       

A motion and a spirit, that impels                            

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,       

And rolls through all things.

… well pleased to recognise       

In nature and the language of the sense,       

The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,       

The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul                       

Of all my moral being.

John Woolman stated:

There is a principle which is pure, placed in the human mind, which in different places and ages hath different names; it is however pure and proceeds from God. It is deep and inward, confined to no form of religion, nor excluded from any, where the heart stands in perfect sincerity. In whomsoever this takes root and grows, of what nation soever, they become brethren.

In his career as a tailor, he refused to use or wear dyed fabrics, because he had learned that many workers in the dye industry were poisoned by some of the noxious substances used. He was concerned about treatment of animals. In later life, he avoided riding in stagecoaches, as he felt their operation was too often cruel and injurious to the teams of horses. Yet for many years Quakers had similar spiritual experiences that did not necessarily (or often) lead to a recognition of pollution or the pain experienced by animals (like Woolman), or respect or reverence for nature where the oneness of the world becomes a spiritual anchor (like Wordsworth).

Rex Ambler has written:

We learn to sense God’s reality by paying attention to what happens within us, by listening for a voice or becoming aware of a light that can lead us to what is ultimate for us because it is the source of all life and all being. But having sensed that and having learnt to respond to it we can then discover it in other people also. Taking that further, but with a slightly different sensibility, we can learn to sense it in our fellow creatures, in animals and plants, but also in mountains and seas and the whole vast universe. What we can sense here – when we are open enough in ourselves to do so – is not the voice or presence of an invisible person, but the mysterious reality indescribable in itself, which sustains all life and all being as we know it. …

We seek to realise in practice the deep bond that we can dimly perceive holding us all together. In the new situation of environmental crisis we can surely perceive another bond between ourselves and the earth. The life of the earth, because it is now vulnerable to our power, is part of our life. Our life therefore can be realised and fulfilled only if we commit ourselves to the care of the earth. Making peace with the earth is now, or should be, part of our spirituality [5].

For Ursula Goodenough, a scientist, it is the mystery of why there is anything at all, the mystery of where the laws of physics came from, the mystery of why the universe is so strange, that generate wonder, and wonder generates awe [6].

Our Earthcare Statement of 2008 said that we must listen to the call of creation, recognise and respect the profound wisdom of indigenous peoples [7]. Karl-Erik Sveiby and Tex Skuthorpe in their wonderful book Treading Lightly [8] tell the Nhunggabarra stories and their lessons for sustainability. Max Dulumunmun Harrison (Uncle Max) in his book My People’s Dreaming writes:

I am trying to raise awareness of Aboriginal spirituality and to explain how we connect to the land. I am trying to capture in words the beauty of the land I see around me. And seeing is so important … really seeing what the land is telling you. Seeing what the land is offering for you to take [9].

Gael and I recently joined a group with Uncle Max on a bush-walk near poet Judith Wright’s former home near Braidwood. He encouraged us to look and listen and observe what was happening over time to the land, and to reconnect.

We also need to draw on Quaker stories about earthcare spiritual experiences. I have told one of mine called The Lighthouse and the Tree [10]. It is not a Wordsworth experience. I did not come away feeling an inter-relationship with and dependence on all life, both seen and unseen. So I have more questions that answers about how to evoke the bond recommended by Ambler between ourselves and the earth.

§ Does a spiritual experience that evokes a reverence for the earth have to come from a realisation from within us first, then others, and then the earth?

§ Does a reverence for the earth depend on having a spiritual experience? If not what are some other paths?

§ Can we facilitate a spiritual experience or does it just happen?

§ Is an earthcare spiritual experience more likely to be mystical than transcendental?

§ Do earthcare spiritual experiences have to happen in rural and wilderness settings, or are built environments also able to evoke reverence for nature?

§ Have we understood our peace tradition too narrowly and excluded peace with the earth from part of our peace leadings?

§ Where does our leading on simplicity fit in?

§ What can we learn from Australian Aborigines?

§ Do you have any personal stories that you can share?

[1] http://quaker.org.nz/indonesia-police-training

[2] Adams, A. 1996. The Creation Was Open To Me. Quaker Green Concern. Suffolk: Lavenham Press.

[3] The World’s Religions: Old Traditions and Modern Transformations. 1989. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[4] http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww138.html

[5] Written in 1995. Quoted in Adams, A. 1996. The Creation Was Open To Me. Quaker Green Concern. Suffolk: Lavenham Press.

[6] The Sacred Depths of Nature. 1998. Oxford University Press.

[7] http://www.quakers.org.au/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=296

[8] http://treadinglightly.sveiby.com/

[9] Harrison, M D.2009. My People’s Dreaming. Sydney: Finch Publishing.

[10] http://australianfriend.org/af894

“To everything there is a season and a time, to every purpose under heaven. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance…” [Eccl.3]

We have just finished seven weeks as friends-in-residence at the delightful Quaker Centre of Silver Wattle, set in rural NSW. Quiet and secluded, yet only twenty minutes from the bustling little town of Bungendore and forty five minutes from Canberra.

We arrived with open minds and hearts, plus plenty of working clothes. We were immediately absorbed into the almost monastic daily rhythm of prayer, study, work and meals. We felt an integrated part of the community from the very first moment.

The days were strikingly varied. We experienced weekly structured courses; an intense weekend course; an Easter family camp; a gardening work camp, and also activities outside of the centre. We collected gusts from the airport and rail station, shopped for food and tractor parts, even managing a day off per week so to be tourists in Canberra and the coast.

Throughout all of this activity there was daily meeting for worship and evening epilogue, and a weekly silence from Wednesday into Thursday. Pervading all of this was a continual calm and spiritual peace.

We gave our labour freely and slept well at night. We leave greatly enriched by the experience and having made many new Australian friends.

Thank you, Silver Wattle, and thank you Australia.

“ Be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you come, that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of people, and to them; then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world answering that of God in everyone.” George Fox.

During his life time Alastair Heron was a ‘weighty Friend’. He experienced many changes in his life: a professor of psychology, a cadet, a coal “trimmer” on a cargo boat, an office boy, unemployed, an accountant, a conscious objector; a human being like most Friends! While being Scottish he lived in England, Scotland, Canada, Italy, Germany, Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia), Paris and Australia.

For Australian Friends, our specific interest in Alastair can begin when he was a member of Melbourne Regional Meeting (as it was then), from 1970 – 1974. He played a leading part in the life of the Meeting (now the Victoria Regional Meeting) and in Australia Yearly Meeting. His contribution as an Elder in Melbourne Meeting was from both his deep understanding of Quaker thought, ‘theology’, and practice and too in the ways of Quaker ‘governance’. Alastair has written on these various topics in Friends’ publications both while here in Australia and in the last three decades of his life in the UK. You may have seen some of these in issues of ‘The Friend’.

Alastair edited the “Australian Friend”, from February 1972, with Donald Groom initially, to mid 1974, latterly briefly with me. Alastair returned to Britain later in 1974. He had some definite ideas about correct English and could not be persuaded to use some changing “common community usage” of words when editing some current social movement reports! Interesting discussions ensued!

Many articles, talks and booklets were written by Alastair on his concern for the life of Quaker meetings and ministry. His Quaker writings available for loan in Melbourne Friends’ House Library are listed below and show particular concern about Quaker membership: falling numbers of members and the need to support and educate new members and elders, and to enable continuing members to consider their Quaker life anew. Some of these writings relate to British Friends and may also be relevant here in Australia.

However, he also had his human side, and as a friend has commented Alastair “expected to be heard” and was surprised one time when his view was questioned! He was not too keen to pick up a tea towel yet was very hands-on at home. He was also particularly skilled with tools – creating an intricately fitted out campervan from a basic van.

Alastair’s autobiography, Only One Life: a Quaker’s Voyage, shows that far from having an academic upbringing he describes a life that moved him from place to place in his childhood and youth – not at all settled. Schooling in both the UK and Canada finished with his graduation in Canada but he was too young for university. He began work as an office boy, then a lab assistant until unemployed in the depression. With his father also unemployed they moved house frequently. The family decided to return to Britain in 1934, with Alastair and his father working their passage on a cargo boat.

After arrival and walking through London he saw a poster for the Ballet Rousse and attending that ballet began his life-long interest in ballet and music. He gained much pleasure from his hi-fi set and its good quality sound.

However, unemployment in the 30’s led to his joining the army where he was a “good shot” in the rifle team during his training. He became seriously ill when his twenty weeks training finished and he was discharged on medical grounds. He made a fresh start in employment as an articled clerk to an accountant.

Philosophically he was interested in the Oxford Group, a Christian organisation which later became known as Moral Re-armament. He writes of its “caring attitude”. It was ecumenical, and emphasised “the accessibility of the Holy Spirit to each one” and had its four absolute standards of honesty, love, purity and unselfishness. He speaks of “passing through the experience of what Quakers would call “convincement”. “I began the life-long process of conversion, of freely-chosen open-ness to being changed inwardly.” It was “the beginning of an adventure of the spirit, a journey into the unknown”.

In 1938 at twenty three years of age he had accommodation with the Metherell family who were also involved in the Oxford Group. By then he had dealt with various family disasters and his mother’s and father’s deaths but he still felt very immature for his age. However, he said he had “just enough insight to realise that I must put my trust in the love of God and not in my own capacity for change”. He said he could not imagine Jesus killing anyone for any reason.

The youngest daughter in the Metherell family was Margaret and they married in1940. Both had become students, Alastair doing a diploma in psychology at a “week-end” university from which he continued his university studies in psychology. Margaret studied as a probationary nurse. Margaret had previously had a long psychiatric illness that was openly acknowledged in the family and of which Alastair was aware.

Both he and Margaret had left Moral Rearmament behind but they had not found a home with the Anglican or Methodist churches. By the time of the beginning of WW II his Christian faith led him to be a conscientious objector to war and he found Quakers. He consequently served as a “c.o.” in the civilian ambulance service during the war. He had joined Friends in 1942 and trained with Friends’ Relief Service (FRS) to serve mainly in Italy with the Inter-Governmental Committee for Refugees (IGCR) in 1945. On returning to the UK he was assigned to Germany with the FRS.

When he worked for the IGCR and FRS in Europe at the end of the war he saw the devastating effect on people’s lives. However, he has mostly written about the logistics of the tasks there and enjoying the challenge: “works and faith”, living his faith. At one point he was finding the IGCR work in northern Italy “unsatisfying and depressing, mainly because there were no resources of food, clothing or money to relieve the conditions of those people I came across.” He said he found himself praying a “grumpy prayer” but then had “a peak experience” which led to his no longer feeling “alone, helpless and depressed.” This was one of the times he expressed his feelings about the situations he was in or that were around him. It seemed that he preferred his deeds to convey his concerns and beliefs.

Alastair’s academic career was built on his earlier diploma by studying for an MSc in psychology at Manchester University. With his degree in hand he worked in various aspects of psychology and on various community committees. His active research on occupational disadvantage provided the data for his PhD. He subsequently accepted a job in the institute in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) which became the University College in Salisbury (Harare). He was one of the first 2 professors there and helped establish the new university.

He left this position in 1968 and returned to England. Alistair had made his commitment to Margaret and when her recurrent illness required hospitalisation, they returned to England on several occasions during his career. He left senior positions which he enjoyed without having a similar position to go to in England. These decisions and changes can be seen in the light of his spiritual story.

Alastair’s professional life in Australia, after arriving in1970, was as Professor of Psychology at the University of Melbourne and Head of that Department.  As well as his work in both aspects, he played a very active role in dealing with tensions of various sorts, both with student unrest and in disputes in the life of the university. His leaving Australia in 1974 was unexpected – sadly due to his wife, Margaret’s ill health recurring. Alastair travelled ‘in the ministry’ back to Australia in 1987and to Canada in 1989.

His autobiography covers the many psychological and other areas he worked on. It is an enjoyable read and a fascinating account of a Friend’s life, warts and all, in following his strong faith as a Quaker.

Alastair Heron, a Quaker since 1942, died in March 2009 at the age of 93. He had lived in Sheffield, UK since his return from Melbourne to his country of origin. His Memorial Meeting was held at the Sheffield Meeting House on 2 May 2009. Margaret predeceased him and he is survived by his children, Keith and Joy and their families.

Quaker booklets:

The Future of British Quakers – shrinkage addressed: process and commitment; publ. Curlew Productions, Kelso, Scotland; 2001

On Being a Quaker: Membership: past – present – future; publ. Curlew Productions, Kelso Scotland; 2000

Our Quaker Identity; Religious Society – Or friendly society? Publ. Curlew Productions, Kelso, Scotland; 1999, reprinted 2000

Now we are Quakers: the experience and views of new members; publ. Quaker Outreach in Yorkshire; 1994

Quaker Speak: first aid for newcomers; publ. Quaker Outreach Yorkshire; 1994 fourth reprint 2008

To Join or Not: A guide to Quaker membership; publ. Quaker Outreach Yorkshire; 1993

Caring, Conviction, Commitment: Dilemmas of Quaker membership today; publ. Quaker Home Service, London and Woodbrooke College, Birmingham, 1992: “What is it that brings a seeker and/or an attender to membership? “

Speaking to Our Condition: A ministry to Friends; Canadian Quaker Pamphlet no. 30; Publ. Argenta Friends Press; 1989: (‘In response to a remark a group of youngish friends said: “That does not speak to my condition” to which another promptly returned, “Perhaps you are not in a condition to be spoken to!”) Alastair wondered if the spiritual state of Friends at that time – (and now?) is in the latter condition!

Gifts and Ministries; a discussion paper on eldership; publ. Quaker Home Service; 1987

Charity, Liberty, Unity: A Quaker Search for Essentials; publ. The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Australia Incorporated; 1987: “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity”

Alastair’s autobiography, Only One Life: a Quaker’s voyage; publ. Curlew Productions, Kelso TD5 8PD, Scotland, 1998

Alastair Heron also edited the essay, Towards a Quaker View of Sex in 1963; publ. Friends Home Service Committee. This resulted from a group of concerned Friends meeting in 1957 and which continued to meet regularly at least until 1963 when he wrote this essay.

The most popular “share and tell” session at Yearly Meeting this year was on non-theism. Friends enthusiastically shared aspects of their beliefs and disbeliefs that they may have been uncomfortable expressing in their local meetings. The only concern I heard was that such a grouping could be divisive. This is true; any labelling of a group could be divisive. Obviously, it all demanded more thought.

The terms “atheist” and “non-theist” are in themselves meaningless. They are negative terms indicating disbelief, but in what? Non-theists, as much as theists, have to try to define the God of their belief or disbelief.

At that point in my thinking, my ever-wise partner observed: “Anyone who attempts to define their God is inevitably wrong.” And she added “The Dao that can be spoken is not the true Dao.”

In their concepts of God, Quakers probably range from those who can quite sincerely repeat the Apostles Creed to those who agree with humanist Quaker David Boulton[1]:

“If God is no more (but, gloriously, no less) than a projection of our highest and deepest values, and if these must be human values (because no other form of life has created and articulated them), God-centredness just becomes one way, a religious way, of talking about being human.”

Along this spectrum are views such as those expressed by Jocelyn Bell Burnell in her Backhouse Lecture – a God of love, but not a God who controls physical aspects of the universe. Rudolph Bultmann[2], starting from the premise “The whole conception of the world which is presupposed in the preaching of Jesus as in the New Testament generally is mythological”, then had to answer “How does God act in the world?” His conclusion: “The action of God is hidden from every eye except the eye of faith.” In other words, we could say: things happen, and it’s up to us to decide whether we want to see them as God’s action.

And, as I see it, this spectrum is continuous. If there is a boundary between the theists and the non-theists, it’s a very porous barrier, and each of us, if we wish, can place the boundary anywhere along the spectrum we like. The German-American theologian Paul Tillich defined God as “Ultimate Reality”. If we accept this, we can’t argue about the existence of Ultimate Reality, only about its properties.

In another place, Tillich uses the metaphor of the depth of life. He says[3]:

“The name of this infinite and inexhaustible depth and ground of all being is God. That depth is what the word God means. And if that word has not much meaning for you, translate it, and speak of the depths of your life, of the source of your being, of your ultimate concern, of what you take seriously without reservation. Perhaps, in order to do so, you must forget everything traditional that you have learned about God, perhaps even the word itself. For if you know that God means depth, you know much about Him. You cannot then call yourself an atheist or unbeliever. For you cannot think or say: Life has no depth! Life is shallow. Being itself is surface only. If you could say this in complete seriousness, you would be an atheist; but otherwise you are not. He who knows about depth knows about God.”

Tillich raises the question of “God-talk”. Should we use the word “God” knowing that what we are trying to convey may be far different from what our hearers understand by “God”? Can Tillich’s “depth” be translated for Quakers as “the Spirit” or “that of God in all people”. Even if it can, the Quaker words will not mean the same thing for all Friends.

One of the main strengths of Quakerism is its breadth of beliefs and the tolerance of difference. It would be unfortunate is those who consider themselves non-theists were uncomfortable in expressing their points of view to other Friends.

In a recent issue of the [British] Friend, Richard Seebohm[4] quotes from a Muslim Peace Federation website:

“Human diversity is a divinely ordained blessing. One of the reasons that cultures differ is so that, by mutual examination, we can learn more about the vastness of what it is to be human. Another reason is that outside perspectives help keep all of us honest. We are grateful to Allah for our differences, which save us all from complacency.”

[1] Cited from Cupitt D 2009?. Friends, faith and humanism. Sea of Faith UK magazine, summer. Available at http://www.sofn.org.uk/reviews/quakhum.html Accessed 12 March 2013.

[2] Bultman R 1958. Jesus Christ and Mythology. SCM Press

[3] Tillich P 1949. The depth of existence. In The Shaking of the Foundations. Pelican Books.

[4] Seebohm R 2013. Islam and peace. the Friend 22-02-2013. http://thefriend.org/article/islam-and-peace/ Accessed 10 March 2013.

Invitation – to come with QSA staff on a STUDY TOUR TO UGANDA in November 2013.

This two week study tour is designed to provide participants with an introduction to the local communities that QSA has engaged with for many years. It will both give QSA’s project partners the opportunity to show case their work and will provide tour participants the chance to learn about development issues in Uganda through the eyes of our project partners and the local communities they work with.

This study tour will be an opportunity to familiarise you with, and experience, a new culture and country, to interact with new people both on the tour and those you meet in Uganda, and to engage in educational, socially responsible travel. It will also provide some economic benefit for the project partners we will be visiting. The tour will access local accommodation, restaurants and transport that are modest but comfortable and safe, and which supports local enterprises. Included in the costs will be a carbon offset match for all travel.

Members of the Wakiso District Union of People with Disabilities, one of QSA’s project partners attending a training workshop in organic farming held at the training centre of another QSA project partner – St Jude College of Organic Agriculture.

The tour will be a mix of visits to project partners St Jude and Wakiso District Union of Persons with Disability to see just how they run their training programs and what has been achieved. Many Friends will remember meeting the director of St Jude, Josephine Kizza, when she visited Australia – she is certainly a confident and impressive woman. The Training Centre has accommodation where the study tour will stay for a few days so participants can experience and learn about the daily life of rural small holder farmers as well as the broader challenges and work of St Jude.

It is hoped that tour participants will feel able to share some of their skills and expertise with project participants, whether this is via some painting, feeding the animals, potting up seedlings or some other role in which we can work together and share ideas and experiences. There will be opportunities to meet some of the schools who have received training form St Jude staff, and been able to grow food to supplement their midday meals and breakfasts.

The other partner the tour will be meeting is the Wakiso District Union of People with Disabilities. This is a new project partner, but they are equally keen to meet everyone and show what they have been doing.

Other activities on the tour will be spending some time exploring the countryside, including an overnight stay in a small game reserve, a boat trip to some islands in Lake Victoria, standing astride the equator, see the source of the River Nile, and learning how to dance Ugandan style – very energetic but great fun!

If you would like to see first-hand the impact of QSA’s project partners in Uganda, please contact Kate Bandler in the QSA office at kate@qsa.org.au. It will only be a small group that goes, so that there are opportunities to meet with and not overwhelm the project partners and participants.

Health Drink Program in Tamil Nadu, South India

Part of the project QSA is supporting with Pitchandikulam Forest in Tamil Nadu, South India, involves supporting the most marginalised community members. Children who record a low height and weight level for their age are also tested for low iron levels and general poor nutrition. If considered suitable for the program they are given a twice daily nourishing drink to boost their nutritional input. Already their academic performance has achieved a noted improvement as their nutrition increases. The drink is a combination of herbs, gains, nuts and seeds, initially all purchased locally, and now are being grown on farmland close to the school to ensure greater freshness but also reduction in costs. Currently two hundred and three school children from three schools have been selected, of whom 135 participated in the program last year. Sixty eight children are new to the program. In addition some elderly members of the community who are without family for support are also given nutritional support. On a regular basis, height, weight and haemoglobin levels are recorded to monitor the impact, and the following chart shows the impact over a three month timeframe.

Note: The four girls from the tribal community enrolled at Nadukuppam Primary School are not coming to school regularly.

Some of the children in Nadukuppam School receiving their morning healthy drink

Friends are reminded that the tax year ends soon, and donations to QSA to enable its projects to continue can be made to the office at 119 Devonshire Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010. Direct credit details can be obtained by emailing John Dundas at john@qsa.org.au and donations received by June 30^th for the Overseas Aid or Aboriginal Concerns Funds will be eligible for tax deductibility to offset against income tax this financial year.

Clive Hamilton is a master of clarification. In the first paragraph of his new book, “Earthmasters” he simplifies the practices of geo-engineering, or “playing God with the planet” into just two approaches. In their response to global warming, he explains that geo-engineers can either try to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to store it somewhere less dangerous, or attempt to reduce the amount of sunlight reaching our planet where it is trapped in our atmosphere.

Calling the first approach “sucking carbon” he explains the things we have vaguely heard about like iron fertilization of the oceans or putting lime into the sea. His conclusions that follow seem irrefutably wise. Reviewing the findings in detail we are convinced that advocates are “just trying to stuff the genie back into the bottle” and that we don’t know nearly enough about the Earth’s systems to be making such heroic interventions. Hamilton concludes that there are no storage places left, adequate for the carbon we have released from its “subterranean tombs”, which could inspire confidence in a reasonable observer.

He calls the other geo-engineering tack, “regulating sunlight” and renders processes like brightening the clouds, or spraying sulphur into the sky, comprehensible although again he finds they also pose a number of “exquisite dilemmas”. As these approaches can be used to manipulate rates of warming or cooling, Hamilton uncovers more anxiety-provoking research about their potentially terrifying and incalculable effects on our eco-systems.

Hamilton’s capacity to move comfortably across different kinds of data is also his hallmark and so we turn to some sociological analysis of what is happening amongst the geophysicists. It turns out that there is already a powerful “geoclique” with its central characters, David Keith and Ken Caldiera, and its leading financial supporter, Bill Gates. As Hamilton puts it, despite ‘the genuflecting to “mitigation first”, the lure of the “technofix” is irresistible… and “oil companies… are quietly backing research into geo-engineering.” Inevitably there has been a “flurry of patents” and geo-engineering is seen as a source of very profitable investment which is even becoming attractive to climate deniers.

Hamilton explains that “Just as the need to defend a cultural worldview makes conservative white males prone to repudiate climate science, so that world view will make them prone to support geo-engineering solutions.” To characterize the stupidity of this optimistic approach he quotes one of my favourite feminist theorists, Barbara Ehrenreich: “If positive thinking can defeat breast cancer,” she asks ironically, “why can’t it defeat climate change?”

But the main thrust of Hamilton’s book is the ethical battle, as he characterises it, between the Prometheans and the Soterians. The Greek god, Prometheus, the God of technological mastery, and Soteria, the Goddess of preservation and deliverance from harm, can help us to see how a world view, which is confident about humanity’s ability to control nature, can be contrasted with one which recognizes “the hubris of mastery solutions”.

It seems though that the Prometheans have got the upper hand in many of the world’s most powerful places: Hamilton describes pro-geo-engineering work at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where Cold War thinking was nurtured, in a US Bipartisan Policy Center where it has been rebranded “climate remediation”, in the White House where there have been reports advising that the US should seize the initiative, as research is already underway in Germany, India, Russia and the UK, in NASA and the Carnegie Institute, and in military planning at the highest levels.

Hamilton repeatedly reminds us that technologically brilliant people can make very foolish decisions in politics and he makes the simple but fundamental observation that “geo-engineering research is virtually certain to reduce incentives to pursue emission reductions”. He is frightened by our attempts to “play God”, instead of “facing up to our failures” and attempting “to become better humans”. He reviews the history of the human species on this planet and observes that our “activities have so changed our climatic future that we have prevented one and possibly several ice ages”, evidence indeed of our Promethean power to damage the climate! He reminds us that the “Earth will take tens or hundreds of thousands of years to reach a new equilibrium following the pulse of carbon emissions sent into the atmosphere by humans mostly over the century from 1950 to 2050”. He despairs over our “human exceptionalism” and our “growth fetishism”… so “Prometheans rule” and “if the meek are ever to inherit the Earth then they had better be quick”!

I do wish our politicians would read this book. It saddens me to see, in Andrew Leigh’s paper, “The Pro-Growth Progressive”, 2011, the suggestion that we simply “decouple growth from carbon pollution as we did with CFCs”, and that our economic growth will provide resources for the transition! He thinks that we will derive our future growth and productivity from carbon-neutral sources but, if this is likely, how would he account for the massive but mostly undercover interest of top military, research, political, investment and insurance bodies in what Hamilton calls “earth management”?

We read recently in the Canberra Times (26/3/13) that Australia ranks 17^th out of 19 countries for low-carbon competitiveness, well behind China which ranks 3^rd with its clean energy investment and high-technology exports. Clearly we need a more nimble government in this country, one which can turn the big ship of state around quickly in the face of the planetary reality which Hamilton paints so astutely and from an impressive number of perspectives. But how will we achieve this in the face of contemporary political optimism and denial?

Hamilton does not give us signposts about how we might turn ourselves to a more Soterian frame of mind although, at heart, this is clearly what he wants. Perhaps we need to turn to the theologians to find the help so for us to meet this challenge. Peter Todd’s “The Individuation of God” advocates that we take notice of influences in our universe which are “independent of time and space”. He sees evidence of these in both extremes of human theorizing, in the quantum physics of David Bohm as well as in the archetypes of Carl Jung. In both Todd reads an active creation occurring so that, as he puts it, God is evolving through humankind! He draws often from Teilhard de Chardin’s suggestions that the human species can undergo a “metamorphosis into the future of God”.

I think Todd’s answer to Hamilton might be that we can counter the evil of “playing God” by seeing that we are responsible for the continued emergence of God in the universe. Thus we are at our best if we are working into and with God. We are, as it were, part of a process in which we hold a mirror up to the universe so that it can see itself becoming. A much more attractive idea to me than “playing God”!

This sense of being in the process of God’s evolution might make us see that we must turn away from the primitive hunger for earth management, so well described by Hamilton. It might encourage us to have a more Soterian approach in which we become both humble in the face of the complexities of the universe and confident that we can find a more cooperative, harmonious and inclusive approach to life on this planet as it unfolds. We can perhaps turn away from the temptation to seek power over our planet’s systems and turn towards seeing ourselves more humbly as part of planetary evolution, taking account of God’s future as well as our own. This must entail universal participation rather than management and a readiness to discipline our human activities to take account of the Whole.

Hamilton asks in his introduction, “What have we become?” I suspect he is right when he points out that the human species still has moral choices. Most of us would prefer that these were made in the interests of the whole planet rather than left to a small but powerful “geoclique”.

Todd is a psychoanalytic psychologist and he is an Australian visionary like Hamilton. I think that he would thoroughly endorse the way Hamilton encourages us to reflect upon ourselves and what we are doing.

Prior to meeting with the QSA Management Committee in mid-June 2012, I Henry Esbenshade of WA Regional Meeting discovered this book in a Devonshire Street Meeting House room used for archives and other purposes. It immediately seemed relevant and worthy to read for advancing my understanding of Quaker service for the QSA 2012 Review that was in progress at that time. I skim-read its 400 pages on the return flight to Perth and just now had another chance after YM13.

This is an important book about the early days of Quaker service – an account of his work along with other Friends in France, Germany, Turkey & Bulgaria. Other experiences are reported after London Yearly Meeting sent him to Italy, America, Australia, New Zealand, China and Japan so to develop their plans for collaboration to encourage peace initiatives. It is available via Google e-books and in the libraries of WARM, Devonshire Street and the Friends House at Toorak.

As the Hon. Commissioner of the Society of Friends War Victims Fund, Jones’ book describes his experiences in France from 1870-71 during the Franco-German War, and then from 1876-77 with Bulgarians affected by the conflict between Turkey and Russia. Examples – (i) France :

I came first into actual contact with the sufferings of the innocent victims of this disastrous war, as instanced in the persons of many of the small peasant proprietors. ‘No corn, no cattle, no horse, no hay, no straw, no food, absolutely nothing left but the clothes we wear’ was said to us…The funds at the disposal of our Central Committee being materially increased, it was resolved to recommence the work of distribution of seed corn and potatoes, on a larger scale, in the distressed districts of France…calling at almost every town and village, gleaning information and organizing in each centre committees of distribution…the information being telegraphed to London, the Home Committee sent out in swift steamers cargoes of seed-wheat, oats and potatoes…The distress is heartrending. I have to-day made out our plans for feeding the villages, sixty in number, where the people are starving…nearly 8,000 souls…There being a dearth of milch cows in France…bulls and cows of the Andalusian breed assigned on loan…where their milk was a great boon to young children…branded around each horn with the word ‘Quakres’ (ii) Bulgaria – The condition of the people, both Mohammedan and Christian, during the Russo-Turkish Wars, was deplorable in the extreme…The Society of Friends also raised a considerable fund…to erect as quickly as possible on the site of the destroyed villages, a number of wooden huts…to shelter the homeless people….set up a steam saw mill there and thus provided a large supply of planks….all the destroyed villages…were rapidly supplied with wooden houses sufficient to shelter about ten thousand homeless people before the inclement winter of 1876-77.

Throughout the book William Jones wrote about convening meetings to raise money and the views of English Friends & others who provided seeds, agricultural implements, cattle, wood for houses & furniture, food, medicine, fuel, and gifts of money:

…the case of these innocent sufferers presented no obstacle to the benevolence of Friends as occurred when the so-called ‘Patriotic Fund’ was raised during the Crimean War. Conscientious objections to subscribe to any fund, which went chiefly to the relief of wounded and sick ‘soldiers’ were felt by many Friends; but no such scruples intervened in regard to the suffering among the non-combatant population, and innocent women and children.

He reported on numerous lectures throughout Great Britain that he and others involved with relief work presented :

….in Leeds more than 500 pounds was raised in the room…in the city of Edinburgh…supported by the Lord Provost whose eloquent appeals proved an effective help….the most influential gathering before which we appeared… in the city of London…largely composed of city merchants.

These fund-raising efforts appear to have been successful because the lectures were given to audiences wider than Friends alone, and they were the personal stories of Jones and other Quakers – not second hand reports.

The author’s work broadened to include a meeting in the Vatican with Cardinal Antonelli who queried him about the Quaker method of ‘never deciding any questions by vote’, and in 1883 he was appointed Secretary of the Peace Society. Jones spent several years organizing work and the delivery of addresses and lectures in all parts of the UK….the great work of establishing a permanent treaty between England and America….In 1887 he went to Richmond Indiana as one of eight representatives to the First Conference of the Yearly Meetings of the Society of Friends in America. Jones was subsequently granted a private interview with President Grover Cleveland who spoke in favour of the treaty for the abolition of war….and the establishment of a High Court of International Arbitration as a substitute for the sword.

A meeting was held the next day with the wife of the President who expressed support for the treaty. A few months later he joined the English Deputation of Members of Parliament to President Grover who expressed entire sympathy…with the desire for a condition of International understanding, which should alleviate the death and distress that war brings…

William Jones traveled throughout the eastern states of America and then in Australia with his wife delivering lectures about the ‘Treaty Question’ that was based, as he wrote, on my own experiences in war-time, some of which have been already related in this book, as well as upon the oppressive militarism prevailing in Europe.

Having been appointed delegate from London Yearly Meeting to the First Inter-colonial Conference of Friends in Australasia that was held in 1888 in Melbourne, he wrote about their traveling by sea through the Suez Canal, arriving in Albany WA and collecting 50 specimens of wildflowers that were entirely new to us including the Waratah and Arum. Jones’ commentary included no such holiday loving people has come under my notice…one almost wondered how the business of the city was carried on amid the numerous picnics and jaunts…Royal birthdays and other such events were availed of as excuses for holidays. They stayed in Adelaide for twelve days giving lectures and then went to the Friends Meeting in Hobart – I believe the oldest in Australasia as a result of the religious labours of English Friends James Backhouse & George Washington Walker and was taken to the land that had recently been acquired for the Friends’ School.

The last five chapters are filled with stories of the couple’s 1889 travels, meetings and lectures about the proposed peace treaty in New Zealand (where a recent earthquake had toppled about 12 tonnes of upper tier stones from the spire of the Church in Christchurch), Sydney, Brisbane and eventually Tientsin China where he reported that the Viceroy agreed to unite with other powers in such a League or Treaty of Peace…the Emperor’s principles were identical with his own. In Japan, Jones and his wife met the Minister for Foreign Affairs who also agreed to the proposed treaty.

After a sixteen-day crossing of the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco, the Joneses spent three months in America lecturing about the proposed treaty – largely to local Peace Societies that had been formed by the Peace Department of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Upon returning to England he wrote ….thankful to arrive in safety, in our native land, which after all the attractiveness of foreign climes has been summed up, was, in all our sincerest convictions, the country of all others to live in.

The final chapter includes a “fifty years’ retrospect” which highlights the Czar of Russia’s August 1898 statement in the interests of a “real and durable peace”…to put an end to the progressive development of the present armaments which are transforming the armed peace of our days into a crushing burden which the people have more and more difficulty in bearing…This noble effort …has transferred….the great topic of Disarmament from the hands of those who have hitherto been regarded as visionary enthusiasts, to the consideration of the Councils of Europe.

Indeed, the writings of William Jones 114 years ago remain relevant for Quaker service.

Jane Mace is a former adult literacy educator, and a Quaker who has experienced the clerking of Meetings for worship for business – from both sides of the clerk’s table.

Mace commends to us the view that non-theists are furthering our traditional Quaker commitment to Truth in their/our efforts to find new language for inner experience. So whether you are theist or not, if you are committed to our way of worshipful decision-making then consider reading this useful little book. It rests on the premise that Quaker decision-making assumes a commitment to guidance which is larger, deeper, and greater than we ourselves can generate.

The book addresses Quaker practices in the UK. It consists of 6 interrelated essays: the first, “God, Worship and Time”, explores what we mean by “divine guidance”, and how to make fruitful the tension between the need for worship and the need for efficiency.

The second, “Discipline and Upholding” is about the corporate disciplines of waiting and listening and of upholding the worshipping group and the clerk(s).

The third chapter is called “Unity and discernment”.

She writes, “If we observe the corporate disciplines, and the clerks read the sense of the meeting and capture the essence of discernment in writing, then the worshippers experience the meeting as gathered”. …”There to seek not unanimity or majority votes but “unity”, participants… are asked to accept a discipline… (this develops) the capacity to accept a decision that they may have neither expected nor wanted, but trust to be the best one for the meeting at the time.” (p28).

Mace draws on a wonderful corpus of literature on Quaker decision-making, and particularly on Quaker Faith & Practice (the “Red book”). Her vignettes include business practices at both the Yearly Meeting and local meeting levels, and also threshing meetings. There is a fascinating account of the long, careful process of discernment around whether to respond to the Israel-Palestine conflict by “BDS” “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions”.

The fourth chapter is on Clerks and Clerking; the fifth is called “Reading and Writing” and is about the literacy practices of business meetings. She writes, “The Quaker style of writing in our minutes (uses) active, personal and present-tense forms” and she shows the connection between these practices and our testimonies. Her final chapter is on opportunities for informal learning and renewal.

This book is full of good things. And in the course of her study, she experienced the “gradual revelation” “that the primary purpose of Quaker business meetings is not to make decisions or written records, but to seek (and sometimes find) a divine presence in the way these are made.” Amen.

This is a final call for facilitators of Summer School groups for Yearly Meeting 2014, which will be held in Brisbane from 4 – 11 January. Summer School will occupy the whole of Sunday 5 January.

Our theme for Summer School at Yearly Meeting 2014 is taken from Advices and Queries number 1: Promptings of love and truth in our hearts.

Below is a list of Summer School groups that have been offered so far. As you see, the theme is already attracting a wide variety of topics. We would love to have further offers of groups that explore our inner spiritual life, or topics that could be explored through worship sharing, silence, music, art, dance or moving in the natural world

It would be good to have more suggestions of how groups could tie in with Tracey Bourne’s Backhouse Lecture focusing on children. Would any Friends (or Young Friends) like to run a group for children to explore their own responses to the theme? For example, Advice 1 might be turned into suitable questions such as, “When have you felt love in your heart and wanted to express that?” and “When have you wanted to stand up for someone / something? How might you respond to that prompting?”

If you would like to facilitate a Summer School group, please let us know very soon.

We’ll be happy to talk over your ideas, especially if you have little experience as a group leader. We do encourage new facilitators to step forward!

We need to finalise details about Summer School groups as soon as possible, so that f/Friends can name their preferences when Yearly Meeting registrations begin in September.

Please email your Summer School conveners – Sue Wilson, Taisoo Kim Watson and Pam Tooth – at our shared address: summerschool2014@quakers.org.au

Groups being offered – brief summary so far

1 Calling all parents of young children

Parents who currently have young children (birth to 15) are invited to a day of reflection, nurture and sharing around how we can better hear the promptings of Love and Truth in our hearts above the daily noise and activity that surround us. Please note that this is not a session on ‘Quaker parenting’ per se. Pre-crawling children are welcome; child care options are being investigated to allow parents with crawling and walking children to participate fully in this day of retreat and renewal.

2 Our experience of taking a stand against Coal Seam Gas

Members of Northern Rivers Meeting will share their experience with taking a stand through involvement in “A CSG Free Northern Rivers”.

3 Friends in Stitches

Friends in Stitches have been led to capture the history of Australian Quakers, eventually creating 40 panels. The designers, stitchers and researchers for this mammoth project are aware of the depth of their spirituality while capturing these precious moments on cloth. This Summer School will be an opportunity for existing stitchers to compare notes and panels and exchange ideas, and for new stitchers to learn the Quaker Stitch. Artists are especially encouraged to join this group as this is an opportunity to create a cartoon for embroidering. You do not have to be a stitcher – cartoon drawing is the first step towards creativity and of course historical researchers are vital to the project.

4 Junior Young Friends (JYFs)

JYFs will probably use the time of Summer School to meet up and bond at the start of Yearly Meeting. JYFs are quite a cohesive group now and will be meeting through the year to discuss plans for Summer School (while preferring a term that doesn’t include the word ‘school’, since they’ll be on holidays!)

5 Poetry and Spirit

This is a tentative offer at the moment. The facilitator would like to find someone else who might be interested to co-facilitate this group.

6 Circle dancing

Are there any strong circle dancers who would like to co-facilitate this one, or any suggestions for other activities to complement a day of dancing? If anyone could offer knowledge of how to construct and walk a simple labyrinth, that would be helpful too.

7 Understanding and Confronting Hatred in ourselves

The facilitator for this group is interested in why we hate, and would like to share what she has learned over many years working in psychiatry and psychotherapy as well as training in pastoral care and most recently in self-directed spiritual discovery. This will be a mix of understanding and practical exercises.

8 Quakers and Business

This will be an exploration of many aspects of this topic, including discussion of ethics and testimonies – especially in the light of the global financial crisis.  Some of the group might eventually be interested to discuss starting up a group similar to the Quakers and Business group in the UK. (That group asked the CEO of Barclays Bank, “Do you know the Quaker principles on which your bank was established?” He didn’t.)

9 First Nations Peoples (FNP) and Sovereignty

The FNP committee is discussing the availability of a FNP representative to lead this Summer School group following on from the welcome to Country. They would

speak about the issue of Sovereignty, which would be in keeping with the theme of promptings of love and truth in our hearts.

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the first edition of the Australian Friend for 2013. This edition contains mostly reports, commentary and reflections from Yearly Meeting (YM) which was held in Canberra from the 5th through to the 12th of January. We hope that this edition of the Australian Friend (AF) will keep the experience of the recent YM alive for Friends and provide an insight and connection for those Friends who were not there. Of course, all Friends at YM will have remembrances of their own experiences, and their own points of view.

YM is always a massive undertaking for the host Regional Meeting, and the exhaustion is often visible on the faces of the members of the organising committee by the end of the week. A letter by Jenny Madeline, from New South Wales Regional Meeting was published in the December issue of the AF, titled “Are there alternative models for Yearly Meeting (and Friends Gatherings)?” . Jenny wondered if there are different and perhaps better ways of doing what YM does, and managing the expectation that YM will be “all things to all people”. YM is often a spiritual community at which to worship and to be together for a week or so.it is a time to listen “how the truth has prospered amongst us”, as well as the time for corporate discernment and decision making processes that underpin the work of the Australian Yearly Meeting.

The Site Search Committee in Victoria Regional Meeting wrote a letter to Standing Committee that met on the Saturday afternoon before YM. This Committee of three persons wrote that they spent up to 80 hours to find a venue for YM in 2015, to be held in Melbourne. This Committee asks “that Yearly Meeting considers a different model for the holding of future Yearly Meetings, as raised in the report of the Site Search Committee”. This letter is to be sent to Regional Meetings for their responses, to be presented at mid-year Standing Committee. It is also printed in this edition of the AF and you are invited to participate in an online discussion about alternative models for our Yearly Meeting.

Maxine Cooper finished her term as Presiding Clerk and Julian Robertson has commenced his term as Presiding Clerk, which began at the end of YM 2013. Being the Presiding Clerk during the business sessions at YM is a daunting task. Facing a lecture theatre full of strong minded and passionate individuals while discerning the sense of the Meeting in a spiritual as well as in a practical sense is challenging.

We offer thanks to Maxine and good wishes to Julian!

I enjoyed observing the thorough preparations for YM, especially when the Secretary moved pieces of paper to and from the Presiding Clerk, found items on her laptop and whispered to those other Friends seated at the table – whose faces then visibly relaxed. A wonderful performance, thanks Susan.

We hope to see you all at Yearly Meeting in Brisbane from 4 until 11 January 2014.

The June edition of AF will be themed under the heading: “Leadings or Wilfulness – and Everything in Between”. The panel at AF asks that potential contributors reflect upon what is meant by “Leadings”—what is it that we understand as their inspiration? When can they go astray? What is their significance? What is your experience of Leadings? Being Quaker is firmly grounded upon the experience of God, not just considering the notions about God.

Leadings have always been central to this experience and to our activities. But maybe our Quaker-cultural familiarity has let this vital part of our life simply slide into the background and become the wallpaper of what it is to be-Quaker. We here at the Australian Friend hope that this might be a chance to bring this vital part of our life to the forefront of consideration.

We look forward to receiving your articles.

From attending Meeting for Worship occasionally for many years (our older son had “found” Friends at the age of thirteen), I became a regular Attender at both Meetings for Worship and Meetings for Worship for Business in 1978. I then applied for and was granted membership in 1979.

A beloved Friend wondered if I “had thought about going to Yearly Meeting”. I had mistakenly understood that I had been invited to do so. The joy and wonder that I experienced at my first Yearly Meeting in 1980 remains with me today. The venue, including the accommodation was at Friends School and Yearly Meeting was in the care of Hobart Regional Meeting. Bron Meredith was Presiding Clerk and David Purnell YM secretary. Their patience and skills have been repeated by succeeding Office Bearers, each with their own special gifts of the Spirit. The loving care and concern of the host Regional Meeting and the involvement of so many of their Members and Attenders at each Yearly Meeting since have been wonderful.

Advances in electronic communication have and will continue to bring great changes (we seem to be speaking more quickly). However, I feel our Meeting House libraries will continue to be an important part in our learning and outreach. While we cannot live in the past, there is much we can learn from the history of our own past.

I have seen the ways in which wise, experienced Friends have conscientiously seated themselves next to “restless” people at Yearly Meeting sessions, occasionally with a piece of paper, with words such as “are you really led to speak”; “is it relevant”; is it helpful”; “is it kind”. There continues to be a need for mentoring both at Yearly Meeting and within our Local and Regional Meetings, but this can be done lovingly and kindly. The role of Elders is of great value, especially at Yearly Meetings when many participating F/friends are not experienced in Quaker Faith and Practice.

Do we always come to Yearly Meeting with “Hearts and Minds Prepared”? How many attend their Local or Regional Meeting discussion sessions on Documents in Advance?

Preparative Meetings at Yearly Meeting give opportunity for wide discussion and have proven to be of utmost importance. It is interesting to see Preparatory Session Minutes grow and change in the following formal YM session. Quaker processes, when followed can bring wise and acceptable outcomes. The difference between consensus and unity is sometimes not easy to find.

Respectful Relations and Child Protection, Junior and Young Friends issues continue to be areas of great importance. Opportunities for learning have been very important to me, at Local and Regional Meetings, at Woodbrooke and now at Silver Wattle. I hope that these opportunities will become more available to more seekers in the future and that encouragement to attend Yearly Meeting will be available.

Mentoring has meant much to me in my journey within the Religious Society of Friends and I give thanks for the grace of God as shown in so many Friends who have helped me through this journey. At the 1982 Yearly Meeting in Victoria much discussion took place on a section in the new edition of the Handbook. It was the words that a suggestion made by a dear older Friend that has stayed with me always – that we should be “Humble learners in the School of Christ”.

From serving on and representing Friends on various Committees, it is a joy now to attend Yearly Meeting, to meet dear Friends old and new, and to have time to “Be Still and Know”.

Friends are concerned about the excessive use and depletion of the earth’s finite
resources, and our need to care for the earth. More than 30 Friends held a peace vigil
at the gates of the headquarters of the Australian Defence Force Joint Operational
Command near Canberra. In an amiable exchange, they presented to a senior officer a
statement calling for a renewed focus on building peace. We recognise our
responsibility to offer spiritual as well as practical leadership at local, regional, national
and international levels.

For us the relationship between earth-care and peace work is central, as is the extent to
which we will continue to fund our Peace and Earth-care Office established in 2012.
When we as Friends are most passionate about issues but are vigilant in following
proper Quaker process, we move more easily to unity. Division and conflict arise when
we neglect deep silence in the Meeting for Worship for Business. A vibrant group of
younger Friends took up the challenge of earth-care by imagining, designing and
constructing Australian towns for 2050.

A significant shift in thinking led the Meeting to establish a Children’s Fund as a resource
for developing programs for children and Junior Young Friends (JYFs). The move
addresses a long-felt need to nourish our children and bring them more fully into the life
of the Meeting, possibly by appointing a paid coordinator. We delight in the fact that
children and JYFs make up about 17 per cent of this year’s gathering. Australians
attending the 6th Friends World Conference admired the great diversity among Friends
across the world.

Recommendations from a comprehensive review of Quaker Service Australia (QSA),
(Australia Yearly Meeting’s aid organisation) were largely accepted. They encourage a
closer relationship between QSA and Yearly Meeting by more fully involving Regional
Meeting appointees. They also suggested ways to enable the organisation to be more
effective.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell, British Quaker and professional astronomer, in her Backhouse
Lecture, explained how – in billions of years – the physical universe is getting colder,
darker, emptier. Three days later, with Friends aged 6 to 17, she explored the Mount
Stromlo Observatory, the home of major scientific and astronomical discoveries.

Our challenge now is: how to continue to believe in a loving Spirit, which can guide our
actions; that is, how to use intuitive knowledge and experience to balance scientific logic.
We need our hearts as well as our heads.

Good morning everyone, we’re going to read to you the 2013 Children’s Epistle. At the start of the week, we were just getting to know each other. We were practically hiding in the corners. Soon things started to warm up with the cooperative games such as getting into height order without talking. Maya was the tallest.

Early in the week we attended Summer School where we learnt about climate change and what life would be like in 2050. This is how we started to construct our cardboard cities from our brainstorms that were scattered all over the board. Lachlan was very into it. Many parents came and saw the city and made comments like ‘When can we move in?’ and ‘The houses are very recycled’, seeing as they were made of egg cartons.

People enjoyed playing games like table tennis and cricket. We played some card games like spit and solitaire. In the afternoon times we normally went outside and played a group game like cricket. Eli was very disappointed when we had to go inside.

During the week, Emily encouraged us to do many craft activities. We did papier-mache which Saskia got all over her shoes, and somehow Casey got it in her hair. We also wrapped sticks, made friendship bracelets, made masks and built a cubby house. Josh and Eli started a cubby outside with sticks, bark and dirt. They were very protective of it. It’s actually still outside if anyone still has a chance to see it. We also cooked chocolate crackles, pikelets and moulded chocolate on biscuits. Wyatt made a new creation which no one can explain.

As all of you may know, this week was HOT and I mean HOT! All of us were practically panting when we came in. It was Emily’s FANTASTIC idea to have a water celebration. That’s right, a water celebration, not a water fight! It was almost safe!

We also had lots of fun with a rocket which was demonstrated on Friday night. Everyone tried to catch it and I’m sure most of the boys, especially Andrew and Alex, had bruises by the end of it.

On Thursday the 5 to 11 year olds went to Mt Stromlo. Everyone was interested about the telescopes that were burnt down in the 2003 fires. Someone pointed out the 3D movie we watched had an incorrect fact, which was the Pluto isn’t a planet. Jocelyn Burnell also accompanied us and did a talk and answered lots of questions. Our excursion was very eventful as it included climbing trees and running races and a rather unfortunate soap fight which was started by the boys.

Not all people were there for the whole week, but those who were listened to many presentations from people who came into our class. Gabby and Liam came and told us about their trip to Africa which was both exciting and inspiring. David Liversidge came and told us about China in an awesome slide show and the 5 to 8 year olds gave us a presentation on their floating city which was full of pirate ships and submarines.

We would like to give special thanks to all teachers, parent helpers and all the kids for making it so enjoyable.

On Sunday, 5 January 2013, many Junior Young Friends from around Australia gathered in friendship to celebrate the 53^rd Yearly Meeting of Australian Friends on the University of Canberra campus.

We came together using theatrical games or ‘theatre sports’ to bond and get to know each other. Some JYFs already had strong connections with others and some JYFs were experiencing their first Quaker Yearly Meeting. Soon enough we had formed amazing relationships with everyone.

After that morning, we tumbled into Summer School, learning and re-enacting stories from ‘Adventures in the Spirit’ about Australian Quaker history. Being from separate states, some of us found Canberra’s weather challenging. With no air-con in the JYF space, there was no question that we should all cool down with a water fight. The following day we all went to both the old and new Parliament Houses. We participated in a very special ‘behind the scenes’ tour of new Parliament House with Jo Vallentine. We headed to the Aboriginal Tent Embassy where we heard from David Carline, an Aboriginal Elder, about his culture and we walked around the sacred fire.

Due to the heatwave and catastrophic fire warning, Scottsdale was deemed unsafe. This led to an impromptu camping trip to Gundaroo Park, which the locals kindly made available to us. However, we didn’t escape the extreme heat even there. We were soon surrounded by smoke from horizon to horizon. Luckily, the fire was 70 km away. Exhausted from the extreme heat, we retreated to the river for hours on end. During our time in Gundaroo, we painted the public oval fence, talked to an Aboriginal rainmaker named Rod Mason, threw spears, did archery, lay under the stars and talked about the Backhouse Lecture, and visited the Toynes’ house which had burnt down (two years ago).

Atticus-Toyne-showing-rebuilding-of-their-house-after-the-fire

Following the camp we went to Mount Stromlo Observatory with world renowned astrophysicist, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, before visiting the Canberra Meeting House for a night of pide and movies.

All in all, we had a great time, and we met some wonderful people. We deeply thank the people who made this possible.

Fourteen Young Friends met at Silver Wattle Quaker Centre between 29 December 2012 and 5 January 2013. We came by motorcycle, train, car and plane; from diverse locations; some for the first and some for the umpteenth time. We were excited to have amongst us three Burundian-Australian Young Friends, who shared their Quaker experiences, refugee stories, card games, and remarkable spirit. We were also fortunate to share the company of an inspired and joyful soul from New Zealand.

We pioneered the new camping area within Silver Wattle, and set up the camp circle. Our arrival coincided with that of the new directors who nurtured and supported our camp. Real camping for once and spending the majority of our time outdoors pushed us to connect more with the land. We watched the moonrise and were in awe of the open night sky. The early morning trek to the top of the hill enabled us to witness the sunrise over Weereewa (Lake George) and we were moved into silence.

The old toilet structures provided fascination in the form of a giant spider family. One afternoon was spent netting fruit trees and then juggling the plums already ravaged by birds. We enjoyed conversations around the nightly circle, and considered our role as young people within the society. An early morning session simultaneously built community and compost. We found inspiration and laughter in an unexpected visitor, who helped us farewell the old year by leading improvised dancing.

Perspectives from previous, current and new Young Friends taught us more about how we interact with each other, and will hopefully enable us to connect better with new individuals.

We remembered our good friend who passed away earlier in 2012 and appreciated the Testimony composed by a group of Young Friends and recently moved on Young Friends. We were reminded again how infrequently we meet and discussed ideas for connectedness and continuing pastoral care throughout the year.

The concurrent family gathering at Silver Wattle allowed for sharing of epilogues with non-Young Friends and we finished the week with an evening of games, a shared meal and songs. It was refreshing to informally interact as a group with Friends of all ages, and introduce them to some of the ways of bonding as Young Friends.

We leave camp not unlike the sunrise, with clear skies and a bright future, growing into the coming year and feeling free to dance our song and spread our Light on the world.

The 2013 Backhouse Lecture was delivered at Australia Yearly Meeting, University of Canberra, on 7th January by Jocelyn Bell Burnell, a professional astronomer and life-long Quaker.

The lecture was presented in a way which reflected Jocelyn’s long experience of, and love of, teaching and lecturing. Although the lecture had been prepared (and adapted for publication) many months in advance, there were topical references which helped to engage the audience in what could have been merely a technical scientific discourse, but was in fact an engrossing journey, even for those, like us, with little scientific knowledge.

After talking about the Quaker-astronomy connection in the early days of Canberra Regional Meeting, and her own background growing up in a Quaker family in Northern Ireland and moving to a Quaker boarding school in England at the age of thirteen, where science and, eventually astronomy, became her passion, she warned her listeners that some may find her conclusions about science and religion difficult to accept.

Much of the lecture concerned the growth of knowledge about astronomy, particularly over the last fifty years or so. We heard about scientific theory, stars, planets, moons, galaxies, the universe, dark matter and dark energy. We heard about the widely-accepted Big Bang at the beginning of time and the likely future of the universe.

Jocelyn then explained her personal theology as it stands now. She cannot accept a “God of the Gaps” as the explanation for everything that science cannot explain. In weighing up her scientific understanding and her spiritual experience, she sees the existence of human suffering as one of the keys to her understanding of God. If all-loving and all-powerful, why did God create and allow suffering? Either God is indifferent to our suffering, or the universe creates it independently of God’s power. Jocelyn’s conclusion is that God is a God of love, not of omnipotence, and not able to control the laws of the universe.

She quoted from the Quaker Advices and Queries 5 and 7 (BYM)…..Take time to learn about other people’s experiences of the Light…. Appreciate that doubts and questioning can also lead to spiritual growth… Spiritual learning continues throughout life, and often in unexpected ways… Are you open to new light, from whatever source it may come?

Jocelyn has shown us one way forward in our spiritual beliefs. While some may have been troubled by her scientific or theological conclusions, we were delighted to hear such clarity and heart-felt expression of her beliefs and some of her reasons for them. She accepts that, as science discovers more truths, she may have to re-assess her religious beliefs. She was also clear that even people with similar scientific background may draw different conclusions about religious beliefs.

This lecture stimulated much discussion in the following days of Yearly Meeting and it was a delight to see Jocelyn immerse herself in the gathering, talking with Friends over meals and being a “microphone-runner” at one of the formal business sessions. We hope that the printed version of the lecture will be a stimulus to further rich discussion and consideration in meetings throughout Australia.

from left to right:
David Carline, Queensland RM, Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Backhouse Lecturer and Maxine Cooper Presiding Clerk at YM 2013.

There is a wonderful paradox between the silence of Quaker meetings and the loud rambunctiousness of meal time. The contrast is a delight and – as a Yearly Meeting “newbie” – engaging and attractive.

It has taken more than 50 years to get to my first Yearly Meeting. As the son of a lapsed birth right Quaker, turned atheist, the journey this far has been very stop/start. Occasional conversations with my Aunts – who retained some involvement and enormous affection for Friends – fed my curiosity but invariably raised many questions.

I had made it to the threshold of local Meetings over that half century on a number of occasions but turned back. I’d make disparaging rationalisations to myself, and anyone else listening, about the “socks and sandals brigade” with its implied dismissal on the grounds of Friends’ naïve other-worldliness.

Yearly Meeting in Canberra provided another wonderful layer to these halting steps. As with the meetings I have been attending over the past nine months Yearly Meeting felt simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar.

For me Yearly Meeting underlined powerfully how much of Quakerism is tacit. It had long confused me that my articulate Aunts struggled so hard to answer my questions. It was Yearly Meeting that explained a great deal about their difficulties. Compared with my small worshipping group meeting fortnightly, Canberra Yearly Meeting felt like full immersion.

Some very subjective and selective impressions:

· The number of smiling, welcoming faces wanting to ensure I felt comfortable at Yearly Meeting

· The small number of 20-50 year olds at the regular sessions (broken by a broader representation at the Backhouse Lecture)

· The string of no-fuss, no-bother, active demonstrations of gender equality

· The number of apparently gentle-men, comfortable in their own skins without any sense they felt a need to bluff and bluster

· In my professional life, where a good decision is most often a fast one and the pithiest one-liner will often win the day, Meetings for Business were an intriguing eye opener

· The sight of Friends wrestling with their passionate and heartfelt positions on vital issues and their equally strong commitment to Quaker process and to working with their fellows.

Quakers’ long history of adopting prescient, ethical positions – almost invariably in the face of opposing public opinion – has been an inspiration to me for decades. I am looking forward to learning more about this experientially and spiritually in my continuing journey with Friends.

The Headquarters Joint Operations Command (HQJOC) General John Baker Complex is the Australian Defence Force’s high-security control centre for the military missions in which Australia is involved. Its proximity to Yearly Meeting 2013 in Canberra made it possible for a group of Friends, led by Jo Vallentine, to hold a peaceful demonstration and present a letter to the officer-in-command to reaffirm Quaker opposition to warfare.

Having previously contacted HQJOC to notify them of our intentions, Jo had been informed that no one would be there to receive her. Knowing that wars don’t take breaks for Christmas, Jo had informed HQJOC that the demonstration would go ahead.

As we made our way along the access road many eyes were unable – or unwilling – to see the authorised access only signs. Representatives of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) stopped us partway up the road and they made the necessary enquiries to grant or deny approval. ‘Just in case,’ the AFP also took the registration details of our vehicles.

Friends were asked to take down their banners during this process.

We gathered on the side of the road for a Meeting for Worship, with ministry holding in the light all those affected by war. Songs of peace emerged from the silence and after forty minutes, the AFP granted permission for us to approach the gate.

We marched about a kilometre to the concrete fortress lined with razor wire, accompanied by the AFP. The prison-like complex moved Friends to sympathise with the HQJOC workers not only because of the harsh decisions they make, but also because of the detached nature of warfare.

Friends were directed to a space just off the road and resumed silence as well as singing.

The Director of Coordination Francis Grigson and an AFP officer met Jo, Julian Robertson and Moira Darling in a diplomatic exchange of greetings during which Jo read the letter. Echoing its sentiments, Francis voiced his wish for peace.

Thirty-three facilitators from around Australia met for a week to take part in a Trauma Awareness Workshop, to exchange new ideas for exercises, to look at future directions and to renew commitment to the principles of AVP. We learned of work with children, prisoners, refugees and indigenous people. The need for Trauma Awareness and eventually Trauma Workshops grew out of the perceived need of refugees in Australia. It was brought to our attention that indigenous Australians have also experienced and continue to suffer from trauma.

The group included 6 former refugees from Afghanistan, the Congo and Iran, and one indigenous woman from Broome. A second indigenous participant was unable to join us at the last minute as he had obtained employment. Perth AVP has instigated workshops in Broome over recent months. The Centre for Torture and Trauma in Darwin initiated work with refugees and has trained facilitators in AVP in different language groups. This AVP work has been carried out under the title of ‘Peace Leadership’, and with the help of a generous grant from the NT Government.

Thanks to a grant from the Quaker Peace and Social Justice Fund we were able to support the refugee and indigenous participation as well as the cook and three other facilitators with limited means.

We were delighted to meet at the beautiful Silver Wattle Centre where David and Trish Johnson cared for us. Many participants took part in the early morning Meeting for Worship. Some younger members ran up the hill before breakfast and some of us walked in the cool of the evening. On Thursday night we gathered for a concert where singing, poetry, piano, guitar and flute all featured.

A good community was built over the week.

By Bob Douglas, Canberra Regional Meeting.

This is a report from a summer school at the Yearly Meeting that included 16 participants from all of the Australian Quaker Regional Meetings. The discussion and review of evidence on ecological footprints left participants deeply concerned at the seriousness of the human predicament. But the group agreed that it is still possible to take positive action at various levels that will assist in amelioration of the impact of a gathering storm of problems that threaten human wellbeing and survival everywhere.

The ominous fact that emerges from well-validated ecological footprint analysis is that It now takes the Earth one year and six months to regenerate what the world’s human population uses each year. We are maintaining this overshoot by liquidating the Earth’s resources, increasing greenhouse gases and reducing the stock of biologically active land and water at the very time that human demands for them are increasing.

Humanity needs what nature provides, but how do we know how much we are using and how much we have left to use? The Ecological Footprint has emerged as the world’s premier measure of humanity’s demand on nature. This accounting system tracks the human footprint in global hectares and measures how much biologically active land and water a human population uses to provide all it takes from nature. The accounting system also measures bio-capacity, which is how much biologically productive area is available to the world to provide these services. Footprint methodology is validated science and is being used nationally and internationally by governments and civil institutions to monitor human impact on the environment.

The global situation is that since the 1970s, humanity has been in ecological overshoot, with annual demand on resources exceeding what Earth can regenerate each year. This overshoot is increasing and is set to go on increasing unless, as a species, we urgently change the way we organise the human world. On our present trajectory the world’s bio-capacity by 2050 will be less than half of humanity’s footprint.

Further, the gross inequity of the current situation is illustrated by the following:

• For the 15% of the world population who live in high-income countries, the average footprint is 6.4 global hectares per person. A global hectare is roughly the size of soccer field.
• For the 48% of the world’s population who live in medium-income countries, the average footprint is 1.9 global hectares per person.
• For the 37% of the world’s population who live in low-income countries the average footprint is 0.8 global hectares per person.
• Currently for a population of 7 billion people there is enough biologically active land for about 1.8 hectares per person and the available bio-capacity is declining drastically as our human numbers increase and as our individual demands increase with economic growth.

Governments everywhere are acting as though this is not happening. In the words of British journalist George Monbiot, “In 2012 governments turned their backs on the living planet, demonstrating that no chronic problem, however grave, will take priority over an immediate concern, however trivial. I believe there has been no worse year for the natural world in the past half-century…… If there is hope, it lies with the people. Opinion polls show that voters do not support their governments’ inaction. In the US, 80 per cent of people polled now say that climate change will be a serious problem for their country if nothing is done about it, a substantial rise since 2009. The problem is that most people are not prepared to act on these beliefs. Citizens have turned their faces away. To avoid another terrible year like 2012, we must translate these passive concerns into a mass mobilisation. Grassroots groups such as 350.org show how it might be done. If this annus horribilis tells us anything, it is that action, in the absence of such mobilisation, is simply not going to happen. Governments care only as much as their citizens force them to care. Nothing changes unless we change.”

As a result of continuing population and economic growth, the parlous state of the earth is certain to worsen unless there is a radical change in the operation of the global economy and in the human mindset. About half of the human ecological footprint is attributable to carbon dioxide emissions. We know how to reduce these and by weaning our species off energy derived from fossil fuels, humanity’s footprint could be very significantly and rapidly reduced towards earth’s bio-capacity. The footprint approach broadens our understanding of the environmental problem. It incorporates not only the threat of climate change, but all of the other things we are doing to the environment on which our future depends. By measuring and monitoring the ecological footprint of an individual, city, business, nation, or all of humanity—we can monitor our pressure on the planet. This enables us to manage our ecological assets more wisely and take personal and collective action in support of a world where humanity could live within the resource constraints of a single earth.

Members of the summer school agreed that our species is heading for early eco-catastrophe if we continue with “business as usual”. Transformative change is urgently required that will alter the way we manage the environment, the economy and our lives The core problems are unconstrained growth in human numbers and in the human economy.

“Only cancers keep on growing and they kill their host in the end.”

We recognised that nothing short of rapid emergency mobilization – as in wartime – and a rethinking of the purpose and operation of the human economy will change the downward trajectory of human society. That is the context in which we need to consider our roles as responsible citizens and as Quakers.

We considered the current situation from the perspective of individuals, the Quaker Community, Australian governments and the entire global community and identified a series of activities that could help to launch the revolutionary change in human behaviour that is essential.

As Individuals, we need:

• To learn to thrive and flourish while living simply.
• Make use of the rich resources available on the web to understand our own and our household’s footprint and the footprint of our postcode, our city, our state, our businesses and our institutions.
• To join groups outside Quakers and add our insights and impact to groups that are moving to heighten community understanding and commitment to tackle this issue.
• To sow seeds with our friends about the nature of the footprint challenge and ways it can be addressed.
• To Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Specifically, we discussed the value of “Assertive Refusal” where we make it abundantly clear to others that we refuse to participate in certain accepted activities like use of cars and planes, because of their impact on the ecological footprint and the flow on discomfort about the status quo that this can produce in others.
• To use our financial expenditures and investments in ways that will promote reduction rather then expansion of the human footprint.

As Quakers we need to:

• Join with like-minded groups to build pressure for development of an economic system that promotes prosperity without growth, rewards partnerism, compassion, nurturing and sharing and reduces the emphasis on competition, domination and control.
• Consider the possibility of developing a Quaker Manifesto for Eco-Centric Living
• Measure and make visible the footprint of our institutions and activities.
• Promote the understanding that human society is now in an emergency situation brought about by our anthropocentric mindset.
• Plan all of our activities in the context of ecological footprint.

We should act to encourage all Australian governments:

• To take the footprint emergency seriously, by acknowledging its reality and moving to an emergency “war-time” footing to reduce the nation’s ecological footprint, which is among the largest in the world.
• To place very high priority on renewable energy and rebuild support for sustainable agriculture activities.
• To phase out Australian dependency on fossil fuel derived energy in the next ten years and consider the merits to the global footprint of ceasing all Australian exports of all fossil fuels.
• To maximise resource use efficiency. Stop perverse subsidies for water and power
• Build on the sustainability curriculum requirement in school curricula to empower every Australian school child with an understanding of the opportunities and benefits of responding to the footprint challenge now rather than later.
• Consider legislation to require footprint labelling of all manufactured foods and consumer goods.
• To strengthen public transport in all our cities, including education of the population about its benefits.

At the international level, Quakers should be advocating for:

• A profound remaking of the global economy aimed at prosperity without growth and maximising efficiency in the use of non renewable resources
• A massive international effort to enhance footprint equity.
• The end of the arms trade.
• Education of girls everywhere and support for family planning measures.
• The countries that have the biggest footprints should bear the greatest burden.

We also discussed the task of communicating the crisis to the Australian people and in that context the following issues were highlighted.

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· The need for a sector on the ABC and other news bulletins that relates to progress in reducing the nation’s ecological footprint.

· Education through schools and the media about the merits of footprint labeling of food and other consumer goods.

· The creative use of social media to expand community understanding of ways to avert the impending crisis.

· The need for broader appreciation of the importance of Refusing, Reducing, Re-using and Recycling and consistency across Australia in the capacity for everyone to engage in these activities.

· The need for all Australians to understand the costs of burning coal and the benefits of leaving it in the ground.

· The value of informative slogans.

· The role of technology in efficient use of resources

· The uncertainty of what events will bring a tipping point in acceptance that we are in an emergency situation. Will it be economic collapse, massive weather catastrophes, resource wars or the result of broadened understanding of the impossibility of continuation on our present path?

· The obscene inequity of the current global situation where developing countries are being prevented from advancing to anything like our lifestyle by the fact that developed countries, with per capita ecological footprints ten times as great as many developing countries, are impeding the possibility of poor people expanding their footprint and lifting the quality of their lives because of the limits in available global resources.

· The need for feedback systems to monitor progress in our local and regional footprints.

· The need to promote greater understanding of the impact of global and national population growth on genuine wellbeing.

· The unacceptability of a “fortress Australia” approach to the problem. This is an issue in which the whole of humanity will ultimately share.

· The need to understand what will produce maximal impact on the understanding of these issues among young people in a consumer society.

· There is already broad interest in Australian society in renewable energy and the capacity of renewable technology to meet the energy demand.

· The footprint concept is scientifically valid and provides an easily interpretable message that comprehends the full gamut of environmental concerns.

· We must not avoid confronting the idiocy of the current economic framework and we need to engage the community as well as the economists in a reconsideration of the purpose of the economy and its utter dependence on nature.

· Nor should we underestimate the power and influence of vested interests in the media and financial institutions against seriously rethinking the perverse incentives in the current economy.

· But there are valid alternative models that could enrich human life everywhere and the current economic system is on the verge of collapse.

· The crisis relates both to population growth and economic dysfunction.

· There are excellent examples in Australia of what can be accomplished when Quakers and other community bodies work closely together on the sustainability issue.

The summer school agreed that this report of our conclusions should be submitted to Australian Friend and distributed to delegates at the yearly meeting.

Facilitator: Bob Douglas bobdouglas@netspeed,com.au Tel 02 62533138 or 0409233138

Participants Gwyneth Anderton, Mavis Barnard, Ann Britton, Henry Esbenshade, David Evans, Margaret Evans, Gedda Fortey, Joon Garfit, Mary Grbavac, Rae Litting, Ruth Primrose, Ruth Raward, David Rosenberg, David Swain, Rosina Wainwright.

Recommended Web resources

The Global Ecological Footprint Network

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/footprint_basics_overview/

Victorian Government Footprint Calculators

http://www.epa.vic.gov.au/ecologicalfootprint/calculators/default.asp

The Australian Conservation Foundation Footprint Atlas

http://202.60.88.196/consumptionatlas/

Methods of reducing your personal ecological footprint

http://www.epa.vic.gov.au/ecologicalfootprint/calculators/personal/TipsforImprovement.asp

Greening the church and faith communities.

http://www.united-church.ca/communications/news/releases/080416

Canberra Schools 2020 Vision Program dev eloped to support the national curriculum on sustainability.

http://www.see-change.org.au/?q=node/369

Transform Australia

www.transform-australia.net

Beyond Denial: Managing the uncertainties of global change.

http://www.australia21.org.au/publications/press_releases/12/Nov/dcf825c77aa62751e87257c701a0ce89.pdf

Prosperity without growth. The transition to a sustainable economy

http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/data/files/publications/prosperity_without_growth_report.pdf

How does societal transformation happen? Quaker Institute for the Future Pamphlet 2012

http://www.quakerinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/HTH-web.pdf

Agenda for a New Economy; From phantom wealth to real wealth

http://livingeconomiesforum.org/agenda2