Jeanne Warren
3 April 2021
My eye was caught by the title of a comment piece by John Harris in The Guardian of 29 March: ‘How do we faithless people make sense of the past year?’ He talked about the lack, in secular societies, of any community in which to talk about ‘the profundities of life and death’. He went on to consider how even social spaces such as libraries and parks have been disappearing or down-graded.
I wanted to join in this conversation so I wrote a short (unpublished) letter to the editor:
“John Harris says, ‘For many of us, life without God has turned out to be life without fellowship and shared meaning’ (29 March 2021). Our problem is that we have discarded not only the belief in a being called God, but also the belief that our connections with each other are as real as our individual selves. When we are isolated we feel lost. Religion was always about our communal life and trying to understand our place in the world. The Bible warns against making images of God, because the personal reality that is God is unbounded, extending beyond our understanding. Quakers as a religious community struggle with these questions in an open and honest way, seeking the spirit that will inspire the re-building of the kinds of community ties that John Harris talks about.”
I leave it to other Friends to agree or disagree with my characterisation of us, bearing in mind that it was aimed at a largely secular audience.
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Forty-Three Newsletter • Number 505 • May 2021
Oxford Friends Meeting
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