Loving care is not something that those sound in mind and body ‘do’ for others but a process that binds us together. God has made us loving and the imparting of love to another satisfies something deep within us. It would be a mistake to assume that those with outwardly well-organised lives do not need assistance. Many apparently secure carers live close to despair within themselves. We all have our needs.
Luke Young is currently completing his PhD in English at Oriel College. He works on literary style and political thought in the Twentieth Century essay. He enjoys writing creatively too, including short stories, theatre, and long-form prose.
Who, what, when, where, and why – are you?
Luke Young. Student. May 2nd, 1997. South London, Raynes Park. Love, what else?
Do you have a memory that brings you comfort in times of hardship?
I used to attend camps with Scouts every summer in Horner Wood, Somerset. It is an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. When I am struggling, I visualise myself sitting in a camping chair by the river, and watch my worries float away downstream.
How long, if you are, have you been a Quaker (or attender)?
I grew up going to a Jesuit Catholic School, Wimbledon College. By the time I came to university I would say I was a Christian without a church, open to the teachings of other religions too, including Buddhism. I had been in Birmingham for almost three years, minutes away from Woodbrooke, but during my third year, during a difficult period of anxiety and depression, I first discovered Quakers. I consider myself a Quaker, although I’m technically an attender…
What brings you joy?
Reading and writing by candlelight, or a log fire – although I don’t have one myself.
Do you have a passage from QF&P that you would like to draw Friends attention to?
I suppose, in light of my next answer, I am drawn to Advices and Queries thirty: ‘Are you able to contemplate your death and the death of those closest to you? Accepting the fact of death, we are freed to live more fully.’
What was the last book you read?
A biography of Joan Didion by Tracy Daugherty. I was struck by the loneliness of her life. In her youth she was told she had an aura of death. Her husband and daughter died within two years of each other. Virtually everyone else she knew was already gone too.
What would you say to someone coming to MfW for the first time?
Welcome, Friend.
Can you describe what Quakerism is to you?
God gave you one mouth and two ears – so listen twice as much as you speak. I’m not very good at doing this myself.
If you could do anything, what would you do?
Really, I would like to write, to tell stories, to talk to others about them and, if I’m lucky, their stories too. Perhaps I’m naïve to think that this desire of mine might also be good for the world – but then, Jesus did like a story or two himself.
I am very, very happy to know that where I worship speaks to many, many aspects of a community that is in need, that is in harm’s way, who are threatened, and that’s just how we put our faith in action.
This summer we traveled to New England Yearly Meeting and asked Quakers from all over the region: how does your meeting do outreach? How do you welcome newcomers?
Today I wrote a poem. I’m quite pleased about that – it looks as if my Embarrassingly Bad First Novel won’t materialise until I’m in my 60s, which makes this poem a seismic Event! I’m travelling unknowingly (the only way) into a new phase of my life, after Clear Space for Me (which offered a decluttering service to others) is now closed. The Me is now myself – what will I do with it?
Photo by T Watson
So last week’s meeting for worship, where many ministries responded to my initial one about Good Art, was a real flagship meeting. I’ve been asked to say a little more about the ministry we shared, for people who weren’t there. A number of Friends felt the meeting had been very nourishing,
I started by asking, where does Good Art come from? From mental suffering, as Mark Rothko and Virginia Woolf would perhaps say. I didn’t want that for myself, so I’m aiming for a sense that good health creates a context for happier art, that nourishes. Brian Eno (a contemporary musician) says that Good Art comes from nowhere – we all have it in us, just as much as Beethoven did. And what would we mean by ‘Art’ anyway? Surely even small acts of thoughtfulness or kindness would qualify.
Someone spoke about the effectiveness of art, to help us see beyond our everyday circumstances and view the world more richly.
Someone spoke about whether the early Quakers were right to have been alarmed that art would bring about unhealthy passions. This seemed unfair, they said – surely anything that wakes us up inside is God-given.
We heard about children and opportunities they might have to use art in learning. There was a sense among some schools of thought that children should not be interrupted while they explored their own creativity. Other people we heard of had not seen this perspective, insisting that schoolwork should always be tidy, and children hit with a ruler if their exercise book was not up to scratch. To me that seems such an obvious kiss of death for creativity, what on earth did they think they were achieving?
We heard that learning can be idiosyncratic, and accuracy is sometimes best achieved after a quality of inspiration and joyful spirit had already arrived. “Dance first, learn accurate steps later.” This resonated with a lot of people over coffee. I’m hoping I haven’t missed anyone out in this article.
I found myself very comforted that the abstract paintings I do, the crappy poetry, and the not-happening-novel are all part of a ‘dance’ that was so warmly welcomed by the meeting. It felt OK to be on my creative journey, with so much openness and willingness around me. I had journalled, photographed my body of existing ceramics and paintings, and other bits and pieces of artwork, and made a few basic decisions during the pandemic. Then the doorway was open wide in front of me.
I don’t really like to say, “I am an artist”, or writer, or whatever, because that seems to say to the person hearing me, “and you are not.” Absolutely no one has the right to say that. It’s a different thing to set a small number of very specific goals. So, mine are to rent creative space 2 days a month, and each day I am there, to produce something shareable that will fuel conversations, relationships, and the flow of ideas. After 2 years of this, the impacts are huge, and much broader than I expected.
Seven artists from Oxford Meeting are having an exhibition of work from 20-29 May in the Meeting House. I feel that the work we are doing leading up to the show is all bathed in your love, and that’s amazing. Thank you.
Britain Yearly Meeting is the central body for all Friends in Britain and serves to keep us in touch with the many and varied things which are happening at different levels of the Society. It covers England, Scotland, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man
The initials BYM refer to both the religious gatherings (BYM Yearly Meeting Gatherings) and to the spirit-led administrative structures which hold us all together.
Staff at BYM work on our behalf on peace, racial justice and sustainability, as well employing Local Development Workers for different regions.
We can still accept cheques ( bank or CAF) but online donations can be processed more easily, safely and reliably. Cheques for posting should be marked Donations and sent to
Friends’ House
173 Euston Road
London, NW1 2BJ
If you follow any of these procedures, please notify the Treasurer (Iain Mclean) so that your donation can be recorded as part of what our Meeting is asked to send.
Otherwise, Friends completing the Schedule can use the form to allocate part of their gift to BYM.
Oxford and Swindon Area Quaker Meeting are seeking to appoint a Deputy General Manager to work alongside the General Manager in all aspects of the day to day running of a busy and forward-looking Meeting House in the centre of Oxford.
The post is for 24 hours per week. Salary £21,850 (f/t equivalent £34,597) plus pension contributions.
Deadline for applications: 17-03-2023. For further details and application process go to https://oxfordquakers.org
Book Review: For Thy Great Pain have Mercy on My Little Pain by Victoria MacKenzie (Bloomsbury, published 19/1/2023)
Mother Julian with her pet cat (yes, this is explicitly allowed to an anchoress!) stained glass window in church of St Thomas, Earlham Road Norwich. Photo by N Gilroy
For a borderline atheist in lifetime recovery from an extreme Roman Catholic upbringing I do have a rather soft spot for medieval East Anglian Christianity. I studied medieval art and literature, falling completely in love with the outrageous marginal images in manuscripts and churches – the obscene carvings on misericords tucked underneath the pious monks’ bottoms, and the bizarre scenes with apes dressed as priests acted out on the margins of English psalters, the finest of which were made in East Anglia.
I even, in my misguided youth, took part in a couple of pilgrimages to Walsingham, carrying a 10ft wooden cross on foot from Nottingham through Holy Week, sleeping on church hall floors and spending the evenings singing bawdy songs and drinking too much beer. Maybe this is it – the Canterbury Tales trope of a very human attitude to religion, where Friars are openly lewd and everyone laughs about the corruption and hypocrisy of the nevertheless ubiquitous Church.
A page from the BLs Ancrene Wisse (public use allowed) https://www.bl.uk/medieval-literature/articles/the-life-of-the-anchoress. Photo provided by N Gilroy
It is in this fifteenth-century Norfolk, ruled by a universal, all-powerful Church, yet where few of the folk really believe in it all, that Marjory Kempe and the woman who later became known as Julian of Norwich were born. They are valuable historical characters, in that they are the only medieval women whose voices survive from the horse’s mouth so to speak, though only Julian wrote with her own hand; Marjory was, as the majority of women were, entirely illiterate and relied on an unnamed scribe, possibly her son, to write down her Booke.
Both women felt the burning need to record their experiences, which were in both cases visions of Christ – Revelations of Divine Love in the case of Julian, and an ongoing personal relationship with Jesus: being present at the crucifixion, receiving direct advice and counsel, physical affection, and, indeed, sexual intimacy in the case of Marjory Kempe.
I heard the plug for this book on Front Row a few weeks ago, and ordered it the next morning, on the day of publication. It is a fictionalised account of the meeting between Kempe, a wealthy wife and mother to fourteen children, and Mother Julian of Norwich, daughter of a merchant and widowed mother. Julian became an anchoress – an extreme form of solitary contemplative life – after the death of both parents, her husband and her baby from the plague.
I’ll not spoil the story because there are only 176 pages to read. My copy is as I write already on its third reader in Oxford Meeting, and I’d gladly lend it further! I think it would be a tremendous discussion piece for a book club type event, or even just coffee chats. But for my tuppence-worth, and amongst many other things, I feel it is a valuable glimpse into the psychology of religious belief.
The devotion of Kempe and Mother Julian is intense and personal, and is in both cases under the scrutiny and criticism of male authorities. If the women’s visions are real, as they most certainly were to them, we can ponder on how those closest to their god, with the most personal channel to him, are policed by men who believe that only they have the right to this direct relationship.
I’m also struck by the nature of the two women’s faith. Julian is a sort of wise woman – she is literally walled up into her cell in a requiem mass, after which she must remain there until she dies, and will be buried under its floor. Yet she receives visitors at her window for a sort of unofficial confession, and is clearly sought after for her advice and counsel. In this way she serves the people. But Marjory’s faith is not about feeding the poor or improving the world. It is a personal love affair with Jesus, in which she spurns her husband and becomes the laughing stock of the county, in constant danger of prosecution for heresy.
It reminds me of the religion of my upbringing – the deep devotion and the encouragement to form a personal relationship with Jesus – one where you would talk to him, adore him and love him above all worldly things. I remember the little red publications handed out at church telling stories of devout, celibate Catholics who went about their daily work in the world but secretly mortified their flesh with spiked scapulars, put stones in their boots, and fasted endlessly. This sort of devotion was held in very high regard. I have since wondered about the strong echoes of mental illness in these religious expressions: self-harm, eating disorders, and the hearing of voices are all things that the church of my childhood considered desirable and holy. As the child of two psychiatric nurses I certainly noticed how so many seriously unwell people, including many of my parents’ patients were drawn to the more Gothic aspects of Catholic practice – songs about sheltering in the wounds of Christ, being bathed in blood and so forth. None of these devotions seem particularly useful to the world at large – they don’t feed the poor or clothe the naked for example, but perhaps they do, in a way, comfort the sick and dying.
The Jesus who appeared to Marjory Kempe told her to stop cutting her flesh as he didn’t want this from her. He told her not to fast so much, and to throw away her hairshirt. Can it be that Marjory – a woman who married a man she didn’t much like, who suffered from post-partum psychosis at least twice, treated by shackling her to her bed away from her child – found some sort of comfort and nurture in her visions that were simply not available to her in real life? Maybe she was incapable, emotionally or psychologically, of living out her faith by helping others, but she perhaps found a life she could bear to live in this way. Can it be that Julian, far more mentally stable, who married for love and felt real sorrow at the death of her husband and only baby, counselled her visitor in language and imagery that fitted with her world?
I have no idea. But it is a bloody good story. Read it and come tell me what you think.
Ecumenical Accompaniers spend three months in Palestine and Israel witnessing and monitoring human rights violations and standing in solidarity with local peace activists. When they come home, they give talks in their local communities and advocated for an end to the military occupation of Palestine.
Photo provided by EAPPI UK and Ireland
EAs need to be flexible, hard-working, physically and emotionally robust, open to hearing from different perspectives, and able to represent the programme in a professional manner and aged between 25 and 70 years old. No previous monitoring experience is required. Your expenses will be paid and a living allowance provided.
EAPPI recruits a year in advance, so are looking for applicants who can serve in 2024. They provide in-depth training and resources to help the EAs to prepare.
To apply click here. The closing date is Thursday 9 March 2023, 5pm.
If you do not wish to apply yourself, but know others who may be interested, please refer them to our website and/or share the adverts we’ve posted on our Facebook, Instagram or Twitter pages.
(EAPPI UK and Ireland are managed by Quakers in Britain)
