Who, when, where, and why – are you?
Londoner, son of Anglican priest and ecumenical mother. Teacher, educator, learner. Husband, father, grandfather.

Do you have a memory that brings you comfort in times of hardship?
I imagine I’m sitting in a chair in a Yorkshire farmhouse where we have often stayed. I’m looking out of the window at a glorious view right down Wensleydale.

How long, if you are, have you been a Quaker (or attender)?
I first fell among Quakers about fifteen years ago. I’m a late developer.

What brings you joy?
The first brimstone butterfly in the garden. Welcoming refugees.

Do you have a passage from QF&P that you would like to draw Friends attention to?
I love the chapter on Faithful Lives. William Dent, 18.11, was a generous introvert and Lucy Harris, 18.17, an awesome extravert.

What was the last book that you read?
Sebastian Barry’s latest novel, Old God’s Time. Searing memories of the church’s abuse of children in Ireland – harrowing but also beautiful.

What would you say to someone coming to MfW for the first time?
Welcome, friend.

Can you describe what Quakerism is to you?
The marriage of the spiritual and the political feels like home.

If you could do anything, what would you do?
Empower climate activists around the world to succeed in their work of transitioning to just societies and a sustainable planet.

This Month’s Forty-Three Newsletter Contents

• May 2023
• Friends’ Fellowship of Healing
• Artweeks Exhibition at the Meeting House
• Redressing Inequalities
• Book Review: Passengers: True Stories of the Underground Railroad by William Still
• Hope’s Work
• Report on St Hilda’s College Chaplaincy
• Monthly Appeal May 2023 – Refugee Resource
• Lately
• Epistle – Junior Yearly Meeting 2023
• Connecting to Quaker Faith Through Film
• From Quaker Faith & Practice 12.03
• Meetings for Worship – May 2023
• Quaker Question and Answer – Charles Worth
• Narrated Newsletter

Back to May 2023 Newsletter Main Page

Forty-Three Newsletter • Number 529 • May 2023
Oxford Friends Meeting
43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW

newsletter@oxfordquakers.org

Copyright 2023, Oxford Quakers

Stephen Yeo

This Month’s Forty-Three Newsletter Contents

• May 2023
• Friends’ Fellowship of Healing
• Artweeks Exhibition at the Meeting House
• Redressing Inequalities
• Book Review: Passengers: True Stories of the Underground Railroad by William Still
• Hope’s Work
• Report on St Hilda’s College Chaplaincy
• Monthly Appeal May 2023 – Refugee Resource
• Lately
• Epistle – Junior Yearly Meeting 2023
• Connecting to Quaker Faith Through Film
• From Quaker Faith & Practice 12.03
• Meetings for Worship – May 2023
• Quaker Question and Answer – Charles Worth
• Narrated Newsletter

Back to May 2023 Newsletter Main Page

Forty-Three Newsletter • Number 529 • May 2023
Oxford Friends Meeting
43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW

newsletter@oxfordquakers.org

Copyright 2023, Oxford Quakers

Background Paper for Meeting for Business for Worship on 3 April 2023

As my third year as College Chaplain at St Hilda’s ends, I take some time to reflect and rest. These past few years were far from ordinary.

In my three years as College Chaplain, I saw my college through lockdown, addressed the invasion of Ukraine, witnessed Elisabeth of Windsor’s passing (and the duties that followed as an Oxbridge College Chaplain, I could write a book about!), and I saw my hometown in Turkey under rubble.

At the University level, those of us with pastoral care duties saw an increased demand for Student Support and Welfare Services during the COVID-19 pandemic. The University Counselling Service at Oxford has reported that 13.5% of the student body are using their services; 24.3% of the student body are now registered with the Disability Advisory Service; and the Sexual Harassment and Violence Support Service saw a 21% increase in referrals from the previous year.

As Chaplains we are there for everyone, across a variety of situations including those that we then signpost onto the aforementioned services. As Chaplains we act in the in-between times: before and after meetings, or counselling sessions; immediately after sexual harassment, and then again after a referral; immediately after loss and then again at the funeral; at times when the world is a bit too much and then again when we cherish it anew.

This is the part of our work that mostly remains hidden because of confidentiality. There is also the part of our work that is visible—organising events, bringing together communities, celebrating religious festivals.

In general terms, I would describe my ministry in the past three years as outward-facing: to bring people ‘in’. This had many reasons – me being the first Quaker in post as Chaplain at an Oxbridge college; the situation I was left with at St Hilda’s when the previous Chaplain left; the task of building up a multi-faith chaplaincy from scratch.

This has not come without its challenges, Friends, and I feel very tired. It has taken its toll on me. I feel the need for rest and reflection. With less doing and more being. A quietist period. Inward-facing.

Supporting my college community with gentle prayers and nourishing my spirit (and body) along the way. Guided by the inner light, I feel this is the right way forward for my ministry at St Hilda’s.

This Month’s Forty-Three Newsletter Contents

• May 2023
• Friends’ Fellowship of Healing
• Artweeks Exhibition at the Meeting House
• Redressing Inequalities
• Book Review: Passengers: True Stories of the Underground Railroad by William Still
• Hope’s Work
• Report on St Hilda’s College Chaplaincy
• Monthly Appeal May 2023 – Refugee Resource
• Lately
• Epistle – Junior Yearly Meeting 2023
• Connecting to Quaker Faith Through Film
• From Quaker Faith & Practice 12.03
• Meetings for Worship – May 2023
• Quaker Question and Answer – Charles Worth
• Narrated Newsletter

Back to May 2023 Newsletter Main Page

Forty-Three Newsletter • Number 529 • May 2023
Oxford Friends Meeting
43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW

newsletter@oxfordquakers.org

Copyright 2023, Oxford Quakers

David Gee

The Quaker movement has strived from the first to face the world as it is – in care, thoughtfulness, and faith. At times courageous, at others faltering, the intention to be a community of hope still runs like a thread through the Quaker story.

But what can hope mean in our own disturbed age of anxiety and affliction? As an activist, I’ve been working with these queries for a while now, and in this I’m far from alone. So many of us are feeling pressed to ask what shape hope can possibly take as horizons close in and optimism retreats. Is this also you?

To help explore the practical meanings of hope today, I’ve been gathering various resources at hopeswork.org. You’ll find some queries to dwell on, some suggestions for cultivating a conscious hopefulness, and a blog taking a creative look at some of the themes. Please have a look round.

I started hopeswork.org after hearing activist friends struggle to hold faith with their work. It led me to wonder why we seldom pause to wonder what hope means for us or to enquire after its health.

Clearly, as the strain builds in our communities and societies, and on the earth, shallower hopes are easily uprooted – they don’t survive experience for long. But the very unease of our times can also urge deeper hopes to the surface.

My own journey with these questions has led me in unexpected directions – away from hope as a prediction about tomorrow and towards hope as a clutch of commitments that need making today, and without pushing the doubts away.

For a hope that bets everything on a better tomorrow doesn’t bear our predicament well, nor is it adequate, I feel, for a journey in faith. But a hope that invests in the life within us and around us, and finds promise there, still commends itself – today, tomorrow, always.

___________

David Gee is the author of ‘Hope’s Work: Facing the future in an age of crises’ (DLT, 2021) and lives in Oxford.

This Month’s Forty-Three Newsletter Contents

• May 2023
• Friends’ Fellowship of Healing
• Artweeks Exhibition at the Meeting House
• Redressing Inequalities
• Book Review: Passengers: True Stories of the Underground Railroad by William Still
• Hope’s Work
• Report on St Hilda’s College Chaplaincy
• Monthly Appeal May 2023 – Refugee Resource
• Lately
• Epistle – Junior Yearly Meeting 2023
• Connecting to Quaker Faith Through Film
• From Quaker Faith & Practice 12.03
• Meetings for Worship – May 2023
• Quaker Question and Answer – Charles Worth
• Narrated Newsletter

Back to May 2023 Newsletter Main Page

Forty-Three Newsletter • Number 529 • May 2023
Oxford Friends Meeting
43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW

newsletter@oxfordquakers.org

Copyright 2023, Oxford Quakers

Edited by Quincy T. Mills

Jean Moir

William Still (1821 – 1902) was a leading light in the Underground Railroad which helped runaway slaves reach the Northern States safely and find work and lodgings. He kept records of the reports from agents of the Railroad and letters of thanks from  the freed slaves.

These show the terrible conditions of slavery – not only the relentless drudgery, poor rations, and accommodation, but rape and beatings, sometimes to the death and often causing permanent injury or ill-health. Parents and children, husbands and wives were split up and sold to different slave-owners, and some never met again, despite their best efforts.

Agents and fleeing slaves showed great courage and ingenuity. Sometimes women dressed as men, and vice versa. One barked ferociously and frightened off people who came too near his hiding place. Some endured days in boxes with a little food and small airholes. Sympathetic sea or river captains hid slaves in their ships.

One man rode across the Potomac in the freezing cold at night. Some hid out in forests – with bears, or swamps – with malaria and other diseases. Their stories make inspirational reading.

William Still and his wife were obviously very popular with the correspondents and seem to have kept an open, welcoming house.

It is not clear whether any of the correspondents are Friends, but some use the “thou” form. One agent takes the alias of “William Penn”. One specific Quaker is mentioned – Abigail Goodman.

There were one or two ‘bad eggs’. One man who “looked like a Quaker” betrayed them, and so did the wife of one Quaker man. But most are positive and highly regarded.

These included Lucretia Mott. She was an influential abolitionist and feminist. She said, “I feel bound to plead their [slaves’] cause in season and out of season and to endeavour to put myself in their souls’ stead and to aid in all my power in every right effort for their immediate emancipation”. After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, she and her husband opened their home to users of the Underground Railroad. She also campaigned for the franchise for freedmen and accompanied freed slaves to trials.

Other Friends are briefly mentioned, and many were staunch abolitionists.

A memorable book.

This Month’s Forty-Three Newsletter Contents

• May 2023
• Friends’ Fellowship of Healing
• Artweeks Exhibition at the Meeting House
• Redressing Inequalities
• Book Review: Passengers: True Stories of the Underground Railroad by William Still
• Hope’s Work
• Report on St Hilda’s College Chaplaincy
• Monthly Appeal May 2023 – Refugee Resource
• Lately
• Epistle – Junior Yearly Meeting 2023
• Connecting to Quaker Faith Through Film
• From Quaker Faith & Practice 12.03
• Meetings for Worship – May 2023
• Quaker Question and Answer – Charles Worth
• Narrated Newsletter

Back to May 2023 Newsletter Main Page

Forty-Three Newsletter • Number 529 • May 2023
Oxford Friends Meeting
43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW

newsletter@oxfordquakers.org

Copyright 2023, Oxford Quakers