OSAM Session about the 2021 Swarthmore Lecture
Anne Watson
On 8 October the Oxford Friday with Friends slot was used for a meeting for OSAM (Oxford and Swindon Area Meeting) to come together to reflect on the Swarthmore Lecture for 2021. These annual lectures are a high point in the annual Britain Yearly Meeting Gatherings. Swarthmore lectures are published in book form and can be found on a high shelf in our Meeting Library. A list can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarthmore_Lecture and recent lectures are available on YouTube.
In 2021 the lecture was given by Thomas Penny, a Quaker who for many years has been a political journalist covering several prime ministers, a recession, and a pandemic, as well as being a voluntary youth worker for young Friends.
Penny’s title was: ‘Kinder Ground: Creating Space for Truth’. The metaphor ‘kinder ground’ came from a shepherd bringing her flock down from the heights of the Yorkshire Dales to lower and gentler pastures for the winter. Thomas used this to suggest that Quakers can seek ‘kinder ground’ for difficult and potentially divisive discussions and arguments about the serious differences for which we might have strong views. Kinder ground can be created by listening to, and learning about, each other’s truths while finding and understanding the seeds of untruth in ourselves and others.
The lecture, and the discussion on 8 October, exposed three tendencies I recognise in my own actions and reactions. One tendency is not to engage in discussions about which I have no strong views either way and am happy to ‘go with the flow’; this sometimes means I follow the strongest voice uncritically. Another tendency is to appear to agree with people for the sake of maintaining a good relationship, when perhaps I may think they are deeply wrong; this sometimes means that I do not speak ‘my’ truth. Another tendency is that when I do have a deep commitment to something I can sometimes align myself to others who hold similar commitments without carefully questioning all the arguments that are assumed to go with that commitment.
From a more community-minded point of view the lecture also confirmed for me that Quakers can play a traditional role in bringing people together on ‘kinder ground’ to explore differences through listening and learning. This is at the heart of our peacekeeping and conflict resolution projects. Maybe there is a role we can play as well as an international role. Maybe there is a role for our Meeting House in this.
The Friday with Friends was led by June Buffery, Laurie Michaelis, and me and was structured with three questions and small group discussions. June asked us to consider the seeds of untruth in ourselves and others; Laurie asked us about creating ‘kinder ground’ to listen to each other in our meetings and communities; I asked about influences from the lecture on our individual and corporate spiritual witness.
It was refreshing to hear how people from across the area were thinking about truth and listening to each other. Since we mainly talked about these matters in small groups we heard about individual approaches to seeking and living our truths, and particular difficulties some Friends had with current issues such as gender rights and XR direct action when it disrupts other people’s lives. It was also good to hear what some meetings are doing. For example, Charlbury are involved in outreach work in which they try to provide space for discussion and education about issues of Quaker concern. There was a feeling that it would be helpful to have more people in OSAM who have the skills of peaceful resolution of conflicts. OSAM might get some training from Quaker Life to help us.
The meeting was also an experiment to see how sharing ‘meetings for learning’ might work across OSAM. This idea follows the outcomes of Deb’s snapshot survey across OSAM in which sharing meetings seemed to be a way forward to enrich our worshipping communities. As members at Oxford Meeting we are also members both of Oxford and Swindon Area Meeting and also of Britain Yearly Meeting. The activities of BYM are undertaken on our behalf and BYM is the public face of British Quakers.
Thirteen or fourteen Friends from four meetings participated (one Zoom connection was unstable). Given the size of Oxford meeting, and the Friday with Friends slot we were using, there were surprisingly few people from Oxford. It would be helpful to know some reasons for relatively low attendance from Oxford. If you have any comments that might be helpful in thinking about future blended OSAM-wide meetings, or engagement with OSAM and BYM more generally, it would be very helpful to share them. For myself, I have not always made the time to attend events such as the one I have reported here. But over the last few years I have found being part of OSAM, and of BYM, enriches the spiritual dimensions of my being as a Quaker.
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Forty-Three Newsletter • Number 511 • November 2021
Oxford Friends Meeting
43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW