The experience was engaging, participative, sensitive and inclusive. It was grand to be with such a lovely group of people.
I came away, however, feeling that we had missed the prophetic scale of the crises we face, and which challenge us to wrestle towards responses that begin to match that scale. And so I missed a sense of momentum such as we were vouchsafed at the previous event. Perhaps we needed a plenary input from a Friend who is already in the ring, wrestling? Or a feedback from listeners creatively gathering inspiration from the group sessions.
If the contemporary economic order is demonic – a violent and destructive worship of human wealth and power - then the call for a decolonising of our lives and our thoughts is more total than we seemed to acknowledge. Seeing ourselves as just a part of the whole web of life is much easier said than done. Around the turn of the century Jeremy Seabrook wrote powerfully of the immense, ensnaring power of the capitalist system, infiltrating our hearts and minds, our faith and our actions. It colonises us by its relentless focus on self interest. How far are we freed from the spirit of the age? How much freer might we be? I would have liked to see the Conference explore this challenge.
Moreover, we have hardly begun to realise that the beloved phrase: “Live simply so that others may simply live” needs to be reimagined in a far more demanding practice: “live simply so that other humans and all other life forms may continue to flourish.” Exploring that as Quaker communities, with sensitivity and resolve, would be a real test of faith.
Jonathan Dale
Jeremy Seabrook - Myth of the Market : Promises and Illusions - Green Books 1990