There were sixty of us online, worshipping together, from all over Britain and beyond. The silence was holy and profound. After a while, I opened my eyes and saw that a phone-shaped video had appeared. It was sunny and our fellow-worshippers outside New Scotland Yard (NSY) in London were sitting or standing all along the pavement. On the left-hand side stood tall plane trees, as if joining in the worship. The trees were barely in bud, awaiting their moment.
Sixty Friends who would have liked to be there, but couldn't get to London, were nonetheless there. Sitting at my desk on a comfortable office chair, I was there. We couldn't hear the traffic or feel the hard pavement, but the moment was so charged that the hairs on my arms stirred as if I were in the open air. We were there in peace and kindness, love and steadfastness - subversive things that cannot be handcuffed or jailed.
Someone online ministered. His imagination had travelled deep under the pavements of London and visited the buried seeds. They, too, were awaiting their moment. He went on to speak of the Seed that is buried in our hearts. He reminded us that this same Seed was also there in the police officers out on Victoria Embankment, and in the others hidden behind the bullet-proof glass and concrete of NSY itself.
What does solidarity mean? Loving and upholding one another? Loving and upholding idealistic young activists who are bundled away as criminals in the middle of their non-violence training, on the premises of a religious meeting place? Loving and upholding our allies in just causes?
But is it right that our solidarity, or at least our upholding, should be reserved for those who suffer injustice, and those who share our opinions? Who, or what, is not a vessel of the Seed? And who has not, at times, let down that precious stowaway?
Being called to answer that of God in everyone is an extremely tough ask, and we all struggle with it, not least me, in this age of sickening atrocities. I sympathise with Quakers who just haven't got the energy any more to keep reaching out to what there may be “of God” in members of the U.K. anti-terrorist squad or out-of-control settlers or Putin or Big Oil executives or state-sanctioned torturers. It's much less demanding to decide which is the righteous side and think ourselves righteous by being in solidarity with them. But that's not really what our faith is about.
To be a Quaker calls us to be radical. If we are called to live as Jesus, we are called to find the truth in ourselves and share that in our daily lives. Our desire for peace can come from love for everybody in the world. As Friends, we are called to love one another, whether we like them or not. That persistent love is how we bring about peace and how we move forward.
(from Minute 17, Britain Yearly Meeting 2025)
Postscript: The day after I wrote this piece, I opened The Guardian magazine to the books section. There, in front of my disbelieving eyes, I found a review of a new book by Rowan Williams, Solidarity: The Work of Recognition. The reviewer (Joe Moran) writes: "As Rowan Williams argues, [expressing solidarity] can act as 'a moral intensifier', positioning us squarely alongside the victim. It can also be a declaration of innocence, a way of distancing ourselves definitively from the perpetrators and their guilt. [...] True solidarity, [RW] argues, is less a virtue to be cultivated than a human condition to be acknowledged. […] Solidarity should not assure us of our own innocence, he concludes, but acquaint us with how implicated most of us are in the unfairnesses and inequalities of the world. Rather than inspiring [...] self-reproach, this should alert us to our shared and flawed humanity."
Stevie Krayer