Joining the Friends World Committee for Consultation World Plenary online was a warm, powerful and rich experience. Even from thousands of miles away and in the wrong season, one could sense the shaking up of patterns as Friends' different lives jostled like pebbles in a fast-flowing stream, smoothing away the sharp edges until they nestled easily together.
I was only able to join the session on “Healing historical injustices”, where something that has been niggling me for a very long time was brought sharply into focus once again. The draft minute for that session included some wording like “Are we ready to confront the truth of past and current injustices...?” The response of Edwina Peart (BYM Equity and Justice lead) went straight to the heart of my discomfort: “Are we ready? Some of us have been ready for a long time.”
Who are we talking about when we say “we”? It sometimes seems to me that white Friends (or white British Friends, at any rate) are most likely to forget that they cannot speak for other Quakers worldwide – even, it seems, when Friends from around the world are sitting together in the same room! I know I'm not saying anything you don't already know very well, Friends - but do we always remember to watch out for our ingrained assumptions?
A recent letter in The Friend talked of the human race destroying the balance of creation by greed and inequality. Not true! Huge swathes of the human race are actually engaged in a fierce and loving struggle to restore the balance - not to mention the struggle to keep themselves and their children alive. It's only a relatively small subset of humanity that is doing the damage.
I am pointing the finger at myself here. It's not long since I was a card-carrying member of the party of Where every prospect pleases, and man alone is vile. I have even fantasised a planetary “intifada” that would shake off the human parasite before the project of gobbling up everything that sustains life could be completed. That may yet happen, both to the just and the unjust; the planet, generous as it is, is not in the business of justice. But I hope we Quakers are; and it's largely the wide-awake and resilient people of the South who are showing the way "to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God." So I try not to say “we” without careful thought. I try to put to one side the sackcloth and ashes and instead listen respectfully.
I was deeply moved reading the World Plenary epistle, feeling that in Vanderbijlpark, at least, Friends have wrestled through their different experiences to proclaim joyfully: We are still here. We are one.
Plenary Sessions can be viewed at https://bit.ly/Quakerplenary24
Stevie Krayer