My talk at Britain Yearly Meeting Gathering

Click here to listen to the talk.

And here is the transcript of the talk Creating Connections on July 30 2009

• My sister-in-law, who is only 53, has just been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer disease. She is having trouble making connections: remembering how to use her cell phone, remembering what the conversation was about, remembering to turn off the stove. What is it like to know that your ability to connect is disappearing? I feel drawn to connect with her, and in a week’s time I will be with her and family in America.
• I have recently returned from a study tour to Israel and Palestine, arranged by the Quaker Council for European Affairs. It was my first journey to that part of the world.  I am overwhelmed with new connections—new websites, issues, understandings. And I am struggling to voice what I have experienced in a way that I can connect with those I am speaking with.
• One dear friend on the study tour had very recently lost her beloved partner. Holding a grieving human being in my arms reminded me of the urgency of minding, nurturing and healing connections with those I love.
• A downpour of grandchildren—five little ones in five years—has blessed my life during a time when Quaker service and ministry fill my diary. Yet, making deep connections with these little people is high priority. The only answer I know to “Grandmother, will you take me out on your bike?” is “Yes”.
• Much of my work is about networking with Quaker groups around Europe and connecting enquirers with Quakers in their area.  I have been developing an on-line Quaker learning programme that is sponsored by Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre and EMES, the Europe and Middle East Section of FWCC. The programme connects people all across Europe as they learn in small on-line groups about the Quaker way. It enables them to communicate in their own language—16 languages are involved so far. And so far, the 10-week on-line introductory course has been run in Czech, Norwegian, French, Hungarian and Finnish. Dutch is in the works for the autumn. Sergei Grushko and Brian Fyhn, who are here at the Gathering, will be carrying on the work in Russian and Danish.
• In October, Mike Eccles and I plan to go to Tbilisi, Georgia, to deliver a Woodbrke-on-the-Road course for the new little Friends meeting there. They are increasingly connected to the wider Quaker world, taking part in the on-line learning project but also participating in face-to-face gatherings. They want their small meeting to grow in the Spirit, and they are excited about new applications for membership. They are creating connections in the wider society through their service to refugees.
• Quaker work takes me on frequent journeys, and I struggle with how connecting me from place to place impacts the planet. At the recent gathering of Nordic Friends in Sweden, our speaker inspired us to become re-enchanted, to re-connect, with our suffering planet, so that our love for it can guide us toward its healing.  This has been the theme of several other recent European Yearly Meetings as Friends focus on the urgency of global change.

As you can see, my life is full of creating connections. So is yours. The stories we could tell each other! As I have played with the theme over the past months, five images have evolved. I will project them on the screen and reflect on them in turn as I illustrate them with threads from my own life: work with Friends in Europe, the experience in the Middle East—which is still very raw, Biblical and Quaker references. I have no new prophetic message this morning, but perhaps something of what I share will serve to re-connect you to what you already know. Perhaps something I share will speak to you today, as this Gathering nears its end and we begin to turn our thoughts homeward.

Journey On the screen is an aerial view of a channel of water flowing through a green countryside. Cars travel a road that crosses over the channel via a bridge.

At a most basic level, creating connections is about getting from here to there on our life journeys. Where am I going? What motivates me? How am I getting there? How will I deal with the road blocks on the way?

When I have walked a labyrinth, knowing that its one winding path will lead me to the center, I have reflected that the experience of walking is more interesting than actually arriving at the center. In hurrying from here to there, we often miss seeing the landscape of the journey. Little Adam, 5 years old, was hardly into his first ice cream when he eagerly asked, “Grandmother, can I have another one after this?” “Of course,” I answered, “but pretend that this one is the only one in the world.”  He made the connection, smiled and fully enjoyed both ice creams.

Life feels often less like a single-path labyrinth and more like a maze with its dead ends and choices to be made. Once I needed to make a decision and had a few too many options. I consulted my mother, and she reminded me that it wasn’t long ago—she spoke of her own mother’s life—that women didn’t have nearly as many choices as I do.  Why was I making a problem of my many options?

But the choices we make, as we connect from here to there, are important. My colleague Marisa Johnson and I travelled last year to connect with Quaker groups in Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. We planned our travel connections with concern about our carbon footprint, and we balanced that with concern for time, money, our own needs and those of our hosts. Part of EMES’ Ministry and Outreach work is about finding ways for Friends to connect while limiting negative impact on the environment. This is challenging when distance is often a major factor.  It is inspiring to meet people who make considerable commitments to connect with Friends in Europe. One of them is Jana, an attender in the Czech Republic, who commutes 4 hours each way by train to attend Meeting for Worship in Prague. She uses the journey time to read Quaker literature and reflect. She has also translated some of the discussion in the on-line Czech course back into English so we can read it. Creating constructive connections can be complex and challenging.

John Woolman, 18^th century American Friend, wrote  “that to turn all the treasures we possess into the channel of universal love becomes the business of our lives…” For me, this is about giving all we have of abilities and ambitions, all we are of brilliance and brokenness, to the Creator Spirit, the Connector Spirit. It is about committing to do my little part to create connections that are healing and hopeful. On the study tour to Israel and Palestine, I met many people who had made commitments like that. I met Palestinian teenagers in a refugee camp who said, “We used to throw stones. Now we make films instead and write books about our lives, about needing to find a place to play football in the camp, about longing to return to our villages, and we have a website that you can visit and a newsletter you can subscribe to and photography exhibitions and summer camp and….”

Our paths and choices can be like breezing on open highways or like cutting our way through thick underbrush in unmapped territory. There can be road blocks put in our way by others, or by ourselves. I imagine that road blocks have to do with fear. Fear creates blame and shame. It disconnects. I know when I am afraid or threatened, things begin to disconnect for me. I easily succumb to dark thoughts and actions.

The very essence of life is about creating connections and keeping channels free. We know what happens in our own bodies when air passages, blood vessels and digestive tracts are blocked. In Palestine, I saw road blocks cutting off people from the ancient roads, engineered by donkeys, that their ancestors have wandered for thousands of years. I saw new roads being built for certain people, to connect certain new settlements, while other roads are being blocked to separate other, old villages. I passed checkpoints and a huge barrier wall that serve to hinder the flow of people to their work, to market with their goods, to their family members, their doctors, their schools, their flocks, their holy sites.  I learned that water lines flow five times more freely to Jewish settlements than to Palestinian villages on the same hills. Indeed, there were days when we had no water at the Friends International Centre in Ramallah.

I invite you now to reflect a minute now in silence on the image of life’s journey. As you leave this Gathering, where is your journey taking you? What motivates you? What blocks do you see on your path?

Net On the screen there is a geometrical image of a net, a web of perfect triangles against a blue background.

Each one of us is gathered up and woven into a net of interdependence. We are connected to each other, products of each other, vitally important to each other.  Each of our individual experiences of this Gathering is woven into a net of community.  The theme of Junior Yearly Meeting is Ubuntu =all because of you I am. Swedish Friend Emilia Fogelklou said quite simply: “Vi är varandra”: we are each other. Last year at France Yearly Meeting we did an exercise in deep ecology. We were instructed to pair up with someone, touch hands and keep constant eye contact—that’s hard to do for many minutes—with that person. We were invited to silently acknowledge the thousands upon thousands of years that had gone into producing the hands we were holding, the precious human being in front of us. Then we were to silently acknowledge all that the future holds for that person. It was one of the deepest connections I have felt with another person—and a perfect stranger at that! And I imagined what would happen if heads of state and politicians were to do that exercise before making decisions that affect the lives of millions of people.

I’ve had trouble with my internet connection this week and have been reminded once again how dependent I am on three little “w”s.  The worldwide web has impacted all the strands of my life–cultural, political, professional, social and spiritual. How many here are on Facebook? I have been struck with what happened when I got on to Facebook. Suddenly I was receiving messages from people I’d lost contact with years ago. And suddenly I could be included in their web of friends. Connecting with one person led to being connected with many others. A visit to one new website on the situation in Palestine leads to ten more. There is something energizing and thrilling about this web of connections, yet I need the discipline of not letting the net get too big!

The Gospels tells the story of Jesus gathering his disciples. He comes across Simon and his brother Andrew, fishermen at the Sea of Galilee, and calls them: “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little father, he saw James and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father in the boat with the hired men, and followed him. The disciples follow Jesus eagerly, asking where he is staying and Jesus answers “come and see!” This invitation to come and see for yourself, this gathering of people, of reaching out and including, is central to the message and ministry of Jesus. It was also central to early Friends. Of his Pendle Hill experience, George Fox wrote: The Lord let me see atop of the hill in what places he had a great people to be gathered. Francis Howgill described the experience of silent communion among early Friends: The Kingdom of Heaven did gather us and catch us all, as in a net, and his heavenly power at one time drew many hundreds to land.” Sharing our message as Friends is about casting out a net. And nets need to be minded and mended so they stay strong. Years ago, Swedish Friends decided that, prior to doing a major outreach project, we should do a bit of introspection and identity work. It resulted in a 10-year process of writing our own Swedish Quaker Faith and Practice. Perhaps it has had something to do with a recent wave of new members.

Special connections were created during the war last year between Russia and Georgia. At that time, the on-line learning project involved about 20 Friends from all over Europe, including two from Georgia. The group was doing a trial run of the course, in English, in preparation for translating it into many languages. The interaction was deepened by the Georgian participants’ frequent reports of the conflict, their e-mail accounts being cut off, their calling for prayerful upholding and financial assistance and as they rushed to the aid of a flow of refugees into Tbilisi. The on-line course became a lifeline of connection and community. It also deepened the already good fellowship between Georgian and Russian Friends. The participants in the on-line project have also enjoyed coming together and sitting in the same room for Meeting for Worship, meals, hugs and smiles. Nothing is better than meeting face-to-face. But I have been reminded many times how easy it is to interact with other people without really, deeply seeing that they are there. How often do I forget even to intentionally make eye contact with the person in front of me? When I feel down, disjointed and lost, a pair of smiling eyes can help me reconnect, re-member.

The image of the web of interconnectedness came to me often in Israel and Palestine. I gradually understood that there are many interrelated strands in the web of conflict: water, roads, homes, citizenship, freedom of movement, borders, international responses and arms trade. One of the most powerful experiences was visiting the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Jerusalem.  The woman who briefed us is a Jewish lawyer, married to a Palestinian and living in a refugee camp. With urgency and passion, she fired at us rounds of sharp facts, using power point presentations of maps that added layer to layer of issues that reflect deep human suffering and injustice. Peace must address all of these distinct issues, because they are all interrelated.

In Jerusalem, our group visited Yad Vashem, a memorial to 6 million Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust. It depicts the rise of Anti-Semitism throughout history and leads the visitors through the experience of concentration camps. It was a moving experience, not least walking through the children’s memorial, a darkened room with a sea of candles and names of murdered children being read out of the silence. I felt deeply connected to these suffering people. Yet, the words our guide used to describe the experience of the Jews were disturbingly similar to what we had been hearing our Palestinian guides use to describe the situation for Palestinians in diaspora, in displacement, in the increasing difficulty of daily life. Yad Vashem will rightly keep the world from forgetting the catastrophe of the Holocaust. Yet, it shocks me to hear that there is legislation afoot that would prohibit Palestinians from any commemoration of their own catastrophe in 1948, the Nakba. Two groups of people have experienced the same tragic aspects of the human condition: oppression, discrimination, apartheid, massacres, displacement, refugee status—yet the pain continues.  As a result of the trip, I have been gathered into the net of people hoping to make even a tiny contribution to a just and sustainable peace. I am now connected to the inexcusable reality that something as fundamental as drinking water is a source of conflict. We are each other.

I invite you to reflect for a minute in silence on the image of the net. How has it been for you to be in this network of fellowship at the Gathering? What new connections have you made, and what old ones have been deepened?

Tree On the screen is an image of a big old apple tree, outside my house in Sweden, in the middle of summer.

My first 6 years were spent at a Quaker boarding school in Ohio where my parents were teachers. I have grown up hearing my mother tell the story of the first time I spoke in meeting when I was 18 months old. The entire community, including me, had been to see the film Moby Dick the evening before. The sighting of the huge whale must have made a great impression on me, because I felt moved to stand up on the bench and break the silence with “Mo-o-o-by Dick!” and sit down again as the entire community broke into laughter. Being connected to the Quaker tradition has kept me from toppling over when the wind has blown hard through my branches. Just as each leaf is dependent on being connected to the roots of the tree, the roots are dependent on the life process in each leaf. Each of us is just one little leaf on the Quaker tree, but I believe that our lives can contribute to keeping the Quaker roots alive and healthy.

How are Quakers around the world being faithful to Quaker roots, while being Quaker in ways that are specifically Kenyan or Canadian, Finnish or French? This question is alive and well among European Friends. Woodbrooke has sponsored two courses for European clerks. The Quaker business method, as practiced here in Britain Yearly Meeting, is examined from various European perspectives. How much variation can be made on the theme before the connection is lost? Like many European meetings, Sweden Yearly Meeting has among their members quite a spectrum of religious experience. Yet until recently, when we’ve been asked to describe Quakerism to enquirers, we’ve  said, “well, we worship in silence, we don’t have pastors and we are very liberal about the Bible”. After all, the other branches of Friends live too far away to worry about. However, we have learned that the Evangelical Friends Churches in Central Europe have thousands of members, and that there are Conservative and Evangelical Friends within unprogrammed European meetings. We are learning to speak more inclusively about the world body of Friends. I hope that on-line learning project and the residential gatherings in the Europe and Middle East Section are helping to create connections between different branches of Friends. This will strengthen our Quaker tree, which in Europe includes Friends who speak around 20 different languages.

A gardener prunes away branches that no longer bear fruit.  Sometimes tradition can become barren rather than being a living connection with the present, and then we too need to do a little pruning. Jesus challenged his tradition by doing things that were against Jewish law, like feeding his hungry disciples and healing people on the Sabbath. When criticized, he answers “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath”. “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?” He was deeply connected with his tradition but had a message about fulfilling it in a new way.  It seems that early Quakers had the same understanding. In 1656, the Elders at Balby wrote a long, stern and prescriptive epistle to ‘the brethren in the north’, but at the end there is the well-loved postscript: Dearly beloved Friends, these things we do not lay upon you as a rule or form to walk by, but that all, with the measure of light which is pure and holy, may be guided; and so in the light walking and abiding, these may be fulfilled in the Spirit, not from the letter, for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. Over the past years, I have been led to critically examine the Christian tradition and re-claim the heart of it —as my own. After the trip to the Middle East, I was excited to find the websites of Rabbis for Peace, Rabbis for Human Rights, and the website Breaking the Silence—the  Israeli soldiers who are called to speak out about their experience. These are Jewish people who remain faithful to their tradition while speaking out about breaches of international law and human rights.  

This healthy pruning is very different from something I saw in Palestine—groves of productive Bedouin olive trees chopped off and stumped. I saw ancient olive trees that had been uprooted from Palestinian soil and replanted in new Jewish settlements, giving a false sense of permanence. A tree is a product of the soil where it has received its sustenance. If it is uprooted, I imagine it longs back to the place where it once grew. We heard Palestinian and Jewish voices who had stories of longing back to their roots—certainly a human right. How can a win-win solution be found that honours the needs and rights of all?

The itinerary for our study tour included visits to holy sites. I looked forward to connecting with my Christian roots. I had to pinch myself the first day in East Jerusalem, as we walked past the Garden of Gethsemane. Here I was…in Jerusalem! Our guide was a Palestinian who works with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and was eagerly guiding us around the city with that in focus. Suddenly I saw the street sign Via Dolorosa, the street where, according to tradition, Jesus walked carrying his cross. Here I was, perhaps for the first and last time, and I needed to walk that street. But no one else seemed to notice where we were, and our guide was heading on. I followed and did not look back. Hearing about the current, urgent situation was more important. Indeed, the remainder of the trip was a walk along a contemporary Via Dolorosa—a path of pain. And I remember reading a Good Friday article by a former archbishop of Sweden. He commented that we remember the crucifixion on Good Friday, but do we make the connection that there are crucifixions happening every day somewhere in the world?

We visited the church that has been built around the ancient crossroad at Jacob’s well near Nablus. We reflected on the story of Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well. The water in the well is, indeed, cold and refreshing. I wondered if he actually stood here. My reverie of connectedness with the past was interrupted as our guide told us more of the current history of this place. Whereas it is a holy site for four religious groups—Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Samaritan—who used to live here in relative harmony,  it has been the scene of much recent violence and bloodshed.

Each time I found myself at a holy site, the connection with the past was infused with the drama of here and now. Paradoxically, it has served to deepen my connection to the heart of the Christian tradition: reconciliation, transformation and hope.

Let us reflect a minute in silence on the image of the tree: How have you experienced being connected with the Quaker roots during this Gathering? Are there ways in which you challenge and re-examine them?

Wheel On the screen is an image of a Ferris wheel. Tongues of fire radiate from the centre out toward the spokes.

Twelve of us on the study tour connected closely as we travelled, listened and learned. At the airport we spread in all directions to many countries, responsible to share back home what we had heard and seen.  I felt like I was out there on the Ferris wheel, out in one of those baskets, connected closely to the intensity of the community experience, yet all on my own with an urgent story to tell. It felt lonely. And it is perhaps not surprising that I associated to the story of Jesus sending his disciples out into villages and houses to share what they had heard and seen.  Jesus tells them that it will not be an easy job, and it may even include persecution. George Fox challenges us, as well: And this is the word of the Lord God to you all, and a charge to you all in the presence of the living God: be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you come, that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of people, and to them; then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every one. The challenge not only will see that of God in each other but to answer it, to respond to it. Creating connections is about responsibility.

I thought about something my teenage son, Hannes, who is here at JYM, said last year after experiencing the special community of all –age Quaker camp in Sweden. “What happened at camp was so special”, he said. “It was a completely different way of being from when I am at school. How can I connect these two ways of being?”  When we have a profound experience of connectedness—like here, at Meeting for Worship, at gatherings, in service, on journeys, we want to share it with others. Connecting it to what we already know and finding ways to carry it forth can be scary business, yet we know something precious:  We can always reconnect with the centre fire of community and remain connected with others who have shared it.

When enquirers ask what Meeting for Worship is like, I often end by saying something like: “I can talk to you for hours about what it is like to swim, but you won’t know what it is until you jump in the water.”  Firsthand experience is fundamental for Friends. George Fox wrote that he suffered from tormenting visions of human evil and suffering.  And he cried to the Lord, asking why this was happening to him, since his life didn’t include these kinds of experiences. He wrote, And the Lord answered that it was needful I should have a sense of all conditions, how else should I speak to all conditions; and in this I saw the infinite love of God. William Penn wrote that early Friends had been changed themselves before they went out changing others. It is from our deeply lived experience that we reach out to others, connecting with them in ways that can respond and speak to their condition.

And so, when a young Lithuanian man wrote an enthusiastic e-mail, introducing himself as a convinced Friend with very little experience of Quakers worship and ways—he already has a little group worshipping in the Quaker way in Vilnius—it felt exciting and urgent to help him get connected to Friends and gain firsthand experience of Quaker worship and community. He came to the recent Nordic Gathering in Sweden—120 Friends is huge in our context!—and was brought to tears in the worship there. I trust he has shared the experience with his little group in Vilnius, and part of my ministry will be to connect them with the wider Quaker family.

Let us reflect for a minute in silence on the image of the wheel. How will you stay connected with the central fire of community experience at this Gathering? What needs to be shared with others in your context at home? How will you do it?

Light On the screen is an image of two cupped hands tenderly holding a lit light bulb.

When I finally give up and dig out a user manual, the first piece of advice is usually “ensure that your device is connected with the power source.” In other words, plug it in!  And when we exclaim, “I get it!” “Now it’s dawned on me!” “I’ve seen the light!”, it means we’ve made a connection. I know that I can run only run so long on my own battery. I know what it is like to be disconnected from the power source.

When the Light works in us, it may mean having to give up some connections, having illusions shattered, having uncomfortable truths about ourselves or the world revealed. It may help us see how we are oppressed by misconceptions, prejudice, worn out truths and lifeless traditions. Quaker experience also teaches us that the Light will guide us into new connections that bring life, hope and healing.  I often find myself simply not seeing or hearing what is right there in front of me. I’m not alone. The Old Testament prophet Isaiah lamented about people who see but do not perceive, and who hear but do not listen. And we are reminded in Advices and Queries to  “Be aware of the spirit of God at work in the ordinary activities and experience of your daily life. Spiritual learning continues throughout life, and often in unexpected ways. There is inspiration to be found all around us, in the natural world, in the sciences and arts, in our work and friendships, in our sorrows as well as in our joys. Are you open to new light, from whatever source it may come? Do you approach new ideas with discernment? I have faith that, when I am connected to and open to the Light, my little light will indeed shine.

Reports have come from the on-line course in Finnish. In the light of lively conversation around basic Quaker texts, both lifelong Friends and new members are being challenged to re-examine their faith and their understandings of Quakerism. The group includes a Conservative Friend, others with strong Lutheran backgrounds, yet others with experiences of alternative spiritualities. “Is this what Quakerism is? I had no idea!” seems to be a response from some of the participants. Quakerism turns out to be broader and more complex than each one had imagined.

Marisa’s and my travel to the Baltic countries last year was also an eye-opener. We had a simplistic assumption that there wouldn’t be much difference between Latvia and Lithuania, and that the Quaker presence would look quite the same in those two countries. We found, however, that there was an entirely different “feel” to the two countries, and indeed to Finland and Estonia. We even found that parts of Latvia almost feel like different countries. And we learned that the Quaker presence is very different in each of the four countries, with different potential and different challenges. New Light led us from gross assumptions to more nuanced understandings. Similarly, I looked forward to visiting Nazareth, where Jesus is believed to have been born. As we entered the town, with cars and shops, petrol stations and modern bustle, I was embarrassed to realize I was almost affronted that it didn’t look the same as I had imagined—as it did 2000 years ago. Of course, I quickly created a few new mental connections and enjoyed visiting a reconstructed Nazareth village museum.

Before I went to Israel and Palestine, I was pretty much in the dark about the various issues. And I didn’t feel particularly connected to it all. The journey was enlightening and obliging. I continue to learn. Even though it is easy to feel hopeless about the conflict, the many and diverse Israeli and Palestinian voices we heard still glimmer with hope. Many suggested that we need new language to talk about the conflict, a re-framing of rhetoric. I learned that there is a difference between collective guilt and collective responsibility. I learned that being critical of actions that the state of Israel does is not the same as being anti-Semitic. I hope the Light will guide me and use me as I learn to speak in ways that create hopeful, healing connections.

A couple of years ago the cultural centre in Stockholm had an art exhibit with images of Jesus. Many were quite traditional images of the infant Jesus, the crucified Jesus. There was even one with Jesus as Superman flying through the air. I stopped in front of one that seemed to be misplaced—it must have been there by mistake. It was a black and white photograph of an elderly Japanese woman tenderly bathing the twisted body of another human being, perhaps her son, probably a Hiroshima survivor. I didn’t see any image of Jesus there, but then it dawned on me that the connectedness between them, the love and tenderness captured in the photograph, was itself the image of Jesus. I had to be open to seeing the photograph in a new light.

Let us reflect for a minute in silence on the image of the Light: How have you experienced being connected to the Light during the Gathering? What new Light has come to you? What old understandings have you needed to re-evaluate?

Perhaps, and I hope, that something I have shared this morning about the connections that I am creating has served to reconnect you with what you already know, to hearten you and encourage you.  Each of you is fully engaged in creating connections of many kinds, on many levels. The connections and choices you make along your life journey matter. The networks you are woven into matter. Your connection with the Quaker tree—roots, branches, leaves and all—matter. Staying connected with the communal experience of worship and service matters. Connecting it with your life back home matters. Staying connected to the Light and learning what it has to teach you matters. Letting your little light shine matters. All of the connections at all levels that have been made at this Gathering matter to me, to you, to the world.  I believe that the Creator Spirit, the Connector Spirit is constantly reaching out to each of us, inviting us to cooperate in creating connections for the healing of the world.