To Elder

 Quakers have this funny practice called Eldering.  Even the name of it is antiquated.  It comes from a time when someone very respected was called an Elder.  However, from early on in Quakerism because of the value on equalatrism it was recognized that young people and women could be elders.  (Rather unheard to in the 1600s).  This was because it was a mark of being mature in the Spirit.   The person was a spiritual elder, someone who lived a grounded, spirit inspired life.  They understood Quaker practice and the underlying beliefs that went with Quaker practice.

There were many roles that Elders played.  They sat on the facing bench and held the Meeting in the Light, thereby deepening the worship.  They acted as anchors and mentors for Friends engaging in new ministry.  They often would accompany a Friend who was in traveling ministry to help them stay true to their Light and not overshoot their leading. They would speak with and nurture those who were newly giving ministry in Friends Meeting, encouraging the development of faithful ministry.

But the practice of eldering is something slightly different.  It was/is the modern day equivalent of "calling in" ( the opposite of calling someone out which is often with anger and criticism.)  It was to speak to someone who was seen to be morally straying, or lost, or beyond their light, or behaving inappropriately and to lovingly call them back into the Light.  A powerful example of this was when John Woolman would travel and meet with Quakers who were owning slaves and he would speak to them or the moral wrong they were doing TO THEIR OWN SOUL, and plead with them to sell their slaves.   This is not to say that he did not believe in abolition or have great concern for the well being of the slaves.  But since he saw slavery as a sin, he reasoned that to own a slave was a sin that corrupted and damaged the soul of the slave owner just as much as the enslaved person.

That was the power of eldering but it also got its self a bad name in the middle years of Quakerism when it became a sort of rigid litmus test of moral conformity with people being "written out of Meeting" by Meeting elders for such sins as singing, dancing, wearing lace or marrying outside of the faith.  The over correction for this was Friends largely have turned their back on this practice.  I regard this as too bad because from my point of view we are sadly lacking true eldering in modern Meetings.  We both lack Friends who are really grounded in Quaker practice, we lack mentoring for younger friends in everything from clerking to giving faith ministry....but most importantly we lack a real accountability when things go estray.

Friends to a large degree have drifted into an American Liberalism - a desire to be open and accepting to everyone - to a point that often surrenders having an actual defined set of beliefs or boundaries.  While Friends drift towards a more codified set of testimonies, calling them "SPICES", we oddly do not stand up for these truths that we have found.   If Friends exhibit conspicuous and unsustainable possessions we do not even lovingly discuss Simplicity with them.   When male Friends exhibit learned male privilege in our gatherings, we either sigh and turn away or attack with a Feminist critique, but we do not lovingly labor with them over how and why to change that behavior.  It is rare that anyone talks about how us pacifists are all paying for war. We accept many behaviors in our committees and our business meeting which are frankly secular behaviors from our work places that are not part of Quaker Faith and Practice.  (see also previous post on eldering and conflict: http://thefriendlyseeker.blogspot.com/2019/10/it-may-not-surprise-you-to-hear-me-say_30.html)

"Quakers behaving badly" is a phrase that brings a slight chuckle and smile to most long time Friends faces.  Yes we know about Friends being behaving badly -we have seen it many times.   This ranges from Friends who speak too often and too long.  Friends who "mansplain" Quakerism (and other subjects) to the rest of us.  Friends who rant and lecture about politics to the rest of us.  Friends who talk about the news in Meeting for worship and who have never given a spirit filled message in their life. (Is this NPR or is this God?)  Alignating young people and people of color with unconscious ageism and or racism.   Letting fear about changing from "the way we have always done it" get in the way of considering what new Light might show us.   Over editing minutes, hung up on Grammar rather than finding what Spirit is trying to say through us.  Being attached to forms over the purpose they were intended to serve. Friends who have tantrums in business or committee meetings, who we silently allow to do this to everyone else. Refusing to talk about critical issues because we are uncomfortable with conflict and have forgotten that Light is available on all subjects.    Unable to identify what we believe because we are practicing acceptance of all to the point where there is no Spiritual Center.  I could go on, and feel free to add some of your own in comments below.

But the bottom line is we will continue to have Friends who are behaving badly until we again have Elders who can lovingly share Quaker practice and belief with those Friends behaving badly and loving show them another, Quakerly set of possibilities.

The Seeds of War, Suffering and Climate Change

Last month I wrote a post: Who is Wealthy?  Designed to help US citizens understand how much income they have relative to other people from the US and how even a median income in the US makes us part of the 1% of the world.  This month I would like to look at the labor practices in other parts of the world that allow us to buy cheap items from elsewhere in ways that enrich our lives while keeping in poverty and suffering people around the globe.

One of the most famous John Woolman quotes is: "May we look upon our treasure, the furniture of our houses, and our garments, and try to discover whether the seeds of war have nourishment in these our possessions."  At the time Woolman wrote, he was of course thinking both of slavery and also of wars that were fought over resources.   In modern day translation I would add: whether the seeds of war, suffering and climate change have nourishment in these our possessions.

For example many people are aware of "conflict minerals": tin, tungsten, tantalum (3ts) and gold which are mined in African countries, and particularly the Congo, controlled by guerrilla groups using the money to fund a civil war which has killed over 5 million people since 1998.  Amnesty International has also documented the use of child laborers, as young as age 7, being made to work in these mines. These materials are used to make smart phones and many computer chips.   Only 16% of our phones are even recycled -so these built to be obsolete items contain materials we throw away that others have literally died for.  Efforts by a company named Fairphone to build a completely non-conflict sourced phone have yet to be successful

Gold of course is also used in jewelry as are diamonds: also known as "blood diamonds" in some circles because of the violence associated with them.   African miners make a dollar a day, again often use child labor and work in war zones.  Violence is often directed against the workers and the environmental practices leave areas around the mine devastated. 2

The Enough Project attempts to provide us some rankings for these companies so we can reduce our complicity.   For example Apple has done a pretty good job of reducing its conflict minerals followed by Google, HP, Microsoft, and trailing at the bottom Samsung and then Toshiba.   For Jewelers the department stores that have the most blood on their jewelry are not surprisingly Walmart and Sears being worst, Helzberg and Costco close to the bottom and with Signet and then Tiffany's doing the best.3

And then there is Chocolate.   For years the media has been documenting that African (Ivory Coast and Ghana producing 60% of the worlds cocoa)  has child labor and even child slavery being used to pick chocolate.4  Many of these same issues surround the production of coffee, teas, bananas and coffee.  Fortunately there is a Fair Trade designation for these products that attempts (some better than others) to document that fair labor practices, as well as environmental standards, were used in the production.5

Cotton of course is in our clothes.  If not organic it has been produced with chemicals very hard on the earth. But really for all our clothes when you look at the label that says where it has been made, almost inevitably you will see some of the poorest countries in the world where there are not protective labor laws and where workers work long hours for little pay.  Sweat shops have simply moved abroad.   This is why inexpensive clothing can be found for prices you could not match by just buying the fabric and making it yourself in this country.

Before I completely leave this list of horrors there is also the rape of the earth categories.  If you were to see pictures of areas of the amazon that have been clear cut to: provide cheap teak wood, land for raising cheap beef for $1 fast food hamburgers, or for palm oil which is in most processed foods and beauty products in the US you would be horrified by the pictures.  Yet we innocently buy these products with no awareness of the havoc that was wrecked to bring them to us.  Deforestation is one the huge contributors to climate change.  (10 to 15% of the Greenhouse gases)

So yikes: here are the seeds of war, suffering and climate change in our cellphones, our computers, our electronics, our jewelry, our food, our clothing, our cosmetics, and our furniture.  I really was not trying to depress the hell out of you!   I know most of my f/Friends would not stand in front of a child factory or a clear cut forest and buy the products coming out of there.  We in fact have happily believed that child labor, slavery and environmental destruction were things that were outlawed a 100 to 40 years ago.   Well they were in the US.  But one of the results of globalization is that it hard to find a product that in solely and completely produced in the US.  Most ingredients or components at least come from other countries where they were extracted with cheap labor and in environmentally destructive ways and then the finished products or the components for assembly were sent to another country or the US for final assembly.  We are inexplicably bound to suffering around the globe that is conveniently kept out of our sight.  Perhaps because we would not participate in it if we could see it.

So as painful as this is the first step in changing this is bringing its reality into our awareness.  Looking at our possessions and understanding in fact where they do come from, seeing the humans behind our possessions. Unfortunately, in the globalized economy it is not possible to live in an industrial country and be able to separate yourself from this chain of suffering.  So there is not a way to achieve some moral purity - there is only the possibility to start pushing back and trying to create more justice and fairness one bit at a time.

What are some of the solutions:
1) Buy less - you will create less suffering - to quote an old saying: "Live simply so others may simply live".
2) Recycle and reuse and repair - as 70's as that sounds when we reuse materials more mining does not go on.   When we reuse items more new production does not go on.
3) Learn about fair trade certifications and buy products that bare fair trade labels.  Yes it will cost more - I think it is worth it to not support child labor, slavery and people working for $1 a day.  I will have to buy less and save for some things - and probablt represents the true costs and a more fair balance of resources in the world anyway.
4) Look at the Enough Project and try to buy on the fairer end of the spectrum - create consumer pressure for products that are produced with fair labor and environmental standards.  Buy a Fairphone the next time you replace your cellphone.
5) Buy less processed foods - they are healthier for you anyway but they will not contain palm oil or foods produced with cheap labor in another country.
6) Consider giving services and not things as gifts to others.
7) When possible buy items made by artisans in your own community.  (Examples: hand made jewelry, clothing, items made by wood workers, bakers, carpenters, etc in your own community.)


1 http://www.newstalk.com/Can-you-buy-a-conflict-free-phone-minerals-intel-fairphone-apple
2.https://www.brilliantearth.com/conflict-diamond-facts/
3. https://enoughproject.org/reports/demand-the-supply
4. http://fortune.com/big-chocolate-child-labor/
5. https://www.fairtradewinds.net/guide-fair-trade-labels/

Benjamin Lay and Quaker Corporate Witness

I often hear Friends lament that we do not have a corporate witness currently, or try to figure out in consternation how to marshal other Friends to unify around one of the many critical and compelling issues of our time.  I think that Friends fail to understand the actual chapters of Quaker's historic witness.  For example, Friends proudly speak of the standard of Quakers "not owning slaves".   They sweep past the over 100 years it took our Yearly Meetings to reach consensus that Friends were not to own slavery (or that even after that some Friends did).   This ignores the great price of unpopularity and even expulsion that the early abolitionist experienced in their own Meetings.   It also ignores that this later standard was achieved by "reading Friends out of Meeting".  (Meaning that Slave owners were stripped of membership.)  Given that Friends have now rejected the idea of reading anyone out of membership, it would literally be impossible for modern Friends to achieve this level of conformity to any position we might take on any issue.

Take for example the biography of Benjamin Lay:  The Fearless Benjamin Lay by Marcus Redikar released this past month.  Redikar reports on the tactics of Benjamin, a small man known as a hunchback because of his 4 foot height and curvature of the upper back.   In 1738 he became the last of a very few Quakers expelled for their abolitionism.  In fact Redikar tells us Lay was expelled from two British Friends Meetings as well as Abington Friends meeting in the US. Below he describes the incident that led to Lay's expulsion: 

"On September 19, 1738, a man named Benjamin Lay strode into a Quaker meetinghouse in Burlington, New Jersey, for the biggest event of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. He wore a great coat, which hid a military uniform and a sword. Beneath his coat Lay carried a hollowed-out book with a secret compartment, into which he had tucked a tied-off animal bladder filled with bright red pokeberry juice. Because Quakers had no formal minister or church ceremony, people spoke as the spirit moved them. Lay, a Quaker himself, waited his turn.

He finally rose to address this gathering of 'weighty Quakers.' Many Friends in Pennsylvania and New Jersey had grown rich on Atlantic commerce, and many bought human property. To them Lay announced in a booming voice that God Almighty respects all peoples equally, rich and poor, men and women, white and black alike. He said that slave keeping was the greatest sin in the world and asked, How can a people who profess the golden rule keep slaves? He then threw off his great coat, revealing the military garb, the book and the blade.

A murmur filled the hall as the prophet thundered his judgment: “Thus shall God shed the blood of those persons who enslave their fellow creatures.” He pulled out the sword, raised the book above his head, and plunged the sword through it. People gasped as the red liquid gushed down his arm; women swooned. To the shock of all, he spattered “blood” on the slave keepers. He prophesied a dark, violent future: Quakers who failed to heed the prophet’s call must expect physical, moral and spiritual death.

The room exploded into chaos, but Lay stood quiet and still, 'like a statue,' a witness remarked. Several Quakers quickly surrounded the armed soldier of God and carried him from the building. He did not resist. He had made his point.  This spectacular performance was one moment of guerrilla theater among many in Lay’s life."

Now if you consider this carefully my guess is these are not tactics you could see yourself doing in your Friends Meeting or for that matter any Friends Meeting.   Yet there are many recorded incidents of him doing guerrilla theater among Friends, as well as "calling out" Friends (from the bench during business meeting) in a way that could only be described honestly as self-righteous heckling.  So maybe you say: "well no wonder he was expelled - poor social skills, really very rude....other polite Friends could have gotten the same job done."   Yet both John Woolman and Lucretia Mott made themselves very unpopular among many Friends for their calls to conscience. Lucretia Mott was almost written out of her Meeting several times, probably only spared this because of the wealth and status of her husband.  George Fox for that matter in the beginning of Quakerism entered other people's churches, stood up on the benches and disrupted the service and called the minister hypocritics, among other things.  So playing nice was not in the original Quaker play book.  Speaking the truth bluntly was.  As Quakers have through education and the protection of the right to freedom of religion become more middle class have we also learned the middle class pattern of playing it safe?

I believe if we honestly appraise our history we will see that a few Friends with vision and courage put out a call to Friends to stand for social justice.  There calls were not immediately heeded or was unity quickly or easily reached.  Most spent their lifetimes both inside and outside of the Society of Friends agitating for a vision of justice that was often many decades ahead of their time and took great flack in both arenas for their "eccentric position".  They often did not see the fruits of their labor before their death.  In fact Redikar tells us Lay was living in a cave towards the end of his life in poor health and a Friend came to tell him that the Yearly Meeting had just passed a minute to discipline and disown Quaker slave owners and he jumped up saying: "I can now die in peace."

It does apparently take a certain personality type to be dedicated to the truth above popularity or even security.   That kind of personality is it seems at times flamboyant or "rude" or aggressive and self-righteous in making its point.  As Redikar says about Lay: "His confrontational methods made people talk: about him, his ideas, the nature of Quakerism and Christianity, and, most of all, slavery."   One has to think that Lay, Woolman and Mott did not have the idea that speaking to that of God in another person means to speak gently so as to not offend.  Perhaps the confrontation with oppression will always offend the ways in which oppression has dressed itself up and justified itself.  We have also been taught that minority voices in business meeting are to be listened to because they may in fact carry a piece of the truth not visible to the rest of us.  Can we believe this even when a Friend's voice makes us uncomfortable and challenges our own choices?  Are we willing to have a called Meeting for Business to respond to a crisis rather than send all our concerns off to a lengthy many month process before action can be taken?

Thus for us to wish in the present that we would all be in unity around social concerns is to ignore the actual history of how we have come to be in unity.  There were always Friends dragging the rest of us forward.  Even once we came to unity in consensus,  the work was always done by a small minority of the Meeting.   It is not insignificant that we have a value set that asks people to listen to God's voice, that teaches the rest of us to validate and support those among us who are so led.  It did make a difference that activist Friends were (usually) eventually supported by their Meetings.   But it is a great myth to say Friends acted as one body or in one mind for these great social causes.   It is true that heeding God's call we were out front ahead of much of the rest of the population.

This leads me to ask:  Who is a Friendly nuisance in your Meeting?   How well are you listening and heeding that person's words?   What truth do you care about so deeply that you would stand on a public bench making a spectacle of yourself?  What are you not willing to risk and why?  Are you willing to offend the oppressive?  Are you willing to upset and offend others by unequivocally stating a truth that challenges the very basis of who they are and how they live?

For more on Benjamin Lay see: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/quaker-comet-greatest-abolitionist-never-heard-180964401/
or: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/12/opinion/sunday/youll-never-be-as-radical-as-this-18th-century-quaker-dwarf.html

A portrait of Benjamin Lay