Tag: rsof

Reflections for 12th Month, 2024

Elizabeth Fry is known as the “Angel of Prisons”.

Quaker Elizabeth Fry, born in 1780 in Norwich, England, is known as the “Angel of Prisons”.

Born into a prominent Quaker family, the Gurneys, she married Joseph Fry in 1800 and had eleven children.

When Fry visited Newgate Prison in 1813, the conditions she saw there horrified her. She started trying to help the very next day, bringing food and clothing for the prisoners.

She was so invested in her work, she even spent the night in some prisons and invited others to stay with her so that they could experience the conditions for themselves.

Fry funded a school in the prison for children who were imprisoned with their mothers. She also implemented a system where rules were proposed and then voted on by the prisoners.

She was instrumental in getting the 1823 Gaols Act in place which attempted to implement protections for female inmates.

Although the Gaols Act did not result in widespread improvements in prison conditions right away, it did have the immediate and significant result of having female inmates held separately from men.

In addition to her prison ministry, Fry also worked to help the homeless, and campaigned for abolition of slavery in European colonies.

After she died in 1845, Elizabeth Fry refuges were established in her honor. The refuges provided temporary shelter for women recently released from prison.

Quakers are still very active in prison reform today. The Friends Committee on National Legislation and Friends General Conference both have active programs. The FGC website says their goal is “Reforming the Modern Prison System With Quaker Values in Mind.”

Reflections for 10th Month, 2024

The first meeting house specifically for Quaker worship was built in 1670.

Quakers generally believe that worship can – and should – take place anywhere and everywhere.

It isn’t unusual for meetings for worship to take place outdoors or in people’s homes.

But partly due to the growth of the Religous Society of Friends, and partly due to the discrimination Quakers often encountered in the early years, they started to create buildings specifically for holding meetings for worship.

From the beginning, Quaker meeting houses were simple and more closely resembled residential houses than churches or cathedrals. The architecture and construction of many meeting houses try to emphasize the Quaker testimonies of simplicity and community.

This quote from George Fox shows that he felt the buidings were not the priority:

“The Lord showed me, so that I did see clearly, that he did not dwell in these temples which men had commanded and set up, but in people’s hearts… his people were his temple, and he dwelt in them.”

The first meeting house specifically for Quaker worship was built in 1670 in Herftord, England. The Hertford Meeting House was actually visited by Fox, and amazingly is still in use today.

American Quakers weren’t too far behind. The Third Haven Meeting House was built in Maryland in 1682 and is the oldest Friends meeting house in America.

Today there are Quaker meeting houses worldwide – including in Asia, Africa, Australia, and South America, in addition to Europe and North America.

Reflections for 9th Month, 2024

Quakers aren’t the only group with a history at Pendle Hill.

Perhaps the most famous, and certainly the most interesting, geographical location associated with Quakers is Pendle Hill, rising to an elevation of 1,827 feet just east of Lancashire, England.

In 1652, George Fox felt that God led him to climb Pendle Hill. There he had a vision of many souls being saved. 

He wrote:

“As we travelled, we came near a very great hill, called Pendle Hill, and I was moved of the Lord to go up to the top of it; which I did with difficulty, it was so very steep and high. When I was come to the top, I saw the sea bordering upon Lancashire. From the top of this hill the Lord let me see in what places he had a great people to be gathered.”

This vision inspired Fox, and he went to the town of Sedbergh and ended up preaching to more than 1,000 people. 

Although it hadn’t been named yet, the Religious Society of Friends had begun.

Pendle Hill is still a significant place for Quakers. Many groups hold pilgrimages there every year. The U.S. based Quaker Council on Education will be climbing it as part of their trip to England in June, 2025.

The Pendle Hill Area Quaker Meeting is an active meeting in the area. 

And the Pendle Hill conference and retreat center in Pennsylvania is named after Fox’s place of inspiration.

But Quakers aren’t the only group who have history with Pendle Hill.

In 1612, nine women and two men were put on trial as part of the Pendle witch trials. Ten of them were found guilty and hung.  

Almost fifty years later, in 1661, Richard Towneley and Henry Power conducted experiments with a barometer that proved what is now called Boyle’s Law, which relates pressure, volume, and temperature with regard to gasses.

And there’s a Bronze Age (3300 to 1200 BC) burial site near the top of the hill.

But perhaps the most creative story regarding the hill has to do with the Devil. There’s a local legend that says he was gathering rocks in an apron. (I was not aware that the Devil wore an apron.)

When he went to throw one of the rocks at a nearby castle, the apron string broke and the rocks he had gathered fell out to form Pendle Hill.

Maybe a pilgrimage is in order.

Reflections for 8th Month, 2024

Mary Fisher was a dedicated Quaker activist in the late 1600s.

In our Reflections last month we told the story of Ann Austin and Mary Fisher, who became the first Friends in the British North American colonies, the colonies that would be the beginnings of the United States of America.

It turns out the imprisonment Fisher endured with Austin in Boston was one of the least dramatic and harrowing aspects of her Quaker ministry.

Fisher was born in Yorkshire, England in 1623. She was working as a maid for the Tomlinson family and in 1651 heard George Fox speak to the family. She loved what Fox had to say and became a Quaker, joining the Quaker Valiant Sixty, a group of Quaker activists in the late 1600s.

Fisher was a dedicated activist.

Starting in 1652, she was imprisoned multiple times: for publicly rebuking a church vicar; for the pamphlet she wrote with four other Quakers titled “False Prophets and False Teachers Described”, which encouraged people to leave the church and turn to the Inner Light; and again in 1654 and 1655 for additional offenses against the church.

In 1653, as part of their opposition to organized religion, she and Elizabeth Williams criticized student theologians at Sidney Sussex College. For this they became the first Quakers to be publicly flogged for their ministry.

As we read last month, Fisher and Austin made their trip to the New World in 1656, and they both returned to England in 1657.

But her most amazing missionary trip took place the next year. Here’s how it is described in Wikipedia:

“In 1658 Fisher traveled in a group of six Quakers to the Mediterranean and to visit the Ottoman Empire to expound her Quaker faith to the Sultan Mehmed IV. When their ship reached Smyrna, she asked the English Consul there how to contact the Sultan. He told her this would be unwise, and tricked the party into boarding a ship bound for Venice.

“Realizing this when at sea, Fisher asked the captain to land her on the Morean coast of Greece. She then traveled alone on foot across Macedonia and Thrace until she reached the Sultan, who was encamped with his army at Adrianople. There she persuaded Köprülü Mehmed Pasha, the Grand Vizier, to arrange an audience for her with the Sultan, describing herself as an ambassador of ‘The Most High God’.

“According to her account, the Sultan received her ministry ‘testifying to the Universal Light’ attentively. She then declined his offer of an armed escort and made her way alone to Constantinople and then back to England.”

That’s dedication.

Fisher died in 1698 and her remains were buried at the Quaker burial ground in Charleston, South Carolina, where she had lived with her second husband John Crosse. When those burial grounds were removed in 1967, most of Fisher’s remains were then moved to Court House Square in Charleston.

Reflections for 7th Month, 2024

In Seventh Month of 1656 Ann Austin and Mary Fisher became the first Friends in the British North American colonies.

Today, there are an estimated 80,000 Friends in North America, with most being in the United States.

In 1656 the number of U.S. Friends was zero.

But in Seventh Month of that year, on the 11th to be precise, the Friends population rose to two as Ann Austin and Mary Fisher, two English Quakers, sailed from Barbados and landed in Boston, Massachusetts to become the first Friends in the British North American colonies.

Boston was a very Puritan city at that time, and Austin and Fisher’s arrival was met harshly.

Quakers in the 1600s were against church authority. They fought for equality between men and women and against slavery. These ideas were very radical for the time and did not go over well with the Puritan leaders.

The two Friends were arrested immediately after arriving in Boston.

Their prison cell was boarded up to isolate them, and possibly to try to starve them to death. A Boston innkeeper, Nicholas Upsall, was able to bribe the prison warden with five shillings a week so that he could deliver food to Austin and Fisher.

They ended up spending five weeks in jail. During this time, the women were able to share their new Quaker faith with Upsall and he became a Friend, becoming the first North American Puritan convert to Quakerism.

Austin and Fisher were deported back to Barbados and they returned to England in 1657.

Ann Austin continued her ministry until her death in 1665. Mary Fisher also continued to spread the word, and is one of the Valiant Sixty (a group of early Quaker activists and preachers). The accounts of her mission trip to the Ottoman Empire are truly remarkable, and will make a great subject for a future Reflections post.

Reflections for 6th Month, 2024

Margaret Fell was one of the founders of the Religious Society of Friends, and is sometimes called the “mother of Quakerism.”

Fell was born in 1614 in Lancashire. In 1632 she married Thomas Fell, a barrister, and Margaret became the lady of Swarthmoor Hall. This was a position of influence in English society and proved to be beneficial to the Quaker movement.

In 1652, George Fox visited Swarthmoor Hall. After listening to him, she and many of her household became converts to Fox’s new religion.

Swarthmoor Hall became a hub for Quaker activity. Fell was very active herself, handling correspondence, writing Quaker epistles, and managing funds for mission work.

Her position in English society was an advantage for Friends, who were often persecuted at that time for their beliefs. Swarthmoor Hall was a safe meeting place. And Fell was often asked to intercede on behalf of Friends who were arrested.

Fell herself was arrested in 1664 for failing to take an oath. She remained in prison until 1668. During this time she wrote many epistles, including “Women’s Speaking Justified”, which presented a scripture-based argument for women to be included in ministry, a highly controversial subject at that time. (This epistle can be read today at many websites.)

After her release, Fell married George Fox in 1669. He traveled extensively, but she spent most of her time at Swarthmoor. Fox died in 1691, but Fell continued to take an active part in the affairs of the Society.

Fell died in Fourth Month, 1702, and was buried in an unmarked grave in the Friends’ burial ground at Sunbrick.

Reflections for 4th Month, 2024

Three hundred and thirty-six years ago this month, in 1688, Quaker Francis Daniel Pastorius, and three other Friends published the Germantown Friends Petition Against Slavery on behalf of the Germantown (Pennsylvania) Meeting.

The Petition is considered to be the first protest against African American slavery made by a religious body in the English colonies.

It objected to slavery on moral and practical grounds at a time when the practice was almost universally accepted, including by most Quakers.

The argument presented in the petition was based upon the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It said:

“There is a saying, that we shall doe to all men like as we will be done ourselves; making no difference of what generation, descent or colour they are.”

At the time of its writing, the Petition got passed around in the Germantown meeting chain – monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings – without any official approval or rejection.

It disappeared for 150 years into the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s archives, when it was discovered in 1844. Quaker abolitionists republished it that year in “The Friend” in support of their antislavery work.

About 100 years later, it was misplaced again, only to be rediscovered in 2005 in the Arch Street Meetinghouse. It was in very bad physical condition by then, but was repaired and restored at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts in Philadelphia.

Although it didn’t provoke changes immediately, the Petition is still considered a significant document in the fight against slavery.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture says this on their website:

“Sadly, ‘The Germantown Protest’ did not spark a significant change in the Americas against slavery. Even within Quaker communities the declaration was ignored, at least initially. But a seed had been planted. A belief shared silently by many was given voice.”

Reflections for 3rd Month, 2024

At a recent Episcopal church service I attended, one of the Bible passages that was read during the service was from 1 Samuel (chapter 3, verses 1-10) where God was literally calling Samuel, verbally.

In his sermon a few minutes later the priest asked if we all thought God was still a real and active presence in our lives – just as he was in Samuel’s when he was calling him.

Do we hear the voice of God today? Do we see his wondrous works?

The priest answered his own question by saying that God does still speak to us and God still actively works in our lives but we are too busy to hear him and see what he does.

That sermon was in the middle of a service that included ten prayers, four readings, five individual ceremonies, and ten songs. We stood up when the service started, then we knelt, sat, stood, sat, stood, sat, stood, knelt, stood, knelt, stood, knelt, and then stood again as it ended.

We had to follow a 23 page service bulletin so that we could stand, sit, kneel, sing, and talk at the proper time. We repeated four phrases a total of 26 times – and that does not include the word “Amen”.

During a service that is specifically designed for people to strengthen their relationship with God, there was literally no time for us to listen to see if he was speaking to us, or for us to contemplate his works.

A lot of good things come out of traditional church services of all denominations. They can bring strength and comfort to the people who attend them.

But you do stay very busy while attending them.

The aspect of Quaker meetings for worship that most caught my attention was the simple idea of sitting in silence and listening to God.

We welcome you to meet with us every First Day to come and listen.

Reflections for 9th Month, 2023

The Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, perhaps one of the most dramatic, and effective, peace demonstrations ever, started in 1981 and continued for 19 years.

It’s probably not surprising that Quaker women played an important role.

The Peace Camp was started to peacefully protest NATO’s decision to house nuclear missiles on British soil. According to Wikipedia, the protests created by the camp were remarkable::

“In September 1981, 36 women chained themselves to the base fence in protest against nuclear weapons. On 29 September 1982, the women were evicted by Newbury District Council but set up a new camp nearby.

“In December 1982, 30,000 women joined hands around the base. The daringness and creativity of the Greenham women was reflected when a small group climbed the fence to dance on missile silos that were under construction on New Year’s Day 1983.

“The camps became well-known when on 1 April 1983, about 70,000 protesters formed a 14-mile (23 km) human chain from Greenham to Aldermaston and the ordnance factory at Burghfield. The media attention surrounding the camp inspired people across Europe to create other peace camps.”

The Quakers in Britain website, in their blog post “8 Badass Quaker Women” notes:

“Over nineteen years, thousands of women took part in the nonviolent actions at Greenham. Moved to act by the peace testimony, a generation of Quaker women were part of this very public objection to war. They included the veteran peace activist Sylvia Boyes and Celia Davies, who, despite sustaining significant injuries as a result of forceful policing at Greenham, campaigns against arms fairs to this day.”

Action, not just words, are an important part of all the Quaker testimonies. Ms. Boyes and Ms. Davies, along with tens of thousands of other women of all beliefs, clearly took this to heart.

Reflections for 6th Month, 2023

QuakerSpeak estimates that there are about 400,000 (*) Friends around the world.

Africa has the most Friends of any region, with about 200,000. Kenya is the country with the most Quakers. The Friends General Council website notes that African meetings tend to be programmed, using prepared services and pastors.

The Americas, including North, Central, and South America have about 140,000 Quakers. There are about 80,000 in the United States and Canada. The United States population is second to Kenya for individual countries. According to one source, Friends in the US participate in about 1800 individual meetings.

There are an estimated 25,000 Friends in Europe and the Middle-East. The UK, where the Religious Society of Friends began in the 1600s, is sixth on the population list by country. Unprogrammed (silent) meetings are most common in Europe and in former colonies of Britain.

The Asia and West Pacific countries make up the rest of the world’s Quaker population, also with a total of approximately 25,000 Friends.

(*) The numbers for each area can vary slightly depending on the source.