Someone holding the hand of a patient wearing a hospital bracelet. Photo: By Jon Tyson on Unsplash.
A call to chaplaincy: Emma Roberts says charity begins at home
‘What we can offer as Quakers are things we undervalue and often dismiss.’
At Swansea Meeting for Worship on St David’s Day we reflected on the famous last words of Dewi Sant: ‘Byddwch lawen, cadwch ffydd a gwnewch y pethau bychain’ – ‘Be joyful, have faith, and do the small things’. This led to some ministry and reflection about charity, which may extend across continents, but begins at home.
I am increasingly unsettled by the frequent pronouncements about far-away lands that we make as a corporate Religious Society. What about the pain right here across our country? For example, there remain around a hundred prisons across the UK with no Quaker chaplain. There are hospitals, hospices, and city centres across the UK very near you without Quaker chaplains on their teams.
‘Quakers call for urgent action on climate justice at COP29’, ‘Solidarity with communities affected by recent violence’, ‘Quakers condemn UK and US airstrikes in Yemen’, ‘Scottish teachers’ call for peace education welcomed by Quakers’, ‘Quakers warn of creeping repression of protest rights’. We Call, Warn, Condemn, and Stand in solidarity, but ‘neighbours’ also means the people living next door, not just the ones on the news. UK prisons are full of desperate people needing someone to listen. Hospitals and hospices have patients facing pain, fear, and loneliness. Chaplains step into those situations and walk alongside people, offering quiet, a kind word, a sense of peace.
Quakers ought to be naturals at this. We’ve got history with prison work, an easy habit of holding silence, and an organised community ready to provide support, training and encouragement. The Alternatives to Violence Project is a ready-made Quaker-founded programme we could be reviving everywhere. So why aren’t we showing up using chaplaincy as a natural outlet?
I have spoken with many Quakers recently for my YouTube channel, Quakerology. I’d like to draw your attention to three of these that offer practical and spiritually-grounded stories. Search for ‘Quakerology Sarah Lane’ to listen to one very close to my heart, as Sarah describes the setting up of her work as prison chaplain and the creative work she helped the prisoners to design and craft. This is a story of what can be achieved by a committed ‘showing up’ over and over again in a place that requires determination, boundaries and grit to simply gain the permissions and entry.
I’d like to contrast this with the loud hailer of the protest movements that have been so loudly put front and centre in our corporate communications. I have no wish to discourage climate protesters from gluing themselves to street furniture, but this really is not the same as turning up inside prison every week listening to the homeless, drug-addicted and suicidal. This is not everyone’s bag, but I’d certainly like to see a rebalancing of the stories we valorise in Quaker Meetings, publications, and charity collections.
Alternatively, you might search for Rebecca Leek’s video to hear how you could make a difference in a local primary school near you, supporting their collective acts of worship ‘of a broadly Christian nature’ (Butler Act 1944). Rebecca reminds us that this law remains in force. Schools are required to deliver spiritual, moral, social and cultural education. Local schools would undoubtedly value the contribution of Friends in this work, whereby the gentle habits of settling in to silence would allow individual children to experience a peacefulness among a busy, tech-filled life. Yes, we could also talk to them about peace and so on, but, fundamentally, what we can offer as Quakers are things we undervalue and often dismiss – simply teaching people how to centre down and listen deeply. Why are we so quick to preach to people about social justice and net zero and show such reluctance to tell them about the direct encounter with the presence of the Inward Light?
In another video, John Lampen’s interview recalls his and Diana’s work in the peace process of Northern Ireland, relocating their young family to be and live in these troubled communities. This is a whole-of-life commitment which creates rather than protests, builds slowly under the surface rather than noisily on the streets. This is the work that costs.
‘I’d certainly like to see a rebalancing of the stories we valorise in Quaker Meetings.’
John recalled that ‘in the 1970s there was a real energy in the peace movement in Britain, in which Quakers were very involved, mainly against nuclear weapons and against the apartheid regime in South Africa. And we just noted that here in our own country, or rather in Northern Ireland, there was a conflict that was engaging the entire society there in which people were dying and about which the peace movement had nothing to say.’
What are today’s issues that are here in our neighbourhoods? Are Quakers showing up as much as we might? Again, let’s be honest and self-reflective about this. We are all called to differing aspects of service and not everyone is led in the same path, but are we putting too much emphasis on the protest and pronouncements that cost nothing? People often ask me if the people imprisoned for climate protests are especially vulnerable within the prison system and I say that this is a fallacy. The cost is to your criminal record, your reputation and CV in professional terms, but the average Quaker is certainly not as vulnerable as the vast majority of the prison population. Prisoners are dealing with addiction, poverty, abuse, illiteracy, unemployment and homelessness. Rather, I argue the cost of your Spirit-led work is where you spend years quietly devoting your lives to building new and alternative visions for a better future.
Furthermore, Quakers are wonderfully placed to develop these skills and pay attention to each other, week-in week-out in our multi-generational Meetings up and down the country. There we find children and teens engaging in their children’s Meetings and learning activities, with adult young Friends, members and newcomers, quietly joining in and finding new community. There are people in their thirties and forties herding a gaggle of children in to Meeting and quietly offering what support they can to other tired parents. There are those in their fifties and sixties moving chairs and tables and cooking soup for shared lunch. There are people in their seventies and eighties organising builders and plumbers and driving the infirm to Meeting. There are people in their nineties (and beyond) steadfastly turning up to Meeting and reading Advices & queries, offering a wisdom and calm and reassuring presence in online Meetings.
Truly inter-generational Meetings are built by our ongoing commitment and kindness, our weekly presence and ministry, and even just moving those tables. This is truly a training in chaplaincy. I offer this piece as a call to show up, to do the things that truly cost, and remember that it may not be fancy, but charity begins at home.
