A weather vane against a bright blue sky. Photo: By Leonie Clough on Unsplash.
Eye - 11 April 2025
Eye dives into the archive and discovers an article called 'Daring to be inconsistent', then finds William Penn in a modern newspaper advice column
On this day
An aspect of Quakerism that has always appealed to Eye is that each Friend is free to develop spiritually however they are led. Our lack of a creed, but unity around core testimonies, is a challenge but also a gift.
Another challenge Eye has had over the years is feeling ‘Quaker enough’ – especially when you see such amazing examples of witness.
So, as Eye peered into the archive this month, the title ‘Daring to be inconsistent’ asked to be read.
On 11 April 1924 Alfred Lowry wrote: ‘Consistency is a jewel, or so at least our copy-books gave us to understand. But Friends have not been conspicuous for their fondness for jewellery, and there are occasions when it is at least as important to forgo the jewel of consistency as to live above the need for a sapphire pendant of an emerald tiara.
‘Let no one suppose that this is going to be a plea for wobbliness. A well-advertised printer makes it a point of pride that his labels “stick and stay stuck.” The virtue of stick-to-it-iveness is too thoroughly recognised to need defending here, and certainly no brief is held for its opposite vice. But it does make a difference to what we stay stuck.
‘Openness of mind, and openness of life – that is what we really are thinking about. The recognition that “new occasions” really do “teach new duties”…
‘It would make a most worthwhile study to examine the lives of those who have really made the spiritual history of the Society of Friends, noting the instances where they have dared to be inconsistent, changing their occupation, their place of abode, the whole course of their lives. The names crowd too thick and fast for enumeration here; the biography of William Allen furnishes a typical and striking example. They “sat lightly” to all mundane things, and though they may seldom have had occasion to tear down their barns and build greater, their lives were “rich towards God”.
‘A rusty and time-worn symbol of inconsistency is the weather-vane. We are warned of the danger of being “blown about by every wind of doctrine”, and that is a kind of inconsistency that no one would seriously advocate. But it was told us by the Greatest Teacher of all that the wind of the Spirit “bloweth where it listeth”. If we would show forth the direction of this wind, we must dare to be weather-vanes…
‘Try all things – even if it means sometimes going down a path, stopping, and coming back in one’s racks (if the light shines behind us) – “hold fast to that which is good”: provided it be not merely that “ancient good”, which time has made “uncouth”. Always we ought to live in a spirit of expecting the unexpected, with something of the vision of Pastor Robinson’s farewell words to the Pilgrim Fathers setting sail from Leyden: “There is more truth and light yet to breake forth out of His holy Word.”’
Dear William…
Rupert Price, of Winchmore Hill Meeting, spotted William Penn in an unexpected place – an advice column on The Independent online entitled: ‘I’m obsessed with my boyfriend’s ex – and it’s becoming unhealthy.’
The column, which can be read in full at https://bit.ly/WilliamPennAdvice, begins with a reader’s letter, explaining how jealousy of their boyfriend’s former partner is becoming debilitating.
He writes: ‘I’m convinced that one day he’ll realise he’s made a huge mistake and want to get back with the love of his life. It’s really coming between us now – we’re arguing a lot and it’s always about his ex. Please help.’
The columnist, Vix, begins their reply: ‘It’s no wonder that the British writer and Quaker William Penn once wrote that the jealous are “troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves” – torment being the operative word. The problem with feeling jealous – an entirely natural and human emotion that we all experience – is that the person it hurts most of all, in the end, is you.’
