Am I alone in thinking that ours is a very manipulated society, where the majority of people are kept in their place by a diet of endless reality tv shows and rampant advertising to encourage consumerism? We are also encouraged daily to take part in on-line poker games and endless bingo sessions – without having to leave our own homes. Add to that convenience food that requires very little cooking and cheerful adverts for pay day loans to get people in more debt and you have a recipe for disaster. Government ought to be concerned about such things but they are not. It suits the purposes of Government and big business to have a comotose society, so that profits can flourish and dissent limited. Of course, I could just be turning into a ‘grumpy old man’ but I think not. I just feel sad that people are led to believe that a reality tv lifestyle and the ‘fame’ it brings is wholly desirable and that you can get rich quick by appearing on a game show or gambling on line.
In our Advices and Queries, we are asked to, ‘Consider which of the ways to happiness offered by society are truly fulfilling and which are potentially corrupting and destructive. Be discriminating when choosing means of entertainment and information. Resist the desire to acquire possessions or income through unethical investment, speculation or games of chance.’
This advice seems trivial compared to others, but in the light of contemporary life, it is spot on. As Friends, we may need to do as much work changing these elements of society as we do when we consider climate change and sustainability.
Small round apples
Fallen onto the footpath
Lie green and golden.
Others hang above
Waiting for the wind to shake
Them to earth beneath.
Inside each apple
The seeds of generation
Await their birth.
Small round apples,
Are nothing remarkable
Yet are everything.
In our Quaker quest for economic justice, perhaps we should give some thought to the pernicious use of advertising. It strikes me that our society is controlled by people who want us to do no more than shop, regardless of whether we get into debt or not. Governments do not take a moral stand to prevent this happening but, by failing to do so they encourage it. Advertising mostly persuades us to buy things we don’t need and pay day loans and credit cards encourage people to spend money they do not have. This at a time of cut-backs and austerity. This lack or action by all political parties means that the poorest are easily turned into thoughtless consumers and debtors. This addiction is enhanced by the illusion of fame and reality shows like the fatuous ‘The Only Way is Essex’, ‘X Factor’ and ‘Big Brother’. There is another way…….let’s try to rebuild a sense of community so that the only way is where we live. If we made daily life more neighbourly and co-operative, we could start to end the cancer of Consumerism that is eating us all up.
I am surprised that this year’s lecture referred to Cuba’s green revolution as a success story “that is feeding the nation”. Organic farming is a laudable,but small, change in Cuban agriculture but it does not feed the nation. Cuba still imports most of its food and appears to be also committed to genticially modified food. Pam Lunn and others please take note. In our wish to be greener than green, we should not veer from our Quaker concern for Truth. For a balanced view of Cuban agriculture, follow the attached link.
http://www.foodmagazine.org.uk/articles/cubas_food_production_revolution/
The Vital Spark
The introduction to this Victorian Diary contains the following explanation of Quakerism that is surprisingly modern. This is how it begins:
To me it appears that, in general, professors of Christianity have no realisation of the religion they profess. The religion in vogue in most Christian Churches is one that fills the soul with doubts and superstitions, false fears, false hopes, and, reduced to its naked meaning/ is so terrible that no one who really believed it and realised its meaning could spend a happy hour upon this earth. To me it seems that this kind of Christianity is losing its hold on England. To truly believe what intelligence and heart cannot respond to is an impossibility. I must have a religion, if I have any, that does not contradict what I know are the deepest, purest, and best sentiments of justice, mercy and love I find within me, and which I reverently believe are part of the Divine Spirit. I find that rather than search for the truth, or fearlessly examine the humanly devised and painted picture ofChristianity, the back is turned and the soul commanded to accept what it can only pretend to believe. This pretence is often misnamed ” faith.”
Quakerism at least divests religion from all outward and material phenomena, from all anthropomorphising of the Deity, and brings forth something more than a theory, which philosophers or ecclesiastics may gainsay, but cannot disprove, and which commends itself to the open soul as to the open mind. First, then, Quakerism does not unequivocally demand that the Christian must believe that God is a Being in the likeness of man, a gigantic Creator sitting in the skies, who once upon a time in space called into existence infinite numbers of celestial bodies just to light this infinitely little world, and then proceeded with this world s making and history as told in the Bible at His dictation and out of His ” mouth.”
It is not imperative on the Quaker to believe that God has a ” mouth ” or spoke with a ” voice,” or that He showed His ” body ” to Moses, or that He planned and fixed our individual destinies. The Quaker can, without any loosening of his faith, refuse to say ” I believe the Bible to be the Word of God,” though he could never say ” The Bible does not contain the Word of God.”* He may believe it to be written with poor human hands and by fallible men, but he will believe that his own share of the Divine Spirit within him can testify as to what is declared by the Spirit of God in the Scriptures, and that in Divine ordering the Scriptures were written for our guidance and edification, and that they contain evidence of inspiration. Quakers, however, do not limit inspiration to the writers of the Bible. I think they would claim all good words, thoughts and deeds as inspired.
Britain Yearly Meeting has asked Friends to take forward the issue of Economic Justice and Sustainability through their Area and Local Meetings. Friends House give a useful list of resources and suggest some sensible reading. I can’t find any references,however, to economic justice in relation to pay day loans and on-line bingo. Over the last few years pay day loan companies have proliferated in the UK, as have on-line bingo sites. Pay day loan companies charge APR at between 199% and 5569% per annum and obtaining a loan on-line can be done in a matter of seconds. TV adverts for such companies tend to feature attractive young people saying how easy it is to get a loan. Similarly attractive people are used by on-line bingo companies to entice people in with ‘free’ money so that they can be persuaded to take part and pay more.
Both pay day loan companies and on-line bingo companies are likely to appeal to the most vulnerable in our society, people who are already strapped for cash or desperate for ‘easy’ money. At a time of major recession, such people are liable to be persuaded into taking on loans at very high rates of interest or run up debts to on line bingo companies.
Our Advices and Queries No 39 talks about resisting the desire to acquire possessions through unethical investment, speculation or games of chance. These references now seem somewhat outdated. However, bearing in mind that few Quakers probably need a pay day loan or play bingo, I suppose that’s understandable.
It is almost a year ago that Bewdley Friends lost Shirley Tinley. Shirley was a much loved Friend who played an enormous role in restoring our historic Meeting House. This week a second blow has hit the Tinley Family, because her grandaughter Amy’s fiancee, Lt Daniel Clack, has been killed in Afghanistan. Friends know that War is no respecter of persons, and we do not know why some families get more than their fair share of tragedy. What we can do is to keep the Tinley family in our thoughts and prayers at this difficult time and hold them in the Light.
Friends at Britain Yearly Meeting on Tuesday this week considered Economic Justice and contributors had a range of opinions on the subject. Most were sound, but there were those whose contributions seemed more political than ‘Spirit led’ and at least one speaker thought that if there’s a problem Rupert Murdoch must have something to do with it.
One of my problems with Friends is that they do have a tendency to ‘talk Quaker’ and there was very little reference to the work on Economic Justice and Equality undertaken by other denominations, organisations and charities both in the UK and the World.
Friends also tend to talk ‘big’ and focus on global capitalism and multi-nationals as part of the Gordian Knot that Quakers need to address and untangle. Other Friends, however, can’t undertsand why, by setting an example and living an ethical lifestyle themselves, other Quakers do not follow suit.
The title of this blog is a bit tongue in cheek, but there is a reasons that Mums, and many others on low incomes, shop at Iceland rather than buying organic food and ecologically friendly washing powder.
The truth is that hundreds of thousands of people in this country, like elsewhere in the world, exist on poor benefits or low wages. On top of that, many are likely to be in debt and to have other problems. For them, cheap food is the only food they can afford and trying to pay off debt is an on-going and terrible problem. Small wonder then, that they often scrape together to buy lottery tickets or are the likely prey of pay-day loan shops and on-line bingo. I don’t think I could ever imagine anyone in their situations going to Britain Yearly Meeting with a voice to be heard.
On reflection, I was really concerned that the rest of the day was not devoted to work shops where we could consider the many, many issues around Economic Justice in some detail. Economic systems are complex and require consideration in more detail than the topic at Britain Yearly Meeting allowed for. There wasn’t much room either for Friends to consider what they already do, or could do individually in their own communities and in many of those the Quaker presence is often quite small or non-existent.
We are about to enter the second phase of the Double Dip Recession and this means that more people will require help and support. I only hope that all Friends will find some means of contributing towards this locally rather than keeping their eyes fixed on the theme of Economic Justice. Practical action to help others is what is needed rather than a noble Britain Yearly Meeting Minute that doesn’t have any impact in reality.
Early Quakers referred to ‘the seed’ a lot in their writings and many modern Quakers might puzzle over this word and see it as arcane language. Looking again at the Gospel of Mark, the explanation seems quite simple. Jesus used the idea of the ’seed’ because a seed is something small and lifeless. Once a seed is sown, Jesus reminds us, it germinates and grows into a plant that grows and flourishes and, in the end, produces more seeds to germinate and grow. Jesus also reminds us that we never think about this or what a miracle it is. He uses the anaology of the seed to show us that every individual can change for the better is they become less selfish and materialistic and more aware of doing things for others.
So Friends, when we come across reference to the ’seed’ amongst early Quakers, don’t dismiss it as a meaningless word. See it instead as a simple lesson in how all of us can change for the better. The ’seed’ is indeed at the heart of all our testimonies.
