Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.  (Romans 12:12)

Margaret Fraser

“We came as visitors, but you made us feel at home.”

“It was wonderful to have so many inspirational speakers. That gives me hope.”

“It’s important to have perspectives from across Europe and the rest of the world.”

“I want to say a big thank you for all the help.”

“It was a wonderful first visit to Ireland; now I carry Ireland Yearly Meeting in my heart.”

At the closing session, participants from other European countries rose to express gratitude for the four-day residential meeting. A member of the host Yearly Meeting added:

“I commend the clerking team and the Programme Committee for planning such a full and rich programme, expediting business to allow space for a truly enriching Yearly Meeting.”

“Hi folks. You here for the wee convention?” When the security guy at the campus gate of Stranmillis University College greeted us on the first morning, I knew that, at the third attempt (the first two years thwarted by Covid) we truly were gathering in Belfast. Like the other major denominations, Quakers have never accommodated to the political border set in place in 1921, and Ireland Yearly Meeting covers the island of Ireland.

During our opening worship Patrick Kavanagh’s poem, The Long Garden was read. It begins:

It was the garden of the golden apples,

A long garden between a railway and a road,

In the sow’s rooting where the hen scratches

We dipped our fingers in the pockets of God…

A letter of greeting from Britain Yearly Meeting was read out, together with a summary of other Yearly Meetings’ epistles. The effects of Covid and expressions of hope had been a theme running through all of them, with invitations to draw nearer to God being a common theme among the African and Latin American yearly meetings.

We heard that attendance at Meetings for Worship throughout Ireland had fallen during the pandemic. Responses to hybrid worship had been mixed, with some meetings not wanting to participate, and others engaging readily. At the Yearly Meeting sessions, we embraced it. In addition to parts of Ireland, Friends zoomed in from Britain, Burundi, the Republic of Georgia, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, Russia, and the USA. Between a quarter and a third of those present were on Zoom. It was also good to have the in-person participation of visitors from Belgium, Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Switzerland and the USA. Visitors also joined us from the Belfast Jewish Community, the Catholic Church, the Church of Ireland and the Presbyterian Church.

Barbara Luetke zoomed in across the Atlantic to describe her ministry of writing Quaker historical novels. Given the disapproval of earlier generations of Friends of music, art and fiction, it was refreshing to hear of her approach as a means of outreach. Barbara’s novel The Kendal Sparrow features Elizabeth Fletcher, one of George Fox’s early community. Barbara said that while we often think of the Valiant Sixty as middle-aged, many were aged between 15-30. Women were less visible than men, because most were illiterate and did not keep journals. She invited us to compare early Friends with movements such as Occupy and Black Lives Matter. Our own Yearly Meeting youth movement was nurtured through parallel sessions for children and young people, and we delighted in Public Lecturer Lynn Finnegan’s baby, who attended in person.

Representatives of Quaker organizations addressed global issues. We heard from Tim Gee of Friends World Committee for Consultation, Jaqueline Stillwell of Right Sharing of World Resources, Esther Mombo of St Paul’s University, Kenya (via Zoom), Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge of the Quaker United Nations Office, Geneva and Joëlle DuBois, a board member of the Quaker Council for European Affairs.

Some of the lessons I took away are:

• Intervisitation is our connective tissue.
• George Fox’s 400^th birthday next July will bring many opportunities for outreach and celebration, especially for children.
• The power of ‘enough’ is an important spiritual discipline.
• The love of God ripples out. Think of yourself as an instrument of change. God is walking with you. Remember that you are loved. That love will change your life – and someone else’s.
• Many women in Africa experience discrimination through the sexism, culture, and legacy of colonialism. By joining together in prayer meetings, they challenge the patriarchy.

Writer and artist Lynn Finnegan gave the public lecture on Embodying the Quaker Testimonies in Service of a Living Planet: The Challenge of Asking Beautiful Questions. Among those who have influenced her are Naomi Klein, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Joanna Macy, John O’Donoghue, Parker Palmer and Victoria Safford. Some of what I learned:

• How we talk about something affects how we think of it.
• Nature is sacred.
• Capitalism trains us to look at a world of commodities.
• Don’t jump ship to one side, stand in the gap, the ‘tragic gap’ (Parker Palmer) between what is and what could be. The gap is where the action is.

The recording and text of the Public Lecture are now posted on the Yearly Meeting’s website: https://quakers-in-ireland.ie/2022/08/16/iym-2022-public-lecture/

The other main theme was encapsulated in the session called Peace in Europe and Beyond. It began with a reading of a passage by Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Restorative Justice, followed by passages from Scripture: John 14:27, 2 Corinthians 13:11, and Romans 12:2.

After suffering a year’s solitary confinement in Apartheid South Africa, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge served as Deputy Minister of Defence. She reminded us of Nelson Mandela’s words that courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability to overcome it. After her release, and now a defence minister, she would sit quietly and ask for the Light to guide her to challenge the military doctrine that to achieve peace we must prepare for war. She invited us to prepare for peace.

Mikhail Elizbarashvili of the Republic of Georgia heard a call to collect medical supplies and take them, in person, to Ukraine. He described his two-day journey from Tbilisi to Kyiv and Irpin. He said that there are 20,000 Ukrainian and 40,000 Russian refugees in Georgia.

Our societies are becoming increasingly militarized, and ‘neutrality’ appears fragile. It’s complicated. The General Secretary of NATO often uses the phrase ‘pre-positioned’. How would it look if we were ‘pre-positioned’ for peace?  How can the early days of the peace testimony inform the present? Or Isaac Penington’s Magistrate’s Protection of the Innocent (1661)? Sydney Bailey’s 1993 Swarthmore Lecture, Peace is a Process, offers a conceptual framework. The World Council of Churches has adopted the doctrine of Just Peace, replacing Just War, thanks to the work of Quaker and other Historic Peace Church representatives. One by one, Friends from various countries offered suggestions. We hope to explore further what our contemporary peace testimony might mean to us, individually and as a society.

For more than a decade, Margaret Fraser has accompanied North American Friends to Ireland Yearly Meeting. She has now moved to Northern Ireland.

Thanks to all the Friends in Ireland Yearly Meeting who have supported the students and the school at Brummana near Beirut through our Bursary Appeal. 

As Friends will know, the collapse of the Lebanese economy, following on from the country’s long political problems and the terrible explosion at the port, have left the school, its teachers, the 1250 students and their families in a terrible position, at the same time as Covid has hit. Teachers’ salaries are worth very little, and many are struggling to feed their families. It is really hard to imagine the size of the crisis. For the school, essentials such as text books and computers are impossibly expensive, since they have to be paid for foreign currency, and it is difficult even to get petrol for teachers to get too and from school.

Against this frightening situation, David Gray, the Principal, his team of teachers and the Lebanese Board of Governors are doing an incredible job. The school keeps running well, producing great results, and the students are absolutely delighted to be back on campus, learning together. For them, it is a haven in which they can have a childhood that is being stolen from them. As David Gray says, “Education is key, and perhaps the last hope for Lebanon’s long-term future. If our schools collapse the country has no future.”

Many Old Scholars have rallied to support the school, but the school is now digging into its hard-earned reserves to cover deficits of the last two years, $500,000 in 2020 and $750,000 in 2021, and to pay staff a living wage.

At the same time, we in The Quaker International Educational Trust (QuIET) are seeking to get as much support as possible for bursaries, to help keep the finances going. And we know that this is going to have to continue for a long time. Lebanon’s grave problems will take years to address. 

We in QuIET, and the school, have now launched the “Friends of Brummana”, to Quakers and others interested in the future of the school, and supporting the progressive younger generation in the Lebanon. Recently over 20 Quakers, through Zoom, held an inaugural meeting. Each “Friend of Brummana” will use their time to address local Meetings and research other sources of funding, to ensure that this Quaker school survives. 

Would you like to join this group, joining the online meetings, hearing who is happening in Brummana, meeting teachers and students on line, and seeing how you can support the school? If so, please email me at willdahaire@aim.com and I will link you in. 

In doing so you would be in a long tradition of Irish Friends. In 1869 as the school started to develop, four Quakers visited Beirut to see how they could support. Two of these were for Ireland – Richard Allen and Charles Wakefield. Further, three of the school’s Principal, Robert Davidson, John Henry Turtle and Kenneth Clay – who together led the school from 1932 to 1947 – came from Ireland, all with very strong links to Friends School Lisburn.   And as a Jane Richardson, a Moyallon Quaker, wrote, during her visit in 1887, the people of Brummana “like the Irish, are kind-hearted, generous…; very clannish among themselves, but always hospitable to strangers.” 

It is so important that we continue and deepen this relationship, at this terrible time. As David Gray recently said, “BHS is a school which celebrates freedom of thought and expression and lays the ground rules of any happy, prosperous society. It must continue to do so and to send out its students in the future as leaders of countries and professions as it has done in the past.”

Will Haire

South Belfast

Smith and Pearson Ltd.  An Irish engineering company in the early years of the State

The Friends Historical Committee’s most recent publication, Irwin Pearson’s account of the family firm of Smith and Pearson: Smith and Pearson Ltd.  An Irish engineering company in the early years of the State, tells the story of a firm whose name became almost a household word.

Founded at the beginning of the 20th century by the North of England Quaker John Biglands Pearson, the company initially produced agricultural buildings, gates and fences, but went on to become contractors for structural steel for power plants and other major building projects. In the 1950s they added a division for steel windows which they supplied to the American Embassy, RTE and many private homes. During the second World War steel became unavailable in the Free State, but the British Admiralty gave the company a contract to supply landing craft – an unusual commission for a Quaker firm. Smith and Pearson opened a shipyard at Warrenpoint and the first craft was completed in record time, but this was already too late for the D-day landings. Like many family-owned businesses, Smith and Pearson fell victim to the changes of the 1970s.

This intriguing personal account is available from the Friends Historical Library, Stocking Lane, Rathfarnham, Dublin 16 at €15 (postage included). 

You can contact library@quakers.ie regarding orders also.

At its Annual Meeting, Friends in the European and Middle Eastern Section of FWCC were very moved by the powerful presentation about Friends in the Lebanon, and about Brummana High School, given by Sami Cortas, Clerk of Brummana Meeting – known to Irish Friends – and David Gray, the school’s Principal. 

Founded in 1873, with Irish Friends at times on its staff, it has long been a beacon of light in times of perennial crisis in the country, attracting students of all faiths and background. This diversity and its promotion of tolerance and peaceful resolution have been central to its academic excellence and pastoral compassion. Principal David Gray emphasises that these Quaker values continue to guide its response to the struggles today and its pivotal importance for the future of an ailing country.

David writes, “The August the 4th explosion in Beirut, which ripped out the heart of the city, rendered 300,000 people homeless and killed and maimed thousands, brought to the attention of the world a country which was floundering amidst a sea of troubles. Little Lebanon, surrounded by war torn and impoverished Syria, from which it has received over a million refugees, and Israel, did not have its problems to seek.

In the past 12 months the Lebanese Lira has lost 90% of its value, inflation is rampant, unemployment runs at 50% and 60% of the population lives below the poverty line. And of course, COVID-19, which has raged out of control in a country which has operated without a government for over a year, has taken its toll on a weary, exhausted, and despairing people. Businesses have closed, schools are physically closed, and those who have had the capacity to leave the country have done so for a better life elsewhere.

Yet Lebanon is a beautiful place and a jewel in the Middle Eastern crown, once the home of Middle Eastern banking and free enterprise and still a champion of education as a means to prosperity and to success. At the centre of this jewel lies Brummana High School.

Today it is running a comprehensive education and welfare programme online for its 1250 strong population, aged three to 18, continuing to promote its Quaker values and striving to provide for its families who have been hit hard by all of Lebanon’s woes, through its beleaguered, financial aid scheme.”

Senior BHS students have also commented in recent weeks. Head Prefect Kelly Kanaan emphasised how, despite extremes challenges, “BHS has navigated the world of online education this year, generated successful student-led projects (in April the online Model United Nations Conference hosted 170 student delegates from six countries and 26 schools) and built international bonds and relationships with students abroad.” Yet, as Francesco Jarjoura, Student Council President, said, “Help is now needed to support the school families struggling due to the multiple crises.”

The projected school shortfall this year is £750,000. In July, the Quaker International Education Trust will be running a campaign to raise money to support. Last year QuIET raised £30,000 from its summer appeal. this year we need to double that. An Appeal is going out in The Friend, and brochures distributed. Please think about how you or your Meeting can assist the school by making a donation which will, however small, help to save the education of a child whose future depends on your generosity and who will, through the Quaker education provided, be able to begin to mend the broken society which is so desperately evident in the country today. Without your support, many children who could do much will miss out and flounder where otherwise they might flourish.

If you want to donate now, click here to visit the donations page on Brummana High School’s website or you can visit the QuIET donation page on Just Giving.