Comment

Comment by Raye on 8th mo. 28, 2009 at 5:28pm

Martin, I enjoyed and appreciated this. Good reminder that we can focus so much on feel-good that we gloss over the fact that there are behaviors that hinder spiritual growth and healthy functioning of the body.

Comment by Nathan Swift on 11th mo. 16, 2008 at 11:55am

While the strictures that were characteristic of Quaker "uniform" in tradition may not have been specifically stated in books of discipline, they were very much a part of the culture for much of the history of the Society, and the practice started early as attested by Margaret Fell's "silly, poor gospel" comment. The point remains that there is a spectrum of applications of principles involved, and any one application, regardless of how traditional is subject to examination according to principles clearly "in the Light." I would venture to say that the books of discipline were sufficiently general that particulars, no matter how widespread never really received formal "certification."

In His Love,
Nate Swift

Comment by Martin Kelley on 11th mo. 16, 2008 at 9:40am

One of the things I'm realizing is that I haven't give examples of from older disciplines. The testimony on plainness is not at all specific about forms of dress; you can read it here and see that it's about the mindset of simplicity. One historian recently delved into records and found that there often wasn't any sort of Quaker dress uniform and that our ideas about that are shaped largely by early 20th century Quaker reenactors who would dress up in their grandmother's bonnets for meetinghouse anniversaries and get mad if anyone were to dress "wrong.'

Bill Taber wrote movingly and tragically of a generation of young Friends in his Conservative yearly who were more familiar with the proper cut of clothing than with the Living Christ, but to me that seems like the same old story of Friends who mistake their yearly meeting culture for Friends' faith. If they had read the corporate-minuted testimonies they would have seen their attention to detail was mis-placed. I realize if I'm going to talk about the old testimonies I need to try to dispell some of the layers of mis-perceptions that have arose.

Comment by Nathan Swift on 11th mo. 16, 2008 at 7:57am

This is a very interesting comment, and should probably have it's own topic for discussion, but for the moment, I will just comment of the difference in views preseted by Martin and Callid as i see them. There is always a tension between ideas, perceptions or general principles and how they are to be applied. There are always some people who don't want to work from principle and discern the particulars of application in their current situation, people who will just say, "Don't talk to me about principles, just tell me what I should do." Martin's point that the SPICE testimonies were formed by generalizing particulars taken from compilations of minutes concerning specific behaviors is only a description of the process of discerning major principles as far as I can see. The point is that we need to see and work from principles, or there is a tendency to make the details or particulars the whole point. To illustrate, there was a perception that Quakers should not participate in the vanity of court dress which had its pervasive reflections in style down to the lower levels of society. Such vanity was rejected and "plain dress" became a norm, later to be seen as part of the "testimony" of Simplicity. So far, no problem. The idea of dressing plainly seems simple, but it is only a little more specific than the idea of simplicity in daily lives. It was not long before "plain dress" became a pretty strict uniform, with colors and patterns held within narrow guidelines. Now you have particular rules of conduct eclipsing the simple rule of plain dress as part of the testimony of Simplicity. It is quite reasonable to formulate fairly simple rules of specific conduct, particularly for those who need to see rules in black and white, but it is also very necessary to recognize that those rules are not set in stone, and are subject to review as they bear out the principles of the Testimonies. Granted that the Testimonies are not principles unique to Quakers, we should hope and strive to make those testimonies a part of our lives with honest evaluations as to how well we are living them. When we have the principles in our hearts, we can discern how the practice will demonstrate it.

In His Love,
Nate Swift