Friday 2 May 2014

Quaker Castle Tour part 4- The walls. Digging down deep, re-discovering foundations.

On November 9th 1989, the Berlin wall dividing East from West Germany began being dismantled by crowds of ordinary people. Other parts of the world watched mesmerised on TV. All border controls ended on July 1st 1990 and from October 3rd 1990 Germany was recognised as being one country again. At about this time I came to realise how afraid my parents had been during my childhood of atomic bombs, fearing at certain moments of international crisis that someone would lose patience and there would be immediate destruction. Although such fears have by no means gone away, it would seem to me that bringing up children so soon after two World Wars and the invention of the atomic bomb, must have seemed a huge risk. Not surprisingly, my generation has grown up with a very strong perception that opposing ideals as symbolised by walls built to divide people, are almost invariably bad.

These times it might also seem that walls have been superseded by the technical advances of air-power. Whereas Emperor Hadrian had been able to see his strategic line of defence across Northern Britain as a complete solution against barbarian attacks on the Roman Empire, we are able to view this architectural feature on our computers using satellites from space. In a comperable way, those walls of identity and hostility towards each other created by religion are very often regarded with a different perspective, using additional knowledge available through science, the intellect and reason.



It would seem of some significance that early Quakers also grew up at a time when walls were being taken down. In the past castles had been built with archers in mind so it was an advantage to have strategic high points, and narrow arrow slits in the walls. The introduction of gunpowder with its associated weaponry obliged many castle owners to reduce the size of the target by lowering walls, strengthening them with banks from the inside, and increasing the size of arrow-slits so musketeers could use them. Early Quakers reduced the impact of theology by removing the dependency on creeds, strengthened their defences through their emphasis upon truth, and through toleration, increasingly widened the windows.

During the years of English Commonweath, castles were systematically destroyed to prevent a resumption of the recent Civil War. At this time of so many religious sects and the rapid growth of Quakerism, for many people this challenge to traditional knowledge and an understood structure of society seemed like gunpowder to all they held dear. As it seemed the world was being turned upside-down, subjects tended to be more afraid than inspired. Surrounded by so much destruction, it seemed they were to be part of a process in which there would soon be nothing left.

This process of destroying castle walls has since continued. For many Quakers it is now quite understandably assumed that any barrier will limit the availability of knowledge. In wishing to embrace diversity any type of obstruction might serve to exclude people. As a result it may sometimes be very hard to tell whether our priorities and way of Meeting for Worship are still within the castle.

This blurring of identity can make us particularly difficult to find. To compound this problem, a gradual process of evolution and the adoption of new priorities makes us a moving target. At times we throw up an intellectual fog through the way in which we communicate. Such tactics may evade some of the criticism you get with religion but does not make us particularly strong as a castle. Instead of making us more accessible to other faiths, encouraging the process of dialogue, this apparent subterfuge can make it very much harder for other organisations to trust us.

It may be helpful to remember how the walls of a castle could also provide protection and a livelihood through trade. In times of trouble people would come in from the surrounding countryside, believing that the presence of a castle, its ownership and the values it had come to represent might offer them safety. Rather than scale the walls, they approached respectfully and openly through the gate, free to come and leave as they chose, knowing each time they entered the expectations of those responsible for the castle and their own level of commitment.

These days Quaker castles may provide a similar facility for those troubled by life's dilemmas, in need of some support and for Seekers after truth. We may need at times to dig down into our Quaker history, well beyond that sense of identity built up through culture, to re-discover our walls. Whatever height or strength we find them, they mark a boundary, an honest identity, letting people know we are there.



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