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445
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1 Henry Thompson and Jane Ditchfield met with Mark Ballard in his home
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2 on the evening of 11 June 2024
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3
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4 During our opening worship Henry read from QF&P 19.21 (Robert Barclay)
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5 "... I felt a secret power ... I became thus knit and united unto them"
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6
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7 Mark was an undergraduate at the University of Edinburgh, in early
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8 1990s. He moved into a new flat, and although he had agreed to take
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9 over the running of the University Green Society, he was very nervous
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10 about being in charge of his first meeting. His flatmate Anna Levin
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11 (!) agreed a deal, that she would go to Green Society meetings with
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12 him, if he would go to Quaker meeting, which was Victoria Terrace.
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13
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14 Soon he felt the "secret power" and go "knitted in".
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15 He got to know the Young Friends group, which was a help in what was then a pretty large
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16 Meeting. Even after Anna moved away, he kept going to Meeting, and
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17 after a year or so Bronwen Currie asked if he'd think about becoming a Member.
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18 He's been thinking about it ever since.
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19
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20 He moved to Amsterdam, and went to Meeting for Worship there. He read more, and got more of a sense
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21 of how the Quaker thing worked, than he had any need to have done in a
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22 Central Edinburgh on account of its large size.
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23
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24 He moved to Portobello in 2009 and joined the very new Meeting in Mary
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25 Jane and Alastair's home. Soon he realised he had shifted from
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26 "going to" Central Edinburgh to being "a part of" Portobello and
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27 Musselborough. That meant getting much more involved in helping to
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28 keep the Meeting going.
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29
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30 He likes the "secret power" quote, it reflects his own experience.
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31 Mark grew up in a classic Church of England agnostic family, however
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32 not until he came to Quakerism did he recognise the experience of
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33 something "beyond the physical".
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34
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35 He participated in the _Becoming Friends_ course, which among other
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36 things meant he read the "requirements" for becoming a Member for the
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37 first time. The sentence therein "Membership is for those who feel at
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38 home and in the right place within the Quaker community" spoke to him
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39 very deeply.
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40
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41 But that membership meant "that you accept at least the fundamental
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42 elements of being a Quaker: ..." was new to him.
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43 Although he was at home with the "practical expression of inward convictions",
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44 he struggled with "accept the manner of Quaker corporate worship and
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45 the ordering of the meeting's business".
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46
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47 This prompted him to turn to Quaker history, which led to seeing in the flowering of
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48 people's renegotiation of their relationship of with Divine as what
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49 fostered our special structures, Which have lead to us to still being
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50 here today.
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51
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52 He recognised then that Meeting for Church Affairs is a vital part of
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53 being a Quaker, and that meant he was now ready to not just attend LM and AM,
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443
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54 but to attend _as a Member_.
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445
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55
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56 Mark has a long involvement in anarchist activities, and that may seem
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57 to be at odds with Quaker goverance. He quoted "the wheels of God
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58 grind slow, but exceedingly fine". Quaker business is very _slow_.
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59 The call to minister, right here, right now, without any
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60 qualification, feels very different to him.
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61
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62 Mark has a standup comedy routine that includes a "How many Quakers
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63 does it take to change a lightbulb" joke.
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64
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65 He brought us back to the "secret power" and "knitted in" quote, and
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66 recalled that at first he thought he was coming to a gathering of friendly people who were
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67 a bit spiritual, and it took a while, years in fact, to detect the secret
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444
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68 seeking for spirtual guidance that we shared. You're not just sitting
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69 with a bunch of like-minded people, rather you may find what someone
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70 else's spiritual path may not be going where yours is. But that's
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445
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71 actually a very important aspect of Quakerism for him.
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72
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73 Meeting for Worship and the are a great resolution of the Protestant dilemma,
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444
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74 that there is no barrier between God and us.
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75 Right Ordering does belong as a religious test for being Quaker.
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76 [HT and MB discuss theory of membership]
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77 Environmental Protest Workshop on decision making, democratic process,
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78 anarchist consensus decision process, ceding authority to someone in a
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79 protest in order to make us safe, you take it for all of us and it is
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80 by definition right. So the same for MCA: you aren't there, you
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81 uphold them for the decision the make.
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82 JD: I agree about the respnsibilty/rights relationship, but you can
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83 also take initiative [ref joke]
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84 MB: Musselb members are interested in a 3rd weekly meeting, and
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85 although I'd rather that didn't happen, I would uphold them and attend
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86 if they decide to go ahead. Just because I don't want to organise it
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87 doesn't mean I won't support them if they do.
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88 [A complicated history]
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89 MB: My love of Quakers, ref. Anna and the Green Party story. There
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90 was a MFA about same-sex marriage, when (before York) a male couple had asked
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91 for a ceremony of commitment, and it was a difficult MFA. And the SGP
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92 was in some internal difficulties, where when you won a vote on a
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93 problematic issue, if you 'won' the vote, you tried you best to get
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94 rid of the losers, whereas the MCA worked very hard to support _all_
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95 the people there, to respect their pain and acknowledge it, respecting
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96 that of God in the people on the "other side".
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97 We are happy to recommend membership for MB, it's "a full stop on my
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98 process of discernment on whether I should become a Member" and it
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99 fills me with joy to join in the recommendation.
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