|
65
|
1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
|
|
|
2 <!DOCTYPE html
|
|
|
3 PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
|
|
|
4 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta name="copyright" content="Copyright (C) 2010 Henry S. Thompson"/><meta http-equiv="Content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/><style type="text/css">
|
|
|
5 @page { size: A4 portrait; margin: 2cm}
|
|
|
6 @media screen {
|
|
|
7 body {width: 20cm; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto}
|
|
|
8 }
|
|
|
9 body {font-size: 12pt}
|
|
|
10 pre.code {font-family: monospace
|
|
|
11 font-size: 80%;
|
|
|
12 font-weight: bold;
|
|
|
13 line-height: 120%;
|
|
|
14 padding-top: 0.2em;
|
|
|
15 padding-bottom: 0.2em;
|
|
|
16 padding-left: 1em;
|
|
|
17 padding-right: 1em;
|
|
|
18 border-style: solid;
|
|
|
19 border-left-width: 1em;
|
|
|
20 border-top-width: thin;
|
|
|
21 border-right-width: thin;
|
|
|
22 border-bottom-width: thin;
|
|
|
23 border-color: #95ABD0;
|
|
|
24 color: #00428C;
|
|
|
25 background-color: #E4E5E7;
|
|
|
26 }
|
|
|
27 pre {margin-left: 0em}
|
|
|
28 ul.nolabel { margin: 0; margin-left: -2.5em}
|
|
|
29 ul.naked li { list-style-type: none }
|
|
|
30 ol ol {list-style-type: lower-alpha}
|
|
|
31 div.ndli { margin-bottom: 1ex }
|
|
|
32 .math {font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', serif}
|
|
|
33 .sub {font-size: 80%; vertical-align: sub}
|
|
|
34 .termref {text-decoration: none; color: #606000}
|
|
|
35 div.toc h2 {font-size: 120%; margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 0em}
|
|
|
36 div.toc h4 {font-size: 100%; margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 0em;
|
|
|
37 margin-left: 1em}
|
|
|
38 div.toc h1 {font-size: 140%; margin-bottom: 0em}
|
|
|
39 div.toc ul {margin-top: 1ex}
|
|
|
40 .byline {font-size: 120%}
|
|
|
41 div.figure {margin-left: 2em}
|
|
|
42 div.caption {font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; margin-top: 1em}
|
|
|
43 i i {font-style: normal}
|
|
|
44 blockquote.vanilla {margin-left: 1em; border: solid 1px; background: rgb(238,234,230);
|
|
|
45 padding: .5ex .5em}
|
|
|
46 </style><title>Diana Horne: Report on a meeting</title></head><body style="font-family: DejaVu Sans, Arial; background: rgb(254,250,246)">
|
|
|
47 <div style="text-align: center">
|
|
|
48 <h1>Diana Horne: Report on a meeting</h1>
|
|
|
49 <div class="byline">Henry S. Thompson</div>
|
|
|
50 <div class="byline">Mary Woodward</div>
|
|
|
51 <div class="byline"> 4 Sep 2010</div>
|
|
|
52 </div>
|
|
|
53
|
|
|
54 <div>
|
|
|
55 <h2>1. Diana Horne: Report on a meeting in conjunction with her application
|
|
|
56 for membership</h2>
|
|
|
57 <p>At the request of SE Scotland Area Meeting, Diana, Henry and Mary met over supper at Mary's flat on 1 September 2010.
|
|
|
58 After a pleasant supper and some quiet worship, we moved into a conversation
|
|
|
59 about Diana's experience with Friends and her desire to become a member.</p>
|
|
66
|
60 <p>An Anglican by birth (although her father had previously spent some
|
|
65
|
61 time calling himself a Quaker), church has always had a place in Diana's life,
|
|
|
62 but as an adult she spent many years looking for one in which she could feel
|
|
|
63 comfortable. She had been aware of Quakers as a result of their public
|
|
|
64 witness, but had never met one until coming to a show at Venue 40 in 1995, and
|
|
|
65 she has been a regular attender since 1997.</p>
|
|
|
66 <p>She found Quakers and Quaker worship a welcome change from other churches
|
|
|
67 in the way that she felt that she remained in control, and the way in which
|
|
|
68 Faith and Practice, particularly Advices and Queries, offered clear and helpful
|
|
|
69 guidance, without the obscurity and negative emphases she had found in other
|
|
|
70 churches' use of the Bible.</p>
|
|
|
71 <p>Recently she has been involved with Jasmine Perinpanayagam's testimonies
|
|
|
72 study group, where she helped organise the recent meeting with representatives
|
|
|
73 of the Army. This experience gave her a strong sense of the value of the Peace
|
|
|
74 Testimony, seeing its common sense and emphasis on equal rights, its lack of
|
|
|
75 sectarianism, as pointing towards a better way of living for us all in a really
|
|
|
76 usable way. The Hungarian Uprising of 1956 had made a very strong impact on
|
|
|
77 her as a child, so finding this kind of helpful response to the violence in the
|
|
|
78 world has been particularly important to her.</p>
|
|
|
79 <p>She would probably have moved towards membership sooner, but the demands
|
|
|
80 of caring for her brother Stuart, and a feeling that she didn't want to join
|
|
|
81 without him doing so also, intervened until recently.</p>
|
|
|
82 <p>Another aspect of Friends that is important to her is our
|
|
|
83 egalitarian stance on Gay and Lesbian rights. She experiences Meeting for
|
|
|
84 Worship as a valuable shared quiet time, a time to think and benefit from both
|
|
|
85 the silence and the spoken ministry of the group. She has not yet ministered
|
|
|
86 herself, but is comfortable with the expectation that she will do so when the
|
|
|
87 time is right.</p>
|
|
|
88 <p>She is comfortable with the Christian origins of the Society, without
|
|
|
89 being uncritical of some aspects of the established Church, in particular its
|
|
|
90 emphasis on sin and unworthiness. She very much values being part of a more
|
|
|
91 open, like-minded, group. Quaker guidance towards a good and useful life
|
|
|
92 represents a much more positive kind of Christianity for her.</p>
|
|
|
93 <p>She has a lot of experience in various forms of group work from earlier
|
|
|
94 jobs, and hopes to find ways of bringing that into service to the Meeting. We
|
|
|
95 agreed that she already feels and demonstrates a key aspect of membership,
|
|
|
96 which is taking responsibility for the Meeting in a practical way, taking a
|
|
|
97 share in the running of the place. One way in which she hopes to see the
|
|
|
98 Meeting grow is in providing more opportunities to talk with Friends about our
|
|
|
99 insights, experience and concerns, building on the experience of Hearts and
|
|
|
100 Minds and similar organised study groups.</p>
|
|
|
101 <p>In conclusion, it is clear to us that Diana is already a Member in all
|
|
|
102 but name, and we hope Area Meeting can ratify this.</p>
|
|
67
|
103 <p>Diana has read this report and is happy for it to go forward to Area Meeting.</p>
|
|
65
|
104 </div>
|
|
|
105
|
|
|
106 </body></html> |
