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my bad
author Henry S. Thompson <ht@inf.ed.ac.uk>
date Sun, 12 Jun 2022 16:21:12 +0100
parents ross_armstrong_report.txt@a46822d59997
children b8ec0f195b39
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1 Report of a meeting held on 23 May 2022 at the home of Ross Armstrong
2
3 Ross Armstrong
4 Robin Leibman
5 Henry S Thompson
6
7 Ross welcomed us to his home, and after a period of worship he shared
8 the history of his experience of Friends. His mother was raised a
9 Quaker by _her_ mother, a life-long Member. His father joined Friends
10 after his experience in a prisoner-of-war camp during World War II,
11 attending Meeting at Leyburn in Yorkshire.
12
13 The family had connections with Brummana, where the family spent time
14 when he was young when his father was Head there, then lived near
15 Jordans when they returned to the UK, where he attended a
16 'progressive' school with a Quaker head.
17
18 Although his upbringing was in a Christian environment, as a young
19 adult Ross was at first not a church-goer. He was however always
20 conscious of a need for a source of guidance in how he should live his
21 life, and for a while he looked for help with life decisions from the
22 _I Ching_, but that didn't last as responsibilities grew.
23
24 During the 1980s Ross became involved in Palestinian issues. He began
25 working as a furniture maker and in the building trades, then
26 assistant manager at Hadeel, the Palestian shop on Queen Street.
27
28 Ross started observing Ramadan around the time of the 1st Gulf War,
29 giving him an active, pervasive engagement with religious practice.
30 He began studing Arabic, a life-long project thereafter. He learned
31 the 1st Sura of the Quran, which became the cornerstone of his
32 practice. The nature of this, as a prayer that begins with 'In the
33 name of Allah, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful' [Ross,
34 please replace with your preferred translation, this is just the first
35 one I found online], is so different from the caricature of Muslims as
36 fanatics.
37
38 Ross has been coming to Meeting for Worship at Portobello and
39 Musselburgh for four or five years. He's been impressed by the depth
40 of some of the Quakers he has met. He realised recently that he has
41 made the transition from a "committed non-Attender" to acknowledging
42 he _was_ an Attender. He has really appreciated the Quaker method of
43 decision-making, in contrast to other experiences of committees.
44
45 Turning to the question of Membership, Ross recalled that last autumn
46 his mother, who was a Trustee of Brummana, asked him to consider
47 applying for the Headship. He applied, and although he was not
48 appointed, the experience made him think again about Membership.
49 Seeing the achievements, the remarkable work that has been done by
50 Quakers, in particular Andrew Clark, a friend of his mother, led him
51 to recognition of how awesome can be some people's achievements,
52 leaving us a bit ashamed by comparison: how are _we_ working for the
53 Kingdom of Heaven.
54
55 Ross finished by summarising where this has led him
56 * "Friends of Truth" can be goal and a daunting challenge.
57 * "What I think of God" is not relevant, what matters is what 'he'
58 has to say to me about how to live my life.
59
60 And a few other topics we touched on:
61
62 Ross's wife is as it were a lay preacher in the Zen temple in
63 portobello. He sees a lot of connections between their practice and
64 scriptures and ours.
65
66 Ross sometimes gets into trouble for telling the truth.
67
68 Meeting for Worship for Business can be an awe-filled experience.
69
70 Once as Ross was leaving the Quaker Meeting House in Ramallah, he was
71 asked "are Quakers Christians?". Well, perhaps not as you probably
72 mean that: we have no Christology...
73
74 Are the challenges for Ross in becoming a Member: Vietnam, Palestine,
75 now Ukraine, and Extinction Rebellion, are difficulties. Ross worries
76 about the apparent need to take sides: being driven by fear is not a
77 good starting point for decisions.
78
79 As we reached the end of a discussion about the nature of Membership,
80 Ross said "I'm ready to be a member of the crew rather than a
81 passenger", and Henry and Robin agreed.