Henry Thompson and Jane Ditchfield met with Mark Ballard in his home
on the evening of 11 June 2024

During our opening worship Henry read from Quaker Faith & Practice
19.21 (Robert Barclay) "... I felt a secret power ... I became thus
knit and united unto them"

Mark was an undergraduate at the University of Edinburgh in the early
1990s.  He moved into a new flat, and although he had agreed to take
over the running of the University Green Society, he was very nervous
about being in charge of his first meeting.  His flatmate Anna Levin
(!) agreed a deal, that she would go to Green Society meetings with
him, if he would go to Quaker Meeting, which was Victoria Terrace.

Soon he felt the "secret power" and got "knitted in".  He got to know
the Young Friends group, which was a help in what was then a pretty
large Meeting.  Even after Anna moved away, he kept going to Meeting,
and after a year or so Bronwen Currie asked if he'd think about
becoming a Member.  He's been thinking about it ever since.

He moved to Amsterdam, and went to Meeting for Worship there.  He read
more, and got more of a sense of how the Quaker thing worked, than he
had any need to have done in a Central Edinburgh on account of its
large size.

He moved to Portobello in 2009 and joined the new Meeting in Mary
Jane and Alastair's home.  Soon he realised he had shifted from
"going to" Central Edinburgh to being "a part of" Portobello and
Musselburgh.  That meant getting much more involved in helping to
keep the Meeting going.

He likes the "secret power" quote, it reflects his own experience.
Mark grew up in a classic Church of England agnostic family, however
not until he came to Quakerism did he recognise the experience of
something "beyond the physical".

He participated in the _Becoming Friends_ course, which among other
things meant he read the "requirements" for becoming a Member for the
first time.  The sentence therein "Membership is for those who feel at
home and in the right place within the Quaker community" spoke to him
very deeply.

But that membership meant "that you accept at least the fundamental
elements of being a Quaker: ..." was new to him.  Although he was at
home with the "practical expression of inward convictions", he
struggled with "accept the manner of Quaker corporate worship and the
ordering of the meeting's business".

This prompted him to turn to Quaker history, which led to seeing in
the flowering of people's renegotiation of their relationship of with
Divine as what fostered our special structures, Which have lead to us
to still being here today.

He recognised then that Meeting for Church Affairs is a vital part of
being a Quaker, and that meant he was now ready to not just attend
Local Meeting and Area Meeting, but to attend _as a Member_.

Mark has a long involvement in anarchist activities, and that may seem
to be at odds with Quaker governance.  He quoted "the wheels of God
grind slow, but exceedingly fine".  Quaker business is very _slow_.
The call to minister, right here, right now, without any
qualification, feels very different to him.

Mark has a standup comedy routine that includes a "How many Quakers
does it take to change a lightbulb" joke.

He brought us back to the "secret power" and "knitted in" quote, and
recalled that at first he thought he was coming to a gathering of
friendly people who were a bit spiritual, and it took a while, years
in fact, to detect the secret seeking for spiritual guidance that we
shared.  You're not just sitting with a bunch of like-minded people,
rather you may find that someone else's spiritual path may not be
going where yours is.  But that's actually a very important aspect of
Quakerism for him.  So yes, he has come to see that Right Ordering
does belong as a religious test for being Quaker.

Meeting for Worship and Meeting for Church Affairs are a great
resolution of the Protestant dilemma, that follows from the removal of
the barrier between God and us.

All three of us shared some thoughts about the meaning of Membership
and where it fits in our Quaker vision of decision making in worship.

Mark's particular contribution to this started by telling us about a
specific personal experience that he shares regularly when leading an
Environmental Protest Workshop on decision making.  He contrasted it
with normal democratic process, and the anarchist consensus decision
process.  In preparation for a particular collective non-violent
action, it was crucial that all the participants agreed to cede
authority to one particular person in the group to make the call to
bring the action to an end.  This amounted to all of them agreeing
that "to make us safe, you take this decision for all of us and it
will be, by definition, right: no discussion, we will just end the
action immediately you say so".

So the same for Meeting for Church Affairs: even if you aren't
there, you uphold them for the decision they made.

Mark described a Quaker case where a decision was probably going to
support a project which he would have preferred not to see happen:
"Although I'd rather that didn't happen, I would uphold them and
[participate] if they decide to go ahead.  Just because I don't want
to organise it doesn't mean I won't support them if they do".

He offered another example contrasting his love of Quakers and
involvement with the Green Party, recalling the Meeting for Church
Affairs in Central Edinburgh which had to decide a response to Derek
McLean and Mal Cowtan's request for a ceremony of commitment in
Victoria Terrace. This was quite some time _before_ Yearly Meeting at
York adopted a clear position on marriage as being "equally available
to same-sex and opposite-sex couples".  It was a difficult Meeting for
Church Affairs, which did eventually find unity in agreement to hold
the ceremony.

Now when the Scottish Green Party was in some internal disagreement
about an issue, and it was voted on, then if you 'won' the vote, you
tried your best to present a united front by getting _rid_ of the
'losers'.

Whereas that Meeting for Church Affairs worked very hard to support
_all_ the people who were there, _including_ those who were unhappy
with the result, to respect their pain and acknowledge it, respecting
that of God in the people on the "other side".

We are happy to recommend membership for Mark Ballard.  Mark said
"This is a full stop on my process of discernment on whether I should
become a Member" and "it fills me with joy to join in the
recommendation".

Mark Ballard
Jane Ditchfield
Henry Thompson