Regime Change

 Quaker officers stay in position for three years. Alan, our clerk, has done his three years and has stood down. He is succeeded by Ailz and our friend Jackie- who will serve as co-clerks. They're people who get things done.  We were going to have a team of four- but the other two who were willing- myself and Edna- are already elders and it says somewhere in the Book of Rules That You Can Obey If You Want To that a person shouldn't hold the office of clerk and elder at the same time. Privately I'm relieved- and am happy to pretend that this rule is binding even though it isn't. I don't want to be running things- at least not in name- though I'm happy to function as an eminence grise....

More Quakery Stuff

 British Quakerism is organised in tiers- like the Tower of Babel. These are local, area, regional and national. I have decided to concentrate on the local level. Whether local is the topmost tier or the bottommost I shouldn't like to say. 

Anyway, being intensely local, I've no great desire to participate in regional events- the most recent of which in the South Eastern region hosted a speaker who was addressing the question "Do Quakers Pray?"

An additional reason for not attending was that I already know the answer- which is, "Some do and some don't".

Quakerism is an ethos not a creed- which incidentally, I'm told- is why local ecumenical councils won't break bread with us.  I don't know if this is actually the case but Ailz once went to a supposedly ecumenical get together for the Womens World Day of Prayer and it turned out to be more Catholic than the Pope and she came away saying "Never again".  So they're probably right in thinking we'd be a bad fit.

A propos all of this I've been wondering what it is that all Quakers have in common- and came to the conclusion that the only thing we'd be sure to agree on is the name "Quaker" and/or "Friend".