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Friends United Meeting |
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How I Became a Quaker
By Joan A. Browne
Born in Trinidad, West Indies, I was raised an Anglican by my parents and grandparents, so we all attended church and Sunday School. I was confirmed in the Anglican Church and I still remember being in awe when the Bishop touched my forehead while the congregation sang softly: “Breathe on me breath of God.”
Attending Anglican schools through high school, I became a member of a “Low Church” Anglican congregation (one that was more evangelical than the more priestly “High Church”) when I went to England as a student.
At age 24, I traveled to Canada to be married. My fiancé was a student at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and a Methodist. We were married in the United Church of Canada, because the Methodists were part of that denomination and because we had a friend whose father was a United Church minister who married us. Over the years, we attended either Anglican or United churches, but somehow we never felt committed to become fully participating members of any church.
Background about Nova Scotia helps to explain why we never felt we belonged in any of these congregations. During the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, slaves who fought on the British side settled in Canada with other Loyalists. In Nova Scotia, they were promised land for farming, but their lands were not very arable, so they remained a depressed population, creating an underclass of Black people. This resulted in a de facto system of racial discrimination, which affected all people of color in Nova Scotia. So, while we would always feel like welcome guests in church, we were never encouraged to participate fully.
When our first child reached his third birthday, I began to feel the need to ensure that he had some religious education. Our feeling of alienation made this problematic. I was a librarian in those days, working in the Cataloguing Department of Dalhousie University. One day a book came across my desk called “Friends and Their Children” by Harold Loukes. It seemed the answer to my prayer and searching for my children’s religious upbringing. Up to that time, my experience of Quakers had come mainly from reading and watching documentaries and movies telling about their part in the abolition of slavery. This book about Quaker religious education galvanized my interest. To me, the approach exemplified what Jesus had taught us: it was tolerant and inclusive without sacrificing Christian principles. I liked the idea of acknowledging the intrinsic worth of every human being and the primacy of love in our relationships. I felt our children should learn these values, so I immediately began enquiring about a local group, but there were none at that time.
Within a year, several things happened. The new headmaster of the boys’ grammar school at which my husband taught turned out to be a Quaker and some friends of ours spent their sabbatical year in Indiana and became involved with Friends. At the same time, a few isolated Friends (some from the Dalhousie University community) had been meeting informally in homes. All these seekers came together and Halifax Monthly Meeting came into being.
The unprogrammed meeting appealed to my need for meditation and inner examination. How conflicts were resolved by Ministry and Counsel, the real love that flowed among us-- all this made me thankful that God had guided me to Friends. When we traveled across Canada one summer, I always felt welcomed at each meeting we visited. My experience with Friends in Canada was very positive.
After attending for 13 years, we moved to Jamaica in 1978. We lived in Ewarton about an hour’s drive from Kingston (my husband was Plant Doctor at Alcan Alumina Company). My search for Friends took me to Worthington Friends Meeting, where I attended a few times, but I felt the need to find Kingston Meeting, which was unprogrammed. That took me a while: I was told it was behind the Ministry of Health building. What they forgot to tell me was that there were two Ministry of Health buildings on the same street! But God had a hand in guiding me!
In the supermarket checkout line one day, an older woman in front of me said she would have to leave some of her groceries as she had not brought enough money to pay for her taxi home. I asked her where she was going and then told her I could take her home. In the course of our conversation as we drove, I found out she was Liz Lion, an American who attended Kingston Meeting. I couldn’t believe my blessing!
After attending Kingston Monthly Meeting for a while, I applied for membership and was accepted. My experience in Jamaica differs in significant ways from that in Canada, but my commitment to Friends and my joy in Quaker worship have been maintained. I feel deep satisfaction when I read or hear about what Friends are trying to do around the world. Most of all, amongst the noise and shouting about religion, I take solace in feeling that, as Quakers, we try humbly to justify this line in which John Greenleaf Whittier sought to describe the Quaker way: “And strove to live what the others talked.”
Joan Browne is a member of Kingston Monthly Meeting, Jamaica, West Indies.