A stitch in time – the Quaker Tapestry

The Quakers have found a wonderful and idiosyncratic way of telling their story and explaining their beliefs, through a tapestry.

They are known for their  rejection of violence and an egalitarian approach to religion, having no priests or bishops, so their tapestry is a counterpoint to the only other similar work that is widely known, the Bayeux Tapestry, which tells the story of the Norman invasion of England.

But this old technique is also modern. The idea started  in 1981 with a remark from an eleven year old boy in the South West of England to his teacher, Ann Wynn-Wilson, an accomplished embroiderer, who imagined a series of panels covering Quaker history and beliefs.

Situated in Kendal, at the Friends Meeting House, a listed Georgian building, the tapestry consists of 77 panels, just over 60 x 50cm, embroidered on a woven wool cloth. By the project's completion in 1996 over 4,000 people, including children from 15 countries had contributed to the 77 panels, an international, communal effort.

Although so many people contributed, there is a common theme and appearance to all panels. All have a simple theme, such as a prominent person,  often with a quotation, Quaker contribution to science, the slave trade, banking and so on.

The time and skill taken over each panel is obvious, invoking the use of icons in other faiths and the visitor is given the impression of a faith that may not be well known having made a tremendous contribution in so many areas. Elizabeth Fry, the great prison reformer, the Cadbury and Rountree families who added a social conscience to the industrial age, with schools,libraries, retirement homes and even homes with gardens.

It is sobering to recall that workers in Quaker owned businesses often had better conditions 150 years ago than many workers today. Likewise, who could look at the panels on banking and bankers and not feel that the world would be a radically better place if Quakers were put in charge of the financial sector?

Service to others is another thread running through the exhibition, especially with relief work and the Friends Ambulance Service and the Nobel Peace Prize, which was accepted with humility.

These noble principles and sacrifices were not always recognised, there has been widespread persecution of Quakers and many panels tell the story of their martyrs, those imprisoned and tortured.

Not all panels are on display, there are always some exhibited elsewhere, and this reflects another part of the Quaker approach. This is not a series to be cast in stone, but an ever changing, living document, and it is one that speaks through the ages in a way that not only leaves viewers appreciating the extraordinary levels of skill, but also moved by the clarity and simplicity of the message from these tapestries.

There is a short film about the tapestry at the entrance to the exhibition, a fascinating introduction. tucked in, at the back of the exhibition is another film about the Quakers, that you can watch from the traditional wooden benches.

Don't forget to take a look inside the Meeting Room, where the Friends gather three times a week for worship, the chairs set out in a circle in a sparsely decorated room, apart from a lovely wooden bookcase, whose library shows the diversity of views and interests people find inspiration in, and before leaving, try the cafe, with gorgeous food at reasonable prices, it is just an extension of the values displayed on the tapestry.

On condition

Tim Farron lives in paradise already / Liberal Democrats

Is there anything in today's political life that is more willfully misunderstood than religion?

This is what I thought when a hatchet job was written after Tim Farron's ascension to the Liberal Democrat throne, for they had elected a Christian, one suspected of being evangelical.

Interviewed on BBC's Today programme, the aural morning mass to the movers and shakers, Farron was asked if he prayed, to which he replied that of course he did. What about? thundered the presenter. Farron said that he asked for wisdom to make the right choices, adding, "I don't ask him to present the answer to me". He pointed out that all people make value judgments, not just the religious.

This has been made into a call that we should be "suspicious" of the new Liberal leader in an article that uses cheap hack tricks, by setting out an emotional analysis, designed for the writers own value judgments with an edited version of the transcript tacked to the end of the piece.

For my sins, I know a cheap trick when I see one and this was one.

It's not hard to see why, in particular evangelicalism is treated with such wariness, I prefer the quiet solitude of the Quakers rather than the loud bleatings of those that remind more of the Pharisee than the widow and her mite.

The problem is that, looking for certainty and validation, man often makes God into his own image.

This is most noticeable in the American right, where God, guns and apple pie seems to be the eleventh commandment. Our vanity will lead us all to easily from asking "What should I do?" and hearing the answer from within, not without, that agrees with the values and judgments of the petitioner.

It's not a giant leap from believing you're doing God's work, how he wants it, to a full blown messiah complex, that Achilles heel of Tony Blair. Not even the most devout can truly know they are obeying divine commands exactly right, not that this stops the tele-evangelists or on the other side, ISIS.

Far better to ask for wisdom, to have the courage to admit uncertainty, the humility to know you need to consider, to learn.

The writer Karen Armstrong, who has a deep knowledge of the worlds religions told me that people were complaining her books were too difficult, "Of course they're difficult," she said, "They're about God!"

I've found that religion has been the most difficult part of life, brought up in a faith I just didn't understand then switched into a world of the charismatics, the expressive, the emotional, I walked away as far as I could, then began slowly to walk back in darkness and confusion.

It would have been easy to start attending one of the established churches and go along with their views, to adopt them as a shield against a world I found increasingly difficult, but it was this sense of certainty that dissuaded, for I've heard many spiritual questions answered with the phrase, 'Well, the church says this or that'.

I've no idea why I started going to Quaker meetings several years ago, but for me, it seems the right place, and that's the only person I can say that for, as the internet says, 'Your mileage may vary'.

The founder, George Fox was a troubled man and wandered over England looking for spiritual solace, but found none. As he wrote in his journal, "But as I had forsaken the priests, so I left the separate preachers also, and those esteemed the most experienced people; for I saw there was none among them all that could speak to my condition. When all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could I tell what to do, then, oh, then, I heard a voice which said, "There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition";and when I heard it, my heart did leap for joy."

 His insight was that the divine could be experienced directly, without going through priests, pastors or clergy. The phrase "speak to my condition" is a revealing one, for it refers to the whole person, not thoughts, worries or dreams or a mere aspect of a person.

We've all experienced it, that moment when something strikes with clarity, the words or phrase that grabs the whole of your attention and I've learned to pay attention to it, even occasionally hearing clues.

This is how my memory was alerted after a Quaker meeting, when the name Gerald Priestland was raised and I recalled the cover of a book of his in the family home. We had a lot of books but all theological apart from, oddly enough 'The Moon's A Balloon,' David Niven's autobiography.

Google reminded me that he was a BBC foreign correspondent who had a breakdown, oppressed by the troubles he saw and then became a Quaker and a religious correspondent. There was something speaking to my condition there, I thought.

So, I'm reading his autobiography, full of cracking anecdotes from the golden age or reporting and his collections of his religious broadcasts and I'm finding humour, kindness and a mischievousness that may not be the first thing that comes to mind when considering his religious affiliation, but as he said, the "distressingly virtuous reputation" of the Quakers "can only be healthily undermined by putting up a gin-drinking hack like me. If they'll let me in, they will let anyone in. Maybe even you."

Being attentive to what speaks to your condition is a step towards wisdom, something that a burned out hack and a leading politician both need more of, and it's there if you look beyond yourself.