A Young Friend's Diaspora.

 For the past few months, I’ve not really been a Quaker.

I’m not how to describe what I mean by that. How does one define not being Quaker after identifying as such, or even how does one define being Quaker? Answering that can be difficult. To get to the bottom of it, I thought about looking towards some writings, which can offer a bit of insight at least. Advice & Queries (quite literally, a bit of advice and not commandments in anyway) gave me this:

“Come regularly to meeting for worship even when you are angry, depressed, tired or spiritually cold. In the silence ask for and accept the prayerful support of others joined with you in worship.” (A&Q 10).

Over the last few months, I’ve felt everything of that first sentence. I’ve been ill and ill, finding myself not getting any more it seems so very frustrated. To enter an hour of silence – the way of Quaker worship – has been an intimidating thought. So without Meeting, I have felt disconnected from our community, especially as I don’t even have the Youth events to rely on for my ‘Quaker fix’. I am a floating young adult in the abyss of university away from spiritual matters. As time has gone on, even in better moments, it’s been difficult re-connect.

I mean – university life consists of loud drunken nights out, shouting at the top of your throat about politics and for me personally, speaking into microphones in a poetry night. Quaker Meeting didn’t feel quite right. I was angry over the state of how I ended up getting to University and the complications right-off-the-bat. That a path was not clear for me. Over time, this anger subsided into an apathy from ‘God’ if you like which meant Quakerism seemed hollow. However, over time, this began to change.

The love of my young Friends has been immensely valuable to me. Their support, wisdom and appreciation for me has helped me realise what good friends can be, as well as Friends. As University life has gone on, I began to really miss feeling connected to communities, to people and to the Earth around me. And really, it’s here where I think this line of defining myself as Quaker became even more blurred. I, a spiritualist who had been frustrated over his faith for many months, now crave that spirituality again. And funnily enough, the only way I can really describe this feeling is through a Jewish phrase:

Diaspora. Though I certainly am not missing a Promised Land of any kind, I think my separation from my Quaker identity and spirituality has been something which has heavily influenced me in university. While I enjoy nights out, drinking, partying etc to not have that calm as well as calamity has been something which I think (personally) has been bad for me. I have felt misplaced sometimes in social situations I couldn’t have imagined for myself a year ago and now, looking at it in a bigger picture, it feels odd to be away from Quakers considering how much over the last two and a half years it’s been such a big part of my life.

Perhaps this Diaspora is increased by the longing of all young adult Friends to find their place in the Religious Society of Friends. We are all wandering away from youth hood into an unoccupied territory. After all – the old joke goes that by having a couple of young adult Friends in a Meeting, we change the average age from 80 to 70, right? Some find solace in volunteering for younger people events, by giving back to the community which gave them so much. A minority (for we are always people of minority opinions!)  bring their vitality to a Meeting for Sufferings. Others use YFGM, of course. I’m unsure of the next step.

What I am sure of that, despite loving every minute of university (including all the days where I’m locked away due to exhaustion and illness), my diaspora will not go away easily. I am longing to return my spiritual island, so that I may find a peaceful settlement for myself again.