Grief tending and active hope
Sometimes all we can do is be along side one another and sing into the darkness. Bridget Holtom, Faith in Action Lead, has been accompanying some young adults Quakers in Leeds.
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"It is important to say what hope is not: it is not the belief that everything was, is or will be fine."
- Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark
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Since June 2024, Leeds Carlton Hill Quaker Meeting have been supporting a growing concern and the development of an inspiring project, called Leeds Blue Marble. Leeds Blue Marble, a name based on how planet Earth is seen from space, enables students and other people living in short term rented accommodation, to get to know their neighbours and community and live more sustainably. Their first initiative is to help reduce waste and regenerate their local soil through composting and then expanding into gardening and allotmenting. Leeds Blue Marble is a practical way to address Quaker concerns, and to raise awareness and action on climate issues in the local neighbourhood. In weekly Potluck and Learn sessions, the young adults and older Friends reflect together and take practical action, with up to 15 people at each session.
The Local Meeting, Carlton Hill supports this concern through spiritual upholding and sharing practical resources such as offering free space for meetings and helping with funding applications to enable the Blue Marble project to thrive. This is an example of how a Quaker Concern held by a small group can be upheld by the rest of the Quaker community. Central staff from the Quakers in Britain Faith in Action Team have added additional capacity through their offer of ongoing accompaniment (link to new page of website). Bridget Holtom, Engagement and Faith in Action Lead, has held a series of sessions to support the small but determined group. In January, using a series of open-source workshops from the 'Work that Reconnects' (offsite link), Bridget supported the group to start with gratitude, honour their pain and despair in a grief tending ceremony and use their imagination to move into action. This spiral, developed by eco-bodhisattva and writer Joanna Macy who believes that the path to collective liberation and effective action also involves tending grief and acknowledging despair, and using our imaginations to remember we are part of wider movements for social change, while we work towards the world we are co-creating for future generations.
If you are interested in finding out more, there will be an active hope session as part of preparation for Yearly Meeting 2025, please register for Yearly Meeting and sign up for this session on Sched.