A new title for a new book
Mary Woodward reflects on the draft title for the new book of discipline and how the revision committee discerned the new title and structure.
From the first meeting of the Book of Discipline Revision Committee, it was clear to us that we were not actually revising Quaker faith & practice, but starting with a blank page. The minute of Britain Yearly Meeting 2018 which started our work encouraged us to be prayerful, creative, joyful and bold.
We have been guided as we worked to produce a book that would both reflect British Quakers as we are today and guide us to what we want to be in the future. Much of our work was done in small groups who then presented their material to the whole committee. Discernment guided us towards the groups in which we might serve – on one occasion I found, to my surprise, that rather than being in a writing group, I was being drawn to the group which worked on keeping Friends informed and engaged with our work. There were also occasions when I was guided to say “no, I don't have the capacity to serve on any more groups at this time" – and I know many others of us on the committee have had similar experiences of being nudged to serve or to say no to further service.
During the seven years that we have been working so far, we have been guided. We have gained clarity about what topics to include in the draft, what language to use to express our religious diversity, and about our writing style, especially making our text as accessible and inclusive as possible. We have felt guided to discover what needed to be included in the core material we were drafting, and what will need to be accessible as supplementary material.
Possible structures
We also considered what might be the best structure for the book. Should it be like an 'A to Z guide to Quakers in Britain'? What about beginning with what unites us, exploring our diversity, and then drawing together in unity again? What about a tree structure, where our Quaker roots support a trunk of values and practices which then bear leaves and fruit of many kinds, or a forest – an image of diversity and unity, where the diversity creates a healthy eco-system which invites many different ways of travelling through it?
Gradual discernment led your committee to focus on the tree structure. The roots of the tree are our Quaker history: from them grows the strong trunk of our Quaker faith and experience. The trunk divides into three major branches – our faith in action, our community, and our life journeys. Many smaller branches show the many ways in which we live out our Quaker beliefs.
A new working title
It also became clear that we needed to find a new working title for our book. Britain Yearly Meeting in session will discern the title of the new Book of Discipline when it is offered for your acceptance, hopefully in 2030. In the meantime, it is very important to make it clear that what your committee has produced is not a revision of Quaker faith and practice but a completely new book. Yes, material from Q&fp has been included, but there are also both new extracts and new writing about how and why we 'do Quaker'.
The question of a new title was discerned by the committee over a weekend meeting. It was fascinating to see how we were guided gradually from a number of possibilities to a very clear sense of what the working title needed to be. Many possibilities were considered – one of my favourites was Being Quaker, Doing Quaker. Other suggestions were Our Quaker (tree of) Life; Walking in the Light; Our Quaker spiritual discipline; Living our Quaker way; Growing in the Light. It gradually became clear that the title we needed was Our Quaker Way: the spiritual discipline of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain.
Some of our reasons
It's 'Our' way because it's not the only Quaker way – other Yearly Meetings do things differently; 'the spiritual discipline' to make clear that our Quaker practice is based on listening for the Spirit's guidance; and 'the Religious Society of Friends' because it was felt very important clearly to show our Quaker heritage and links to the very earliest days of using these words to describe Quakers in Britain.
As I've said, this is just the working title – Britain Yearly Meeting in session will discern the title of the finished Book. For now, we feel it's 'good enough'.
