The Conservative Friend

The 2008 Sixth Annual Gift of Light Expo in Columbus, Ohio, USA was a fine time of meeting people who didn’t know much about Quakerism, and were often curious.  The Expo took place in the same Veterans Memorial Hall as last year’s Universal Light Expo, and while smaller, was attended by a similar mix of people.

The website for the 2008 Gift of Light is currently at

http://www.giftoflightexpo.com/gift_of_light_6th_annual_001.htm

so you can visit yourself and see what was there officially.

These events are part of the New Age culture popular throughout the western hemisphere, with extensive links to older beliefs and practices, and contemporary interpretations of those beliefs.  Various presenters provide lectures and seminars on psychic phenomena, metaphysical readings, palmistry, Tarot cards, and various other aspects of the common culture.  The many vendors provided palm and Tarot card readings, astrological horoscopes, aura photography, books, rocks and minerals, exotic clothing, purified water, plus a selection of alternative churches and religions.  An interesting, varied and eclectic mix.  Look over the photographs here.

We fit in with the latter.  In North America, there are approximately 90,000 people directly associated with the Religious Society of Friends.  The Friends World Committee on Consultation estimates that of the 350,000 or so Friends worldwide, only 0.3 percent refer to themselves as “Conservative,” so that means that as far as fringe elements go, we’re right in there.

We’d like to change that, which is why we were there.  We set up a ten-foot booth in which we sold local Ohio honey, beeswax candles, beeswax and honey-based skin-care products.  We also had a stack of Quaker literature out for the taking—book catalogs from the FGC Bookstore, Pendle Hill, and other sources.  We had papers from the Tract Association of Friends, New Foundation Fellowship, Ohio Yearly Meeting, and as many useful individual pieces as we could.  People would stop by to look these over, or to buy a jar of honey, and would sometimes stop to ask us what we had to say.

As has been our experience previously at these events, everybody was friendly and welcoming.  Our next-door booth neighbors were a bit put off during set-up by the verbal style we use to guide various highly intelligent and distracted children in setting up a 10-foot booth with hundreds of items for sale in an hour or so.  “Drill sergeant!” they were overheard muttering.  But the kids are quite used to the noise and symbolic bluster, and after they were turned loose and demonstrated no ill effects everybody mellowed out.  “You’re not what we thought you were,” they said.

How often have we heard that before, in the larger context?  As a comment on the Conservative branch of the Society of Friends, it seems a sad but common observation.  So many people have various learned baggage that they bring with them when meeting “Christian Unprogrammed Quakers.”  So often it is the same story over and over—early wounding experiences with one Christian church or another, confusion of Christianity with some particular political movement, or a disagreement with gender politics in some form or another.  Little or none of it ever pertains to the basic message of Quakerism that it is Jesus Christ who has come to teach his people, and that it is He to whom we look for guidance.  Even Friends of other branches are often unsure of exactly what we are.

Look over the photographs that we have presented at the event.  We’re planning on being there next year, too, and we invite you to come and visit, or to help out, too.  There’s a world of people out there looking for spiritual guidance, and we believe that we have something that Jesus Christ would like us to share with them.