Quaker Simplicity Rises Again; But This Time, It’s Complicated

Friends,

Here is a paper I wrote in 1970 about “The Quaker Testimony of Simplicity.” It was  published in 1972; fifty years ago. It’s about 10500 words; not a quickie.

Simplicity-1970-QRT-corrected-03-25-2022

When I wrote it, I had been among Friends for about four years, and had not yet turned 30. In my heart, it was still The Sixties.

So I knew everything about Quaker Simplicity, right?

Everything important, that is. More than enough to take a few whacks at all the OFFS (Old Friendly Farts) who had made such a mess of things, and tell them how to get it right.

The journal Quaker Religious Thought decided to publish it. Their issue came out, a couple pf comments came in, the world wasn’t thereby changed much, and life went on.

And over the decades since, I have noticed a few things.

For one, while Quakers occasionally referred to a Simplicity Testimony, there wasn’t much else written about it, except in the books of Faith &  Practice, where the tradition of passing down barely tweaked versions of texts that had come before continued, as it did for most other topics, except those that were up-to-the-minute & hot (which it wasn’t).

Then I also noticed that in my own life, in the situations where “Simplicity” might become an issue, things got complicated. Stuff such as marriage, family, work, and a few other minor items.

These days, when my status as an unwillingly–but ineluctably — inducted life member of the OFF fraternity has been certified and re-certified, my mind has occasionally wandered back to that article. I wondered if, on a second look, I would be completely exposed as not having a real clue about the subject I had once written about so confidently.

Someone recently heard that I had published about the testimony, and asked if I could,  you know,  explain it, say, in a message at Spring Meeting. I said, “Sure.”

But then The doubts arose. So I dug up the article from its now electronic cemetery, and got it scanned and edited enough to read carefully.

Well, it wasn’t a complete mess. I had turned up a few useful bits of fact, and a couple not entirely off-the-wall interpretations.

But not all that much. So if any readers are interested in actually looking it over, I need to offer a preliminary critique, to preserve the few grains of wheat in it from the bushel of chaff that was also emitted.

Here’s the good news: I think I got the main point right:“Simplicity,” if it means anything, is about the work of aligning our living with the hints and eldering, the inklings and leadings of what Friends variously call the Light Within, God, the Seed, the Spirit, Christ, and a number of other things; and I don’t insist on a theistic frame here.

The idea is that the more fully tuned into this Light we can become, the “simpler” our lives will be. (Note: “Simple,” here, does not necessarily mean “easy.”) And conversely, anything (or anyone) who blocks you from finding and responding to your measure of Light, is a complicating factor, and is thus, to bow to current jargon, problematic.

So that’s what I kind of got right, I think. It’s the good news, and the “simple” part.

Now with that behind us, I turn to the “Yes, buts”. There are several, at least one for each of the good parts:

1. Simplicity means staying close to The Light.

Yes, but: for me, it is often a struggle to distinguish the Light from my notions, prejudices, traumas, rationalizations and desires. Anyone else have this experience?

Some Friends turn to clearness committees for help with this; and sometimes they work.

But often not. Personal history (and Quaker history) show that committees can be just as thick and biased as I am. Groupthink is almost never good, and often actually evil.

2. “Staying close” is a measure of Simplicity.
Yes, but:  such closeness can manifest in many ways; and some of them involve staying (in most outward respects) far away.

An example: for most of this past year, a friend of mine was in prison, doing time for an invasive anti-nuclear weapons protest, in which there was no personal violence but he damaged some government property.

During that year, each week I sent him an envelope stuffed with articles and newsclips culled from various publications. I figured it would be a brief diversion from the chaotic tedium of confinement.

Although a model prisoner, almost the whole time he was on lockdown along with all the others there, because of Covid, which killed several of the inmates. Further, though he has a devoted family, the pandemic also meant no visits were allowed, good behavior or no.

Yet when he got out, and we were able to visit, it was clear that our friendship had been deepened via these vastly extended, wordless “socially distanced” contacts. Neither of us would have chosen it for himself or the other. But there it was.

3. The Light is the Guide.
Yes, but: I often find that both “the Light” and its adversary are mixed up in the same situation or figure. Disentangling them can be, well, complicated.

Moreover, the  mixed up category encompasses almost every person I know IRL, “in real life,” myself not least of all. But historic examples are more easily dealt with. Take Frederick Douglass, in his blistering, brilliant 1876 oration at the unveiling of the Freedmen’s Memorial statue in Washington. He was unsparing, yet fair and even magnanimous as he relentlessly dissected Lincoln, the icon of Jubilee and a figure in the monument, who was yet a segregationist and compromiser to the hilt with the lives of enslaved Blacks. Even so, Douglass acknowledged, he still managed to become their Emancipator.

Douglass’s astringently nuanced verdict on Lincoln still stands. In sum: Complicated as hell.

Like much of history.  And most of us, if usually less spectacularly.

Another: in many Quaker circles these days, William Penn is getting a fashionable cancel culture thrashing for having owned slaves. I already knew and despised that fact. But I felt and still feel that Penn was also a person of great achievements, some of which still benefit many Americans of all hues every day, or at least every day that we take part in public religious worship.

But if Penn must, after his 300-plus year nap in the grave, be disinterred and publicly ground to dust, I expect his old bones won’t mind, and that his reputation will one day be recovered by a generation that has learned a bit more about its own mix of follies, probably the hard way.

4. Douglass and Penn bring us to history, which is a key to Simplicity.

Yes, but: the fact is, I got a whole lot of its history wrong in my paper.

The first and biggest mistake, which I only realized in recent years, was that “Simplicity” is not in fact a “basic” or “original” testimony of Friends. Really, it isn’t; or rather, wasn’t.

For a long time, like many others, I took for granted that Simplicity was on a list George Fox brought down from the crest of Pendle Hill in 1652, stuffed in a pocket — notes from the vision he was shown there of “a great people to be gathered.” Like the stone tablets Moses carried, except that thanks to the new technologies of his time, they were scribbled on lightweight parchment, and so much easier to carry.

But no. There was no such list. And when there was, Simplicity wasn’t on it.

How do I know that? Well, the best evidence comes from the early Books of Discipline (now mostly called Faith & Practice, as “Discipline” has been deemed to be too, well, disciplinary). These started out as handwritten collections of Minutes & Advices and such. They began being printed in the very early 1800s.  This was long after Fox & the other founders were dead, but their examples & words were still familiar.

These early Disciplines are important here because in their extensive lists of “Thou shalt NOTs” and “Thou SHALTs,” Simplicity wasn’t on either one. Nope.

But wait — what about the bonnets, and the broadbrims, and collarless shirts and all that? Were they myths too?

No, they were real enough. But all that was promulgated under a different heading. The difference was very important, and I knew nothing of it when I wrote in 1970.

For nearly 200 years, Simplicity wasn’t the keyword for Friends. Instead, the word was this:

PLAINNESS

Here, for example, is the statement in the Discipline of North Carolina Yearly Meeting, printed in 1823:

PLAINNESS IN DRESS AND ADDRESS

It is earnestly desired that all our members may keep themselves, and their children which are in minority, to moderation and plainness, in gesture, speech, apparel, and furniture of houses; and it is hoped that when any deviate from the above advice, that Friends will be strict in wisdom, to take prudent care therein; and if pious care and endeavors prove ineffectual, monthly meetings may disown them.

Did you get that? Plainness, not “Simplicity,” in gesture, speech, apparel & furniture. And this was neither an exhaustive list, nor merely a suggestion or an “advice”: if you deviated, the elders were called to be “strict in wisdom” and you were (or rather, thee was) subject to disownment.

To reinforce the accountability, the Discipline issued Queries. These  were not vague inquiries; more like grand jury subpoenas; to wit:

Query 3. Do Friends keep to plainness and moderation in every part of their conduct? And do those who have children endeavour to train them up in the principles of our religious profession, to reading the holy scriptures, and use the necessary restraints for their preservation?

“Plainness” was mandated “in every part of their conduct.” And to be imposed on the next generation. To underline the Queries’ seriousness, a reporting procedure was spelled out in detail:

It is agreed, that once, in the second and third quarters each succeeding the yearly meeting, the first four of the following queries, and once in the quarter immediately preceding the yearly meeting, all of them, be read, deliberately considered, and answered in the preparative, monthly, and quarterly meetings, and an explicit account, in writing, conveyed to each yearly meeting.

So: the query was to be read three times a year in each local meeting, then an “explicit account” drafted as to whether and how local Friends  “keep to plainness and moderation in every part of their conduct” (Whew! “EVERY part” is  lot);  which report was to be delivered in writing to the annual session, where it was customarily (and still is) read aloud to the entire body.

This regimen  was not meant to enforce financial equality or communal ownership on members. Each earned their own living; a few prospered or grew wealthy, most did not, and when some fell into poverty, the meeting provided such aid as it could. But “Plainness” was more than a “Testimony”; it was rightly part of an ongoing communal Discipline, communally upheld.

But times passed and things changed.

Let’s fast forward to 1983, and the handbook of the surviving North Carolina Yearly Meeting, which at this writing is in its 325th year. Now called the Faith &  Practice/Book of Discipline, here is the counterpart text 160 years later:

II. Simplicity
The heart of Quaker ethics is summed up in the word “Simplicity.” Simplicity is forgetfulness of self and remembrance of our humble status as waiting servants of God. Outwardly, simplicity is shunning superfluities of dress, speech, behavior, and possessions, which tend to obscure our vision of reality. Inwardly, simplicity is spiritual detachment from the things of this world as part of the effort to fulfill the first commandment: to love God with all of the heart and mind and strength.

From the Queries:

Manner of Living

8. Do we observe simplicity and honesty in our manner of living? Are we careful to live within the bounds of our circumstances, punctual in keeping promises, prompt in the payment of debts, and just in all our dealings? Do we choose those activities which will strengthen our physical, mental, and spiritual life; and do we avoid those harmful to ourselves and others?

Having attended several such sessions, hearing rounds of reports read aloud, and been part of one meeting’s  preparation of its response, the character of the replies is not difficult to describe. Regarding efforts to “observe simplicity” (aka “manner of living”) most meetings report, in summary paraphrase:

“We do our best, we think, amid uncertainty and diverse views as to what constitutes ‘simplicity’ in today’s society and culture.”

Also, I have heard not a whisper of potential disciplinary action taken against any individual Friend or meeting on this ground.

So Plainness is now Simplicity, and communal enforcement has given way to individual understanding and judgement. And this term essentially means whatever one thinks, and this condition, in my visits and observations, is general, or close to universal.

Again, I knew nothing of this in 1970. My sense is that the editors of the journal which published it, though older and more knowledgeable than I, didn’t know much of this background either; else they would have raised it with me, and asked for more study.

So, how and when did this major shift come about? And why?

I’ve hunted extensively for the answer. So far, I have found no sign that there was ever some national conclave which formalized a national consensus about it, nothing like the gradual but clearly traceable turn of Friends away from accepting slavery to unanimous official opposition.

Nevertheless, I have picked up enough clues to formulate a hypothesis, which I am ready to offer with some confidence, but not yet solid scholarly research. And here it is:

“Plainness” was a casualty of the U. S. Civil War.

It was not slain at Gettysburg, nor consumed in Sherman’s fiery march. But after Appomatox, it was on its deathbed like so many of the wounded.

Here’s how it happened, in abbreviated form:

—During the Civil War, many young Quaker men joined the Union Army and took part in the fighting. Exact numbers aren’t known, but available evidence backs up this assertion.

— The taking up of arms was until then a clearly disownable violation of the Discipline.

— The elders and ministers urged the youths to stick to their antimilitary witness, but were mostly ignored. And

— When the war ended, the Quaker Establishment did not have the will to carry out the mass disownments called for by precedent and precept. As the elders of Baltimore Yearly Meeting wrote in 1864:

The Christian duty of dealing with offenders in the spirit of meekness and love, has been to our minds, a subject of religious exercise, and an earnest desire is felt that at this trying season, we maybe governed by Divine wisdom, remembering that the first object to be sought is the restoration of the diseased member to health, rather than its separation from the body.

—A de facto compromise was reached: the denunciations of war as unchristian and unQuakerly stayed in the Disciplines, but group enforcement was ended, and how or whether to join a war became a matter of individual judgment.  This was a radical change, but made more in silence than with trumpets.

Then —

— One thing led to another: once fighting wars became optional, other restrictions were soon reinterpreted or abandoned. Relaxing the ban on “marrying out” was the biggest internal change: many more Quakers had been disowned for marrying non-Friends than were ever drummed out for warmaking. And soon enough, plain dress was left hanging in the closet, or folded into trunks in the attic.

But in this case, reinterpretation was the official course: Plainness as a corporate standard slipped out of Disciplines; Simplicity, defined by individual judgement, replaced it.

Yet, what is Simplicity?  Reading  descriptions in books of Faith & Practice isn’t much help. What I see in them is a mishmash of good taste (thought about a generation behind the curve of fashion), a bias toward thrift and utility over style, along with a nod to the fact that creativity will not be denied, which often happens.

For me the legacy is more evident in the lack of decorative art in meetinghouses, which in many combines with a quiet aesthetic which makes them comely and calming rather than bare. But that is also a matter of taste (in this case, mine).

What Simplicity has not been, in the half-century since my article appeared, is a catalyst of anything like the wave of Ralph Naderish consumer activism led by a militant organized Quakerdom which I imagined and urged in the paper.  Individual Friends have wrestled with it; building and renovation committees haggled over it, and a few have wondered about it.

But perhaps the most appealing treatment of it was in a poem from the 1870s I came across recently, called The Quaker Widow. The poet, Bayard Taylor, (1825-1878) was raised as a Friend in Pennsylvania, served as a diplomat during the Civil War, and saw the changes coming over the Society. In the poem, his recently bereaved narrator sums them up for a visitor named Hannah:

We lived together fifty years: it seems but one long day,
One quiet Sabbath of the heart, till he was called away;
And as we bring from Meeting-time a sweet contentment home,
So, Hannah, I have store of peace for all the days to come. . . .

I thought of this ten years ago, when daughter Ruth we lost:
Her husband’s of the world, and yet I could not see her crossed.
She wears, thee knows, the gayest gowns, she hears a hireling pries—
Ah, dear! the cross was ours: her life’s a happy one, at least.

Perhaps she ’ll wear a plainer dress when she’s as old as I,—
Would thee believe it, Hannah? once I felt temptation nigh!
My wedding-gown was ashen silk, too simple for my taste;
I wanted lace around the neck, and a ribbon at the waist. . . .

But Ruth is still a Friend at heart; she keeps the simple tongue,
The cheerful, kindly nature that we loved when she was young;
And it was brought upon my mind, remembering her, of late,
That we on dress and outward things perhaps lay too much weight.

The final line evokes the change in attitude which, Friend by Friend, relegated “Plainness” to the archives, renamed its ghost “Simplicity,” then soon forgot the change had ever been made.

A perceptive Friend, or an alert visitor can still sense its faint but sometimes significant impact. But to revive it as a formal Testimony, as I hoped to see in 1970 — well, that would be much too simple.