A guest piece from Rob of “Consider the Lillies” (update: a blog now closed, here’s a 2006 snapshot courtesy of Archive.org). Rob describes himself: “I’m a twenty-something gay Mid-western expatriate living in Boston. I was inspired to begin a blog based on the writings of other urban Quaker bloggers as they reflect and discuss their inward faith and outward experiences. When I’m not reading or writing, I’m usually with my friends, traveling about, and/or generally making an arse of myself.”
Quaker Ranter
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Tag Archives ⇒ plain
Buying my Personality in a Store
September 8, 2004
A guest piece by Amanda
Originally posted as a comment to “My Experiments with Plainness”, Amanda’s story deserves its own post: “I’ve noticed that I’m becoming really attached to my clothes. As I was grimly and methodically culling my closet, a whiny, desperate voice in my head piped up, and I began to have a serious conversation with myself… [A] reservation I have is that plain dressing may just be another way of telegraphing the image I want the world to have of me. Only instead of that message being ‘I am cool and worthy of your attention and envy’ the message might be ‘I’m so hoooooly’.”
Hi there!
I am 21, and the only member of my family who attends meetings of Friends. (I am not a Friend yet, being young to the whole experience, and an ex-catholic, and having wandered for several years in strange paths!! 🙂 However, I am taking it very seriously, and reading all I can get my hands on. I feel a strong call towards plain dress, and have gone through fits and starts of it spontaneously, even as a Catholic child. At 12, I decided I would no longer wear colours in imitation of all the siants habits I saw in my books, and my friends and I (I grew up in rural Canada, homeschooled, the oldest of 11 kids, an anarchonism to begin with) tried sewing our own clothes ourselves, praire dresses and pinafores.
When I was 14, we moved to the States, to the suburbs, away from our uber-traditional Catholic enclave, and I began to normalize myself out of the “homeschooler uniform” (its own sort of plain dress — those terrible jumpers with ankle socks and canvas sneakers! Ack!) and into mainstream fashion, where I’ve been solidly entrenched ever since, especially since moving to NYC.
I am now in the process of purging a lot of my stuff, and seeking a simpler way of living. I quit smoking, and have decided that drinking as a recreational activity is out unless it’s an organized event. This may become more strict in time, but I have to ease into it a little bit. I got rid of several bags of clothes and a bunch of household items I was hoarding “just in case I might need them someday”. Classic. A lot of things have precipitated this, but one of them is my absolute horror at how I’ve gone from making $12,000 a year to nearly $30,000, and I still am saving no money at all, nor am I making any lasting purchase/investments, etc…I’m just spending it on vain and useless things. I’ve noticed as well, that I’m starting to have more and more big-salary fantasises, and recreationally go to stare in shop windows at clothes, not just to appreciate the asthetic value of some of the most gorgeous garments in the world (after all, this is Manhattan) but also to drool and covet. I found, while examining my concience, that it wasn’t even the thing — the piece of clothing that I wanted, and it wasn’t a simple desire to have something pretty. I saw myself linking these clothes and things to my self worth and future happiness. You know:
“Once I am thin and rich enough to wear this, I will be happy. I will be so happy. So very happy. Everything will be perfect, and my hair will always be straight, and I will have my teeth veneered, and I will have a handsome man who worships the ground I walk on, and three bright-eyed children who appear only on Sunday mornings to snuggle with me in my California-king-sized bed with the white crisp sheets, while I languidly smile at their frolicing and plan to buy them a golden retriever puppy later that afternoon as I stroll through an antique fair and buy a vintage wicker bird cage, which I will fill with finches and hang from my sun-drenched porch in my second house in the south of France, and I be happy. So happy. So very happy, if I am only thin and rich enough to wear those clothes.”
I really, really woke up one afternoon to find myself standing on 5th Ave and 59th street, on my lunch break, staring in a window, and having that fantasy with absolutely no internal ironic monolouge at all. At all.
It completley panicked me.
I’ve noticied that I’m becoming really attatched to my clothes. As I was grimly and methodically culling my closet, a whiney, desperate voice in my head piped up, and I began to have a serious conversation with myself.
“You can’t get rid of so many of your cool clothes. The clothes are you, they’re a huge part of who you are.”
“Wait,” the other voice in my head, the stern one, said (I am a schizophrenic and so am I) “You are saying that I am what I wear. That’s supposed to make me want to keep them? Do you even hear what you’re saying?”
The first voice was totally backtracking.
“No, no, no, I didn’t mean you were your clothes, or that you were only worth as much as your clothes, why do you always have to be so literal? I meant that your clothes tell people about you, about who you are and what you believe in. They’re an outside sign of who you are.”
“Ah.” said the second voice, rather sarcastically, I thought, “So we’d rather have people learn everything they need to know about us by our clothes, instead of having them take the time to get to know us from experience of us.”
“Well, that’s all very well!” said the first voice. “That’s nice in an ideal world. But the truth is, the sad truth is, most people won’t take the time to get to know you if you don’t seem cool.”
“Wow.” said the second voice. “Wow. This has nothing to do with fashion, does it? This totally has to do with your inferiority complex, dating back to about second grade, doesn’t it?”
At this point the first voice began to suck its thumb, and I realized to my horror that the second voice was right. It’s always right.
“Fashion is what you adopt when you don’t know who you are.” ~Quentin Crisp
I’ve actually begun buying my personality in a store, and telling myself that it’s okay because I’m buying it in a thrift store. I know from personal experience that the right headscarf or pair of vintage shoes, or funny t‑shirt will suddenly raise the value of my social currency off the charts. And I’m becoming really dependent on that, to the point where I’ve started to actually feel anxiety around my “style” and my clothes. I ironically played the role of fashion police for a boy at a party who was mocking me for being from Williamsburg, and although I was kidding around when I excoriated him for his American-Eagle shorts and surfer-boy hair, it struck me, I’m spouting all these “rules” as if I’m mocking them, but I actually live by them, don’t I?
And I’ve increasingly begun to obey them out of fear instead of out of a love of neat clothes or a sense of aesthetic. I have cooler clothes than ever, and sudenly I have a need to make more money so that I can keep looking cool, and keep fitting in, and keep proving to everyone, most of all myself, that I should be invited to Angelica’s birthday party because the whole rest of the class is and it’s not fair…oh wait. That was second grade.
Benjamin Franklin wrote: “Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one. If it satisfies one want, it doubles and trebles that want another way.”
This seems like a huge cliche, but you know, the more I think about it, the more it seems that the modern horror of cliches may have less to do with a love of originality than with a fear of the truth.
So those are the motivations — that much is worked out. But the practice of it is hard. Was I experienceing a genuine calling to plain dress as a child, or did I just read too much “Little House”? (Is there such a thing as too much “Little House”?) And now, am I just a costume-loving poser?
I feel a bizarre attraction to head-covering as well, though I recoil with my whole post-feminist self from those passages in the bible. I don’t think I believe in submission to anybody. In fact, I’m not sure even God wants me submissive ‑I feel he wants my co-operation.
“I will not now call you servants: for the servant knoweth not what his lord doth. But I have called you friends: because all things whatsoever I have heard of my Father, I have made known to you.” John 15:15
Another reservation I have is that plain dressing may just be another way of telegraphing the image I want the world to have of me. Only instead of that message being “I am cool and worthy of your attention and envy” the message might be “I’m so hoooooly”. Or, perhaps more positively, it might be a message that is “witness” — a concept I am struggling with on its own — what if I make mistakes and my witness is mistaken, etc.
My compromise was to get rid of all the clothes I’d bought just for attention, all the clothes I was keeping for purely sentimental reasons, everything that didn’t fit, or match with anything else, etc. And to be honest, that just pared it down to where I can actually fit all my clothes in my 1 closet and dresser, a feat heretofore unknown to me. Also, a big part of this move was to start taking care of my clothes, something I’ve never done. I’ve made an active dicipline of something as simple as hanging up my clothes each night, as an act of respect and gratitude. It occured to me that when I am so fortunate as to have many posessions, it seems extremely wrong that I should mistreat them the way I’ve been doing.
Wow. Forget plain dress, plain speech is going to be an even bigger problem. I’ve written a novel.
* blush *
Anyhow, it is wonderful to see it discussed, sometimes I feel like I’m just nuts. I mean, I know I’m nuts, but I don’t like feeling that way. 🙂
in friendship,
Amanda
Gohn Brothers, broadfalls, & men’s plain dress
July 26, 2004
A few years ago I felt led to take up the ancient Quaker testimony of plain dressing. I’ve spoken elsewhere about my motivations but I want to give a little practical advice to other men who have heard or even gotten ahold of the “Gohn Bros.” catalog but don’t know just what to order. I certainly am not sanctioning a uniform for plain dress, I simply want to give those so inclined an idea of how to start.
Just as background: I’m a thirty-something Philadelphia native, brought up without any formal religion in a Philly suburb. I first started approaching Quakers (Friends) back in college. In my early twenties, I started working at a collectively-run pacifist book publishing house and living in what was then the sort of downscale hipster neighborhood of West Philadelphia. In 2002 I attended a week-long workshop that had some plain dressing Friends and felt the nudge to experiment. I’ve left Philadelphia to become a resident of a small farming town in South Jersey (what love will do) but I still spend a lot of time in the city and in decidedly urban settings. I don’t aim to be historically correct with my plain dress and I don’t want to simply “look like an Amish” person.
Gohn Brothers is a store in Indiana that sells “Amish and Plain Clothing.” It is currently celebrating it’s 100th year in business. It’s known for it’s simple print catalog, which is updated every few months. It does not have a website. You should get a copy of the catalog to get current clothing and shipping prices. It’s address is:
PO Box 1110, 105 S. Main St., Middlebury IN 46540
Phone: (574) 825‑2400. Toll-free: 800 – 595-0031
When I first started “going plain,” I simply wore regular dark pants with suspenders found at a generic department store. It was important to me that I was wearing clothes I already had, and I wanted to be “Sears Plain,” by which I meant I didn’t want to go to any extremes to find plain clothing. When I first bought a pair of broadfalls (the zipperless pants favored by plain men), I didn’t wear them for months. Slowly I started started wearing them out and feeling more at ease in them. They were made of rugged denim, wore well and were quite comfortable.
As my pre-plain clothes have worn out, I’ve started replacing them with Gohn Brothers-produced broadfalls. They’re just as inexpensive as any cheaply-made jeans from Old Navy but they hold up and are presumably made in Indiana by seamstresses earning a decent wage.
Broadfalls
Gohn Brothers offers many different weights and fabrics for their broadfall pants, numbering them for ease of ordering. I have bought two pair, both of which I like:
- #66: 10 oz. solid grey denim, 100% cotton: $22.98
- #92: 100% cotton blue jean denim (11 oz.): $24.98
Coats
Gohn Brothers produces a number of coats, also called “overshirts.” In these purchases I have tended to be more distinctly Quaker. I have two Coats:
- #225: 9oz. Poly, cotton. $41.98 at the time of this post. I have opted for a few alterations: A “regular cut” for $3.00, a “standup collar” for $2.00, “button holes with metal buttons” for $3.00 and a “quilted lining” for $5.00.
- #125 9 oz. Black drill denim. Poly/cotton. Unlined Jacket, black drill. Alterations: “standup collar” for $2.00. (for this I had the default “snaps” in place of buttons and the default “full cut”).
I’ve prefered the specialized “regular cut” coat over the standard “full cut.” The regular cut feels more like the standard suit jacket that most professional men wear to work, while the full cut felt more like a wind-breaker. I also prefer the buttons, as the snaps contributed to the wind-breaker feel.
Suspenders
Also known as “braces,” all you need are dark broadfalls and suspenders to really look “plain” to the world. “Tabbed” suspenders fit over buttons in your pants, while “clip-on’s” use alligator clips to fasten onto standard pants. Tabbed look better but I can’t help thinking of Michael Douglass in “Wall Street”; a lot of ordinary anabapist men I see have clip-on’s.
I’ve heard the story that there’s a good-hearted ribbing between the Iowa and North Carolina Conservative Quakers about whether thin or wide suspenders is more plain. I’ve started to throw my lot in with Iowa and have gotten the three-quarter inch suspenders. (Fashionistas will remember that thin suspenders were popular with a certain kind of high school geek in the mid-1980s – think Cameron in Ferris Beuler’s Day Off; fair disclosure requires that I admit that I wore them around Cheltenham High). Again Gohn Brothers:
- #550T 3/4″ tab. Black: $7.98
- #552C 3/4″ clip. Black: $6.98
Hats
While Gohn Brothers does hats, I haven’t bought any of theirs. Instead I’ve gone for the Tilley T3 hat. I’m not complete happy with this, as Tilley’s seem to be associated with a certain kind of clueless traveler, but I’ve noticed that there are a lot of men in my yearly meeting who wear them, I think as an unconscious nod toward plainness. The Tilley is also friendlier to bike commuters: its tie-down strings wrap easily around bike handlebars, and it’s very crushable and washable.
Not a Uniform
Again, let me stress: I am not trying to specify a modern plain dress uniform. The only time you should adopt plain dress is when you’re feeling actively led by it. Sometimes that leading is an intution, which is fine, but you need to follow it on your own terms. My practice has evolved over time and yours should too. I’ve become more plain since I started this witness simply because I had to replace worn clothes and couldn’t see spending more money for shoddier clothes than I could get at Gohn Brothers. You don’t need to get broadfalls to be “plain,” as “plainness” is as much a state of mind and an attitude toward God and your spiritual community as it a set of clothes. I think of it now as a spiritual discipline, one very fitting for our consumeristic times.
I’d love to hear from others about their plain dressing.
Avoiding Plain Dress Designer Clothing
July 21, 2004
A guest piece by “David,” originally posted on the Plain and Modest Dress Yahoo Group.
From: “mquadd” <mquadd@y…>
Date: Wed Jul 21, 2004
Subject: Introduction and questions
Hi. My name is David and I attend but am not a member of the Friends Meeting here. I was actually raised as an Episcopalian although I had several uncles who were birth-right Quakers. I grew up (for my first 10 years) in Chester County, PA which traditionally was an area with a high concentration of Quakers. I would expect that this is no longer true as the area has become quite suburban with a big influx of new residents. Nonetheless, I grew up attending meeting now and then with relatives at various meetings in Chester County and northern Deleware. That was in the 1960s and was a time when some people, mostly older people (people most likely born in the 1800s meaning these people were in their 70s or 80s in the 1960s), still used plain talk. Even in the 1960s, in a fairly rural area, this was more of an excepting than the rule and was limited to the oldest members of the meeting and never used outside the Quaker community. Those who used plain talk never used it outside of the Quaker community – home, Friends, and meeting. As far as I know, they never used this type of talk for business or relations or outside the community.
At age 10 we moved to Lancaster County. At that time, many Memmonites who now no longer dress plain or wear coverings did still did both of these. I went to school with many Mennonite kids. In addition I became friends with several Old Order Amish families (and one Beachy family) with whom I am still friends. That was 35 years ago, I have witnessed the plain testimony weaken in each of these groups including the Old Order Amish. I actually spent much of my childhood and teenage years hanging out with one paticular Old Order Amish family as way to escape the insanity of having drug addicted and alcoholic parents. In their very simple and unstated Christianity, they were very willing to provide food, shelter, and love to a very confused boy (me).
Anyway, the Lancaster Conference Mennonites (now part of the largest Mennonite group) seem to be totally mainstream. Perhaps there are some who still follow the former order. The Beachy Amish now dress like conservative Mennonites and less and less like Amish. Finally, I was watched the Amish allow lots of modern changes in their discipline although their basic clothing is pretty much unchanged but sun glasses are now allowed and many Amish girls and women pluck their eyebrows – both not allowed in the 1970s. By the way, in the late 1960s they had already adopted cotton-poly blends for both clothing and quilts!
The reason for that, perhaps odd, biographical sketch is to give some background on my exposure to plain groups and, more importantly, plain thought. I have toyed with the idea of plain dressing although I can’t give a clear reason why I feel this. Is it a calling or am I just crazy? I do know that the stability I found in that Amish house in the 1970s most likely had a giant influence on me (a happy Amish family where I had fun vs. living in a family that was in the self-distruct mode due to addiction). I also I have clear memories of having Quaker teachers in elemently school and vanity and worldliness was a bad thing. It was during the height of the Viet Nam war, so there was this odd hippy-Quaker thing going on with some of my teachers. I am sure some of you who were around the RSF in the 1960s can relate. So here I am still toying with these ideas and still attempting to define my own religious feelings at the middle of my life (I am 45).
Here are a few things I do know that apply to me. First, I feel very at odds with our society that focuses on the most superfical things. Our society spends BILLIONS on make-up, hair dye, plastic surgery, breast inplants, push-up bras, designer clothes (that are no different that basic clothes except the label and might even be of lower quality).… People are judged on the these issues. Character and morality (a loaded term that seems to have been highjacked by the rightwing and ultraconservatives)seems to be secondary to these very superficial things. What we tell ourselves and our children is that we are not adequate as we are. We have to change our body and then drape it was overly priced clothes to count. The outside is more important that the inside. This is sick. It is distructive. It is a sin.
Beyond that, my feelings about plain dressing get less clear. Is a uniform what I am seeking? Those groups who were very uniform clothing tend to be insular and often attact as much attention to themselves as a belly shirt and designer jeans! If you doubt this, go to Lancaster County and attempt to drive on Rt. 340. The attraction that the plain people attract in that area rivals any movie star or rock concert. Lancaster gets literally millions of tourists each year. So is that type of uniform dressing that is quite distinct serving a good purpose? I am not sure but am just offering a question rather than a judgement. Other groups that dress quite plain such as ultra-orthodox Jews are not so much a tourist attraction but clearly are insular and seperate from the larger society. Many people view this as being “stand off-ish” which I hope is nobody’s goal. I have heard people apply this type of judgement to plain christian groups also.
So, I would be very interested in hearing what drives others to dress plain? If you are a Quaker, what has been the reaction at your meeting? I once met a plain dressing Quaker who said that he had received more negative than positive reactions when visiting other meetings. Are there any meetings where all or most members dress plain? In my childhood experiences, there was no plain dressing in any Quaker meetings in Chester County or in Deleware. I have not even run into anyone who uses plain language for over 30 years except that one plain dressing man. Clearly, I know no Quakers who have been raised with the idea of plain dressing or plain language including some of my cousins who are worldly to say the least. What makes plain. I know of “black bumper Mennonites” who drive a black bumper Mercedes. Is that plain? Why is a Volvo often considered ok but a BMW is bad? They both cost $40K. Often I see this type of thinking in those who claim to follow a less than worldly life style. I think there is always a risk of falling into the mindset of some labels being good and others being bad. Once a particular brand, say a type of hat or type of jeans, is thought to be the proper “plain uniform” does that not become the designed clothing of the plain dressers? I am not sure. What I find is that once you jump into this topic, it becomes complicated and that is not the point.
One final question, what benefits do you recieve from plain dressing?
Thanks. David
Plain Quaker Dressing at FGC
July 3, 2004
As we got onto the campus of UMass Amherst to help set up for this year’s FGC Gathering, Julie & I realized that this is the first time we’ve been to this venue since we started plain dressing (last year we stayed home since Julie was very pregnant). FGC Friends tend to turn to the Lands End catalog for sartorial inspiration. Hippie culture is another font, both directly as tie-die shirts and in muted form as the tasteful fair-trade clothes that many older Friends prefer. Because the Gathering takes place in July and in sporadically air-conditioned buildings, people also dress for summer camp – khaki shorts & once colorful faded t‑shirts are the de facto Gathering uniform. In this setting, just wearing long pants is cause for comment (“aren’t you hot like that?!”) Try broadfalls and a long-sleeve collarless shirt, or a long dress!
So I’ve decided to write down all the conversations or questions I get about my dress this week. I should mention that I actually prefer curious questions to the strange staring I sometimes get. So here we go:
- While ringing up a Gathering store order: someone I’ve known for years asked me whether my clothing was “a theological statement or if it was just comfortable.”
- While troubleshooting the store computers and answering a cellphone call from the office: compared to a literary character named “Cosmic Possum,” who was described to me as someone able to seemlessly live in both the past and modern world (at the time the reference was made I was working two computers and taking a cell phone call.
- Walking by the dining hall, an older Friend called out “Looks good!” I said “Huh?”, he replied “that’s a good outfit!”
Monday:
- “Nice outfit” again, this time from Nils P. As soon as he said it I warned him that I was keeping this log and that he should expect to see himself in it.
- I talked a little bit about dress with a friend from Baltimore Yearly Meeting, a gay Friend involved with FLGCQBC who is identifying more and more as conservative and thinking about going plain. One concern he raised was avoiding sweatshop labor. (I pointed out that plain dress is a cottage industry and that the seamstresses are usually local and believers.) He also doesn’t want to look “like a farmer” as he walks around the city of Baltimore. (I talked about how I have limits as to how plain I go and don’t want this to be a historical outfit but one which people might actually be able to see themselves adopting. I also talked about how I still want to identify on some level with urban anarchist culture, which has a sort of plain aesthetic.)
Tuesday:
- An extended conversation with a bookstore customer from California. She began by asking if I’m doing plain dress for the same reasons as another plain dresser here, who I’ve seen but not met yet. We began talking about motivations and what it’s like and how it is for women, especially who lead active lives. I talked about my wife’s Julie’s practice, which includes leotards when she’s working at a gymnastics coach. We also talked about different kinds of QuakersIt was a great conversation.
- While sitting on a bookstore couch blogging: “You’re looking very distinguished here, with facial hair and susspenders. Is this what married life does? You’re looking very Quakerly. Does thee also have a hat?”
Wednesday
- I spent sick mostly in bed…
- I did have a brief, fever-fed conversation with some of the other plain dressing youths and soon-to-be plain dressing youth. It’s not about dress, but about being Quaker and about how we live as Friends.
Thursday:
- I had an extended conversation with a couple who run the Equal Exchange table about plain dress, Gohn Brothers catalog and avoiding sweatshop-made clothing for union-made clothing. There’s a lot of people interested in this and the issues really connect with simplicity and justice issues.
Plain Dress Discussion on Yahoo
April 19, 2004
Julie, my wife, has just started a Yahoo group called PlainAndModestDress.
Here’s her description:
This group is for Christians interested in discussing issues of religious plain and modest dress. It is not necessary to have grown up in a plain or modestly dressing group. We are especially interested in the experiences of those who have come to this point as a sort of conversion or a “recovery” of tradition that has been lost. Traditional Catholics, Anabaptists, conservative Quakers, and other Christians welcome here. Theological points and demoninational differences are open for discussion (not argument), as are the specifics of what type of plain dress you have been called to. Discussion of headcovering is also allowed here, as are gender distinctions in dress. We may also share prayers for one another, as well as the challenges we face in trying to live in obedience to the Lord. This is not a forum in which to discuss the validity of Christianity – no blaspheming allowed.
There is much to be said about plain dress. This is not an easy witness. It forces us to deal with issues of submission and humility on a daily basis – just try to go to a convenience store and not feel self-consciously set apart. Explaining this new ‘style’ to one’s more worldly friends can be quite a challenge. These are eternal issues for those adopting plain dress and I laugh with comradeship when I read old Quaker journal accounts of going plain.
Even so, I have a bit of trepidation about a newsgroup on plain dress. I don’t want to fetishize plain dress by talking about it too much. The point shouldn’t be to formulate some sort of ‘uniform of the righteous,’ and adoption of this testimony shouldn’t be motivated by peer pressure or ambition, but by a calling from the Holy Spirit – this is the crux of what I understand Margaret Fell to have been saying when she called pressured plainness a “silly poor gospel”. (I should say that some non-Quaker do dress more as an identifying uniform, which is fine, just not necessarily the Quaker rationale).
But like any outward form or testimony (peace, Quaker process, etc.), taking up plain dress can be a fruitful course in religious education. I think back to being seventeen and bucking my father’s wish that I attend the Naval Academy – my “no” made me ask how else my beliefs about peace might need to be acted out in my life. It became a useful query. Plain dress has forced me to think anew about how I “consume” clothing and how I relate to mass marketing and the global clothing industry. It’s also kept me from ducking out on my faith, as I wear an identification of my beliefs.
So join the plain dress discussion or take a look at the ever-growing section of the site called Resources on Quaker Plain Dress, which includes “My Experiments with Plainness”, my early story about going plain.
Plain Dress – Some Reflections
April 7, 2004
A guest piece by Melynda Huskey
I’ve been much afflicted on the subject of plain dress for the last several months, thanks to Thomas Clarkson. Clarkson, a British Abolitionist and close, even fond, observer of Friends, wrote a three-volume disquisition on Quaker testimonies, culture, and behavior (in 1811, if my memory serves me). There’s a lot in Clarkson to think about, but his section on Quaker garb was particularly interesting to me. Not because I intend to take up a green apron any time soon (did you know that was a badge of Quaker womanhood for nearly two centuries?), but because he provides what a present-day anthropologist would describe as a functionalist analysis of the meaning of plain dress: it served as a badge of membership, keeping its wearers peculiar and in visible communion with one another, while communicating a core value of the tradition.
When I was a kid, I yearned for plain dress like the kids in Obadiah’s family wore. I loved the idea of a Quaker uniform and couldn’t imagine why we didn’t still have one. Whenever I asked my mom about it, she would patiently explain that an outward conformity in plain dress called attention to itself as much as any worldly outfit did, and that Quakers should dress as plainly as was suitable and possible to their work in the world. It made sense, but I was still sorry.
And now, at nearly 40, after 35 years of balancing my convictions and my world, I’m still hankering after a truly distinctive and Quakerly plainness. What isn’t any clearer to me is what that might look like now.
After all, what are the options? According to my partner, the distinctive elements of contemporary Quaker garb are high-water pants for Friends over 40 and grimy hands and feet for Friends under 40. This obviously jaundiced view aside, there doesn’t seem to be much to distinguish Friends from, say, Methodists, Unitarians, or members of the local food co-op. A little denim, a little khaki, some suede sport mocs, some sandals and funky socks, batik and chunky jewelry. It’s not obviously worldly, but it’s not set apart, either. There is no testimony in our current dress.
On the other hand, anything too visibly a costume obviously isn’t right; I can’t appropriate the Mennonite dress-and-prayer-cap, for example. And my heart rises up against the whole range of “modest” clothing presently available – floral prairie dresses and pinafores, sailor dresses, denim jumpers, and head coverings – all with nursing apertures and maternity inserts, and marketed by companies with terrifying names like “Daddy’s Little Princess,” “King’s Daughters,” and “Lilies of the Field.” No Prairie Madonna drag for me. No messy, time-consuming, attention-requiring long hair; no endless supply of tights and nylons and slips; no cold legs in the winter snow and ice. No squeezing myself into a gender ideology which was foreign to Friends from the very beginning.
It seems to me that contemporary plain dress ought to be distinctive without being theatrical; it should be practical and self-effacing. It should be produced under non-exploitive conditions. It should be the same every day, without variation introduced for the sake of variation, and suitable for every occasion It should be tidy and well-kept – Quakers were once known for the scrupulous neatness of their attire and their homes. And it should communicate clearly that we are called and set apart.
But what garments they might be that would accomplish that, I cannot say. I’m stymied. Friends, share your light.
*Note from Martin Kelley:* I’m starting to collect stories from other Friends and fellow-religious on issues like plain dress, the testimonies and faith renewal. This is part of that project.
Beyond the MacGuffins: Sheeran’s Beyond Majority Rule
December 26, 2003
A review of Michael Sheeran’s Beyond Majority Rule. Twenty years later, do Friends need to experience the gathered condition?
Beyond Majority Rule has one of the more unique stories in Quaker writings. Michael Sheeran is a Jesuit priest who went to seminary in the years right after the Second Vatican Council. Forged by great changes taking place in the church, he took seriously the Council’s mandate for Roman Catholics to get “in touch with their roots.” He became interested in a long-forgotten process of “Communal Discernment” used by the Jesuit order in when it was founded in the mid-sixteenth century. His search led him to study groups outside Catholicism that had similar decision-making structures. The Religious Society of Friends should consider itself lucky that he found us. His book often explains our ways better than anything we’ve written.
Sheeran’s advantage comes from being an outsider firmly rooted in his own faith. He’s not afraid to share observations and to make comparisons. He started his research with a rather formal study of Friends, conducing many interviews and attending about ten monthly meetings in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. There are sections of the book that are dry expositions of Quaker process, sprinkled by interviews. There are times where Sheeran starts saying something really insightful about early or contemporary Friends, but then backs off to repeat some outdated Quaker cliche (he relies a bit too heavily on the group of mid-century Haverford-based academics whose histories often projected their own theology of modern liberal mysticism onto the early Friends). These sections aren’t always very enlightening – too many Philadelphia Friends are unconscious of their cherished myths and their inbedded inconsistencies. On page 85, he expresses the conundrum quite eloquently:
If the researcher was to succumb to the all too typical canons of social science, he would probably scratch his head a few times atjust this point, note that the ambiguity of Quaker expression makes accurate statistical evaluation of Quaker believes almost impossible without investment of untold time and effort, and move on to analysis of some less interesting but more manageable object of study.
Fortunately for us, Sheeran does not succumb. The book shines when Sheeran steps away from the academic role and offers us his subjective observations.
There are six pages in Beyond Majority Rule that comprise its main contribution to Quakerism. Almost every time I’ve heard someone refer to this book in conversation, it’s been to share the observations of these six pages. Over the years I’ve often casually browsed through the book and it’s these six pages that I’ve always stopped to read. The passage is called “Conflicting Myths and Fundamental Cleavages” and it begins on page 84. Sheeran begins by relating the obvious observation:
When Friends reflect upon their beliefs, they often focus upon the obvious conflict between Christocentric and universalist approaches. People who feel strongly drawn to either camp often see the other position as a threat to Quakerism itself.
As a Gen-X’er I’ve often been bored by this debate. It often breaks down into empty language and the desire to feel self-righteous about one’s beliefs. It’s the MacGuffin of contemporary liberal Quakerism. (A MacGuffin is a film plot device that drives the action but is in itself never explained and doesn’t really matter: if the spies have to get the secret plans across the border by midnight, those plans are the MacGuffin and the chase the real action.) Today’s debates about Christocentrism versus Universalism ignore the real issues of faithlessness we need to address.
Sheeran sees the real cleavage between Friends as those who have experienced the divine and those who haven’t. I’d extend the former just a bit to include those who have faith that the experience of the divine is possible. When we sit in worship do we really believe that we might be visited by Christ (however named, however defined)? When we center ourselves for Meeting for Business do we expect to be guided by the Great Teacher?
Sheeran found that a number of Friends didn’t believe in a divine visitation:
Further questions sometimes led to the paradoxical discovery that, for some of these Friends, the experience of being gathered even in meeting for worship was more of a formal rather than an experiential reality. For some, the fact that the group had sat quiety for twenty-five minutes was itself identified as being gathered.
There are many clerks that call for a “moment of silence” to begin and end business – five minutes of formal silence to prove that we’re Quakers and maybe to gather our arguments together. Meetings for business are conducted by smart people with smart ideas and efficiency is prized. Sitting in worship is seen a meditative oasis if not a complete waste of time. For these Friends, Quakerism is a society of strong leadership combined with intellectual vigor. Good decisions are made using good process. If some Friends choose to describe their own guidance as coming from “God,” that their individual choice but it is certainly not an imperative for all.
Maybe it’s Sheeran’s Catholicism that makes him aware of these issues. Both Catholics and Friends traditionally believe in the real presence of Christ during worship. When a Friend stands to speak in meeting, they do so out of obedience, to be a messenger and servant of the Holy Spirit. That Friends might speak ‘beyond their Guide’ does not betray the fact that it’s God’s message we are trying to relay. Our understanding of Christ’s presence is really quite radical: “Jesus has come to teach the people himself,” as Fox put it, it’s the idea that God will speak to us as He did to the Apostles and as He did to the ancient prophets of Israel. The history of God being actively involved with His people continues.
Why does this matter? Because as a religious body it is simply our duty to follow God and because newcomers can tell when we’re faking it. I’ve known self-described atheists who get it and who I consider brothers and sisters in faith and I’ve known people who can quote the bible inside and out yet know nothing about love (haven’t we all known some of these, even in Quakerism?). How do we get past the MacGuffin debates of previous generations to distill the core of the Quaker message?
Not all Friends will agree with Sheeran’s point of cleavage. None other than the acclaimed Haverfordian Douglas V Steere wrote the introduction to Beyond Majority Rule and he used it to dismiss the core six pages as “modest but not especially convincing” (page x). The unstated condition behind the great Quaker reunifications of the mid-twentieth century was a taboo against talking about what we believe as a people. Quakerism became an individual mysticism coupled with a world-focused social activism – to talk about the area in between was to threaten the new unity.
Times have changed and generations have shifted. It is this very in-between-ness that first attracted me to Friends. As a nascent peace activist, I met Friends whose deep faith allowed them to keep going past the despair of the world. I didn’t come to Friends to learn how to pray or how to be a lefty activist (most Quaker activists now are too self-absorbed to be really effective). What I want to know is how Friends relate to one another and to God in order to transcend themselves. How do we work together to discern our divine leadings? How do we come together to be a faithful people of the Spirit?
I find I’m not alone in my interest in Sheeran’s six pages. The fifty-somethings I know in leadership positions in Quakerism also seem more tender to Sheeran’s observations than Douglas Steere was. Twenty-five years after submitting his dissertation, Friends are perhaps ready to be convinced by our Friend, Michael J. Sheeran.
Postscript: Michael J Sheeran continues to be an interesting and active figure. He continues to write about governance issues in the Catholic Church and serves as president of Regis University in Denver.