Crossing a Border with Gratitude

As 2024 winds down it is important to reflect on the year that is passing.  Friends United Meeting has invited a variety of Friends to share their thoughts on gratitude.  As David Steindl-Rast the Catholic theologian said “It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful,” so we too shall take time to be grateful. This week's reflection is from Margaret Fraser, who served as executive secretary of Friends World Committee for Consultation, Section of the Americas. She now lives in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

On a Saturday in mid-November, eighteen Quakers from Frederick Street Meeting in Belfast took the cross-border Enterprise train to Connolly Station, Dublin, two hours away. At Connolly we were greeted by two members of Eustace Street Meeting and guided on the light rail and on foot to the Eustace Street meetinghouse in Dublin.

There, we ate lunch with local Friends. These annual visits have their roots in the Troubles, the civil disorder that lasted from 1968–1998. Ireland Yearly Meeting had encouraged each Meeting south of the border to develop a sister relationship with a Meeting in the north. Thus, the Meetings in central Dublin and central Belfast were ‘twinned.’

After lunch we were taken to the adjacent Irish Film Institute (IFI), which was showcasing a week of French films. We squeezed past the lines for coffee and popcorn, up the stairs to a theater for a ten-minute visit between screenings. This large, tiered auditorium used to be Eustace Street Meeting’s main worship room.

The archivist then took us into the IFI library, formerly the Yearly Meeting’s library and archive. It was hard for me to imagine the big old meetinghouse, with its warren of corridors and committee rooms, but I’m guessing that the Meeting probably now occupies less than a quarter of its previous space. Those of us with large old buildings have to think creatively about re-use.

Before we returned to the meetinghouse for tea and meeting for worship, we were shown some home movies made by Quakers and donated to the Irish Film Institute’s archive. One was of a tea party at the Friends World Committee for Consultation 1952 World Conference of Friends in Oxford, England. There was a charming segment of a toddler squirming on his mother’s lap, fascinated by Barrow Cadbury’s hat. It cut to a calmer scene: Barrow Cadbury bare-headed, next to the toddler who was contentedly clutching The Hat.

It took boldness and faith to organize a world conference so soon after the end of World War II. I have been told that British Friends had extended an invitation to international Friends saying, in effect, “Get yourselves here, and we will take care of the rest.” It worked out because of that boldness and faith, and because there were Friends with deep pockets who believed passionately in the importance of knitting the Quaker community back together after the fracture of conflict, so that it could be part of the re-mending of the world.

I am grateful for that vision. Just as I am grateful for the initiative of twinning Meetings across the island of Ireland during the Troubles. Fifty years ago, to risk a cross-border train journey meant the possibility of ‘trouble on the line’—code for a possible bomb—and a bus diversion adding a couple of hours to the journey. It took commitment to visit. But it was a tangible symbol of Friends’ care for each other in that challenging time.

Margaret Fraser

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