[See also: Resources on Quaker Plainness]
This was a post I sent to the “Pearl” email list, which consists of members of the 2002 FGC Gathering workshop led by Lloyd Lee Wilson of North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative). Eighth Month 20, 2002
I thought I’d share some of my journey in plain-ness since Gathering. There’s two parts to plain dress: simplicity and plain-ness.
The most important part of the simplicity work has been simplifying my wardrobe. It’s incredible how many clothes I have. I suspect I have a lot fewer than most Americans but there’s still tons, and never enough room in the closets & dressers (I do have small closets but still!). I’d like to get all my clothes into one or two dresser drawers and donate the rest to charity. Two pairs of pants, a couple of shirts, a few days worth of socks and undergarments. This requires that I wash everything frequently which means I hand-wash things but that’s okay. The point is to not worry or think about what I’m going to wear every morning. I’ve been to a wedding and a funeral since I started going plain and it was nice not having to fret about what to wear.
I also appreciate using less resources up by having fewer clothes. It’s hard to get away from products that don’t have some negative side effects (support of oil industry, spilling of chemical wastes into streams, killing of animals for hide, exploitation of people constructing the clothes at horrible wages & conditions). I try my best to balance these concerns but the best way is to reduce the use.
These motivations are simple-ness rather than plain-ness. But I am trying to be plain too. For men it’s pretty easy. My most common clothing since Gathering has been black pants, shoes and suspenders, and the combo seems to look pretty plain. There’s no historic authenticity. The pants are Levi-Dockers which I already own, the shoes non-leather ones from Payless, also already owned. The only purchase was suspenders from Sears. I bought black overalls too. My Dockers were victims of a minor bike accident last week (my scraped knee & elbow are healing well, thank you, and my bike is fine) and I’m replacing them with thicker pants that will hold up better to repeated washing & use. There’s irony in this, certainly. If I were being just simple, I’d wear out all the pants I have – despite their color – rather than buy new ones. I’d be wearing some bright & wacky pants, that’s for sure! But irony is part of any witness, especially in the beginning when there’s some lifestyle shifting that needs to happen. As a person living in the world I’m bound to have contradictions: they help me to not take myself too seriously and I try to accept them with grace and good humor.
But practicality in dress more important to me than historical authenticity. I don’t want to wear a hat since I bike every day and want to keep my head free for the helmet; it also feels like my doing it would go beyond the line into quaintness. The only type of clothing that’s new to my wardrobe is the suspenders and really they are as practical as a belt, just less common today. A few Civil War re-enactment buffs have smilingly observed that clip-on suspenders aren’t historically authentic but that’s perfectly okay with me. I also wear collars, that’s perfectly okay with me too.
The other thing that I’m clear about is that the commandment to plain dress is not necessarily eternal. It is situational, it is partly a response to the world and to Quakerdom and it does consciously refer to certain symbols. God is what’s eternal, and listening to the call of Christ within is the real commandment. If I were in a Quaker community that demanded plain dress, I expect I would feel led to break out the tie-die and bleach and manic-panic hair coloring. Dress is an outward form and like all outward forms and practices, it can easily become a false sacrament. If we embrace the form but forget the source (which I suspect lots of Nineteenth Century Friends did), then it’s time to cause a ruckus.
Every so often Friends need to look around and take stock of the state of the Society. At the turn of the 20th Century, they did that. There’s a fascinating anti-plain dress book from that time that argues that it’s a musty old tradition that should be swept away in light of the socialist ecumenical world of the future. I suspect I would have had much sympathy for the position at the time, especially if I were in a group of Friends who didn’t have the fire of the Spirit and wore their old clothes only because their parents had and it was expected of Quakers.
Today the situation is changed. We have many Friends who have blended in so well with modern suburban America that they’re indistinguishable in spirit or deed. They don’t want to have committee meeting on Saturdays or after Meeting since that would take up so much time, etc. They’re happy being Quakers as long as not much is expected and as long as there’s no challenge and no sacrifice required. We also have Friends who think that the peace testimony and witness is all there is (confusing the outward form with the source again, in my opinion). When a spiritual emptiness sets into a community there are two obvious ways out: 1) bring in the fads of the outside world (religious revivalism in the 19 Century, socialist ecumenicalsim in the 20th, Buddhism and sweat lodges in the 21st). or 2) re-examine the fire of previous generations and figure out what babies you threw away with the bathwater in the last rebellion against empty outward form.
I think Quakers really found something special 350 years ago, or rediscovered it and that we are constantly rediscovering it. I have felt that power/ I know that there is still one, named Jesus Christ, who can speak to my condition and that the Spirit comes to teach the people directly. I’ll read old journals and put on old clothes to try to understand early Friends’ beliefs. The clothes aren’t important, I don’t want to give them too much weight. But there is a tradition of Quakers taking on plain dress upon some sort of deep spiritual convincement (it is so much of a cliche of old Quaker journals that literary types classify it as part of the essential structure of the journals). I see plain dress as a reminder we give ourselves that we are trying to live outside the worldliness of our times and serve the eternal. My witness to others is simply that I think Quakerism is something to commit oneself wholly to (yes, I’ll meet on a Saturday) and that there are some precious gifts in traditional Quaker faith & practice that could speak to the spiritual crisis many Friends feel today.
In friendship,
Martin Kelley
Atlantic City Area MM, NJ
martink@martinkelley.com
Related Posts
- Plain Dressing at the FGC Gathering (Seventh Month 2004)
- Gohn Brothers and some plain dressing tips (Seventh Month 2004)
I have really enjoyed your comments on plain dress with relation to Quakerism. I am a 24 year old Christian attempting to move in that direction myself (plain dressing as the Mennonites do), but do have hesitations over its validity (I dont want to take on any trappings that are a hindrance to my relationship with God)and feel that part of its value is best expressed in a community setting (such as the Amish, & conservative Mennonites etc.), although as you mentioned having plain dress a requirement among Friends is not in the Quaker spirit and eventually requires some sort of written rules which does not allow Quakers to change with the spirit of the times. I would be very interested in hearing from any younger Friends (or anyone really) seeking plain dress and plain living (especially in a radical form such as the Amish and Mennonites) in their lives. I would like to know what other Quaker women believe about the headcovering. I hope more resources can be found on the internet like this as I dont think many people are aware that there is a growing movement of plain dressers. (The Plain Reader and A Plain Life by Scott Savage are a testament to this). Thanks for the great site!
Blessings,
Joslyn
Hi Joslyn,
I am a Quaker, not too young, ( 40’s) who wears dresses or skirts and a covering. I feel that the outward reflects the inward ( see 1 Timothy 2:9&10),but this is not always easy to do and for the last 4 yrs I have had periods of inconsistency with covering full time. I have spent much time online with Mennonites and other Anabaptists and hours and hours studying the Scripture, looking for guidance. My husband at the outset did not believe in covering, but he encouraged me to do it if I was convicted. I felt so ugly! Eventually, he came to feel the covering was significant because of the changes in my demeanor when I took it off! He then was convicted to wear a beard in his own expression of Plainness. He feels these outward things help us to stay on course and to have a constant reminder of our Lord. Believe me, the covering has kept me from showing a bad attitude in public and it helps me to hold my tongue more often at home. I must not forget who I represent. I also wear this covering to show I submit to God’s hierarchy — my husband is my head. I feel no less spiritual, but I have my role and place as a woman and I am fine with that. I was in the world a long time and those hair styles and such beckon me at times and I struggle with wanting to be like other christian women who don’t do this. But, I can’t get away from the feeling the Lord gave me this conviction as a priviledge and not a burden. Yes, there are many women feeling called to cover and dress modestly these days. I think it is because of the gross worldliness we have in this country. I, too, have been looking at the Plain clothing ( cape dresses), but I do not sew and to purchase a few outfits would be costly. I have a whole closet full of thrift store skirts and shirts which are getting me by, but we are trying to decide how distinctive we should be. I have been called a nun, which is weird, because I don’t look like one. The groups all have their own dress rules and only someone studying these matters would know who wears what. Generally, people who are not Amish or mennonite don’t want to wear the clothing of one of those groups, but they are doing it. There are some dresses which are being created similar, but enough different they are not going to cause an identity problem.
In Him,
Joanie
Hello,
My family are conservative quakers, yet members of an FGC meeting. We dress plain, my wife and daughters wear headcoverings for modesty and witnessing’s sake. We still drive, however, but try to live more simply as live-in aids at a Grand rapids homeless shelter. We are interested in the experiences of other Friends whom dress plain, especially since we know of no plain community, specifically populated by Friends.
I just read the posts after mine today. I seem to keep encountering plain Quakers on the web. I want to invite anyone who is a plain Quaker, or who is seeking plainess to feel free to email me at: rainbowleafj@yahoo.com
I would love to connect with others out there. I wish there were a larger body of plain Quakers grouped together somewhere, everyone seems so far away, It would be nice to feel some of the fellowship that the Mennonites have.
God bless,
Joslyn
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.…
[Amanda’s comment was long enough (and funny enough and insightful enough!) to be its own guest piece on Quaker Ranter. Read the full post at “Buying my Personality in a Store”:http://www.nonviolence.org/martink/archives/000438.php. –Martin, ed]
Amanda’s post reminds me of several incidents in my life, one being the time I decided I would start making the bed every morning, as a way to honor and respect myself. It _is_ a discipline, and sometimes I postpone it. But the power of the act is genuine and still impacts me, both when I make the bed and when I skip making it.
I also relate to the inner dialogue about what it might meeeeean to dress plainly. Though this is not what _my_ dialogue is about (mine was about being ready (or not) to move from Milwaukee to Minneapolis), the memory that comes to mind for me is when a dear Quaker friend told me the well-known story of the conversation between George Fox and William Penn. …Have you come across this yet in your reading, Amanda?
Some time after his convincement as a Friend, Penn was struggling with whether or not to remove his sword from his attire. (I believe he still held a position in the military, but I’m not one to recount history well.) Upon describing his quandry to Fox, Fox said, “Wear thy sword as long as thou canst.”
For me, it is important to be _ready_ to be transformed, ready to yield to the leadings of the Spirit, wherever the Spirit may take us. Making a decision based on reason has seldom had the lasting effect for me as making a decision based on readiness and faithfulness.
Blessings,
Liz
Oh no Liz, not that damned Fox/Penn story!! For the record: it’s a total fabrication, a tall tale first recorded long after both men were dead. Peter Sippel did a good job tracking it back to “Samuel M. Janney’s 1852 biography of Penn”:http://www.qhpress.org/quakerpages/qwhp/pennswor.htm. Janney was an activist Hicksite, an abolitionist who went to work for President Grant after the Civil War. This isn’t to say the sentiment isn’t good or that Janney wasn’t an important figure in his own right, but he might well have had an agenda going when he passed along a third-hand urban legend. The story tells us more about nineteenth century Quaker attitudes than it does Penn or Fox.
I always wonder what George Fox really would have told Penn. I have a hard time imagining him being quite so mellow & understanding as the story paints him (grin!). Still the advice that we should be ready to be faithful wherever it takes us is sound indeed!
In friendship,
Martin
Well, I’ve heard that story, but never in a Quaker context — still — you are very right about being ready.
I know I’m really, really ready for something when I actually almost DO feel as if I can’t do anything else anymore. It’s never an absolute extreme inability to do the “wrong” thing anymore, but it is a nagging feeling — a sense of unease or disrest that doesn’t sleep.
I’m trying to take care not to form my own set of Quaker scruples after giving up my Catholic ones. It is more complicated, but much more beautiful, to do the right thing because it gives you peace, instead of doing the right thing because you won’t have peace otherwise. It’s a nice distinction, but a clear one in my practice. To be honest, though, I’m still as motivated by an itchy concience as I am by a spontaneous inspiration to give up X,Y, or Z.
Frankly, often I feel the urge to push myself towards things I do NOT feel ready for, because I want to stretch and grow. I’m worried that this is prideful. Not to over-think it, but sometimes I feel like there are certain things I’m going to have to get in order before I can just relax and “be still andknow.” Maybe there’s a lot of foundational work for me to do on my self and my lifestyle before I am peaceful.
But maybe not.
🙂
I wonder sometimes — is it ever good to quell an itchy concience (The voice that says I ought to do X, Y, Z, or it won’t leave me in peace) in the interest of spiritual humilty and quietude?
Pondering,
Amanda
Hi Amanda,
>Frankly, often I feel the urge to push myself towards things
>I do NOT feel ready for… I’m worried that this is prideful…
>I wonder sometimes — is it ever good to quell an itchy concience…
>in the interest of spiritual humilty and quietude?
These are absolutely the right questions. It’s not enough that our cause or message merely be correct. If it is to have effect in our listeners and minister to them it also has to be given in the right time with the right humility. As ministers, we are to discourage “forward spirits that run into words without life and power, advising against affectations of tones and gestures, and everything that would hurt their service; yet encouraging the humble careful traveller.” (Philadelphia Faith & Practice, 1806).
One of the classic “tests for discerning a leading”:http://www.tractassociation.org/FiveTestsForDiscerningATrueLeading.html is to sit on it in patience. If it’s a vaporous figment of our imagination it’s hold will whither away; if it’s a true calling, it will become only more clear. My new best Friend Samuel Bownas (“Description of the Qualifications…”) talks about this a lot.
One story he tells is of a chum of his who was also new in the ministry. This new minister traveled to Bristol and gave an alarming series of ministries about how destruction and mass death was coming upon the whole town. The elders at Bristol sent this fellow home and he didn’t begin a traveling ministry again for a few years and until the Bristol meeting had given the okay. As this was happening, Samuel himself felt called to go to London and give much the same message of approaching mass death. He asked a respected minister for advice and was told that he should wait awhile before preaching. After this period, Samuel no longer felt led to deliver his message.
Personally, I’ve felt it important to curb some of my more strident self-denials. We need to keep a sense of humor and perspective about ourselves, which is to say that we need to remember that any lifestyle change is simply an outward form of an inward transformation and that the glory and credit of it goes to Christ and the Spirit that has blessed us and promised to release us from vanity. We are but simple human creatures and it is hard for us not to secretly tender some sort of pride within for what we’ve done – this of course is kindling for the Tempter. But if we trust in that which is eternal, and wait upon that proof, we can hold true.
Thank you so much for that message and for the link. I am still so young in this journey and appreciate all the help I can get.
I think the adivce in both is good enough to be applied generally to most instances in my life.
A specific example (and the one most in my mind these days) is — to give up alcohol altogether. This is a big one for me for many reasons, not the least of which is — it is the main social context for perhaps 3/4 of my human interaction. I feel in many ways that this is a discipline I should bow to, and (not coincidentally) mostly because I think, if I took away that 3/4 of human interaction in bars and at parties, what other, perhaps more spiritually beneficial interaction might replace it? It’s scary because I would profoundly alienate many of my friends — if we go out and I drink diet coke, they are personally affronted. I don’t in the least feel *ready* to take on that challenge, whether I should or not. So canI then just pat myself on the head and tell myself “Well, then, you don’t have to take on this question, because you just don’t feel *ready*. Well, to me that feels soft and sloppy. However, the other extreme — just strong arming myself into it because “I ought” is not only often ineffective, but also condusive to pride. (“Hey, check out this wil-power I’ve got! Ha!”)
I don’t mean to make a mountain out of a molehill, but applying those tests for discernment even to something as seemingly frivolous as this immediately brings a certain amount of calm to the whole situation. I am a bit of a drama queen and can angst eternally over some questions. One of the things I love so much about Quaker philosophy and theology as I have encountered it so far is how grounded it is in common, experienceable sense.
Thanks,
Amanda
RE: “release us from vanity”
The Quaker testimony in attire speaks stongly to the issue of vanity and pride. One can wear jeans and a t‑shirt or one can wear TOMMY jeans and an ABERCROMBIE-FITCH t‑shirt [with appropriate logo]. So much of worldly attire is an exercise in vanity, pride, status, and social/economic class.
For me thee can’t recreate the past, the past is that the past though it is nice to plain dress it can be hard to find the clothes and can cost a lot. So for me is to ware black pants , white or dark blue shirts with out a collar and black hat and if cold black coat as plain as I can get and black pull overs.With a hat a Quaker, plane type of hat thay cost a lot so I am looking at buying a black hat plain as I can find, but it does not have old Quaker look . With dressing plain the money comes in to it like the hat Quaker type cost $140 and the other type cost $45 and much harder wareing so which would you buy? So the way I dress plain is what I can aford. The other way would end up costing thousands. What do thee think .Would like to hear what thee thinks .Please email me horsecounty@yahoo.com.au
I have been intrigued by plain dress for a while now.
I find, though, that I haven’t been ‘led’ to change my mode of dress (nudges toward simplifying, but nothing really about “plain”) though I remain intrigued. hmmm.
I have wanted to post about it on my own blog (which is new, and I am not confident in it as yet) but it’s not really “my thing” so I haven’t really known what to say.
I’m not sure I understand how plain dress is meant to “shake things up” among quakers. If it comes from the same place that the desire for tie dye in anti-tie-dye environment does, that’s VERY different from its original intent (it was a unifying, rather than a divise choice, wasn’t it?)
I have a concern about it becoming an “outward form” — I find myself realizing that the way I am, drawn to do it would have me looking quite unlike a ‘plain dressing quaker’ and probably quite unlike mainstream society as well. The appeal or lack of appeal of these for me if based entirely in desires for conformity and rebellion, and I am yearning for some understanding of where God (or truth) fits into all this, if not for me, then for other people.
I am addressing my comments to Pam.
I am a plain-dressing Quaker living in Colorado. I have been plain dressing for four years, give or take.
Any spiritual observance can become an empty form. And any everyday act can be blessed by Grace. That is God’s action in this world, not man’s. I have found it is not for me to judge anything as intrinsically graced or lacking in grace. What I have found is that I am to seek God’s will for me today, this day, and to live in the Life this moment and then the next moment and the next moment after that as best I can.
So, for me, this living in the Life has come to mean plain dress. I was forced to abandon plain dress for a month or so some time back. God made it clear I was to set it aside, and the struggle I had in complying proved to me the pride that had become attached to it. I can remember quite clearly thinking what a fool I would look, having already had to play the fool by adopting plain dress, now even more of a fool to set it aside. But I managed to humble my heart and submitted. When I was given this witness back, I accepted its return with joy and have made sure to keep the eyes of my heart on God and not what others think of me. For good or for ill.
My plain dress witness isn’t about being divided from others or united with others. It is about doing what I am supposed to do in this life.
God’s will. Not my will.
Isabel
I find this very interesting I am not Quaker, but belong to a Baptist Church we are not into plain dress as a group, but I am wondering if there are any books on the subject. How would I get information on Quaker Plain Dress?
Hi Dana,
Steven Scott’s “Why Do They Dress That Way?”:http://www.anabaptistbooks.com/services/amazon/whydress.html is a great, very readable introduction that hightlights a lot of different plain dressing groups. If I remember rightly, I think he actually was raised Baptist; he’s some variation of Brethren now, but because he grew up more “mainstream,” he’s good at explaining things.
Your Friend, Martin
Most informative and interesting. I have been plain dressing all my life because I cannot abide the vapid spiritual bankruptness of the fashion world, even at it’s simplest, because it is still fashion. It is the plain dressing of the thrift store, mostly jumper dresses mended and unstained,very clean and ironed, which leaves me completely free tolet my light shine and to address myself to the issues which need attention in these times.