- Hello, lovely people.
Today we're on the floor.
Oh, hello, friends.
Those with a capital F,
and a small f.
And welcome to a corner of my bedroom floor.
And the light, by the way, is not working with us today.
So, that's why I'm out of breath.
I've been chasing it around the bedroom.
I'm really trying to work out this whole,
"New mum, working mum," thing.
When you work from home, it is hard,
because, how do you do it?
You need to do some work, and answer some emails,
but also,
your baby is right there,
and crying, because,
he had his inoculations yesterday,
and he has a fever.
I know your email says urgent, but also,
is it?
And my wife was like,
"He's fine. He's sleeping.
Go and film that video you need to film."
That's what we're doing.
We're sitting here,
and we're bringing some calm and peace back into my life
by talking about Quakerism,
which is my religion, for those who don't know.
And Quakerism is, well,
it's a wonderful religion.
I'm massively biased,
much like every time I say, "My baby is stunning."
(air popping) Quakerism brings me
an excellent amount of calm,
and spiritual (exhales),
soothing to my life.
Quakerism,
as we will find out in a minute,
has a lot of quietness to it,
but also a lot of activism,
because of something we'll talk about in a minute.
Ah, deep breaths.
So, in today's video,
we're going to be discussing your assumptions
about my religion,
which I asked you on my Instagram, @jessicaoutofthecloset,
which you should go and follow me on,
if you're not already following me.
The link is in the description down below.
Yes, go and follow me.
And I'm going to be answering them.
There we go.
Well done, Jessica.
We've got the point of today's video.
"It's (air popping)
Amish?"
No.
Though I do see where you were coming from with that one.
We did like hats.
We had some good hat game.
(air popping) "It inherently makes you
a good person, i.e., no 'bad eggs.'"
Ah, no.
I can't say that there are no bad Quakers.
There are definitely people who were Quakers,
whose behavior was not always excellent.
Okay.
Such as, Quakers were abolitionists,
and believed in racial equality
from a very, very early stage.
However, there were some Quakers
who owned other human beings,
i.e., held people as property,
as slaves,
which other Quakers very much frowned upon.
I'm afraid being a Quaker does not make you
just an innately wonderful human being.
(air popping) "Quakers are awesome.
We wouldn't have Cadbury's without Quakers."
Yes.
This is true.
(air popping) "You won't be raising Rupert
in a specific religion,
but exposing him to different beliefs."
Yeah.
So, within Quakerism,
you are not a Quaker until you choose to be.
I was raised within Quakerism,
but then decided to become a Quaker when I was 16.
So, you don't raise a child
necessarily with the expectation that they will become.
It is something that they have to choose for themselves,
and they are only then accepted as a member.
I say you have to be over the age of 16.
That was the case back in my day.
I do not know if that's the case still.
But you know, I think it will be really fun
for Rupert to have some of the experiences
that I had as a child,
in terms of like going to Quaker summer school
with my friends.
The bits that I really liked about that
was that I got to have friends
who lived all over the country.
Much like a cousin,
you don't feel a lot of pressure as a small child
that the maintaining of that friendship is on you,
like you have to keep arranging your play dates together,
and texting them,
and like bugging your mum (laughs)
to arrange dates for you to see each other,
because you're gonna see each other
at the next Quaker event.
So, that's definitely an aspect that I want for him.
I do really want him to have
the five core beliefs of Quakerism when he's growing up.
And those are peace, equality, justice, sustainability,
and simplicity.
So, simplicity,
we kind of talked about in terms of quiet,
and the calm,
but also how having a kind of stripped-back,
slightly simpler, calmer life,
can make things a bit easier for you,
and that's also how we bring Montessori
enter into the life as well.
So, you know,
let's talk a little bit more about that
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I know, vague minimalism, what be that?
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(air popping) "It's a very closed community,
but less intense than other versions of Christianity."
I would say it's not closed.
Anyone can go to a Quaker meeting.
You're very welcome.
I mean, don't walk into a meeting that's in progress,
because that's just rude.
You don't need to be worried about that.
You don't need to be invited,
or anything of that sort.
We're not a sect,
a private,
what am I trying to say?
Oh, we're not like a secret club.
What's that thing called?
We're not the Illuminati. (logo buzzing)
Don't worry.
You don't have to know someone who's already in it
in order to be invited.
However,
I suppose it can seem,
much like anything
where people on the inside already know each other,
it can seem very closed.
I think I went to a lot of youth things when I was younger,
and because we all sort of grew up together
going to these youth things with each other,
although very heavily put into us from a very young age
to never have exclusive behavior.
That was always like the biggest sin.
Not that we believe in sin,
but basically,
we were always told, "Don't be exclusive."
And I think we were always quite hurt and upset
if we thought we had been,
and if we thought we'd upset someone
by being exclusive with our behavior,
which just means excluding someone.
Yes, you're going to every single event
with all the same people,
it definitely feels, to others,
a bit like, "Oh, you all know each other. Wow.
You guys grew up together. Hmm."
Can't lie.
It does sometimes feel a bit closed, even to me,
because
I am
a bit different.
Ooh, real talk.
I do feel a little bit,
like I'm just slightly
like a little bit sort of excluded sometimes, from things.
I think part of it is because my age group,
there's a lot of fall off.
So, you tend to get teens, young people,
obviously, children,
children, teens,
who still come with their families.
And then there's a kind of fall off
when people go to university.
Sometimes people at university are still quite active,
but then they graduate,
and it's a bit like, "Ah."
And I'm completely the same, obviously,
'cause you're like, "Ah, job, life,"
and life just kind of gets on top of you,
and you're busy,
and you're having travel at the weekends,
and just stuff's happening,
and it's all getting on top of you, ah.
And then it tends to be, "Oh."
Then you have kids,
and suddenly you're like,
"Ah, my life has settled down now.
Now I'd like to start getting back
into going into meetings more.
But now I wish I had more of a stable, local meeting
that I go to,
rather than dropping in and out of different ones."
So, yes, I need to get more involved in my local meeting.
Yeah, I know I stick out like a sore thumb
wherever I go.
And I dress like this all the time,
and I don't really want to change it.
(laughs)
Because I dress with joy in my heart,
and I dress to celebrate every day.
Okay, next question.
(air popping) "You view Quakerism
more as a life philosophy than an organized religion?"
A personal question.
Interestingly,
right underneath,
someone asked,
(air popping) "It's not really a religion,
it's more a shared community."
I think there are definitely
young people nowadays,
who view Quakerism as a way of life,
and aren't as involved in the organized religious aspects.
I personally,
as I said,
gonna dip my toes back into the organized religion aspect,
and see how I feel about it.
(air popping) "Very strict,
and strict clothing guidelines."
No, again,
we had strict clothing guidelines.
Now, no.
I love that these two assumptions came in
one after the other.
(air popping) "Quakers are all pro-LGBT."
And then,
(air popping) "It's extremely conservative."
Quakers,
in some areas,
are pro-LGBT.
Very much so.
Quakers in other areas are more conservative,
because Quakerism is very varied.
There aren't very many Quakers in the world.
There are about 380,000 Quakers worldwide.
However, more than half of today's Quakers live in Africa.
And as many as a third, I believe, live in Kenya.
And the version of Quakerism that is prevalent in Kenya
is a lot more conservative than the Quakerism
that we have in the UK and in the US,
and they are not as pro-LGBT.
They are also more likely to call themselves Christian
than Quakers in the UK.
And they actually have pastors, where we don't.
They have programmed worship, and songs.
We don't sing songs.
There's also a growth of Quakers in Latin America,
who are also more conservative than Quakers in the UK.
So, yeah, I guess, I suppose I can't say no,
if someone says, "Your religion is conservative."
(air popping) Ha! "You love or hate oats,
there is no middle ground."
(inhales)
Goddam those oats.
Probably shouldn't say, "Goddam."
But I don't believe in the spirits.
(air popping) "You're basically Mormon."
That's a new one.
I don't know enough about Mormonism to answer that.
(air popping) "Quakers are super chill
about the existence of other religions."
True.
You can be another religion and also a Quaker.
So, you could be a Jewish Quaker,
or a Muslim Quaker.
Oh, and there's a picture of my baby.
So, I looked at him this morning, and I was like,
"Oh, my goodness,
you are massive now."
You're definitely big enough
for those zero-to-three-month trousers.
They'll fit."
They did not.
Oh, you're so cute.
Oh, every day I'm like, "Wow, you're massive now."
And then I put something next to him, and I'm like, "Oh."
Thank you so much, my darlings,
for joining me down on my bedroom floor today,
as I attempt to escape
this ray of sunshine.
I hope you enjoy this kind of, I don't know what this is,
style of video,
a talk at you, to you, with you, towards you.
I'm answering your questions, therefore assumptions.
I'm answering your assumptions,
therefore with you, with you, will be with you.
Right.
Ah.
I hope you've enjoyed it.
It's been nice.
Actually, you know what?
It's really helped me,
being chatty,
being just talking,
I've got out some of my feelings,
I feel less stressed about poor baby.
Oh, so now I'm talking about it,
and I can feel it rising, you know (inhales).
Quaker calm.
Ooh, it does work.
It really does work. It does. It does work.
So, yeah, thank you so much for joining me.
It's been really lovely talking to you.
Thank you for sticking with me
as I try to work out my way
of getting back into the swing of things,
and making videos,
whilst having a little one around,
and so on, and so forth.
Ahem, it's a bit tough working out how to be a mum,
and so on, and so forth.
But, you know, gotta get back to work,
especially now we're a single-income family,
since someone in Accounting messed up my wife's maternity,
and she's not been paid for five months.
But, oh well, it's fine. Fine.
If you're new here, do hit the Subscribe button.
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And I'll see you in my next video.
Mwah. (blows kiss)
(calm music)