For the longest time I was fearful to step into faith, even though I felt Spirit stir for so long. Quaker Voluntary Service appeared unexpectedly, and initially I was hesitant. I asked if it was okay that I was not religious, and the answer I received was that faith, or lack thereof, was not a requirement, only the willingness to listen and to share.
Throughout my time in Atlanta I indeed tried to listen and share, and QVS helped me understand how to do both more equitably and peacefully. It allowed me to truly see the multiplicity of ways to engage with the sacred, a multiplicity that almost paradoxically connects and unites. Although not intentional, I realized Quakerism was a home for me, whereas others realized it was not, and that both paths were valid. It was this grace that grounded me in community and that I try to carry everywhere I go.
At my still new and current job, I realized the importance and necessity of this grace. I work as a Human Impacts of Climate Change programme assistant for Quaker United Nations Office in Geneva, Switzerland. During one of the first weeks my supervisor and I went to Monaco for the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on the state of the ocean and the cryosphere (which are all the areas in the world which are frozen such as glaciers and permafrost). The IPCC collects climate science from around the world to understand what is happening to our world, and at its meetings every single state has to agree on the summary that it specifically writes for policymakers around the world.
It was already strange to be in a country that lives in the contradiction of entirely funding a conference on climate change science while also having streets lined with the most expensive car dealers and fur shops. Stranger yet, was being in a room filled with diplomats and scientists discussing exactly how to phrase the information policymakers need to understand about what is happening to our world and what it needs in response.
This is where I realized the gifts QVS had given me, for there was a reason why the small organization I currently work for is the only faith-based organization worldwide with observer status at the IPCC. It is partly because we bring a kind of Quaker grace often absent in these types of negotiations.
This is where I realized the gifts QVS had given me, for there was a reason why the small organization I currently work for is the only faith-based organization worldwide with observer status at the IPCC. It is partly because we bring a kind of Quaker grace often absent in these types of negotiations.
This means several things. It allows us to be a voice desiring truth, and thus we can lend support to scientists by individually thanking them for their hard work but also publicly by making statements about the need to believe the climate science, especially when it is being undermined.
It helps us see the need for language that reflects that everyone is sacred, and must be included in the recommendations of what we need to do to counter climate change. This resulted directly in us working on, and succeeding in getting, the inclusion of explicit wording about the need for public participation in all climate change related processes.
Most significantly however, it grants us the ability to see all shades of humanity while permitting us to act on that kindly yet justly. One particular delegation employed a range of stalling techniques, causing our final day of negotiations to end up being 26 hours long. It felt easy to demonize this one country, and to pile the blame onto the shoulders of these delegates.
The grace QVS taught me, however, showed me that for two reasons this is not right. Firstly, it reduces the complex story of an entire country into a vilified soundbite. This country was poor less than half a century ago, and through a deeply oil-dependent economy has been able to achieve tremendous wealth that have made its citizens well-cared for in terms of health, education, and housing. There is a valid fear that in the climate movement they could lose so much of that and return to a state of impoverished dependence. This grace allows that side of the story to be visible, and ensures our climate crisis pathways must be inclusive and account for how we re-imagine global economic systems.
The second part is that extending this grace to such countries allows the acceptance of my own complicity in climate change. It is easy to point fingers, and much harder to look in the mirror. QVS taught me how essential it is to not dwell on guilt, but to focus on ownership, agency, and action.
Originally from the Frisian part of the Netherlands, Detmer Kremer came to Geneva by way of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the United States, Samoa, and Singapore. He holds a BA in anthropology and gender studies from Bates College in the United States, and a MA in Human Rights from University College London. His MA dissertation analyzed how international law understands and acts upon indigenous communities living in voluntary isolation and initial contact. Previously Detmer has served as a Quaker Voluntary Service Fellow in Atlanta focusing on housing justice and community organizing. Detmer also has worked with indigenous and minority rights organizations Cultural Survival, Traditional Arts and Ethnicity Centre, and Amazon Watch. Detmer is a Quaker and calls Atlanta Friends Meeting his spiritual home. On The Frisian Reader, Detmer maintains an intentionally diverse and international reading list as an accessible resource to encourage reading as acts of faith and justice.
You can also read a piece Detmer wrote for Friends Journal in 2018 here: To Imagine Change Through Many Voices