Bayo Omoyiola
born 1946, living in Liverpool, attending Liverpool Meeting
Born into a Nigerian Anglican family in February, 1946 as the first male child in a very big family, I grew a sense of responsibility quite early in life. This led me easily into leadership posts in every institution that I attended and explained lots of life's privileges, inclusive of Commonwealth scholarship and other bursaries with many travel prospects. It also led me into early marriage as well with the photo effect that my grown-up children are like my siblings when we are seen together!
At age 23, I became aware that I sought an underlining matrix of Christian life and life generally beyond my own studies in the biological sciences. At once, I took a keen interest in God-awareness skills namely meditation, concentration and contemplation and such avenues that openly taught them.
By 1970, I had established a habit of subscribing to many western periodicals - "this and that Digest", as I called them then - and read them avidly during my "treks" as a forest research worker. I travelled in green land-rovers and put up in guest houses built in the midst of forest clearings where quiet reading was always possible. This was how I came across the Quaker faith, on the pages of a journal. Within the same week of reading about Friends' way of life, I met a British Friend who became pointed the way in. By good fortune, I won a scholarship to study in Aberdeen, Scotland that same year. I was able to meet that Friend's family who lived in Edinburgh. Our families got to know them quite well in the years that followed. We made and retained many Friends.
I made my first application for membership in 1973. I was visited in a council house on Powis Terrace, Aberdeen by two Elders - a lawyer and a linguistics teacher. I was in the family state at the time and Friends supported our young family comprising my then wife and two "wee" boys - Bode and Bambour, the latter having been born half way through my student days in Aberdeen. During our last year - 1974 - my family shared the home of Friends near Aberdeen city centre.
Maybe it was natural curiosity or quixotic foolery that led me to apparently eastern Transcendental Meditation, Jungian philosophy and other western forms of Christian spirituality, including one founded by Rudolf Steiner. I had nevertheless taken everything that I have done in life seriously and received encouragement from many sources. On returning to Nigeria in the mid-70s, I felt extremely exhausted from my seeking and needed to choose carefully what to work out of. My choice then was a form of labour-intensive farming - Biodynamic Agriculture - similar to African farming in its organic style but with specific indications from its founding father. I could not combine such land work with office- and city-based research involvement. I posted a letter of resignation to Aberdeen during this period on the land. The necessity to combine land work with catering for kids with learning difficulties led me back to Britain for a year re-orientation training at the Sheiling School, Ringwood, Hampshire, one of 30 village communities in the Camphill Village Trust back in 1989. Since then, there has been many political developments in Nigeria consequent upon which I feel strongly that I could not work safely in the rural area with that same commitment. I do not inwardly identify with my goals as I set them more than a full decade ago because they are neither relevant nor practical in the circumstance of my Liverpool life.
It is tempting to state that I am on a rebound to Friends' faith and simplicity in my middle age after disproving a null hypothesis. By some scoring system, I rate dogma lower and Friends' sustained peace testimony higher than I did three decades ago. However true, such soundbites could be devoid of the spirit as my convictions, not my opinions, have followed me on my journeys. In reality, my return to attendance of corporate worship has arisen out of a heart-felt notion that the sacrifice of opposition, that left my humanity intact, has led to an awakening that enabled me to choose my path freely.
I hope that Friends can assist and make it a return to service. For me, the detour has been an active voyage of discovery.