Quaker Map Hack

May 26, 2005

To the best of my knowl­edge this is the first Quak­er Google Maps hack, show­ing the meet­ing­hous­es of down­town Philadel­phia. Click on the thumb­tacks for details; click on the satel­lite view for a cool view! Like much of the web it looks much bet­ter in “Firefox”:http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/. Hack cour­tesy of the extreme­ly exper­i­men­tal “MyGmaps”:http://mygmaps.com, data from “Quakerfinder.org”:www.Quakerfinder.org. Here’s my short list of “Google Map Hacks”:http://del.icio.us/martin_kelley/map.
Although I love Quak­erfind­er, it should be not­ed that Google does almost as good a job list­ing area “Friends Meet­ings” via their “local search” feature.

Is it getting warmer in here?

May 23, 2005

One of the rea­sons I like “non­vi­o­lence” as a catch-all orga­niz­ing prin­ci­ple is that it let you range across to some of the root issues that need to be addressed. One of these is the cli­mat­ic effects that humans are hav­ing upon the Earth. The _New Yorker_ has been run­ning some arti­cles: check out part one of Eliz­a­beth Kol­bert’s “The Cli­mate of Man (part one)”:http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050425fa_fact3 (“part two is here”:http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050502fa_fact3).
One of the more use­ful set of links and dis­cus­sions I’ve read late­ly comes from a post titled “Cli­mate Change Activism”:http://www.am464.net/archives/2005/05/climate_change.html on a blog called The Pub­lic Quak­er. It’s not enough to know that the cli­mate is going to hell in a hand­bas­ket and shout­ing the warn­ings out from the rooftops is often inef­fec­tive. The PQ talks about how we can help get a move­ment togeth­er that moti­vates peo­ple to build the world we want. Cool stuff and she has links to the work of oth­ers as well.

Responsible Journalism and the Flim-Flam Show of Insider Loudmouths

May 19, 2005

Bill Moy­ers, a recently-ousted PBS jour­nal­ist and the elder states­man of respon­si­ble jour­nal­ism “recent­ly gave a great speech on media trends”:http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/16/1329245:
bq. One rea­son I’m in hot water is because my col­leagues and I at “NOW” did­n’t play by the con­ven­tion­al rules of Belt­way jour­nal­ism. Those rules divide the world into democ­rats and repub­li­cans, lib­er­als and con­ser­v­a­tives and allow jour­nal­ists to pre­tend they have done their job if, instead of report­ing the truth behind the news, they mere­ly give each side an oppor­tu­ni­ty to spin the news.
(Thanks to “Beppe”:http://beppeblog.blogspot.com/2005/05/bill-moyers-response.html for the link.)

Howard Zinn: The Scourge of Nationalism

May 18, 2005

Howard Zinn, one of our favorite pro­gres­sive his­to­ri­ans looks at the tool of nation­al­ism in this mon­th’s _Progressive_:
bq. Is not nation­al­ism – that devo­tion to a flag, an anthem, a bound­ary so fierce it engen­ders mass mur­der – one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with reli­gious hatred? These ways of think­ing – cul­ti­vat­ed, nur­tured, indoc­tri­nat­ed from child­hood on – have been use­ful to those in pow­er, and dead­ly for those out of power.
I par­tic­u­lar­ly like his call to “assert our alle­giance to the human race.” So many of the polit­i­cal lead­ers who call for war do so by whip­ping up fear that the ene­my has already called for war against us. We jus­ti­fy our armies by point­ing to oth­er armies. It’s like a big glob­al rack­et dreamed up by the arms deal­ers who are often hap­pi­ly sell­ing to both sides. Threats are indeed real, but we need to see beyond our self-justifying pro­pa­gan­da of the war machine.

Witness of Our Lost Twenty-Somethings

May 16, 2005

For those that might not have noticed, I have an arti­cle in the lat­est issue of the awkwardly-named FGCon­nec­tions: “Wit­ness of Our Lost Twenty-Somethings.” Astute Quak­er Ranter read­ers will rec­og­nize it as a re-hashing of “The Lost Quak­er Gen­er­a­tion” and its relat­ed pieces. Reac­tion has been quite inter­est­ing, with a lot of old­er Friends say­ing they relate to what I’ve said. It’s fun­ny how so many of us feel a sense of iso­la­tion from our own reli­gious institutions!

The Witness of Our Lost Twenty-Somethings

By Martin Kelley

What is it like to be a thirty-something Friend these days? Lone­ly and frus­trat­ing. At least half of the com­mit­ted, inter­est­ing and bold twenty-something Friends I knew ten years ago have left Quak­erism. This isn’t nor­mal youth­ful church-hopping and it’s not some char­ac­ter flaw of “Gen­er­a­tion X.” They’ve left because they were sim­ply tired of slam­ming their heads against the wall of an insti­tu­tion­al Quak­erism that neglect­ed them and its own future.

I can cer­tain­ly relate. For the last decade, I’ve done ground-breaking work pub­li­ciz­ing non­vi­o­lence online. I’ve been pro­filed in the New York Times and invit­ed on nation­al talk radio shows, but the clerk of the peace com­mit­tee in my achingly-small month­ly meet­ing always for­gets that I have “some web­site” and I’ve nev­er been asked to speak to Friends about my work. I wouldn’t mind being over­looked if I saw oth­ers my age being rec­og­nized, but most of the amaz­ing min­istries I’ve known have been just as invisible.

It’s like this even at the small-scale lev­el. I’ve gone to count­less com­mit­tee meet­ings with ideas, enthu­si­asm and faith­ful­ness, only to real­ize (too late, usu­al­ly) that these are just the qual­i­ties these com­mit­tees don’t want. Through repeat­ed heart­break I’ve final­ly learned that if I feel like I’m crash­ing a par­ty when I try to get involved with some Quak­er cause, then it’s a sign that it’s time to get out of there! I’ve been in so many meet­ing­hous­es where I’ve been the only per­son with­in ten years of my age in either direc­tion that I’m gen­uine­ly star­tled when I’m in a room­ful of twenty- and thirty-somethings.

I recent­ly had lunch with one of the thir­tysome­thing Friends who have left. He had been drawn to Friends because of their mys­ti­cism and their pas­sion for non­vi­o­lent social change; he was still very com­mit­ted to both. But after orga­niz­ing actions for years, he con­clud­ed that the Friends in his meet­ing didn’t think the peace tes­ti­mo­ny could actu­al­ly inspire us to a wit­ness that was so bold.

I wrote about this lunch con­ver­sa­tion on my web­site and before long anoth­er old Friend sur­faced. Eight years ago a wit­ness and action con­fer­ence inspired him to help launch a nation­al Quak­er youth vol­un­teer net­work. He put years of his life into this; his state­ments on the prob­lems and promis­es fac­ing Quak­er youth are still right on the mark. But after ear­ly excite­ment his sup­port evap­o­rat­ed and the project even­tu­al­ly fell apart in what he’s described as “a bit­ter and unsuc­cess­ful experience.”

The loss of Quak­er peers has hit close to home for me. When one close Friend learned my wife had left Quak­erism for anoth­er church after eleven years, all he could say was how pleased he was that she had final­ly found her spir­i­tu­al home; oth­ers gave sim­i­lar empty- sound­ing plat­i­tudes. I felt like say­ing to them “No, you dimwits, we’ve dri­ven away yet anoth­er Friend!” Each of these three lost Friends remain deeply com­mit­ted to the Spir­it and are now involved in oth­er reli­gious societies.

Young adults haven’t always been as invis­i­ble or unin­volved as they are now. A whole group of the Quak­er lead­ers cur­rent­ly in their fifties and six­ties were giv­en impor­tant jobs at Quak­er orga­ni­za­tions at very ten­der ages (often right out of col­lege). Also, there’s his­tor­i­cal prece­dent for this: George Fox was 24 when he began his pub­lic min­istry; Samuel Bow­nas was 20 when he was roused out of his meet­ing­house slum­ber to begin his remark­able min­istry; even Mar­garet Fell was still in her thir­ties when she was con­vinced. When the first gen­er­a­tion of Friends drew togeth­er a group of their most impor­tant elders and min­is­ters to address one of their many crises, the aver­age age of the gath­er­ing was 35. Younger Friends haven’t always been ghet­toized into Young

Audlt Friends only dorms, pro­grams, work­shops or committees.

There is hope. Some have start­ed notic­ing that young Friends who go into lead­er­ship train­ing pro­grams often dis­ap­pear soon after­wards. The pow­ers that be at Friends Gen­er­al Con­fer­ence have final­ly start­ed talk­ing about “youth min­istry.” (Wel­come!). A great peo­ple might pos­si­bly be gath­ered from the emer­gent church move­ment and the inter­net is full of amaz­ing con­ver­sa­tions from new Friends and seek­ers. There are pock­ets in our branch of Quak­erism where old­er Friends have con­tin­ued to men­tor and encour­age mean­ing­ful and inte­grat­ed youth lead­er­ship, and some of my peers have hung on with me. Most hope­ful­ly, there’s a whole new gen­er­a­tion of twenty- some­thing Friends on the scene with strong gifts that could be nur­tured and harnessed.

In the truest real­i­ty, our chrono­log­i­cal ages melt away in the ever-refreshing cur­rents of the Liv­ing Spir­it; we are all as chil­dren to a lov­ing God. Will Friends come togeth­er to remem­ber this before our reli­gious soci­ety los­es anoth­er generation?

Mar­tin Kel­ley is a mem­ber of Atlantic City Month­ly Meet­ing, Philadel­phia Year­ly Meet­ing. He works for FGC as the web­mas­ter and book­store sec­re­tary. This arti­cle is writ­ten from his experience.

 

 



Friends Familiar with My Struggles

May 5, 2005

A Guest Piece from ‘Quak­er­s­peak’ C. Reddy.

On April 23 I flew to Ore­gon to serve on an edi­to­r­i­al board for a book that QUIP is putting togeth­er of young Friends’ expe­ri­ences of Quak­erism. After arriv­ing in Ore­gon but before I met with the edi­to­r­i­al board for this, I served on a pan­el with the oth­er young Friends on the edi­to­r­i­al board in a QUIP meet­ing (as we had arrived at the end of a QUIP con­fer­ence for our meet­ing) about how media, print­ed or oth­er­wise, inspired us spir­i­tu­al­ly. As we relat­ed our expe­ri­ences as young Friends (and grow­ing up as Quak­ers), a num­ber of issues sur­faced rather quickly.

As young Friends move through high school and enter the [young] adult world, there is often a gen­er­al lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion between young Friends and adults in Meet­ings, as if there’s some ten­sion about it. Per­son­al­ly, as a young Friend in Durham Friends Meet­ing (NCYM(Cons.)), I’ve found that I know cer­tain adults — ones with whom I have inter­act­ed more specif­i­cal­ly over the years as I have grown up. Often these are par­ents of oth­er young Friends in the Meet­ing or peo­ple who have been involved in youth group events. What’s miss­ing is the con­nec­tion to the rest of the adults in Meet­ing; I’ve been attend­ing Durham Friends Meet­ing since I was born (with a peri­od dur­ing mid­dle school where I was most­ly absent, but for the last few years I’ve been quite reg­u­lar in atten­dance) and I feel like most of the meet­ing has no idea who I am. In addi­tion to that, I’ve not known how to com­mu­ni­cate my involve­ment and ded­i­ca­tion in var­i­ous nation­al Quak­er com­mu­ni­ties, such as being cho­sen as one of six co-clerks of the HS pro­gram at FGC Gath­er­ing this sum­mer, my par­tic­i­pa­tion in Young Quakes, my atten­dance at a Pen­dle Hill Clerk­ing work­shop last fall, my involve­ment in this QUIP book, or how I have been read­ing many Quak­er books over the last few months, all of which have been VERY inte­gral in my spir­i­tu­al devel­op­ment. Even Friends in Durham Friends Meet­ing with whom I do con­verse some­times after Meet­ing do not know of all these things with which I am involved.

Also, when I stopped attend­ing First Day school in Jan­u­ary of my junior year in high school (a lit­tle over a year ago) and began attend­ing the full hour of Wor­ship, I spoke to two youth lead­ers about it briefly so they would under­stand, and then there was no fur­ther response. Look­ing back on this, I feel that the Meet­ing should be more involved in such a tran­si­tion for all young Friends — not just those adults direct­ly involved in the youth group/First Day school, but every­one should be more aware and atten­tive of the young Friends in Meet­ing and their involve­ment in Quak­er com­mu­ni­ties out­side of Meeting.

One thing that each of us felt is very impor­tant yet very lack­ing is men­tor­ship with­in Meet­ing for Wor­ship. There need to be adults who are not nec­es­sar­i­ly First Day school teach­ers, youth group lead­ers, or par­ents who are will­ing to have a rela­tion­ship with a young Friend as some­one who has had more expe­ri­ence with Quak­erism and can nur­ture a young Friend’s spir­i­tu­al devel­op­ment. A young Friend who was in Ore­gon with me relat­ed her expe­ri­ences with a men­tor she has at Earl­ham (she is a second-year there, cur­rent­ly), and how she sees him about once a week; often she even receives books to read from him.

As the only active young Friend at my school (I’m sort of the ‘token’ Quak­er around), I usu­al­ly do not have any­one to talk to about my spir­i­tu­al find­ings and lead­ings. As I have con­tin­ued to devel­op spir­i­tu­al­ly, I find more and more I need oth­er Friends to talk who are famil­iar with my struggles.

These are issues not only with­in Durham Friends Meet­ing, but in Meet­ings across the coun­try. I rec­og­nize that there are efforts to improve youth pro­grams every­where, but it nev­er hurts to start locally.

As a grad­u­at­ing senior this year, and as an involved Friend, I would like to improve my rela­tion­ship with the Meet­ing as a whole and make way for bet­ter rela­tion­ships between mem­bers and young Friends in the future. This, how­ev­er, needs to be ful­ly a double-sided effort.

Jeffrey Hipp: My Feet Are on Solid Ground

May 2, 2005

A Guest Piece by Jef­frey Hipp
“I take this com­mit­ment of mem­ber­ship very seri­ous­ly – to labor, nur­ture, sup­port and chal­lenge my fel­low Friends; to walk in the Light togeth­er, and to give, receive, and pray with my fel­low sojourn­ers when the next step is unclear. My feet are on sol­id ground.”

Con­tin­ue read­ing

Net Sightings

May 2, 2005

The Pub­lic Quak­er writ­ing about prayer
bq. Prayer is one con­stant thing for me, a reli­able base. When am I hav­ing epis­te­mo­log­i­cal doubt about every­thing, I do know that is good for me to pray.
A month ago LizOpp post­ed a inter­est “FAQ on her wor­ship group”:http://thegoodraisedup.blogspot.com/2005/03/faqs-about-my-worship-group.html which is well worth read­ing. Last week she fol­lowed it up with a very chew-worthy post on “The­o­log­i­cal uni­ty and spir­i­tu­al diversity”:http://thegoodraisedup.blogspot.com/2005/04/theological-unity-and-spiritual.html (which adds new ground to the ter­ri­to­ry we’ve been explor­ing here on Quak­er Ranter on “Non-Theism”:http://www.nonviolence.org/martink/archives/000567.php and “Lov­ing God”:http://www.nonviolence.org/martink/archives/000577.php).
“Quakerspeak”:http://www.livejournal.com/users/Quakerspeak/ is the new blog by a high-school Friend I met last week in Ore­gon. Whew, is she on fire!:
bq. I nev­er real­ly thought much about how I was sort of bot­tling up all my the­o­log­i­cal and spir­i­tu­al con­tem­pla­tions; sud­den­ly I feel like I’m pour­ing it all out on the table and exam­in­ing it all.. well, except that I’ve been exam­in­ing it all. I’m try­ing to bet­ter apply my spritu­al­i­ty to my dai­ly life and inter­ac­tions with­out los­ing sight of myself; I’m try­ing to fig­ure out where it all fits into my own life with­out try­ing to alter my per­son­al­i­ty or ways of being.
Beppe’s just start­ed a new series with a post, “The Trou­bles with Friends Part 1”:http://beppeblog.blogspot.com/2005/05/trouble-with-friends-1-too-much-of.html. This first install­ment focus­es on our fear of judge­men­tal­ism. Speak on, bro!