About Martin

!Friends Journal and Friends General Conference and I’m currently seeking new employment.

You can learn more about me on the “About Martin”:http://www.martinkelley.com/martin/ page on MartinKelley.com. Also there: “my resume”:martinkelley.com/martin/resume/ and “workshops and publications list”:martinkelley.com/martin/workshops_publications.php. You might also want to look over my “tags”:/tags page which list the different sections on my blog (by category and tag) as well as the sections on my photograph and bookmark services.

What follows is an introduction to the main sections of Quaker Ranter, my personal blog:

Martin Kelley Quaker Ranter. The homepage at (“quakerranter.org”:www.quakerranter.org) is a “blog” commentary on many topics (those mystified or offended by the “Quaker Ranter” should read “We’re all Ranters Now”:http://www.quakerranter.org/wereallrantersnowonliberalfriendsandbecomingasocietyoffinders.php). I want to keep the spirit of a blog with this site and post on any topic that flits across my mind. The joy of reading a personal site is that you get a little window into someone else’s thoughts and you get to see more of the wholeness of their life. We’re all wonderfully complex and contradictory. I sometimes appear very serious in print but anyone who’s met me knows I can be exceedingly silly too—I hope this spirit rubs off on the website.

Like most blogs, only posts from the last few weeks are listed on the Martin Kelley Quaker Ranter homepage. A lot of what I write is pretty timeless though, so I’ve created sections of the site where you can read everything. These sections have introductions to give some context and organization:

Quaker. (“quakerranter.org/quaker”:www.quakerranter.org/quaker). If I had to be pigeon-holed I’d say that I’m a Post-Liberal Christian, a Hicksite Conservative Friend, and an Emergent-Church curious Gen-Xer. Confused? Well, I try to explain some of that on the main Quaker page. Please note that I’ve never tried to speak for any of the Quaker organizations I’ve been involved with as a staffperson or committee member.

Theo and Francis. The cutest section is devoted to my sons (“quakerranter.org/theo”:www.quakerranter.org/theo and “quakerranter.org/francis”:www.quakerranter.org/francis).

South Jersey & Philadelphia. I was born and raised in and around Philadelphia. Up until a few years ago I had never lived more than twelve miles from my birthplace. Both of my parent’s families had lived in Southeastern Pennsylvania since they had gotten off the boats (Germans in the mid-1700s, Irish in the mid-1800s). Then I met the woman I very quickly realized I might marry. The problem? She lived in Vineland, NJ, a whole forty miles away!! She had an equally strong sense of locality and grounded family roots (Italian Catholic mother from Vineland, German/English father from Atlantic City). I might as well have lived on the outer rings of Saturn for the distance these forty miles represented for us, but somehow we found a compromise.

Stories from Nonviolence.org. I publish a very visited peace website. This section chronicals some of the personal reflections from that work. See also: its “history”:www.nonviolence.org/info and a 1998 “New York Times profile”:www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/022198nonviolence.html.

Noteworthy stuff. There are a few pages that deserve a mention. I’m keeping a list of “funny search phrases”:/itslightthatmakesmeuncomfortableandothergooglisms.php that bring people to my site. Although I originally created the “Quaker Plain and Modest Dress”:resourcesonquakerplaindress.php page as a place to put something I had written for a newsgroup, it has become the most-visited section of the site and I’m adding to it all the time. There’s a page where you can read the “last ten visitor comments”:/commentblog.php to the site. I’m constantly maintaining my “list of favorite Quaker places”:http://www.quakerquaker.org/quakerblogs, many of which are pretty quirky!

Contact Information. Martin can be reached at “martink@nonviolence.org”:mailto:martink@nonviolence.org. Cell: 215-681-0783.