On waiting for crosses, teaching 'em a lesson and watching me surf the web
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Alice the Public Quaker writes a beautiful post reminding us that we don’t need to cut straight to the cross:
It’s struck me recently that living the life of Christ doesn’t mean going straight for Holy Week and the cross. I think He had 30 years of living inside love’s power before he took that walk. I know that I’m only just starting to understand Love’s power, so maybe I shouldn’t be too hasty for it to take me to healing the sick and transforming the earth.
Josh talks about his personal experience wrestling with how his Baltimore Yearly Meeting would address Friends United Meeting policies on sexuality:
My inner Sanhedrin has been debating the issue for what will be 3 years this August. At first, the consensus of my inner counsel was “String the bastards up!”, but that diluted to having BYM leave FUM. That then faded to us “Teaching them a lesson” somehow, but staying involved. This course of change from “String ‘em up” to “Teach ‘em a lesson” occured in just ONE WEEK! After my inner Sanhedrin was allowed to season, it became more divided.
Update: a few days ago I linked to a blog by Naaman the Ex-Leper. He grew up as a Friend in Baltimore Yearly Meeting but now describes himself as a “universalist-turned-conservative-Christian.” I’m always interested in stories of why Friends leave our religious society and there was some good back-and-forth about whether a more strong-articulated Quakerism might have kept him in (no, which is fair enough). He’s followed up with a very thoughtful post explaining why he thinks true Christian Universalism is impossible. I don’t agree but reading it is a good reminder of how carelessly we liberal Friends sometimes apply the concept of universalism and how it too often comes to mean an abandonment of all judgements theological (he links to an interfaith FGC pamphlet that I’ve never found terribly convincing). I would venture that Naaman has engaged and wrestled with Quakerism a more than a lot of us still within it, which perhaps is the norm for thoughtful leavers.
And for those that haven’t noticed the shuffling of furniture that’s been going on here, the nonviolence.org/Quaker page is now a Quaker “links blog,” with sidebar photos and bookmarks pulled from various “social” networks (join one and add your stuff!). There’s an RSS feed so you can easily keep up with the the posts I find interesting.
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About Martin
I’m a Quaker from
South Jersey with a love of
outreach and ministry.
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Hi Martin -
I just wanted to say that I really like the reshuffle of the website. The way you've highlighted postings and discussions from other blogs and sites makes the Quaker Ranter a stronger forum. I find more interesting things though your site than I do through my own web wanderings. As always, blessings to you and your family. Keep up the good work, Rob.
Martin, I agree with Rob that the Quaker Ranter is a strong forum, especially as a result of the infrastructure within it. One thing I'd love to see from you as a result of the gift you have is a list of something like "10 Tips to Make Your Blog a Stronger Forum." Or maybe you have a technical gift that no amount of tips can transfer over to a simple blogger like myself...
As for the "Quaker links blog," I've been putting off doing something similar myself... It'll have to wait awhile longer, I'm afraid.
Blessings,
Liz, The Good Raised Up
While we're all sharing our gratitude for your expert web surfing and the breadth as well as depth that you bring to this forum, I want to hold up my longing to hear your voice as well. I know, I know, it's a crazy couple of weeks in the FGC world and a crazy couple of months (years?) on the homefront (CUTE picture of Theo and the ducklings by the way) and so we will all have to be patient and make do with what we can get, but your personal voice is so important to the strength of the Quaker Ranter. I look forward to the next Martin essay, whenever that may be.
I enjoy your writing and the layout of your posts. Also, it enjoyed meeting another blogger at FGC. I'm sure you know that Liz Op is here too. Have a great gathering.
Martin,
When I clicked on the Rob link on a comment to this post, it brought up my blogger dashboard-- after a warning that something was wrong. Then I closed my dashboard and click again. That time it just brought up blogspot.com.
There's something wrong with that link.
Hi Robin: It's funny to hear you put it this way. I mailed my workshop co-leader a copy of the Quaker Ranter Reader and he told me how he could hear me standing there in his bedroom ranting away. Don't worry, there's lots of great fodder being built up at this year's Gathering!
Larry: I fixed the link to Rob's excellent blog, Consider the Lillies
Oh Martin, that's funny to me - when I first read the description of your workshop, I could hear Zachary's voice ranting away in my head!
Glad to hear good things are building up at the Gathering.
When you get done, I want to know if you and Zach will take your show on the road? I want one of you to come and do a lesson or two at my Monthly Meeting for our teens, who didn't make it to the Gathering this year. It is important to me that we not raise another generation of young people who feel they never learned the good stuff in First Day School. Or is it possible that you can never learn the really Good Stuff in FDS?
Hi Robin: we're just two days into the workshop, I'm not going to predict we'll do this again. First Day School is okay and it's what we have to work with, but to be effective it's only one small part of the religious education we all need to be doing with one another. Most of all we need to have our reality match our talk--like yesterday, the high schoolers totally clued on that we all so touchy about saying we use _consensus_ and/or _sense of the meeting_ but that in reality we're often pressuring people to vote. They seem to have very good BS meters...
Martin, you've been awfully quiet lately. We miss your voice, and I hope that the Spirit is rich in guiding your ongoing ministry.
Hi Rob,
I'm here. Life is sort of moving fast. My blog posts summing up Gathering has been kind of interrupted by developments I'm not quite ready to share. Freelancing website redesign proposals, midwife visits, weeding the garden (the tomotoes aren't even staked yet!) and work have been keeping me busy. I've also promised to write an article by the end of the month for one of those old-fashioned paper and ink publishers. Then again there's "Google Earth":http://earth.google.com/, my obsession with which sort of precludes the possibility of doing anything else the rest of my life (I have a minor in geography, I've dreamt of this all my life).
The nice thing about personal blogs is they can sort of come and go. There are things percolating and happening which will make it here soon enough.