I am a South Jersey Friend and dad with a love out of outreach and a passion for looking afresh at Friends' testimonies, language and practices. I am the publisher of Quaker Quaker, a community site for Friends, and write about online publicity, organizing and design on my business site at MartinKelley.com.
deconstruction Posts
Lazy guy I am, I'm going to cut-and-paste a comment I left over at Rich the Brooklyn Quaker's blog in response to his post What This Christian Is Looking For In Quakerism. There's been quite a good discussion in the comments. In them Rich poses this analogy:
During the Great Depression and World War II, I have been told that Franklin Roosevelt rallied the spirits of the American people with his "fireside chats". These radio broadcasts communicated information, projected hope, and called for specific responses from his listeners; including some acts of self-sacrifice and unselfishness... Often people would gather in small groups around their radios to hear these broadcasts, they would talk about what Roosevelt had said, and to some extent they were guided in their daily lives by some of what they had heard.
So why didn't I get the memo that April is "Don't Blog About Quakerism Month"? On Monday Beppe said he was taking a hiatus from Quakerism. On Tuesday, Amanda confided to us that she's having a midblog crisis. Wednesday has Kwakersauer's announcement that his blog is under deconstruction.
I'm looking around here and I'm getting a little nervous. The Contrarian Quaker started things on Third Month 31, posting a thoughtful piece on those of us who have been expressing doubts lately. Since then a number of Quaker bloggers have gone quiet: The Brooklyn Quaker, Quaker Dharma and Can You Believe Johan have gone almost a week into April without a post. Gulp!
Public Quaker Alice is still with us, she posted three days ago. Just Curious James checked in on April Fool's Day (but he's talking about British Evangelicals--uh-oh!). LizOpp checked in on the third and Kenneth Sutton has had two posts in April (go Kenneth!).
Still I have to wonder if someone else is planning to take the fall on Thursday? I feel like I'm in one of those bad haunted mansion mystery movies: the lights go out, a scream shatters the night and there's one less guest at the hotel. I'm still here. Has anyone seen the butler lately?
Update: Beppe has talked more about the practices and motivations of Quaker blogging.

