oppenheimer Posts

For those who can't name God in their lives, it must be just a bit bizarre to come week after week to participate with a group of people praying for God's guidance. But that's okay. I think all that is good in our religious society come from the Great Master. We are known by our fruits and the outward forms of our witnesses constantly point back to God's love. This is the only real outreach we do. I'm happy spending a lifetime laboring with someone in my community pointing out to the Spirit's presence in our midst.

Thank you to everyone who refrained from commenting after 9pm last night. I finally slogged through the work of putting the FGC Gathering program online in my role as FGC webmaster. Whoo-whee! For those who don't know, the Gathering is a week-long conference held at different locations each summer: this year's takes place Seventh Month 2-9 in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Now I guess it's time to think about workshops. Zach Moon and I are offering up one called Strangers to the Covenant but then you know that already. Liz Oppenheimer aka the The Good Raised Up is leading one called Quaker Identity: Yearning, Forming, Deepening that I suspect will be informed by her own experience of stepping into a Quaker identity. There's also an exciting history workshop being led by Betsy Cazden, Dilemmas from Our Quaker Past (I have to admit when I saw the listing I wondered if I should Zach up and assure him he'd be fine doing the Strangers workshop on his own so I could take Betsy's). Other mentions: Julie really liked the Lynn Fitz-Hugh workshop she took a few years ago.

As always there are workshops whose leaders I know to be more solid and grounded than the workshop they're proposing; conversely, there are workshops that sound more interesting than I know their leader to be. Like always there are plenty whose appeal and/or relevance to Quakerism I just don't comprehend at all, but that's the Gathering.

Any recommendations from the peanut gallery? I should say that I'd like to refrain from ridiculing all of the workshops that beg to be made fun of. It feels as if this would edge too close to detraction. We will only get to Kingdom by modeling Christian charity and wearing our love on our sleeves.

Liz Oppenheimer has posted an extraordinary account of how Friends transmitted Quakerism to her over time. I find myself at a loss of words to sum it up--you have to read it for yourself and I strongly recommend you do. Here's just the merest snippet:

It took me years to understand that there was much, much more to Quakerism than just meeting for worship... I had yet to understand the concepts of corporate discernment or Gospel Order or waiting on the Spirit for guidance. None of my peers or spiritual friends at the time were talking with me about this stuff; and I have no recollection of anyone making the Quaker decision-making process more explicit at the time.

Liz will be offering a workshop at this year's FGC Gathering. The description sounded great but if this post is anything like the sharing that will go on in that workshop, then you'll want to be there.

In a similar vein, the Contrarian Quaker explains I'm not here to be seen by men. I'm here to worship God; "New people, as they walk in, are met with smiles and introductions but by their second or third visit they end up standing in the midst of a gabbing throng completely ignored after meeting for worship... I simply decided that I was here to worship God."

Regular readers of Quaker Ranter will be familiar with Liz Oppenheimer's frequent comments. My replies and email correspondence with her have inspired more than one blog posts. I've long known her through Friends General Conference work and through the workshops she often leads at the FGC Gatherings. She's been exploring the conservative Quaker tradition over the last few years and is now writing a blog called The Good Raised Up.

Quaker Jane has been a regular on the Plain and Modest Dress group and now has beautifully-designed website that includes some interesting plain dress resources.

Alice Morningstar is another Plain group regular who's now the "Public Friend" (site since closed), writing about both Quakerism and biology; see her post Why It is Essential to Publish Now (via archive.org) for why she's public.

Lorcan is starting to get worried that I've never mentioned him here. He's part of a flourishing New York City Quaker blogging group that includes Amanda's Of the Best Stuff and Rich the Brooklyn Quaker, who's coined the term The New Plain to describe the renewed interest in Quaker plain dress that I've been trying to catalog on this site.