tagged Posts

Both of my workshop co-leaders Wess and Robin have now checked in with preliminary reports. More material is being collected on the QuakerQuaker event page.

Wess and I have both been uploading lots of photos to Flickr using the "quakerreclaiming2009" tag. I've been uploading my video interviews both on Youtube and QuakerQuaker. You can see them at the reclaiming2009 tag (I have the feeling we've just doubled the Quaker content on Youtube but it's not that extreme). Anyone present with more photos can either upload them to Flickr with the "quakerreclaiming2009" tag or send them directly up to QuakerQuaker. Same with videos.

Hey all, the Reclaiming Primitive Quakerism workshop at California's Ben Lomond Center wrapped up a few hours ago (I'm posting from the San Jose airport). I think it went well. There were about thirty participants. The makeup was very intergenerational and God and Christ were being named all over the place!



I myself felt stripped throughout the first half, a sense of vague but deep unease--not at how the workshop was going, but about who I am and where I am. Christ was hard at work pointing out the layers of pride that I've used to protect myself over the last few years. This morning's agenda was mostly extended worship, begun with "Bible Reading in the Manner of Conservative Friends" (video below) and it really lifted the veil for me--I think God even joked around with me a bit.

As always, many of the high points came unexpectedly in small conversations, both planned and random. One piece that I'll be returning to again and again is that we need to focus on the small acts and not build any sort of movement piece by piece and not worry about the Big Conference or the Big Website that will change everything that we know. That's not how the Spirit works and our pushing it to work this way almost invariably leads to failure and wasted effort.

Another piece is that we need to start focusing on really building up the kind of habits that will work out our spiritual muscles. Chad of 27Wishes had a great analogy that had to do with the neo-traditionalist jazz musicians and I hoped to get an interview with him on that but time ran out. I'll try to get a remote interview (an earlier interview with him is here, thanks Chad for being the first interview of the weekend!)

I conducted a bunch of video interviews that I'll start uploading to my Youtube account and on the "reclaiming2009" tag on QuakerQuaker. When you watch them, be charitable. I'm still learning through my style. But it was exciting starting to do them and it confirmed my sense that we really need to be burning up Youtube with Quaker stuff.

I need to find my boarding gate but I do want to say that the other piece is putting together collections of practices that Friends can try in their location Friends community. Gathering in Light Wess led a really well-received session that took the Lord's Prayer and turned it into an interactive small group even. We took photos and a bit of video and we'll be putting it together as a how-to somewhere or other.

Pictures going up on Flickr, I'll organize them soon. Also check out ConvergentFriends.org and the Reclaiming Primitive Quakerism workshop page on QuakerQuaker.

Just finished setting up the old QuakerQuaker categories onto the new site. Here are links to each of them:

blogs, books, christianity, clearness, community, conservative, convergent, diversity, evangelical, green, liberal, ministry, parenting, plain, sexuality, universalism, videos, witness, youth.

When you write or see a good linkable URL that you think belongs in these categories, just bookmark it using the http://del.icio.us system using "quaker.whatever" as it's tag. For example, a post about Convergent Friends should be tagged quaker.convergent

• sIFR
  Flash/javascript rich fonts for websites
  (tags: tech.design)
• Google Maps adds geotagged photos
  But only from their own service, Panoramio. Yahoo's Flickr is snubbed. Does Google really need to use it's dominant mapping service to wrest control from one of the few well-known services it doesn't own?
  (tags: comment tech)

Even though Longwood Gardens is over an hour from our house we have a family pass (thanks Mom!). How many places this warm and tropical are within driving distance of South Jersey in early March.

This is the side pavilion we call the "Bridge Room," where Theo and Francis run around and around (and where Papa did when he was their age). The kids practically run through the place wanting to get here and do their laps.

More Longwood pictures here. Supergeeks might note that I've carefully geotagged these pictures as well.

• Will T reports on last month's Friends United Meeting board meeting
  This was also the first GB meeting that I had attended where we were not looking at our identity issues and what was dividing us. ...Our differences were on plain view... but we also heard how God had worked among us this year.
  (tags: quaker quaker.fum)
• Robin M wonders how we get to her blog
  Checking out the Google links and referrals.
  (tags: comment)
• Kirk W's Quaker bookmarks on eBible
  I tagged verses that mean the most to me, relating to Quaker faith and practice, particularly in the historical context. After marking a handful that I’ve noted for myself over the years, I drew from several other sources as they’ve presented themselves...  See also: Kirk's most recent blog post about this, Friends and the eBible.
  
  (tags: quaker quaker.christianity quaker.bible)

A visit to Middletown Meeting, which I've been attending the last few years, and then to Longwood Garden's whose new Children's Garden just opened. Here are yesterday's pictures and below are samples and links.

Middletown Monthly Meeting: My "middletown" tagged photos Meeting website	Longwood Garden: My "longwood" tagged photos Longwood's website