Steven Davison, writing in his blog, Through the Flaming Sword:
The purpose of a covenant community is to provide a home for this transforming work. That means that joining a meeting that is a covenant community invites radical engagement with our spiritual lives on the part of our fellow members, who are to be the vehicles for God’s transforming work.
Of Quakers and deep democracy – is it time to renew the Quaker Book? | openDemocracy
Quakers have a saying, that we ‘hold in the light’ those we are acting in solidarity with. This weekend we need those movements we’re part of to hold us in the light. Only when we are working on ourselves can we work with others.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/tim-gee/of-quakers-and-deep-democracy-is-it-time-to-renew-quaker-book
Kathleen Wooten looks at the heartbreaking immigration stories taking place all around us and asks the classic Quaker question, what might Love do?
I’m not quite sure how we got here, in this “Christian” nation of ours. Christ says to welcome the stranger. These folks are not even strangers to many of us – they are woven into the fabric of our shared communities, their families, their work and service in the world, and their blessings.
This week’s QuakerSpeak interviews musician Colton Weatherston. I love the way he relates the communication and collaboration of jazz musicians to Quaker worship:
Especially artists and musicians, we often don’t have the same point of view or even the same background. Each of us will bring a lot of baggage into the meeting of the musicians and we have to build trust with each other and people need to feel free to express their ideas as a soloist without feeling told by the leader how exactly to play — we have to work it out as an ensemble. And I think that’s very true with meetings also.
Those with long memories might remember that I interviewed Chad Stephenson after he made a comparison between new jazz traditionalists and Convergent Friends at the 2009 Ben Lomond conference (I believe he wrote an expanded version for the Spirit Rising Quaker anthology but I can’t find a link).
Sam Barnett-Cormack is a prolific non-theist British Friend. His latest post, Doing It Ourselves, has some thoughts on community discernment that I find interesting.
Quakerism “done right” is not “do it yourself” in either sense… No task is done by one person alone; it is always the work and responsibility of the community, though we might not always clearly see the support and assistance we are given. Some would say that we are “upheld in prayer,” a term that does not speak to my experience, but we are certainly upheld by the love and nurture of our community – unless our community is failing.
Patricia Dallmann reviews a 2004 book by Friends of Ohio Yearly Meeting, Traditional Quaker Christianity:
Though Traditional Quaker Christianity is intended to convey the tradition among Conservative Friends, it may find readers among Liberals and Evangelicals. Should another generation of Quakers come forth and undertake the restoration of “the desolations of many generations,” they could find this book a resource for building up a Quaker Christian society.
I must admit that after spending my work days reading manuscripts and my commutes reading blog posts, the enjoyment of books has gotten a bit squeezed out. This looks like a useful one to try to fit it. Friend Marty Grundy reviewed this title for Friends Journal a few years ago. After posting the link to Patricia’s post, Mackenzie reminded me that Quaker Faith and Podcast has also been going through the book in recent episodes.
https://patradallmann.wordpress.com/2018/04/05/review-of-traditional-quaker-christianity/
Mike Farley looks at Quaker stories of Easter and the difficulties of distracting the Holy Spirit:
I am at least as susceptible as anyone I know to self-deception and wishful thinking, to being untrue to myself and to God, and to looking outside myself, at the external aspects of thought and practice among people of faith, trying to distract myself from the work of the Spirit in my heart. But it is less easy to distract the Holy Spirit, and so I have been called back again and again to these uncomfortable, at times downright dangerous, places, out in the saltmarshes of the heart.
I was just filling out my work log for March and had forgotten just how crazy the weather here in the U.S. Northeast had been, with successive waves of nor’easters dumping massive amounts of snow on us. It made for some great kid pictures but it added quite a bit of chaos to work schedules.
So it seems kind of amazing there’s an April issue of Friends Journal. But there is and it’s a good one I think: we look at healing. The cover of new tree leaves backlit by springtime sun is seasonal but it also reflects the topic and our mood after a wintry late winter.
Friends Journal