Yearly Archives ⇒ 2018

UK Quakers will not profit from the occupation of Palestine

November 20, 2018
· Martin Kelley

British Friends become first church in UK to pull invest­ments in com­pa­nies prof­it­ing from the occu­pa­tion of Pales­tine. From record­ing clerk Paul Parker:

As Quak­ers, we seek to live out our faith through every­day actions, includ­ing the choic­es we make about where to put our mon­ey. We believe strong­ly in the pow­er of legit­i­mate, non­vi­o­lent, demo­c­ra­t­ic tools such as moral­ly respon­si­ble invest­ment to realise pos­i­tive change in the world. We want to make sure our mon­ey and ener­gies are instead put into places which sup­port our com­mit­ments to peace, equal­i­ty and justice. 

As you’d might expect, there’s been back­lash. The Board of Deputies of British Jews has con­demned Britain Year­ly Meet­ing’s deci­sion as a “biased and petu­lant act.”.


Quakers will not profit from the occupation of Palestine

Quak­ers will not prof­it from the occu­pa­tion of Palestine 

Quak­ers in Britain has today become the first church in the UK to announce it will not invest…

Quakers Quakers 

Genesis: Outer Space and Inner Light, by

November 20, 2018
· Martin Kelley

John A. Mina­han has writ­ten this week’s fea­tured Friends Jour­nal arti­cle, a nice­ly paced explo­ration that touch­es on per­son­al mem­oir, human mile­stones, cul­tur­al mem­o­ry, and the Book of Genesis:

Now the astro­nauts had used that same rhetor­i­cal strat­e­gy but on a plan­e­tary and even inter­plan­e­tary scale. Speak­ing the words of Gen­e­sis, they sent a mes­sage of heal­ing to a wound­ed world; they expressed a cer­tain cos­mic humil­i­ty about our place in the uni­verse; and, most of all, they shared good­will, jaw-dropping in its sim­plic­i­ty, with “all of you on the good earth.” A moral and exis­ten­tial vision took hold of me in that moment and has nev­er let go. Though I couldn’t have artic­u­lat­ed it as such then, it was a real­iza­tion of orig­i­nal goodness. 


Genesis: Outer Space and Inner Light

Gen­e­sis: Out­er Space and Inner Light 

Out­er space and Inner Light

Friends Journal Friends Journal 

New eBook “Remixing Faith” Now Available

November 20, 2018
· Martin Kelley

From Wess Daniels:

I have put this talk togeth­er in ebook form com­plete with lots of pic­tures and illus­tra­tions and for­mat­ting that adds to the read­ing expe­ri­ence. I want­ed to share this with all of you and make it as acces­si­ble as pos­si­ble, so it is free to down­load. It should work with most modern-day eBook read­ers and apps. If that doesn’t work for you, I have also turned the talk into a down­load­able .PDF.

New eBook “Remix­ing Faith” Now Available

Reddit: Quakerism without Jesus

November 18, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Two much-discussed threads on /reddit/Quakers, the first pon­der­ing Quak­erism with Jesus, and the sec­ond — a response—argu­ing for Jesus’s cen­tral­i­ty. Both orig­i­nal posts are per­haps a bit pre­dictable but the con­ver­sa­tions go into inter­est­ing con­tra­dic­tions and dilemmas.

Also, an ear­ly plug that the Decem­ber Friends Jour­nal will focus on Quak­ers and Christianity.

Quak­erism with­out Jesus from Quak­ers

Kindertransport survivors call for routes to sanctuary for child refugees

November 17, 2018
· Martin Kelley

At an 80th anniver­sary of the UK kinder­trans­port pro­gram (which we read about a few days ago), sur­vivors and Friends call for wider sup­port for today’s refugees and asy­lum seekers:

Helen Drew­ery, Head of Wit­ness and Wor­ship for Quak­ers in Britain, wel­com­ing all to Friends House, said, “We are pleased to be host­ing an event which hon­ours all those – includ­ing Quak­ers who put the Kinder­trans­port into effect. Their endeav­ours are being echoed today by near­ly 100 Quak­er meet­ings across Britain which have iden­ti­fied them­selves as Sanc­tu­ary Meet­ings and are sup­port­ing peo­ple who have fled from dan­ger in their home coun­tries. We are glad that these Meet­ings and the peo­ple they are sup­port­ing are rep­re­sent­ed at today’s event. We join them in press­ing for more safe passages.” 

http://​www​.ekkle​sia​.co​.uk/​n​o​d​e​/​2​7​200

This Couple Had a “Kitten Hour” at Their Wedding

November 17, 2018
· Martin Kelley

This sto­ry needs no clever introduction:

“We want­ed our guests to have some­thing to do as they arrived [while] we took pic­tures with our fam­i­lies, so we planned a kit­ten hour,” Colleen told POPSUGAR. “We did a cock­tail hour with cock­tails named after our cats for the recep­tion, but the Quak­er meet­ing house we used for the cer­e­mo­ny does­n’t allow alco­hol on premis­es. I want­ed a wed­ding fal­con, but Iz vetoed that, and so we com­pro­mised on kittens.” 

https://​www​.pop​sug​ar​.com/​m​o​m​s​/​C​o​u​p​l​e​-​H​a​s​-​K​i​t​t​e​n​-​H​o​u​r​-​W​e​d​d​i​n​g​-​4​5​4​9​8​1​5​1​/​amp

Kristallnacht, Kindertransport, and help for refugees

November 15, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Quak­er refugee work cir­ca 1933:

The reports gath­ered from the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty in Ger­many by Quak­ers were of influ­ence when Quak­ers accom­pa­nied the Jew­ish del­e­ga­tion who went to see Home Sec­re­tary Sir Samuel Hoare to plead the case for allow­ing immi­gra­tion of chil­dren into Britain with­out the usu­al visa restric­tions. They swayed the gov­ern­ment and this planned immi­gra­tion of Ger­man and Aus­tri­an Jew­ish chil­dren became known as the Kinder­trans­port. Around 10,000 chil­dren were evac­u­at­ed from Ger­many and Aus­tria to Britain between 1938 and 1939. 

What I find most fas­ci­nat­ing is the detail that the Friends library in Lon­don does­nt have a lot of records of this work. It was so much in line with oth­er refugee assis­tance Friends were doing in Europe that they evi­dent­ly con­sid­ered it just anoth­er day on the job, so to speak. I shared a piece on the relat­ed Quak­er­speisun­gen a few days ago.

Kristall­nacht, Kinder­trans­port, and help for refugees

Mike Shell reviews book reviews

November 13, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Okay, it’s not quite so ref­er­en­tial: Mike’s lift­ing up three books in Sep­tem­ber’s Friends Jour­nal book columns that “help ‘white’ read­ers go deep­er into self-awareness about the hid­den dynam­ics of racism.” He also tells a lit­tle of his own sto­ry of color-blindness.

When my “white” friends said I couldn’t bring my “black” best friend to their lunch table, I shrugged and sat with him at a “black” table. On the minus side, when some­one in the school park­ing lot shout­ed nig­ger lover, and my friend want­ed to fight, I just told him I didn’t mind the insult. That was prob­a­bly my first seri­ous­ly hurt­ful act of “white color-blindness.” It took me decades to real­ize, to my shame, that it was he who was being insult­ed, not me. 

https://​uni​ver​sal​ist​friends​.org/​w​e​b​l​o​g​/​t​h​r​e​e​-​b​o​o​k​s​-​f​o​r​-​w​h​i​t​e​-​p​e​o​ple