A very well-done 17-minute video on “Quaker Country,” the part of England where the Quaker movement first coalesced in 1652.
Quaker Ranter
A Weekly Newsletter and Blog from Martin Kelley
Category Archives ⇒ Quaker
As the blog name implies, I am a member of the Religious Society of Friends, known colloquially as Quakers. Many of my blog posts deal with issues of our society and its interactions with the larger world. I generally only include my own posts in this list. I share many many Quaker links in my Links Blog category and on QuakerQuaker.
Important Posts:
The Lost Quaker Generation (2003)
Peace and Twenty-Somethings (2003)
We’re All Ranters Now (2003)
Passing the Faith, Planet of the Quaker Style (2004)
Quaker Testimonies (2004)
Hey, Who Am I To Decide Anything? (2007)
The Biggest Most Vibranty Most Outreachiest Program Ever (2010)
Getting a Horse to Drink (on Philadelphia YM) (2010)
Tell Them All This But Don’t Expect Them to Listen (2010)
‘I would like to… make life kinder, freer and more respectful for for the women coming after me’
April 4, 2019
An interview with British Friend Lucy-Anne Holmes:
I’m sitting in a cafe in Potters Bar and listening to a Quaker telling me about an orgasm she had that felt like it could create world peace. Yes, really. Being British, I shuffle in my seat awkwardly and take a sip of my tea, only too aware of a man on the next table who keeps glancing at us.
https://thefriend.org/article/i‑would-like-to-do-what-i-can-to-make-life-kinder-freer-and-more-respectful
George Fox Speaking
April 2, 2019
At some point 18 months ago, we at Friends Journal decided that a future issue would revolve around humor. I remember feeling a lump in my stomach at the time. I’ve learned to stop and poll my motivations before making a Quaker-related joke — not to see if it’s funny, but to make sure that at least most Quakers might think it’s funny. Well, that humor issue is out and available online. Many of the features talk about humor but the first feature actually aims for humor itself. Don McCormick imagines Quaker historical figures brought into modern-day cable news programming as they describe some of our rather odd customs.
George gives the camera a steely-TV-anchorman-type look and says, “Hello, this is the evening edition of Fox News. George Fox speaking. For our first story, let’s turn to Will ‘the Quill’ Penn at the sports desk.”
“Good evening,” says Will. “Well, it’s half-time over at Sierra Friends Center’s outdoor basketball court, and the Woolman Wombats are battling it out with the Quaker Oafs. Both teams just completed the league’s required workshops on nonviolent communication and the Alternatives to Violence Project. The score at half-time is zero to zero. We have some footage from the second quarter.”
Friends Journal Liberty of the Spirit
March 28, 2019
Every once in awhile a QuakerSpeak video comes along that reminds me why I was blown away when I first got to know Quakers. Ayesha Imani talks about the first time she worshiped with Friends:
I thought I had wandered into a group of people who actually believed that God was able to speak directly to them. I remember saying, “Oh my God, this is Pentecost!” I couldn’t believe that these people think God is actually glllllloing to speak to them! I’m down for this. This is where I belong.
Most of the Quakers reading this can probably guess where this is going – she pretty quickly got a lesson in the unwritten norms against exuberance at many Quaker meetings, the rules that prevent many expressions of worship. Ayesha’s Black and many of the strictures on behavior are pretty middle-class white. But a lot of this isn’t really about race. I’ve been led to do some very non-ordinary things at uptight Quaker meetings and feeling incredibly self-conscious over it. When I came to Friends, I loved the idea of the radical spontenaeity of our worship (anyone can minister anytime!) and the life it called us to but in practice we often are creatures of habit, to our detriment. I love Ayesha’s talk of “experimenting with freedom” and the “liberty of the spirit.” I realize my stories of non-ordinariness are all over a decade old. I wish I felt more of that liberty again.
http://quakerspeak.com/how-does-culture-influence-quaker-worship/
“We tried that back in 1937”
March 22, 2019
Johan Maurer tells the story of a Friends meeting that was able to turn engrained patterns and opaque decisionmaking around:
I don’t want to exaggerate the ease of the transition. I remember an elderly Friend who opposed a proposal to hold business meetings at another time than the Sunday school hour. She argued — and I think this is nearly verbatim — “We tried that back in 1937 and it didn’t work.” As much as I wanted to laugh out loud, I had to acknowledge that her entire history at the meeting exemplified selfless service.
https://blog.canyoubelieve.me/2019/03/trustworthy-part-four-churches-choices.html
William Penn on community
March 21, 2019
I sometimes like to highlight the comments that people leave here on the blog. A few days ago, Carl Abbott replied to a link to a Steven Davison post on community as a testimony. He wrote:
William Penn’s introduction to George Fox’s Journal (1691) speaks to something very like community:
“Besides these general doctrines, as the larger branches, there sprang forth several particular doctrines, that did exemplify and farther explain the truth and efficacy of the general doctrine before observed, in their lives and examples: as,
Communion and loving one another. This is anoted mark in the mouth of all sorts of people concerning them: They will meet, they will help and stick one to another. Whence it is common to hear some say: Look how the Quakers love and take care of one another. Others, less moderate, will say: The Quakers live none but themselves: and if loving one another. and having an intimate communion in religion, and constant care to meet to worship God, and help one another, be any mark of primitive Christianity, they had it, blessed be the Lord in ample manner.”
This certainly sounds like community to me.
David Hartsough: The Power of Loving Your Enemy
March 21, 2019
The longtime peace activist is interviewed on QuakerSpeak:
I’ve chosen nonviolence and nonviolent action as a means of social change partly because I believe that we’re all God’s children. We’re all brothers and sisters, and an injury to any person is an injury to me. We’re all related. So it’s morally right and it’s trying to walk our talk that love is not just something to talk about with your little family — the world is our family.
David’s all over the Friends Journal websites right week. Last week the magazine published his account of needing emergency heart surgery while on a friendship visit in Iran. True to form, he made it a teachable moment by using it to explain how American sanctions hurt everyday Iranians (I’m happy to report everything turned out okay). His most recent book is Waging Peace; FJ’s former senior editor Bob Dockhorn reviewed it in 2015.
http://quakerspeak.com/the-power-of-loving-your-enemy/
When testimonies come drifting in
March 16, 2019
Steven Davison asked what the testimony of community even meant or whether it was spelt out anywhere. No one could answer but no ine wanted to omit it.
I suspect a process may be at work similar to the one that has made “that of God in everyone” the putative foundation of all our testimonies: an unselfconscious thought-drift in a culture increasingly impatient with intellectual/theological rigor, or even attention of any serious kind, not to mention care for the testimony of integrity. These ideas arise somehow, somewhere, and then get picked up and disseminated because they sound nice, they meet some need, and they don’t demand much. They apparently don’t require discernment, anyway.