From my col­league Gabe Ehri:

One of the few con­stants in the uni­verse is change. The cos­mos tends toward entropy and dis­or­der, and we humans do all we can to exer­cise agency, to cre­ate order, to rec­og­nize beau­ty and jus­tice. Like oth­er peo­ple, Quak­ers have cre­at­ed insti­tu­tions — church­es, NGOs, and schools, for exam­ple — to ful­fill shared social and prac­ti­cal needs and to enjoy the sta­bil­i­ty that comes with hav­ing some­thing to hold onto in a chang­ing world.

Love in the Time of Coronavirus 

Car­ry­ing on with the care of our meetings.

Friends Journal 

On Sat­ur­day I talked with the author of the Friends Jour­nal arti­cle about Quak­er meet­ings’ adap­ta­tion to COVID-19. We talked about the online meet­ings replac­ing in-person First-day wor­ship and also some of the cre­ative ways the pas­toral teams of some Quak­er meet­ings and church­es are sup­port­ing iso­lat­ed members.

In cri­sis is oppor­tu­ni­ty. I won­der if the tools we’re adapt­ing to care for one anoth­er (both spir­i­tu­al­ly and prac­ti­cal­ly) will remain use­ful after life returns to normal. 

On Wednes­day Friends Jour­nal exec­u­tive direc­tor Gabe Ehri told us all to work from home until fur­ther notice. For­tu­nate­ly we had just got­ten the April issue off to press, which is good because final proof­ing is best done in per­son. Now we’re all ping­ing each oth­er with Slack and Zoom and hun­ker­ing down into the new normal.

We do have an arti­cle on COVID-19 from Katie Bres­lin and I’m updat­ing it with Quak­er resources that I’m find­ing. There are a lot. Every year­ly and month­ly meet­ings is tak­ing this seri­ous­ly. All of my pub­lic events this week­end have now been canceled.

It will be inter­est­ing to see how we all adapt. I think I’m going to be a lot chat­ti­er online to make up for the loss of face-to-face con­tacts. I expect this email newslet­ter to go back to fre­quent post­ings. If you find resources you think I should share let me know by email (martink@martinkelley.com) or Twit­ter (martin_kelley). Be safe every­one. Check in our your neigh­bors. Be gen­er­ous. Enjoy the lit­tle joys that come with iso­la­tion (I’m hap­py to lose my com­mute for awhile and to see my fam­i­ly more). And keep every­one in your prayers.

A new arti­cle up on Friends Jour­nal: Katie Bres­lin has writ­ten on how Quak­er Meet­ings are deal­ing with COVID-19. Even since writ­ing the arti­cle yes­ter­day, she’s heard that more meet­ings are can­celling wor­ship ser­vices. I’m hear­ing from church­es near me that they too are can­cel­ing ser­vices. Stay safe every­one and let me know of any Friends who are nav­i­gat­ing the world on online worship.

Quak­er Meet­ings Respond to Coronavirus 

Friends adapt to the spread of COVID-19.

Friends Journal 

We’re all com­ing up with lists. Philadel­phia Year­ly Meet­ing has com­piled this one, with help­ful links to oth­er Quak­er year­ly meet­ings. There’s also a use­ful list of advices from Rad­nor (Pa.) Meet­ing — there’s noth­ing unique about it but it could be a use­ful selec­tion to cut and paste into your own meet­ing newsletter.
https://​www​.pym​.org/​s​a​f​e​t​y​-​r​e​s​o​u​r​c​e​s​-​f​r​o​m​-​m​e​e​t​i​n​g​s​-​r​e​l​a​t​e​d​-​t​o​-​c​o​v​i​d​-​19/