Half forgotten Philadelhpia Quaker cemetery at center of development controversy

May 2, 2019
· Martin Kelley

As report­ed in the Philadel­phia Inquirer:

How many skele­tons might remain buried? Pos­si­bly thou­sands, accord­ing to archae­ol­o­gists, but no one knows. His­tor­i­cal maps are unclear on the ceme­ter­ies’ bound­aries, but numer­ous his­to­ries por­tray the grounds as used first by Quak­ers and then by the poor, whose num­bers increased along with the size of the city. 

They quote the Philadel­phia Year­ly Meet­ing gen­er­al sec­re­tary, who had heard noth­ing about this. The arti­cle also cites a 1880s arti­cle in Friends Intel­li­gencer, the pre­de­ces­sor to Friends Jour­nal.

https://​www​.philly​.com/​a​r​t​s​/​s​c​h​u​y​l​k​i​l​l​-​y​a​r​d​s​-​q​u​a​k​e​r​-​c​e​m​e​t​e​r​i​e​s​-​p​h​i​l​a​d​e​l​p​h​i​a​-​h​i​s​t​o​r​y​-​b​r​a​n​d​y​w​i​n​e​-​d​r​e​x​e​l​-​2​0​1​9​0​5​0​2​.​h​tml

We don’t worship silence

May 1, 2019
· Martin Kelley

Isaac Smith:

There are a lot of Quak­ers for whom the qual­i­ty of their wor­ship is mea­sured by the qual­i­ty of the silence there­in, to the point that “dis­rup­tions” — whether they come from chil­dren, late­com­ers, folks who are not neu­rotyp­i­cal, or folks who don’t com­port them­selves in the man­ner of the white mid­dle class — are regard­ed as annoy­ances. This is not just a mistake. 

We don’t wor­ship silence

Japan Would Make Akihito Emperor, but She Called Him ‘Jimmy’

April 30, 2019
· Martin Kelley

With the abdi­ca­tion of Japan’s emper­or comes renewed atten­tion on his first post-war teacher: Amer­i­can Friend Eliz­a­beth Gray Vining:

An Amer­i­can teacher taught the young prince he would nev­er be a god. But he just might help heal his country. 


Japan Would Make Akihito Emperor, but She Called Him ‘Jimmy’ (Published 2019)

Japan Would Make Aki­hi­to Emper­or, but She Called Him ‘Jim­my’ (Pub­lished 2019) 

An Amer­i­can teacher taught the young prince he would nev­er be a god. But he just might help…

www.nytimes.com www​.nytimes​.com

Jesus the key to my experience

April 22, 2019
· Martin Kelley

From Mark Russ:

As a Chris­t­ian Quak­er liv­ing in a post-Christian Quak­er cul­ture, I’m occa­sion­al­ly called upon to explain my Chris­tian­i­ty to my fel­low Quak­ers. I recent­ly did this by say­ing ‘Jesus is the key that unlocks my expe­ri­ence of the world’. I was then asked ‘could you say more about that?’, and I didn’t real­ly have an answer prepared 

Jesus the key to my experience

Welcoming families in meetings

April 18, 2019
· Martin Kelley

An account of one British meet­ing find­ing space for families:

It has been the task of the whole meet­ing not just of one or two; there has been an aware­ness that what they are doing now will need to change and evolve. And there has been a care and nour­ish­ing of us as par­ents too, with our own spir­i­tu­al jour­neys and need for nurture.

I know, from talk­ing to oth­er Quak­er par­ents – and, very sad­ly, from par­ents who would love to explore Quak­erism but who have felt dis­cour­aged or unwel­comed – that we have been par­tic­u­lar­ly lucky. Lucky not because we found a Quak­er com­mu­ni­ty with a ready-made chil­dren’s meet­ing, but because we found a meet­ing will­ing and ready to wel­come, to make space, where there was a sense of glad­ness that we were there. 


Welcoming families in meetings

Wel­com­ing fam­i­lies in meetings 

How do we rejoice in the pres­ence of chil­dren in our meet­ings and nur­ture their spir­i­tu­al growth? Alistair…

Quakers Quakers 

Are Quakers Christian?

April 15, 2019
· Martin Kelley

Steven Davi­son takes on one of the trick­i­er ques­tions of mod­ern lib­er­al Quakerism:

I am going to make a bold apol­o­gy for a clar­i­fied lib­er­al Quak­er iden­ti­ty that retains its roots and recov­ers wor­ship in the spir­it of Christ, but yet releas­es us from the ortho­dox Chris­t­ian pre­oc­cu­pa­tions that no longer speak to so many unpro­grammed Friends. 

Are Quak­ers Christian?

Transcript of Ashley Wilcox’s message at Guilford

April 14, 2019
· Martin Kelley

The talks was on “Quak­ers and the Prophet­ic Tradition”:

When Quak­ers talk about the prophet­ic tra­di­tion, we tend to go back to ear­ly Friends, but I am going to go back to Jeremiah. 

https://​www​.ash​leymwilcox​.com/​b​l​o​g​/​2​0​1​9​/​4​/​1​4​/​q​u​a​k​e​r​s​-​a​n​d​-​t​h​e​-​p​r​o​p​h​e​t​i​c​-​t​r​a​d​i​t​ion

Ashley Wilcox talk on Quakers and the prophetic tradition

April 12, 2019
· Martin Kelley

From thr Guilfordian:

Wilcox began the dis­cus­sion with a ques­tion of whether or not the Guil­ford com­mu­ni­ty should seek out prophets and prophe­cies. Wilcox sought to relate this ques­tion to the Quak­er tradition.

“This talk is about prophets and prophe­cy,” Wilcox said. “So the first ques­tion is, ‘What does it mean to be a prophet?’ I don’t think Jere­mi­ah would rec­om­mend it.” 

https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.guilfordian.com/news/2019/04/12/wilcox-talks-quakerism-and-the-prophetic-tradition/&ct=ga&cd=CAIyGjk1NzUwOWM3NjZmNTA4MzU6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AFQjCNGr3hjx9Dxd8r_5amP0l6AQfRXDcg