Never Having Set Foot in the Meetinghouse

March 5, 2019
· Martin Kelley

Yohannes “Knowl­edge” John­son is a mem­ber of Bulls Head — Oswego Meet­ing even though he has nev­er set foot in the meet­ing­house. He has­n’t because he’s been a guest of the New York State prison sys­tem for almost forty years (mur­der and attempt­ed mur­der in 1980). John­son talks about how he cen­ters and par­tic­i­pates despite the walls and bars sur­round­ing him:

Cen­ter­ing is always a wel­come chal­lenge, for, as one would expect, prison can be a noisy place and com­pet­ing con­ver­sa­tions can be over­whelm­ing. What I do is draw myself into the pic­tures and focus upon the images and peo­ple there­in. I have accom­pa­ny­ing pic­tures of places vis­it­ed by Friends and sent to me over the years with scenery that, for me as a per­son raised on the con­crete pave­ments of New York City, gives me visions of nat­ur­al beau­ty with­out the clut­ter of build­ing struc­tures and the like. 


Never Having Set Foot in the Meetinghouse

Nev­er Hav­ing Set Foot in the Meetinghouse 

When the meet­ing­house is on the oth­er side of state prison walls.
Friends Journal Friends Journal 

Why are Kenya’s Quakers ‘noisy’?

March 5, 2019
· Martin Kelley

From the BBC of all places:

While known as a tra­di­tion­al­ly qui­et com­mu­ni­ty with­in Chris­tian­i­ty, in Kenya their gath­er­ings are loud and proud. For some, being ‘noisy’ is the rea­son young peo­ple are still being attract­ed to the Church. 

https://​www​.bbc​.co​.uk/​p​r​o​g​r​a​m​m​e​s​/​p​0​7​2​k​cm0

Another Quaker(ish) president?

March 4, 2019
· Martin Kelley

Because the Quak­er pres­i­den­tial track record is so dis­tin­guished (Her­bert Hoover, Richard Nixon) maybe it’s time to put anoth­er Quak­er into the Oval Office. John Hick­en­loop­er, for­mer gov­er­nor of Col­orado and raised in the Philly sub­urbs, has thrown his hat into the ring.

Back in 2010 he told the Philadel­phia Inquir­er he and his wife were reg­u­lar meet­ing atten­ders liv­ing “Quak­er val­ues” but when Friends Jour­nal reached out to him a few years ago it sound­ed like he no longer iden­ti­fied as a Friend.


John Hickenlooper Says He Is Running in 2020, Citing a ‘Crisis of Division’ (Published 2019)

John Hick­en­loop­er Says He Is Run­ning in 2020, Cit­ing a ‘Cri­sis of Divi­sion’ (Pub­lished 2019) 

The for­mer Col­orado gov­er­nor joins a crowd­ed Demo­c­ra­t­ic field. Even in his home state, there is skep­ti­cism that…
www.nytimes.com www​.nytimes​.com

Trustworthy, part one: the cost of betrayal

March 4, 2019
· Martin Kelley

Johan Mau­r­er on abus­es in our meetings:

As far as I know, the final set­tle­ment in that case was nev­er made pub­lic. In a larg­er sense, the “final set­tle­ment” demand­ed by God’s grace and jus­tice will nev­er be mea­sured in dol­lars, but there is some­thing sat­is­fy­ing about know­ing that mon­ey was involved: almost noth­ing slices through pious mis­di­rec­tion or sophistry like cold cash. But it’s also true that cash does­n’t cut deeply enough. 

I’m still uncon­vinced we’re all doing enough to bring day­light to skele­tons in our clos­ets or heal­ing to vic­tims. Law­suits make every­one clam up, yet they too often seem to be the only mech­a­nism for shed­ding light on the sit­u­a­tion in the first place.

https://​blog​.canyoube​lieve​.me/​2​0​1​9​/​0​2​/​t​r​u​s​t​w​o​r​t​h​y​-​p​a​r​t​-​o​n​e​-​c​o​s​t​-​o​f​-​b​e​t​r​a​y​a​l​.​h​tml

The Religious SocieChildren of Prophets or Children of Propheticide?

February 19, 2019
· Martin Kelley

A stren­u­ous­ly and lengthi­ly argued dun­ci­a­tion of the fal­l­en­ness of mod­ern Friends, this piece is argued almost exclu­sive­ly from books. It’s inter­est­ing (and much of it is unde­ni­ably true) though the author seem unable to imag­ine thst there might be some sparks of authen­tic­i­ty and propheti­cism still burning.

The fol­low­ing post was writ­ten by Blake Everitt, a Friend the UK and mem­ber of the newly-formed Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Quak­ers. This essay explores the prophet­ic and apoc­a­lyp­tic nature of ear­ly Quak­erism, and sketch­es out how mid­dle class revi­sion­ism took over the Reli­gious Soci­ety of Friends. 

The Reli­gious Soci­ety of Friends: Chil­dren of Prophets or Chil­dren of Propheticide?

Quakerly competition?

February 13, 2019
· Martin Kelley

A quick update that we at Friends Jour­nal have extend­ed the dead­line for an upcom­ing issue on Friends and com­pe­ti­tion. It’s a real­ly inter­est­ing top­ic and I’d like to see some more arti­cles to choose from. In my “Edi­tor’s Desk” post try­ing to drum up writ­ing inter­est, I dug through the FJ archives to find pre­vi­ous dis­cus­sions on the top­ic. I’ll excerpt a few here:

If you look back through Friends Jour­nal archives, you’ll find warn­ings against com­pet­i­tive behav­ior. In 1955 Bess B. Lane of Swarth­more (Pa.) Meet­ing wrote that schools should “Place empha­sis on coop­er­a­tion, shar­ing, rather than on com­pe­ti­tion” and won­dered if “com­pe­ti­tion is being over­stressed in our schools.” In 1972, Christo­pher H. Ander­son, then a senior at Wilm­ing­ton Col­lege, had stronger words. He con­trast­ed his Quak­er edu­ca­tion with pub­lic schools, which he said “breed a social con­for­mi­ty, an intel­lec­tu­al bland­ness and a repug­nant spir­it of competition.”

If you know any­one who is inter­est­ed in the top­ic, please for­ward this along!


Page not found - Friends Journal

Page not found — Friends Journal 

Friends Journal Friends Journal 

Belonging and difference

February 13, 2019
· Martin Kelley

Gil S on con­ti­nu­ity and change:

Many of us find dif­fi­cul­ty in fac­ing change. The way a meet­ing house is arranged and the way Quak­er faith is expressed have both changed over time. There have always been those who find it dif­fi­cult if not impos­si­ble to let go of what has gone before. In my local meet­ing I always sit in the same place and acknowl­edge that I find change dif­fi­cult, but in spite of this there are ways in which I have changed. 

I sus­pect part of thr con­text of this is the hopes and fears of British Friends as they embark on a reci­sion of their book of Faith and Prac­tice. An edit­ing group has recent­ly been named.

https://​stum​bling​step​ping​.blogspot​.com/​2​0​1​9​/​0​2​/​b​e​l​o​n​g​i​n​g​-​a​n​d​-​d​i​f​f​e​r​e​n​c​e​.​h​tml

A 12-step program for world peace

February 12, 2019
· Martin Kelley

Bob Dock­horn, my pre­de­ces­sor as Friends Jour­nal senior edi­tor, has been doing a lot of writ­ing since he’s retired and one of his big projects involves a vision of a world free of its addic­tion to vio­lence. Some­where in the process he lost a step (there’s only 11).

Hav­ing been raised a Friend, I assume a hope­ful stance toward the future. Unlike many oth­ers, we gen­er­al­ly pre­sume that the human world is not meant to be adver­sar­i­al. Even deci­sion mak­ing by vot­ing is reject­ed among Friends as unnec­es­sar­i­ly con­fronta­tion­al. Friends par­tic­i­pate in local and nation­al elec­tions, but often with mis­giv­ings since these con­tests, law­mak­ing, and even courts can be set­tings in which priv­i­lege is pre­served and fought for.

One evening a few years ago, as I sat in silence at Southamp­ton (Pa.) Meet­ing, my atten­tion turned to a 12-Step poster on the wall, left behind by a Nar­cotics Anony­mous group that meets week­ly in our space. As I stared at it, I expe­ri­enced a flash of insight — that our entire cul­ture is addict­ed to com­pe­ti­tion and violence. 

I appre­ci­ate how the steps start sim­ply (“Clear One’s Pre­sump­tions,” “Access Mul­ti­ple Sources of Infor­ma­tion”) and then build into pro­pos­als that seem pie-in-the-sky “(Trans­form Mil­i­tary Insti­tu­tions,” “Imple­ment World Gov­ern­ment”), espe­cial­ly with cur­rent world trends. But that’s the nature of a jour­ney: it starts with steps but main­tains vision toward a destination.


Eleven Steps toward an Enduring World

Eleven Steps toward an Endur­ing World 

A fierce­ly ide­al­is­tic vision of a human­i­ty cured of its addic­tion to vio­lence and war.
Friends Journal Friends Journal