Polarization

January 31, 2019
· Martin Kelley

Lynn Fitz-Hugh on polar­iza­tion and con­flict with­in a Quak­er meeting:

But also being new to the Meet­ing it was very clear to me that the con­flict like some sort of bull doz­er was push­ing up to the light of day all the dark places, all the dys­func­tion­ing and bro­ken places in the Meet­ing. And it becomes increas­ing­ly clear that there is no way through this con­flict with­out fix­ing all the bro­ken places….which if we fail will leave us shat­tered and if we suc­ceed will make us stronger and vast­ly bet­ter as a community. 

https://​the​friendl​y​seek​er​.blogspot​.com/​2​0​1​9​/​0​1​/​p​o​l​a​r​i​z​a​t​i​o​n​.​h​tml

What is our vocation?

January 25, 2019
· Martin Kelley

From Johan Mau­r­er, a return to a ques­tion he first pon­dered twelve years ago: do Quak­ers have a voca­tion among the larg­er body of Chris­tians? There’s lots of good obser­va­tions about our spir­i­tu­al gifts, like this one:

A com­mu­ni­ty empow­ered by spir­i­tu­al gifts is not cul­tur­al­ly nar­row. This asser­tion is backed by vast hopes and very lit­tle expe­ri­ence. Many Friends meet­ings and church­es yearn for cul­tur­al and racial diver­si­ty, but seem to be stuck argu­ing about the­o­ret­i­cal ideals rather than choos­ing to exam­ine hur­dles: loca­tion, unin­tend­ed or unex­am­ined “we-they” mes­sages (no mat­ter how benev­o­lent or pro­gres­sive the inten­tion), and a ten­den­cy to see non-members as objects of ser­vice rather than co-equal par­tic­i­pants already part of “us” in God’s sto­ry. But most of all, I believe that spir­i­tu­al pow­er unites while cere­bral analy­sis divides. 

https://​blog​.canyoube​lieve​.me/​2​0​1​9​/​0​1​/​w​h​a​t​-​i​s​-​o​u​r​-​v​o​c​a​t​i​o​n​.​h​tml

What is Renewal?

January 19, 2019
· Martin Kelley

From Tran­si­tion Quaker:

The Quak­er way offers us a key to recog­nis­ing what is authen­tic with­in any reli­gious tra­di­tion, includ­ing Chris­tian­i­ty, and dis­tin­guish­ing it from the dis­tor­tions of pow­er, priv­i­lege, lit­er­al­ism and dog­ma­tism that tend to cor­rupt every human enter­prise. What­ev­er sto­ries and images dis­play the guid­ing pow­er of the Inward Light, in any tra­di­tion, can help to reveal the life of the Spir­it and encour­age us to encounter it for ourselves. 


What is Renewal?

What is Renewal? 

A num­ber of Friends have been writ­ing and talk­ing about Quak­er renew­al for sev­er­al years, some­times with very…

transitionquaker.blogspot.com tran​si​tion​quak​er​.blogspot​.com

The rise and fall of Harmonia, Battle Creek’s Spiritualist utopia

January 16, 2019
· Martin Kelley

A nice pro­file on a Quak­er com­mu­ni­ty in Michi­gan that went full-in in Spiritualism:

As they came west, a num­ber brought Spir­i­tu­al­ism with them. A lot of lib­er­al Quak­ers were very inter­est­ed in Spir­i­tu­al­ism. Bat­tle Creek had a Quak­er base, they pre­dom­i­nat­ed for a while. They con­vert­ed to Spir­i­tu­al­ism as a body, and Bat­tle Creek became this south­west Michi­gan cen­ter for Spiritualism. 

Quak­era were among many of rhe ear­ly lead­ers of the Spir­i­tu­al­ist move­ment; while it even­tu­al­ly most­ly burned out, a lot of the ideas about author­i­ty and spir­i­tu­al diver­si­ty in turn influ­enced Hick­site Friends.

https://​www​.bat​tle​creeken​quir​er​.com/​s​t​o​r​y​/​l​i​f​e​/​2​0​1​9​/​0​1​/​1​6​/​r​i​s​e​-​a​n​d​-​f​a​l​l​-​h​a​r​m​o​n​i​a​-​b​a​t​t​l​e​-​c​r​e​e​k​s​-​s​p​i​r​i​t​u​a​l​i​s​t​-​u​t​o​p​i​a​/​2​2​1​4​8​0​9​0​0​2​/​?​f​b​c​l​i​d​=​I​w​A​R​2​v​e​C​N​Z​V​t​I​z​l​q​S​k​a​L​s​1​5​2​y​C​p​0​x​3​v​j​i​J​v​m​i​l​3​T​B​B​b​f​O​k​9​5​P​0​e​G​P​Y​j​K​S​r​mmU

Life after Death

January 14, 2019
· Martin Kelley

Rhi­an­non Grant on Lib­er­al Quak­ers’ view on the afterlife:

Spend­ing some more time with this idea, includ­ing dur­ing Meet­ing for Wor­ship, I realised that I actu­al­ly have a strong intu­ition against there being any form of life after death. Not only do I not think that any life which may or may not occur after death should affect my actions now (I don’t do things because I want to get into heav­en or gen­er­ate good kar­ma for my next life, and nor do I accept escha­to­log­i­cal ver­i­fi­ca­tion), I active­ly think it’s unlike­ly, even impos­si­ble, that such a thing exists. 

Friends Jour­nal devot­ed an issue to The Art of Dying and the After­life a few years ago, includ­ing an intro­duc­tion I wrote.

Lib­er­al Quak­ers and Life after Death

Decolonizing Quaker faith

January 11, 2019
· Martin Kelley

An AFSC inter­view with Oskar Castro:

Me as a Puer­to Rican com­ing into Quak­erism, I find a lot of white par­a­digms, silence in and of itself is not exclu­sive­ly colo­nial­ism, but I think the way that Quak­ers some­times lean into silence beyond the spir­i­tu­al side of it, the con­flict avoid­ance side of being a Quak­er, these are the things that don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly res­onate with me, cul­tur­al­ly speaking 

https://​www​.afsc​.org/​b​l​o​g​s​/​a​c​t​i​n​g​-​i​n​-​f​a​i​t​h​/​q​u​a​k​e​r​s​-​a​f​s​c​-​o​s​k​a​r​-​c​a​s​tro

Lost Bayard Rustin interview

January 10, 2019
· Martin Kelley

The Mak­ing Gay His­to­ry pod­cast fea­tur­ing Quak­er Civ­il Rights Bayard Rustin is avail­able now:

The chal­lenge we faced in telling Rustin’s sto­ry in a Mak­ing Gay His­to­ry episode was the appar­ent absence of any record­ings where he talked about his expe­ri­ences as a gay man.  But thanks to the dogged research­ing efforts of Sara Burn­ing­ham and the gen­eros­i­ty of Rustin’s sur­viv­ing part­ner, Wal­ter Nae­gle, who record­ed and saved the rare inter­views Rustin gave on the sub­ject of his sex­u­al­i­ty, we’re able to bring this aspect of Rustin’s expe­ri­ence to life through his own voice. 

https://​mak​ing​gay​his​to​ry​.com/​p​o​d​c​a​s​t​/​b​a​y​a​r​d​-​r​u​s​t​in/

Top 10 Quakers in fiction

January 9, 2019
· Martin Kelley

Although the title gives poten­tial read­ers the impres­sion that this is yet anoth­er click-bait lis­ti­cle, the arti­cle is by a Quak­er nov­el­ist and starts with nice obser­va­tions about Friends and creativity:

In the light of our high ideals, it can be hard for indi­vid­ual Quak­ers not to feel inad­e­quate. I cer­tain­ly do. We’re exhort­ed to “let our lives speak”, and I often feel like my life doesn’t have much to say. But I am a writer. As a com­mu­ni­ty that lis­tens patient­ly for the truth, Quak­ers pro­vide a unique place for cre­ativ­i­ty. The faith that can sit through hours of Meet­ing – through bore­dom, frus­tra­tion, dis­trac­tion – is the same thing that keeps me going when I’m strug­gling for my next idea. We wor­ship in silence, but we’re wait­ing for words, which some­how gives me faith that, if I wait in front of a blank page for long enough, the right sto­ry will come. 

https://​www​.the​guardian​.com/​b​o​o​k​s​/​2​0​1​9​/​j​a​n​/​0​9​/​t​o​p​-​1​0​-​q​u​a​k​e​r​s​-​i​n​-​f​i​c​t​i​o​n​?​C​M​P​=​t​w​t​_gu