Quaker news editor needed

January 3, 2017
· Martin Kelley

Here at Friends Jour­nal, we’re very lucky to have some very com­mit­ted vol­un­teers. Karie Firooz­mand and Eileen Red­den sends books out to dozens of vol­un­teer read­ers and pull the results togeth­er into our month­ly books col­umn. Rose­mary Zim­mer­man reads through all the poet­ry that comes in, care­ful­ly select­ing pieces to appear in the mag­a­zine. Mary Julia Street reworks the birth notices and obit­u­ar­ies that come in to include more inter­est­ing details than you get in most news­pa­per listings.

Last year we won the “Best in Class” award from the Asso­ci­at­ed Church Press. We’re proud, of course, but I was pleas­ant­ly. Com­pared to most denom­i­na­tion­al mag­a­zines, Friends Jour­nal is crazi­ly under­staffed. For­give the pugilis­tic metaphor, but these vol­un­teer edi­tors are a big rea­son we punch above our weight. Cut­ting through cul­tur­al sta­t­ic and the man­u­fac­tured busy­ness of mod­ern life and reach seek­ers is a never-ending chal­lenge. Think about whether you might be led to work with us on this

The extend­ed dead­line is Jan­u­ary 16th. MLK Day. Learn more at:


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Page not found — Friends Journal 

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Winter in America by Gil Scott-Heron

December 8, 2016
· Martin Kelley

From 1974. Or today.

From the Indi­ans who wel­comed the pilgrims
And to the buf­fa­lo who once ruled the plains
Like the vul­tures cir­cling beneath the dark clouds
Look­ing for the rain
Look­ing for the rain

Just like the cities stag­gered on the coastline
Liv­ing in a nation that just can’t stand much more
Like the for­est buried beneath the highway
Nev­er had a chance to grow
Nev­er had a chance to grow
And now it’s winter
Win­ter in America

Yes and all of the heal­ers have been killed
Or sent away, yeah
But the peo­ple know, the peo­ple know
It’s winter
Win­ter in America

And ain’t nobody fighting
‘Cause nobody knows what to save
Save your soul, Lord knows
From Win­ter in America

The Con­sti­tu­tion
A noble piece of paper
With free society
Strug­gled but it died in vain
And now Democ­ra­cy is rag­time on the corner
Hop­ing for some rain
Looks like it’s hoping
Hop­ing for some rain

And I see the robins
Perched in bar­ren treetops
Watch­ing last-ditch racists march­ing across the floor
But just like the peace sign that van­ished in our dreams
Nev­er had a chance to grow
Nev­er had a chance to grow

And now it’s winter
It’s win­ter in America
And all of the heal­ers have been killed
Or been betrayed
Yeah, but the peo­ple know, peo­ple know
It’s win­ter, Lord knows
It’s win­ter in America

And ain’t nobody fighting
‘Cause nobody knows what to save
Save your souls
From Win­ter in America
And now it’s winter
Win­ter in America

And all of the heal­ers done been killed or sent away
Yeah, and the peo­ple know, peo­ple know
It’s winter
Win­ter in America

And ain’t nobody fighting
‘Cause nobody knows what to save
And ain’t nobody fighting
Cause nobody knows, nobody knows
And ain’t nobody fighting
‘Cause nobody knows what to save

This is how free speech gets shut down. #BoeingGate

December 6, 2016
· Martin Kelley

Ear­li­er today Don­ald Trump tweet­ed that Boe­ing was spend­ing $4 bil­lion dol­lars to ren­o­vate Air Force One. He was off the facts by orders of mag­ni­tude but that does­n’t mean he did­n’t know knew exact­ly what he was doing. It’s time we stop try­ing to read his tweets as exer­cis­es in truth find­ing. It does­n’t mat­ter if Trump did­n’t know or did­n’t care about his num­bers: With author­i­tar­i­ans, we must fol­low the effects, not the logic.

Trump’s tweet came less than half an hour after the Chica­go Tri­bune post­ed a few short quotes from the Boe­ing CEO say­ing they were con­cerned about the impli­ca­tions of trade with Chi­na under a Trump Admin­is­tra­tion. It was rel­a­tive­ly tame stuff and of course a multi­na­tion­al with bil­lions of dol­lars in Chi­na is going to be con­cerned. About a quar­ter of their air­crafts are built for the Chi­nese market.

But fol­low not the log­ic but the effect: if you crit­i­cize this pres­i­dent in pub­lic he will destroy your share­hold­er val­ue. Boe­ing lost half a bil­lion dol­lars in val­ue fol­low­ing Trump’s 140 char­ac­ters. Every CEO in Amer­i­ca will now have to think twice before speak­ing to the press. It would be fis­cal­ly irre­spon­si­ble to do oth­er­wise. A few quotes in a paper isn’t worth that amount of share­hold­er value.

Free speech isn’t just court cas­es or a few lines in the Con­sti­tu­tion. Even the CEOs of the largest cor­po­ra­tions in Amer­i­ca need to watch their tongues. Silenc­ing has begun.

Writing Opp: Race and Anti-Racism

December 2, 2016
· Martin Kelley

We’re less than two weeks from the dead­line for writ­ing about “Race and Anti-Racism” for Friends Jour­nal and I’d love to see more sub­mis­sions. It was two years ago that we put out the much-talked-about issue on Expe­ri­ences of Friends of Col­or. That felt like a really-needed issue: no tri­umphal­ism about how white Friends some­times did the right thing as Abo­li­tion­ists or pos­tur­ing about how great we are, for­get­ting the ways we some­times aren’t: just a col­lec­tion of mod­ern Friends talk­ing about what they’ve expe­ri­enced first-hand.

I think it’s a good time to talk now about how Friends are orga­niz­ing to unlearn and sub­vert insti­tu­tion­al racism. It was an impor­tant issue before Novem­ber – ongo­ing mass incar­cer­a­tion, Stand­ing Rock, and the dis­en­fran­chise­ment of mil­lions of African Amer­i­cans was all tak­ing place before the elec­tion. But with racial back­lash­es, talk of a reli­gious or nationality-based reg­istries, and the cozi­ness of “alt-right” white nation­al­ists with mem­bers of the Trump cam­paign it all seems time to go into overdrive.


Write For Friends Journal - Submit Writing For Quaker Publication

Write For Friends Jour­nal — Sub­mit Writ­ing For Quak­er Publication 

Friends Jour­nal is an inde­pen­dent mag­a­zine serv­ing the entire Reli­gious Soci­ety of Friends. We wel­come arti­cles, poet­ry, art,…
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Friends on Giving

December 1, 2016
· Martin Kelley

The new issue of Friends Jour­nal is avail­able online. This month looks at Giv­ing and Phil­an­thropy. There’s some good reflec­tions from Friends on why they give to the caus­es and insti­tu­tions they do. There’s also a nice piece from Quak­er fundrais­er Hen­ry Free­man on the “lan­guage of Quak­er val­ues.” If you’re try­ing to unpack what it means to be Quak­er, this on-the-ground per­spec­tive is one way to parse out the real­i­ty of Quak­er testimonies.


Giving and Philanthropy Archives - Friends Journal

Giv­ing and Phil­an­thropy Archives — Friends Journal 

Decem­ber 2016: Giv­ing and Phil­an­thropy Speak­ing the Lan­guage of Quak­er Val­ues by Hen­ry Free­man Giv­ing from a Peace­ful Place by Lisa…
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Chatting with Greg Woods

December 1, 2016
· Martin Kelley

Yes­ter­day I had a nice video chat with my friend Greg Woods, whose arti­cle, Orga­niz­ing Young Adult Friends Online, appeared in Novem­ber’s Friends Jour­nal. Greg and I have been hav­ing vari­a­tions on this con­ver­sa­tion for years. Back in 2011, we worked togeth­er along­side Stephen Dot­son to put togeth­er a now-dated Young Adult Friends web­site (watch us eat in double-time in its pro­mo­tion­al video!). I believe it was the fourth YAF orga­niz­ing web­site I had built since the mid-90s. Greg is now putting togeth­er a net­work of Quak­er cam­pus min­istries. It’s one of those obvi­ous needs that I hope Friends will support.

Listening: Hidden Brain episode 53, “Embrace the Chaos”

November 30, 2016
· Martin Kelley

From the NPR descrip­tion:

Many of us spend lots of time and ener­gy try­ing to get orga­nized. We Kon­Mari our clos­ets, we strive for inbox zero, we tell our kids to clean their rooms, and our politi­cians to clean up Wash­ing­ton. But Econ­o­mist Tim Har­ford says, maybe we should embrace the chaos. His new book is Messy: The Pow­er of Dis­or­der to Trans­form Our Lives.

gregorycityUh-oh, should we stop being so fussy about cleaned-up rooms. Just last night I spent 45 min­utes cajol­ing and threat­en­ing and beg­ging my five year old to clean an amaz­ing block city he had con­struct­ed in the liv­ing room. Curi­ous­ly, the link to the pod­cast was sent to me by my wife.