Comments on: Conferences and videos

By: Martin Kelley

Martin Kelley — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 16:47:00 +0000

In reply to maco. Wait, a clickbait site has misinformation, how surprising.

By: maco

maco — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 19:58:00 +0000

I just clicked that "Orthodox Friends" link, and...what? Young Earth Creationism? Now, I've heard everything.

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:32:55 +0000

In reply to Callid Keefe-Perry. Hello Jeanne. It's a small world. We've missed you over at the Tolle Message Boards on Oprah.com. I haven't read any recent posts from Bridgebuilder lately either. Maybe she has gotten too involved in her Meeting. Yes...I'm the guy who bought quite a few books from QuakerBooks of FGC. And as you can see, I have also subscribed to QuakerQuaker. I am really enjoying those books (The Quiet Rebels by Bacon, God Raising Us by Flanagan, Godless for God's Sake by Boulton). Keep up the good work. You are an evangelist of sorts. Wow!! I thought there were some heated discussions and disagreements on Oprah.com over Tolle's book but they are nothing compared to what I have seen here in the QuakerQuaker universe: Heated debates over Quaker Sweat Lodges!?! Seemingly irreconcilable differences between "Christ-centered" and "Universal" Friends. And it seems to me there is so much over-intellectualizing (if that's a word)... And more than just a tad of arrogance--actually-- it seems to me-- a whole lot of arrogance. The post above from Paul L really hurt my heart that someone would talk about another human being in that way. I sure hope that young girl doesn't decide to check out this site like I did. I have to be honest when I read stuff like that I think: Who would WANT to go to a meeting with people who talk like that around? I think your normal, everyday working guy or gal would feel VERY uncomfortable indeed around uppity arrogant people. I dunno...I guess I had hoped that kindness was the be-all and end-all of Quakerism. That there was nothing else more important! But I am finding so little evidence of this on the Internet. This, of course, is my problem...I know. Quakers don't have to be any different from anyone else. But, I guess, I had hoped that they were. Adios, Dave

By: Callid Keefe-Perry

Callid Keefe-Perry — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:06:52 +0000

Martin, Thank you for prompting me into action. I have been thinking about our New Media presence (or lack thereof) for quite a while. Consequently, I found your posting to be the push I needed to move on something that has poking around in my head for some time. It feels right for me to have done it, and now having watched it several times with hours between each, I still feel clear to post it. It isn't anything amazing, but it is my sense of things, and I can only hope that it prompts others into making there own responses. The more folks in the conversation the better. You can see the video here:
What is Liberal Quakerism?
In the Light,
Callid Keefe-Perry Rochester Monthly Meeting New York Yearly Meeting
PS Just a reminder that I am not speaking on behalf on my Meeting, but merely as an individual Friend trying his best to faithfully present his understanding.

By: martinkelley.com

martinkelley.com — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 10:20:46 +0000

@Paul: I think part of the disconnect is that she’s not speaking in Quakerese. She’s using different vocabularies to try to share her understanding of Friends. It sounds very foreign to our over-trained ears. But that begs the question of whether we can learn talk about Quakerism using modern mainstream spiritual language. And can we do so without losing something of the core of belief? More soon.
I missed Lovely Wife and Robin in that video. I guess I was focused on the food!

By: Paul L

Paul L — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:36:25 +0000

Martin — If you hadn’t told me that the young woman in the video was an authentic seeker and that you’ve been corresponding with her, I would have thought you had created the funniest parody of what 21st Century Liberal Quakerism has become.
But your point is the right one: the bigger problem is that this is what people find when they look for Quakers on You Tube.
And thanks for the Gathering mealtime video — among the many people I recognized were Robin M and my own Lovely Wife.

By: Jeanne B

Jeanne B — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:08:13 +0000

The most interesting conversation I had at Gathering included Micah Bales (and Eric Evans and Rex Sprouse). So we're mostly vegetarians? We're having individual spiritual experiences? Some of the experience I've had around outreach include a young Friend on facebook who wrote a profound note about her experience as a daughter of a transgendered parent. Her non-Quaker friends who saw it were amazed at how open Quakers are about those issues. On Oprah's website, I've been following a discussion of Eckhart Tolle's book "A New Earth" and people were saying things like "I think Quakers do this stuff," and I've posted some more accurate information. From that, several people have checked out Monthly Meetings and one person ordered several Quaker books from Quaker Books of FGC. I think a lot of what we do in the blog world is talk to one another. Necessarily. And some of that chatter is being heard by those who are not Quaker. But I also can't help but wonder, like you, where's our Light into the world? Some say it's the service work we do, that we don't evangelize. But as long as we refuse to evangelize, we'll have others saying for us what we're about!

By: Jeremiah

Jeremiah — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 02:53:51 +0000

There’s no substitute for face-to-face meetings — I was pleased recently to have the opportunity to meet an American Quaker blogger in person while he was staying at Woodbrooke.
But it’s becoming increasingly difficult to justify all this travelling about, especially by plane, in the face of the threat from global climate change.