I talked today with December Friends Journal author Becky Jones. Her article “The Intimacy of Prayer” appears in the current issue. I really appreciated talking about how we hold people in love, in the light, in prayer. One of my own methods is just to keep a prayer list on my phone but in prepping this interview I realized I hadn’t contributed to it in a year. Wow! If for nothing else, I’m grateful to be reminded that I should use that list more, as it keeps me more mindful of loved ones and acquaintances in my life.
Quaker Ranter
A Weekly Newsletter and Blog from Martin Kelley
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Elizabeth Spiers on Early Blogging
October 24, 2025
She describes a different time, indeed.
Early blogging was slower, less beholden to the hourly news cycle, and people were more inclined to talk about personal enthusiasms as well as what was going on in the world because blogs were considered an individual enterprise, not necessarily akin to a regular publication.
I appreciate her comments on invested readers. The number of people who were part of the “Quaker blogosphere” back in day was not that large but something about the crucible of the writing and debating meant that they developed ideas that have outsized influence today. The same sorts of conversations continue to happen today in corners of Facebook, Reddit, and Discord but there’s not the same sort of feeling of shared community.
Reviving Queer Worship
October 15, 2025
In my latest author podcast interview, I talk with R.E. Martin and Jason A. Terry about the efforts to bring back worship focused specifically on the queer community to Friends Meeting of Washington (FMW). I especially appreciate the work of connecting with elders who participated in this worship in decades past — through the worst of the AIDS epidemic and through the struggle for growing acceptance of the 1990s.
You can watch the full episode of my talk with R.E. and Jason and read their article, “Advices and Que[e]ries: Chosen Family and Chosen Ancestors.”
The October issue of Friends Journal is specifically about affinity groups: how and why and when we might break off into worship groups that specifically include and exclude Friends. October authors Vanessa Julye and Curtis Spence are interviewed as part of this month’s Quakers Today podcast episode, “Quakers & Affinity Spaces: Finding Wholeness in a Separated World.”
Vegetarian Author John Robbins Dies at 77
July 2, 2025
An obit to the vegetarian-promoting author of Diet for a New America. The book came out when I was an very active activist in college. My primary motivation to become vegetarian was gut level — why kill animals for food when you don’t have to? — but Robbins’s book gave an intellectual backbone I found convincing and I appreciated learning about the environmental and health aspects of a vegetarian diet (as I’ve grown older, the latter feel even more important).
Great detail at the end:
In the late 1980s, his son said, John Robbins reconciled with his father: Irv Robbins, suffering from weight issues, heart disease and diabetes, was given a copy of “Diet for a New America” by his cardiologist. The doctor had no idea that the book had been written by his patient’s son.
Veg News also has an article on his life and impact.
Risking Community
April 20, 2018
From Gregg Koselka, a post that rewards reading a few times: Risking Community
When I look around, there is still so much hurt that needs to be processed. There are still real differences in philosophy about how to build community. Some see how much needs to radically change so that those who have been marginalized can truly be safe and have agency, and so want to go slowly to build it correctly. Some see the damage having no community can bring, and want to do what they can to build something as safely as possible. I hate that these differences are still causing damage to our relationships and our communities. I don’t have a solution.
I appreciate the way he tries to understand the flip sides of community and institutionalism; perhaps schism could be seen as the moment they can no longer be negotiated. As pastor of one of the “most institutional of institutional churches for 15 years,” he was in the center of the centrifugal forces that tore apart both Northwest Yearly Meeting as a whole and indivisible Friends churches within it. From a distance of 3000 miles and 150 years of diverging Quaker history, I’m not in a position to say whether things could have gone differently or whether individuals always acted in their best ways but I can appreciate that it there must have been a lot of impossible choices and no-good answers as polarization gave way to disintegration.
On the Web: Where’s that Power of the Lord?
June 16, 2005
The new Quaker Life has an article by Charles W. Heavilin asking “Where’s the Power of the Lord Now?”:http://www.fum.org/QL/issues/0506/heaviland.htm
bq. In our postmodern, fragmented world, where now is the power of the Lord among Quakers? There is a vast divide between the accounts of early Friends and that of contemporary Friends. Most modern Quaker reporting is perfunctory — accounts with the spiritual quality of recipes in a cookbook. Conversations at Quaker gatherings now revolve around declining attendance or bleak assessments of the spiritual shallowness of society. Seldom, if ever, is there any mention of the power of the Lord.
Great stuff. He gets into the way our culture has negatively influenced Friends. After you read it check out “C Wess Daniel’s”:http://gatheringinlight.blogspot.com/2005/06/i‑appreciate-article-charles-has.html commentary on the article:
bq. Simply put, I think we need to learn the stories of the Quaker church once again, and begin to tell them, live them, and move forward in this tradition that has been past down to us as one that has been formed by the Spirit of Christ through such wonderful leaders as Fox, Fell, Barclay, Woolman, etc.
Nonviolence.org syndicated
July 20, 2003
A little bit of housekeeping: There have been a few behind-the-scene changes on the Nonviolence.org homepage this weekend. I’ve switched the blogging software over to Moveabletype.
The hard-core blog readers will appreciate that Nonviolence.org now has an syndicated news feed. That means that you can now read the homepage with software like Sharpreader, Newsgator, etc.
even the more-casual readers will appreciate that you can now comment directly on every article. There will be other subtler features added over time. Let me know if there are any problems.
Anna Maria’s Advice to Lovers
December 20, 1996
Anna Maria and the Romance Roundtable
We live in an age of confusing sexualities and unclear gender lines, an age in which protocols for wooing beloveds have been tossed to the wind in a mad rush for some imagined “sexual liberation.” Reminding us that romance is not dead, and that chivalry is more fashionable than ever is Anna Maria and her Romance Roundtable.
Only Date People Who…
…have a kinesthetic sensibility (AM)
…appreciate the wonders of dictionaries (J)
…are comfortable talking about sex (K)
…like diners with “To Sir with Love” playing (J)
…are comfortable breaking out into spontaneous song (M)
…like to play the vegetable game (“Moomerry, melery, babaya”) (M & J)
…likes eye contact (K)
…are straight-edgers (AM)
…need to practice their massage lessons (Mary R)
…like to cook (MR)
…who can accompany, or even better, join my coop house’s stream of puns (MR)
…enchants my housemates (MR)
…get along with housemates (B)
…have a library card (B)
…live in your zip code (M)
…bring you breakfast in bed (B)
…use condoms (B)
…share your gait while walking (B)
…you pick up on the Cleveland bus system (T) (go figure)
And remember a few more rules…
Try not to be too judgemental (J)
Crushes are almost 90% mutual (M)
Be picky (AM)
Do you have more to add? Wonderful. Please send mail to the Anna Maria Advice to Lovers Homepage. Special thanks to Johnny “unhung and that’s okay with us” Depp for inspiration for this page.
Circa 1996. Recovered via Archive.org