asks - Quaker Ranter

What might Love do?

Martin Kelley — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 16:25:35 +0000

Kathleen Wooten looks at the heartbreaking immigration stories taking place all around us and asks the classic Quaker question, what might Love do?

I’m not quite sure how we got here, in this “Christian” nation of ours. Christ says to welcome the stranger. These folks are not even strangers to many of us – they are woven into the fabric of our shared communities, their families, their work and service in the world, and their blessings.

Strangers to the Covenant

Martin Kelley — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 18:40:21 +0000

A workshop led by Zachary Moon and Martin Kelley at the 2005 FGC Gathering of Friends.

This is for Young Friends who want to break into the power of Quakerism: it’s the stuff you didn’t get in First Day School. Connecting with historical Quakers whose powerful ministry came in their teens and twenties, we’ll look at how Friends wove God, covenants and gospel order together to build a movement that rocked the world. We’ll mine Quaker history to reclaim the power of our tradition, to explore the living testimonies and our witness in the world. (P/T)

Percentage of time: Worship 20 / Lecture 30 / Discussion 50

Extended Description

We hope to encourage Friends to imagine themselves as ministers and elders and to be bold enough to challenge the institutions of Quakerism as needed. We want to build a community, a cohort, of Friends who aren’t afraid to bust us out of our own limited expectations and give them space to grow into the awareness that their longing for deeper spiritual connection with shared widely among others their age. Our task as workshop conveners is to model as both bold and humble seekers after truth, who can stay real to the spirit without taking ourselves either too seriously or too lightly.

Martin and Zachary have discovered a Quaker tradition more defined, more coherent and far richer than the Quakerism we were offered in First Day School. In integrity to that discovery, we intend to create a space for fellowship that would further open these glimpses of what’s out there and what possibilities exist to step out boldly in this Light.

Sunday: Introductions
The most important task for today is modeling the grounded worship and spirit-led ministry that will be our true curriculum this week. In a worship sharing format we will consider these questions:

What brought me to this workshop?
What did they fail to teach me in First Day School that I still want to know?

Monday: What is this Quakerism?
Today will be about entering this grounded space together as Friends, beginning to ask some questions that reveal and open. How do I articulate what Quakerism is all about? What ideas, language, and words (e.g. “God”, “Jesus” “Light”) do use to describe this tradition? Today we start that dialogue. At the end of session we will ask participants to seek out an older Friend and ask them for their answers on these queries and bring back that experience to our next gathering.

Worship. Reading of selected texts from journal and Bible
Present question: When someone asks me “what is Quakerism?” how do I respond.
Martin and Zachary will share some thoughts on this question from other Friends
Journaling on Query
Discussion of ideas and language.

Tuesday: The Mystical Tradition and Gospel Order
We enter into the language and fabric of our Tradition at its mystical roots. Asking the questions: What does God feel like? Introduce early Quaker’s talk about God. What does it feel like to be with God? What is Gospel Order?

Worship. Reading of selected texts from journals and Bible
Follow-up on previous day’s discussion/homework what new came into the Light overnight?
Journaling on Query: When have I felt the presence of God? Describe it in five senses?
Initial discussion and sharing of thoughts and ideas.
Introduce some ideas from early Friends and others on this Query. How have others (Jesus, Isaiah, Merton, Fox, Day) spoken of this experience?
Introduce themes of Spiritual Practice: If Quakerism is about asking the right questions, how do we get into the place to hear those questions and respond faithfully? We have already been incorporating devotional reading into our time together each morning but we will introduce into the Light of Discipline as such here. Naming of other practices, previously acknowledged and otherwise, within the group.
Introduce ‘Spiritual Discernment’ themes for the following day’s session.

Wednesday: The Roots of Friends’ Discernment Tradition and the Testimonies
We delve into the archives, the dusty stuff, the stuff First Day School didn’t get to: the preaching from the trees, the prison time, the age George Fox was when he was first incarcerated for his beliefs, what the testimonies are really about and where they came from. Today is about taking the skeletons out of the closet and cleaning house.

Worship. Reading of selected texts from journals and Bible
‘Let’s talk history’: Early Friends, the Making of The Society, and the Discernment Tradition. [Martin and Zachary may cover this, or we may arrange to have another Friend come and share some thoughts and infuse a new voice into our dialogue]
There are lots of testimonies: what are ours? Name some. How to they facilitate our relationship with God?
What’s up with “Obedience”, “Plainness”, and “Discipline”? How do we practice them?

Thursday: Friends in a Covenanted Relationship
We grow into our roles as leaders in this community by considering the opportunities and the hurdles in deepening our covenant relationship. We begin with considering spiritual gifts, and then consider questions around ministry, its origin and its discernment. We will take up the task of considering what our work, what piece of this responsibility is ours to carry.

Worship. Reading of selected texts from journals and Bible
Journaling on the Queries: What is alive inside of me? How are my spiritual gifts named and nurtured?
What are the tasks of ministry?
What are the tasks of eldering?
What are the structures and practices in our monthly, quarterly and yearly meetings that we can use to test out and support leadings? How do these structures work and not work. Clearness committees? Traveling Friends? Spiritual nurture/affinity groups?
What is holding us back from living this deepened relationship? What is our responsibility to this covenant and this covenant community?

Friday: The Future of Quakerism
We begin the work that will occupy the rest of our lives. The participants of this workshop will be around for the next fifty or more years, so let’s start talking about systematic, long-term change. We have something to contribute to this consideration right now.

Worship. Reading of selected texts from journals and Bible
Where do we go from here? Martin will present on emergent church. Zachary will present some thoughts on ‘Beloved Community’.
Many have talked about deep communion with God and about covenant community. Many have spoken our hearts and given voice to the passion we experience; now it’s on us what are we going to do about it? Where is it happening?
Discussion (maybe as a fishbowl) Where do we envision Quakerism 50 years from now? 100 years from now?

External Website: Quaker Ranter, Martin’s site.

Site of the Week: The Picket Line

Martin Kelley — Fri, 17 Oct 2003 16:11:25 +0000

Well, I don’t really have a “Site of the Week” feature. But if I did, I’d highlight Dave Gross’ blog, The Picket Line, which is perhaps the first blog I’ve seen actually connected to one of the historic Nonviolence.org groups (in this case the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee). Dave describes it as “a running account of my experience with war tax resistance and what I’m learning along the way.” Here’s a a good recent post to whet your appetite:

A friend asks: “How can you break bread with taxpayers in the evening after spending the morning posting a rant that says that taxpayers are willingly complicit in the government’s evil deeds?”

http://www.sniggle.net/experiment/index.php?entry=06Oct03

Uprooting Racism publisher’s note

Martin Kelley — Sat, 02 Dec 1995 04:06:39 +0000

In 1995, I worked on one of my last books for New Society Publishers, Uprooting Racism, by Paul Kivel. I was both editor and typesetter. It was in my capacity as the former that I wrote this publisher’s note.

In this book, Paul Kivel is taking on a lot. He’s speaking to white people as a fellow white person about a hush-hush subject: racism. He’s speaking with an honesty that allows for confusion and for admission of his own inner prejudices. In an era when many whites express pride of the advancement of the civil rights movement, he asks why so much of our world is still racially proscribed.

Our society has been built upon a foundation of racism for so long that it’s become part of the landscape: always there, seldom acknowledged. In this book, Kivel acknowledges and he questions. He asks us where we came from, he asks us what we know. He’s resisted the temptation to make this a manual of political correctness, and has instead allowed us to share our own prejudices with him as we read.

Kivel challenges us to look at our place in society. Just because we’ve begun to unlearn racism doesn’t mean the person washing the dishes of a favorite restaurant isn’t still African American. Or that the editor of a favorite magazine isn’t still a white person. Or that the taxi driver we hail isn’t still classified an illegal alien by a government restricting immigration from darker-skinned regions of the world.

Paul Kivel doesn’t give us pat answers to these dilemmas. He knows there will be no point at which we can sit back and consider our job completed. We must continue to wrestle with these questions, and in the confusion find moments of connection and clarity.

Uprooting racism is of course a large task, much larger than any one of us. But by working in our communities, and by engaging with our neighbors, workmates, and friends, we can make a difference. May this book inspire and confuse you!

Martin Kelley, for the New Society Publishers