I think this was fourth Cirque performance I’ve seen (though third show, as I’ve seen Walt Disney World’s twice), and it had all the Cirque trademarks I’ve come to expect. There’s the hallucinogenic storyline, East meets West via acrobats, giant puppets, dream creatures and clowns you wouldn’t want to meet on the proverbial dark alley. Perhaps careful study of the tour guide and/or repeated viewings would make this clearer, but I’m content that the tale is a convenient inspiration for performances and costumes.

I absolutely love Cirque’s instance on having the music performed live, as well as the way they have performers roll on and off the props. Cirque started off as a street show in Quebec and there’s a lot of that diy anarchic spirit that has held on despite the million-dollar revenues.

The touring shows have simple setups that can fit sideways into standard basketball auditoriums. It works, but it’s nothing like the custom spaces, like the one in Walt Disney World. Still, out was nice to have a local taste of Cirque that fit the budget of a special date (this show doubled as our eleventh wedding anniversary).

Leaving the show we followed the temptation to walk the boardwalk, to utter disappointment. Atlantic City’s oceanfront is dominated by block-long casino entrances that long ago replaced the array of small shops you see elsewhere. Artistry is completely absent, with Cirque’s live music in stark contrast to the overpowered sound systems throwing generic dance music out from the edges of the walk. After a block we turned around and headed inland to Absecon’s Mount Fuji for a post-show dinner. Poor Atlantic City.

Here’s the trailer for Cirque’s Dralion:

For those interested in repeating our journey, here’s a map showing our route up and back. I was mostly winging it, depending on these directions from NJPineslandsandDownJersey.com starting from nearby Chatsworth NJ, self-styled “Capital of the Pine Barrens.”

Other map views: View Larger Map | Satellite with Route Map

Here then is an edited version of the proposal I presented to the Pickett Fund in Third Month 2005; it has subsequently been approved by the Overseers of my meeting, Atlantic City Area Monthly Meeting.

What involvement have you had in Quaker-related activities/service projects for the betterment of your community/world?

Ten years ago I founded Nonviolence.org, a cutting edge “New Media” website that now reaches over a million visitors a year. I have been involved with a number of Philadelphia peace groups (e.g.,Food Not Bombs, the Philadelphia Independent Media Center, Act for Peace in the Middle East). I have served my monthly meeting as co-clerk and as a representative to yearly meeting bodies. I recently led a well-received “Quakerism 101” course at Medford (NJ) Monthly Meeting and will co-lead a workshop called “Strangers to the Covenant” at this year’s FGC Gathering. I have organized Young Adult Friends at the yearly and national levels, serving formally and informally in various capacities. I am quite involved with Quakers Uniting in Publications, an international association of Quaker publishers, authors and booksellers. Eighteen months ago I started a small Quaker ministry website that has inspired a number of younger Friends interested in exploring ministry and witness. For the past six years I have worked for Friends General Conference; for two of those years I was concurrently also working for Friends Journal.

What is the nature of the internship, creative activity or service project for which you seek funding?

I’ve served with various Young Adult Friends groupings and committees for ten years. In that time I’ve been blessed to meet many of my peers with a clear call to inspired ministry. Most of these Friends have since left the Society, frustrated both by monthly meetings and Quaker bodies that didn’t know what to do with a bold ministry and by a lack of mentoring eldership that could help season and steady these young ministers and deepen their understanding of gospel order.

I would like to put together an independent online publication. This would address the isolation that most serious young Friends feel and would give a focus to our work together. The publication would also have a quarterly print edition.

It’s important to build face-to-face relationships too, to build an advisory board but also a base of contributors and to give extra encouragement to fledgling ministries. I would like to travel to different young adult communities to share stories and inspiration. This would explicit reach out across the different braches of Friends and even to various seeker movements like the so-called “Emergent Church Movement.”

What amount are you requesting and how will it be used in the project? What other financial resources for your project are you considering?

$7800. Web hosting: $900 for 18 months. Software: $300. Print publication: $3000 for 6 quarterly issues at $500 per issue. Travel: $1600 for four trips averaging $400 each. $2000 for mini-sabbatical time setting up site.

The Pickett Fund would be a validation of sorts for this vision. I would also turn to other youth fellowship and yearly meeting travel funds that support the work.

What is the time frame for your project? 18 months, to be reviewed/revisioned then.

When did/will it begin? This summer. When will it end? December 2006.

In what specific ways will the project further your leadership potential in Quaker service?

It’s time that I formalize some of the work I’ve been doing and make it more of a collective effort. It will be good to see formal monthly meeting recognition of this ministry and to have institutional Quaker support. I hope to learn much by being involved with so many wonderful Friends and hope to help pull together more of a sense of mission among a number of younger Friends.

[box]An updated note before I start: I don’t want this to be seen as a critique or put-down of any particular individuals but to point out what seems to me to be a pretty obvious larger dynamic within Quakerism: our religious education programs have not been doing a very good job at transmitting our faith to our young people. One measure of such programs is how many children we retain as actively-participating adults; by such measures I think we can say Quakers are failing.

And, a few perhaps obvious disclaimers: 1) there are deeply faithful people who grew up in Young Friends programs; 2) there are religious ed instructors who are worried about the message we’re giving our young people and fret as I do; 3) there are a lot of members of the RSoF who just don’t think teaching distinctly Quaker faithfulness is important and wouldn’t agree that there’s a problem.

I don’t think it’s useful to read this without also looking to my early article, The Lost Quaker Generation, which mourns the friends I’ve seen drop out of Quakerism (many of them “birthright,” i.e., born into Quaker families), and We’re all Ranters Now, which argues that our society of seekers needs to become a society of finders if we are to be able to articulate a faith to transmit.
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On June 30, 2000, Julie and I met at a national gathering of Quakers. Fourteen months later we were married at the Woodstown Friends Meetinghouse under the care of the Atlantic City Area Friends Meeting. Roughly fourteen months later, when the sparkles in our eyes were meeting with an approving nod from God and our baby was conceived, I was co-clerk of Atlantic City Area Meeting and Julie was clerk of its Outreach Committee. Ten months later, our infant son Theo was baptized at Mater Ecclesiae Roman Catholic Church in Berlin, N.J. It’s Julie’s new church; I myself remain Quaker, but without a Meeting I can quite call home. What happened?

I don’t want to try to speak for Julie and why she left Friends to return to the faith she was brought up in. But I do have to testify that the reverence, spirit and authenticity of the worship at Mater Ecclesiae is deeper than that in most Friends Meetinghouses. It’s a church with a lot of members who seem to believe in the real presence of Christ. A disclaimer that Mater Ecclesiae is unusual, one of the few churches in the country that uses the traditional Tridentine Mass or Roman Rite, and that it attracts ardent followers who have self-selected themselves, in that they’re not going to their local parish church. I don’t think it’s the Catholicism alone that draws Julie–I think the purposefulness of the worshipers is a large piece. Despite all the distractions (chants, Latin, rote confessions of faith: I’m speaking as a Friend), the worship there is unusually gathered. But more: there’s a groundedness to the faith. In a one-on-one conversation the priest explained to me the ways he thought Quakerism was wrong. I wasn’t offended–quite the contrary, I loved it! It was so refreshing to meet someone who believed what he believed, (Hey, if I didn’t believe in the degeneration of the Roman Catholic Church or the empty professions of hireling priests, I might join him. I also feel comfortable predicting that he would welcome my jousting here.)

What I can talk about is my misgivings about the prospect of raising up Theo as a Quaker in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. The weakest element of the Religious Society of Friends is its children’s religious education. This is something I’ve seen manifested in two different kinds of ways: content and results.

Quakers have remarkably few expectations of their children. It’s considered remarkable if older children spend a whole ten minutes in Meeting for Worship (I’ve heard adult birthright Friends boast that they’ve never sat through a whole hour of Quaker worship). Quakers are obsessed about listening to what children have to say, and so never share with them what they believe. I’ve known adults birthright Friends who have never had conversations with their parents about the basis of their faith.

Quaker religious education programs often forgo teaching traditional Quaker faith and practice for more faddish beliefs. The basement walls of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting youth center is painted over with dancing gods, while of the big events of the Young Friends’ annual calendar is a “Quaker sweat lodge”. A culture of touch and physicality (“cuddle puddles”, backrubs) is thought charming and immodest dress is considered a sign of rebellious individuality. Quaker schools publish brochures saying Meeting for Worship is all about “thinking, with God given little notice.” When Quakers want to have “intergenerational” worship, they feel they have to program it with some sort of attention-keeping playtime activity (Mater Ecclesiae echoes Quaker tradition here: “intergenerational” means children sitting through and participating in Mass with the adults).

Too many of the people my age and Julie’s who were brought up at Friends are ignorant of basic Quaker beliefs and are unaware of Quaker traditions (FUM, EFI, Conservatives) outside the easy-going East Coast liberalism they were raised in. For them being a Friend is acting a certain way, believing a certain brand of political philosophy and being part of a certain social group. Too many Young Adult Friends I’ve known over the years are cliquish, irreligious, and have more than their share of issues around intimacy and sexuality.

Don’t get me wrong: these kids are often really good people, children to be proud of, doing great things in the world. Many of them are open-hearted, spiritually-sensitive, and in deeply grounded relationships. But only a very few are practicing Quakers. And when I look at the religious education they get, I can’t say I’m surprised. If I were to raise Theo as a Quaker, I would have to “home school” him away from most of the religious education programs offered locally. When all the kids scramble out of worship after ten minutes I’d have to say “no” and tell him to keep sitting–how weird would that be?

Theo has a better chance of sharing the traditional Quaker values of the presence of Christ, of Holy Obedience, and of bearing the cross by being raised as a Catholic in a traditionalist church. It’s more likely he’ll turn out Quaker if he’s baptised at Mater Ecclesiae. Julie and I will be teaching him reverence by example. I’ll share my Quaker faith with him. I’m sure he’ll participate in Quaker events, but consciously, selectively, guardedly (in the old Quaker sense).

If Friends believe they have a faith worth holdling, they should also believe they have a faith worth passing on. Do we?

Related Reading

• Beckey Phipps conducted a series of interviews that touched on many of these issues and published it in FGConnections. FGC Religious Education: Lessons for the 21st Century asks many of the right questions. My favorite line: “It is the most amazing thing, all the kids that I know that have gone into [Quaker] leadership programs–they’ve disappeared.”
• I touch on these issues from the other side in The Lost Quaker Generation, which is about the twenty- and thirty-something Friends that have drifted away

So today my mother and I decided to walk over and see the new National Constitution Center on Independence Mall. It’s opening day was a bit famous for a large prop crashing down on the heads of the assembled dignitaries and we wanted to see if the Center itself lived up to such an auspicious start.
It’s a particularly dismal walk from the main downtown part of Philadelphia to Independence Mall. For those of you who don’t know the city or the history, whole neighborhoods were razed in the 1950s to create a park-like atmosphere with long vistas gazing onto the old state house where the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution were both drafted and signed (it wasn’t until much later that the attractive but unassuming brick building was renamed “Independence Hall”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Hall). This was a thriving area with lots of funky nineteenth century buildings, some of them of architectural interest, and if they had been left standing the buildings and location would have made this one of the most exciting and happening neighborhoods of Philly. Instead it’s all asphalt parking lots and oversized institutional buildings. Lived history was ripped out to make room for a pre-packaged “History” that never was. It would have been much easier to imagine the bustle and hum of the 1776 streets of Philadelphia if they were still lived-in and thriving, but adventurous tourists have to walk a half mile west into Chinatown to get a taste of the chaos of real city life, now and then.
The “Mall” concept surround Independence Hall has always been a big flop. Grand vistas became long and sketchy parks which you didn’t want to visit after dark, filled with fountains where few kids ever waded. It’s largely because of the failure of the past rip-it/flatten-it/sod-it mentality that the new Constitution Center was built. It’s nicer than the barrenness that was there, but it’s still a giant pavillion air-dropped in the crater of what was a city, the whole thing surrounded with oversized institutional office boxes (the concrete-barricaded federal building and mint, a few TV studios). There’s little real connection to the vibrant city a few blocks away. (It’s like nearby Atlantic City, another real city that was turned inside-out to market to tourists, who are now brought in on air-conditioned buses and deposited directly onto the windowless casino floors, never to know there’s a real city outside.)
When my mother and I walked along the entry way to the Constitution Center we gazed into the windows to get a sense of what we were about to see. All we saw in there was a generic cafeteria. We should have gotten the hint but we carried along inside anyway. After being checked by security we walked into the Center to find… nothing.
It’s empty. The most prominent feature upon entering is the list of corporate sponsors. Then there are the auditoriums arranged around the central hall, all named after benefactors like Walter Annenberg. My mother and I sort of piroetted around the main area trying to figure out where to go. There was a curving staircase welcoming us to the second floor so we walked up. There we saw a empty balcony. We glanced right and finally found something–a room with life-sized bronze statues of the founding fathers. Cheesy and kind of stupid but we’re here so we walk in.
Bad idea. Some young staff person rushes up to us and says we can’t go in. We need tickets to go in there. Tickets are sold downstairs. We can’t see a statue of Thomas Jefferson without paying $6. Here we are in a federal museum plastered in corporate names and we have to _pay_ to see some _statues_? We turn to walk around the long balcony to see if there’s anything in the non-ticketed area on the other side. It’s only a second entrance to the statues. The young woman rushes up to us to tell us we can’t go in that way either, we need the tickets, etc., etc. I ask one of the other staffers if there’s anything here worth seeing that doesn’t need a ticket but he has no answer. Sigh…
We do find something free however. As we walked out we noticed that the gift shop is free. Thank you Uncle Sam.
It’s obvious that the Center is just a holding pen for big bus trips. It’s not as much a museum or national shrine as it is a highway rest stop. On your left’s the super-sized cafeteria, on your right the store for crappy hats and t‑shirts. And for this we rip up Philadelphia?
Further reading:
Travels in Philadelphia by Christopher Morley. Morley’s more known for the vignettes he wrote of New York City life in the 1920s, but he started out in Philadelphia. He had an eye for seeing the colorful explosion of life being lived where politicians saw nothing but tenements and flop-houses. Some of the neighborhoods he profiled so lovingly are underneath the sod and asphalt of Independence Mall and the nearby interstates.
(Personal note: my great-grandfather owned and managed a hotel in the area back in the late 1800s. I once got the street number and tracked it down, only to find an offramp for the Vine Street Expressway. So much for family history. So much for Philly history.)

This was a post I sent to the “Pearl” email list, which consists of members of the 2002 FGC Gathering workshop led by Lloyd Lee Wilson of North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative). Eighth Month 20, 2002

I thought I’d share some of my journey in plain-ness since Gathering. There’s two parts to plain dress: simplicity and plain-ness.

The most important part of the simplicity work has been simplifying my wardrobe. It’s incredible how many clothes I have. I suspect I have a lot fewer than most Americans but there’s still tons, and never enough room in the closets & dressers (I do have small closets but still!). I’d like to get all my clothes into one or two dresser drawers and donate the rest to charity. Two pairs of pants, a couple of shirts, a few days worth of socks and undergarments. This requires that I wash everything frequently which means I hand-wash things but that’s okay. The point is to not worry or think about what I’m going to wear every morning. I’ve been to a wedding and a funeral since I started going plain and it was nice not having to fret about what to wear.

I also appreciate using less resources up by having fewer clothes. It’s hard to get away from products that don’t have some negative side effects (support of oil industry, spilling of chemical wastes into streams, killing of animals for hide, exploitation of people constructing the clothes at horrible wages & conditions). I try my best to balance these concerns but the best way is to reduce the use.

These motivations are simple-ness rather than plain-ness. But I am trying to be plain too. For men it’s pretty easy. My most common clothing since Gathering has been black pants, shoes and suspenders, and the combo seems to look pretty plain. There’s no historic authenticity. The pants are Levi-Dockers which I already own, the shoes non-leather ones from Payless, also already owned. The only purchase was suspenders from Sears. I bought black overalls too. My Dockers were victims of a minor bike accident last week (my scraped knee & elbow are healing well, thank you, and my bike is fine) and I’m replacing them with thicker pants that will hold up better to repeated washing & use. There’s irony in this, certainly. If I were being just simple, I’d wear out all the pants I have–despite their color–rather than buy new ones. I’d be wearing some bright & wacky pants, that’s for sure! But irony is part of any witness, especially in the beginning when there’s some lifestyle shifting that needs to happen. As a person living in the world I’m bound to have contradictions: they help me to not take myself too seriously and I try to accept them with grace and good humor.

But practicality in dress more important to me than historical authenticity. I don’t want to wear a hat since I bike every day and want to keep my head free for the helmet; it also feels like my doing it would go beyond the line into quaintness. The only type of clothing that’s new to my wardrobe is the suspenders and really they are as practical as a belt, just less common today. A few Civil War re-enactment buffs have smilingly observed that clip-on suspenders aren’t historically authentic but that’s perfectly okay with me. I also wear collars, that’s perfectly okay with me too.

The other thing that I’m clear about is that the commandment to plain dress is not necessarily eternal. It is situational, it is partly a response to the world and to Quakerdom and it does consciously refer to certain symbols. God is what’s eternal, and listening to the call of Christ within is the real commandment. If I were in a Quaker community that demanded plain dress, I expect I would feel led to break out the tie-die and bleach and manic-panic hair coloring. Dress is an outward form and like all outward forms and practices, it can easily become a false sacrament. If we embrace the form but forget the source (which I suspect lots of Nineteenth Century Friends did), then it’s time to cause a ruckus.

Every so often Friends need to look around and take stock of the state of the Society. At the turn of the 20th Century, they did that. There’s a fascinating anti-plain dress book from that time that argues that it’s a musty old tradition that should be swept away in light of the socialist ecumenical world of the future. I suspect I would have had much sympathy for the position at the time, especially if I were in a group of Friends who didn’t have the fire of the Spirit and wore their old clothes only because their parents had and it was expected of Quakers.

Today the situation is changed. We have many Friends who have blended in so well with modern suburban America that they’re indistinguishable in spirit or deed. They don’t want to have committee meeting on Saturdays or after Meeting since that would take up so much time, etc. They’re happy being Quakers as long as not much is expected and as long as there’s no challenge and no sacrifice required. We also have Friends who think that the peace testimony and witness is all there is (confusing the outward form with the source again, in my opinion). When a spiritual emptiness sets into a community there are two obvious ways out: 1) bring in the fads of the outside world (religious revivalism in the 19 Century, socialist ecumenicalsim in the 20th, Buddhism and sweat lodges in the 21st). or 2) re-examine the fire of previous generations and figure out what babies you threw away with the bathwater in the last rebellion against empty outward form.

I think Quakers really found something special 350 years ago, or rediscovered it and that we are constantly rediscovering it. I have felt that power/ I know that there is still one, named Jesus Christ, who can speak to my condition and that the Spirit comes to teach the people directly. I’ll read old journals and put on old clothes to try to understand early Friends’ beliefs. The clothes aren’t important, I don’t want to give them too much weight. But there is a tradition of Quakers taking on plain dress upon some sort of deep spiritual convincement (it is so much of a cliche of old Quaker journals that literary types classify it as part of the essential structure of the journals). I see plain dress as a reminder we give ourselves that we are trying to live outside the worldliness of our times and serve the eternal. My witness to others is simply that I think Quakerism is something to commit oneself wholly to (yes, I’ll meet on a Saturday) and that there are some precious gifts in traditional Quaker faith & practice that could speak to the spiritual crisis many Friends feel today.

In friendship,
Martin Kelley
Atlantic City Area MM, NJ
martink@martinkelley.com

Related Posts

• Plain Dressing at the FGC Gathering (Seventh Month 2004)
• Gohn Brothers and some plain dressing tips (Seventh Month 2004)