I wrote the introductory column for this issue. Here’s a taste:

am grateful that both our religious society and wider culture have developed a greater understanding of the diversity of gender expressions. I appreciate an expanded vocabulary with which to include people. (Only ten years ago the singular “they” was still cautioned against in the Friends Journal style guide!) Change can be confusing and bewildering, but open conversations between Friends one-on-one and in settings like a clearness committee can help us understand one another in our longing to be known and loved.

You can read the whole issue on Friends Journal.

A Quaker Trans Day of Visibility Gathering: A free online & in person event for Friends

A Quaker Trans Day of Visibility Gathering: A free online & in person event for Friends

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.

Requiem for Early Blogging

As part of Talking Points Memo’s 25th anniversary, I wrote an essay on early blogging, and what I…

Elizabeth Spiers

I was especially interested in talking about the after-effects of the CO process since I went through something similar myself. Around age 17 my father started lobbying hard for me to go to the Naval Academy at Annapolis. Except for a few years in Presbyterian Sunday School we had grown up mostly a‑religious and I found the idea intriguing. I think in retrospect I was mostly excited by the idea of an orderly life that might address my ADHD (called hyperactivity in those days). I got far enough into the process to take a physical and get a letter of commendation from our congressperson but then thought more about the military itself. I realized I didn’t feel comfortable joining an organization whose purpose was threatening to kill. I had on principle, and without much deliberation, decided not to engage in schoolyard fights years before, and suffered the regular humiliations that comes of being the smallest kid in class who everyone knows won’t fight back. To the disappointment of my father I stopped the application process for the navy. As I pondered what to do next, I asked myself what other values might come from my newfound pacifism. Over the next few years I explored various leads and—being in the Philadelphia area—started running into Quakers, some of whom had a kind of inner conviction I found intriguing.

So while I was far too young to ever worry about a draft, I did have a similar defining “what do I believe” moment as a teenager. As Ron says in our author chat podcast:

That was a turning point in my life. I made decisions from filling out those forms and answering those questions actually made concrete what I had inside me, ideally. You think about this and think about that and whether or not you hold it true. But when you have to put it all on paper and you have to submit it to the world, it changes you. And I’ve lived by that philosophy since that age. I’ve done it in my educational experience with children. I’ve done it in my private life with friends, caregiving others. My wife and I have been doing that, you know, for decades.

— YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and…

www.youtube.com

Centering is always a welcome challenge, for, as one would expect, prison can be a noisy place and competing conversations can be overwhelming. What I do is draw myself into the pictures and focus upon the images and people therein. I have accompanying pictures of places visited by Friends and sent to me over the years with scenery that, for me as a person raised on the concrete pavements of New York City, gives me visions of natural beauty without the clutter of building structures and the like.

Never Having Set Foot in the Meetinghouse

When the meetinghouse is on the other side of state prison walls.

Friends Journal

Also, an early plug that the December Friends Journal will focus on Quakers and Christianity.

Quakerism without Jesus
byu/Enilorac89 inQuakers

I got to publish a wonderful series of David’s pacifist writings online in that era when the web was becoming a thing. I also remember staying at his place on at least one of those visits and getting to meet one of his beloved felines. His interests were far more wide-ranging than the average activist’s and he was always ready to challenge group-think orthodoxies with an intellectual rigor I deeply appreciated.

I often found myself disagreeing with David (and I got the distinct impression he could get pretty unbearable at times), but he helped me see the consequences of my choices in a way that kept me honest.

I think I still look beyond my answers more readily because of conversations in David’s apartment. For all my qualms with Facebook, I’ve been grateful that it brought me back into David’s orbit in recent times and I will miss his commentary and discussions.

David McReynolds, Socialist Activist Who Ran for President, Dies at 88 (Published 2018)

His pacifist work spanned decades and several wars, and he twice ran for the White House as an…

www.nytimes.com

I was particularly moved by the presence of our international Quaker visitors. To travel all that way just for our little gathering! It struck me that, when we say ‘our diversity is our strength’, this must include all the ways that Quakerism is expressed throughout the world. It must even include those expressions of Quakerism that make us uncomfortable. For our diversity to truly be our strength we must pay a price, and that price is the need to have deep and difficult conversations with each other, face to face, about what we hold most dear.

Words and Wounds: Reflections from Britain Yearly Meeting

Quakerism is an experiential religion: we believe we should “let our lives speak” and we stay away from creeds and doctrinal statements. The best way to learn what Quakers believe is through listening in on our conversations.

In the last few years, dozens of Quakers have begun sharing stories, frustrations, hopes and dreams for our religious society through blogs. The conversations have been amazing. There’s a palpable sense of renewal and excitement. QuakerQuaker is a daily index to that conversation.

I still like it as a distinctly Quaker philosophy of outreach.