The first stage will be archiving the conversations currently on QuakerQuaker. There are many year’s worth of great blog posts and invaluable discussion threads. A recent tool built to examine the source material for all the new AI chat bots found that QuakerQuaker is the internet’s second largest online Quaker archive. I want to try to keep that—not for the bots, but for Friends and seekers wanting to learn about Quakerism.

I will need your help. Donations are down this year. And there are new costs if we are to keep this work going: one-time costs for archiving apps and discussion platforms, and new ongoing bills for getting us all connected by email again.

Back when QuakerQuaker started I wrote a bit of a mission statement. I’ll leave it here for you to re-read. If you think this work continues to be important, please help. You can do so here: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=RW96RE86YEFJA

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.

An American teacher taught the young prince he would never be a god. But he just might help heal his country.

Japan Would Make Akihito Emperor, but She Called Him ‘Jimmy’ (Published 2019)

An American teacher taught the young prince he would never be a god. But he just might help…

www.nytimes.com

William Penn’s introduction to George Fox’s Journal (1691) speaks to something very like community:

“Besides these general doctrines, as the larger branches, there sprang forth several particular doctrines, that did exemplify and farther explain the truth and efficacy of the general doctrine before observed, in their lives and examples: as,

Communion and loving one another. This is anoted mark in the mouth of all sorts of people concerning them: They will meet, they will help and stick one to another. Whence it is common to hear some say: Look how the Quakers love and take care of one another. Others, less moderate, will say: The Quakers live none but themselves: and if loving one another. and having an intimate communion in religion, and constant care to meet to worship God, and help one another, be any mark of primitive Christianity, they had it, blessed be the Lord in ample manner.”

This certainly sounds like community to me.

The Quaker way offers us a key to recognising what is authentic within any religious tradition, including Christianity, and distinguishing it from the distortions of power, privilege, literalism and dogmatism that tend to corrupt every human enterprise. Whatever stories and images display the guiding power of the Inward Light, in any tradition, can help to reveal the life of the Spirit and encourage us to encounter it for ourselves.

What is Renewal?

A number of Friends have been writing and talking about Quaker renewal for several years, sometimes with very…

transitionquaker.blogspot.com

What ways are we already diverse? Where do our strengths and weaknesses lie in terms of inclusion? Both these questions need to be answered if we are to understand the nature and make up of this old and important faith community that has a history of significant contributions to British and international equality.

This intro document leaves me little unsure what kinds of diversity they’re looking for. Demographic? Spiritual? Geographic? The one quote suggests that someone hopes the results might help advance their agenda. Is this just a one-off SurveyMonkey or will there be more to it?

Diversity: where are we now?

​Quakers in Britain are taking part in a survey to map the diversity of their faith and influence…

Quakers

The reports gathered from the Jewish community in Germany by Quakers were of influence when Quakers accompanied the Jewish delegation who went to see Home Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare to plead the case for allowing immigration of children into Britain without the usual visa restrictions. They swayed the government and this planned immigration of German and Austrian Jewish children became known as the Kindertransport. Around 10,000 children were evacuated from Germany and Austria to Britain between 1938 and 1939.

What I find most fascinating is the detail that the Friends library in London doesnt have a lot of records of this work. It was so much in line with other refugee assistance Friends were doing in Europe that they evidently considered it just another day on the job, so to speak. I shared a piece on the related Quakerspeisungen a few days ago.

Kristallnacht, Kindertransport, and help for refugees

When my “white” friends said I couldn’t bring my “black” best friend to their lunch table, I shrugged and sat with him at a “black” table. On the minus side, when someone in the school parking lot shouted nigger lover, and my friend wanted to fight, I just told him I didn’t mind the insult. That was probably my first seriously hurtful act of “white color-blindness.” It took me decades to realize, to my shame, that it was he who was being insulted, not me.

https://universalistfriends.org/weblog/three-books-for-white-people

The help we want to give — the showy, busy, selfless work — is rarely the help that is needed. And the help that is needed is often boring, with no glamour to it. So, what is to be done? I don’t know. I want to continue my spiritual journey towards/with God; however, I am worried that maybe the Quakers aren’t the home for me that I want.

The post’s title is a response Mike gave in which he channeled his mother’s voice. It’s so spot-on that I can almost hear her say it (I have never met Mike or any of his family but have friends who could deliver that kind of a line with such under-the-radar nuance that more clueless listeners might miss the acres of shade in the tone.

https://small-wire.com/2018/08/15/i‑guess-ill-read-my-bible-elsewhere/