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On the State of Religious Discourse at Haverford

March 13, 2018
· Martin Kelley

This one only tan­gen­tial­ly skims Friends but it’s an inter­est­ing case. A inde­pen­dent stu­dent web­site at the historically-Quaker Haver­ford Col­lege decid­ed not to do a spe­cial issue on reli­gion and one stu­dent penned an arti­cle about why he dis­agrees: On the State of Reli­gious Dis­course at Haverford

Haver­ford is not immune to this plague: we too rel­e­gate reli­gious knowl­edge to a dimen­sion of the per­son­al. Con­sid­er­ing the reli­gious his­to­ry and Quak­er roots of our insti­tu­tion, this is par­tic­u­lar­ly trou­bling. Haver­ford sells itself as a Quak­er insti­tu­tion, and there is a sense in which this is true, as there are cer­tain tra­di­tions at Haver­ford (speak­ing out of silence, quo­rum, con­fronta­tion, etc.), and yet the school split from orga­nized Quak­erism long ago, and one need only look at the last year to under­stand that we make deci­sions as an insti­tu­tion that are quite sep­a­ra­ble from any pro­mot­ed quak­er values.

Haver­ford’s offi­cial state­ment on its Quak­er iden­ti­ty is a rather strained two sen­tences, but in recent years it’s devel­oped a Quak­er Affairs pro­gram, which is cur­rent­ly led by the awe­some Wal­ter Sul­li­van. The pro­gram’s Friend in Res­i­dence pro­gram has brought in some great Quak­er thinkers on campus.

More on this top­ic soon as Friends Journal’s May issue will ask “What Are Quak­er Val­ues Any­way?” (Some of my pre­lim­i­nary thought are here).

What does normalization mean for Quaker process?

March 5, 2018
· Martin Kelley

The March issue of Friends Jour­nal dropped online last week (and will soon hit mail­box­es) and the first fea­tured arti­cle is from Mike Merryman-Lotze, AFSC’s Mid­dle East Pro­gram direc­tor, and looks at the Pales­tin­ian use of the con­cept of nor­mal­iza­tion. I first came across this term in a Max Carter book review in 2011 and have been want­i­ng to run an arti­cle ever since because it real­ly ques­tions some Quak­er ortho­dox­ies. Mike writes:

So as Quak­ers com­mit­ted to peace and engage­ment with all peo­ple, what should we take from this con­ver­sa­tion? First, we should rec­og­nize that Pales­tini­ans and Israelis are get­ting togeth­er and coop­er­at­ing but on their own terms. One of the key prob­lems with many past people-to-people pro­grams is that they were ini­ti­at­ed and led by out­side actors who imposed their own goals and terms on inter­ac­tions. The nor­mal­iza­tion frame­work pushed for­ward by Pales­tini­ans is a reasser­tion of own­er­ship of the terms of inter­ac­tion by those most impact­ed by the sys­tem­at­ic injus­tice of Israel’s occu­pa­tion and inequality.

I’ve won­dered how the para­dox of nor­mal­iza­tion plays into some of the issues that seem to reg­u­lar­ly stymie Quak­er process. From my intro­duc­to­ry Friends Jour­nal col­umn:

 As Friends, our first instinct has been to think of con­flicts as mis­un­der­stand­ings: if only every­one got to know each oth­er bet­ter, love and coop­er­a­tion would replace fear and con­fu­sion. It’s a charm­ing and some­times true sen­ti­ment, but many Pales­tin­ian activists charge that this process ignores pow­er dif­fer­en­tials and “nor­mal­izes” the sta­tus quo.

(if you have thoughts, feel leave them in the com­ments or reply to the dai­ly email).


When Dialogue Stands in the Way of Peace - Friends Journal

When Dia­logue Stands in the Way of Peace — Friends Journal 

People-to-people pro­grams can cause harm when they don’t address struc­tur­al issues.

Friends Journal Friends Journal 

Belief (in anything) and belief (in nothing)

February 27, 2018
· Martin Kelley

So Isaac Smith is back with the third install­ment of his grow­ing series, “Dif­fer­ence Between a Gath­ered Meet­ing and a Focused Meet­ing” and this time he’s ref­er­enc­ing two writ­ers on Quak­er mat­ters, Michael J. Sheer­an and yours tru­ly.

In my pre­vi­ous posts, the dis­tinc­tion between gath­ered and focused meet­ings seemed con­nect­ed to one’s reli­gious out­look, and thus relat­ed to the divide between Christ-centered and uni­ver­sal­ist Quak­ers that has bedev­iled our faith for cen­turies. But as Sheer­an and Kel­ley argue, the more fun­da­men­tal divide in the lib­er­al branch of Quak­erism is between those who seek con­tact with the divine and those who don’t.

My post is, as Smith puts it, “near­ly fif­teen years old,” which is about the length of a social gen­er­a­tion. I’m not sure if I’m in a good posi­tion to pon­tif­i­cate about what has and has­n’t changed. Much of my Quak­er work is with inter­est­ing out­liers, either one-or-one or as part of a loose tribe of Friends who pas­sion­ate­ly care about Quak­erism and are will­ing to go into the weeds to under­stand it. I have very lit­tle recent expe­ri­ence with com­mit­tees on local levels.

One use­ful con­cept that I’ve picked up in the last fif­teen years is that of “func­tion­al athe­ism.” This bypass­es a group’s self-stated under­stand­ings of faith to look at how its decision-making process actu­al­ly works. An orga­ni­za­tion that is func­tion­al­ly athe­ist might be full of very devout peo­ple who togeth­er still decide actions in a com­plete­ly sec­u­lar way. I would guess this has become even more the norm among the acronymic soup of nation­al Quak­er orga­ni­za­tions in the last fif­teen years. In that time a lot of bright ideas have come and gone which flashed briefly with the fuel of donor mon­ey but which did­n’t cre­ate a self-sustaining momen­tum to keep them going long term. Think­ing more strate­gi­cal­ly about what peo­ple are seek­ing in their spir­i­tu­al lives might have helped those cast seeds land on more fer­tile grounds.

The Dif­fer­ence Between a Gath­ered Meet­ing and a Focused Meet­ing (3)

Bonus: the 14-year-old com­ments on my piece include some gen­tle whin­ing about Friends Jour­nal between myself and a reg­u­lar read­er at the time. Now that I’m its senior edi­tor I’m sure there remains plen­ty to grum­ble about.

Breath of the Ancestors

February 26, 2018
· Martin Kelley

When I think of Friends in Africa, I gen­er­al­ly pic­ture the large East African year­ly meet­ings in Kenya and Ugan­da which trace their begin­nings to three evan­gel­i­cal Friends who arrived in Kenya in 1902 and set up a mis­sion in Kaimosi.

In this mon­th’s Friends Jour­nal Paul Rick­etts pro­files a small­er Quak­er out­post on the Atlantic coast in Ghana. A group of Amer­i­cans trav­eled there last year as a del­e­ga­tion of the Fel­low­ship of Friends of African Descent.

Ghana was also the depar­ture point of mil­lions of enslaved Africans head­ed toward death and mis­ery in the West­ern Hemi­sphere. Paul takes us to infa­mous Elmi­na Cas­tle, where the ships were loaded with chained human car­go. I always enjoy sto­ries of Quak­er inter­vis­i­ta­tion but this one is espe­cial­ly poignant.


Breath of the Ancestors - Friends Journal

Breath of the Ances­tors — Friends Journal 

The Fel­low­ship of Friends of African Descent trav­els to Ghana’s Hill House Meeting.

Friends Journal Friends Journal 

Does our continued existence matter?

February 24, 2018
· Martin Kelley

I’m always hap­py when Johan Mau­r­er wades into an online dis­cus­sion, as he can often gives a steady­ing long-term view of pan­ics. He’s jumped in with per­spec­tive on the viral arti­cle of the week, Don McCormick­’s Can Quak­erism Sur­vive? from the Feb­ru­ary Friends Jour­nal.

Johan reminds us that alarms about the future of Quak­erism has long been ring­ing and draws on Joshua Brown’s warn­ings about New York Year­ly Meet­ing from 30 years ago! Lest we chalk all this up an inces­sant alarmism, Johan gives some stats about that year­ly meet­ing. Uh-oh:

7,070 (in 1955)
5,124 (in 1985)
3,241 (in 2015)

But Johan goes beyond that to ask some ques­tions that we real­ly need to sit with. For exam­ple, he asks:

Giv­en that we are a micro­scop­ic per­cent­age of the world Chris­t­ian move­ment, do we have an inflat­ed sense of our own impor­tance? Or, to put it more pos­i­tive­ly, could we rest con­tent­ed that our influ­ence on Chris­t­ian dis­ci­ple­ship will last beyond our insti­tu­tion­al survival?

This is a must-read blog for any­one any­where on the Quak­er spectrum

The Quaker movement: decline and persistence
The Quak­er move­ment: decline and persistence 

Polit­i­cal and cul­tur­al obser­va­tions in light of Quak­er dis­ci­ple­ship. Recur­ring themes: Rus­sia, peace, evan­ge­lism, blues.

blog.canyoubelieve.me blog​.canyoube​lieve​.me

Quakers acting badly

August 11, 2017
· Martin Kelley

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Friends don’t have a par­tic­u­lar­ly good track record with regards to con­tro­ver­sy. There’s no rea­son we need to pre­tend to be talk­ing his­tor­i­cal­ly. We’ve had two major year­ly meet­ings break up in this sum­mer (meet Sierra-Cascades Year­ly Meet­ing and North Car­oli­na Fel­low­ship of Friends), with at least one more “at bat” for some future long hot summer.

Con­tro­ver­sies flare up in many places. Friend Sa’ed Atshan just broke his media silence to talk about the can­ce­la­tion of his talk at Friends’ Cen­tral School in Feb­ru­ary and the sub­se­quent walk-outs, fir­ings, and lit­i­ga­tions. The con­tro­ver­sy around Avis Wan­da McClinton’s dis­own­ment by Upper Dublin Meet­ing con­tin­ues to incense large num­bers of Philadel­phia Friends, with fuel to the fire com­ing from the role that the Undo­ing Racism Group does or doesn’t have in the year­ly meet­ing struc­ture. Last year a major­i­ty of Friends of col­or boy­cotted pub­lic events at the FGC Gath­er­ing over frus­tra­tion at the site selec­tion process and the under­ly­ing issues extend to oth­er Quak­er venues.

The most-commented recent arti­cle in Friends Jour­nal is “It Breaks My Heart” by Kate Pruitt from the online June/July issue. Many read­ers relat­ed to her sense of alien­ation and loss. Two com­ments that hit me the hard­est were:

Not all Friends are found in Quak­er Meet­ings. You’re bet­ter off with­out your meeting.

Gone now is the hope… of find­ing com­mu­ni­ty among Quak­ers. To be frank, why both­er? There’s plen­ty of bro­ken­ness right where I am.

And I get enough “Why I’m leav­ing Friends” man­i­festos in my email inbox every month that I could turn it into a reg­u­lar Friends Jour­nal column.

It seems to me that are a num­ber of under­ly­ing issues that tie these con­tro­ver­sies togeth­er. What do we do when a group of Friends starts act­ing in a man­ner that seems con­trary to our under­stand­ing of Quak­er tes­ti­monies and prac­tices? How do we bal­ance love and judge­ment when con­flict aris­es among us? When do we break out of Quak­er nice­ness? Maybe even more chal­leng­ing, how do we main­tain our integri­ty and account­abil­i­ty when con­tro­ver­sy breaks us into camps will­ing to engage in exag­ger­a­tion? And just what do we say when the out­side pub­lic only gets half the sto­ry or thinks that one side is speak­ing for all Friends?

So this is a plug for sub­mis­sions for Decem­ber’s Friends Jour­nal.  The theme is “Con­flict and Con­tro­ver­sy” and the sub­mis­sion dead­line is Sep­tem­ber 9. We’re not look­ing for blow-by-blow accounts of being mis­treat­ed, and we’re not ter­ri­bly inter­est­ed (this time) in man­i­festos about Quak­er cul­tur­al norms. I’m less inter­est­ed in spe­cif­ic issues than I am the meta of dis­cern­ment: How do indi­vid­u­als or small groups of Friends move for­ward in the heat of con­tro­ver­sy. What do we do when the easy solu­tions have failed? How do we decide when it’s time to break out of Quak­er nice­ness to lay down some truth — or time to kick the dust off your san­dals and move along?


Write For Friends Journal - Submit Writing For Quaker Publication

Write For Friends Jour­nal — Sub­mit Writ­ing For Quak­er Publication 

Friends Jour­nal is an inde­pen­dent mag­a­zine serv­ing the entire Reli­gious Soci­ety of Friends. We wel­come arti­cles, poet­ry, art,…

Friends Journal Friends Journal 

Nancy’s Secret Garden

May 3, 2017
· Martin Kelley

When we came here in fif­teen or so years ago, Nan­cy For­rester’s Secret Gar­den was a mag­i­cal oasis tucked in the mid­dle of a block in Key West, a small for­est said to be the last unde­vel­oped acre in the city’s Old Town neigh­bor­hood. Full of wind­ing paths and trees it was the rarest of spaces: loved, care­ful­ly tend­ed, and shared with the pub­lic as a gift of beau­ty. But even then it felt besieged. In 2012 tax­es and expens­es became too much and Nan­cy sold off parcels to devel­op­ers. From an arti­cle in Key News:

The tucked-away entrance to Nan­cy For­rester’s Secret Gar­den off Free School Lane in the 500 block of Simon­ton Street will be closed to the pub­lic after today, as finances and prop­er­ty tax­es have forced For­rester to sell the land parcels that have housed an artist’s cot­tage and gallery, par­rots, orchids, rare palms, mean­der­ing path­ways and a med­i­ta­tive gar­den for more than four decades.

These days the gar­den has been reduced to a small back­yard on Eliz­a­beth Street which Nan­cy uses as a res­cue par­rot refuge. In the morn­ings she gives edu­ca­tion­al lec­tures on the birds, full of facts about their bril­liant behav­ior, the destruc­tion of their native habi­tats, and gen­tle lec­tures about how we can all pro­tect native par­rot habi­tats by liv­ing more light­ly on the land (hint: no red palm oil or beef). From behind the fence came the sounds of a swim­ming pool being installed in the cut­down mid­dle of the for­mer gar­den. Nan­cy has life ten­an­cy on the ill-repaired house where she lives with the parrots. 

I don’t know the details of the real estate trans­ac­tions or For­rester’s finances but I find it incred­i­ble that Key West could­n’t ral­ly around one of its liv­ing trea­sures. I’m glad that Nan­cy remains along with her par­rots and I’m grate­ful my kids got a chance to meet her. 

Nancy's Secret Garden
Nan­cy’s Secret Garden 

We vis­it­ed with Nan­cy For­rester of Key West­’s Nan­cy’s Secret Garden.

YouTube YouTube 
Nancy Forrester's Secret Garden, Parrots, Macaws, Key West, FL
Nan­cy For­rester’s Secret Gar­den, Par­rots, Macaws, Key West, FL 

The pur­pose of Nan­cy For­rester’s Secret Gar­den as a Par­rot sanc­tu­ary in Key West, is to inspire and…

nan​cy​for​rester​.com

 

Quaker news editor needed

January 3, 2017
· Martin Kelley

Here at Friends Jour­nal, we’re very lucky to have some very com­mit­ted vol­un­teers. Karie Firooz­mand and Eileen Red­den sends books out to dozens of vol­un­teer read­ers and pull the results togeth­er into our month­ly books col­umn. Rose­mary Zim­mer­man reads through all the poet­ry that comes in, care­ful­ly select­ing pieces to appear in the mag­a­zine. Mary Julia Street reworks the birth notices and obit­u­ar­ies that come in to include more inter­est­ing details than you get in most news­pa­per listings.

Last year we won the “Best in Class” award from the Asso­ci­at­ed Church Press. We’re proud, of course, but I was pleas­ant­ly. Com­pared to most denom­i­na­tion­al mag­a­zines, Friends Jour­nal is crazi­ly under­staffed. For­give the pugilis­tic metaphor, but these vol­un­teer edi­tors are a big rea­son we punch above our weight. Cut­ting through cul­tur­al sta­t­ic and the man­u­fac­tured busy­ness of mod­ern life and reach seek­ers is a never-ending chal­lenge. Think about whether you might be led to work with us on this

The extend­ed dead­line is Jan­u­ary 16th. MLK Day. Learn more at:


News Editor Search - Friends Journal

News Edi­tor Search — Friends Journal 

This is an unpaid vol­un­teer posi­tion, and the can­di­date will work remote­ly. The time com­mit­ment is flexible.

Friends Journal Friends Journal