‘I would like to… make life kinder, freer and more respectful for for the women coming after me’

April 4, 2019

An inter­view with British Friend Lucy-Anne Holmes:

I’m sit­ting in a cafe in Pot­ters Bar and lis­ten­ing to a Quak­er telling me about an orgasm she had that felt like it could cre­ate world peace. Yes, real­ly. Being British, I shuf­fle in my seat awk­ward­ly and take a sip of my tea, only too aware of a man on the next table who keeps glanc­ing at us. 

https://thefriend.org/article/i‑would-like-to-do-what-i-can-to-make-life-kinder-freer-and-more-respectful

Liberty of the Spirit

March 28, 2019

Every once in awhile a Quak­er­S­peak video comes along that reminds me why I was blown away when I first got to know Quak­ers. Ayesha Imani talks about the first time she wor­shiped with Friends: 

I thought I had wan­dered into a group of peo­ple who actu­al­ly believed that God was able to speak direct­ly to them. I remem­ber say­ing, “Oh my God, this is Pen­te­cost!” I couldn’t believe that these peo­ple think God is actu­al­ly gll­l­l­l­lo­ing to speak to them! I’m down for this. This is where I belong. 

Most of the Quak­ers read­ing this can prob­a­bly guess where this is going – she pret­ty quick­ly got a les­son in the unwrit­ten norms against exu­ber­ance at many Quak­er meet­ings, the rules that pre­vent many expres­sions of wor­ship. Ayesha’s Black and many of the stric­tures on behav­ior are pret­ty middle-class white. But a lot of this isn’t real­ly about race. I’ve been led to do some very non-ordinary things at uptight Quak­er meet­ings and feel­ing incred­i­bly self-conscious over it. When I came to Friends, I loved the idea of the rad­i­cal spon­te­nae­ity of our wor­ship (any­one can min­is­ter any­time!) and the life it called us to but in prac­tice we often are crea­tures of habit, to our detri­ment. I love Ayesha’s talk of “exper­i­ment­ing with free­dom” and the “lib­er­ty of the spir­it.” I real­ize my sto­ries of non-ordinariness are all over a decade old. I wish I felt more of that lib­er­ty again.

http://​quak​er​s​peak​.com/​h​o​w​-​d​o​e​s​-​c​u​l​t​u​r​e​-​i​n​f​l​u​e​n​c​e​-​q​u​a​k​e​r​-​w​o​r​s​h​ip/

What is Renewal?

January 19, 2019

From Tran­si­tion Quaker:

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. 

The rise and fall of Harmonia, Battle Creek’s Spiritualist utopia

January 16, 2019

A nice pro­file on a Quak­er com­mu­ni­ty in Michi­gan that went full-in in Spiritualism:

As they came west, a num­ber brought Spir­i­tu­al­ism with them. A lot of lib­er­al Quak­ers were very inter­est­ed in Spir­i­tu­al­ism. Bat­tle Creek had a Quak­er base, they pre­dom­i­nat­ed for a while. They con­vert­ed to Spir­i­tu­al­ism as a body, and Bat­tle Creek became this south­west Michi­gan cen­ter for Spiritualism. 

Quak­era were among many of rhe ear­ly lead­ers of the Spir­i­tu­al­ist move­ment; while it even­tu­al­ly most­ly burned out, a lot of the ideas about author­i­ty and spir­i­tu­al diver­si­ty in turn influ­enced Hick­site Friends.

https://​www​.bat​tle​creeken​quir​er​.com/​s​t​o​r​y​/​l​i​f​e​/​2​0​1​9​/​0​1​/​1​6​/​r​i​s​e​-​a​n​d​-​f​a​l​l​-​h​a​r​m​o​n​i​a​-​b​a​t​t​l​e​-​c​r​e​e​k​s​-​s​p​i​r​i​t​u​a​l​i​s​t​-​u​t​o​p​i​a​/​2​2​1​4​8​0​9​0​0​2​/​?​f​b​c​l​i​d​=​I​w​A​R​2​v​e​C​N​Z​V​t​I​z​l​q​S​k​a​L​s​1​5​2​y​C​p​0​x​3​v​j​i​J​v​m​i​l​3​T​B​B​b​f​O​k​9​5​P​0​e​G​P​Y​j​K​S​r​mmU

Life after Death

January 14, 2019

Rhi­an­non Grant on Lib­er­al Quak­ers’ view on the afterlife:

Spend­ing some more time with this idea, includ­ing dur­ing Meet­ing for Wor­ship, I realised that I actu­al­ly have a strong intu­ition against there being any form of life after death. Not only do I not think that any life which may or may not occur after death should affect my actions now (I don’t do things because I want to get into heav­en or gen­er­ate good kar­ma for my next life, and nor do I accept escha­to­log­i­cal ver­i­fi­ca­tion), I active­ly think it’s unlike­ly, even impos­si­ble, that such a thing exists. 

Friends Jour­nal devot­ed an issue to The Art of Dying and the After­life a few years ago, includ­ing an intro­duc­tion I wrote.

Lib­er­al Quak­ers and Life after Death

Lost Bayard Rustin interview

January 10, 2019

The Mak­ing Gay His­to­ry pod­cast fea­tur­ing Quak­er Civ­il Rights Bayard Rustin is avail­able now:

The chal­lenge we faced in telling Rustin’s sto­ry in a Mak­ing Gay His­to­ry episode was the appar­ent absence of any record­ings where he talked about his expe­ri­ences as a gay man.  But thanks to the dogged research­ing efforts of Sara Burn­ing­ham and the gen­eros­i­ty of Rustin’s sur­viv­ing part­ner, Wal­ter Nae­gle, who record­ed and saved the rare inter­views Rustin gave on the sub­ject of his sex­u­al­i­ty, we’re able to bring this aspect of Rustin’s expe­ri­ence to life through his own voice. 

https://​mak​ing​gay​his​to​ry​.com/​p​o​d​c​a​s​t​/​b​a​y​a​r​d​-​r​u​s​t​in/

Steven Davison: Prophecy and Continuing Revelation

September 19, 2018

Where does new min­istry come from?

It is through prophe­cy, through con­tin­u­ing rev­e­la­tion, that the Reli­gious Soci­ety of Friends moves for­ward into God’s next work for us. And we very often get our first inkling of that new truth from someone’s vocal min­istry, in a meet­ing for wor­ship, or a meet­ing for wor­ship with atten­tion to the life of the meet­ing, or in a con­sul­ta­tion or Tri­en­ni­al or world gath­er­ing or FGC Gathering,

The Impor­tance of Vocal Min­istry: Prophe­cy and Con­tin­u­ing Revelation

Regina Baird Haag on the sharing of vocal ministry

September 19, 2018

Study turns to some­thing more spon­ta­neous after a failed com­put­er save:

Since that Sun­day wor­ship, I have found myself more inclined and respon­sive to lead­ings to share vocal min­istry out of Silence. While I still pre­pare dili­gent­ly when occa­sions to plan to preach arise, meld­ing schol­ar­ship, dai­ly life, and spir­it over time, I am more sen­si­tive and respon­sive to those inner lead­ings and the Spir­it, from which ALL vocal and non-verbal min­istry are born and enlivened.

http://​www​.nyym​.org/​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​m​y​-​e​x​p​e​r​i​e​n​c​e​-​s​h​a​r​i​n​g​-​v​o​c​a​l​-​m​i​n​i​s​try