New York State https://www.quakerranter.org/tag/new-york-state/ A Weekly Newsletter and Blog from Martin Kelley Wed, 06 Mar 2019 13:40:44 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://i0.wp.com/www.quakerranter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/cropped-qr-512.jpg?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 New York State https://www.quakerranter.org/tag/new-york-state/ 32 32 16720591 Never Having Set Foot in the Meetinghouse https://www.quakerranter.org/never-having-set-foot-in-the-meetinghouse/ https://www.quakerranter.org/never-having-set-foot-in-the-meetinghouse/#respond Tue, 05 Mar 2019 21:41:31 +0000 https://www.quakerranter.org/?p=61712 Yohannes “Knowledge” Johnson is a member of Bulls Head—Oswego Meeting even though he has never set foot in the meetinghouse. He hasn’t because he’s been a guest of the New York State prison system for almost forty years (murder and attempted murder in 1980). Johnson talks about how he centers and participates despite the walls and bars surrounding him:

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

Never Having Set Foot in the Meetinghouse

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