prayer

Becky Jones: Connecting Spirit to Spirit

Martin Kelley — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 00:54:00 +0000

I talked today with December Friends Journal author Becky Jones. Her article “The Intimacy of Prayer” appears in the current issue. I really appreciated talking about how we hold people in love, in the light, in prayer. One of my own methods is just to keep a prayer list on my phone but in prepping this interview I realized I hadn’t contributed to it in a year. Wow! If for nothing else, I’m grateful to be reminded that I should use that list more, as it keeps me more mindful of loved ones and acquaintances in my life.

Full show notes for my interview can be found here.

Disappointment, frustration, and betrayal

Martin Kelley — Fri, 08 Mar 2019 22:27:58 +0000

From Johan Maurer:

What choices do we have? The most obvious and most glib answer is: leave! Escape! In fact, after prayer and consultation and weighing options, that may end up being the best answer.

This seems like a very grounded look at some of the oft-recurrent dysfunctions in churches. Check out the list of problems. I suspect thet most seekers have run into at least a fee of these in congregations.

https://blog.canyoubelieve.me/2019/03/trustworthy-part-three-choices.html

None of us is a volunteer

Martin Kelley — Thu, 05 Apr 2018 18:55:35 +0000

Sam Barnett-Cormack is a prolific non-theist British Friend. His latest post, Doing It Ourselves, has some thoughts on community discernment that I find interesting.

Quakerism “done right” is not “do it yourself” in either sense… No task is done by one person alone; it is always the work and responsibility of the community, though we might not always clearly see the support and assistance we are given. Some would say that we are “upheld in prayer,” a term that does not speak to my experience, but we are certainly upheld by the love and nurture of our community – unless our community is failing.

Martin Kelley — Wed, 28 Mar 2018 13:11:47 +0000

When we say we are holding someone in the Light, it is wise to remember that holding is an action verb. Sometimes I confuse intercession prayer with placing a short order to a Spirit I treat as a personal complaint department. “You didn’t get my order right, God…she’s even sicker than before!” I love the way Quaker teachings humble me and help me work with love while waiting expectantly for God’s will to be done.

— Bonnie S. in a recent comment

Martin Kelley — Sat, 24 Mar 2018 13:30:36 +0000

Whenever we intercede in prayer we must be prepared for answer which places a practical obligation upon us.
— GREEN

Cornerstone Fellowship

Martin Kelley — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 20:51:01 +0000

Cornerstone is a relatively new church plant in Smithville, Atlantic County, New Jersey. They’re site is a simple design built in Movable Type using off-the-shelf templates to keep the budget down. The most exciting part of the site is the podcast sermons and the ability to ask Bible questions and make prayer requests from the homepage. I’m most happy to see the church using the site and updating it regularly!

Pastor Fred Schwenger also has a new local connection: he and a partner have just opened Superior Automotive here in Hammonton at 880 S White Horse Pike!

Visit: CornerstoneFellowshipOnline.com

Call off the search parties

Martin Kelley — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 20:46:51 +0000

The retreat at the Carmelite Monastery was nice. Here’s some pictures, the first of those “long-remembered”:/if_i_dont_make_it_back.php tall stone walls and the rest of the beautiful chapel:

It was a silent retreat–for us at least. There were three talks about “Teresa of Avila”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teresa_of_Avila given by Father Tim Byerley, who also works with the “Collegium Center”:http://www.collegiumcenter.org/about.php, a kind of religious education outreach project for young adult Catholics in South Jersey (I mentioned it “a few months ago”:https://www.quakerranter.org/teaching_quakerism_again.php as a model of young adult youth outreach that Friends might want to consider). Much of what Teresa has to say about prayer is universal and very applicable to Friends, though I have to admit I started spacing out by around the fourth mansion of the “Interior Castle”:http://www.ccel.org/ccel/teresa/castle2.toc.html (I’ve never been good with numbered religious steps!).
I’m in no danger of following my wife Julie’s journey from Friends to Catholicism, though as always I very much enjoyed being in the midst of a gathered group committed to a spirituality. The idea of religious life as self-abnegation is an important one for all Christians in an age where “me-ism”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScWdek6_Ids&eurl has become the “secular state religion”:http://www.walmart.com/ and I hope to return to it in the near future.

If I don’t make it back.…

Martin Kelley — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 19:31:21 +0000

Tomorrow Julie and I are going on an all-day Lenten retreat at a Carmelite Monastery on Old York Road in Philadelphia. She’s given me creedal cheat sheets in case I feel led to read along, as I have to fake it on anything past the The Lord’s Prayer.
The monastery has forty-foot tall stone walls all around and is located a few blocks from where I grew up (picture courtesy the “monastery’s organist’s webpage”:http://home.att.net/~lucycarroll/page5.html) and it was a place of some intrigue. Whenever we would drive by I’d press my face against the car windows thinking maybe I’d catch a glimpse of a nun swinging herself over the wall in an escape attempt. Needless to say I wasn’t brought up Catholic or even Catholic-friendly and so didn’t realize how ridiculous this imagining of mine was. Still, I’ve probably never passed the monastery as an adult without taking a quick peek at those walls. In twelve hours I enter them myself!
Julie’s gone on the retreat a number of times (it’s usually women-only) and has always been released to my connubial arms at end’s day. Still, just in case something happens, y’all know where to look! The kids are going to be with Julie’s sister and their cousin and should have a good time.