Tag Archives ⇒ Quaker

Twitter thread of the day

May 31, 2019
· Martin Kelley

So this happened:

So yeah, THAT Lin-Manuel Miran­da. I’m going to have Moana songs in my head all day now. See the line where the sky meets THE sea? It calls ME, And no one KNOOOOOWWS, how far it GOOOEEES. (okay, it sounds bet­ter when my 8yo daugh­ter sings along in the car).

Nicole Cliffe is a for­mer athe­ist turned Chris­t­ian (but AFAIK, not Quak­er (yet)) who told her con­ver­sion sto­ry in Chris­tian­i­ty Today a few years ago. One of her claims to fame is co-founding The Toast, which stop pub­lish­ing in 2016 but still has some­one pay­ing for the web serv­er.

And in case Lin-Manuel swings by, he should know that his­to­ry geek Quak­er hip hop is a thing.

Are Quakers Christian?

April 15, 2019
· Martin Kelley

Steven Davi­son takes on one of the trick­i­er ques­tions of mod­ern lib­er­al Quakerism:

I am going to make a bold apol­o­gy for a clar­i­fied lib­er­al Quak­er iden­ti­ty that retains its roots and recov­ers wor­ship in the spir­it of Christ, but yet releas­es us from the ortho­dox Chris­t­ian pre­oc­cu­pa­tions that no longer speak to so many unpro­grammed Friends. 

Are Quak­ers Christian?

Ashley Wilcox talk on Quakers and the prophetic tradition

April 12, 2019
· Martin Kelley

From thr Guilfordian:

Wilcox began the dis­cus­sion with a ques­tion of whether or not the Guil­ford com­mu­ni­ty should seek out prophets and prophe­cies. Wilcox sought to relate this ques­tion to the Quak­er tradition.

“This talk is about prophets and prophe­cy,” Wilcox said. “So the first ques­tion is, ‘What does it mean to be a prophet?’ I don’t think Jere­mi­ah would rec­om­mend it.” 

https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.guilfordian.com/news/2019/04/12/wilcox-talks-quakerism-and-the-prophetic-tradition/&ct=ga&cd=CAIyGjk1NzUwOWM3NjZmNTA4MzU6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AFQjCNGr3hjx9Dxd8r_5amP0l6AQfRXDcg

What Chairs can learn from the Quaker Business Method

April 10, 2019
· Martin Kelley

The author Shiv­a­ji Shi­va isn’t talk­ing about the fur­ni­ture we sit on but rather the leader of board meet­ings. The sec­tion on the role of a clerk is very use­ful, cov­er­ing sec­tions like “Humil­i­ty,” “Con­tri­bu­tions and ‘air-time’, and “Nav­i­gat­ing con­flict­ing views.” He concludes:

If some of these approach­es are less famil­iar to you, why not find out more about Quak­er busi­ness meth­ods and how a gov­er­nance tool kit used for more than 350 years could work for you? 

What Chairs can learn from the Quak­er Busi­ness Method

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

April 4, 2019
· Martin Kelley

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

A more modern commission

March 7, 2019
· Martin Kelley

As an East Coast unpro­grammed Friend, Quak­er mis­sion work is still a bit exot­ic. We’re used to read­ing of well-meaning nine­teenth cen­tu­ry Friends whose atti­tudes shock us today. But here’s a sto­ry of some Mid­west mis­sion work with the Shawnee in the 1970s and 80s.

Their “mis­sion” work con­sists of farm­ing, teach­ing, music and wood­work­ing and lan­guage trans­lat­ing, lots of trans­port­ing chil­dren and teens. It also involves preach­ing each week, and par­tic­i­pa­tion in funer­als, wed­dings, and oth­er tra­di­tion­al pas­toral duties, all aimed at intro­duc­ing peo­ple to Jesus.

Their “mis­sion” work con­sists of farm­ing, teach­ing, music and wood­work­ing and lan­guage trans­lat­ing, lots of trans­port­ing chil­dren and teens. It also involves preach­ing each week, and par­tic­i­pa­tion in funer­als, wed­dings, and oth­er tra­di­tion­al pas­toral duties, all aimed at intro­duc­ing peo­ple to Jesus. 

http://​www​.lib​er​al​first​.com/​o​p​i​n​i​o​n​/​o​u​r​-​g​r​e​a​t​-​c​o​m​m​i​s​s​ion

What Does the Outside Say?

March 7, 2019
· Martin Kelley

Also in Friends Jour­nal’s issue, “Out­side the Meet­ing­house,” a piece from Brad Stock­er of Mia­mi Meet­ing in Florida:

Most Friends have an under­stand­ing of the archi­tec­tur­al mes­sage that our meet­ing­hous­es express. We under­stand the sim­plic­i­ty of the struc­ture. We under­stand the rea­son there are no steeples or cross­es on the out­side and why we have clear win­dows placed so as to invite the light to enter. We are equal­ly sen­si­tive to inte­ri­or design. While we come into fre­quent, inti­mate con­tact with the meet­ing­house exte­ri­or, and the land it sits on, we may be less aware of the mes­sage they convey. 

There may be a lit­tle whiplash to talk about but­ter­fly gar­dens after the recent arti­cle on Quak­er wor­ship from prison but I like the inten­tion­al­i­ty of Stock­er’s obser­va­tions: we are always mak­ing state­ments with the care (or non-care) of our phys­i­cal space. Miami’s the kind of coastal city where cli­mate change is very much not a the­o­ret­i­cal issue and Stock­er is very involved in his year­ly meet­ing’s earth­care edu­ca­tion ini­tia­tives. The meet­ing­house grounds are a place to mod­el good stew­ard­ship; tak­ing the care to have them be invit­ing and qui­et­ly demon­stra­tive of Quak­er val­ues is impor­tant outreach.

A bit of racism at Sidwell

March 7, 2019
· Martin Kelley

Not cool: some stu­dents at the ritzy DC Quak­er school made up racist user­names in a pro­ject­ed in-school discussion:

School offi­cials say sev­er­al of the student’s user­names were racist toward Asians and Native Amer­i­cans and two of the user­names includ­ed images of swastikas. As soon as the names and images were rec­og­nized the pro­jec­tor was turned off and the pre­sen­ta­tion was ended. 

Not many of the stu­dents at Sid­well are Friends so it’s high­ly unlike­ly that these were Quak­er kids. But it’s nev­er good to hear of behav­ior like this.

http://​www​.fox5dc​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​l​o​c​a​l​-​n​e​w​s​/​r​a​c​i​s​t​-​w​o​r​d​s​-​s​w​a​s​t​i​k​a​s​-​d​i​s​p​l​a​y​e​d​-​a​t​-​s​i​d​w​e​l​l​-​f​r​i​e​n​d​s​-​s​c​h​o​o​l​-​s​t​u​d​e​n​t​-​p​r​e​s​e​n​t​a​t​ion