From the BBC of all places:
While known as a traditionally quiet community within Christianity, in Kenya their gatherings are loud and proud. For some, being ‘noisy’ is the reason young people are still being attracted to the Church.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p072kcm0
I like this interview on the Italian mafia by Isaac Chotiner in Slate, “The Mafia Is More Powerful Than It’s Ever Been.”
It seems that this perpetual cynicism may be the greatest threat of our era. Is the child of irony? The grandchild of government conspiracy theories? Maybe the cause doesn’t matter as much as the effect.
The mob thrives on chaos. It likes chaos. It likes to be the alternative authority that you go to because you can’t get anything done through the legitimate state. For that very reason, I think there’s no doubt that it promotes that chaos. It likes civic distrust. It likes cynicism. It can profit from that. I think the great tragedy of Italy is that, to a large extent, it’s kind of succeeded.
I think that if we wanted to construct a Quaker critique of the current American government – and the type of corporatized corruption we see in Russia and the petrostates, it would best start with the political culture that deny basic facts, gaslight citizens with ever-changing rationales, and creating chaos that can let financial hucksters reap billions. These are not governments based on integrity and fair playing fields.
Love is the hardest lesson in Christianity; but, for that reason, it should be most our care to learn it.
Quaker Ranter is an email newsletter of Quaker stories. I follow a lot of Quaker media – blogs and feeds and Twitter accounts, etc., and share the pieces that stand out to me. I usually add context and commentary to the links and provide it all as a curated daily email. Sign-up is free but if you’re a regular reader you can support the work by becoming a Member.
The primary benefit for now is the knowledge you’re helping to share a wider Quaker conversation, though in the future I’ll experiment with some interesting member-only discussions. Thanks! –Martin
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I haven’t posted anything on the horrific mass shooting because like most of you, I’ve been in shock, trying to learn and trying to make sense of something that will never make any sense. I don’t have any profound insights on the shooting. I don’t want to claim I know the real reason this happened and I don’t want to mansplain a list of fixes that will keep it from ever happening again. I’m grieving for the victims and their families.
I ache for my LGBTQI family who are too used to random violence, both mass and personal. I worry for the way the shooter’s ethnicity and allegiance will only be used to justify more bigotry and violence. I’m sick of living in a world where ISIL thinks mass shootings are a justifiable political statement and I’m sick of living in a country where the NRA and its politicians think it’s okay to sell military-grade assault weapons. I pray for simple things: love, healing, consolation. And I cry inside and out. Life and love will win out.
And, from Friends Journal:
One of the coolest activists of her (or any) generation is gone. Juanita Nelson’s obituary is up on the national war tax coalition’s site. My favorite Juanita story was when some agents came to arrest her at home and found her dressed only in a bathrobe. They told her it was okay to go into her bedroom to change but she refused. She told them that any shame was theirs. She forced them to carry her out as her clothes fell off. Talk about radical non-cooperation!
Pam McAllister pointed out on her Global Nonviolence: Stories of Creative Action Facebook page that this story is online. Here’s a bit more of Juanita herself telling that bit:
Seven law enforcement officers had stalked in. I sat on the stool beneath the telephone, my back literally to the wall, the seven hemming me about in a semicircle. All of them appeared over six feet tall, and all of them were annoyed.
“Look,” said one, “you’re gonna go anyway. You might as well come peaceful.”
There they stood, ready and able to take me at any moment. But no move was made. The reason was obvious.
“Why don’t you put your clothes on, Mrs. Nelson?” This was a soft spoken plea from the more benign deputy. “You’re not hurting anybody but yourself.” His pained expression belied the assertion.
The essay where that came from is much longer and well worth reading.
Hold onto your broadbrim hat! After 58 years of black and white, COLOR is on the way to Friends Journal starting in AUGUST 2013. To announce it, FJ’s first Vine video:
This was what we were working on last week, when I tweeted out asking how many Quakers does it take to shoot a seven-second video!
As you might all expect, I’m really happy with the move. Color won’t add very much to the overall budget just 1.5 percent!) but it should help us reach new readers. I’m also hoping it will give lapsed readers a reason to open the magazine again and see what we’ve been doing the last few years. Subscriptions start at a very reasonable $25. If you sign up before July 8, you’ll get August’s very first color issue!
Over in the NYTimes columnist David Brooks talks about Two Theories of Change. He’s talking about modern American politics but it seems relevant to Friends. Here’s his summary of a new paper by Yuval Levin of the University of Chicago:
[Thomas] Paine believed that societies exist in an “eternal now.” That something has existed for ages tells us nothing about its value. The past is dead and the living should use their powers of analysis to sweep away existing arrangements when necessary, and begin the world anew. He even suggested that laws should expire after 30 years so each new generation could begin again
[Edmund] Burke, a participant in the British Enlightenment, had a different vision of change. He believed that each generation is a small part of a long chain of history. We serve as trustees for the wisdom of the ages and are obliged to pass it down, a little improved, to our descendents. That wisdom fills the gaps in our own reason, as age-old institutions implicitly contain more wisdom than any individual could have.
For Brooks, the Paine folllowers are Tea Party activists who think it’s fine to “sweep away 100 years of history and return government to its preindustrial role.”
