I wrote the introductory column for this issue. Here’s a taste:

am grateful that both our religious society and wider culture have developed a greater understanding of the diversity of gender expressions. I appreciate an expanded vocabulary with which to include people. (Only ten years ago the singular “they” was still cautioned against in the Friends Journal style guide!) Change can be confusing and bewildering, but open conversations between Friends one-on-one and in settings like a clearness committee can help us understand one another in our longing to be known and loved.

You can read the whole issue on Friends Journal.

A Quaker Trans Day of Visibility Gathering: A free online & in person event for Friends

A Quaker Trans Day of Visibility Gathering: A free online & in person event for Friends

It’s pay-as-led so come join us if you’re available. When it starts depends on where you are of course. It’s 11:00 am here on the U.S. East Coast, which translates to 4pm UK time and 8am Pacific Time. It will last about two hours. You can sign up with either Woodbrooke or Pendle Hill.

This is based on the Illuminate Bible study curriculum put out by Barclay Press. I wrote for the issue on “Christ in Creation,” which you can purchase as a physical or electronic book.

I was especially interested in talking about the after-effects of the CO process since I went through something similar myself. Around age 17 my father started lobbying hard for me to go to the Naval Academy at Annapolis. Except for a few years in Presbyterian Sunday School we had grown up mostly a‑religious and I found the idea intriguing. I think in retrospect I was mostly excited by the idea of an orderly life that might address my ADHD (called hyperactivity in those days). I got far enough into the process to take a physical and get a letter of commendation from our congressperson but then thought more about the military itself. I realized I didn’t feel comfortable joining an organization whose purpose was threatening to kill. I had on principle, and without much deliberation, decided not to engage in schoolyard fights years before, and suffered the regular humiliations that comes of being the smallest kid in class who everyone knows won’t fight back. To the disappointment of my father I stopped the application process for the navy. As I pondered what to do next, I asked myself what other values might come from my newfound pacifism. Over the next few years I explored various leads and—being in the Philadelphia area—started running into Quakers, some of whom had a kind of inner conviction I found intriguing.

So while I was far too young to ever worry about a draft, I did have a similar defining “what do I believe” moment as a teenager. As Ron says in our author chat podcast:

That was a turning point in my life. I made decisions from filling out those forms and answering those questions actually made concrete what I had inside me, ideally. You think about this and think about that and whether or not you hold it true. But when you have to put it all on paper and you have to submit it to the world, it changes you. And I’ve lived by that philosophy since that age. I’ve done it in my educational experience with children. I’ve done it in my private life with friends, caregiving others. My wife and I have been doing that, you know, for decades.

— YouTube

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I pay a lot of attention to pronoun use. People often say “our nuclear weapons” and/or “what we did in Vietnam”. I don’t have any nuclear weapons, nor do my friends.

Kirby’s lost reminds of the classic “What do you mean we, white man” Lone Ranger / Tonto joke.

Part of the deal of the modern nation state and its trappings of democracy is that we all own it together. The peasantry could be lacksidaisical when they were jiat doing the bidding of whichever duke/warlord/king controlled the plot of land in which their ancestral village now sat. But now we fight national wars because the state is us. It’s mostly a load of huey but it disarms what should be the natural Christian (and plain human) distaste for jingoistic tribalism.

http://www.quakerquaker.org/m/discussion?id=2360685%3ATopic%3A159446

As regular readers will know, I’m leading a workshop called “Strangers to the Covenant” with Zachary Moon and this morning was the first workshop. Although it was billed as a workshop for high school students and adult young Friend (so 15–35 years old), though almost all of the participants are high schoolers (what does that mean?). It seems like a great bunch. I arrived about fifteen minutes early to center in worship; two of the attenders came in the room and sat with me and one by one everyone came in and joined the worship. I had to wonder if a group of older Friends would have been able to resist the temptation to ask about each other’s jewelry, complain about the air conditioning, etc.

Julie reports that the cafeteria food is good. We’ve also been happy patrons of Gillie’s and Bollo’s Cafe.