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Quaker Abolitionist Benjamin Lay Remembered

Martin Kelley — Tue, 08 May 2018 21:02:25 +0000

Philadelphia Yearly Meeting has published a piece on the rehabilitation of disowned seventeenth century Quaker rabblerouser Benjamin Lay

On Saturday, April 21, 2018, Abington Monthly Meeting unveiled a burial stone for Sarah & Benjamin Lay. The event which featured opening remarks by author Marcus Rediker and local resident and Quaker Avis Wanda McClinton was followed by a gathering in the meetinghouse in the manner of a Friends Memorial Meeting.

Abington was the first Friends meeting I ever visited and I’ve loved the story of Lay since the time I first stumbled on it (even as a kid I was enough of a local history nerd that I might have read of Lay’s antics before I ever met a Quaker). I’m personally so happy to see him get this wider recognition. The PYM piece is all-text but much of the grave marker ceremony has been posted to YouTube.

Hope in the Middle East

Martin Kelley — Wed, 28 Mar 2018 00:54:05 +0000

As the March Friends Journal theme of Quakers and the Holy Land comes to a close, this week’s featured article is one with hope. Sandy Rea shares stories of teaching in various parts of the Middle East with his wife Stephanie Judson:

I fell in love with Lebanon: with the people, the sound of the language, the tastes of the food, and smells of the spices. Views to the Lebanon mountains from Beirut’s seaside boulevards and rooftops are enticing. Mountain villages have preserved their charm by keeping older homes with the blonde stone and red tile roofs. The hard-working and earnest teachers and the smart, business-minded shop owners are always glad to see foreigners. There is an industriousness, resilience, and pride in the Lebanese that contribute to the repeated risings from so many destructions of the city.

Sandy also gives us histories of times in which Christians, Muslims, and Jews have lived together in peace. It is possible. Today Sandy is clerk of the Middle East Collaborative of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, which is working on reconciliation in the region.

What Once Was Can Be Again — Friends Journal

Working on a shared vision of equality and a just peace between Palestinians and Israelis.

Friends Journal

+Matt Taibbi’s latest Rolling Stone piece explains the anger behind #ows: Wall…

Martin Kelley — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 18:44:56 +0000

Reshared post from +Tim O’Reilly

+Matt Taibbi’s latest Rolling Stone piece explains the anger behind #ows: Wall Street Isn’t Winning. It’s Cheating. Really excellent. Skewers the idea that this is class warfare against the rich, focuses on the tilted playing field.

Embedded Link

Wall Street Isn’t Winning It’s Cheating | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone
I was at an event on the Upper East Side last Friday night when I got to talking with a salesman in the media business. The subject turned to Zucott

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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.