I see new seekers arriving who are trying to come to terms with September 11. They want more than to be handed a copy of “Friends for 350 Years” and to be told to stick around. Some of us are catching on to that, finally.
I see the 20- and 30-somethings arriving because they have read Woolman or Fox or Kelly and thus already know more than many oldtimers. (I say “many.” Not “all.”)
I see this community of bloggers, reaching out to each other and connecting, when meetings (and here I venture to say “all”) are focused on keeping their pamphlet racks filled, rather than posting URLs on their bulletin boards or creating a newcomer’s URL handout.
I see you(I’m still a nonblogger)trying to support each other in your searching and trying to provide for each other the depth and spiritual friendships that your meetings probably aren’t providing.
I see a real shift among many Friends who came into the Society in the 1960s and early 1970s, the Vietnam generation. Many rabid universalist Friends who couldn’t stand to hear Christ language have become more nearly Christ-centered and are now questioning the rigidity and fundamentalism of the universalist Friends. Some of these Friends are in leadership positions in yearly meetings now.
I see a real interest in and hunger for prophetic voices. I see a renewed interest in the Bible. In dressing plain as a testimony. In discerning spiritual gifts. These younger-than-the-aging-hippie Friends do not have the hair-trigger revulsion against leadership that the 60-somethings do.
Put simply, you don’t want to be Ranters anymore.
These are my reasons for hope.

This piece originally appeared as a comment on “Uh-Oh: Beppe’s Doubts”:/martink/archives/000544.php about a favorite blogger’s questioning of his Quaker faith.
*See also:* Liz Opp’s take on this in “Quakerism, From Generation to Generation”:http://thegoodraisedup.blogspot.com/2005/03/Quakerism-from-generation-to.html on the Good Raised Up, Rob’s “What Keeps Us Quaker?”:http://consider-the-lilies.blogspot.com/2005/03/what-keeps-us-Quaker.html on Consider the Lillies and my own “It’s My Language Now/Thinking About Youth Ministries”:/martink/archives/000555.php