Yearly Archives ⇒ 2004

Plain Dress Discussion on Yahoo

April 19, 2004
· Martin Kelley

Julie, my wife, has just start­ed a Yahoo group called PlainAnd­Mod­est­Dress.
Here’s her description:

This group is for Chris­tians inter­est­ed in dis­cussing issues of reli­gious plain and mod­est dress. It is not nec­es­sary to have grown up in a plain or mod­est­ly dress­ing group. We are espe­cial­ly inter­est­ed in the expe­ri­ences of those who have come to this point as a sort of con­ver­sion or a “recov­ery” of tra­di­tion that has been lost. Tra­di­tion­al Catholics, Anabap­tists, con­ser­v­a­tive Quak­ers, and oth­er Chris­tians wel­come here. The­o­log­i­cal points and demon­i­na­tion­al dif­fer­ences are open for dis­cus­sion (not argu­ment), as are the specifics of what type of plain dress you have been called to. Dis­cus­sion of head­cov­er­ing is also allowed here, as are gen­der dis­tinc­tions in dress. We may also share prayers for one anoth­er, as well as the chal­lenges we face in try­ing to live in obe­di­ence to the Lord. This is not a forum in which to dis­cuss the valid­i­ty of Chris­tian­i­ty – no blas­phem­ing allowed. 

There is much to be said about plain dress. This is not an easy wit­ness. It forces us to deal with issues of sub­mis­sion and humil­i­ty on a dai­ly basis – just try to go to a con­ve­nience store and not feel self-consciously set apart. Explain­ing this new ‘style’ to one’s more world­ly friends can be quite a chal­lenge. These are eter­nal issues for those adopt­ing plain dress and I laugh with com­rade­ship when I read old Quak­er jour­nal accounts of going plain.
Even so, I have a bit of trep­i­da­tion about a news­group on plain dress. I don’t want to fetishize plain dress by talk­ing about it too much. The point should­n’t be to for­mu­late some sort of ‘uni­form of the right­eous,’ and adop­tion of this tes­ti­mo­ny should­n’t be moti­vat­ed by peer pres­sure or ambi­tion, but by a call­ing from the Holy Spir­it – this is the crux of what I under­stand Mar­garet Fell to have been say­ing when she called pres­sured plain­ness a “sil­ly poor gospel”. (I should say that some non-Quaker do dress more as an iden­ti­fy­ing uni­form, which is fine, just not nec­es­sar­i­ly the Quak­er rationale).
But like any out­ward form or tes­ti­mo­ny (peace, Quak­er process, etc.), tak­ing up plain dress can be a fruit­ful course in reli­gious edu­ca­tion. I think back to being sev­en­teen and buck­ing my father’s wish that I attend the Naval Acad­e­my – my “no” made me ask how else my beliefs about peace might need to be act­ed out in my life. It became a use­ful query. Plain dress has forced me to think anew about how I “con­sume” cloth­ing and how I relate to mass mar­ket­ing and the glob­al cloth­ing indus­try. It’s also kept me from duck­ing out on my faith, as I wear an iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of my beliefs.
So join the plain dress dis­cus­sion or take a look at the ever-growing sec­tion of the site called Resources on Quak­er Plain Dress, which includes “My Exper­i­ments with Plain­ness”, my ear­ly sto­ry about going plain.

War Tax Resistance overview

April 15, 2004
· Martin Kelley

In hon­or of Income Tax Day here in the U.S., here are some links to sites on war tax resistance.
There are many ways to par­tic­i­pate in mil­i­tarism. The most obvi­ous is to per­son­al­ly fight in a war, but anoth­er way is in financ­ing its deeds. The Unit­ed States mil­i­tary makes up a huge por­tion of the fed­er­al bud­get. It is esti­mat­ed that 53 per­cent of income tax­es go to pay for past, present and future wars. Noth­ing else comes close to this expen­di­ture, and budget-cutting in edu­ca­tion, envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion and the social safe­ty net is a direct result of deci­sions to put the mon­ey into prepa­ra­tion for war. For more on the rea­sons for this form of protest, check out Nonviolence.org’s own “guide to war tax resistance”:http://www.nonviolence.org/war_tax_resistance.php and the very excel­lent “Phi­los­o­phy of Nonviolence”:http://www.nonviolence.org/issues/philosophy-nonviolence.php.
The “Nation­al War Tax Resis­tance Coor­di­nat­ing Committee”:http://www.nwtrcc.org/ is a coali­tion of local groups, alter­na­tive funds, con­tacts and coun­selors work­ing to sup­port, coor­di­nate, and pub­li­cize con­sci­en­tious objec­tion to the pay­ment of tax­es for war. The NWTRCC coali­tion protests a tax sys­tem that sup­ports war, and it redi­rects tax dol­lars to fund life-affirming efforts.
The “War Tax Resis­tance Penal­ty Fund”:www.nonviolence.org/issues/wtrpf is an orga­ni­za­tion that ties togeth­er war tax resisters and their sup­ports. When penal­ties are levied, all the con­trib­u­tors pay a small amount to help defray the resister’s costs. This is a way for to sup­port the prin­ci­ple of war tax resis­tance for those who don’t feel ready to resist themselves.
“Where Your Income Tax Mon­ey Real­ly Goes”:http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm is a pop­u­lar fly­er from the War Resisters League.
The “Nation­al Cam­paign for a Peace Tax Fund”:http://www.peacetaxfund.org/ advo­cates for leg­is­la­tion enabling con­sci­en­tious objec­tion to war and to have the mil­i­tary por­tion of objec­tors’ fed­er­al income tax­es direct­ed to a spe­cial fund for projects that enhance peace.
The “Friends Com­mit­tee on Nation­al Legislation”:http://www.fcnl.org/ and the “War Resisters League”:http://www.warresisters.org/ both reg­u­lar­ly com­pile sta­tis­tics about mil­i­tary spend­ing as a per­cent­age of income tax.
“Hang up on War”:http://www.hanguponwar.org/ is a cam­paign launched in Octo­ber 2003 by a coali­tion includ­ing WRL and NWTRCC.

Plain Dress – Some Reflections

April 7, 2004
· Martin Kelley

A guest piece by Melynda Huskey

I’ve been much afflict­ed on the sub­ject of plain dress for the last sev­er­al months, thanks to Thomas Clark­son. Clark­son, a British Abo­li­tion­ist and close, even fond, observ­er of Friends, wrote a three-volume dis­qui­si­tion on Quak­er tes­ti­monies, cul­ture, and behav­ior (in 1811, if my mem­o­ry serves me). There’s a lot in Clark­son to think about, but his sec­tion on Quak­er garb was par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing to me. Not because I intend to take up a green apron any time soon (did you know that was a badge of Quak­er wom­an­hood for near­ly two cen­turies?), but because he pro­vides what a present-day anthro­pol­o­gist would describe as a func­tion­al­ist analy­sis of the mean­ing of plain dress: it served as a badge of mem­ber­ship, keep­ing its wear­ers pecu­liar and in vis­i­ble com­mu­nion with one anoth­er, while com­mu­ni­cat­ing a core val­ue of the tradition.

When I was a kid, I yearned for plain dress like the kids in Oba­di­ah’s fam­i­ly wore. I loved the idea of a Quak­er uni­form and could­n’t imag­ine why we did­n’t still have one. When­ev­er I asked my mom about it, she would patient­ly explain that an out­ward con­for­mi­ty in plain dress called atten­tion to itself as much as any world­ly out­fit did, and that Quak­ers should dress as plain­ly as was suit­able and pos­si­ble to their work in the world. It made sense, but I was still sorry.

And now, at near­ly 40, after 35 years of bal­anc­ing my con­vic­tions and my world, I’m still han­ker­ing after a tru­ly dis­tinc­tive and Quak­er­ly plain­ness. What isn’t any clear­er to me is what that might look like now.
After all, what are the options? Accord­ing to my part­ner, the dis­tinc­tive ele­ments of con­tem­po­rary Quak­er garb are high-water pants for Friends over 40 and grimy hands and feet for Friends under 40. This obvi­ous­ly jaun­diced view aside, there does­n’t seem to be much to dis­tin­guish Friends from, say, Methodists, Uni­tar­i­ans, or mem­bers of the local food co-op. A lit­tle den­im, a lit­tle kha­ki, some suede sport mocs, some san­dals and funky socks, batik and chunky jew­el­ry. It’s not obvi­ous­ly world­ly, but it’s not set apart, either. There is no tes­ti­mo­ny in our cur­rent dress.

On the oth­er hand, any­thing too vis­i­bly a cos­tume obvi­ous­ly isn’t right; I can’t appro­pri­ate the Men­non­ite dress-and-prayer-cap, for exam­ple. And my heart ris­es up against the whole range of “mod­est” cloth­ing present­ly avail­able – flo­ral prairie dress­es and pinafores, sailor dress­es, den­im jumpers, and head cov­er­ings – all with nurs­ing aper­tures and mater­ni­ty inserts, and mar­ket­ed by com­pa­nies with ter­ri­fy­ing names like “Dad­dy’s Lit­tle Princess,” “King’s Daugh­ters,” and “Lilies of the Field.” No Prairie Madon­na drag for me. No messy, time-consuming, attention-requiring long hair; no end­less sup­ply of tights and nylons and slips; no cold legs in the win­ter snow and ice. No squeez­ing myself into a gen­der ide­ol­o­gy which was for­eign to Friends from the very beginning.

It seems to me that con­tem­po­rary plain dress ought to be dis­tinc­tive with­out being the­atri­cal; it should be prac­ti­cal and self-effacing. It should be pro­duced under non-exploitive con­di­tions. It should be the same every day, with­out vari­a­tion intro­duced for the sake of vari­a­tion, and suit­able for every occa­sion It should be tidy and well-kept – Quak­ers were once known for the scrupu­lous neat­ness of their attire and their homes. And it should com­mu­ni­cate clear­ly that we are called and set apart.

But what gar­ments they might be that would accom­plish that, I can­not say. I’m stymied. Friends, share your light.

*Note from Mar­tin Kel­ley:* I’m start­ing to col­lect sto­ries from oth­er Friends and fellow-religious on issues like plain dress, the tes­ti­monies and faith renew­al. This is part of that project.

“It’s light that makes me uncomfortable” and other Googlisms

April 6, 2004
· Martin Kelley

I think it’s fair to say that inter­net search engines have changed how many of us explore social and reli­gious move­ments. There is now easy access to infor­ma­tion on won­der­ful­ly quirky sub­jects. Let the Super­bowl view­ers have their over­pro­duced com­mer­cials and cal­cu­lat­ed con­tro­ver­sy: the net gen­er­a­tion does­n’t need them. TV view­er­ship among young adults is drop­ping rapid­ly. Peo­ple with web­sites and blogs are shar­ing their sto­ries and the search engines are find­ing them. Here is a taste of the search phras­es peo­ple are using to find Mar­tin Kel­ley Quak­er Ranter.

Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Recreating the theatrical residues of history

April 3, 2004
· Martin Kelley

On the Pick­et Line, a fun­ny post about the “cir­cus of the cur­rent pro­gres­sive movement”:http://www.sniggle.net/Experiment/index.php?entry=26Mar04
bq. In San Fran­cis­co, to be part of the anti-war, pro­gres­sive move­ment means to be shar­ing the stage with a whole bunch of unapolo­getic Stal­in­ists, para­noid schiz­o­phren­ics, ersatz intifadists, tin-eared rhetor­i­cal broken-records, insa­tiable identity-politics police, new-age gurus of every vari­ety, pub­lic­i­ty hounds, careerist Democ­rats, and the like… A super­fi­cial fetishiza­tion of the the­atri­cal residue of his­to­ry gets you a renais­sance faire, not a suc­cess­ful polit­i­cal movement.
The author also gives some hope­ful reports from a recent con­fer­ence he attended.

Yearly Meeting Blues

March 25, 2004
· Martin Kelley

Went to the open­ing of “Philadel­phia Year­ly Meeting’s”:http://www.pym.org annu­al ses­sions yes­ter­day. It’s hard to get too excit­ed about it. It was the same peo­ple talk­ing about the same issues. I real­ly like and respect so many in the year­ly meet­ing, but try as I might, I can nev­er imag­ine this group on _fire._ What would it mean for us to scrap our plans and agen­das to fol­low His?

Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Who Was Yassin?

March 25, 2004
· Martin Kelley

From the NYU Cen­ter for Reli­gion and Media, a “fas­ci­nat­ing break­down of press cov­er­age of the killing of Pales­tin­ian leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin”:http://www.therevealer.org/archives/daily_000270.php
bq.. We have to turn to the for­eign press to learn any­thing sub­stan­tial about the reli­gious views of the “spir­i­tu­al leader” whose world­ly ter­ror has been a con­stant fac­tor in U.S. for­eign pol­i­cy.… [W]hy has our press ignored the “spir­i­tu­al” dimen­sions of this “spir­i­tu­al leader”? Two pos­si­bil­i­ties. One is that the jour­nal­ists assigned to cov­er the Mid­dle East are polit­i­cal reporters. They approach reli­gion as sim­ply a veneer for polit­i­cal motives, and rarely both­er to learn its intricacies.
The oth­er, deep­er prob­lem, is with the nar­ra­tives avail­able for reli­gion sto­ries even when a reporter tries to pay atten­tion. Most reli­gion writ­ing is divid­ed between innocu­ous spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and dan­ger­ous fanati­cism, with sub­cat­e­gories for “cor­rup­tion,” “tra­di­tion­al­ism,” and wacky.…
So what does our press do? Noth­ing. A major ene­my of peace in the Mid­dle East has just been killed, and yet we learn almost noth­ing about what made him fight or why he is mourned. Oppo­nents and sup­port­ers of the Pales­tini­ans remain in the dark, unin­formed by a press inca­pable of break­ing the nar­ra­tive to inves­ti­gate — and per­haps help erad­i­cate — the roots of ter­ror­ism. It’s eas­i­er to stick to the “he-said/she-said”-with-guns ver­sion of events that reduces it all to retal­i­a­tion, to hope­less spi­rals of vio­lence and ancient eth­nic hatreds, to enmi­ty with­out reason.
p. Found via “All over the map”:http://kenneth.typepad.com/