Yearly Archives ⇒ 2019

Welcoming families in meetings

April 18, 2019
· Martin Kelley

An account of one British meet­ing find­ing space for families:

It has been the task of the whole meet­ing not just of one or two; there has been an aware­ness that what they are doing now will need to change and evolve. And there has been a care and nour­ish­ing of us as par­ents too, with our own spir­i­tu­al jour­neys and need for nurture.

I know, from talk­ing to oth­er Quak­er par­ents – and, very sad­ly, from par­ents who would love to explore Quak­erism but who have felt dis­cour­aged or unwel­comed – that we have been par­tic­u­lar­ly lucky. Lucky not because we found a Quak­er com­mu­ni­ty with a ready-made chil­dren’s meet­ing, but because we found a meet­ing will­ing and ready to wel­come, to make space, where there was a sense of glad­ness that we were there. 


Welcoming families in meetings

Wel­com­ing fam­i­lies in meetings 

How do we rejoice in the pres­ence of chil­dren in our meet­ings and nur­ture their spir­i­tu­al growth? Alistair…

Quakers Quakers 

Are Quakers Christian?

April 15, 2019
· Martin Kelley

Steven Davi­son takes on one of the trick­i­er ques­tions of mod­ern lib­er­al Quakerism:

I am going to make a bold apol­o­gy for a clar­i­fied lib­er­al Quak­er iden­ti­ty that retains its roots and recov­ers wor­ship in the spir­it of Christ, but yet releas­es us from the ortho­dox Chris­t­ian pre­oc­cu­pa­tions that no longer speak to so many unpro­grammed Friends. 

Are Quak­ers Christian?

Transcript of Ashley Wilcox’s message at Guilford

April 14, 2019
· Martin Kelley

The talks was on “Quak­ers and the Prophet­ic Tradition”:

When Quak­ers talk about the prophet­ic tra­di­tion, we tend to go back to ear­ly Friends, but I am going to go back to Jeremiah. 

https://​www​.ash​leymwilcox​.com/​b​l​o​g​/​2​0​1​9​/​4​/​1​4​/​q​u​a​k​e​r​s​-​a​n​d​-​t​h​e​-​p​r​o​p​h​e​t​i​c​-​t​r​a​d​i​t​ion

Ashley Wilcox talk on Quakers and the prophetic tradition

April 12, 2019
· Martin Kelley

From thr Guilfordian:

Wilcox began the dis­cus­sion with a ques­tion of whether or not the Guil­ford com­mu­ni­ty should seek out prophets and prophe­cies. Wilcox sought to relate this ques­tion to the Quak­er tradition.

“This talk is about prophets and prophe­cy,” Wilcox said. “So the first ques­tion is, ‘What does it mean to be a prophet?’ I don’t think Jere­mi­ah would rec­om­mend it.” 

https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.guilfordian.com/news/2019/04/12/wilcox-talks-quakerism-and-the-prophetic-tradition/&ct=ga&cd=CAIyGjk1NzUwOWM3NjZmNTA4MzU6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AFQjCNGr3hjx9Dxd8r_5amP0l6AQfRXDcg

What Chairs can learn from the Quaker Business Method

April 10, 2019
· Martin Kelley

The author Shiv­a­ji Shi­va isn’t talk­ing about the fur­ni­ture we sit on but rather the leader of board meet­ings. The sec­tion on the role of a clerk is very use­ful, cov­er­ing sec­tions like “Humil­i­ty,” “Con­tri­bu­tions and ‘air-time’, and “Nav­i­gat­ing con­flict­ing views.” He concludes:

If some of these approach­es are less famil­iar to you, why not find out more about Quak­er busi­ness meth­ods and how a gov­er­nance tool kit used for more than 350 years could work for you? 

What Chairs can learn from the Quak­er Busi­ness Method

‘I would like to… make life kinder, freer and more respectful for for the women coming after me’

April 4, 2019
· Martin Kelley

An inter­view with British Friend Lucy-Anne Holmes:

I’m sit­ting in a cafe in Pot­ters Bar and lis­ten­ing to a Quak­er telling me about an orgasm she had that felt like it could cre­ate world peace. Yes, real­ly. Being British, I shuf­fle in my seat awk­ward­ly and take a sip of my tea, only too aware of a man on the next table who keeps glanc­ing at us. 

https://thefriend.org/article/i‑would-like-to-do-what-i-can-to-make-life-kinder-freer-and-more-respectful

George Fox Speaking

April 2, 2019
· Martin Kelley

At some point 18 months ago, we at Friends Jour­nal decid­ed that a future issue would revolve around humor. I remem­ber feel­ing a lump in my stom­ach at the time. I’ve learned to stop and poll my moti­va­tions before mak­ing a Quaker-related joke — not to see if it’s fun­ny, but to make sure that at least most Quak­ers might think it’s fun­ny. Well, that humor issue is out and avail­able online. Many of the fea­tures talk about humor but the first fea­ture actu­al­ly aims for humor itself. Don McCormick imag­ines Quak­er his­tor­i­cal fig­ures brought into modern-day cable news pro­gram­ming as they describe some of our rather odd customs.

George gives the cam­era a steely-TV-anchorman-type look and says, “Hel­lo, this is the evening edi­tion of Fox News. George Fox speak­ing. For our first sto­ry, let’s turn to Will ‘the Quill’ Penn at the sports desk.”

“Good evening,” says Will. “Well, it’s half-time over at Sier­ra Friends Center’s out­door bas­ket­ball court, and the Wool­man Wom­bats are bat­tling it out with the Quak­er Oafs. Both teams just com­plet­ed the league’s required work­shops on non­vi­o­lent com­mu­ni­ca­tion and the Alter­na­tives to Vio­lence Project. The score at half-time is zero to zero. We have some footage from the sec­ond quarter.” 


Fox News: George Fox Speaking

Fox News: George Fox Speaking 

Our favorite news anchor goes on loca­tion with Will “The Quill” Penn and an assort­ment of dubi­ous­ly fact-checked…

Friends Journal Friends Journal