Yearly Archives ⇒ 2020

Diversity why?

May 12, 2020
· Martin Kelley

Craig Bar­nett on diver­si­ty in our meetings:

But Friends who are not sat­is­fied with these excus­es, and want to encour­age real dia­logue about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of more inclu­sive Quak­er com­mu­ni­ties, are often unclear about the specif­i­cal­ly Quak­er moti­va­tion for this. Are there any rea­sons, beyond so-called ‘polit­i­cal cor­rect­ness’, why Quak­ers should have a par­tic­u­lar con­cern for the diver­si­ty of our Meet­ings and our movement? 

It’s good to ask these ques­tions but Craig’s answer feels half-hearted to me. It boils down to Quak­er process: we can make bet­ter deci­sions if we have more diverse per­spec­tives. That’s cer­tain­ly true, but the prob­lem could just as eas­i­ly be solved by dis­solv­ing the Friends move­ment and join­ing in with more diverse com­mu­ni­ties (some­thing indi­vid­ual Friends have done). Ask­ing peo­ple to join us because it will solve our prob­lems isn’t a very strong mar­ket­ing pitch. What is it we pos­sess that we should be shar­ing more widely?


One Wall, Two Prisons

One Wall, Two Prisons 

There seems to be a tra­di­tion­al list of excus­es for why so many Quak­er Meet­ings fail to reflect…

transitionquaker.blogspot.com tran​si​tion​quak​er​.blogspot​.com

Sidwell’s Quaker Values

May 11, 2020
· Martin Kelley

Steven Davi­son on Sid­well and Friends schools’ use of “Quak­er values”

The SPICES rein­force the decades-long trend in lib­er­al Quak­erism of defin­ing Quak­erism increas­ing­ly in terms of our “val­ues” and our out­ward prac­tices, rather than by the con­tent of our tra­di­tion and our spir­i­tu­al­i­ty. Our “spir­i­tu­al­i­ty” is to look to the Light with­in us for guid­ance and to make our cor­po­rate deci­sions in a meet­ing for wor­ship held under the lead­er­ship of the Holy Spir­it, not by look­ing to a check­list of behav­ioral guide­lines and then remold­ing them to fit our desires. I sus­pect that Sid­well Friends School has some Quak­ers on its board, in its staff and fac­ul­ty, and among its stu­dents. But does that mean that it makes impor­tant “stew­ard­ship” deci­sions in a Spirit-led meet­ing for worship?

Sidwell’s Quak­er Values

The Quaker values of a Quaker school questioned in The Atlantic

May 9, 2020
· Martin Kelley

The elite Sid­well Friends accept­ing $5 mil­lion of emer­gency Coro­na small busi­ness relief mon­ey has been float­ing in the news for over a week now but this arti­cle in The Atlantic hits where it hurts, focus­ing on the school’s use of “Quak­er val­ues” to jus­ti­fy its actions. It namechecks John Wool­man and the Fry fam­i­ly, then quotes three promi­nent aca­d­e­m­ic Friends (David Har­ring­ton Watt, Paul Ander­son, and Stephen Angell).


When Quakers Become Takers

When Quak­ers Become Takers 

Sid­well Friends, one of the nation’s most elite pri­vate schools, cites its reli­gious val­ues in seek­ing gov­ern­ment money.

The Atlantic The Atlantic 

A few thoughts: it’s great to see an arti­cle on Friends actu­al­ly go out and inter­view Friends. The reporter obvi­ous­ly knew that focus­ing a cri­tique on “Quak­er val­ues” would get a reac­tion from some quarters.

There’s a great con­ver­sa­tion about this on a Face­book thread. Paul Ander­son says he was selec­tive­ly quot­ed and told the reporter that a case could be made that Quak­er fis­cal respon­si­bil­i­ty might well pre­clude using endow­ment funds for oper­at­ing expenses.

We Began to Sing

April 27, 2020
· Martin Kelley

There’s a 24 minute film about the music min­istry of Friends Annie Pat­ter­son and Peter Blood (and by exten­sion Pete Seeger) pre­mier­ing as a YouTube Live event this Sun­day. Here’s part of Peter Blood­’s email to me:

I thought Friends would want to know that the live world pre­mier of the film “We Began to Sing” is hap­pen­ing this com­ing Sun­day May 3rd at 3pm EDT. (Pete Seeger’s 101st birthday)

The film includes footage of time we spent with Pete Seeger at his home before his death and from a num­ber of our sin­ga­long con­certs includ­ing ones orga­nized Friends meet­ings in Toron­to and in Burling­ton. We talk a lot about how our work is con­nect­ed to Quak­er tes­ti­monies around peace, racial jus­tice, etc. 

After the 25 minute film there will be a dis­cus­sion on how peo­ple are car­ry­ing on this work with the film’s direc­tor and 4 oth­er musi­cian activists: Reg­gie Har­ris, Emma’s Rev­o­lu­tion, and Bil­ly Bragg.

Here’s the YouTube Live link. You can check out the trail­er here:

A wider Quaker fellowship

April 23, 2020
· Martin Kelley

Robin Mohr on the chal­lenges and upsides to vir­tu­al worship:

Peo­ple who have basic inter­net con­nec­tiv­i­ty, and Friends who were pre­vi­ous­ly iso­lat­ed for health rea­sons, are now able to par­tic­i­pate in wor­ship. Friends who had moved away are com­ing back to vis­it. Peo­ple who once didn’t have time for wor­ship are show­ing up on Sun­day morn­ings. The oppor­tu­ni­ty to vis­it with long-lost friends, or to vis­it Quak­er meet­ings in far­away places, just got much eas­i­er. New peo­ple are find­ing their way to our meet­ings via Face­book and Instagram. 

It’s true for me per­son­al­ly that I’ve been able to be more active in wor­ship than before. My non-Quaker fam­i­ly is also par­tic­i­pat­ing more before, with night­ly prayer meet­ings. It’s not the same as in-person fel­low­ship but it’s not a horse of a dif­fer­ent color.

In the age of social dis­tanc­ing, Quak­ers have quick­ly adapt­ed to online worship

A Quaker retirement community in the pandemic

April 20, 2020
· Martin Kelley

A few weeks ago, Friends Jour­nal’s poet­ry edi­tor, Nan­cy Thomas, includ­ed a sweet sto­ry at the end of an email coor­di­nat­ing the May selections:

My hus­band, Hal, stepped out of our apart­ment and into the hall just before 4:00 p.m. on a Sun­day after­noon. He began walk­ing down the hall, play­ing on his har­mon­i­ca a zip­py ver­sion of “When the Saints Go March­ing In.” Peo­ple had been wait­ing. Doors opened, and our neigh­bors stood in their door­ways — well over the des­ig­nat­ed six-feet apart — and began wav­ing and greet­ing one anoth­er. This con­sti­tut­ed our “call to wor­ship,” and the begin­ning of a new pattern. 

I thought it was so nice that I asked her to expand it. The result is a nice snap­shot of how a Quaker-affiliated retire­ment com­mu­ni­ty in New­berg, Ore­gon, is adapt­ing to life under COVID-19 restrictions.


A Quaker Retirement Community Faces the Pandemic

A Quak­er Retire­ment Com­mu­ni­ty Faces the Pandemic 

Cre­ativ­i­ty and ser­vice flow­ers under quarantine.

Friends Journal Friends Journal 

Emily Provance on QuakerSpeak

April 18, 2020
· Martin Kelley

The first remote­ly record­ed Quak­er­S­peak inter­view of the Coro­n­avirus era is appro­pri­ate­ly giv­en to Emi­ly Provance, a trav­el­ing Quak­er min­is­ter who has been devot­ing her­self to both in-person and online trav­el, with a par­tic­u­lar con­cern for mak­ing our wor­ship­ping com­mu­ni­ties acces­si­ble for all.

As some­one who trav­els in the min­istry, Emi­ly Provance is already used to con­nect­ing with her home meet­ing remote­ly. In this vir­tu­al inter­view, Emi­ly explains how Quak­ers can use online tools to wor­ship togeth­er — and not just in emer­gency circumstances. 

https://​quak​er​s​peak​.com/​o​n​l​i​ne/

What can you say?

April 18, 2020
· Martin Kelley

From George Amoss Jr:

In Ulver­ston as else­where, Fox sought to expose the “semi-conscious hypocrisy” of Chris­tians and their min­istry. He implied that they were not “born again” into the nature of God; deprived of the Spir­it, they were able only to repeat and gloss the writ­ings of peo­ple who actu­al­ly had been inspired. 

Con­tin­u­ing Rev­e­la­tion, ‘What Canst Thou Say?’ and Speak­ing One’s Truth