Var­i­ous Friends are announc­ing that Arthur Berk has passed away. He was an insti­tu­tion unto him­self in Chris­t­ian Quak­er cir­cles. I would often run into him in var­i­ous tra­di­tion­al­ist Quak­er gath­er­ings. I’m sure he thought my latent lib­er­al­ism sus­pect (he was prob­a­bly right!) but he was always ready to talk and share truths and tes­ti­fy to the gospel. He let me record one of these moments at the Con­ser­v­a­tive Friends Gath­er­ing in Lan­cast­er Coun­ty, Penn­syl­va­nia back in 2009. I trust that he’s now wrapped in the lov­ing arms of the Holy Spir­it. RIP, Arthur.

Writ­ten BC (Before Coro­na) this arti­cle by Francine Bro­cious on iso­la­tion among Friends feels almost more rel­e­vant now that we’re all (phys­i­cal­ly) isolated:

I have dis­cov­ered, how­ev­er, that out­side of Sun­day morn­ing meet­ing times and some month­ly social or spir­i­tu­al get-togethers, many Quak­ers lead very full lives. This is a chal­lenge for new­er atten­ders like me.

Want­ed: A Net­work of Soul Connection 

How do we build faith com­mu­ni­ties where we real­ly know one another?

Friends Journal 

My reg­u­lar rou­tine on a Thurs­day morn­ing involves sub­ways, pod­casts, and scrolling through Twit­ter as I com­mute into Philadel­phia. This morn­ing it was wor­ship­ping at the Pen­dle Hill Barn. Its 8:30 meet­ing for wor­ship on its way to becom­ing a dai­ly spir­i­tu­al prac­tice for me. One of the sur­pris­es of this new enforced lifestyle is more time spent with Friends in worship.

Some­times I switch into gallery mode to scroll through the faces of the oth­er Zoom atten­dees. I give a smile and prayer as I see dear Friends met and befriend­ed over the decades. I’m in wor­ship day after day with peo­ple I haven’t seen in years or only know through email cor­re­spon­dences. Many of course, are peo­ple I’ve nev­er met, giv­ing pre­cious min­istry or pal­pa­bly hold­ing the wor­ship space in love. Friends are sep­a­rat­ed by hun­dreds of miles; some are propped with pil­lows in bed. Yet here we are, together.

Some day our old lives will return. At 8:30 on some future Thurs­day morn­ing, I’ll be swip­ing my tran­sit card, ear­buds tight­ly squeezed in, and feel sad that a ground­ing dai­ly prac­tice has fall­en away.

Some­times I for­get to share my own con­tent, in this case an inter­view with four orga­niz­ers of the FGC Gath­er­ing who talk about the dis­ap­point­ments of can­celling this year’s Gath­er­ing — but also the pos­si­bil­i­ties in host­ing an online version. 

The 2020 FGC Gath­er­ing Goes Online 

A video inter­view with Friends Gen­er­al Con­fer­ence staff and vol­un­teers around the can­cel­la­tion of the in-person 2020 Gathering.

Friends Journal