On Beppeblog, Joe talks about starting a clearness committee [link long gone]to assist him with his struggles with Friends. But he also touches on something I’ve certainly also experienced: the important role this electronic fellowship has been playing:
Just the other day I realized that I felt more comfortable being a Friend since not attending Meeting on an ongoing basis. My ongoing “e‑relationships” via the blogosphere has helped me stay “connected”. Observe how pleased I responded to Liz’s recent post (the one that I quoted in the post before this one). It’s as if I’m starving for good fellowship of some kind or another.
There’s even more talk about internet-mediated discernment/fellowship in the “comments to his followup.
Given all this, I’m not sure if I’ve ever highlighted a “vision for an expanded Quaker Ranter site” that I put together for a “youth leadership” grant in Third Month:
I’ve been blessed to meet many of my [age] peers with a clear call to inspired ministry. Most of these Friends have since left the Society, frustrated both by monthly meetings and Quaker bodies that didn’t know what to do with a bold ministry and by a lack of mentoring eldership that could help season these young ministers and deepen their understanding of gospel order. I would like to put together an independent online publication… This would explicitly reach out across the different braches of Friends and even to various seeker movements like the so-called “Emergent Church Movement.”
As I’ve written I was selected for one of their fellowships (yea!!) but for an amount that was pointedly too low to actually fund much (huh??). There’s something in the air however. “Quaker Dharma” is asking similar questions and Russ Nelson’s “PlanetQuaker” is a sometimes-awkward automated answer (do its readers really want to see the ultrasounds?). I’m not sure any of these combo sites could actually work better than their constituent parts. I find myself uninterested in most group blogs, aggregators, and formal websites. The invididual voice is so important.
And don’t we already have a group project going with all the cross-reading and cross-linking we’re doing. Is that what Joe was talking about? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve found some new interesting blogger and went to post a welcome in their comments only to have found that Joe or LizOpp had beaten me to it. (Some of us are to the point of reading each other’s minds. I think I could probably write a great Beppe or LizOpp post and vice-versa.) Is this impulse to formalize these relationships just a throwback to old ideas of publishing?
Maybe the web’s form of hyperlinking is actually superior to Old Media publishing. I love how I can put forward a strong vision of Quakerism without offending anyone – any put-off readers can hit the “back” button. And if a blog I read posts something I don’t agree with, I can simply choose not to comment. If life’s just too busy then I just miss a few weeks of posts. With my “Subjective Guide to Quaker Blogs” and my “On the Web” posts I highlight the bloggers I find particularly interesting, even when I’m not in perfect theological unity. I like that I can have discussions back and forth with Friends who I don’t exactly agree with.
I have nothing to announce, no clear plan forward and no money to do anything anyway. But I thought it’d be interesting to hear what others have been thinking along these lines.
Yes, that’s what I was thinking of: the informal network of Friends linking and commenting on each other’s blogs, etc.
I thought about this post for a day or two. I think I like things the way they are. There are already places to post on Bulletin Boards, which I find of limited use or interest (in general, not just in regards to Friends).
OTH, maybe there is another format that might work better in creating a solid “place” on the web for fellowship, reflection, discussion. Etc. What that is beyond what is already out there is unclear to me.
By the way, how much money was actually available from the fellowship that you applied for? For example, was it 10K, but meant to be distributed over five applicants? I have to admit that $500 does seem rather paltry.
Hi Joe,
Thanks for taking the time to think about it. I’ve always been leery of grand-sounding internet projects that don’t follow a model that’s been shown to be working elsewhere. My Nonviolence.org started off modeled after Slate and the (late great) Feed, for example. It adapted into what is now a recognizable blog format in December 1997 when I named the homepage “Nonviolence Web Upfront.” Researching a little, I see that was the same month that Jorn Barger coined the term “weblog” which I think is less a coincidence than a confirmation that many of us were trying to figure out a format for sharing the web with others. (Wait, it’s even closer than that: the first use of “WebLog” was “December 29, 1997”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Weblog.png, the same _day_ that Upfront debuted!). I’ll have to post this…
The discussions above cover an awful lot of ground, so it’s neither feasible nor desirable to respond to some pregnant lines of thought…
But at the risk of repeating something I have probably written elsewhere, I feel (intuitively, that is – perhaps even mistakenly) that Friends, who once represented the leading edge of all human-rights advocacy, have long since fallen behind the Unitarians in effectiveness, and the Unitarians in turn now lag behind United Church of Christ in their advocacy for justice. Now, I can’t prove this perception; it’s just a concern…
Assuming that I am not mistaken in my concern, even this has a silver lining; namely, the opportunity to study our neighbors as a model for powerful ministry. Which brings me to the point of my post… I like “Quaker Ranter” very much. But I also like the blog run by UCC seminarian Chuck Currie:
http://chuckcurrie.blogs.com/
I would like to know whether Chuck has been enabled in his Ministry-Via-Diary by superior cooperation and superior funding from his denomination…? If so, does that explain what he is able to achieve?
I suspect The Ranter has a legitimate Travelling Ministry. He has the ability to travel the world over, virtually, with the speed of an electron. This is far less romantic than the horseback labors of early Friends, and involves less risk and hardship, but Friends need to adjust their perceptions to appreciate a twentyfirst-century ministry. I would like to see this ministry continue, and thrive, in new directions.
Finally, taking a leaf from the parable of the starving widow who contributed a tiny mite to the Temple, I have taken advantage of The Ranter’s convenient PayPal button to make a little contribution.
Use it in good health… I wish I had more to give.
Hi Mitch,
Thanks both for your kind comments and the donation.
I don’t know the details of Chuck Currie to know just how he’s been supported (I’ve found that among Quakers, the details often make a big difference as to who gets noticed). Still, I find it hard to imagine someone like him being recognized by Friends.
I recently got an email out of the blue from a famously unapologetic liberal Friend (enough of a clue?) who had just read my “Peace and Twenty-Something”:http://www.nonviolence.org/martink/peace_and_twentysomethings.php essay and challenged me to stop complaining and actually do something (he even offered to use his “mojo” so I could lead a breakout workshop at a particularly boring-sounding conference later this summer even thought the deadlines had passed). His email was pretty nasty, though I think he wanted to come off as a gruff-but-lovable goad. How do I even start to explain that I’m a bona fide internet pioneer and publish one of the most widely read Quaker peace publications in the world? I don’t like to boast and even if I did I’ve found it to be a waste of time.
It doesn’t seem like Currie needs to spend all of his time convincing the UCC higher-ups that he’s actually doing something. That must be nice.