Johan Maurer on retiring from the news cycle: “There is something in me that resists the idea of unplugging, as if I am somehow letting humanity down if I give up, for a time, my obsessive attention to the deeds and misdeeds of the Powers That Be. How much worse off everyone would be if I withheld my awesome influence for good!”
Matt Rosen on traveling in the ministry in Britain. “Since Friends rarely travel in the ministry in Britain, part of the ministry has to be explaining this practice. That’s a joy for me, because I believe that the travelling ministry is a vital witness to our connectedness as a yearly meeting and a live option in the twenty-first century.” Matt also has an article on gospel order in this week’s The Friend.
Brent Bill’s fiction is featured this week over at Friends Journal. A Trip to Amity revolves around a grumpy minister whose surprise comeuppance features a lesson in forgiveness and the power of laughter. Brent and I talked about the story, the first in his new collection, “Amity: Stories from the Heartland,” in this week’s FJ Author Chat. You can buy the book at Quakerbooks of FGC or from Brent’s own website.
Cropwell meeting’s clerk decided to step down this month (he’s turning 88 and thought it a good time!). We had a nice celebration for him on Sunday. A few years ago the meeting had dwindled down to two regular members; on some Sundays, only one of them would show. He assembled a group to help bring it back from the brink of being laid down with a sucessful open house in 2021 and since then we’ve had six new members join.
We had a whole process planned to select a new clerk but it turned out that I was the only one who said I’d consider the role (maybe not so uncommon a phenomenon in small meetings?). I’ve joked that I’ll have it back down to two members by the end of next year, but in all seriousness I’m hoping we’re blessed with keeping the momentum going.
The November Quakers Today podcast dropped this week, asking How do you process memories, experiences and feelings? It includes interviews with Rashid Darden and Vicki Winslow and looks at the Quaker influences of Virginia Woolf.
I must admit I’m a sucker for a certain kind of Quaker story in which a Friend faithfully follows mysterious promptings that turn out to be life-changing. It might have been an old Bill Taber book where I read about the Quaker minister who one day shouted to stop the carriage while passing a random house because she knew—knew!— that its inhabitants needed spiritual help (reader, they did!). I guess it’s not unlike the uncanny experience of being about to rise to give ministry when the person next to you stands and gives the same message you were about to deliver—whoa! The hair on the back of my neck always stands up to these stories.
This week I was reading the stories of Paul S. Lippencott, Jr., a recorded minister of my own Cropwell Meeting who lived from 1882 to 1968. I’m trying to understand the character of the meeting, and our outgoing clerk has told stories of being a kid and listening to Paul’s sermons back in the 1960s. Someone had gotten an early tape recorder to collect Paul’s tales and published the somewhat rambling account as Answered Prayers, a book I found at Vintage Quaker Books.
The best story is the lead one. As a young man of around 30, Paul was retired in bed reading religious books when he felt a prompt (queue etherial music). “After a short period of prayer it became very clear to me that I should go out and gear up the horse.” Prompts came to him one after another: drive west down the road a couple of miles to the next town, and then: buy non-perishable groceries at the store that was still open. All this was done in faith: “Until that time I had no idea where I was going to take this food,” he writes. Then a final prompt as he remembered “an old colored lady named Margaret Worthington” who “lived in a cabin by herself” a half-mile away. He had never met her but felt led to visit on that dark night. “I pulled up at the little one room cabin where there was a light through the window, and as I went to the door, I heard her voice praying for help and food. I was there under unusual circumstances to answer the fervent prayers of a believing soul.”
Yowsa!
If you want the whole story of the mysterious food run, it’s on the Cropwell website accompanying a talk on the long and entwined relationships between the meeting and local Black families. “Aunt Margaret” had a special talent for having her prayers answered and Paul’s book has more stories about her.
Paul tells other stories about following mysterious prompts. In one, he feels led to take a longer route back to his office after lunch. It’s the Depression and on this different path he runs into an old acquaintance, now out of work and “in very trying condition.” He’s feeling broken and finally admits to Paul that he’s considering taking his own life. They pray together and hope is restored. As Paul writes “There was some reason for me to make that short detour, even on a morning when I was pressed for time. I am thankful that the Lord helped me to be able and alert to listen to that Still, Small Voice.”
This is of course an echo of the parable of the Good Samaratan. People of high standing walked by the injured traveler but it was the lowly Samaratan who listened and heard the prompt and the prayer, stopped their busy life, and aided the traveler. Jesus told the story to illustrate the query “who is my neighbor.” I’m not sure I have the best ear for these kinds of prayers hanging out there but I’d like to try to listen more.
If you’re in South Jersey or Philly and want to hear more Cropwell stories, you’re invited to visit this Sunday to honor our outgoing clerk, Earl Evens. A few years ago Cropwell was down to two attending members and close to being laid down when a small group led by Earl felt a prompt to try to rebuild the community. Earl’s stories of old Cropwell, the way he’s played host to the rebirthed community, and his gentle opinions on Quaker worship have helped set the spiritual DNA of our expanding group (five new members last year and another applied this week). I’m the incoming clerk and omg, these are quite the shoes to fill.
You want some magic? I’d been curious about this five-minute baguette recipe since it made the social media rounds a few weeks ago and have made it twice in the last week. It really is super quick to mix and the results are heavenly: crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. Bakery-quality bread from a normal kitchen oven with four ingredients and almost no work.
RIP Tumblr, more or less. Such a battered-about social network, even Automattic couldn’t bring back the magic. I hadn’t know their plans to federate Tumblr with Mastodon were dropped within 48 hours of the first announcement. Via Kottke.
Also, do you have something to say about Quaker prayer and healing? Submissions are open for the March Friends Journal (due Dec. 18). Please forward this link to anyone who might be interested.
I remember a friend once telling me if you do something once, it’s a weird thing you do. Do it again, it’s a trend. Do it three times and it’s a tradition everyone expects you to repeat till the end of time. This is Friends Journal’s third November fiction issue in a row. I guess this is a thing we do now.
It’s not immediately obvious that we should be in this game. Quakers have had testimonies against reading made-up stories. They’re a waste of time. We’re “Friends of the Truth” after all, a concept taken quite literally and sometimes to extremes by early Quakers. Colonial Pennsylvania Quakers half-heartedly conducted a witch trial (popular legend has it that after a defendant admitted to flying on broomsticks, William Penn dismissed the case with the argument that he knew “no law whatever against it.”). A century later, abolitionist traveling minister John Woolman tried to shut down a magic show in his home town of Mount Holly, N.J., for encouraging superstitions.
But sometimes fiction reveals deeper truths that simple reporting can’t touch. Good storytelling can produce powerful parables, simple stories that stay with us and guide us. And with a touch of magic, it can hint at the mysteries of worship.
The first featured short story is Annalee Flower Horne’s Refuse All Their Colors, an alternative history of 1777 Valley Forge in which the Friends living in the area have a little extra skillset. Once you’ve read it you can watch my interview with Annalee, which I found particularly fascinating. Annalee has made a deep dive into the historical record of the Friends community in Valley Forge and is quite confident that the only made-up part of the story is the fantasy elements and the immediate dialogue.
Annalee Flower Horne discusses their new short story “Refuse All Their Colors,” set in 1777 during the Revolutionary War. The story explores Quakers’ perspectives on magic through the lens of alternate history.
