The best part are the pictures. We’ve been doing this so long I could almost ID some of these Friends by their backgrounds!
Quaker Ranter
A Weekly Newsletter and Blog from Martin Kelley
Reinventing Pendle Hill’s morning worship
May 19, 2020
It seems I tend to forget to share some of the work I’m most involved with here on the Quaker Ranter email list and blog. In April I interviewed Francisco Burgos and Traci Hjelt Sullivan about Pendle Hill’s Zoom worship. I’ve written before that I’ve been participating a couple of times a week and it fascinates me. Everyone’s doing Zoom worship, of course, but this one is daily and completely open to the public. It has managed to hold onto a distinct sense of place.
Here’s a quote from Francisco on how the worship mirrors in-person worship yet has distinct challenges.
This is an ongoing learning experience. At any monthly meeting, you will have First Days in which the worship experience is like a popcorn meeting, with a lot of ministry. Other times, it is completely silent. The online experience will be similar to that. We are working to find out what resources and support structure we can make available to people. Some people realize that they have a stage with 140 people and feel the need to speak not just long, but very often. How can we encourage Friends to season the message that they are receiving?
Friends Journal Jennifer Kavanagh’s parallel universe
May 12, 2020
In Friends Journal, a look at the mystical depths of creation:
To live in the world is an explicit practical acceptance of the dynamic nature of the Spirit. Our relation with God is not in isolation, apart from our fellow beings; as we are blessed, so we too are able to bless. The Spirit works on us to enable us to give something of what we have received to others, to act as a mirror. So it is that God works not only directly but through human beings, each upon another. As we open our hearts and receive, so we give to and receive from other people. How we relate to the world and to other human beings is part of how we relate to God.
I like the emphasis on balance she talks about toward the end, “Spirit without matter is as unbalanced as matter without Spirit, which is materialism.”
Diversity why?
May 12, 2020
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?
transitionquaker.blogspot.com Sidwell’s Quaker Values
May 11, 2020
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?
The Quaker values of a Quaker school questioned in The Atlantic
May 9, 2020
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).
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
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
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