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 

Great idea now that we’re all wor­ship­ping vir­tu­al­ly via Zoom:

Mem­bers of Moun­tain View Friends Meet­ing, a Quak­er con­gre­ga­tion in south Den­ver, are open­ing their cur­rent­ly vacant meet­ing hall to doc­tors and oth­er first respon­ders who are on the front­lines of the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic and need a home away from home. 

https://​www​.west​word​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​d​e​n​v​e​r​-​q​u​a​k​e​r​-​g​r​o​u​p​-​o​p​e​n​s​-​m​e​e​t​i​n​g​-​h​a​l​l​-​t​o​-​h​e​a​l​t​h​-​c​a​r​e​-​w​o​r​k​e​r​s​-​1​1​6​7​4​865

From my col­league Gabe Ehri:

One of the few con­stants in the uni­verse is change. The cos­mos tends toward entropy and dis­or­der, and we humans do all we can to exer­cise agency, to cre­ate order, to rec­og­nize beau­ty and jus­tice. Like oth­er peo­ple, Quak­ers have cre­at­ed insti­tu­tions — church­es, NGOs, and schools, for exam­ple — to ful­fill shared social and prac­ti­cal needs and to enjoy the sta­bil­i­ty that comes with hav­ing some­thing to hold onto in a chang­ing world.

Love in the Time of Coronavirus 

Car­ry­ing on with the care of our meetings.

Friends Journal 

On Sat­ur­day I talked with the author of the Friends Jour­nal arti­cle about Quak­er meet­ings’ adap­ta­tion to COVID-19. We talked about the online meet­ings replac­ing in-person First-day wor­ship and also some of the cre­ative ways the pas­toral teams of some Quak­er meet­ings and church­es are sup­port­ing iso­lat­ed members.

In cri­sis is oppor­tu­ni­ty. I won­der if the tools we’re adapt­ing to care for one anoth­er (both spir­i­tu­al­ly and prac­ti­cal­ly) will remain use­ful after life returns to normal. 

On Wednes­day Friends Jour­nal exec­u­tive direc­tor Gabe Ehri told us all to work from home until fur­ther notice. For­tu­nate­ly we had just got­ten the April issue off to press, which is good because final proof­ing is best done in per­son. Now we’re all ping­ing each oth­er with Slack and Zoom and hun­ker­ing down into the new normal.

We do have an arti­cle on COVID-19 from Katie Bres­lin and I’m updat­ing it with Quak­er resources that I’m find­ing. There are a lot. Every year­ly and month­ly meet­ings is tak­ing this seri­ous­ly. All of my pub­lic events this week­end have now been canceled.

It will be inter­est­ing to see how we all adapt. I think I’m going to be a lot chat­ti­er online to make up for the loss of face-to-face con­tacts. I expect this email newslet­ter to go back to fre­quent post­ings. If you find resources you think I should share let me know by email (martink@martinkelley.com) or Twit­ter (martin_kelley). Be safe every­one. Check in our your neigh­bors. Be gen­er­ous. Enjoy the lit­tle joys that come with iso­la­tion (I’m hap­py to lose my com­mute for awhile and to see my fam­i­ly more). And keep every­one in your prayers.