Category Archives ⇒ Quaker

As the blog name implies, I am a mem­ber of the Reli­gious Soci­ety of Friends, known col­lo­qui­al­ly as Quak­ers. Many of my blog posts deal with issues of our soci­ety and its inter­ac­tions with the larg­er world. I gen­er­al­ly only include my own posts in this list. I share many many Quak­er links in my Links Blog cat­e­go­ry and on Quak­erQuak­er.

Impor­tant Posts:
The Lost Quak­er Gen­er­a­tion (2003)
Peace and Twenty-Somethings (2003)
We’re All Ranters Now (2003)
Pass­ing the Faith, Plan­et of the Quak­er Style (2004)
Quak­er Tes­ti­monies (2004)
Hey, Who Am I To Decide Any­thing? (2007)
The Biggest Most Vibran­ty Most Out­reachi­est Pro­gram Ever (2010)
Get­ting a Horse to Drink (on Philadel­phia YM) (2010)
Tell Them All This But Don’t Expect Them to Lis­ten (2010)

Circling around, and surprising nudges toward renewed ministry and plainness

February 19, 2023
· Martin Kelley

From LizOpp, back on the blog:

I have come to believe that I live my life not in a straight line from birth to death but in a series of small and large cir­cles: from birth to learn­ing; from growth to for­get­ting; from remem­ber­ing to pride­ful liv­ing; from bro­ken­ness to humil­i­ty; from deep love and con­nec­tion to sep­a­rate­ness; from despair to faithfulness.

https://​the​goodraisedup​.blogspot​.com/​2​0​2​3​/​0​2​/​r​e​-​e​n​t​r​y​-​t​r​u​t​h​-​a​n​d​-​b​e​i​n​g​-​h​o​u​n​d​e​d​.​h​tml

I too have felt cir­cles com­ing back around. Liz attend­ed last week­end’s work­shop, the first multi-day retreat I’ve led since… check notes… 2014, when R. Scot Miller got me to Kala­ma­zoo, Michi­gan, for Green Pas­tures Quar­ter­ly Meet­ing. Last year I final­ly stopped my meet­ing wan­der­ing and have set­tled down at Crop­well Meet­ing, where I get to be involved in all the sil­ly, light­weight dra­mas that occur when­ev­er a group of peo­ple come together.

There, I’ve felt my spo­ken min­istry return. I was shocked a few months ago when I stood and was giv­en words that start­ed with reflect­ing of the sounds of the leaves blow­ing against the out­side walls, ref­er­enced an atten­der who had just been sweep­ing them, cir­cled to the his­to­ry of the peo­ple who have gath­ered with­in those walls and main­tained the build­ing for wor­ship, moved side­ways into a gen­tle les­son on min­istry in the qui­etist tra­di­tion, pulled it back to Jesus’s words in the Ser­mon on the Mount, and then tied it up in a bow with prayers of thanks to our faith­ful ances­tors and to those today who con­tin­ue to sweep away the ever-returned leaves. Read­ers, let me assure you I don’t think I’ve ever giv­en such coher­ent, bal­anced min­istry and I’m not sure where it came from. But faith­ful­ness is key.

I’ve also felt the nudge to bring back some iden­ti­fi­able plain dress. For years I’ve tend­ed toward what I used to call “Sears plain“1 and dur­ing the work-from-home life I’m some­times lucky if I get through the day with­out still wear­ing my paja­mas. Over the last few weeks I’ve been adding sus­penders to my reg­u­lar clothes. Of course I’ve gone through all the old famil­iar self-questioning: Am I doing this to stand out? Am I try­ing to puff myself up? Is this what faith­ful­ness leads me? But these ques­tions are part of the process and a tug toward plain­ness often pre­cedes out­ward min­istry; in his study Quak­er Jour­nals, Howard Brin­ton not­ed that future min­is­ters often record­ed inward nudges in their teen years and became plain­er in dress to the ridicule of their peers. I’m not a teen and I doubt any­one is going to make fun of me (at least to my face) but I do feel a cer­tain seri­ous­ness of intent come over me when I over­come my nat­ur­al desire for social anonymi­ty and put the sus­penders on.

Truth and integrity retreat

February 14, 2023
· Martin Kelley

My week­end online retreat went well, I think, at least many of the 15 par­tic­i­pants said they appre­ci­at­ed it. It’s the first multi-day event I’ve led in awhile and as I wrote here ear­li­er, I felt strong­ly led to plan a flex­i­ble, Spirit-led event. It was a bit ter­ri­fy­ing to be work­ing so from-the-seat-of-my-pants, but it was a great group of peo­ple, who could main­tain the pac­ing on their own. There was a lot of very deep shar­ing (I set con­fi­den­tial­i­ty as a val­ue ear­ly on) and we let peo­ple share for longer or share some­thing dif­fer­ent than asked if they felt it impor­tant. There were a few moments when it felt like a long state­ment might be bring­ing in too much cen­trifu­gal force but it pulled back and we were the rich­er for it. The hard­est time for me was around 4pm Sat­ur­day but that’s such a hard time to be alert. 

The two-day, three-part retreat was part of Windy Cool­er’s “Tes­ti­monies to Mer­cy” series, co-sponsored by New York’s Pow­ell House and Ben Lomond Cen­ter. Some ran­dom phras­es and ideas:

  • Integrity=Love, Integrity=Faithfulness, Integrity=Presence.
  • Truth with­out love is bru­tal­i­ty, and love with­out truth is hypocrisy: the much-quoted adage, attrib­uted to War­ren W. Wiers­be on sketchy quote websites.
  • Dis­ci­ples are fol­low­ers who aren’t moti­vat­ed by punishment.
  • The image that truth can chase us.

One of the more sur­pris­ing moments was when I brought in Hugh Bar­bour’s Five Tests for Dis­cern­ment. Par­tic­i­pants had been talk­ing about the mean­ing of Truth — Is there only one? Are there many? How do we know to con­tin­ue when oth­ers dis­agree? — and I thought Bar­bour’s list would be an easy one to lean on. He devel­oped it in the ear­ly six­ties as find­ings for research for his 1964 book, The Quak­ers in Puri­tan Eng­land and I remem­bered it as a rev­e­la­tion when I first came across it prob­a­bly twen­ty years ago. But the insis­tence on “moral puri­ty” and “inward uni­ty” did­n’t sit well with a group with mem­bers that have some­times had to buck Quak­er cul­tur­al mores and insti­tu­tion­al iner­tia to fol­low a lead­ing. We start­ed brain­storm­ing dif­fer­ent tests we’ve devel­oped more expe­ri­en­tial­ly. I’d love to tease these ideas out more someday.

Podcast: How has your view of Jesus God or religion changed since you were young? 

February 14, 2023
· Martin Kelley

The fourth episode of the Quak­ers Today pod­cast has just come out. Look­ing at “Faith Trans­for­ma­tion,” it fea­tures inter­views with Hay­den Hob­by (“Sur­viv­ing Reli­gious Trau­ma” in Friends Jour­nal) and Cal­liope George (“My Expe­ri­ence as a Young Adult Quak­er,” Quak­er­S­peak).

Quaker Podcast - Podcast Exploring Quaker Life & Religious Beliefs
Quak­er Pod­cast — Pod­cast Explor­ing Quak­er Life & Reli­gious Beliefs 

In this episode of the Quak­ers Today pod­cast we ask, How has your view of Jesus, God, or…

Friends Journal Friends Journal 

Weekend online retreat on Integrity, now with scholarships

February 8, 2023
· Martin Kelley

I’ve been told there’s now schol­ar­ship mon­ey avail­able for this week­end’s online retreat — and even a buy-one-get-one sale (I’ve nev­er been BOGO’ed before!). It starts at 7pm Fri­day night — come join us.

I must admit I used to get some of my leather-free shoes at Pay­less’s BOGO sales.

From the expand­ed description:

Have you felt anx­ious about some­thing you think might be true, won­dered about shar­ing this — and how you might share the truth with wis­dom — and even if you can believe the hard truth your­self? Join the senior edi­tor of Friends Jour­nal, Mar­tin Kel­ley, in a three part online retreat on fac­ing the truth when the truth is hard to face. It is about find­ing integrity.

Times are 7 – 8pm East­ern Fri­day the 10th (how does the truth pros­per with thee?) and 12 – 2 (the truth with­in us) and again at 3 – 5pm East­ern on Sat­ur­day the 11th (speak­ing truth in the world). Reg­is­ter here: https://​www​.pow​ell​house​.org/​t​e​s​t​i​m​o​n​i​e​s​-​t​o​-​m​e​rcy

This vir­tu­al retreat on truth is part of the Tes­ti­monies to Mer­cy series spon­sored by Pow­ell House and Ben Lomond Quak­er cen­ters and con­vened by pub­lic min­is­ter Windy Cool­er. This retreat is nor­mal­ly $125 to attend because we are com­pen­sat­ing for labor but we have some mon­ey for schol­ar­ships now and we are also offer­ing Buy One Get One: if you reg­is­ter you can choose a friend to bring with you for free. If you have ques­tions or need some help with a schol­ar­ship please get in touch with Windy here or at Windy­Cool­er at gmail.

https://​www​.pow​ell​house​.org/​t​e​s​t​i​m​o​n​i​e​s​-​t​o​-​m​e​rcy

The awfulness of ministry

February 4, 2023
· Martin Kelley

From Bill Taber’s The The­ol­o­gy of the Inward Imper­a­tive: Min­istry of the Mid­dle Period

The “awful­ness” of becom­ing a min­is­ter lay part­ly in the high expec­ta­tions which the Friends placed on their min­is­ters, for they expect­ed every­thing and noth­ing all at the same time. Min­is­ters were to do every­thing which the Light, the Mas­ter, the Guide, the Heav­en­ly Father (to use some of the var­i­ous names) required of them; they were sup­posed to fol­low every inti­ma­tion and speak every word giv­en them in the light. Thus moth­ers or fathers might have to leave fam­i­ly, work, and friends for years while they trav­eled, not know­ing when the Spir­it would allow them to return. On the oth­er hand noth­ing was expect­ed of them if they felt no imme­di­ate lead­ing, not, of course, could they ever pre­pare for any ser­mon. Thus each new meet­ing, each new fam­i­ly vis­it was a fresh test of faith in which one might be called to rise with­out know­ing what was to be said, or what dif­fi­cult or per­plex­ing words might come forth; even worse, a well-known min­is­ter might be required to remain silent through­out a meet­ing called just for him…

Thus, as their jour­nals make very clear, they expe­ri­enced the body of Christ not as a metaphor but as a liv­ing cli­mate or organ­ism from which — as well as in which — they func­tioned. They saw them­selves not as sep­a­rate lead­ers but as exten­sions of the one Life and Pow­er. They dwelt togeth­er with the oth­er mem­bers in the same pool of the divine pres­ence which blend­ed all souls togeth­er in a won­der­ful uni­ty. Although Quak­er min­is­ters were expect­ed to be very good exam­ples of the Quak­er way of life, they were not required to be lead­ers all the time; they could sink back into the nur­ture and uni­ty of the body until such times as they were clear­ly called to stand forth for the Lord. They knew that if they were “faith­ful,” he would give them both words and pow­er, or the “mat­ter and the “life.” Yet even so, each new meet­ing was a renewed test of faith; as Han­nah Strat­ton (1825 – 1903) of Ohio Year­ly Meet­ing (Con­ser­v­a­tive) put it near the end of her life, “it don’t get easy.”

Ever since I found Friends at age 20, I’ve been drawn to this rather seri­ous vision of min­istry, with its strict demand for a com­plete trust in the Holy Spirit’s prompt­ing in the moment. It’s not easy to square with mod­ern Quak­er prac­tices. I’m due to lead 5.5 hours of a work­shop next week; the top­ic and times are set. But maybe this dilem­ma is not so very new. Trav­el­ing min­is­ters in the qui­etist “mid­dle peri­od” that Tabor describes had itin­er­aries and meet­ings called for them (as for the min­is­ter of his sto­ry that was led to stay silent for a called worship). 

How do you pre­pare when you shouldn’t pre­pare? Per­haps by spend­ing part of a Sat­ur­day after­noon read­ing an old Bill Tabor pam­phlet that’s not on a top­ic you’re expect­ed to lead on the fol­low­ing week. 

I’m read­ing Tabor’s essay in Quak­er Reli­gious Thought num­ber 50, autumn 1980.

Finding Our Ways

February 2, 2023
· Martin Kelley

An excerpt from my intro­duc­to­ry col­umn in the March Friends Jour­nal.

It’s only human to turn to metaphors to describe our spir­i­tu­al rela­tion­ships. We talk about “nur­tur­ing the seed” and “turn­ing toward the light.” We move along on spir­i­tu­al “jour­neys” that don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly involve any trav­el at all. Our con­fer­ence themes often include words like weave and motion and open.

I live in an area with a lot of old roads going off in var­i­ous direc­tions and one big high­way going to the obvi­ous near­by city. When I plug a des­ti­na­tion into my phone it usu­al­ly tells me to get on the high­way even if it’s going in the wrong direc­tion from where I want to go. I gen­er­al­ly ignore the direc­tions and take the back roads. This is a metaphor, per­haps, for our Reli­gious Soci­ety of Friends. We are dwarfed by denom­i­na­tions many times our size, most of which have bet­ter sig­nage, more con­ve­nient rest stops, and wider break­down lanes. But I’d like to hope that the Quak­er way can be more direct, more sur­pris­ing, more inter­est­ing, and more reward­ing in the long run.

Finding Our Ways
Find­ing Our Ways 

Intro­duc­tion to our Feb­ru­ary issue.

Friends Journal Friends Journal 

Sunsetting My Twitter

February 2, 2023
· Martin Kelley

In ridicu­lous Twit­ter news, the ser­vice has decid­ed to close off its free API access. For the less tech­ni­cal read­ers, this will effec­tive­ly end cross-posting and bot accounts. While Twit­ter bots have a bad rep they can be use­ful tools and pow­er all sorts of neat accounts. One of them is the Quak­erQuak­er Twit­ter account, which was set up to send out tweets when­ev­er a Quak­erQuak­er mem­ber wrote a new blog post or start­ed a new con­ver­sa­tion on Quak​erQuak​er​.org. It was use­ful enough that it had 3,317 fol­low­ers, but it will now be going dark. For those want­i­ng to keep post­ed on new con­ver­sa­tions, I rec­om­mend the Quak­erQuak­er Mastodon account.

Also going is the abil­i­ty to post notices of new Quak­er­ran­ter blog posts on Twit­ter and to cross post from my per­son­al Mastodon account to my Twit­ter account. I’m not clos­ing the lat­ter but my use on it (already down quite a bit from six months ago) will become very infrequent.

None of this reflects my opin­ions for the new Twit­ter own­er’s pol­i­tics. Cut­ting off free APIs is an incred­i­bly dumb move for Twit­ter HQ, a reflec­tion that they fun­da­men­tal­ly don’t under­stand why so many of us stuck with the ser­vice for years despite its flaws. For those want­i­ng more, Buz­zFeed News’s arti­cle is called “RIP To The Best Bots On Twit­ter.”