Sometimes my Quaker Ranter posts dry up for awhile. I console myself that I’m doing enough giving out the “daily reading list of Quaker posts”:/quaker, reading through my new old Quaker book collection (Samuel Bownas just visited the “meeting I’m attending most frequently these days”:http://www.pym.org/pym_mms/middletownpa_cdq.php!) and working my new “advancement and outreach “:www.FGCquaker.org/ao job – oh, and of course there’s also “the family”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/martin_kelley/40269563/! But you could also just follow my train of thought by looking over my shoulder at comments made at other sites. Over the last few days the Quaker blogosphere has had a number of interesting posts. Here’s a cobble-together of posts and comments that have spoken to me about the inherent Quaker snare of confusing our “Quaker faith” for God.
Over on Kwakersaur, David M “shares some renewal queries for his yearly meeting”:http://kwakersaur.blogspot.com/2005/11/consultation-and-renewal.html. “Nancy A”:http://nancysapology.blogspot.com detected a “sense an overall fatigue” in them and “Beppe”:http://beppeblog.blogspot.com/ agreed, asking if the seemingly-simple answers to these sorts of queries require that we first have the much harder-to-come-by “understanding [of] who we are.”
One of the queries goes “What does our Quaker faith ask us to DO?” _Eeeyyaa-aa-yaaaaawwwn_. My favorite Quaker committee-meeting trick of late consists of replace all the “we”-like phrases with _God_. How about “What does God ask us to DO?” (Just a quick testimony: I love David’s work and I value his wonderful online ministry. Any time he wants to come down to Philly to tend to our flock with talk of Quaker renewal, he’s welcome!! I’m sure everyone on the Consultation and Renewal Working Group is deeper than the queries would indicate and suspect that this is an example of the Quaker corporate dumbing-down tendency that’s practically our modus operandi.)
All this ties into a great post from AJ Schwanz, “Can I Say I’m Emerging If I Haven’t Emerged or Quaker If I Haven’t Quaked?”:http://ajschwanz.com/index.php/2005/11/07/can-i-say-im-emerging-if-i-havent-emerged-or-quaker-if-i-havent-quaked/,. Here’s a taste:
bq. Part of me has thought of shedding my Quaker pin. How can I use it?: have I ever quaked with the power of God? Shedding my differentiation label certainly would support the idea that “there’s really only one church, but lots of meeting places.” Particularly in this town where the Quaker college is perceived as pretty insular, would I have different interactions with folks if I simply said “I’m a follower of Christ” rather than a “Friend”? What would I miss out on? What would be gained?
Paul L implicitly addresses the question of shedding the Quaker pin in his “review of Punshon’s Reasons for Hope”:http://showerofblessings.blogspot.com/2005/11/reasons-for-hope.html, where he asks if “Quakers have a unique niche to fill in the Christian and broader social landscape.”
Are we Quaker because it’s comfortable, because our friends are, because the buildings are cool and the social hour coffee hot? Or the opposite: are we Friends because we really liked “Barclay’s Apology”:http://www.quakerbooks.org/get/333004 but couldn’t care less for the messyness of flesh-and-blood religious community? Another Quaker blogger recently sent me a private email in which he confided: “My main question of late to Quakers is: what is so remarkable about Quakers? I sometimes have to be a pain-in-the-ass in order to ask these questions.” That seems like both a good question and a important meeting role.
There’s something about living both within a community and outside it. The real deal isn’t in any of our human institutions, theories or notions yet it is through these that we live out our faith. Christ as transcendent everythingness and Christ as a particular guy in a particular place speaking a particular language and living a particular life. The pull between the eternal and peculiar is the very essence of the human condition. The same voice that spoke to the prophets and apostles speaks to us today, if only we have ears to hear. How can we learn to lessen the volume on our own self-kudos long enough to hear the divine whisperer?
Quaker Ranter
A Weekly Newsletter and Blog from Martin Kelley
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Two Years of the Quaker Ranter and Quaker Blogs
October 10, 2005
An amazing thing has happened in the last two years: we’ve got Friends from the corners of Quakerism sharing our similarities and differences, our frustrations and dreams through Quaker blogs. Disenchanted Friends who have longed for deeper conversation and consolation when things are hard at their local meeting have built a network of Friends who understand. When our generation is settling down to write our memoirs — our Quaker journals — a lot of us will have to have at least one chapter about becoming involved in the Quaker blogging community.
When I signed off on my last post, I promised I would continue with something on “blogs, ministry and liberal Quaker outreach.” Here’s the first of the follow-ups.
As I settle in to my second week at my new (and newly-defined) jobs at FGC, I wonder if I be here without help of the Quaker Ranter? I started this blog two summers ago. It was a time when I felt like I might be headed toward membership in the lost Quaker generation that was the focus of one of my earliest posts. There were a lot of dead-ends in my life. A couple of applications for more serious, responsible employment with Friends had recently gone nowhere. Life at my monthly meeting was odd (we’ll keep it at that). I felt I was coming into a deeper experiential knowledge of my Quakerism and perhaps inching toward more overt ministry but there was no outlet, no sense of how this inward transformation might fit into any sort of outward social form or forum.
Everywhere I looked I saw Friends shortcoming themselves and our religious society with a don’t-rock-the-boat timidity that wasn’t serving God’s purpose for us. I saw precious little prophetic ministry. I knew of few Friends who were asking challenging questions about our worship life. Our language about God was becoming ever more coded and sterilized. Most of the twenty-somethings I knew generally approached Quakerism primarily as a series of cultural norms with only different standards from one yearly meeting to another (and one Quaker branch to another, I suspect) .
With all this as backdrop, I started the Quaker Ranter with a nothing-left-to-lose mentality. I was nervous about pushing boundaries and about broaching things publicly that most Friends only say in hushed tones of two or three on meetinghouse steps. I was also doubly nervous about being a Quaker employee talking about this stuff (livelihood and all that!). The few Quaker blogs that were out there were generally blogs by Quakers but about anything but Quakerism, politics being the most common topic.
Now sure, a lot of this hasn’t changed over these few years. But one thing has: we now have a vibrant community of Quaker bloggers. We’ve got folks from the corners of Quakerism getting to know one another and hash out not just our similarities and differences, but our frustrations and dreams. It’s so cool. There’s something happening in all this! Disenchanted Friends who have longed for deeper conversation and consolation when things are hard at their local meeting are finding Friends who understand.
Through the blog and the community that formed around it I’ve found a voice. I’m evolving, certainly, through reading, life, blog conversations and most importantly (I hope!) the acting of the Holy Spirit on my ever-resistant ego. But because of my blog I’m someone who now feels comfortable talking about what it means to be a Quaker in a public setting. It almost seems quaint to think back to the early blog conversations about whether we can call this a kind of ministry. When we’re all settling down to write our memoirs — our Quaker journals — a lot of us will have to have at least one chapter about becoming involved in the Quaker blogging community. In Howard Brinton’s Quaker Journals he enumerated the steps toward growth in the ministry that most of the writers seemed to go through; I suspect the journals of our generation will add self-published electronic media to it’s list of classic steps.
When I started Quaker Ranter I did have to wonder if this might be a quickest way to get fired. Not to cast aspersions on the powers-that-be at FGC but the web is full of cautionary tales of people being canned because of too-public blogs. My only consolation was the sense that no one that mattered really read the thing. But as it became more prominent a curious phenomenon happened: even Quaker staff and uber-insiders seemed to be relating to this conversation and wanted a place to complain and dream about Quakerism. My personal reputation has certainly gone up because of this site, directly and indirectly because of the blog. This brings with it the snares of popular praise (itself a well-worn theme in Quaker journals) but it also made it more likely I would be considered for my new outreach job. It’s funny how life works.
Okay, that’s enough for a post. I’ll have to keep outreach till next time. But bear with me: it’s about form too and how form contributes to ministry.
PS: Talking of two years of Quaker blogging… My “Nonviolence.org turns ten years old this Thursday!! I thought about making a big deal about it but alas there’s so little time.
Add Quaker Blog Watch to your site
August 16, 2005
A few months ago I started keeping a links blog that evolved into the “Quaker Blog Watch” (formally at home at “nonviolence.org/quaker” though included as a column elsewhere). This is my answer to the “aggregation question” that a few of us were tossing around in Sixth Month. I’ve never believed in an uberBlog that would to supercede all of our individual ones and act as gate-keeper to “proper” Quakerism. For all my Quaker Conservativism I’m still a Hicksite and we’re into a certain live-and-let live creative disorder in our religious life.
I also don’t like technical solutions. It helps to have a human doing this. And it helps (I think) if they have some opinions. When I began my list of annotated Quaker links I called it my “Subjective Guide” and these links are also somewhat subjective. I don’t include every post on Quakerism: only the ones that make me think or that challenge me in some way. Mediocrity, good intentions and a famous last name mean less to me than simple faithfulness to one’s call.
There’s no way to keep stats but it looks like the links are being used (hours after I stumble across a previously-unknown site I see comments from regular Quaker Ranter readers!). Here’s the next step: instructions on adding the “last seven entries of the Quaker blog watch to your site.” I imagine some of you might want to try it out on your sidebar. If so, let me know how it works: I’m open to tweaking it. And do remember I’ll be disappearing for a few days “sometime soon” (still waiting, that kid can’t stay in there too long.)
Aggregating our Webs
June 16, 2005
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.
I don’t have anything to say (either)
June 3, 2005
Well since Kwakersaur is inaugurating the “I don’t have anything to post”:http://kwakersaur.blogspot.com/2005/06/i‑dont-have-anything-to-say.html meme, I’ll chime in that I don’t either. Actually I’ve written two and half essays but realized they’re both really for myself. This is how it happens sometimes. I’ve long noticed this phenomenon in fully-formed verbal ministry that I know I’m not supposed to deliver and it feels as if such restraint is sometimes healthy on the blog. The message will reappear in other forums I’m sure, most likely next month’s “Gathering workshop”:www.nonviolence.org/Quaker/strangers with Zachary Moon.
In the meantime, there’s been fresh talk about plain language and dress this week by “Johan Maurer”:http://maurers.home.mindspring.com/2005/06/plain-language.htm, “Claire Reddy”:http://Quakerspeak.blogspot.com/2005/06/simplicity-unfocused-thought-blurt.html and the “Livejournal Quakers”:http://www.livejournal.com/community/Quakers/105292.html. Russ Nelson’s started a “Planet Quaker”:http://planet.Quaker.org/ blog aggregator (which includes Quaker Ranter: thanks!). LizOpp talked about “field testing”:http://thegoodraisedup.blogspot.com/2005/05/after-annual-sessions.html her upcoming “Quaker identity Gathering workshop”:http://www.fgcquaker.org/gathering/workshops/work36.php at Northern Yearly Meeting sessions and Kiara’s talked about “being field tested by Liz at this year’s NYM sessions”:http://wordspinning.blogspot.com/2005/05/northern-yearly-meeting.html (how cool is that?!).
I’ve been geeking out on “Del.icio.us”:http://del.icio.us/martin_kelley, the “social bookmarking” system and on the esoteric concepts of “tags”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tags, the “semantic web”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_web and “folksonomies”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy. Two weeks ago I would have laughed at these neologisms but I’m beginning to see that there’s something in all this. The only outward form the regulars will see is a more accurate “Related Entries” selection at the bottom of posts (thanks to “Adam Kalsey”:http://kalsey.com/blog/2003/05/related_entries_revisited/) and better visibility in “selected Technorati entries”:http://www.technorati.com/tag/Quaker (which will get less me-centric as I finish tagging my own back posts).
And of course we’re tilling the field, planting a garden, putting up laundry lines and otherwise thoroughly enjoying the first Spring in our new house. It’s bedtime, off to read the radically folksonomic adventures of Sam and “My Car”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060560452 (it’s pure tags: “My name is Sam.” “This is my car.” “I love my car.” I’d worry that not-so-baby Theo is getting too excited by combusion engines if he weren’t even more excited by “dia-di-calschht” aka the “bicycle” Papa rides off to work on.)
QuaCarol: You Don’t Want to Be Ranters Anymore
March 11, 2005
By QuaCarol
Sometimes I have to lift up comments and make them their own posts. Here’s one of QuaCarol’s reply to “Uh-Oh: Beppe’s Doubts”:/martink/archives/000544.php: “I see this community of bloggers, reaching out to each other and connecting, when meetings (and here I venture to say “all”) are focused on keeping their pamphlet racks filled, rather than posting URLs on their bulletin boards or creating a newcomer’s URL handout.”
Uh-Oh: Beppe’s Doubts
March 9, 2005
I’ve occasionally thought of Beppeblog’s Joe Guada as my blogging Quaker doppleganger. More than once he’s written the post I was about to write. And more than one important article of mine started as commentary to one of his insightful articles.
So I’m worried that he’s written the first of a multipart article asking Is it time to leave Quakerism. I’m worried not just that Quakerism would lose a bright Light, etc., etc, but because I know that now I’m going to have to publicly mull over the question that’s a constant background hum that I try not to think about.
Update: just to prove my point, my comment to Joe’s post was more interesting that my post pointing to his post. Here’s the comment I just left there:
There was one day in worship a few years ago right around the time when my wife Julie decided to leave Quakerism when I had this odd vision. I imagined us as boulders the front edge of a waterfall. Thousands of gallons of water swept over us every day, eroding and scarring our surface and undermining the fragile base we were on. When Boulder Julie finally dislodged and fell off the precipice of Quakerism, I realized that one of the rocks that had held me in place was now gone and now there was going to be even more water and pressure trying to push me off.
I say this because you’ve become one of my blogging rocks, someone who confirms that I’m not a total nutcase. If you went over the edge I’d have to reassess my situation and at least take a peek down myself. At the very least I’m going to have to blog about why I’ve stayed so long. I’m sure this is only part one to my commentary on these issues…
On Dressing Plain
March 3, 2005
A guest piece from Rob of “Consider the Lillies” (update: a blog now closed, here’s a 2006 snapshot courtesy of Archive.org). Rob describes himself: “I’m a twenty-something gay Mid-western expatriate living in Boston. I was inspired to begin a blog based on the writings of other urban Quaker bloggers as they reflect and discuss their inward faith and outward experiences. When I’m not reading or writing, I’m usually with my friends, traveling about, and/or generally making an arse of myself.”