Tag Archives ⇒ service

“We tried that back in 1937”

March 22, 2019
· Martin Kelley

Johan Mau­r­er tells the sto­ry of a Friends meet­ing that was able to turn engrained pat­terns and opaque deci­sion­mak­ing around:

I don’t want to exag­ger­ate the ease of the tran­si­tion. I remem­ber an elder­ly Friend who opposed a pro­pos­al to hold busi­ness meet­ings at anoth­er time than the Sun­day school hour. She argued — and I think this is near­ly ver­ba­tim — “We tried that back in 1937 and it did­n’t work.” As much as I want­ed to laugh out loud, I had to acknowl­edge that her entire his­to­ry at the meet­ing exem­pli­fied self­less service. 

https://​blog​.canyoube​lieve​.me/​2​0​1​9​/​0​3​/​t​r​u​s​t​w​o​r​t​h​y​-​p​a​r​t​-​f​o​u​r​-​c​h​u​r​c​h​e​s​-​c​h​o​i​c​e​s​.​h​tml

Keeping cradle Quakers

February 8, 2019
· Martin Kelley

Rhi­an­non Grant asks: what’s the oppo­site of a Rumspringa?

So my ques­tions for Quak­ers are: How do you ensure that adults are trust­ed to be adults even if they are under 30? How do you make sure that peo­ple are giv­en oppor­tu­ni­ties to take respon­si­bil­i­ty with­out feel­ing that they must per­form espe­cial­ly well because they are rep­re­sent­ing a whole demographic? 

Here in the U.S., the trick to get­ting on nation­al com­mit­tees while young (at least when I was try­ing it in my 20s) was hav­ing a well-known mom. As some­one who kept knock­ing and kept get­ting turned away it blew me away when I heard Quaker-famous off­spring com­plain how they were always being asked to serve on com­mit­tees. But then I real­ized it was the same tok­eniz­ing phe­nom­e­non, just in reverse.

So our work isn’t just look­ing around a room and tick­ing off demo­graph­ic box­es, but real­ly dig­ging deep­er and see­ing if we’re rep­re­sen­ta­tive of multi-dimensional diver­si­ties. And if we’re not, the prob­lem isn’t just that we aren’t diverse (diver­si­ty is a fine val­ue in and of itself but ulti­mate­ly just a crude tool) but that we have unex­am­ined cul­tur­al prac­tices and selec­tion sys­tems that are sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly turn­ing away peo­ple from com­mu­ni­ty par­tic­i­pa­tion and service.

Keep­ing cra­dle Quak­ers by mak­ing room to lean in?

What is our vocation?

January 25, 2019
· Martin Kelley

From Johan Mau­r­er, a return to a ques­tion he first pon­dered twelve years ago: do Quak­ers have a voca­tion among the larg­er body of Chris­tians? There’s lots of good obser­va­tions about our spir­i­tu­al gifts, like this one:

A com­mu­ni­ty empow­ered by spir­i­tu­al gifts is not cul­tur­al­ly nar­row. This asser­tion is backed by vast hopes and very lit­tle expe­ri­ence. Many Friends meet­ings and church­es yearn for cul­tur­al and racial diver­si­ty, but seem to be stuck argu­ing about the­o­ret­i­cal ideals rather than choos­ing to exam­ine hur­dles: loca­tion, unin­tend­ed or unex­am­ined “we-they” mes­sages (no mat­ter how benev­o­lent or pro­gres­sive the inten­tion), and a ten­den­cy to see non-members as objects of ser­vice rather than co-equal par­tic­i­pants already part of “us” in God’s sto­ry. But most of all, I believe that spir­i­tu­al pow­er unites while cere­bral analy­sis divides. 

https://​blog​.canyoube​lieve​.me/​2​0​1​9​/​0​1​/​w​h​a​t​-​i​s​-​o​u​r​-​v​o​c​a​t​i​o​n​.​h​tml

Steven Davison: What does God want?

August 20, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Why are we silent? How do we know what God (how­ev­er defined) wants?

Wor­ship, at least in the tra­di­tion­al under­stand­ing, is all about ser­vice — giv­ing God what God wants/requires. You can tell what a com­mu­ni­ty thinks God wants by look­ing at their wor­ship service.

Wor­ship

Money and the things we really value

July 3, 2018
· Martin Kelley

I think I’ve already shared that Friends Jour­nal is doing an issue on “Meet­ings and Mon­ey” in the fall. While I’ve heard from some poten­tial authors that they’re writ­ing some­thing, we haven’t actu­al­ly got­ten any­thing in-hand yet. We’re extend­ing the dead­line to Fri­day, 7/20. This is a good oppor­tu­ni­ty to write for FJ.

How we spend mon­ey is often a telling indi­ca­tor of what val­ues we real­ly val­ue. Mon­ey is not just a mat­ter of finan­cial state­ments and invest­ment strate­gies. It’s chil­dren pro­gram. It’s local soup kitchens. It’s the town peace fair. It’s the acces­si­ble bath­room or hear­ing aid sys­tem. And how we dis­cuss and dis­cern and fight over mon­ey is often a test of our com­mit­ment to Quak­er values.

Here’s some of the spe­cif­ic issues we’ve brain­stormed for the issue.

Where does our mon­ey come from? A lot of Quak­er wealth is locked up in endow­ments start­ed by “dead Quak­er mon­ey” — wealth bequeathed by Quak­ers of cen­turies past.

Much of our Amer­i­can Quak­er for­tunes trace back to a large land grant giv­en in pay­ment for war debt. For the first cen­tu­ry or so, this wealth was aug­ment­ed by slave labor. Lat­er Quak­er enter­pris­es were aug­ment­ed by cap­i­tal from these ini­tial wealth sources.

In times past, there were well-known Quak­er fam­i­ly busi­ness­es and wealthy Quak­er indus­tri­al­ists. But Amer­i­can cap­i­tal­ism has changed: fam­i­lies rarely own medium- or large-scale busi­ness­es; they own stocks in firms run by a pro­fes­sion­al man­agers. If the abil­i­ty to run busi­ness­es based on Quak­er val­ues is over, is share­hold­er activism our clos­est analogue?

Many Friends now work in ser­vice fields. Fam­i­ly life has also changed, and the (large­ly female) free labor of one-income house­holds is no longer avail­able to sup­port Quak­er endeav­ors as read­i­ly. How have all of these changes affect­ed the finances of our denom­i­na­tion and the abil­i­ty to live out our val­ues in the workplace?

How do we sup­port our mem­bers? A per­son­al anec­dote: some years ago I unex­pect­ed­ly lost my job. It was touch and go for awhile whether we’d be able to keep up with mort­gage pay­ments; los­ing our house was a real pos­si­bil­i­ty. Mem­bers of a near­by non-Quaker church heard that there was a fam­i­ly in need and a few days lat­er a stranger showed up on our back porch with a dozen bags of gro­ceries and new win­ter coats for each of us. When my Friends meet­ing heard, I was told there was a com­mit­tee that I could apply to that would con­sid­er whether it might help.

Where does the mon­ey go? A activist Friend of mine use to point to the nice fur­nish­ings in our meet­ing­house and chuck­le about how many good things we could fund in the com­mu­ni­ty if we sold some of it off. Has your meet­ing liq­ui­dat­ed any of its prop­er­ty for com­mu­ni­ty service?

When we do find our­selves with extra funds from a bequest or wind­fall, where do we spend it? How do we bal­ance our needs (such as meet­ing­house ren­o­va­tions, schol­ar­ships for Quak­er stu­dents), and when and how do we give it to oth­ers in our community?

What can we let go of? There are a lot of meet­ing­hous­es in more rur­al areas that are most­ly emp­ty these days, even on First Day. Could we ever decide we don’t need all of these spaces? Could we con­sol­i­date? Or could we go fur­ther and sell our prop­er­ties and start meet­ing at a rent­ed space like a fire­hall or library once a week?

Who gets the meet­ing­house after a break-up? In the last few years we’ve seen three major year­ly meet­ings split apart, prompt­ing a whole mess of finan­cial dis­en­tan­gle­ment. What hap­pens to the prop­er­ties and sum­mer camps and endow­ments when this hap­pens? How fierce­ly are we will­ing to fight fel­low Friends over money?

What con­ver­sa­tions aren’t we hav­ing? Where do we invest our cor­po­rate sav­ings? Who decides how we spend mon­ey in our meetings?

Please feel free to share this with any Friend who might have inter­est­ing obser­va­tions about Friends’ atti­tudes toward finances!


Writing Opp: Meetings and Money (due 7/9)

Writ­ing Opp: Meet­ings and Mon­ey (due 7/9)

How do we spend mon­ey on our­selves? What is the role of mon­ey in our meet­ings? How do…

Friends Journal Friends Journal 

Hometown Heroes

May 22, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Josh Tal­bot is back look­ing at pub­lic recog­ni­tions that imply that patri­o­tism is exclu­sive to mil­i­tary ser­vice:

With­in the last month I became aware of the “Home­town Heroes” pro­gram. Hang­ing from lamp­posts in our down­town, and oth­er down­town dis­tricts in the region, are ban­ners with the pic­tures and names of for­mer mil­i­tary per­son­nel. I was look­ing at one of the ban­ners hang­ing out­side of my bank and I start­ed think­ing to myself. “Why is it always soldiers?

Off the top of my head I can think of plen­ty of oth­er mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty that are heros from my stand­point. Activists for jus­tice and con­science. Civic-minded gad­flies. Shopown­ers who pro­vide so-called “third places” for for peo­ple to con­grege­gate. Traf­fic engi­neers who push back against corner-cutting in safe­ty issues. The most impor­tant heros are often every­day peo­ple who sim­ply do the right thing when chance puts a dan­ger­ous moral dilem­ma right in their path.

I push back against a sim­ple military-are-heros nar­ra­tives because in times of author­i­tar­i­an­ism the mil­i­tary often become the enforcers. There’s the jin­go­is­tic non­sense you hear that the mil­i­tary is pro­tect­ing our free­dom to protest. No: in most cas­es our lib­er­ty has been pre­served by peo­ple stand­ing up and prac­tic­ing their lib­er­ty despi­tee intim­i­da­tion by author­i­tar­i­an bul­lies and their police forces. I have friends in the mil­i­tary and I respect their choic­es and hon­or their com­mit­ments. I know heros can be found through­out the enlist­ed ranks and in our police forces but so are scoundrels. We need to rec­og­nize home­town hero­ism wher­ev­er it hap­pens and resist the mind­set that it’s exclu­sive to state forces.

https://​quak​er​re​turns​.blogspot​.com/​2​0​1​8​/​0​5​/​h​o​m​e​t​o​w​n​-​h​e​r​o​e​s​.​h​tml

What might Love do?

April 13, 2018
· Martin Kelley

Kath­leen Wooten looks at the heart­break­ing immi­gra­tion sto­ries tak­ing place all around us and asks the clas­sic Quak­er ques­tion, what might Love do?

I’m not quite sure how we got here, in this “Chris­t­ian” nation of ours. Christ says to wel­come the stranger. These folks are not even strangers to many of us – they are woven into the fab­ric of our shared com­mu­ni­ties, their fam­i­lies, their work and ser­vice in the world, and their blessings.

Essential Mac Apps 2017

November 1, 2017
· Martin Kelley

Oh dear: a few weeks ago Wess Daniels start­ed a Twit­ter dis­cus­sion about the new Mac app Card­hop. In the thread he asked me about oth­er apps which apps I find essen­tial. I thought I’d type up some­thing in ten min­utes but then the draft post kept grow­ing. I’m sure I still missed some. I guess I didn’t real­ize how par­tic­u­lar I am about my com­put­ing environment. 🙂

Bartender

Okay, maybe it’s a bit OCD but I hate clut­tered Mac menubars run­ning along the top of my screen. This app was just rebuilt for High Sier­ra and is an essen­tial tool. I have most every­thing hid­den and have set up a key­board short­cut (the little-used right “option” key) to tog­gle the full menubar icon set.

Fantastical

This is my favorite cal­en­dar app. It sits in the menubar, ready to give a beau­ti­ful agen­da view with just a sin­gle tap. It can open up to a full view. Man­age cal­en­dars is easy and the nat­ur­al lan­guage pro­cess­ing is suburb.

Cardhop

Just released, this is Fantastical’s newest cousin, an app for man­ag­ing con­tacts from Flex­ibits. It works with what­ev­er you have set up for con­tacts on your Mac (I use Google but iCloud is fine too). Giv­en Flexibit’s track record, and Cardhop’s resem­blance to the dis­con­tin­ued Cobook, this is like­ly to be a win­ner for me.

Favioconographer

I’ve been a Chrome user since the week it debuted but late­ly I’ve been try­ing to switch to Safari, want­i­ng its supe­ri­or bat­tery man­age­ment and sync­ing of book­marks and tabs with iOS. Many of Safari’s annoy­ances have lessoned as Apple itin­er­at­ed with each release. There are enough exten­sions now that I can get by. I am, though, one of those weird peo­ple whom John Gru­ber iden­ti­fied: wannabee Safari users who real­ly like Fav­i­cons in tabs. For­tu­nate­ly, Fav­i­cono­g­ra­ph­er has come along. There are occa­sion­al odd­i­ties (float­ing icons, icons that don’t match site) but over­all it improves the Safari expe­ri­ence enough to make it a win over Chrome.

1Blocker for Mac

Uses the built-in con­tent fil­ter­ing sys­tem built into Mac Safari. Good sync­ing with the iOS app. “Con­tent fil­ter­ing” (aka block­ing) has become an impor­tant secu­ri­ty con­cern and let’s face it: the web runs so much bet­ter with­out all the crap that some sites throw in along with their con­tent. You can whitelist sites that respect read­ers. Hon­or­able men­tion in Chrome or as an alter­na­tive for Safari is uBlock Ori­gin, a great block­er (and dis­tinct from stan­dard uBlock, which I don’t recommend).

Karabiner-Elements

Lets you remap the gen­er­al­ly use­less Caps Lock key. I have it mapped Brett-Terpstra style so that a sin­gle click opens Spot­light search and a hold and click acts as a hyper key (imag­ine a shift key that you can use for any keystroke).

BetterTouchTool

Remap keys and key com­bi­na­tions. With Kara­bin­er, I can use it to have Capslock‑C open a par­tic­u­lar app, for instance.

Tunnelbear

I used to think VPNs were a lux­u­ry but with peo­ple hack­ing in on pub­lic Wi-Fi accounts and the loss of pri­va­cy, I’ve signed up for this easy-to-use VPN ser­vice. One account can pow­er mul­ti­ple devices so my lap­top and phone are secured.

Evernote

It’s been around for years. I cur­rent­ly have 13,000 notes stored in Ever­note, includ­ing every issue of the mag­a­zine I work for going back to the mid-1950s. There was a time a few years ago when I was wor­ried for Ever­note, as it kept chas­ing quirky side projects as its main app got bug­gi­er and bug­gi­er. But they’ve had a shake-up, ditched the dis­trac­tions and have built the ser­vice back up. Most of my projects are orga­nized with Evernote.

Ulysses

There are a gazil­lion writ­ing apps out there that com­bine Mark­down writ­ing syn­tax with min­i­mal­ist inter­faces (Bear, IaWriter, Byword) but Ulysses has edged its way to being my favorite, with quick sync­ing and abil­i­ty to post direct­ly to WordPress.

Todoist

There are also a gazil­lion task man­agers. Todoist does a good job of keep­ing projects that need due dates in order.

1Password

You should be using a pass­word man­ag­er. Repeat: you should be using a pass­word man­ag­er. 1Password is rock sol­id. They’ve recent­ly changed their eco­nom­ic mod­el and strong­ly favor sub­scrip­tion accounts. While I’ve tried to lim­it just how many auto-pulling sub­scrip­tions I have, I under­stand the ratio­nale and have switched.

Airmail

A great email app for Mac and iOS that can dis­play and sort your Gmail accounts (and oth­ers too). Almost too many options if you’re the kind to fid­dle with that sort of thing but easy to get start­ed and great with just the defaults.

 

Google and Apple and clouds

The Big‑G should get a shoutout: it pow­ers the data­bas­es for my email, cal­en­dar, con­tacts, and pho­tos. All my hard­ware has migrat­ed over to Apple, helped in large part by the open­ing up of its ecosys­tem to third-party apps.

What’s also use­ful to note is that all of the data-storing ser­vices are cloud based. If my phone or lap­top dis­ap­peared, I could bor­row a new one and be up to speed almost imme­di­ate­ly. Since many of these apps run on data­bas­es run by Google, I can also switch apps or even have mul­ti­ple apps access­ing the same infor­ma­tion for dif­fer­ent pur­pos­es. There’s a real free­dom to the app ecosys­tem these days.