Tag Archives ⇒ work

A Quaker view of work?

May 13, 2021
· Martin Kelley

Kathz at the newish blog Quak­er Lev­eller points out a telling omis­sion in our books of Faith and Prac­tice:

Bellers’ state­ment about the poor stands out because there is so lit­tle in Quak­er Faith and Prac­tice about the expe­ri­ence of being employed. By com­par­i­son, a great deal is includ­ed about Quak­er busi­ness­es and busi­ness ethics — from the point of view of those who own, run and invest in them. But many peo­ple and many Quak­ers today engage and strug­gle with the world of work as employ­ees. Even more live valu­able lives out­side paid employ­ment — and if we real­ly believe in “that of God” in every­one, this might also help us to see the val­ue in the work peo­ple do, whether it is paid or not. 

Kathz found lit­tle prac­ti­cal advice for wage work­ers. I’m remind­ed of the year I worked the night shift in the local super­mar­ket after get­ting the boot from a Quak­er out­reach posi­tion. What did any of our Quak­er dis­cus­sions have to say to my fel­low work­ers here at a throw­away job with crap­py boss­es and mis­er­able pay?

What Chairs can learn from the Quaker Business Method

April 10, 2019
· Martin Kelley

The author Shiv­a­ji Shi­va isn’t talk­ing about the fur­ni­ture we sit on but rather the leader of board meet­ings. The sec­tion on the role of a clerk is very use­ful, cov­er­ing sec­tions like “Humil­i­ty,” “Con­tri­bu­tions and ‘air-time’, and “Nav­i­gat­ing con­flict­ing views.” He concludes:

If some of these approach­es are less famil­iar to you, why not find out more about Quak­er busi­ness meth­ods and how a gov­er­nance tool kit used for more than 350 years could work for you? 

What Chairs can learn from the Quak­er Busi­ness Method

“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

When testimonies come drifting in

March 16, 2019
· Martin Kelley

Steven Davi­son asked what the tes­ti­mo­ny of com­mu­ni­ty even meant or whether it was spelt out any­where. No one could answer but no ine want­ed to omit it.

I sus­pect a process may be at work sim­i­lar to the one that has made “that of God in every­one” the puta­tive foun­da­tion of all our tes­ti­monies: an unself­con­scious thought-drift in a cul­ture increas­ing­ly impa­tient with intellectual/theological rig­or, or even atten­tion of any seri­ous kind, not to men­tion care for the tes­ti­mo­ny of integri­ty. These ideas arise some­how, some­where, and then get picked up and dis­sem­i­nat­ed because they sound nice, they meet some need, and they don’t demand much. They appar­ent­ly don’t require dis­cern­ment, anyway. 

The “Tes­ti­mo­ny of Community”

A more modern commission

March 7, 2019
· Martin Kelley

As an East Coast unpro­grammed Friend, Quak­er mis­sion work is still a bit exot­ic. We’re used to read­ing of well-meaning nine­teenth cen­tu­ry Friends whose atti­tudes shock us today. But here’s a sto­ry of some Mid­west mis­sion work with the Shawnee in the 1970s and 80s.

Their “mis­sion” work con­sists of farm­ing, teach­ing, music and wood­work­ing and lan­guage trans­lat­ing, lots of trans­port­ing chil­dren and teens. It also involves preach­ing each week, and par­tic­i­pa­tion in funer­als, wed­dings, and oth­er tra­di­tion­al pas­toral duties, all aimed at intro­duc­ing peo­ple to Jesus.

Their “mis­sion” work con­sists of farm­ing, teach­ing, music and wood­work­ing and lan­guage trans­lat­ing, lots of trans­port­ing chil­dren and teens. It also involves preach­ing each week, and par­tic­i­pa­tion in funer­als, wed­dings, and oth­er tra­di­tion­al pas­toral duties, all aimed at intro­duc­ing peo­ple to Jesus. 

http://​www​.lib​er​al​first​.com/​o​p​i​n​i​o​n​/​o​u​r​-​g​r​e​a​t​-​c​o​m​m​i​s​s​ion

Young Friends in UK write a Trans and Non-binary Statement

March 6, 2019
· Martin Kelley

This seems part­ly in response to con­tro­ver­sies around anti-trans fem­i­nists book­ing Quak­er meet­ing­hous­es for talks.

YFGM aims to be a wel­com­ing and acces­si­ble space for peo­ple of all gen­der iden­ti­ties where peo­ple feel includ­ed and oppres­sive behav­iour is not accept­ed. We recog­nise we have fur­ther work to do includ­ing some more imme­di­ate changes, and cre­at­ing space to nur­ture deep­er cul­tur­al changes with­in both YFGM and the wider Soci­ety of Friends. 

http://​yfgm​.quak​er​.org​.uk/​d​o​c​s​/​t​r​a​n​s​-​a​n​d​-​n​o​n​-​b​i​n​a​r​y​-​s​t​a​t​e​m​e​nt/

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?

‘My ministry is the jokes and kittens’ | The Friend

January 31, 2019
· Martin Kelley

The Friend edi­tor Joseph Jones inter­views best-selling Quak­er author Brid­get Collins. One of my favorite part is the bal­ance between dis­ci­pline and wait­ing inspiration:

On a day-to-day basis my biggest strug­gle – if I’m find­ing it hard to find the words – is over whether I need to wait for inspi­ra­tion to come, or whether I’m just being lazy and under­pre­pared. Whether I’m let­ting fear or pro­cras­ti­na­tion stop me. The Quak­er method has a lot to say to that. You know, you wait in silence and if it doesn’t come then it doesn’t come. But also you have to be dis­ci­plined, and pre­pared, for that to work 

https://​the​friend​.org/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​m​y​-​m​i​n​i​s​t​r​y​-​i​s​-​t​h​e​-​j​o​k​e​s​-​a​n​d​-​k​i​t​t​ens