Remembering Juanita Nelson

March 10, 2015

juanita04One of the coolest activists of her (or any) gen­er­a­tion is gone. Juani­ta Nel­son’s obit­u­ary is up on the nation­al war tax coali­tion’s site. My favorite Juani­ta sto­ry was when some agents came to arrest her at home and found her dressed only in a bathrobe. They told her it was okay to go into her bed­room to change but she refused. She told them that any shame was theirs. She forced them to car­ry her out as her clothes fell off. Talk about rad­i­cal non-cooperation!

Update

Pam McAl­lis­ter point­ed out on her Glob­al Non­vi­o­lence: Sto­ries of Cre­ative Action Face­book page that this sto­ry is online. Here’s a bit more of Juani­ta her­self telling that bit:

Sev­en law enforce­ment offi­cers had stalked in. I sat on the stool beneath the tele­phone, my back lit­er­al­ly to the wall, the sev­en hem­ming me about in a semi­cir­cle. All of them appeared over six feet tall, and all of them were annoyed.

“Look,” said one, “you’re gonna go any­way. You might as well come peaceful.”

There they stood, ready and able to take me at any moment. But no move was made. The rea­son was obvious.

“Why don’t you put your clothes on, Mrs. Nel­son?” This was a soft spo­ken plea from the more benign deputy. “You’re not hurt­ing any­body but your­self.” His pained expres­sion belied the assertion. 

The essay where that came from is much longer and well worth read­ing.

A Quaker model for emergence?

June 28, 2007

Robin M over at What Canst Thou Say? has been hang­ing out with emer­gent church folks recent­ly and reports back in a few posts. It’s def­i­nite­ly worth read­ing, as is some of what’s been com­ing out of the last week’s youth gath­er­ing at Bar­nesville (includ­ing Mic­ah Bales report) and the annu­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Friends gath­er­ing near Lan­cast­er Pa., which I’ve heard bits and pieces about on var­i­ous Face­book pages.

It sound like some­thing’s in the air. I wish I could sit in live in some of these con­ver­sa­tions but just got more dis­ap­point­ing news on the job front so I’ll con­tin­ue to be more-or-less home­bound for the fore­see­able future. Out to pas­ture, that’s me! (I’m say­ing that with a smile on my face, try­ing not to be tooooo whiny!)

Robin’s post has got me think­ing again about emer­gent church issues. My own dab­bling in emer­gent blogs and meet-ups only goes so far before I turn back. I real­ly appre­ci­ate its analy­sis and cri­tique of con­tem­po­rary Chris­tian­i­ty and Amer­i­can cul­ture but I rarely find it artic­u­lat­ing a com­pelling way forward.

I don’t want to mere­ly shoe­horn some appro­pri­at­ed Catholic rit­u­als into wor­ship. And pic­tures of emer­gent events often feel like adults doing vaca­tion bible school. I won­der if it’s the “gestalt” issue again (via Lloyd Lee Wil­son et al), the prob­lem of try­ing to get from here to there in an ad hoc man­ner that gets us to an mish­mash of not quite here and not quite there. I want to find a reli­gious com­mu­ni­ty where faith and prac­tice have some deep con­nec­tion. My wife Julie went off to tra­di­tion­al Catholi­cism, which cer­tain­ly has the uni­ty of form and faith going for it, while I’m most drawn to Con­ser­v­a­tive Friends. It’s not a tra­di­tion’s age which is the defin­ing fac­tor (Zoroas­tri­an­ism any­one?) so much as its inter­nal log­ic. Con­se­quent­ly I’m not inter­est­ed in a Quak­erism (or Chris­tian­i­ty) that’s mere­ly nos­tal­gic or legal­is­tic about sev­en­teenth cen­tu­ry forms but one that’s a liv­ing, breath­ing com­mu­ni­ty liv­ing both in its time and in the eter­ni­ty of God.

I’ve won­dered if Friends have some­thing to give the emer­gent church: a tra­di­tion that’s been emer­gent for three hun­dred years and that’s main­tained more or less reg­u­lar cor­re­spon­dence with that 2000 year old emer­gent church. We Friends have made our own mess­es and fall­en down as many times as we’ve soared but there’s a Quak­er vision we have (or almost have) that could point a way for­ward for emer­gent Chris­tians of all stripes. There’s cer­tain­ly a min­istry there, per­haps Robin’s and per­haps not mine, but someone’s.

Else­where:

  • Indi­ana Friend Brent Bill start­ed a fas­ci­nat­ing new blog last week after a rather con­tentious meet­ing on the future of Friends lead­er­ship. Friends in Fel­low­ship is try­ing to map out a vision and mod­el for a pas­toral Friends fel­low­ship that embod­ies Emer­gent Church leader Bri­an McLaren’s idea of a “gen­er­ous ortho­doxy.” Inter­est­ing stuff that echos a lot of the “Con­ver­gent Friends” con­ver­sa­tion (herehere, and here) and mir­rors some of the dynam­ics that have been going on with­in lib­er­al Friends. The Quak­erQuak­er con­ver­sa­tion has thus far been most intense among evan­gel­i­cal and lib­er­al Friends, with mid­dle Amer­i­can “FUM” Friends most­ly sit­ting it out so it’s great to see some con­nec­tions being made there. Read “Friends in Fel­low­ship” back­wards, old­est post to newest and don’t miss the com­ments as Brent is mod­el­ing a real­ly good back and forth process with by answer­ing com­ments with thought­ful posts.
  • Famous­ly unapolo­get­i­cal­ly lib­er­al Friend Chuck Fager has some inter­est­ing cor­re­spon­dence over on A Friend­ly Let­ter about some of the ele­phants in the Friends Unit­ed Meet­ing clos­et. Inter­est­ing and con­tentious both, as one might expect from Chuck. Well worth a read, there’s plen­ty there you won’t find any­where else.
  • Final­ly, have I gushed about how fab­u­lous the new’ish Con​ser​v​a​tive​Friend​.org web­site is? Oh yes, I have, but that’s okay. Vis­it it again anyway.

Net Sightings

May 2, 2005

The Pub­lic Quak­er writ­ing about prayer
bq. Prayer is one con­stant thing for me, a reli­able base. When am I hav­ing epis­te­mo­log­i­cal doubt about every­thing, I do know that is good for me to pray.
A month ago LizOpp post­ed a inter­est “FAQ on her wor­ship group”:http://thegoodraisedup.blogspot.com/2005/03/faqs-about-my-worship-group.html which is well worth read­ing. Last week she fol­lowed it up with a very chew-worthy post on “The­o­log­i­cal uni­ty and spir­i­tu­al diversity”:http://thegoodraisedup.blogspot.com/2005/04/theological-unity-and-spiritual.html (which adds new ground to the ter­ri­to­ry we’ve been explor­ing here on Quak­er Ranter on “Non-Theism”:http://www.nonviolence.org/martink/archives/000567.php and “Lov­ing God”:http://www.nonviolence.org/martink/archives/000577.php).
“Quakerspeak”:http://www.livejournal.com/users/Quakerspeak/ is the new blog by a high-school Friend I met last week in Ore­gon. Whew, is she on fire!:
bq. I nev­er real­ly thought much about how I was sort of bot­tling up all my the­o­log­i­cal and spir­i­tu­al con­tem­pla­tions; sud­den­ly I feel like I’m pour­ing it all out on the table and exam­in­ing it all.. well, except that I’ve been exam­in­ing it all. I’m try­ing to bet­ter apply my spritu­al­i­ty to my dai­ly life and inter­ac­tions with­out los­ing sight of myself; I’m try­ing to fig­ure out where it all fits into my own life with­out try­ing to alter my per­son­al­i­ty or ways of being.
Beppe’s just start­ed a new series with a post, “The Trou­bles with Friends Part 1”:http://beppeblog.blogspot.com/2005/05/trouble-with-friends-1-too-much-of.html. This first install­ment focus­es on our fear of judge­men­tal­ism. Speak on, bro!