What Convergence means to Ohio Conservative

Robin M’s recent post on a Con­ver­gent Friends def­i­n­i­tion has gar­nered a num­ber of fas­ci­nat­ing com­menters. The lat­est comes from Scott Sav­age, a well-known Con­ser­v­a­tive Friend (author of A Plain Life, pub­lish­er of the defunct Plain Mag­a­zine and light­en­ing rod for a recent cul­ture war skir­mish over homo­sex­u­al­i­ty at Ohio State Uni­ver­si­ty). Sav­age’s com­ment on Robin’s blog fol­lows what we could call the “Cranky Con­ser­v­a­tive” tem­plate: gra­tu­itous swipes at Con­ser­v­a­tives in Iowa and North Car­oli­na, whole­sale dis­missal of oth­er Friends, mul­ti­ple affir­ma­tions of Christ, digs at the issue of homo­sex­u­al­i­ty, a recita­tion of past fail­ures of cross-branch com­mu­ni­ca­tion, then a shrug that seems to ask why he should stoop to our lev­el for dialogue.

Snore.

What makes my sleepy response espe­cial­ly strange is that except for the homo­sex­u­al­i­ty issue (yay for FLGBTQC!), I’m pret­ty close to Scot­t’s posi­tions. I wor­ry about the lib­er­al­iza­tion of Con­ser­v­a­tive Friends, I get cranky about Chris­t­ian Friends who deny Christ in pub­lic, and I think a lot of Friends are miss­ing the boat on some core essen­tials. When I open my copy of Ohio’s 1968 dis­ci­pline and read its state­ment of faith (oops, sor­ry, “Intro­duc­tion”), I nod my head. As far as I’m aware I’m in uni­ty with all of Ohio Con­ser­v­a­tive’s prin­ci­ples of faith and prac­tice and if I signed up for their dis­tance mem­ber­ship I cer­tain­ly would­n’t be the most lib­er­al mem­ber of the year­ly meeting.

I’m actu­al­ly not sure about Scot­t’s year­ly meet­ing mem­ber­ship; I’m sim­ply answer­ing his ques­tion of why he and the oth­er Con­ser­v­a­tives who hold a strong con­cern for “the hedge” (a sep­a­ra­tion of Con­ser­v­a­tive Friends from oth­er branch­es) might want to think about Con­ver­gence. Of all the remain­ing Con­ser­v­a­tive bod­ies, the hedge is arguably strongest in Ohio Year­ly Meet­ing and while parts of this apply to Con­ser­v­a­tives else­where — Iowa, North Car­oli­na and indi­vid­u­als embed­ded in non-Conservative year­ly meet­ings — the snares and oppor­tu­ni­ties are dif­fer­ent for them than they are for Ohioans.

Why Ohio Con­ser­v­a­tive should engage with Convergence:

  • If you have all the answers and don’t mind keep­ing them hid­den under the near­est bushel then Con­ver­gence means nothing.
  • But if you’re inter­est­ed in fol­low­ing Jesus and being a fish­er of men and women by shar­ing the good news… Well, then it’s use­ful to learn that there’s a grow­ing move­ment of Friends from out­side Con­ser­v­a­tive cir­cles (how­ev­er defined) who are sens­ing there’s some­thing miss­ing and look­ing to tra­di­tion­al Quak­erism for answers.

Ohio Con­ser­v­a­tives have answers and this Con­ver­gence move­ment is pro­vid­ing a fresh oppor­tu­ni­ty to share them with the apos­tate Friends and with Chris­tians in oth­er denom­i­na­tions seek­ing out a more authen­tic rela­tion­ship with Christ. Engag­ing with Con­ver­gence does­n’t mean Ohio Friends have to change any­thing of their faith or prac­tice and it need­n’t be about “dia­logue”: sim­ply shar­ing the truth as you under­stand it is ministry.

Yes, there are snares involved in any true gospel min­istry; strik­ing the right bal­ance is always dif­fi­cult. As the car­pen­ter said, “nar­row is the way which lead­eth unto life”. We are beset on all sides by road­blocks that threat­en to lead us away from Christ’s lead­er­ship. Ohio Friends will need to be on guard that min­is­ters don’t suc­cumb to the temp­ta­tion to water down their the­ol­o­gy for any fleet­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty. This is a real dan­ger and it fre­quent­ly occurs but while I could tell eight years of great insid­er sto­ries from the halls of Philadel­phia, is that what we’re here to do?

Let me put my cards on the table: I don’t see much of Ohio effec­tive­ly min­is­ter­ing now. There’s too much of a kind of pride that bor­ders on obnox­ious­ness, that loves end­less­ly recit­ing why Iowa and North Car­oli­na aren’t Con­ser­v­a­tive and why no oth­er Friends are Friends, blah blah blah. It can get tire­some and legal­is­tic. I could point to plen­ty of online forums where it cross­es the line into detrac­tion. Char­i­ty and love are Chris­t­ian qual­i­ties too. Humil­i­ty and a sense of humor are com­pat­i­ble with tra­di­tion­al Quak­erism. How do we find a way to con­tin­ue safe­guard­ing Ohio’s pearls while shar­ing them wide­ly with the world. There are Ohio Friends doing this and while I dif­fer with Scott Sav­age on some social issues I con­sid­er tan­gen­tial (and he prob­a­bly does­n’t), I very much appre­ci­ate his hard work advanc­ing the under­stand­ing of Quak­erism and agree on more than I disagree.

But how do we find a way to be both Con­ser­v­a­tive and Evan­gel­i­cal? To mar­ry Truth with Love? To not only under­stand the truth but to know how, when and where to share it? I think Con­ver­gence can help Ohio think about deliv­ery of Truth and it can help bring seek­ers into the doors. When I rhetor­i­cal­ly asked last month what Con­ver­gent Friends might be con­verg­ing toward, the first answer that popped in my head was Ohio Friends with a sense of humor. I’m not sure it’s the most accu­rate def­i­n­i­tion but it reveals my own sym­pa­thies and I find it tempt­ing to think about what that would look like (hint: krak­en might be involved).

A reminder to every­one that I’ll be at Ohio Year­ly Meet­ing Con­ser­v­a­tive ses­sions in a few weeks to talk more about the oppor­tu­ni­ties for Ohio engage­ment with Con­ver­gence. Come round if you’re in the area.
Also check out Robin’s own response to Scott, up there on her own blog. It’s a mov­ing per­son­al tes­ti­mo­ny to the pow­er and joy of cross-Quaker fel­low­ship and the spir­i­tu­al growth that can result.

1,118 thoughts on “What Convergence means to Ohio Conservative

  1. Hi, Mar­tin… and Robin, in case you make your way over here.
    Two quick things:
    1. I too find res­o­nance in some of what Scott lifts up – many Friends (Chris­t­ian or not) just want to “get on with it” and be faith­ful ser­vants to the Inward Teacher and the Light. And: in the end, “No con­ver­gence nec­es­sary.” …Of course, many of us blog­gers and blog-readers will rec­og­nize that no one ever said con­ver­gence was “nec­es­sary.” Some of us have said that the word sim­ply describes a phe­nom­e­non, a move­ment of the Spir­it, that has already been happening…
    2. I believe, Mar­tin, you’ve hit on a love­ly key ele­ment of Con­ver­gent Friends: Friends “who are sens­ing there’s some­thing miss­ing and [are] look­ing to tra­di­tion­al Quak­erism for answers.”
    As Robin is find­ing, there’s always more to it than first meets the eye, but the beau­ty of this sim­ple state­ment is that it applies to Quak­ers regard­less of the branch from which they hail.
    Well, back to my own busy­ness and respon­si­bil­i­ties of the day.
    Blessings,
    Liz Opp, The Good Raised Up

  2. Hi, Mar­tin!
    I appre­ci­ate your post to Scott.
    As a mem­ber of Ohio Year­ly Meet­ing (Con­ser­v­a­tive), I feel drawn to make a few comments.
    Scott Sav­age is not, to my knowl­edge (I’ve checked the YM Min­utes) a mem­ber of OYM. He is cer­tain­ly well known among us, and reg­u­lar­ly attends var­i­ous events that include Ohio YM mem­bers. He lives in Ohio, I believe, and is con­ser­v­a­tive, no doubt, in a num­ber of ways.
    Based on my con­ver­sa­tions with OYM Friends, and my read­ing of Scot­t’s blog post, I don’t think he is speak­ing for the major­i­ty of OYM.
    One of the things that many Friends are look­ing for­ward to at this year’s YM is the explo­ration of the con­ver­gent conversation.
    The third para­graph (“Ohio Con­ser­v­a­tives have answers” ) of your response to Ohio Con­ser­v­a­tives is a quite good sum­ma­ry of just what many of my con­ver­sa­tions with oth­er mem­bers of OYM have covered.
    Open­ing our eyes and hearts has become an inten­tion­al spir­i­tu­al dis­ci­pline for a num­ber of us, as we seek to serve Christ.
    It is a shame that the min­istry being done by and among Ohio YM Friends is not vis­i­ble, at least in com­par­i­son to the appar­ent­ly error-filled online writ­ings of which you write.
    I am espe­cial­ly sen­si­tive to this right now, per­haps, because at a very recent meet­ing of min­is­ters, elders, and over­seers, we heard many sto­ries of out­reach, open hearts, patient lov­ing guid­ance, and joy­ful inter­ac­tions between OYM Friends and … all man­ner of peo­ple. It seems that for sev­er­al of us, at least, lov­ing and serv­ing the Lord is what holds the high­est val­ue for our lives, rather than a par­tic­u­lar YM affiliation.
    Is it that the Friends who are tru­ly min­is­ter­ing are not pub­lish­ing enough? That may be.
    Shalom,
    Raye

  3. Friend Mar­tin,
    I too wor­ry that NCYM-Conservative is in some ways going the way of FGC in an attempt to become all things to all people.
    How­ev­er, any­one who attends our Year­ly Meet­ing ses­sions knows that we are still decid­ed­ly Chris­t­ian ori­ent­ed. Part of being faith­ful to our call­ing as Chris­tians is that we DO accept gay and les­bian peo­ple as equals. To do oth­er­wise is a sin.
    The beau­ty of NCYM-Conservative is that many of us believe that Christ WILL teach His peo­ple Him­self. If we are faith­ful to our call­ing to live in the Light of God and speak Truth to pow­er (that Truth being Christ Jesus), those who are not yet fol­low­ers of the Lamb will be con­vinced of the Gospel message.
    I sup­pose where I am on the issue is try­ing to focus on spead­ing the good news of Jesus and the abun­dant life that He offers rather than focus­ing on keep­ing my Year­ly Meet­ing “Chris­t­ian”.
    To (mis)use a Bud­dhist say­ing: “NCYM-Conservative is the fin­ger point­ing at the Moon, not the Moon Itself.” I for­get that some­times. My hope is that NCYM-Conservative will remain in the Cen­ter of tra­di­tion­al Chris­t­ian Quak­er spir­i­tu­al­i­ty. How­ev­er, if that does not hap­pen, then I pray that I would remain faith­ful to fol­low­ing what I know to be True.
    Just as I believe that God will bring those whom He calls to the cross, I believe that God will open the eyes of those caught in the bondage of big­otry to repen­tance. May we ALL lis­ten to the Voice of God with open hearts and minds and not shrink from that work which our Sav­ior calls.
    Love and peace,
    Craig

  4. I could be mis-remembering, but I believe that not only is Scott not a mem­ber of Ohio YM, but his issues with Ohio are strong enough that he actu­al­ly left it.
    There are Friends in Ohio YM who have been tru­ly seek­ing how to be faith­ful wit­ness­es in the larg­er world, both of Friends and of the wider soci­ety. I think you will find that a num­ber will real­ly want to hear what is hap­pen­ing with those who iden­ti­fy as Con­ver­gent Friends, and won’t assume that it is some­thing dilut­ing or harmful.
    Mar­tin, I cau­tion you not to go the OYM ses­sions with neg­a­tive assump­tions and a chip on your shoul­der. Go with an open heart, assum­ing that Christ will be speak­ing to you through Friends you meet there and that He is will­ing to speak through you if you are tru­ly open.

  5. *Hi Raye, Hi Bill*: Thanks for the ques­tions about Scot­t’s mem­ber­ship. I made the sil­ly assump­tion that some­one in Ohio talk­ing as a Con­ser­v­a­tive Friend would be a mem­ber of OYMC but I should know by not this need­n’t be the case. I amend­ed the post a bit to be more accurate.
    I should also stress that I’m not talk­ing about all Ohio Friends or even any par­tic­u­lar Friend so much as an atti­tude of dis­cour­age­ment that I’ve seen and which has kept the Con­ser­v­a­tive mes­sage of Ohio from reach­ing as far as it might.
    *Raye*, I’ve been quite encour­aged by some recent out­reach Ohio Friends have been engaged in. I got to one of the two pub­lic meet­ings they held at Marl­boro Meet­ing in Chester Coun­ty PA (a Christo-centric meet­ing of Philadel­phia YM with some indi­vid­ual Ohio cross-membership). I was also glad to see that this year’s Con­ser­v­a­tive Gath­er­ing was more wide­ly pub­li­cized that pre­vi­ous ones.
    Your ques­tion about pub­lish­ing is inter­est­ing. Obvi­ous­ly I’m a pub­lish­er. And I’m some­one with a par­tic­u­lar­ly keen inter­est in out­reach. I tend look at Quak­er bod­ies more by how they do and don’t present them­selves to the world and less by the warmth of their indi­vid­ual gath­er­ings (I nev­er quite thought of that). There’s a tremen­dous num­ber of peo­ple with­in a day’s dri­ve of Bar­nesville who I think would be open to OYM’s mes­sage; how do we reach them?
    *And Bill*: I would­n’t be return­ing for a sec­ond year at OYMC ses­sions if I had­n’t seen all the faith­ful Friends there. OYM’s got its own spe­cial quirks (it is Quak­er after all) but I love it.
    *Craig*: I love North Car­oli­na too, don’t wor­ry. But there are chal­lenges mix­ing with lib­er­als espe­cial­ly as the het­ero­gene­ity gets wide­spread enough that “we believe” state­ments need to be care­ful­ly craft­ed com­pro­mis­es. The Con­ser­v­a­tive voice in Philadel­phia did­n’t sur­vived year­ly meet­ing reuni­fi­ca­tion six­ty years ago. The his­to­ry of Con­ser­v­a­tive Friends is a his­to­ry of loss and dilu­tion and I feel it’s impor­tant not to take concerns

  6. Well, Mar­tin, I am cranky — about some things. Con­ser­v­a­tive “in a num­ber of ways” as Raye cod­ed to you.
    I did enjoy your com­ment about Ohio Year­ly Meet­ing and a sense of humor! Though not an OYM mem­ber, actu­al­ly, still I proud­ly and exces­sive­ly wear the Wilberite dour.
    Here’s the Scott-You-Stupid-Oaf quote on my wall today:
    “I refuse to take direc­tion on God and hap­pi­ness, from peo­ple who have nei­ther.” –G.K. Chesterson

  7. My wife just replied “ooooh, he’s quot­ing a Catholic!” (Chester­ton). In Quak­er short­hand she’s kind of Wilbu­rite Catholic (left Friends after eleven years strug­gling with the lib­er­als, now part of a tra­di­tion­al­ist Roman Rite 1962-Hymnal-all-the-way-baby kind of church). She actu­al­ly read your first com­ment on Robin’s blog, thought to her­self “yes I think he’s right” then not­ed in embar­rass­ment that I had post­ed some­thing in response: whoops!
    Any­way… I have a cer­tain fond­ness for cranks and most peo­ple prob­a­bly think I’m much of one myself. I’ve said before that I think call­ing our­selves “Con­ver­gent Friends” makes us sound more orga­nized, cohe­sive and cen­tral to the move­ment than we are. There’s no ID card, much less a for­mal definition.
    As I see it, “Con­ver­gence” is short­hand for a gen­er­a­tional and cul­tur­al shift that’s hap­pen­ing. The pen­du­lum’s swing­ing back and Friends out­side Ohio are more inter­est­ed in Quak­er roots, Chris­tian­i­ty and Con­ser­v­a­tive Friends than they have been for awhile (it would be easy to over­state the case, of course, and many Quak­er insti­tu­tions con­tin­ue to get more and more lib­er­al). Out­side Quak­erism, a grow­ing num­ber of under-50 Evan­gel­i­cals are turn­ing away from the megachurch­es and tel­e­van­ge­lists, start­ing house church­es, look­ing for authen­tic­i­ty of wor­ship and talk­ing about prim­i­tive Chris­tian­i­ty revived and sure­ly we have some­thing to say to them too. Where it’s all going is any­one’s guess.
    It was neat to read Chris M’s com­ment on his wife’s blog about the rip­ple effects of your vis­it to San Fran­cis­co a decade ago. And anoth­er Friend emailed me pri­vate­ly this after­noon to tell me how North Car­oli­na year­ly meet­ing has become more deeply Chris­to­cen­tric in the few years he’s been with it. In Christ all things are pos­si­ble! The sit­u­a­tion might call for the faintest Mona Lisa smile on that dour exterior.
    Are you going to be in Bar­nesville next week? And what kind of reli­gious body might you belong to now? And what’s up with the com­put­er, we’d all love to hear that story!
    In Friend­ship, Martin

  8. Ya know, I don’t know why I feel such a lead­ing to point this out, but in all this con­ver­sa­tion on Robin’s blog and here, I have not seen a word about grace. Grace is THE rea­son I am a Chris­t­ian instead of a Bud­dhist, pagan, etc.
    It’s not that the com­ments back and forth are harsh…far from it. But there is some­thing just not right about how we deal with one anoth­er even on a seem­ing­ly civ­il level.
    We are all grow­ing in Jesus only by God’s grace. I am not what I shall be…as Luther said, “Life is not being but becoming.”
    God grant us patience to allow each oth­er to hear the Voice of God and fol­low. Grant us the grace to be as gra­cious to one anoth­er as God has been to us.
    Love ane peace,
    Craig

  9. *Craig:* Uh-oh. First Chester­ton, now Luther! “Grace” means dif­fer­ent things to dif­fer­ent peo­ple and can be a pret­ty loaded word in Chris­t­ian cir­cles. Despite or per­haps because of my Luther­an Nana Klein­top, I’m not a big fan of Luther’s abso­lutist under­stand­ing (what I under­stand of it anyway).
    I think we can con­scious­ly align our lives and lifestyles in ways that will make us more recep­tive to the voice of the Inward Christ. My email sig­na­ture used to be a quote from Rev­e­la­tion that I picked up from Bar­clay (“chap­ter 16”:http://​www​.qhpress​.org/​t​e​x​t​s​/​b​a​r​c​l​a​y​/​c​a​t​e​c​h​i​s​m​/​c​h​a​p​t​e​r​1​6​.​h​tml of the _Catechism_):
    bq. God dwelleth with the Con­trite and Hum­ble in Spir­it [Isa. 57:15] For he said, he will dwell in them, and walk in them [2 Cor. 6:16] And Christ standeth at the Door, and knock­eth; if any man hear his Voice, and open the Door, he will come unto him, and sup with him, and he with him [Rev. 3:20].
    I moved by the idea that Christ is always there, always gen­tly knock­ing and that our role is sim­ply to open the door. Grace is always avail­able and con­stant­ly offered. Not quite as dour as Luther, though again I’ve not real­ly stud­ied him.
    It’s always good to remem­ber what we get we get from God’s love. Get­ting back to the thread of this post, this trans­late into an aware­ness that we should­n’t expect any kind of imme­di­ate result when under­tak­ing min­istry. And that we should fol­low authen­tic lead­ings even when they seem pret­ty point­less – that we nev­er know when God will breathe new life into indi­vid­u­als or a peo­ple. Our role is to be faith­ful, not effec­tive. But faith­ful­ness requires act­ing on lead­ings and on active­ly shar­ing the Good News of God’s love and grace as we are led.

  10. Yes Mar­tin, you’ve hit on ele­ment of Con­ver­gent Friends: Friends “who are sens­ing there’s some­thing miss­ing and [are] look­ing to tra­di­tion­al Quak­erism for answers.”
    I made a deci­sion cou­ple years ago to stay in the Reli­gious Soci­ety of Friends.
    Big part of that deci­sion was find­ing peace with being a Quak­er of Col­or in a very
    White faith com­mu­ni­ty and now being a Chris­t­ian par­tic­u­lar­ly in the FGC
    unpro­grammed tradition.
    The days of Thomas Kel­ly and Rufus Jones-liberal Chris­tian­i­ty are over!
    FGC/ Inde­pen­dent unpro­grammed Quak­erism has evolved into a
    non creedal reli­gious plu­ral­ist faith community.
    That’s not good or bad it just is.….….….…..
    Like many Friends, I have strug­gle with how to live in and among
    the diver­si­ty among Friends.
    But I am remained of the sto­ry in Mark 9:38 – 41, John said to him, “Teacher, we saw some­one dri­ving out demons in your name, and we tried to pre­vent him because he does not fol­low us.” Jesus replied, “Do not pre­vent him. There is no one who per­forms a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. For who­ev­er is not against us is for us. Any­one who gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, amen, I say to you, will sure­ly not lose his reward.
    I know of many unpro­grammed Friends who do not walk with Christ.
    But Christ walks with them in, dri­ving out the demons racism, sex­ism, homo­pho­bia , war, prison reform, work­ing for the rights of children.
    Many of these friends have giv­en me a cup of water to drink (a lis­ten­ing ear) when I was going through a dry peri­od among Friends.
    All this in the name of Love which for me is the incar­na­tion of Christ.
    What is tra­di­tion­al Quakerism ?
    For me tra­di­tion­al Quak­erism is sim­ply the work of Christ in all and through all.
    The One who is Truth and Love sits with me at the table, with White Friends work­ing on racism in and out­side of the Reli­gious Soci­ety of Friends.
    The Eter­nal Life and Pow­er prays with me in wait­ing wor­ship with the non-theist Friends, Yes, the Sun/Son of Right­eous­ness and Prince of Peace marchs with me for peace and jus­tice with AFSC Friends.
    I would gain noth­ing by trot­ting off to anoth­er denom­i­na­tion where I could doubt­less find a place, but it would not be my place with my peo­ple. I choose to stand with­in both the com­mu­ni­ty of Chris­t­ian rev­e­la­tion and the com­mu­ni­ty of Quak­er seekers.
    I choose to stand where I know Christ con­tin­ues to stand.

  11. Paul-
    Thanks so much for this. As a Friend who “does­n’t walk with Christ” ‑I appre­ci­ate your abil­i­ty to see that he walks with me.
    In the past I might have found that insult­ing (as if I’m a chris­t­ian but don’t know it, have had the wool pulled over my eyes.)
    but I *am* a chris­t­ian in the sense that I am (most­ly) try­ing to fol­low a path much like the one Jesus point­ed to. It’s not about say­ing, “Lord, Lord” after all, but about how we are in the world, is it not?

  12. Now that I can appar­ent­ly get through … Hi Bill!
    Martin,
    I don’t know if I’m “con­ver­gent,” (prob­a­bly not) but I have been involved with the emerg­ing church for sev­er­al years and with Quak­erism for a decade. I also am aware of the house church move­ment, but my expe­ri­ence of it is that is is very tan­gen­tial­ly relat­ed to Quakerism.
    I real­ly, real­ly hope and pray that Chris­t­ian revival is com­ing to lib­er­al Friends, but per­son­al­ly I have not seen that phe­nom­e­nom. Where do you see it most? Do you see it more as com­mit­ment to Christ or as more peo­ple being Christ curi­ous, to use Robin’s phrase?
    Scott Savage,
    I have enjoyed your books.

  13. Pam, you wrote: but I am a chris­t­ian in the sense that I am (most­ly) try­ing to fol­low a path much like the one Jesus point­ed to. It’s not about say­ing, “Lord, Lord” after all, but about how we are in the world, is it not?
    The verse about “Lord, Lord” does­n’t real­ly say it isn’t about say­ing “Lord, Lord”, but that say­ing “Lord, Lord” isn’t enough. But I am not point­ing this out in order to impose some set of things that you must believe or say. I feel I need to just state this with Chris­t­ian lan­guage, please bear with me, it says that you can’t just SAY “Jesus is Lord”, but you have to MAKE Jesus your Lord — which would result in you doing the will of his Father.
    What­ev­er you call that inward guide — “the Light of Christ”, “the inner light”, “that of God”, etc., the most impor­tant thing is to fol­low it. The part about “how we are in the world” flows from that, and the things we do or don’t do can be an indi­ca­tion of how well we are lis­ten­ing, but they aren’t a replace­ment for the guide. So, it just feels to me like there is some miss­ing phrase in what you said that links the “it’s not about Lord, Lord” to “how we are in the world”.
    I’m not even real­ly try­ing to crit­i­cize your state­ment, as much as to say that I think lib­er­al Quak­erism has grad­u­al­ly dropped what­ev­er that miss­ing phrase is, and that the first step is to recov­er it.
    With love,
    Mark

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