... Torn Loyalties

I went to see the presentation of the Jesus for President tour. One of the deep messages of the presentation was to point to the problem that happens when you have loyalty to God and to your country. The speaker, Shane Claiborne, encouraged us to follow God... and to be loyal to our country only if Jesus/God/God's love/God's teachings would approve. By the same token, Quakerism, deeply rooted in divine love, should only get our energy because (and only to the extent that...) we have the opportunity to deepen God's love through it. And not because it is some special thing with any meaning independent of "that which is eternal" or God.

...Faithfulness

One Friend has said that she felt it was necessary to devote a certain loyalty to Quakerism, and not to direct her energy to too many places in a way that would prevent forming a really deep relationship with one community... and that the sort of long term commitment she was talking about was kind of like marriage. This seems to describe the feelings of many folks these days - we are yearning for the sort of deep relationship with a place and with a community, that is only possible with long-term faithfulness, as it were.

... Why I (heart) Quakers

I am so happy to share in community with Quakers (a group I grew up with) because I believe that, at our core, we are more than “peace and silence”, but a community that makes sincere effort to put divine love and kindness before anything else.

... About Quakerly Confusion

O Great Mystery, Let Us Be Your Hands and Your Voice

If you've heard me talk about Quakers, chances are good you've heard me talk about Quaker inaction. Occasionally we Quakers get caught up in procedure, nitpicking, and perfectionism; sometimes these things get in the way of moving ahead with really good work. With all of the wonderful ideas we're interested in, it can be hard to keep focused. I can just imagine Quakers standing in the way of work on age-diversity in our Quaker communities on account of the fact that the folks working on age diversity are not working on racial diversity at the same time. (The average age of members in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting is a little too close for comfort to the average life expectancy worldwide. On the other hand, the proportion of white people in meetings around here is fairly close to the proportion in 1600s England, when Quakerism began.)

I think it's important to realize that our ideas need not be astounding and awesome for us to try them out; we don't need to plan for every contingency before giving things a go.

Or, to paraphrase one Friend's joking comment on the state of Quakerism : we aren't sure if we can bring Palestinians and Israelis together to talk about peace unless the parties first agree to be environmentally friendly and welcoming to gays.

... About Young Adult Friends relationship to Quakerism

I wrote the following in response to this Quaker blog discussion on Young Adult Friends and "age segregation":

One YAF said of FGC Gathering that if her community is everyone at the gathering (instead of, say, a subset of the 18-35 group), her community ends up being nowhere - I guess you just can't connect to 1500 people all at once.

My suspicion is that the same sort of power dynamic that resulted in the really positive comments I have heard about some women's gatherings or women's business meetings (that is, women's ideas and voices wouldn't be overpowered by men's), is occurring now between young adults and older adults in Quakerism.

We as young adults in Quakerism are grossly outnumbered. Older adults don't know how to (and can't be expected to) create the kinds of events and spaces that will draw young adults into this community in equal proportions to older age groups. Our few voices are being drowned out, to some extent. This is despite the fact that, on the whole, our older adults want nothing more than to create a kind of Quakerism that will nurture us YAFs as part of the community.

Let's not let our desire to be a part of the wider Quaker world defeat our efforts to create space where young adults can have a strong Quaker experience in the ways that work best for our generation.

... About Quaker Dogma

I've tried to give a fair two-minute summary of Quakerism couple of times (when asked), and I've heard other folks do the same. One of the things that I think happens is that the Spirit gets lost in the details; the goodness (and I do believe there is goodness) gets lost in the procedure and the technicalities.

Quakerism does not exist to create procedures, dogmas, technicalities, whatever, independently of basic human values of love, kindness, and respect. If a Quaker-habit can't be explained in terms of these values, perhaps there is a good reason for it. Perhaps not.

... About Young Adult Quakers Here in Philadelphia

A lot of Quaker groups (and other communities) have found that it's a challenge to find a deep personal or spiritual experience in a large group. Since the Philadelphia Young Adult Friends group has so many people connected with it, it can be hard to figure out what's best for the community as a whole. Someone at FGC Gathering this past week said of that community of about 1500 people, that "my community is everywhere at the Gathering, so it winds up being nowhere" - it's easy to get lost in the crowd, even if the crowd is a lot smaller than 1500. One of the solutions that has worked for some people at FGC Gathering, and has been proposed for PYAF, is to have small groups, with maybe 4 to 8 people, that can meet to worship, provide social & emotional support, eat together, play together, read and discuss interesting quaker (or non quaker) writings, do worship-sharing, etc.

... About Capitalism

I have a new favorite book. It is "Creating a World Without Poverty", by Mohammed Yunus. Yunus describes his vision of a new kind of capitalism, "social business," working alongside traditional businesses (and the ways he and others have already put social business principles into practice.)

The "social business" model of nonprofit/non-loss business is a model whereby organizations take in enough money to cover operating expenses and are therefore self-perpetuating. One of the difficulties with "charity" organizations is that in hard economic times, the funding from charitable contributions tends to dry up (and this is just when it's needed most). At the same time, Social Businesses do not depend on donations and DO depend financially on the people they exist to serve. Because of their financial dependence on those they serve, these businesses are forced respond to the needs of those they serve; because they do not allow investors to take the profits they earn, these businesses have no incentive to sacrifice their social goals to create profit. A critical feature of "social businesses" is that they sell at least one type of good or service to their clients. In 2006 Mohammed Yunus and the Grameen Bank (a social business he founded) won the Nobel Peace Prize for working to combat poverty in Bangladesh. The Grameen Bank ("grameen" means "village" in Bengali) is one of a number of social businesses that Yunus helped create to combat the extreme poverty in rural Bangladesh - poor people in Bangladeshi villages were given the opportunity to start businesses, mostly serving other nearby poor people, on small loans from the Grameen Bank at very low interest (as opposed to loans by private moneylenders who tended to charge high interest and thereby keep poor women in a state of near-slavery). Since the Grameen Bank opened, there have been a number of other highly successful social businesses that have opened with such social goals as improving nutrition and improving access to electricity in the very poor areas of Bangladesh. While social businesses do not give profits to their investors, they do depend on investors to get started and then seek to quickly earn enough to repay their investors. So by investing in a social business, a person (or grant-making organization) can choose to reinvest in the social goal of the business or to take their funds back. In that sense, the social business has an interest in continuing to respond to the goals its investors have, but it can survive and even expand without funding from anyone except the poor people it serves.

... About Quaker Resurgence

There's somethin' going on in Quakerism. Some kind of "grounding and centering", maybe. Quakers are re-examining what Quakerism is today, what it's for, what it's not for. How we can bring vitality to Quakerism by reaching out to each other, by reaching out to the world. Spreading the power of kindness. The power of fun, even. That's right, Quakers are having fun - odd as it sounds.

As we put ourselves together into a deeper community, we strengthen our ability to do the work of the Spirit.

Almost since the beginning, Quakers have taken notice of cruelty wherever it lives and worked hard to spread kindness in its place. Whether the cruelty is war, racism, or whatever - we don't discriminate (too much). I believe this is what Quakerism is grounding and centering around - spreading kindness in the place of pain and cruelty.