QuakerQuaker

The loss of our community testimonies

Craig Barnett writes of the shift towards an individualist approach to our outward values: “Instead of a collective public witness that Quakers will not take part in lotteries or tell a lie, we now expect to interpret for ourselves the very general ‘shared values’ of Simplicity, Truth, Equality and Peace.”

Can you go a day without being sarcastic?

Roger Vincent Jasaitis explains why we might want to avoid sarcasm: “There is another part of modern speech that goes by without much notice. It is sarcasm, the use of language which on the face of a situation appear to be appropriate, but is meant to be understood as meaning the opposite of what is said, usually in a negative or destructive way. Sarcasm is ridicule.”

Quaker business meeting as a pizza

Zachary Dutton explains why we should sometimes hold the onions: “Sometimes, we decide that, although the objection is important, we will, “leave it off the pizza,” as it were.”

Moses Brown School goes viral with a snow closing video

Head of school Matt Glendinning stars in a Frozen parody that’s almost reached 350,000 views. “We could make you come to school, but that would just be mean.”

Q&A: I Don't Want To Be Jewish Anymore

An interesting advice column on a Quaker who converted to Judaism and is considering reverting: “I was raised Quaker and now that I my children are grown and my house is quiet I have found myself longing to return to worship with them. I feel guilty about this, but also excited.”

Steven Davison: Are we ready for the Quaker-pocalyse?

"I believe that God is deconstructing our current structures and challenging us to listen up in new ways. Our job is to open ourselves to the new world God is trying to inspire."

AFSC, race, and Quaker exceptionalism in early 20th century

From an interview on a history blog:

Friends deserve tremendous praise for taking unpopular stands and working for interracial equality throughout their history, but that does not make them flawless heroes or even all that different from their contemporaries.

There Is Only Love or Fear

From Amy Outlaw:

There is only love or fear. One can be in-love, or in-fear. The “powers that be”, the systems of domination that keep recreating themselves for at least the last 5000 years maintain their power over us to the extent that they cause us, humans, to exist in-fear instead of in-love.