Next Chapters for Quakerism

Just a few months away from my 61^st birthday, I’m aware of stiffness in my joints and how white is overtaking blonde in my hair.  I’ve noticed, too, how gray the heads are in my Quaker meeting, and I can’t help but worry about the future of this spiritual community.  

The latest issue of Friends Journal gives me hope, though, that there is new energy to write the next chapters for Quakerism.

In Coming Alive-Discerning the Next Chapter of Quaker Service, Christina Repoley writes of her journey to find a way “to live my Quaker faith.”  Despite her fire “to make a difference in the world” following graduation from Guilford College in 2002, she struggled—as many young, inexperienced people I know do—to find fulfilling work. She knew that earlier generations of Friends had found such support through workcamps organized by the American Friends Service Committee, but those no longer exist. While Christina discovered people in a  Catholic Worker Movement house in Philadelphia who shared her belief in the relationship between peace and justice work and faith, she still yearned for Quaker-based places to act on her desire to serve.  She noticed, too, that she wasn’t alone:  “I wondered why so many young people in my young adult age group were drifting away from the Quaker faith.”

Christina’s questions led her to conversations with Mennonite friends whose desire for faith-based, meaningful work had been met through Mennonite Voluntary Service (MVS) and Mennonite Central Committee (MCC).  Both programs offer young adults opportunities to live in community and to serve others and reminded Christina of the AFSC workcamps of the past and the Quaker Youth Pilgrimage she’d participated in as a teenager.

After ten years of listening—inwardly and to those who shared her vision—Christina found openings and help to establish a Quaker Voluntary Service (QVS) house in Atlanta.

In August 2012, QVS welcomed seven young adults for a year of living in intentional community and working with local peace and social justice organizations. A year later, QVS opened two more houses—one in Philadelphia and another in Portland, OR—and accepted twenty-one new Volunteers into the three-city QVS network.

Christina isn’t alone in her yearning to put faith into action, though, and those desires aren’t limited to young people. Gray-haired Lynn Newsom writes in Friends Journal as well about her own search in My Path to Quaker House. Thirty years after first volunteering at Quaker House, a Fayetteville, NC center that provides counseling and support to service members who are questioning the military, Lynn found herself back on the organization’s board as it searched for a new director.After contacting all the people she thought would be “perfect for the job,” she had a revelation about herself and her husband, Steve:

Suddenly it hit me. Steve and I could and should take on the position. I ran to the kitchen and announced to Steve, as he sat peacefully with his tea, that we would be perfect for the job. “What job?” he replied.

Lynn describes the many opportunities and openings she’s experienced since retiring (for a second time) as an art teacher and sharing the post at Quaker House with her husband. “There is no doubt in my mind that I was led and continue to be led on this path,” she writes.

The searches Christina and Lynn write about are examples of persisting to seek clarity about a leading and about remaining open to the ways Spirit works in our lives. Their stories suggest there are many   chapters in Quakerism yet to be written.

What are other ways Quakers can support young people who are drifting away from Quakerism?

How do you put your faith into action?

When have you felt led to action?

Convinced to Tweet

Day One of my writing program’s (Whidbey Writers Workshop) Spring residency found me in the session How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Social Media, led by poet and Whidbey alum Kelly Davio. I smiled when I read the title of the handout Kelly passed around—“My Plan for Launching an Online Presence in 2014.” ­ No problem, I thought, I already have an online presence.

First there was the website and then the Facebook fan page for my book, Hands at Work. Soon, another Facebook page for me.  That seemed like plenty of “social media” for this semi-introverted-living-on-a-remote-island Quaker writer—until April 2010, when I attended a meeting of QUIP - Quakers Uniting in Publications. There, Friends of all ages spoke of the Quaker history of writing as ministry and how it is evolving as publishing and communication change. With the guidance and encouragement of QUIP participants, I returned home convinced to blog; a few weeks later, as my writing group cheered me on, I created this blog site.

Maybe I hadn’t quite learned to love social media by the time I was sitting in Kelly’s workshop, but I wasn’t worrying about it—until I read the first item on the handout:  My Twitter Plan. I started to hyperventilate.

“Don’t you need a smartphone to tweet?” I asked Kelly. I’m off the hook on this one, I thought; my antique flip phone can barely make calls and handle texts.

“That’s how Twitter worked when it first started,” Kelly said. “But now you can tweet from your computer, too.”

“Oh… good,” I said, sweat starting to prickle my hairline.

Kelly became my interpreter and guide, introducing me to this new culture, a part of today’s communication stream I’d avoided. She walked me through the steps to begin:

·        Go to https://twitter.com/ and register a user name (mine is @irisgraville)

·        Add photo (or else Twitter will use the default image of an egg)

·        Write a brief bio – as with all things Twitter, you have 140 characters.

The mechanics seemed easy enough, now that I understood I could do all of this on my laptop. Then Kelly introduced beginning Twitter-speak:

·        Following – people whose tweets you want to read when you check your Twitter feed (a string of their photos and 140-character tweets show up when I log in)

·        Followers – people who want to see your tweets when they check their Twitter feed

·        @ is used to “tag” someone that you mention in a tweet

·        # - hashtags before words (such as #Quakerblogger) allow you to become part of larger conversations by linking you to all posts on this subject

·        Retweet – lets you “recycle” someone else’s tweet so your “followers” see it.

I know there’s much more vocabulary and nuance to this new language. Just as I do with my elementary Spanish skills, I’ll undoubtedly fumble and make mistakes, but Kelly taught me enough to get started.  And she offered some advice about hanging around this “water cooler of the Internet.”

·        Act like a person, not like a sales robot.

·        Think about the things you’re willing to talk about and share with others—Twitter is very public.

·        Demonstrate a sense of humor.

·        Share things that are worth reading.

·        Interact with other people, such as asking someone a question.

·        Promote other writers (or whoever your community is) in a real and honest way.

So far, I’m enjoying my exploration of this form of communication. I’ve been surprised by who else is involved.  For example, I’m following a number of Quakers and Quaker organizations such as:

@pendlehill

@westernfriend

@friendsjournal

@DianeFCNL

@jonwatts.

Many of my writing friends, plus well-known authors (@AnneLamott, @AmyTan) tweet regularly, too. 

One of my questions when I started to blog resurfaced with thoughts of entering the world of Twitter:

Do I want to spend more of my already-full life in front of the computer screen engaging in this virtual, but distant, way with others?

I’m still not clear about that, and I have concerns about these “connections,” about the quality of interactions, and the quantity of input.  But for now, I’m feeling convinced that Twitter is a helpful tool to expand my writing and Quaker networks.

           

How about you?  Have you been convinced to Tweet? Why – or why not?

Afterthought #23 - Quakers on YouTube

A year after organizing what likely was the largest Clearness Committee in the history of Quakerism to discern a direction for his work, Quaker singer/songwriter Jon Watts has announced where the fruits of his labor led. In collaboration with Friends Journal, Friends General Conference (FGC), and Quaker Voluntary Service (QVS), Jon will create a Quaker-themed YouTube Channel. This brief teaser has me looking forward to Jon’s new ministry.  I expect the adjectives used to describe it are apt: Succinct. Exciting. Informative.

You can join the project’s Quaker Speak mailing list to be notified when the first videos air.  Stay tuned!

Voices of Peace and Social Justice

My remote, island community doesn’t have the best cellular service, so I have yet to acquire a smart phone; the pay-as-you-go flip phone I bought years ago for travel serves just fine for phone contact on the road.  But it doesn’t do all the things its more high-tech cousins do, so when I bought my new laptop a few years ago and those nice folks at Apple threw in an iPod Touch just for the price of sales tax (about $25.00), the offer was too good to resist.  

It didn’t take me long to begin to enjoy many of the features this device offers. It now serves as my calendar, address book, and note pad.  And I never imagined how much I’d enjoy downloading and listening to podcasts; I now have quite a library stored there including food programs, author interviews, news analysis, short stories read out loud, and comedy. 

One of my favorite podcasts is offered through Northern Spirit Radio (NSR). Since 2005, Mark Judkins Helpmeet, along with the support of Eau Claire Friends Meeting, has prepared Northern Spirit Radio’s programs to “promote world healing by broadcasting inspirational voices of peace and social justice using the language of personal story, music, and spirituality.” Though Mark is a Quaker, he talks with people from a wide range of faith perspectives on his two shows, Spirit in Action and Song of the Soul. The program’s website gives a flavor for the topics Mark and his guests tackle. Over the years I’ve had some great companions on walks as I’ve listened on my iPod to people responding deeply and intimately to Mark’s questions about the ways the Spirit is at work in their lives. 

As is true for many people who are led to spiritual work, Mark has a day job to help support his broadcasts.  A recent fundraising letter from NSR nudged me to take out my checkbook to help with those efforts.  It’s a small price to pay for some regular doses of inspiration. 

Where do you find voices of peace and social justice?

New Kids on the Literary Block

Over the past two weeks, I’ve transferred a little magazine from my backpack to nightstand to kitchen table to desktop.  Its corners are curling, and its white cover is smudged, sure signs of well-appreciated reading material. Each time I pick it up, I’m glad I’ve subscribed to this new literary magazine,  The First Day. 

Published by Jana and Mike Llewellyn of First Day Press, The First Day is a quarterly print magazine that features in-depth articles, essays, and creative writing related to the arts, culture, and faith. Although The First Day is guided by Quaker principles and values, it strives to offer stories of hope, inspiration, journey, and discovery for people of all spiritual traditions and beliefs.

The inaugural issue does just that. Its pages are full of thought-provoking essays such as Chuck Fager’s personal look at racism in “Playing the Lottery,” and Kody Gabriel Hersh’s essay, “Queer Lessons for Spiritual Life.” There’s also fiction by Elizabeth Spencer and Quaker minister J. Brent Bill, and a dozen poems.

One of the issue’s highlights for me was interviews with writers Tracy Chevalier and Amy Brill.  Both authors have written novels with Quaker women as the main characters (Chevalier’s is The Last Runaway and Brill’s is titled The Movement of Stars), and the interviewers explore with the writers the books’ spiritual themes. Another delight was reviews of two television shows, Orange Is the New Black and Breaking Bad.  Even though I haven’t watched either program, I’ve heard plenty of buzz about both and appreciated the reviewers’ examination of the moral questions the shows raise.

In her introduction to this premier issue of The First Day, Jana writes of the uncertainty she and Mike felt of whether they would receive “well-written and poignant submissions.”  It’s clear from Volume 1, Issue 1, that there are plenty of writers out there who, as Jana found, “…show the deeper truths beneath stories of personal journey.”

While this slim volume supplies reading to occupy me for many hours, I don’t have to wait for Issue 2 for more offerings like these.  I’ve also subscribed to the press’s The First Day Blog for regular online posts about a wide range of personal spiritual experiences.

Jana and Mike Llewellyn bring considerable experience in writing, editing, and publishing to this endeavor, and it shows.  As a result of the couple’s faithfulness to a call to merge faith, culture, and creativity, people of all faith traditions, as well as those seeking a spiritual home, will find a welcome refuge at The First Day.

Afterthought #22 - More Good Spending (or Not) Ideas

Recently I wrote about US government spending on war (Just a Minute).  Today I’m thinking about the buying and spending mania that starts to pick up just after Halloween.

I bypassed “Black Friday” store sales the day after—and in some cases the afternoon of—Thanksgiving, designed to help businesses put their earnings in the black. And I won’t be shopping online on “Cyber Monday,” either.  I know I’m not the only person who’s fed up with these tactics to entice us to spend.  Twenty years ago, Adbusters Magazine organized Buy Nothing Day, encouraging people to refrain from purchasing for one day – a full 24 hours – on the last Friday in November, which is generally the busiest shopping day of the year in North America.  This year, I’ve learned about two other activities to counter this shopping frenzy:

Cider Monday - Shelf Awareness reported that on the Monday after Thanksgiving, often called Cyber Monday because so many people shop online from work that day, The Toadstool Bookshops in New Hampshire are inviting people to Cider Monday. They’re offering free cups of cider and “promise no crashing websites, and our 'servers' won't be overloaded.”  Other bookstores in the Northeast are doing the same; maybe there’s one near you.

Giving Tuesday - #GivingTuesday™ http://community.givingtuesday.org/Page/FAQ

is a campaign initiated in 2012 to create a national day of giving at the start of the annual holiday season.  In my community, the Lopez Community Land Trust is a partner in this initiative that celebrates and encourages charitable activities that support non-profit organizations.  Maybe there are #GivingTuesday™ activities where you live, too.

Am I a Scrooge?  Do any of you participate in alternatives to the spending season?

Just a Minute

Numbers ending with more than two or three zeroes baffle me. When I hear statistics, I often forget whether the figures cited were in the thousands or hundreds of thousands; dollars, whether hundreds or millions.  Can’t even imagine billions and trillions.

So, a recent mailing from the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) challenged my comprehension.  The AFSC letter opens with this astounding number:

“The United States budgeted $653,110,000,000 of your tax dollars on the military this year.”

That’s way more zeroes than I can grasp.  To help number dyslexics like me, the AFSC’s letter breaks down the calculations to the expenditure per minute:

“$1.2 million spent every single minute for war and so-called defense.”

Now that the realities of the amount come a little closer to numbers I can fathom, the digits of my blood pressure start to climb.  I agree with the assessment of the AFSC—“That’s too much money.”

Based on President Obama’s 2013 federal discretionary budget request

The source the AFSC cites for this federal spending breakdown is the National Priorities Project, a 30-year old organization that “opens the federal budget door for people to understand how and where their tax dollars are spent, and how and when they can influence budget decisions.” With this information, the AFSC has launched a new campaign, One Minute for Peace. The organization knows that while peace isn’t easy, or free, investing in peace costs far less than making war. The AFSC has been doing just that in times of war and times of peace for nearly 100 years, and they have some good ideas about how to sow the seeds of peace in the U.S and throughout the world.  Their letter asks me to help them raise the equivalent of just one minute’s worth of the federal military budget (that $1.2 million) to programs that help people in need.

Here are some of the ways the AFSC would use that one minute’s worth of military spending:

·        $285,000 for trauma healing and livelihood-restoring assistance to women in Burundi through counseling, micro-loans, and training.

·        $200,000 to help Somali refugees in Kenya through post-traumatic stress counseling, peace and reconciliation workshops, and simple necessities like fuel-efficient stoves.

·        $207,000 to support peace initiatives for youth in Indonesia to counteract rising intolerance.

I rounded up some of the numbers to make it easier to deal with all the zeroes, and they add up to just under $692,000—about 33 seconds worth of the annual U.S. military budget.  AFSC asks us to imagine how much more they could do if they had a full minute’s worth.

Someday, I hope organizations like the AFSC won’t have to spend their time and resources organizing fundraising campaigns like One Minute for Peace.  But until that day comes, I’ll write checks, most with just a couple of zeroes, to groups like the AFSC. It’s money well spent.