Since March 2014, QuakerSpeak
has been posting videos each Thursday “…to give viewers worldwide an experience
of contemporary Quakerism that is entertaining, informative, inspiring,
challenging, inviting, unifying and collaborative.” So far, this project of
Quaker Voluntary Service, Friends
Journal, and Friends General Conference has produced short (three-to-six
minutes) videos on a range of topics including silence, nonviolence,
homosexuality, and women in ministry. This week’s installment will make you smile; QuakerSpeak took a break from its usual format of
interviewing Friends for a lighthearted look at how Quakers have
been portrayed in film.
Sounds like there’s still work to for people to understand
Quakerism. QuakerSpeak will help
with that.
“Afterthoughts” are my blog
version of a practice followed in some Quaker meetings. After meeting for
worship ends, people continue in silence for a few more minutes during which they’re invited to
share thoughts or reflect on the morning's worship. I’ve adopted the form here for last-day-of-the-month brief reflections
on headlines, quotes, comments overheard, maybe even bumper stickers.
Modern day Quakers have a lot to talk about it, and now
they’re doing just that on YouTube.
The
last day of 2013 I posted an
afterthought that included a link to a video teaser about QuakerSpeak. The
trailer announced that QuakerSpeak “seeks to give viewers worldwide an
experience that is entertaining, informative, inspiring, challenging, inviting,
unifying and collaborative,” so it’s no surprise that it’s made possible
through a collaboration of Friends Journal, Quaker Voluntary Service and
Friends General Conference, and is directed by Quaker songwriter Jon Watts.
I’ve been looking forward to seeing what this team would put
together, and I’m impressed with the first three of the weekly interviews.
Appropriately, the first video is titled “How Quakerism Began.”In fewer than five minutes, Guildford College
professor Max Carter summarizes the beginnings of Quakerism in 1640. Max’s
mini-history lesson reminds us that Quakerism emerged out of the chaos in
England that was trying to address disparities in English society.
Any concerns I had that George Fox, one of the
founders of Quakerism, wouldn’t approve of QuakerSpeak if he were here today
were squelched by Max’s portrait of this man. At age19, Fox left the Church of
England seeking a direct spiritual experience. After his own mystical encounter
with the Divine, Fox shared his message of relying on the inner teacher instead
of outward leaders. In Fox’s day, spiritual
and religious messages were spread by word of mouth, one by one, two by two, or
occasionally when a charismatic speaker gathered a curious crowd. Perhaps
YouTube is the 21st Century equivalent.
After that first offering of QuakerSpeak, I was delighted
with the second video of Traci Hjelt Sullivan’s “The Faithfulness Lecture.” Traci
shares from her own experience of being faithful, especially to a leading to
speak in worship.
If you access the videos through the QuakerSpeak website, you’ll find a transcript
of the video, additional resources about the topic, queries, and a place to add
your own comments. With Traci’s “The Faithfulness Lecture,” the site offered
links to information about Quaker weddings as well as how to find the nearest
Friends meeting. And the questions following Traci’s video have stimulated my
own thoughts about being faithful to a leading:
1.What are some of the most
daunting leadings that you’ve gotten? What was your reaction to receiving a
nudge that would take some courage?
2.What are some excuses that you
come up with when you are feeling resistant to the leadings of the Spirit?
3.What are some tools that you
have developed or could develop as a reminder to “live up to the Light that
thou hast?”
Last week, former Earlham College teacher Trayce
Peterson talked about how to support young people find their voices and speak
truth in her segment, “Student Activism as Prophetic Ministry.” Her message is particularly relevant on the
heels of Max Carter’s discussion about the young George Fox finding his voice
and speaking truth in the 1600s.
I hope you’ll become a regular viewer. QuakerSpeak makes it
easy; you can “subscribe” for free and receive e-mail notices when each video
is available. I can’t wait to see which Quaker speaks next.
Just a few months away from my 61st 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?
