[Note: This post includes strong language.] Few Quakers I’ve run into are as certain of the divinely-mandated quality of their vocation as Sharon Smith, aka “The Intruder.” Last July 4, after she was confirmed as Clerk of the SAYMA Uplifting Racial Justice Committee, capping a three-year struggle, she put this with stark certainty in a … Continue reading SAYMA: “Born for this”? Or Standing in the Way?
Dear SAYMA, Recently I received an invitation to propose a workshop for SAYMA 2020 this June. [NOTE: SAYMA is the Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting & Association; it has member meetings in North & South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, West Virginia & Kentucky.] I have many fond memories of lively workshops and rich Quaker fellowship … Continue reading A Sad Yearly Meeting Report: SAYMA Is Not Safe
[In midlife, Diane Faison and her family faced multiple traumas while living in Richmond, Virginia., including the murder of her mother-in-law and family conflict over her estate.] Diane writes, After all this, it was no surprise that my husband said he wanted to leave Richmond. I don’t want the children living in this atmosphere, he … Continue reading “Passing the Torch”, Author Speak #6: Diane Faison Mckinzie
Quakers are often very interesting people. And generations come and go. These are the modest theses behind the new book, Passing the Torch. In fifty-plus years among The Religious Society of Friends (our rather pompous official name), its members, attenders, hangers-on and even antagonists, I have kept bumping into and hearing about interesting people. And … Continue reading Why “Passing the Torch”? And Why Now?
Carter Nash is one of the authors of the new book by and about American Quaker elders, Passing The Torch: I’m a 65-year-old gay man of African descent. I was born in Huntington, West Virginia at a time when Jim Crow laws were still in effect. The hospital I was born in was segregated and … Continue reading “Passing the Torch” – “I did a year in prison for that . . .” “Passing The Torch” Authors Speak #2