Category Archives: Divergent Friends

A Quaker “Walks Cheerfully,” Up To His A** In Alligators: A Final “Dog Days” Journey

September 3, 2018 Chuck Fager Leave a comment

Travels-book-open A Quaker

(NOTE: Friend William Bartram, traveling by canoe alone, somewhere in Florida, circa 1773. Considering the dangers he faced here, I ponder on the fact that this was still what he most wanted to do, what he felt was his leading. (A relatively long read, 4400 words. I have divided some of his long sentences & longer paragraphs, for modern readers. The spelling is original.)

BARTRAM: THE evening was temperately cool and calm. The crocodiles began to roar and appear in uncommon numbers along the shores and in the river. I fixed my camp in an open plain, near the utmost projection of the promontory, under the shelter of a large Live Oak, which stood on the highest part of the ground and but a few yards from my boat. Continue reading A Quaker “Walks Cheerfully,” Up To His A** In Alligators: A Final “Dog Days” Journey →

"Dog Days" Diversions, Divergent Friends, Quaker Theology, Remarkable Friends

Dog Days Meditations: William Bartram on Human & Animal Hunting

August 25, 2018 Chuck Fager 1 Comment

Human & Animal Hunting
From Bartram’s Travels, by William Bartram, 1791:

I AM sensible that the general opinion of philosophers, has distinguished the moral system of the brute creature from that of mankind, by an epithet which implies a mere mechanical impulse, which leads and impels them to necessary action without any premeditated design or contrivance, this we term instinct which faculty we suppose to be inferior to reason in man.

[YET] THE parental, and filial affections seem to be as ardent, their sensibility and attachment, as active and faithful, as those observed to be in human nature. Continue reading Dog Days Meditations: William Bartram on Human & Animal Hunting →

"Dog Days" Diversions, Black & White & Other Colors, Divergent Friends, Quaker History, Remarkable Friends

1791: When America Had a Real King – William Bartram Met Him

August 19, 2018 Chuck Fager Leave a comment

Bartram & The Seminole King From Bartram’s Travels, published 1791 Alachua Indians

AFTER crossing over this point or branch of the marshes, we entered a noble forest, the land level, and the soil fertile, being a loose, dark brown, coarse sandy loam, on a clay or marley foundation; the forests were Orange groves, overtoped by grand Magnolias, Palms, Live Oaks . . . with various kinds of shrubs and herbacious plants . . . .

alachua-savanna-better-Bartram — Alachua Savana — in Florida, the land of the “Siminoles” (Seminoles), sketched by Bartram

We were chearfully received in this hospitable shade, by various tribes of birds,

Continue reading 1791: When America Had a Real King – William Bartram Met Him →

Arts: Photography, Divergent Friends, Quaker History, Quaker Theology

What Do You See In What You see? Ask Friend William Bartram

August 12, 2018 Chuck Fager Leave a comment

Trying To See Like William Bartram

[It’s not easy to keep up with my fellow-traveler/Spirit Guide, Friend William Bartram. He just can’t stay on the beaten path. . . .]

But here he is again, talking about plants, and especially trees. And one kind of tree jumped out at me from his list, the Live Oak. That’s because I’ve seen and been captivated by some magnificent specimens thereof, in a cemetery in Alabama.

There’s lots of human history in that graveyard. But we’re gonna skip all that here, and just dwell on the chlorophyllic history. The place is only a few acres, but I think I could wander in it for hours, maybe days.]

Continue reading What Do You See In What You see? Ask Friend William Bartram →

Agni ad Bellum/ The Lamb's War, Arts - Poetry, Current Affairs, Divergent Friends, Progressive Friends, Resistance

Some Quick Quaker Responses to the SOTU

January 30, 2018 Chuck Fager 5 Comments

To respond to the State of the Union address, we’ve invited two special Friendly commentators, who are joining us via our new astral projection uplink.

First up is our old buddy, Walter Whitman, late of Camden, New Jersey, where he settled once they named a big bridge there after him. Whitman is known as the author of the best-selling pro-marijuana polemic of all time, Leaves of Grass.

Walt — if you don’t mind me calling you that — you’ve hovered over a lot of these talkfests. So tell us: what was your reaction to what you heard tonight? Continue reading Some Quick Quaker Responses to the SOTU →

Black & White & Other Colors, Cross-Generational Conversation: YAFS & OFFs, Divergent Friends, Hard-Core Quaker, Progressive Friends, Quaker History, Remarkable Friends, Resistance, Signs of the Times, Social Justice, War & Peace

Lucretia Mott’s Birthday Secret: No Woman Is an Island?

January 3, 2018 Chuck Fager 2 Comments

What “secret” am I talking about here? Lucretia Mott with a secret?

For her devotees, Lucretia Mott’s life is, or should be, an open book: born into a loving, encouraging family, married for 57 years to what one biographer called “the best husband ever”; she had a long public career of preaching and speaking, of which generous samplings have been preserved; and she wrote hundreds of letters which scholars have combed through. She also endured sorrows: the loss of two of her six children, and then widowhood; and she overcame years of withering criticism of her ideas and “heresies.”

Lucretia! You really believed this stuff??

None of that is new, or unexamined. And in her personal carriage she was a model of traditional Quaker propriety: she disdained novels as frivolous and vain; it was husband James who sat in a quiet corner, burning the midnight oil, unable to put down Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Then, while Hicksites all around were shedding the grey and the bonnet, she was plain til the very end. Continue reading Lucretia Mott’s Birthday Secret: No Woman Is an Island? →

Cross-Generational Conversation: YAFS & OFFs, Divergent Friends, Hard-Core Quaker, Progressive Friends, Quaker History, Quaker Theology, Remarkable Friends, Resistance

A Progressive Quaker Message from Lucretia Mott

January 2, 2018 Chuck Fager 1 Comment

“Truth for authority, not authority for truth.”

Lucretia Mott, considered at the time of her death in 1880 to be the “greatest American woman of the nineteenth century” by many of her contemporaries, was a Quaker abolitionist, women’s rights activist and social reformer. She was also a key figure in an important insurgent movement of Progressive Friends. Her messages and actions are very pertinent today – and laid much of the foundation for the current women’s movement.

Thursday First Month (January) 3, 2019, will mark Lucretia’s 226th birthday.

What message would she have for us if she were here today?

HINT: She’d likely tell us we’re in deep trouble and should get up and get busy. (She’d say it nicely, but urgently).

In fact, her message might sound like this . . .

Continue reading A Progressive Quaker Message from Lucretia Mott →

Divergent Friends, Hard-Core Quaker, Stories - From Life & Elsewhere

My Quaker 50th Anniversary (Already?)

December 9, 2015 Chuck Fager 2 Comments

My Quaker 50th Anniversary

My, how time flies, when you’re having fun. (And even when you’re not.)
This month, December 2015, marks the 50th anniversary of my coming among Friends. And much of that whole ongoing adventure can, for this purpose, be boiled down to four things:

A knock on the door;
Getting “The Letter”;
Riding the bus; and
Getting on with it.

Funny-images-Proud

Continue reading My Quaker 50th Anniversary (Already?) →

Cross-Generational Conversation: YAFS & OFFs, Current Affairs, Divergent Friends, Signs of the Times, War & Peace

Two Unforgettable Profiles In Courage: 1969

May 29, 2015 Chuck Fager Leave a comment

Two Unforgettable Profiles In Courage: 1969

The first “favorable” articles I ever read about homosexuality and bisexuality were in WIN Magazine, a radical pacifist journal, in its “gay liberation issue” of November 15, 1969. (“Gay liberation” was a brand-new coinage then.)

I still remember how the “coming out” (yet another new phrase for me) story of and by David McReynolds, who was then the main staff member of the War Resisters League {WRL}, hit me like a series of physical blows.

McReynolds-Notes-Title-image