Bob McGahey, the Clerk of SAYMA (Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting & Association), saw what was coming at last week’s 2021 annual sessions. What did he see? Trouble & woe. How do I know? Because he said so, in a Clerk’s letter sent out as the group was gathering (mostly in Zoom) last week. The key … Continue reading SAYMA 2021: The Post-Mortem
To: Jesus, or his Rep out West From: Chuck Fager Re: Need some Leads Look, JC, I know you’re busy, but this: I heard from a nice young family in one of the big cities out there, one of those in the middle of the desert. It’s a familiar story: she’s creamy, he’s dark chocolate, … Continue reading Memo To Jesus: A Friend needs to find a church. Do you Deliver?
Friend (or rather, ex-Friend) Joshua Ashlyn Humphries, a banished Quaker and Anabaptist prophet/theologian, is dead, at 39. Dead, and it’s a damn shame. A shame for Quakers, Mennonites, and some others. I feel shamed too. But he was not an ex-Friend to me. The official obituary does not say how or where he passed; presumably … Continue reading A Banished Quaker Prophet: Josh Humphries (Updated)
Friend Arthur Fink, who told acquaintances he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, has passed away. The obituary below is borrowed from the Portland Maine Press-Herald: Noted Peaks Island photographer Arthur J. Fink dies at 74 He had an enduring connection to the Bates Dance Festival, where he served as resident photographer from 2005 through … Continue reading Arthur Fink: Quaker Photographer, 74
“History doesn’t repeat,” Mark Twain supposedly said, “but sometimes it rhymes.” Are the conflicts within so many American churches over LGBTQ and associated issues part of some cruel karmic sonnet? The Separation Generation’s three volumes approach this question in prose, by chronicling disruptions among five American Yearly Meetings extending roughly from 2011 to 2018 (along … Continue reading Broken Churches, Broken Nation (Again?)