Category Archives: Hard-Core Quaker

Cloudy Skies for Friends General Conference — Part II

Nevertheless the Gathering has taken on, not only the work of facilitating fellowship and worship; but it now includes, on practically every hand, an extensive experience of imposed improvement. Indeed, it’s becoming like a week in rehab.
Let me count some of the ways: The Gathering tells me what kind of soap and shampoo to use, what kind of water not to drink. It bids me to mind and shrink my carbon footprint, insists we take naps on Wednesday afternoon, and shames those who insist on gathering and talking instead. It instructs me on bathroom etiquette, and the hazards of proliferating pronouns.

And this is not to mention that it has shouldered the even heavier burden of curing all my (must be) retrograde attitudes: racism, sexism, homo- and trans-phobia, cultural appropriation, plus the myriad ways I am personally destroying the planet, with classism on the rise but not quite there yet, — with the advisement that any demurral is a sure sign of guilt on one or more scores, with no appeal.

Oh — and when someone raises their arm in the dining hall, I am to shut up and sink into a “transforming” silence.

FGC’s one ecumenical triumph: the food line. Many options for finicky Friends; no hectoring, no coercion. You’d even think we had paid for this.
These things did not happen all at once; rather bit by bit. But now their burgeoning has almost totally obscured the presence among them of an older, much more sucessful alternative, namely that regarding diet. In the cafeteria, FGC’s Food Committee has done remarkably successful work at making conveniently, quietly, and non-intrusively available a wide range of dishes for the nearly infinite variety of Friendly food fetishes. I am grateful to them three times every day.

For me the shift from fellowship and worship to hectoring and paternalism has passed a key point: one I was a devotee of the Gathering; now I am a customer. And not a very contented one. I’ve skipped a couple in recent years. And as for next summer — I’m just not sure.

Update-Northwest YM Gay Expulsion: The Power In Posing The Question

With the trial balloon of a joint statement being shot full of holes; the Administrative Council met on October 13, and set December 9-10 for a special meeting of meeting representatives (to include one “young Friend” from each group) to deal with the matter.

And at this point, we come back to the opening question about how what is called “Quaker process” can be, er, managed.

Basically, it’s quite simple, and based on this precedent: once a decision has been made, to change or repeal it requires that the body “reach unity” to do so.

So the technique comes down to how the decision is presented.

The Case of Pumpkin Spice Cake
For instance: suppose a meeting decided at one business session to serve pumpkin spice cake at the Fall Festival. But then at the next business meeting, some said they couldn’t stand pumpkin spice anything. To remove the pumpkin spice cake, the meeting would need to “reach unity” to reverse its earlier decision.

But what if the Clerk was a big fan of pumpkin spice cake, and wanted to make sure it stayed on the menu?

And what if the Clerk knew there were strong divided feelings about the matter?

Then the Clerk could pose the question in a way that would ensure her desired outcome. How?

Simple: The Clerk could ask:

“Does the meeting wish to RESCIND the decision to have pumpkin spice cake?”

[The ensuing discussion is divided.]

Clerk: “It’s clear there is NO UNITY to change the menu.”

[Ergo, Pumpkin Spice cake stays.]

The Northwest Gay Expulsion Impasse: Is A Break In Sight?

The Northwest Gay Expulsion Impasse: Is A Break In Sight? At its September business meeting, West Hills Friends (WHF) in Portland Oregon considered a statement accepting its expulsion from Northwest Yearly Meeting (NWYM) for having become a LGBT-welcoming congregation. If approved, the statement would be issued jointly with NWYM. The decision to expel West Hills was made … Continue reading The Northwest Gay Expulsion Impasse: Is A Break In Sight? →

Dog Days True Quaker Stories: The Party That Went On Too Long

Much of my initial “information” about the Communist Party came from watching a TV show, “I Led Three Lives,” after we got a TV in mid-1952. The show started the next year and ran for more than a hundred episodes. It was inspired by the true-life career of Herbert Philbrick of Boston.

For years, Philbrick was a seemingly ordinary white collar office worker. But he was also a secret member of the Communist Party, spying and planning to overthrow the American government — and even more secretly, a double agent helping the FBI foil the Communist schemes. In 1952, he published a best-selling book about all this; and Hollywood jumped on the story line.

(In an episode I sadly missed, one such –fictional– plot was about how the party was going to turn vacuum cleaners into handheld missile launchers. Sound, um, far-fetched? But J. Edgar Hoover approved that episode, as he did all of them, so it must have been thrilling.)

Now I know much better how, in the late 1940s and into the 1960s, “the Communists” were a very big deal for Americans. Hiss’s two trials marked a major turning point in U.S. public opinion, toward a hard anti-communism, of the sort I grew up absorbing like milk on cornflakes.

A Review of “Our Life is Love: The Quaker Spiritual Journey”

And now comes, in this effort to understand Quakerism, “Our Life Is Love,” by Marcelle Martin.

In the book, which she says is based on long study and wide personal engagement, she draws on “acquaintance with the lives of seventeenth-century Quakers, combined with the experiences of dedicated Quakers today.” From this mix she believes she has “unveiled ten essential elements in the process” of Quaker spiritual life.

She chose the term “elements” carefully, insisting that the ten features are not to be taken as stages in a definite procession, or prescribed rungs on a spiritual ladder. Nevertheless, she begins from her own early sense of religious longing, as the first element, and the ten are grouped into three categories of Awakening, Convincement and Faithfulness, which certainly appear progressive, and reasonably so.

To illustrate her ten elements, she draws in quotes from numerous Friends, from early times and now. She also labors to include among them voices from across the theological spectrum and around the Quaker world, including Friends of color, Latin Americans and Africans. Linguistic and cultural differences make this effort feel strained at some points, but it’s a noble one, and basic to developing a Quakerism for our time, and not just for our local parochial place.