A Friendly Letter

A “Blockbuster” Report: “Streaming Quakerism” Is Coming to Carolina

Stepping back from all the hassle in NCYM-FUM over who believes what about the Bible, Jesus and marriage, can it be that what’s going on beneath the surface is the miniaturization of yearly meetings, a shift that makes ever more of what local meetings need available piecemeal from outside, through their various networks, electronic and otherwise, drastically diminishing the need for offices, paid staff, and supervisory functions?

And in this changed setting, maybe the YM of the future does look more like the new Piedmont Yearly Meeting: a loose, free association, helping set up events for fellowship, learning and worship, when and how the members want to do that.

I’m not saying that “streaming Quakerism” will herald some golden age; the devil will find lots of ways to do his dirty work within it. But change happens; a mere decade ago, Blockbuster was king; now it’s gone.

High Points From A Low Period in Carolina Quakerdom

High Point, which is not part of PFF, was more restrained but more trenchant:

“We are confused by strong objections Friends have about members of North Carolina Yearly Meeting participating with others. The ‘new committee’ is asked to consider the general question, ‘Why do meetings feel compelled to participate with organizations outside of NCYM?’ Quakers are not isolationists. Our ministries are enriched when we participate with other Quaker, ecumenical, service, and mission organizations for numerous reasons.”

Spring, which is in PFF but not the new yearly meeting added:

“Our meeting does not consider PFF to be a competitor or rival to NCYM. Our reason for having affiliations with both organizations is to bridge the chasm that unnecessarily exists between these two branches of the Society of Friends, each of which lacks a beneficial aspect of the other. While some members of each organization, particularly within NCYM, seek to widen this chasm and hold no association with the other, we seek a meaningful unity among all Friends that such an affiliation can foster.”

I’m Off To See The (Trump) Wizard – (March 9)

Well, perhaps Lowell was mistaken in the claim that such crossroads-choices come but once in a lifetime. Still, we can do no better than hear some more of his verse,

Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instantaneous throe,
When the travail of the Ages wrings earth’s systems to and fro;
At the birth of each new Era, with a recognizing start,
Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with mute lips apart,
And glad Truth’s yet mightier man-child leaps beneath the Future’s heart.

So the Evil’s triumph sendeth, with a terror and a chill,
Under continent to continent, the sense of coming ill . . . .
They have rights who dare maintain them; we are traitors to our sires,
Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom’s new-lit altar-fires;
Shall we make their creed our jailer? Shall we, in our haste to slay,
From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral lamps away
To light up the martyr-fagots round the prophets of to-day?

New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth;
They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth . . . .

Getting Kicked Off The Titanic: More NC Quaker Shakeups?

This change could, in a best-case scenario, bring some of the recent purge efforts to a screeching halt.

Why? Because, to be frank, there are very few if any of the purge promoters who have the guts to face their targets over a table in the target’s meetinghouse, and to lay out and explain a prepared, meeting-approved bill of particulars.

Instead, the modus operandi over the past two years has been classic bullying: innuendo, false charges, harassing gossip, catcalls and bullying in large sessions, or haranguing audiences captive on their own home turf.

They are even less prepared for a setting where they would be obliged to present evidence, and then listen as well as preach.

They are much more accustomed to drive-by potshots. For instance, in a Quarterly Meeting session, I listened to jackleg preachers toss out accusations that the meeting I attend was allied with the Anti-Christ, and going down the same road to mass murder followed by the Branch Davidians.

These absurd charges were based on — well, misapprehensions would be a kind description; prejudiced delusions somewhat more pointed. But the preachers were not held accountable for those calumnies there.

Further, in one of the recent Representative sessions, a preacher accused my meeting and several others of spreading “blasphemy” with almost every statement we made. Really? Blasphemy about what? There was no accountability for that assertion either.

Bernie Sanders, Jack Shafer & The Day After

Sanders has been a fighter who is a gentleman.

This combination is rare enough in our public life; but beyond merely being admirable, it is one that will wear well. Sanders may have been defeated in his presidential run, but he has not been disgraced, nor have his ideas been discredited. He and they will persist.

On the political side, his disciplined focus on economic inequality has been expressed in policy proposals which, whether you like them are not, are rational and plausible. If he wants to spend more than a trillion dollars on infrastructure, education & expanded health care, he is also clear that all this would be paid for, with higher taxes. It would not be a shower of “free stuff”; there is no “voo-doo” in his economics.
Moreover, his stubbornly consistent message of economic justice was timely when he first raised it more than forty years ago, not long after president Lyndon Johnson had declared (and lost) a war on poverty. It has only become more intense through the years, is urgent now, and will remain high in public consciousness thru the next president’s term, whoever occupies the White House. Sanders will still be strategically positioned to affect coming policy debates.