The Courage to Be a Quaker

Being a Quaker isn’t just about going to Meeting on Sunday morning. It’s about opening yourself to being transformed and then living in way that not everyone will understand. How do we find the courage?

Being a Quaker isn’t just about going to Meeting on Sunday morning. It’s about opening yourself to being transformed and then living in way that not everyone will understand. How do we find the courage?

[peekaboo]
[peekaboo_content]
Transcript

Quakers believe that there is that of God or the sacred in every person and that all are equal before God.

The Courage to Be a Quaker

My name is Deborah Shaw. I live in Greensboro, North Carolina. I’m a member of Friendship Friends Meeting, which is part of North Carolina Yearly Meeting, Conservative. And I work at Guilford College, as the director of the Quaker Leadership Scholars Program.

Quakerism as Countercultural

To listen to the still, small voice does feel very countercultural. It feels like a radical step against what the world—capital-W World—is telling us to do. I think in our culture, we’re told we have to figure everything out. We have to do it. There’s this idea that we’re fiercely independent.

The thing about the still, small voice and Quakerism, as I experience it, is that I hear something and then I go and test it with a trusted Friend.
I say, “this is what I’m hearing. How does that appear to you? Does that make sense to you? I’m not holding it up against an advertisement of the newest vehicle or the newest electronic gadget, but I’m holding it in the heart. I’m asking a Friend, or a group of Friends or the Meeting to hold it in their hearts and to listen carefully themselves to “Is that right? Does it feel like that’s of God? Or does that feel like it’s Deborah’s ego?”

Mentoring Younger Quakers

In my work with the Quaker Leadership Scholars at Guilford College, I often find myself talking to them—18 to 21 year olds—about the radical courage it takes to stand against the culture. The culture is so insidious and overwhelming. Everywhere we are, we are bombarded by it constantly, and it is telling us something very different than what our Quaker faith tells us, or what the still, small voice tells us, or what our inward teacher tells us.

So I say to them, it is a hard path to choose and to walk. And you need allies in it, and you need people who are trying to do the same thing. To do it alone is virtually impossible. To stand against the culture, and to stand against the influx. Just the continual bombardment of the culture, which is telling us we’re not worthy, which is a lie. That we’re not worthy unless we do these certain things and buy these other things and act a certain way or achieve this certain goal of material possessions. There’s so much of it.

Or that we’re not thin enough or that our noses aren’t right. It just takes a lot of courage and companionship to say, “No. I am a beloved child of God, just as I am. With all of my imperfections and yes, I’m striving to be more perfect and more whole and more fully who I’m supposed to be but even as I am right this minute, I’m a beloved child of God.”

[/peekaboo_content]

It has been an honor to serve Friends as the founder and director of QuakerSpeak. Now I am pleased to announce my next endeavor, a Quaker media project for the modern era. Find out more at TheeQuaker.org

What Do Quakers Do in Silent Worship?

What are Quakers doing when they sit in silence on Sunday morning? These 7 Friends share their answers.

What are Quakers doing when they sit in silence on Sunday morning? These 7 Friends share their answers.

[peekaboo]
[peekaboo_content]
Transcript

Faith Kelley
I’m a little bit of an overachiever, so I usually come in and I’m like, “I’m going to worship now. I’m going to sit here and be the best worshipper ever, and this is going to be it.” And I really have to let that go.

What Quakers Do in Silent Worship

Peterson Toscano
I go to Quaker Meeting and I just let everything open up. I think of it as this wonderful scan disk of my hard drive, helping me clear out all of the gaps and be still and lay down things that are bothering me that really aren’t that important, just getting me to a place of stability and clarity. It’s been really important to me.
Preparing the Soil

Arthur Larrabee
Thinking about Meeting for Worship on Sunday, the first thing that comes to mind is to share that Meeting for Worship is a much more satisfactory experience if some spiritual preparation has been done in advance. The metaphor for me is “preparing the soil,” so the soil is ready for the message or for the seed.

Kristina Keefe-Perry
It feels like it is very important to be part of a group of people who are creating a container of deepening worship that is already in process as other Friends arrive.

Centering

Tenaja Henson
I remember my first Meeting for Worship when I was older that I could remember was really difficult because I wanted to talk or play a game or go run around.

Arthur Larrabee
So often the energy of life is a topsy-turvy energy. It’s energy going in many different directions with many different pressures, being pulled hither and yon, and it’s centered in many many different places and not in one place.

Faith Kelley
I usually need the first 10, 15, 20, 30 – however long it takes – minutes to quiet myself.

Deborah Shaw
In the Meeting for Worship in the silence I am trying to center myself, which means to lay aside distractions of the world, and to listen carefully to the inward teacher, the inward guide, the inner Christ, that within me which is within me and also beyond me.

Faith Kelley
And for me that sort of involves that narrative voice that I sort of have going in the back of my head all the time, just sort of letting that go. It’s not so much about quieting it but just releasing it. The more I sort of try to like, stuff it down, the louder it gets and so it’s just sort of about letting it go. And that seems to make space for God to fill up.

Arthur Larrabee
There’s a quote that means a lot to me from Thomas Kelly’s essay, “The Light Within”, which is found within his volume A Testament of Devotion:

“Deep within us all, there is an amazing sanctuary of the soul: a holy place, a divine center, a speaking voice to which we may continuously return.”

That describes a centered place for me. This deep inner sanctuary of the soul. And I find meaning and value in trying to get there, making my way back home. Making my way back home.

Developing a Practice

Kristina Keefe-Perry
Thich Nhat Hanh, who is of course a Buddhist not a Quaker, talks about meditation as a process of sort of “tuning into the smile channel,” and somehow that description was very helpful for me. Let’s tune into the Spirit channel! Where in the body – in my body – do I perceive the Spirit moving among us?

Christie Duncan-Tessmer
I start by paying attention to my breath and my body, and slowing down my breath and feeling my body. I love the sense of settling into my body, and my body settling into space, and I feel my breath sort of going deeper and deeper.

Arthur Larrabee
Sometimes my mind will go to what has happened the preceding week, and I’ll ask the question, “How can I identify the movement of Spirit and what has happened for me in the week preceding this worship?”

Tenaja Henson
Something I do, I have these prayer beads that I wear all the time, and I’ll think of all the people in my life and I’ll hold them in the Light for a few minutes and let them know that I’m thinking about them and giving them positive energy.

Christie Duncan-Tessmer
Sometimes I focus on a particular phrase or word or image and try to hold that as long as I can and then keep coming back to it.

Tenaja Henson
I mean, I think for me, it let’s me know that even if somebody thinks they’re alone, you know, I can say, “No, you’re not. I’ve been thinking about you. And I don’t know if it’s impacted anyone else, I’ve never told anyone that so I guess, secrets out!

Waiting Expectantly

Kristina Keefe-Perry
Sandra Cronk, in her pamphlet on gospel order, has a sentence in the beginning of the pamphlet:

“Early Friends expected and experienced the in-breaking of the Spirit in their Meetings for Worship.”

And that sentence has been so important for me to hold onto like a life raft, continue to hold expectation. I think that’s why we call it “expectant waiting worship”, that positive expectation that we will experience the presence of the Holy Spirit among us, and we are just waiting for it to show up. It’s not an if, it’s a when.

Deborah Shaw
And then, when I get to that place, it’s a communal effort, it’s not just about me and my relationship with the divine – although that is an important part of it – but it’s also feeling the gathered assembly around me, the gathered Friends around me and paying attention to what might be needed: whether I’m going to be called to deliver a message or sing a song, or pray particularly for someone in the group, or might just be mindful of someone. I see that as a very communal thing, how the group comes together and is able to center in the silence.

[/peekaboo_content]

It has been an honor to serve Friends as the founder and director of QuakerSpeak. Now I am pleased to announce my next endeavor, a Quaker media project for the modern era. Find out more at TheeQuaker.org

The Top 7 Most Quaker Bible Verses

What are the most relevant Bible passages to the Quaker faith? Mark Wutka shares his list.

What are the most relevant Bible passages to the Quaker faith? Mark Wutka shares his list.

[peekaboo]
[peekaboo_content]
Transcript

If we were to say, “What’s a scriptural foundation of Quakerism?”, there are verses we would point to and say, for instance, “This is where we got our name. This is where have our understanding of God. This is where the idea of unity comes from.” (Although it’s mentioned in many places.

Top 7 Most Quaker Bible Verses

These verses are verses that are both important to me and are verses that I hear other Friends use, either directly by quoting them or indirectly by living out what they describe. Other people may have a different list; these are mine.

#7 Ephesians 4:1

So the first verse is Ephesians 4:1.

I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.

The reason I had thought of that one is because we like the phrase, “Walk worthy of your calling.”

#6 Isaiah 6:8

A lot of times when I’m in meetings with people traveling in the ministry or talking about ministry among Friends, Isaiah 6:8 comes up a lot, because it has to do with being willing to serve.

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”

#5 Matthew 5:33

The testimony of not swearing oaths dates back to the early Friends, and it is really tied to the testimony of integrity: that we should be telling the truth all the time.

But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair black or white. Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’.

An oath is sort of saying, “You know, I lie sometimes, but this time I’m really telling the truth.” And if you’re always telling the truth, you shouldn’t have to swear an oath.

#4 John 15:12

The Religious Society of Friends took its name from John 15.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.

The reason I like this one is it’s an encapsulation of not just our origin, but the idea of loving one another is central to us, just as the understanding of “God is Love” is central.

#3 John 1:9

This was one of the ones that George Fox used so many times you can’t really count. You’d have a very long list if you listed all the references.

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

A lot of times when people say there’s “That of God” in others, it’s speaking to the idea that, because everyone has that of God, you should treat them a certain way. I think that’s a very worthy way to look at it, but the other way that it would’ve meant in George Fox’s time was that we all have access to God and the Spirit that teaches us is available to everyone, and so it’s also helpful to focus on that of God in ourselves and listen to that.

#2 Matthew 22:37

Of course in Jesus’ ministry, people were always asking questions to try to trip him up, and in this particular case, one of the people he was debating with asked him, “What is the greatest commandment?” and he said,

“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

So again, it goes back to love. You love God, you love your neighbor. Everything else derives from those relationships.

#1 Galatians 5:22

So this verse is two verses. It’s Galatians 5:22 and 23, and it often serves as a touchstone for people because it’s about the fruit of the Spirit.

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.

For me, and I know for a lot of others, this is a great test of: “Are we in touch with the Spirit?” That when we are, these things are what should flow from us.

[/peekaboo_content]

It has been an honor to serve Friends as the founder and director of QuakerSpeak. Now I am pleased to announce my next endeavor, a Quaker media project for the modern era. Find out more at TheeQuaker.org

Quakers and the Still, Small Voice

When we sit in silence on Sunday morning, Quakers often like to say that we’re “listening”. But what does that still small voice sound like?

When we sit in silence on Sunday morning, Quakers often like to say that we’re “listening”. But what does that still small voice sound like?

[peekaboo]
[peekaboo_content]
Transcript

Noah Merrill
What I’ve found again and again is that there are moments where I am able to make enough space to listen to that still, small voice—to that inward voice of Christ that leads me into a different way of living. A different way of loving in the world.

Quakers and the Still, Small Voice

Brian Drayton
The first Friends—especially George Fox—the core of their message is that “Christ has come to teach his people himself.” It’s not a theological thing: Friends experienced unmediated discipleship. Just like Peter followed Jesus and heard Jesus’ voice, got the teachings direct, had to encounter Jesus’ personality for good and for ill—that’s what Friends were experiencing. That was the inward teacher.

Fascinatingly, just like the Holy Spirit spoke through the apostles at the Pentecost in such a way that everybody heard the Spirit speaking in their own language, so, too, the Christ Spirit in all ages has been speaking in ways that people could understand in their situation and in their times.

The Still, Small Voice

Deborah Shaw
So the still, small voice is about us understanding that when we still ourselves and quiet ourselves and, I think part of it is making yourself not be the center of the story, like that I am not the center of the story…

Deborah Suess
I think it’s helpful to remember that for most of us, we don’t see writing on the wall. Most of us don’t hear a vocal leading. Most of us don’t frequently have these, like, dynamic mystical experiences, although they happen.

Deborah Shaw
And so we have to be quiet. We have to lean forward and say, “Oh, yes…”

What We Hear When We Listen

O
When I listen—when I really listen—I am listening to hear God speak. I am listening for God’s voice. God’s signal. What that means to me is the signal that moves me to aliveness.

Deborah Shaw
So the still, small voice might be consolation. It also might be reproof. It also might be inspiration or challenge or encouragement. I get a sense of a way forward and a comfortable-ness in my body-mind-spirit which is saying “yes, that’s not just you”—although I have to be a part of that co-creating—but that’s God speaking to me. The inward Christ, the inward teacher.

Brian Drayton
Now, that inward teacher we believe has been present in all ages and in all people, because the inward teacher is another way of talking about the inward light. And that’s the Christ Spirit at work in all ages, if you follow John, which Friends like to do… the gospel of John I mean.

The Challenge of Listening

Noah Merrill
It’s been my experience that the most clear invitations to live in a way that is about love and wholeness come in a voice that is very easy to ignore, that it’s very easy for me to let my ego, let my fears, my anxieties, the ways that I’m bound up govern the way I live my life.

O
It’s almost as if the energy of the soul, in all of its power and its richness and its movement… that which has the capacity to create universes, my belief is that we have a tendency to suppress it.

Deborah Suess
…and so often times I think it’s important that we learn to quiet enough to discern the Spirit Christ’s pattern of speaking to us.

O
Finding a way to really tap, locate, that energy and allowing it to come forth… it’s a power. It’s a power. And that power, in order to break through the ego structures and the racisms and the classism and the homophobia-isms, and all those isms—in order for Spirit to come through that, there is this aliveness and power that pushes up and out and the body quakes. That’s one way of accessing it.

Putting the Still, Small Voice at the Center of Our Lives

Jay O’Hara
Putting the still, small voice at the center looks like not doing anything until it’s clear—until you’re truly led.

Deborah Shaw
Even if it’s telling me I must do something that I’m not happy about maybe engaging in, or even if that is a discomfort place, I still have the sense of comfort and calm. There’s a sense of a deeper peace that accompanies that, those commands or those encouragements.

[/peekaboo_content]

It has been an honor to serve Friends as the founder and director of QuakerSpeak. Now I am pleased to announce my next endeavor, a Quaker media project for the modern era. Find out more at TheeQuaker.org

How Do We Save Quakerism?

Are your Meeting’s numbers dwindling? Do you worry that there won’t be a “next” generation to pass Quakerism on to?

Are your Meeting’s numbers dwindling? Do you worry that there won’t be a “next” generation to pass Quakerism on to?
quaker-meeting-house
You aren’t alone. As I’ve traveled the country visiting different kinds of Quaker Meetings, I’ve noticed that many Quaker Meetings are holding a similar, underlying anxiety: what’s next?

Of course there are Meetings that don’t fit this categorization, but if you are one of those Friends who holds a concern for the future of the Religious Society of Friends, read on.

Step 1: Ask Ourselves, “What Are We Trying to Save?”

As someone who gets most excited about Quakerism when I think about the Early Friends, I believe that the litmus test for whether we have life is the fire and Spirit that motivated the emergence of the Quaker movement.
Continue reading “How Do We Save Quakerism?”

Why I Blockaded 40,000 Tons of Coal With a Lobster Boat

Massachusetts Quaker Jay O’Hara felt led to blockade a 40,000-ton coal shipment with a tiny lobster boat. What happened next might surprise you.

Massachusetts Quaker Jay O’Hara felt led to blockade a 40,000-ton coal shipment with a tiny lobster boat. What happened next might surprise you.

[peekaboo]
[peekaboo_content]
Transcript

We had no idea we were supposed to get a lobster boat, until we ended up with a lobster boat, and then that became the symbol: this little white lobster boat in front of this big, hulking black ship of coal.
We opened ourselves to a place of love and humility, knowing that we were supposed to be there but not having any sense of anger or opposition.

Ken Ward
Hi, this is Ken Ward. I’m on board the boat, the Henry David T., off the pier at Brayton Point, and I wanted to let you know that we’re conducting a nonviolent, completely peaceful protest against the use of coal, and we’ll be completely cooperative.

On May 15th, 2013, I and my friend Ken motored our 32-foot white lobster boat, named the Henry David T., into Brayton Point, which is the largest single source of climate changing carbon emissions in all of New England.

We’ve got the red, white, and blue flying up there, and Brayton Point station in back of us with a giant pile of coal.

…and we dropped anchor—a rather large anchor—in a place that would prevent the incoming shipment of West Virginia coal from being docked and unloaded.

Captain of the Energy Enterprise
Ok, this is the captain of the vessel. You’re impeding the safe passage of my vessel. I’ve contacted the United States Coast Guard and I’ll let you deal with them.

Jay O’Hara
Roger, Captain. Thank you.

Captain of the Energy Enterprise
And if we are attacked, we will defend ourselves.

Jay O’Hara
Uh, Roger Captain. This is Jay of the Henry David T. Just to let you know, this is a peaceful and nonviolent protest, and we’re here to witness that coal should not be being burned here in Massachusetts and New England. This is Henry David T. standing by, 16.

For six hours, the Energy Enterprise was prevented from unloading its shipment of 40,000 tons of Appalachian coal.

There was this clarity that we need to start being really bold in what we do, and we need to start making visible the tragedy that we’re perpetuating on ourselves and be bold in disclosing our role in that when we flip on the lightswitch.

For Jay, the protest was an act of faith.

My journey into faithfulness started through activism. In order to be effective you have to be not striving for effectiveness, because the measures that we have for effectiveness rely on the world’s measurement of what is effective. The world doesn’t actually believe we can do what needs to happen, but our hearts know what’s possible. I have faith that God has some plans, or some ability, or that the Great Big Spirit Mama of the Universe can move us in the right direction if we pay attention and if we listen.

The whole story of going to block this coal ship is a cascade of doors opening that we had no control over, at almost every turn being guided: “Oh no, this is the way. This is the way.”

Ken and Jay were charged with conspiracy, disturbing the peace, failure to avoid collision, and negligent operation of a motor vessel.

They faced the potential of several years in prison.

I am in a place where I can’t pretend to know what should happen or what the most effective outcome would be. I don’t know. And in my giving over my life, I’m trusting and hoping that I’ll be used for the highest good, but under no illusion that I know what that is. But I know that if I stay low and stay open and keep my focus on my faithfulness in every moment that’s opened to me, I’m gonna end up in the right place.

[/peekaboo_content]

It has been an honor to serve Friends as the founder and director of QuakerSpeak. Now I am pleased to announce my next endeavor, a Quaker media project for the modern era. Find out more at TheeQuaker.org

Let Your Heart Sing: Quakers and Music

Do Quakers sing in worship? These Quakers do! Laura Dungan and Aaron Fowler from Wichita, Kansas talk music, Spirit, and a sound so low the human ear can’t perceive it.

Do Quakers sing in worship? These Quakers do! Laura Dungan and Aaron Fowler from Wichita, Kansas talk music, Spirit, and a sound so low the human ear can’t perceive it.

[peekaboo]
[peekaboo_content]
Transcript

When friends by shame are undefiled,
How can I keep from singing?
How can I keep from singing?
Let Your Heart Sing

I�m Laura Dungan. Wichita, Kansas, a member of University Friends Meeting/Church, depending on who you�re talking to and where you�re at.

I�m Aaron Fowler. Wichita, Kansas, Heartland Friends Meeting in Wichita.

Spirit as Vibration

Aaron Fowler
When I do a science of sound project with elementary age kids and we have a big bass speaker and we talk about 2 Hz, we�re playing 2 Hz and we say, �Can you hear it?� They all lean forward and say, �We can�t hear it!� but they�re watching the bass speaker and this bass speaker is vibrating and its moving and you can�t hear the sound, but you know that there�s an energy and something moving.

You can�t identify it, you can�t touch it and feel but its there, you just know. It�s kind of like an earthquake. You don�t hear it but you can feel it and you know that there�s something very powerful that�s present. That happens in worship. Worship in silence where someone stands up and shares a message out of the silence, it�s like, �whoa, OK. Something�s rocking here.�

Friends and Music

Laura Dungan
We were raised in the United Methodist Church and I was raised in a very musical family. Aaron had a lot of music coming from his grandmother and both of his parents sang in the church choir. So anyway, we grew up with that kind of environment, and then we came to Quakers in college. When I read George Fox�s Journal, it was all about the power of the Spirit and I had already experienced the power of the Spirit through music.

I never� in Kansas� I don�t know if it�s the brand of Quakers down there that tend to be a little more evangelical, but you know, you�ve got your hymns and you�ve got your music going on. I never had any bar about that at all. It wasn�t until I came hanging out with Eastern Quakers that I was like �Ohhh� I realized that there�s something that people are working on here, with music and being a Quaker. For me, it wasn�t ever divided.

Aaron Fowler
I think that music division across the different Quaker roots, Quaker branches� from the Evangelical side, music always was there. And when we go to the gathering and when we go to unprogrammed Meetings, there is such a deep hungering to sing together� and I think it goes back to that whole, �What�s happening with the vibrations? What�s moving that we don�t know?� It rises up within us.

And so, hey! Let your heart sing! Let your heart sing. It�s OK. You won�t get in trouble. I don�t think anybody will kick you out of Meeting now. Maybe.

Through all the tumult and the strife, I hear that music ringing.
It sounds an echo in my soul, how can I keep from singing?

[/peekaboo_content]

It has been an honor to serve Friends as the founder and director of QuakerSpeak. Now I am pleased to announce my next endeavor, a Quaker media project for the modern era. Find out more at TheeQuaker.org

Guided By An Inner Truth: Quaker Hip-Hop Artist Sterling Duns

West Philly rapper Sterling Duns talks about his writing process and how he came to be a Quaker.

West Philly rapper Sterling Duns talks about his writing process and how he came to be a Quaker.

[peekaboo]
[peekaboo_content]
Transcript

I put my life on pause, rewound, now I’m pressing play.
Then come up,
grinding until the sun up,
knowing it could all be gone if one person puts their guns up.
A black Quaker no savior, I’m on my Bayard Rustin

I really feel like, in a lot of ways, that the lyrics that come to me, I really do feel like I’m just a vessel. I’m just somebody being used to spread messages of love and growth and empathy.

My name is Sterling Duns. I’m from West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and I attend Merion Meeting in Merion, PA, so not too far from West Philly.

I went to public school for all my life up until the 9th grade. My Mom had heard about a scholarship program at Friends Central School right outside of West Philly so I went there for 4 years. It was a very transformative experience. One of the most life changing moments was when I was 14 I went down to the American Friends Service Committee and sat down in a room, 14, and someone came in and was like, “Alright, we’re going to write holiday letters to death row inmates.”
And I was like, “How do I even comprehend what I’m doing? What this means?”

And that seed was planted. It’s serendipitous, it’s the universe, but little did I know, 13 years later I’d be working on prison reform in our country and really trying to educate myself and others about the prison system in this country.

Writing Poetry as a Spiritual Discipline

I feel like I’ve been writing hip hop verses or rapping for as long as I can remember, but I think when I got to college I really started to hone in on rapping and crafting my skills. I was an English major and poetry minor. I got my masters in poetry. Definitely having the opportunity to find my voice through poetry has influenced the hip hop that I do, and it’s been such a gift. It’s so cathartic for me – hip hop specifically – it’s this way that I use to speak my truth.

I think being patient with yourself, which I learned a lot through Quaker Meeting – has been really important in music. I’ll write something down, and want it to be finished right then and then. And I’m like, “I can’t force this.”

I think in a similar way, when sitting in Meeting, you could be grappling with something and you want resolution right then and there, knowing that it’s all about the process. It’s not about finding all the answers right in that moment. And you may come back a week later or a month later, and somebody will share a message and you’re like, “Oh, that’s exactly what I needed to hear.”

Guided By An Inner Truth

Quakers are constantly searching and re-defining what it means to really just embody Light and see that of God in everyone. You really are able to ask yourself some deep questions and be introspective and then from that introspection, I love the aspect of really dedicating yourself to social justice issues. That’s one of the things that really drew me to Quakerism. The spirituality, but also this action. You can’t just sit in the Meeting room and think about things, and then once you get out of there, you know, “my job’s done for the day.”

I was asking myself these questions about what’s going on in the world and what’s my place in it all, and do I have a place in it all? And you know, the way was open and opportunities came up for me to put into practice things that I really felt deep in my core, and next thing I knew I was at Quaker Meeting every Sunday and I was helping to organize different learning opportunities around the prison system and doing work around education reform and playing music that had to do with social justice issues. Things just started to open up because I really started listening and being guided by this inner truth.

[/peekaboo_content]

It has been an honor to serve Friends as the founder and director of QuakerSpeak. Now I am pleased to announce my next endeavor, a Quaker media project for the modern era. Find out more at TheeQuaker.org

How Jesus Affirms My Queerness

Today, as some Christians in Indiana claim their religion justifies refusing service to LGBTQ customers, Quaker Kody Hersh lifts up the Jesus who stood with those on the margins of society.

Today, as some Christians in Indiana claim their religion justifies refusing service to LGBTQ customers, Quaker Kody Hersh lifts up the Jesus who stood with those on the margins of society.

[peekaboo]
[peekaboo_content]
Transcript

Jesus affirms: a summary of the scriptures is “Love the lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and with all your strength and love thy neighbor as thyself.”

If that’s really the summary of everything that’s in there, then I test that against my experience of love working in the world, and I’ve seen that love working in all sorts of relationships and through all sorts of people, and there’s nothing in my experience now that makes me think that queer relationships are manifestations of God’s love any less than straight relationships.

How Jesus Affirms My Queerness

My name is Kody Hersh. I live in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia and I still have membership in the Meeting that I grew up in in Miami, Florida, Southeastern Yearly Meeting.

I call myself queer even though I know that that’s a challenging word for some folks—especially people of a different generation that I am—because it’s important to me that that term feels like it has space, both for the complexity of how I experience my sexuality and the fact that I experience my sexuality as in resistance to a lot of cultural norms and expectations about what that’s supposed to look like.

And something that’s really affirming for me as a Christian is looking at the life of Jesus and the amount of time that Jesus spent with people who were on the fringes of the culture that he was embedded in, that he really sought out the people who weren’t the most privileged or the most respected or the most appropriate people for him to hang out with, and that’s powerful for me.

Also, the fact that God, seeking to have a human experience, would choose to have that human experience embodied as someone who was born to a mother who was not supposed to be bearing children, given her relationship status and cultural status, born to somebody in a situation of not just poverty, but imperial impression in Palestine—that that was the human experience that God chose to have to me is a really powerful message, a really exciting message.

What all of that together means to me, Jesus seeking to hang out with outcasts and God embodying in a kind of marginalized human form, is that it’s not just that the Kingdom of God includes everybody, even folks at the margins. It’s that the kingdom of God includes everybody, especially folks at the margins.

If you don’t quite fit in the structures of this world, if you find yourself in conflict and resistance with them, if you find that the power structures of this world shut you out from a lot of resources or authority or self-determination, you are a central figure in the kingdom of God.

[/peekaboo_content]

It has been an honor to serve Friends as the founder and director of QuakerSpeak. Now I am pleased to announce my next endeavor, a Quaker media project for the modern era. Find out more at TheeQuaker.org

The Difference Between Quaker Meeting and Other Christian Services

How does Quaker Meeting compare to other Christian services? Quaker author Ben Pink Dandelion explores this question.

How does Quaker Meeting compare to other Christian services? Quaker author Ben Pink Dandelion explores this question.

[peekaboo]
[peekaboo_content]
Transcript

We don’t believe we’re going to get the final answers, and therefore in one sort of curious way, we might say that the silence of our worship is not only the medium to approach God, but it is also possibly the best response to the Divine.

Our vocal ministry adds to the silence, but in the end, we’re left with the silence—with that sense of connection with the presence that we find in and through our silent meetings.

The Difference Between Quaker Meeting and Other Christian Services

I think one of the core insights of Quakers in the 20th century has been an increasing caution around theology, so that we’re necessarily a little bit suspicious about tying God down too much, about becoming too detailed about the nature of God—too doctrine-centric, if you like.

So we could say that we’re part of a tradition of open, expectant waiting. We go into the silence and stillness—in a sense, we’re making a grand claim that we can just have this direct connection with God without the help of any minister or text or outward form of liturgy. But we do have a liturgy; it’s a silent liturgy.

And we’ve found over the centuries that we have a very strong sense of presence that comes through absence. We can say that absence leads to a sense of presence.

Ideally, we’ll have some dramatic, radical sense of encounter in the silence. We may or may not minister. We may give vocal ministry or we might not, but we’re then left with this sense of encounter but without necessarily a very clear way of talking about it. So we’re not going to then formulate that into a spoken creed or a liturgical form. Our liturgy is inward, and it’s one of exploration and one of seeking.

A “Seeking” Faith Community

It is one of the divisions between Friends worldwide, but in my tradition, then, certainly we’re clear that we need to be a little bit hesitant about trying to become too detailed or too focused on the exact nature of God.

There was a recent article by Harvey Gillman in The Friend that said, “Even the term ‘God’ is not the name for God.” We struggle with the words, we’re trying to get close to the experience, but we know that somehow we won’t match the depth of experience.

So I think one of the ways we can think about Quaker Meeting would be in terms of being part of a seeking faith community. So one of the differences, say, between Quaker Meeting and other Christian services is that we’re really not sure. We’re not sure of what we’re going to experience in Meeting, and we’re also—in some curious way—not particularly sure about what it is we’re finding in our experience.

I think this should be tremendously popular in today’s society. There’s a lot of people out there who are spiritually hungry who may be slightly cautious about organized religion, and what we as Quakers are offering is a space in which to explore our spirituality. We do have boundaries around it, we have particular ways of doing things, we have keen insights into practice as it were, but we offer a huge amount of space to allow people to explore their journey, and I suppose that’s one of the main differences. We’re not offering clear answers, but we’re trying to ask the right questions.
[/peekaboo_content]

It has been an honor to serve Friends as the founder and director of QuakerSpeak. Now I am pleased to announce my next endeavor, a Quaker media project for the modern era. Find out more at TheeQuaker.org

Announcing… Season 2! (QuakerSpeak Lives On!)

This Thursday, tune in to our YouTube channel for the first video of Season 2 and subscribe to get a new QuakerSpeak video in your inbox every Thursday for the next 9 months!

Dear Friends,

It’s been a big three months! Since I wrote my last post about the YouTube Channel that I work on, and how I’ve been working with Friends Journal to find the resources needed to create a second season, I have heard from so many of you about how the project has touched you or your Meeting. Thank you for those beautiful and inspiring messages, and thank you to everyone who ordered a DVD and/or contributed to a Season 2!
Continue reading “Announcing… Season 2! (QuakerSpeak Lives On!)”