Announcing: Thee Quaker Podcast

I am so pleased to announce, after lots of hard work, that our Quaker podcast is ready to share with the world.

Beginning May 24th, look out for weekly episodes of Thee Quaker Podcast, a show for spiritual seekers, lifelong Quakers, and everyone in between.

I am so pleased to announce, after lots of hard work, that our Quaker podcast is ready to share with the world.

Beginning May 24th, look out for weekly episodes of Thee Quaker Podcast, a show for spiritual seekers, lifelong Quakers, and everyone in between.

Listen to the trailer and subscribe here:

I composed the original music for the trailer, which you can listen to here. I’ll be adding music to that album as I score future episodes.

My Trip to Sierra Leone and Kenya with Right Sharing of World Resources

In 2019 I received a message from Right Sharing of World Resources to see if we might feel called to work together on a series of videos documenting their work supporting women in Sierra Leone, Kenya and India.

In 2019 I received a message from Right Sharing of World Resources to see if we might feel called to work together on a series of videos documenting their work supporting women in Sierra Leone, Kenya and India. Of course COVID delayed our plans, but I’ve spent the past year speaking with board members and hearing about the transformative nature of this work. Last month we finally got to go! I boarded a plane with the Executive Director Jackie Stillwell and we spent a week in Sierra Leone and another week in Kisumu, Kenya.

It has not been uncommon to collect a group of onlookers as we visit with the women's groups here. Sama village, in the far Eastern corner of Sierra Leone, was no different.
It has not been uncommon to collect a group of onlookers as we visit with the women’s groups here. Sama village, in the far Eastern corner of Sierra Leone, was no different.

Even before we arrived, I was inspired by the stories of these women who have banded together to embark on new business ventures that uplift their communities. But meeting them in person has been another experience altogether. I am awestruck by their joy, their gracious playfulness and their collective ingenuity.

Leister Village Freetown Sierra Leone
Rextina Louis started a farming project with a community of 30 women in the Leister Village section of Freetown. I was amazed… the tour of their farm just kept going and going. Super accomplished woman.

Everywhere we went, Jackie and I were met with joy and celebration, and the women we interviewed shared stories of serious challenge and hardship all while praising God and giving thanks. This video is an accurate depiction of the reception we encountered every time we visited a group. Unfettered joy, celebration, welcome.

I’m humbled by the project of telling these stories for a broader audience. Thanks to Right Sharing of World Resources for entrusting me with the task. My job on the trip was mostly to shoot video (and there is a lot of it!) but I couldn’t help but snap some photos while we were in these incredible places. Here are a few of my favorites.

The third leg of our trip was delayed this time due to COVID restrictions in India but as Omicron calms down, it looks like we’ll be able to make it out in March. Prayers appreciated.

Kassasi Village, Sierra Leone

Just wrapped a week of filming here in Sierra Leone. Even before we arrived, I was inspired by the stories of these women who have banded together to embark on new business ventures to uplift their communities. But meeting them in person has been another experience altogether. I am awestruck by their joy, their gracious playfulness and their collective ingenuity.

…and I’m humbled by the task of telling their stories for a broader audience. Thanks to Right Sharing of World Resources for entrusting me with this project.

Sharing this short clip in the brief window as we prepare for the next leg of our trip. Hope to share more soon, but first: headed to Kenya tomorrow!

Just wrapped a week of filming here in Sierra Leone. Even before we arrived, I was inspired by the stories of these women who have banded together to embark on new business ventures to uplift their communities. But meeting them in person has been another experience altogether. I am awestruck by their joy, their gracious playfulness and their collective ingenuity.

…and I’m humbled by the task of telling their stories for a broader audience. Thanks to Right Sharing of World Resources for entrusting me with this project.

Sharing this short clip in the brief window as we prepare for the next leg of our trip. Hope to share more soon, but first: headed to Kenya tomorrow!

A Few Songs Occasioned Anniversary Concert

Riding donkeys into Bristol, burning instruments, cobbling shoes in the middle of a church service… the early Quakers were nothing if not dramatic.

This Spring marks the 15th anniversary of my first music project, wherein I attempted to tell the stories of some these radical 17th century Quakers. You are invited to come help me celebrate in a virtual concert!

I’m very pleased to be joined by the professor whose storytelling started it all: special guest Max Carter!

Saturday, April 24th
7pm EST
Virtual Concert

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The Candle Suite

Dear Friends,

Please enjoy this new recording, just released today:

“The Candle Suite was completed during a time of not-knowing. It is about venturing deep into the darkness–with all that entails: disorientation, comfort, envelopment, loss of perspective. And it’s about the ways that we emerge, humbled and new. I hope it serves to comfort and give you hope in times of darkness.”

The Story of QuakerSpeak

In 2012 I had a dream for a Quaker video project that featured simple, intimate, weekly interviews with Quakers, but I didn’t know where to house it or how to fund it. Two years later I was announcing the QuakerSpeak youtube channel. 223 videos and 6 years later, the channel had accumulated 3.5 million views. Here’s how it happened.

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

WATCH the the videos mentioned in this story
DOWNLOAD the music from QuakerSpeak

Announcement: Moving on From Friends Journal

Dear Friends,

I am writing to announce my decision that this will be my last year as the director of QuakerSpeak. This has been such an amazing journey for me, and I’m really proud of the work I’ve done. What an incredible impact the project has had in just 6 years.

When I first had the vision for a Quaker YouTube channel, I never imagined it would surpass 2.5 million views or generate the kind of widespread support it has seen. I am overwhelmed with gratefulness when I think of it. Remembering back to the discernment process that brought about the idea for the project, I am truly humbled and feel more confident than ever that when we listen and follow the leadings of the spirit, we often have an impact beyond our own imagination.

I’ll be staying on at Friends Journal through the end of the year to finish this season and help transition the project to a new director. I am interested and excited to see what a new creative voice can bring to the project and am glad to know that QuakerSpeak will continue beyond my time at Friends Journal.

My plan in 2020 is to give myself some space for reflection and discernment as I seek clarity about my next big project. My work on QuakerSpeak has been a tremendous opportunity to grow in my skills as a videographer, storyteller, and project manager… skills that are incredibly helpful in getting the word out about organizations that are doing good work.

If you, your meeting, or an organization you work with needs help spreading the word about a program or event, feel free to get in touch. I’ve updated my portfolio page to provide a sense of the scope of my collaborations.

I may also do some traveling to share with Friends what I’ve learned in my experience designing and implementing this groundbreaking outreach project, and welcome inquiries about visiting and speaking with Friends in your area.

Finally, if you’d like to follow my journey, I encourage you to stay in touch through my occasional newsletter:

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

Thanks so much for your interest and support over the years, and here’s to the next leading!

In peace
Jon Watts

How We Win

How do people concerned with peace and justice operate in times of intense polarization? According to Quaker author and activist George Lakey, it’s a moment of tremendous opportunity.

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Transcript

An inspiration for me about recognizing how to operate in this time is George Fox’s vision that he had at the top of Pendle Hill. He saw both an ocean of darkness—that’s easy to see now—and also he saw an ocean of light. It reminds me every time I’m tempted to focus on the ocean of darkness: “Wait a minute. I’m selling reality really short.” That’s not the world that created. Not one of darkness only. And notice, it wasn’t an ocean of darkness and a tiny spring of light. It was an ocean of darkness for George Fox and an ocean of light.

How We Win

My name is George Lakey. My membership is with Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, and my work is supporting people to stand up for themselves and make justice here in the world—justice and peace. So my most recent book is focused on how we win, when we do. People often stand up for themselves and win and sometimes don’t and I was very curious. It was a joy to write this book because I got to look back on a hundred years of American history and pull out—it felt like harvesting actually—wonderful examples of people standing up for themselves and moving the dime: moving our country sometimes grudgingly and resistingly toward peace.

The Opportunity of Our Times

I’ve been traveling a tremendous lot throughout the country the last year and a half and find people extremely anxious about the polarization that’s going on in our country, the tremendous lot of division. And what I’ve been bringing is the good news about that, even though heaven knows, there’s lots of bad news about polarization—lots of violence and lots of ugliness that comes with it. But there’s also good news, and I’ve learned that good news from seventeenth century England when Quaker arose in a very polarized world, and from other situations of polarization in which, along with the ugliness and violence, comes an opportunity for change that’s unusually large if people learn how to navigate it.

How I Learned About Social Change

I was very inspired by the Civil Rights Movement. I was a young man and got to watch that unfold, at first from a distance and then threw myself into it as soon as I could. My first time arrested was in a Civil Rights demonstration. I was very moved both by the famous people like Martin Luther King and also by some of the key organizers like Bayard Rustin, who were right in there, often developing strategies for success.

Learning From Quaker History

My mind turns towards history. I’m always very curious “where do you come from?” when I’m getting to know someone. What’s their background? And the same with Quakers. I wanted to know historically, what have Quakers experienced? And so I went back to seventeenth century writing and history to find out what was going on. I was really amazed by the immediacy of the approach that people took. It wasn’t only that God is calling us to live good lives, of course, but also God is calling us to be part of an unfolding truth-telling exercise that we are expected to be participating in.

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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

QuakerSpeak Featured in Friends Journal

This months issue of Friends Journal is all about QuakerSpeak! Be sure to check it out online if you don’t already have a subscription!

https://www.friendsjournal.org/2019/quakerspeak-at-five/

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

QuakerSpeak Turns 5 and Passes 2 Million Views!

Dear Friends,

thank you so much for your support throughout the years and for following along with my work. Thanks to viewers like you, the QuakerSpeak project is having an outsized impact. Can’t wait to come back into the office and work on Season 6.

in peace
Jon

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

Listening Each Other Into Wholeness

In this week’s QuakerSpeak video, O talks about the role of listening in healing our humanity. What happens when we really listen to one another?

In this week’s QuakerSpeak video, O talks about the role of listening in healing our humanity. What happens when we really listen to one another?

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Transcript

Based on my limited understanding, we are amazingly powerful, whether we get it or not. We are extremely powerful, and often, we feel powerless. Anywhere from depression to anxiety to whatever, we are “feelers.”

Listening Each Other Into Wholeness

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 alive-ness. The signal that allows me to feel the fullness.

And when I speak I am not frivolous with my words because I recognize that my words are power. “Henceforth Christ was known as the word of God” because my judgment is he truly understood the power of word, the power of speaking. So I listen so that I know where I am, where I don’t want to be. What’s possible. To be touched, called, formed. And when I speak, I speak knowing that I’m working with God’s power. And when I speak I want to speak in a way that facilitates healing, that facilitates blessing, that facilitates wholeness, that facilitates creative possibility for integration.

When We Don’t Listen

My concern is that we don’t listen to each other, and it creates the world we see. It creates the world we experience. People not being heard, not being seen, not being appreciated, not being valued, not being recognized. People not being recognized for that of God that dwells within them. Not seen. Not recognized. Not reclaimed and embraced. Whole-heartedly embraced. And so we fragment. We fragment. We become broken because we are not seen for who we really are. The body breaks. It just breaks.

Listening Each Other Into Wholeness

The positive news… (That’s the sad news. That’s the sad news, how about some happy news?) The happy news is at any point in time we can take our power back, we can fine tune, re-hone, calibrate our capacity to hear and recognize each other. And so my belief is there’s a way of listening, that Quakers have this belief or this sentence: “Listening each other into wholeness.” That we have the capacity to listen each other into wholeness, and we can take that back at any point in time and feel the richness of deep listening, where our heart is actually touched. Deep listening. And deep speaking. It’s exciting.

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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?”

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!)”

What’s Next for QuakerSpeak?

So QuakerSpeak’s funding didn’t get renewed for a second year. On Monday I will meet with staff at Friends Journal to begin to discern whether the project can continue to be housed there and if so, where the support for Season 2 might come from. I would appreciate your prayers in this time.

UPDATE #2: Season 2 is on!

UPDATE #1: Since we first heard that we didn’t get our funding for a second year, I have spoken with the folks at Friends Journal and they are confident that they want to keep me on for a season 2, and while we’re not totally clear on the details of how that will happen, it seems like things are moving in the right direction.

And if you are interested in helping make a season 2 happen, there is a way for you to help! Just go to QuakerSpeak.com/DVD and pre-order our new DVD… you’ll have the option to put in a little extra to help support season 2. Thanks to everyone who commented on this post, you gave me some Light in a moment where it was obscured! So much gratitude. With grace, there are enough folks like you out there that want to see another year of QuakerSpeak!


Original Post:

So QuakerSpeak‘s funding didn’t get renewed for a second year.

Without getting too much into the dynamics of the funding organization, I’ll just say that I am not too surprised, but I am disappointed. Most folks I talk to seem to feel like the project has been wildly successful in its first year.

So what comes next? I’m not sure yet.
Continue reading “What’s Next for QuakerSpeak?”

Can Self-Promotion Be Spirit-Led?

When I first received the call to do this work, my core values were offended. Hadn’t I already rejected the part of myself that strives for public attention? I was so attached to my humbleness that I refused to “self-promote”. Ironically, it was my pride and self-will that got in the way of my calling to publicize this ministry.

Give over thine own willing; give over thine own running; give over thine own desiring to know, or to be any thing

-Isaac Pennington full quote

As Quakers, we make this fundamental, unshakeable distinction: God’s will. My will.

If we are to do the will of God, we must first let go of our own striving, our own willing. And if we are to give over our own willing, how could it ever be in good order for us to reach out for something as vain and creaturely as celebrity?

I wrote this post as a part of QVS’ synchroblog on Quakers and new media. See what other bloggers had to say here.

The Allure of Attention

I am familiar with the allure of acting out my void in public. I want the attention. I want to be seen. I want to be known. I am afraid of being passed over.
Continue reading “Can Self-Promotion Be Spirit-Led?”

Coming Out As Gay in Kenya

Quaker Speak: Justimore Musombi talks about being a Gay Christian Pastor in Kenya, homosexuality in Africa, and coming out as gay in Kenya.

Quaker Speak: Justimore Musombi talks about being a Gay Christian Pastor in Kenya, homosexuality in Africa, and coming out as gay in Kenya.

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I’m looking for a new family honestly, because my family has disregarded me. They did a ceremony in the African context of when you are gay or you commit suicide, they perform a certain ritual that people don’t want to associate themselves with you. To me, they performed it. They burned my clothes. They destroyed my things. They have sold my commercial plots in town. Some of the things I have bought. They have sold my things, meaning they don’t want to associate themselves with me.

I don’t have family in Kenya. I don’t have support in Kenya. I don’t have friends in Kenya.

Being Gay in Kenya
The law of Kenya is against homosexuality. If you are gay and found having sex with a person of the same gender you are jailed for 14 years. People need to understand, you know, what we mean by sexual preference and sexual orientation. I think that is the big thing that Africans are struggling with. So if they come to the fullness of understanding what is sexual preference and what is sexual orientation I think they can distinguish that and not demonize people and I think it is just homophobic, you know.

Being brought from where—I just don’t know because people say it is a Western thing, but honestly speaking it’s not a Western thing because I have done research and I found out that in the African context we have some terms that they used to refer to people of the same sex having sex—and so it is something buried down that they don’t want to bring it up. And yet it is there.

Coming Out
When I came out, close friends of mine heard about my coming out and they demonized it. They started calling me—that I am evil, I am possessed—and they treat me as someone who is suffering from mental illness.

“Praying for God to lift this curse”
I can say that what Paul says, “a thorn in the flesh,” something that disturbed me for many years and so I wanted this thing to come out. But it didn’t come out. It is something that I have grown up with my entire life. The first time that I discovered that I was gay it was far away in high school. I was being attracted to men sexually—those who dress well and they look nice. It was just me.

I would go to people to ask, “I have these feelings about my sexual desires. How am I going to do it?” Most of the time people advised me to pray and fast because they were telling me that it is a demon. And so I believed maybe, you know, people who are heterosexual and they engage themselves into gay sex: it is an abomination. It is a curse.

So I was praying God to lift this curse away from me.

Reconciling
So it has been so difficult for me to reconcile my faith, to reconcile my culture, and my sexual orientation. People refer me to books like Leviticus: “It is wrong for people to be together, have sex with the same gender,” and then they quote so much what Paul said. But you know, they don’t look into the culture of that time. The context and the content.

Why did Paul say this? Why did the writer of Leviticus write this? They take the scriptures literally the way it is and they want to apply it. Maybe it was that time, it is not this time.

Can’t Go Home
So right now I am operating as a refugee. Not on student status, but student vis-a-vis refugee. So I can’t assure you I will be going home right now, but I do love my country and I want to go back and support my country. But I have no means of going back because of the fear that I have for my life. Sort of like, I have shifted my minds to be here and to look for the Quaker organization and work with the Quaker church to support me and to be there.

Hakuna Mungu kama wewe

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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

Thomas Kelly: Room For the Infinite (Video by Coleman Watts)

Thomas Kelly (1893-January 17, 1941) was an American Quaker educator. He taught and wrote on the subject of mysticism.

This visual essay is the work of Coleman Watts, which he completed for the Quaker Leadership Scholars Program at Guilford College.

Thomas Kelly (1893-January 17, 1941) was an American Quaker educator. He taught and wrote on the subject of mysticism.

This visual essay is the work of Coleman Watts, which he completed for the Quaker Leadership Scholars Program at Guilford College in 2002.

4 years later, inspired partially by my brother’s ambitious undertaking, I released an album of songs I wrote about the Early Friends.

Narration and Research by Bob Ouradnik