After two years of writing, recording and planning, Clothe Yourself in Righteousness is out! The album is Jon’s most mature, well-thought out work to date.
Pre-orders have been shipped. Donors have been rewarded. Now all we have to do is go and play the tour!
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Friends,
As the tenth anniversary to 9/11 came and went, I found myself reflecting on the past ten years… especially our reaction to being attacked and the results of that reaction.
I found myself reflecting on my elder, Tom Fox, who joined the Christian Peacemaker teams to try to heal some of the damage we were doing in Iraq. And I found myself mulling over the song that I wrote about Tom’s subsequent abduction and death.
What resulted was very unexpected. I am working full tilt on a new album (due for release in 2 weeks… yikes!) and certainly did not have the spare time. But of course I had to listen, and be faithful to the call. Take a look:
“What’s important is not your emotional reaction to something, but how you hold and interact with that emotion”
It will continue to become clear that 9/11 was a turning point for our country. Not because we were attacked. Because of the way we responded to being attacked, which was far more damaging (to us) than the attacks themselves.
Tom was a Quaker who, when our thirst for vengeance threw us into conflict with Iraq, felt led to put himself at risk by traveling into the middle of that conflict to be a peacemaker.
Tom endured the criticism of self-proclaimed “patriotic” Americans, personal sacrifice and even his own death to follow his leading for making peace in Iraq.
As I was looking around for images for the music video that I released today about Tom Fox, I stumbled across this one:
Tom Fox did not go to Iraq because he knew Iraqis personally and wanted to protect them. He did not go to Iraq because he was not affected by 9/11. Most likely, he had a great deal of personal emotion to overcome before he put himself into that conflict to be a nonviolent presence.
When I lash out at someone, it is most likely because I am in a very difficult place myself. Doing violence to another being is a symptom of my ambivalence about my own existence, and devaluing another’s life solidifies my lack of value for myself.
We cannot all be Jesus, or Tom Fox. But can we all see that we are called to healing, that hurting people who hurt us is asking for more hurt? Healing has to start somewhere. I know it might feel like I’m asking a lot (and I am), but why not let it start with us?
Pendle Hill’s daily Quaker Worship transforms into a raucous dance party as the result of some unconventional ministry from Jon Watts. Filmed and edited by Ben Schilling. The music video for “Friend Speaks My Mind.”
Learn more about Jon Watts:
Reposted from the 2009 Friends Center Newsletter
Max Carter, Director of Friends Center at Guilford College
I am not adept at most of the modern social networking devices. No Blackberry or cell phone, even. At the insistence of Friends Center staff and students, there is a Facebook account with my name attached – for purposes of getting the word out on campus ministry programs. But I don’t know how to operate it.
Thus, I was unaware of a YouTube video that recently went “viral” – at least in proportion to Quaker numbers – until friends referred me to it. The video shows 2006 QLSP graduate Jon Watts rising in the silence of worship in the Barn at Pendle Hill. His vocal ministry turns into a “rap” about Quaker history and theology, focusing on the diversity of views among Friends and his own upbringing in Friends General Conference. All around him, the worshipers gradually begin to dance about, sing, and play musical instruments. It turns into quite the “Quaker Holy Ghost Revival” – if liberal, unprogrammed Friends emphasized the Holy Ghost!
Anyone familiar with Jon’s QLSP senior project, a compilation of original songs based on the spirituality of George Fox, James Nayler, and Solomon Eccles – or his subsequent recordings through his own Bull & Mouth label – would recognize some of the themes in the video. He gives a “shout out” not only to his Quaker heroes, but also to Guilford, QLSP, Baltimore Yearly Meeting camps, and other influences on his spiritual journey. While emphasizing his deep roots in the liberal tradition of Friends, he makes a clarion call for mutual listening, understanding, and sympathy across the Quaker spectrum.
I dare say that some Friends might be taken aback by theological statements made in the video, but those of us who have known and worked with Jon are taken aback even more by how much he has grown and developed in his Quaker faith. I encourage Friends to read the “Proceedings” of Friends Center’s November 2008 Quaker Renewal Program conference on Convergent Friends (available on the Friends Center site). At that conference, young adult Quakers shared their deep concern that they had been shortchanged by their Friends meetings: pastoral Friends by the lack of teaching on Quaker distinctives and the testimonies; liberal Friends by the lack of teaching about the Bible and Christian beliefs. Jon’s video displays that he has, indeed, become aware of the rich tapestry of a broader Quakerism – and that he is finding his home in it.
In Friends Center programs such as QLSP, campus ministry, the Quaker Renewal Program, and academic offerings, we have witnessed many students and older adults come into an awareness of a richer, deeper, more complex Quakerism. Few have had the capacity to express that growth in entertaining YouTube videos and music, but their journeys are no less fascinating. In this year’s Friends Center newsletter, you will be introduced to some of our ongoing work in continuing the mission to “strengthen Friends and their institutions” and to be companions along the way of spiritual pilgrimage. I hope you enjoy the articles.
And if you are inspired to create your own video on YouTube, be sure to let us know! But we’ll continue to maintain that the theological views and opinions will not necessarily be those of the management!
-Max L. Carter