December 2010
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Lifehacker: Why Gawker is moving beyond the blog →
Interesting deconstruct of the upcoming Gawker design. If you watch the video you’ll see how it’s like the new Twitter design in reverse: expanded article on left, scrolling news feed on the right.
November 2010
Leslie M-B: A seeker looking at Friends →
Aside from the primary testimonies of the Friends—simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, and care for the earth—perhaps what most attracts me to Friends is their willingness not to always…
Kevin Camp: Experience in vocal ministry →
To me, it’s more feasible to see a sharp distinction between inexperienced speakers and speakers who break the unwritten codes of unprogrammed worship. I have known many experienced speakers, if…
Micah Bales: Rethinking Membership →
How might we re-evaluate how membership functions in our Meetings? How is God calling us to change our ways of thinking about membership in order to be faithful to Christ’s mission in our present…
Anthony Manousos: William Penn and the Indians →
The icon of the encounter between Quakers and the Indians is Edward Hick’s “Peaceable Kingdom.” In the foreground it shows the scene from Isaiah in which the lion lies down with the lamb, and the…
Cat Chapin-Bishop: Spiritual Authority →
I am beginning to understand that when we do the work of Spirit—not the work we appoint ourselves to in the name of Spirit, but that which we have been asked to take up by the Light itself—we stand…
Forrest Curo: That of Each Person in God? →
There are mental processes going on… that we aren’t conscious of. We don’t need to personify them in spooky ways, but it’s not at all hard to demonstrate that they’re happening. We can focus our…
Micah Bales: Engagement as Corporate Practice →
Each local Meeting of the Church has to determine the right balance between outward engagement and inward reflection. Some churches are more naturally inclined to a spirituality of action, while…
Micah Bales: From a Lone Nut Into a Movement →
We as Christians are ultimately followers of the ultimate lone nut, Jesus. How can we courageously follow him, even when doing so will put our relationships, livelihood and reputation at risk? How…
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NY Times gets first bicycle path wrong. South...
The NY Times has an interactive feature today on Bike Lanes, 1894 to Now, claiming that nation’s first bike path was located in Brooklyn. Wrong. Two years earlier, in 1892, the Smithville Bicycle Railroad opened near Mt Holly in South Jersey. It’s an absolutely fascinating story.
George Amoss: Eye Hath Not Seen →
If, then, the Christ-spirit — that of God — within me speaks judgment, it speaks hopefully of possibilities as well, perhaps even the possibility of the impossible.26 “For with God, all things are…
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“What’s the basis of Christianity? It’s really a meal, it’s communion right? It’s...”
– Sufjan Stevens interviewed in The Quietus
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“When I walk into a coffeeshop (pick just about any one in Portland) and 9 out of...”
– C Wess Daniels, Escapism and Citizenship on the Web
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Rick Seifert: Radical Inclusion →
I know the communal celebration of that joy, our joy, resides in the shared, wordless stillness and unity of our silent worship. From that centered gathering emanates unity, truth and and leadings of…
Steven Davison: Lewis Benson and the "new... →
Some of these questions are rhetorical, of course. We never have ‘decided’ to abandon Fox’s meaning or early Friends’ mission, not in good gospel order, anyway, by which I mean with worship and…
Jan Lyn: Quakers and Gratitude →
A big part of being Quaker to me, is the freedom to express myself as led- what the Light in my heart is illuminating. I find cause to give thanks in that alone. At times, I feel Friends have good…
Will T: Nayler and spiritual transformation →
It is God’s use of us combined with our uniting with that use that prepares us to be even more fit for God’s continued use. Claiming that one can be transformed into the nature of Christ is a pretty…
“If you carefully walk through the Sermon on the Mount, you can’t stop there. We...”
– A Silly Poor Gospel: Questions
Rachel Stacy on living up to our religious credit →
Much of the history of Quakerism has been mythologized. For example, I personally did not have a role in the underground railroad, WW2 relief work or feeding the hungry during the potato famine (not…
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Fr. Robert Pasley of Mater Ecclesiae Responds to... →
Steven Davison: "That of God"--New Light? →
For years, I have labored under a concern about our misuse of the phrase ‘that of God. One of the things I’ve been harping on is that we now mean something by the phrase that turns Fox’s meaning on…
Johan Maurer: Experimenting with prayer →
I know that I can’t crowbar God into specific mechanical responses to prayer. Prayer isn’t a divine remote control; it’s an expression of relationship, a form of grateful, humble participation in…
C Wess Daniels: Being A “Released” Minister →
I am comfortable with the fact that I do pastoral care, teach scripture, and help guide and accompany a Quaker congregation in the movements of the Spirit and our tradition, but there are times when…
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WatchFather Ed Namiotka describing himself: A hired man who is not a shepherd and who’s sheep are not his own sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away. And the wolf catches and scatters them. This is because he works for pay and has no concern for sheep.
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“For all those who think we may have given up, do not lose heart. This is not the...”
– Fr. Ed Namiotka, Coward. St Mary’s Church has been closed. St Mary’s Church lives.
Micah Bales on Organic Quaker Growth →
The ultimate goal of new churches is not to establish huge institutional structures that can self-perpetuate for generations to come, regardless of the will of the Holy Spirit. The result of a…
“We’ve become so obsessed with who wins or loses in politics that...”
– Democrats didn’t lose the battle of 2010. They won it. - By William Saletan - Slate Magazine
Will T: Like a Weaned Child →
Friends in their writings, in both their early writings and their later journals, developed a style that mentions baptizings and difficulties yet is almost totally opaque about what was actually…
WatchSo You Want to Go to Seminary? ”Seminarians are the people that Trekkies and sci-fi geeks call nerds. Seminary is like a religious comic-con except without the costumes or fun.”
Micah Bales: Visionary leadership and ministers,... →
Among Quakers, there have traditionally been three offices that have been formally recognized: Gospel ministers, elders and overseers. Each one of these roles is made possible by the gifts that…
Ann Riggs: Trusting Friends by FTC Principal →
Kenyan Friends think very much in terms of ordered family relationships. If Friends in the United States are elder, predate the introduction of Quakerism in eastern Africa by two and a half…
Steven Davison on John Bellars, history's 2nd-most... →
So how has this important contributor to Quaker—and even Western—history fallen into such relative oblivion among his own people? Why did even his own contemporaries shy away from his genius? And…
“Clearly, if this gift of apostleship is absent from our communities, we are...”
– Micah Bales: Missional Quaker Faith - Visionary Leadership
Jon Watts' next album: Songs About Early Quakers... →
The album will look at the “theological underpinnings of going naked as a sign” and ask “What was going on with these radical Christians?” Right now, he’s fundraising.
Musings Beth: experiment of lighting candles for... →
What resulted was incredibly moving – as various members of the meeting got up to speak about people dear to them. One person read a relevant passage from Quaker Faith and Practice about death and…