Martin Kelley › Comments

"Wow, that's a pretty bad situation. For what it's worth, Jesus is pretty clear that we will be both mis-understood and intentionally mis-characterized. Sometimes the best we can do is to just hold as close as we can to charity and to do our best to keep ourselves (and our supporters) from getting caught up in the drama. Part of the spiral is reacting to this kind of overt provocation. We need to be brave enough to be meek." - Martin Kelley

Lots of thoughtful articles by in this issue of New York Yearly Meeting's magazine. - Martin Kelley

I've been alarmed by some of the posts that I've found on sites like wikipedia and expert.com that stated that Friends follow individualistic spiritual paths. This is a gross misstatement of our manner of being. While Friends may welcome others, wherever they are on their spiritual path, the path is neither an individualistic or solitary one. For the path of being a Quaker is one that can not be defined in a vacuum; it must be experienced as a part of the whole. - Martin Kelley

While church-focused Facebook applications have been around for years, now real-life churches across the country are spreading their messages online, giving more people access to worship services and helping the churches reach a broader number of people. - Martin Kelley

Factionalism, favoritism, in-groups and gossip do immense, and I would say, often unacknowledged, damage to Quaker institutions and meetings, as well as in the wider world. I've seen the "mischief making" and I've seen people more often than I'd like to have leave meetings because of it. Mostly, they don't care about the quarrel, whatever it may be, but they do care about the way people act and they are appalled at what they see. - Martin Kelley

I know this because I am getting lessons about pride and privilege nearly every day it seems, from different people, over and over and over again. So it must be important and I need to pay closer attention. - Martin Kelley

I feel we need to return to those earlier Quaker values it’s a hard road and there are no guarantees but being dreamily positive is no substitute for a realistic understanding of the problems we face. Too much positive thinking and looking inside ourselves for answers lets those who have created this mess escape their responsibility and disarms us from holding them to account. - Martin Kelley

Over at Facebook we have had long discussions about certiain ones. Sometimes people get tickled, offended or downright inspired. Some in the series are ironic, some silly, some serious. I will let you decide which is which - Martin Kelley

"Archie: glad you like the blog. I haven't heard from Harold in a few years (and I never really knew him). Last I heard the church planting project ran into internal yearly meeting politics and he moved on." - Martin Kelley

If we experience such a leading and gathering, can our communities reach out to convince others of the joy and liberation that comes from living God's way, in such numbers that we can choose life for the future, avoiding the worst kind of global warming, welcoming God's kingdom worldwide, where justice and peace break out? - Martin Kelley

I appreciate the Quaker emphasis on finding that of God in everyone, emphasizing grace over sin and understanding every person as having direct access to the light of the Holy Spirit. But if this slides into denying the existence of evil, then we become a society of Pollyannas, hoping to smile injustice away or to melt cruelty because of our radiant "patterns" of good living. Da Nile is a long river. - Martin Kelley

Excerpt: "This means significant changes are happening across the Facebook ecosystem that marketers and brands need to be aware of and account for in their products and strategies." - Martin Kelley

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. - Martin Kelley

Dreamy psychedelica pop that mainlines straight into my musical synapses. Heard on WFMU's Bill Kelly. - Martin Kelley

We are excited to announce that University Friends Meeting is inviting Young Adult Friends (aged 18-35) from across North America to come together Friday, May 28 - Monday, May 31, 2010, in Wichita, Kansas. It is our prayer that this will be a time for Young Adult Friends from a wide variety of Yearly Meetings to gather to worship God, share in fellowship, and grow together in our faith as Friends. - Martin Kelley

It worries me to see new attenders, seekers, and young families come into our meetinghouses, maybe even get involved in the life of the meeting--the person's "home meeting"--without some early integration of the awareness of just who makes up the Religious Society of Friends. - Martin Kelley

This experience of Quaker Meeting as a 'Quaker Space' for personal reflection has largely eclipsed the more traditional understanding of a 'Quaker Way', which involves personal discipline, religious commitment and communal accountability. Many people in Quaker Meetings do not know that there is a distinctive Quaker tradition of spiritual teaching and practice. Instead, the vacuum of teaching is often filled by other spiritual traditions, as well as the background assumptions of the dominant culture. - Martin Kelley

I've been reading an 1806 book on Quakers, at A Portraiture of Quakerism. While at first it sounds as though Quakers at the time were against having any fun at all (music, dancing, reading novels, drama, gambling) the arguments there are more nuanced than I expected. While I'm right there with the author on gambling, I didn't expect to find myself convicted on the reading of novels. Namely, that reading novels makes it harder to read nonfiction. - Martin Kelley

In my experience, the [words of Galatians 5] are difficult if not impossible to follow unless our hearts and spirits are filled - to the brim! - with the love of Christ. Some of us are filled that way, miraculously, directly through God's Spirit. Many of us, however, need help from human friends to finally get there. Pray for the filling of the Spirit, and if you need human help getting there, seek it, accept it, be willing to change, and to let go of some of the things you have in order to get it. It is worth the effort. - Martin Kelley

What is it we really want those who find us to understand about our peculiar faith tradition? How can we share the fabric of Quakerism and not just a few of its individual threads? - Martin Kelley

The scope and nature of this challenge came into even clearer focus during Tom’s deployment with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq. In the blog that he began after he arrived in Baghdad, Tom included the word “Satan” in his vocabulary, a concept he’d never spoken about in our prior conversations, and one that I’d never taken seriously. “This force of war,” he said “…leads a person, or country, or ethnic group to walk away from God and towards the contagion of Satan.” - Martin Kelley

We noted that while most of Quaker writings have come from the global North and West, we can take inspiration from this history and step up now to take our turn. It’s time to hear from Friends in Africa, Asia, and, of course, Latin America. But the heart of the workshops is always just doing the stuff. People were to come with a preliminary manuscript, a story from their own experience of an encounter with Jesus. - Martin Kelley

So, what would be a Quaker approach to the book give away? Well, we historically don’t engage in raffles (a topic that comes up every year or so at our children’s Quaker school). In any case, one of my goals with the book give away is to get more Quakers from different branches reviewing my book, as well as people from other communities. So I’m thinking a discernment process, rather than a raffle. - Martin Kelley

Friends are now at a crisis… We can conform to political culture… liberal Friends siding more and more with the democrats, Orthodox/evangelical more and more with the republican Religious right. We can try to become acceptable to these groups or, we can maintain our testimony that our primary citizenship is not of this earth thus things such as Earthly politics are not important. We can either hold onto the secular culture of division or we can embrace Christ’s peace and unity. - Martin Kelley

I wish I could say that this simple form of worship never leads to conflict, but I must be honest and admit that people in Meeting sometimes get upset about the vocal ministry. When you allow people the freedom to get up and say what’s on their minds and hearts, there is always a risk they will say something that someone considers inappropriate. - Martin Kelley

I wish I could say that this simple form of worship never leads to conflict, but I must be honest and admit that people in Meeting sometimes get upset about the vocal ministry. When you allow people the freedom to get up and say what’s on their minds and hearts, there is always a risk they will say something that someone considers inappropriate. - Martin Kelley

We can help dispel the false constructions of Christianity used to uphold privilege and oppression by building churches and meetings that continue to enact the Biblical stories of equality, simplicity, integrity and inclusion. As the many messages in Meeting for Worship expressed, we insignificant people need to keep on keeping on... - Martin Kelley

We live our lives like passengers on a train, always in motion, always seeming to hurry on to somewhere else, but in truth never leaving our compartments, riding along to our destinations in the company of those who stepped aboard with us at the beginning of our journeys. The scenery through the windows changes constantly, but it’s the world passing by us that really moves, while we actually remain still in the eternal now, in the present. - Martin Kelley

So when people find out that I grew up on the east coast but have been living in the midwest since 1985, they often ask me, "Why'd you move to the midwest?" And I tell them: God brought me here. - Martin Kelley

In this modern world, as people begin to marry and move due to work or calling, I find it compelling to look at how Quakerism is working with those less geographically rooted members in terms of membership to local meetings; members who join a local meeting but find a calling beyond the geographic reach of either their local meeting or even the reach of Friends meetings currently serving local communities around the world. These are the Quaker middle-ground: neither fully participatory in the life of the meeting, nor missionaries for the spread of Quaker community. - Martin Kelley