Kenneth Sutton's aide-mémoire
Steph Swainston
An engaging rogue kept me going through the disorienting writing style. There are not one but two surreal worlds (and yes, I really mean surreal–I just looked it up). The end is also too abrupt for my taste; the major external drama is resolved, but not the internal or interpersonal ones.
Here it is at Powell’s Books.
There’s a great panel over at Barclay Press — Conversation Cafe: How (and when) then shall we die?. What these Friends say strengthens my commitment to conversations across the Quaker landscape and my conviction that we are all really Friends. The Evangelical/Fundamentalist interpretation of sexual ethics held by Evangelical Friends often makes me want to lump them in with Southern Baptists and their ilk. But then I’m reminded by something like this, or by their peace witness, or by their understanding of ministry, that our common religious heritage does actually exert some common influence.
From today’s Yahoo:
Jeff Sharlet at The Revealer has a wonderful short essay on the death of the Pope.
Anyone who has ever watched a person slowly die, close-up, knows that it’s a story easily told — “then, he died” — and even more easily misunderstood. Those who make a moral out of another’s death serve the needs of the living; they’d do well to recognize that their storytelling is metaphorical cannibalism.
An online list I subscribe to had a request for advice/stories about starting a reading group. Here’s the quick answer I gave:
I’ve participated in three startups. I’ll just describe each one briefly. The only universal is that none of them have used a discussion leader.
First group (and closest to my heart): Four friends, two of whom were newly dating, got together in a home over a meal and then discussed Kim. The group has been meeting for a meal in each other’s homes an average of ten times a year since 1988. The group made it through the early de facto but never formal departure of one of the founders, the partnership and later breakup of the couple, a period when it felt more like an eating group than a reading group, and the eventual departure of all but one of the founders. Two of the founders shepherded the group through its adolescence. Members pick books in rotation. Early rules were no poetry, no short stories. It’s always been a pretty low-key group. The best size seems to be around eight (since they need to fit around a dinner table), and members reflect a dispersed friendship network: New members come in at the invitation of a member after the member checks out the idea with the rest of the group. The kind of member in shortest supply: straight men. Next shortest supply: people who want to do “serious” reading for self-improvement. Since 2001 the group has been doing a fundraising readathon on MLK weekend, when they go away to a borrowed vacation home. You can find the list of books up through 2001, when I moved away, here: reading club.
Second group: New city, new employer, sent out a company-wide email. Got about five responses. We met three or four times and petered out. Our reasons for wanting a group differed too much; we lived too far away from each other to sustain meeting in one another’s homes but had no good alternative. There were no relationships that were close enough to sustain the group long enough for it to cohere.
Third try: Not-so-new city and employer. Sent out emails to work, Quaker meeting, and contra-dance community, as well as posting an invitation at an internet site. (Can’t remember the name of it. Reader’s roundtable? dunno.) Started with a large pool of casually interested people. It stymied me for quite a while because I didn’t want to be picking and choosing, but it was definitely more people than I wanted to be in a group with. Eventually they were winnowed out by questions of location, frequency, etc. There were probably fifteen people still around to be invited to participate in setting the first meeting. Five bowed out right away, and a couple more kind of kept their feet in but never showed up. We spent time the first night talking about what kind of books we’re interested in reading; verdict: mostly but not entirely fiction, one person doesn’t want to read “classics” (we’ll see how that pans out). We’re about to discuss our fourth book. We meet at a central location after work (6:30) and bring snack foods and beverages. We’re very spread out geographically, and the big hurdle I see facing us is what happens if we need to meet somewhere else. Current composition is a close Quaker friend and another Quaker I don’t know so well, two coworkers from my immediate office, another coworker from another department, a total stranger who responded to the internet listing, and my boyfriend. Two men, six women, age range mid-twenties to almost sixty. There are some close relationships, but not everyone knows one another. I’m organizing the meeting setups using evite.
Some things I’d suggest from what I’ve learned:
–Be clear as clear as you can with ourself about what you want if you’re going to be putting out the energy to get it started.
–Have something to sustain the group at first: a structure, putting yourself out to be the organizer, or a couple of strong friendships in the group.
–Get some diversity of perspective in the group.
–Decisions about food and location are just as important as decisions about what kind of books and whether to have leaders.
Good luck!
And since politics matters to me, I didn’t have any intention of vacationing in Colorado anyway. But this story at DenverPost.com — LOCAL NEWS shows that some people need a wakeup call.
A town trustee’s refusal to say the Pledge of Allegiance before board meetings has led to Tuesday’s recall election and hard feelings among some of the community’s 7,000 residents. . . .
“People want a vacation, they don’t care about politics,” agreed Judy Speece, owner of Mountain Vista Acre B & B. “They just want to get away from it all.”
Well, count me out!
And just for the record: Christians shouldn’t be pledging allegiance to a flag, either, or to a country. A Christian’s allegiance to a nation shoud always be subservient to an allegiance to God.
So there.
Bob has discovered Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover novels, and I started (re)reading along. I skipped the earliest (according to internal Darkover chronology) and have devoured these:
The Shattered Chain
Thendara House
Rediscovery (with Mercedes Lackey)
The Spell Sword
Yum. Tasty.
Just found the Invisible Library via an online book group that’s grown out of Copyediting‑L.
Martin at Quaker Ranter is feeling the burden of the work: Youth Ministry, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Style:
So why not just admit that the yearly meeting is irrelevant to younger Friends? Why not turn our meetinghouses into retirement homes?
PS: How I wish I weren’t so cynical about the yearly meeting.
I left an equally heartfelt, but I fear somewhat less than helpful, comment:
I wish you weren’t so cynical, too. I’m sorry each time I read of your difficulties, Martin. I share your concerns about the narrow age range of most of those in Quaker leadership and wonder about the reasons. I agree that often there is explicit ageism as well as implicit indifference or lack of imagination. On the other hand, I’m also often mystified as to why our experiences have been so different.
I came to Friends when I was 26 (in 1986). I was single and not particularly consumed with making any particular kind of life or career; I was ultimately available. I joined meeting (Central Philadelphia) within months of first attending, I was so certain I belonged. I took advantage of every opportunity for involvement and service. I worked for Friends for the better part of the next 15 years.
And I found many opportunities. I was often given opportunities specifically because of my age. Sometimes I had to press for what I believed was right for me. (I refused appointment to Peace and Social Concerns Committee; I think I was approached because I was an out gay man. I told them I had come to Friends not out of social concerns but out of spiritual ones. I wasn’t immediately appointed to Overseers, as it was then called, but I was the next year. I also served on Worship and Ministry, which I clerked while in my early 30s.)
Chance put some opportunities in my way. I transfered my membership for a time to the meeting in Camden, New Jersey, which had a tiny resident population. I spoke up about something at business meeting and wound up appointed to Representative Meeting (now Interim Meeting), which was unlikely to have happened at CPMM. I left work early once a month in order to go. By the time I left Interim Meeting some ten years later, it began its meetings after dinner, although still on a weeknight. The range of age and economic situation of the members had radically changed. I was clerk of Interim Meeting at 38, having already served as recording clerk, as well as having previously served as one of the recording clerks of yearly meeting.
At Central Philadelphia my ministry was soundly supported. I was young, and I was relatively new to the meeting. But I was a member, not an attender. My experience of CPMM was that membership was considered to make a decisive difference. (CPMM is one of the few meetings I know that has gone through an in-depth process to figure out just what membership does mean.)
I don’t want to go on about what I’ve done. I don’t think of myself as an unusual person. But it wasn’t much of a struggle for me to be usefully involved with Friends even at a leadership level, although I did have to give up some things and make some sacrifices. I had the liberty of job flexibility and no children.
I began thinking and teaching about eldering in my early 30s and constantly had to tell people eldering wasn’t about age (how many foolish old people do you know?). But on the other hand, I do have to admit that my ministry situates me among a relatively small group of Friends. Perhaps I shouldn’t try to draw any conclusions from my experience. I wish I could figure out if there’s anything about my experience that could help others feel more at home or more effective. I’m ever mindful of the fact that I am NOT young, even if I am among the youngest in a group.
All through this life, there have been some things that may be clues: I enjoy getting to know and working with people of all ages; I’m willing to submit to community discernment and needs; I’m accustomed to working within the status quo even while changing it; I’m passionately committed to learning from and building upon the past; I’m a good politician; I consciously try to be patient; I’m generally cheerful.
If yearly meeting is in session, then the star magnolias in the courtyard must be in bloom and perhaps there are even bulbs blooming in the lawns. Here in Boston it’s notable just to see snowdrops in bloom.
Found this fascinating article at the Chronicle of Higher Education: The Chronicle: 3/11/2005: From Islam, Pluralist Democracies Will Surely Grow.
From the very moment that God spoke the first word of Revelation to Muhammad — “Recite!” — the story of Islam has been in a constant state of evolution as it responds to the social, cultural, political, and temporal circumstances of those who are telling it. Now it must evolve once more.