Entries from January 1, 2007 - February 1, 2007
FGC's Sweat Lodge: An Effort at Discernment
Marshall Massey
in Mechanics of Quakerism, Quakerism & Other Religions, Integrity
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39 Comments
The problem that FGC is saddled with here is that the debate is between two groups whose respective hopes for Quakerism are half-way irreconcilable.
Each of these groups has the sneaking suspicion that, if it loses the struggle over the Quaker Sweat Lodge, this will be the first step toward losing more and more — until, ultimately, it will lose its chance for its kind of Quakerism altogether.
Confucius for Quakers: 5
Marshall Massey
in Confucius, Quakerism & Other Religions
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2 Comments
Every community needs to employ the services of its members, under the direction of some leader or at least some group of coördinators, in order to convert its human energy into the utilities that keep it alive. A Chinese community in Confucius’s day needed community work gangs for road building, ditch digging, and the like. A modern community needs police, firefighting, medical services, schoolteaching, electrical power, sewers, and much more.
And for these things, the community needs more from its leaders than courtesy and charity; it needs true spiritual direction, foresight, and a corporate discipline. And if the leaders or coördinators fail in their duty to provide these things, and instead allow the community’s energy and resources to be dissipated or squandered, the community is endangered.
*Contra Gentes*: Left and Right, The Challenge of Listening
Marshall Massey
in Blogwitness, Current Political Events
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4 Comments
Friends, if you haven’t already noticed it, I’d like to call your attention to the discussion currently swirling about conservative columnist Rod Dreher’s confession on National Public Radio last Thursday.
Is there any liberal Quaker reading this, who doesn’t wish the right wing would listen to their “whys” for once, and not just caricature their positions?
But is it too much to point out that liberals, including Quaker liberals, overlook the conservative “whys” and caricature the conservative positions in the very same way?
Meeting for Worship; Meeting for Business
Marshall Massey
in Mechanics of Quakerism
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13 Comments
The very act of waiting, as a waiter waits on a customer, or a courtier on a king, is practice in setting aside one’s own ideas and opinions and learning to serve. Six months of hour-long waiting worship twice a week is the sort of intensive training in setting aside one’s self and learning to serve, that can change a person visibly. Six months of hour-long sitting in silence twice a week, seeking for truth and reality, may never once take a person beyond thinking that he knows the truth better than anyone else around him.