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Friends Journal podcasting is back! It is the season of the podcast in Quakerland. In the last few weeks I’ve shared Pendle Hill’s new podcast and the new one from Irish Friends and hinted more were on the way. One of those is a new podcast from Friends Journal called Quakers Today. Produced by the most excellent Peterson Toscano, it’s a monthly podcast that will feature a mix of Friends Journal articles and QuakerSpeak interviews—and whatever else we put in there. Peterson’s been doing podcasts since forever ago (he started back when we would describe our informal blog networks as “the Quaker Blogosphere” with no hint of irony) and he brings a great energy to the show. It’s fun watching Friends Journal blossom in this new medium. Those with long memories will remember that Friends Journal had a podcast series that ran for three years starting in 2013, consisting of authors reading their stories and the audio to our YouTube author chats. It was fun (I loved the poetry readings like this one), but it never got many listeners and we finally ended it in 2016 to give more focus to our core work. It’s nice to be back! I’ve heard the first draft of the first issue and Peterson’s done a great job with it. You can listen to the promo below and find it wherever you get your podcast fix. Via QuakerRanter

Resources for differently abled Friends In the October issue, frequent Friends Journal contributor Carl Blumenthal interviews Nichole Nettleton, of New York Yearly Meeting’s Different Abled Friends and Allies (DAFA). Probably my favorite part is when Nichole tells the story of looking for support and contacting DAFA only to realize is wasn’t active anymore. Undeterred, she took matters into her own hands: Since I saw it as a major need and I had a lot of experience with disabilities, I thought I could help by setting up weekly Zoom meetings.… We started about a year ago, and though I don’t know much about facilitating or the technology involved, I’m learning as I go. Sometimes you just have to start things when the need is there. You can’t be afraid that you don’t know enough or think you’re good enough to lead. Carl has been working on issues of physical disabilities and mental health for decades and he’s been a friendly advocate to get us to publish more on the subject. Last year he wrote the landmark Quakers and Mental Healthcare for us. I certainly learned a lot about Quaker involvement in the field. This afternoon I interviewed Carl for our author chat YouTube series. Via QuakerRanter

Nearly all Friends Speaking of FAQs that I hope will attract search engine queries for quite some time, Emily Provance has been on fire with a series she calls “answers for a small‑f friend,” in which she—well, answers a lot of questions people might have. Many of these are just as useful for us large‑F Friends and they’re all worth checking out. This week’s is “Is there anything all Quakers have in common?” She gets around the sometimes-confoundingly diverse set of opinions among Friends by finding commonalities that “nearly all Friends” would agree with. It’s a good way to proceed. Via QuakerRanter

QuakerSpeak on memorial services The most anticipated new release this Friday 1 is a new video from QuakerSpeak: What to Expect at a Quaker Memorial Service. These ensemble QuakerSpeaks are like FAQs sent out to the search engines. They’re educational to watch when they come out: I sit there imagining what I would be saying if the camera was on me. But the real benefit is months and years from now when non-Quaker who has never walked into a meetinghouse is faced with having to attend a memorial service for a beloved neighbor, or relative, or co-worker. They will naturally turn to their favorite search engine and find this video on YouTube. Six and half minutes later they’ll know what they’re getting into. Maybe they’ll stick around and click on related videos like “What to Expect in Quaker Meeting for Worship.” I’m biased, certainly, but I think Friends do weddings and funerals particularly well. Many people first experience Friends through these service. I know I always leave knowing so much more about someone who I assumed I already knew;; I sometimes feel a pang of regret at not having taken the time to discover their other interests while they were alive. What to Expect at a Quaker Memorial Service Via QuakerRanter

If you follow me for long you’ll realize our family has a pretty complicated religious identity. I’m Quaker and my wife and kids are members of a Ukrainian Catholic church. But we also all spend a whole lot of time at Egg Harbor City Moravian Church. They have a great Sunday School program for the kids and are a kind bunch of folks.

This past weekend they hosted this year’s Moravian Youth Rally, made up largely of Caribbean churches in the East Coast, mainly NYC but coming from as far afield as DC and Toronto. As soon as you hear the gyms playing on steel drums you realize these aren’t your German Moravians. The hall was echoey and the space a little loud but it was fun to get out of our comfort zone and spend time with everyone. The highlight for me was the exuberant energy of the fashion show.

My first “dang it’s cold!” run of the season. 10km easy run in 38° weather.

An old-school author video chat from *Friends Journal. *Catherine Coggan wrote the delightful, "No Building—And Yet Still We Worship," which appears in the October 2022 issue.

#Youtube

This weekend surprisingly well on a 5k race: second in my age group/division. I may have to stop thinking of myself as a novice runner (I started 3 years ago).

On September 16 we got a tour of the River and Field Campus of Washington College, in Chestertown, Md., where our son is starting his second year.

Our son is interested in environmental science and the existence of the 5,000-acre campus was one of the drawing points for us as we considered various schools. Campus director Mike Hardesty took us on a bus tour, explaining the history of the property and the art of finding common ground between farmers and environmentalists. Highlights were the extensive meadows, the bird banding station, and a tunnel that is used to test different types of glass for bird impacts.

I’ve expanded this and moved it to my main blog. See: Unbinding the Local.

Tech news site The Verge going old school returning to a blog format.

The new site looks a lot more like Twitter than a front page. And that’s kind of the point. Patel has said The Verge’s competition is not Wired or The New York Times but Twitter “and other aggregators of audience.” As other news outlets shift resources toward building communities where readers are already spending lots of time — YouTube, Reddit, TikTok, Instagram, Discord, etc. — The Verge wanted to be sure it was investing closer to home, too.

I think a lot about aggregating too—basically sharing, both as myself and for Friends Journal. I don’t want to duplicate FJ content (we have a great email newsletter for that, with a sign-up form at the bottom of every page) but instead to highlight things I find particularly interesting, perhaps things I can give a bit more context too. There’s also great writing happening elsewhere.

"We just want to be able to tweet onto our own website."

Don’t know what’s going to happen with Twitter but glad this account is still chugging along.

War is a test of strength, not a search for truth and justice.

Over on Friends Journal, the head of Sidwell Friends School on Quakers and pacifism is getting some attention, in part I think because it's not absolutist on pacifism:

Quakers are short on dogma and long on discernment, a process that calls individuals to interrogate circumstances, seek truth, and act upon their conscience. Over the centuries individual Quakers have engaged in warfare provided they deemed the cause just. Somewhere between thirty and fifty percent of eligible U.S. and British Quakers fought in World War I, and approximately three-quarters chose to bear arms in World War II.

History is history, of course, and Friends' attitudes have actually been more fluid than our peace testimony would let on.

The first rejoinder online comes from Don Badgley:

So, let us be clear; without the direct and present leadership of the Divine Source, our so-called “testimonies” crumble to dust. Absent that One Source these “testimonies” are little more than religio-political posturing, relics – and impossible to justify, especially within the context of the actual evil we see in the world today. Alternatively, when we testify to the whole world about the life-altering Truths that originate in our Experience of the Divine Presence, that ministry is imbued with a vital, even miraculous power.

As in most things Quaker, I'm intellectually in agreement with both of them. I'm personally quite pacifist. Even defensive wars kill innocents and liberatory good guys have become tyrants over and over again in history. But I have to admit I've been quite grateful to see Ukrainians sucessfully holding the Russian army at bay.

#Quakers

Lol! via Kottke

#Youtube

Ruins at Weymouth Furnace

Too many cats

Fluffy clouds over Batsto Lake

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