Friday, December 14, 2007

blue


red
Originally uploaded by jez s
A productive day today and I have now been an uncle for over 24 hours. I had the chance to visit the twins this evening, but didn't get out of the office in time and will go tomorrow instead.

My father reports that they are gorgeous.

It has been an exciting week, what with the new nieces, but also with some Quaker stuff too. Not just Quaker Quest (see blog posts passim), but also Quaker Meeting for worship on Wednesday night.

I got there with only 15 minutes to go (funny how I can know in advance when a Quaker Meeting is going to finish) but was able to ready myself and wait expectantly right away. A Friend ministered on the words 'God bless you' from a poem and spoken from a man that she had given a lift to some 40 or so years ago.

Incidentally, while at Quaker Quest on Monday night, I heard one of the facilitators say that we are called Quakers and calling ourselves Friends is something informal. Funny that, because I understand us to be Friends of Truth originally and the Religious Society of Friends, not Quakers of Truth or the Religious Society of Quakers.

The speakers notes make the point too, 'speak of 'Quakers' rather than 'Friends'.

Amen.
Posted by jez at 6:41 PM

3 comments:

MartinK said...

That's funny that the facilitator reversed the Quaker/Friend dichotomy. Do you think it was a slip-up or does the faciliator not know? Many Friends still avoid "Quaker" altogether because it's not Biblical, not our chosen name, and not truthful (we don't "quake" any more than anyone else), and I don't know of any major body that has "Quaker" as part of its name.

I'm surprised the handbook instructs leaders to stress "Quaker". It's a better brand name, which is why I reluctantly use it, but once you have them in the door you can explain about "Friends" and why and where that name comes from.
I wonder when Friends began freely using the name "Quaker" as a term of self-identity and not just to correct the confusion ("you've probably heard us called Quakers").

10:54 PM
jez said...

It is all entirely deliberate. It is a better brand name, summing something up in one word rather than a sentence. In Britain Yearly Meeting it has almost entirely taken over:
www.quaker.org.uk is the website of Britain Yearly Meeting;
three of the main departments of BYM centrally managed work are Quaker Life, Quaker Peace & Social Witness and Quaker Communications Department;
BYM's brand is a Q with the word Quakers in it;
we had national Quaker week;
British Meetings are going through a process of change whereby Monthly Meetings become known as Area Quaker Meetings;
my own blog is Quaker Street...

Then there's other Quaker websites like quaker.org, quakerquaker.org

I'm also interested to know when 'Quaker' became the self-identity term too.

2:11 PM
AYo aka SouL said...

I have no problem calling myself a Quaker because I actually have quaked at Meeting.

www.rainbowfriends.net

7:58 PM

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