Monday, August 31, 2020

Western Friends

 This is from Daniel. Hopefully it will be updated as I'm afraid we've already missed the one listed here - sorry!

Quakers for the Future - Western Friend

Articles about Mary Ratcliff

The following is from Steven:

This book was mentioned in ministry at Thursday morning Meeting for Worship at Woodbrooke Quaker Guesthouse, Cumbria, England.

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy read aloud by Tim Ufindell 12:02

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81b4i9jQhck

He shows each page with the illustrations as he reads, so there is no need to buy the book.

Is there more to life than this? by Charlie Mackesy HTB church Alpha Course 19 May, 2019 36:48

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba1XF-iFhoE

Christianity is like a tin of tuna he was given in Singapore as a treat.

It was labeled “Crap.”

On 27 Aug 2020, at 04:14, Kaila wrote
As I mentioned, the book group I'm part of through the Phoenix Quaker Meeting will be discussing The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse along with The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-ExupĂ©ry. We meet on the first Sunday of every month at 12:30 p.m. MST, 2:30pm EDT which makes our next discussion on Sunday, September 7. 
We'll meet using this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82493851559?pwd=ZVhlei9senl1UGZGanNDSXhuMGpwQT09

Meeting ID: 824 9385 1559
Password: 659315

Mary Ratcliff and the San Francisco Bay View

These are articles about Mary Ratcliff, who have me good support between October 2017 and over the next year and a half. I was transferred back to Salford after fracturing the base of my skull while trying to do a zero point field transfer of my Insight to her on 4 January 2018.

KPIX evening news 20 August, 2020 3:03

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/08/20/81-year-old-editor-stepping-down-at-prominent-sf-black-newspaper-after-more-than-4-decades/

SF Heritage webinar: 1:06:18 On YouTube, at 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZM-HAmsUB0&feature=youtu.be

and also on Facebook, at 

https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=1356452167890375&ref=watch_permalink.

The third of this trio of news stories about the Bay View is the piece that writer Judy Goddess spent months working on, and it’s a masterpiece:

https://sfseniorbeat.com/2020/07/30/intrigued-by-her-parents-communism-activists-path-led-to-san-francisco-where-she-and-her-husband-have-brought-news-to-the-black-community-for-nearly-40-years/

You can learn a lot of issues of concern to black people especially mass incarceration, which makes up about a third of the paper. She says one of her proudest moments was when someone who worked in Sacramento told her the prison authorities blamed the SF Bay View for the hunger strikes of 2012 and 2013 which at their peak, according to the correction department had 60,000 prisoners who had refused nine consecutive meals.

Sunday, August 30, 2020

ways of doing

As a community we are doing several things. First to me is providing a space for people out there to join us, ask what Quakerism is, and get straight answers. We are doing our best to provide for their needs. I am not always sure I can discern their needs, in an online environment.

Second, when they ask for resources, we are piling them on. The people in the meeting know a lot - they know the books, the things to watch, and places to look. Most of these have ended up in my e-mail. My solemn promise is to get to them and put them here; I've been busy and haven't done it. Look for it in the next few posts.

This is partly because the chat became a sensitive place. We copied the chat, a couple of times, because of the resources, and we'd forgotten that the chat was part of the meeting, and we were making an effort not to record the meetings. We are still making that effort. We are not recording the meetings, and we are not copying the chat.

Tonight it seemed we were zoom-bombed; we heard some things that don't really belong in Quaker meeting. I'm not sure if it was maybe just someone's roommate, or someone was bombing us or what. I muted them. There is no place for zoom-bombing in a Quaker meeting.

This may contradict my first-stated objective which is to be there for people out there. Maybe sometimes what they need is a place to come and be themselves and have us not ban them for life. I didn't ban them for life. I simply muted them temporarily, until we could figure out who was making all that noise.

Maybe ten people were there tonight. Many were the usual suspects: from Texas, from Kentucky, from England, from New York City, from North Carolina, from Kentucky, from Mississippi, from Arizona, and from New Mexico of course. I missed a few also, I believe. I didn't mean to ignore you. It gets big and it's possible for people to remain quiet, and get through as only an observer. It is another solemn promise that I will not ignore you, and, insomuch as possible, we will hear from everyone, if they are willing to speak.

The silence, or at least what there was of it, was very nice. Stay in touch!

Sunday, August 2, 2020

On Community

I have said from the beginning that Cloud Quakers welcomes all people but in particular all different kinds of Quakers. Of course I have no idea how diverse the world of Quakers is, but still I make a point of saying that and then trying to live up to it. I think Quakers are among a number of different kinds of religion that people try in order to fulfill their need to connect to a divine being, and have a community of people who seek in the same way they do.

Tonight's meeting had ten or so people, most regular. We are all just looking for community, and I think, amongst most of us, we have one. It's a lively mix of different kinds of Quakers and people who enjoy a little silence in their busy weeks. Maybe "enjoy" is the wrong word. There is some discussion about whether "worship" is really possible on zoom - whether, in turning your mute on and off, your camera on and off, you can experience the divine.

I say you can. I say that there is no environment made, where we cannot practice spirituality, or experience the divine. We cannot say that this "online environment" doesn't count, or is somehow outside of life experiences as we know them. You may have trouble with the zoom environment - with centering, with experiencing something together - and I'm sure they said that about the phone at first too. But eventually it becomes integrated into life as we know it.

I have a family zoom on Sundays. I also have one of my original home meetings which now meets on zoom on Sunday mornings. And there is yet another - the old community of esl/techies, worldwide tech players known as the webheads - but they meet early, and I'm retired. Four zooms is way too much for one day. I've come to focus on the two that are most important - family and Cloud Quakers. I love my community.

In a sense, I think we are all still seekers. We are up there on zoom because we are looking for that connection, and if you affirm it once in a while: Yes, I am looking for that connection - then, just by doing that, you are closer to it.

Peace in the New Year

I put my feeling about illuminaria (below) here , but the most important thing to say is, it's not really Quakerly, nor is it related to...