Comment by William F Rushby on 9th mo. 27, 2015 at 6:58pm

I think that Kirby's contrast between the paid pastors and other functionaries of pastoral Quakerism and the alleged lack of paid Quaker personnel in liberal meetings is more apparent than real.  There are, in my experience, plenty of paid "professional Quakers" in most established liberal yearly meetings.

Comment by Forrest Curo on 9th mo. 27, 2015 at 7:38pm

"Fairy Chess" is quite playable; it's not a 'hyperindividual' game but an arrangement between two people to vary the rules, for one or more games, to practice adaptation to unfamiliar situations and explore how different changes affect the strategy.

You find a great many games called "chess" in the far East; all seem to be variations, often radical, on one ancient Indian game -- but all share the common theme of one vulnerable king to be attacked or defended by more powerful pieces.

There are differences in the way different nations score go games -- but very little difference in the rules of play -- because most such changes (except for varying ways of handling certain weird & unusual situations) would make the game unplayable.

Comment by Kirby Urner on 9th mo. 27, 2015 at 7:41pm

William Rushby's remark deserves a whole thread in itself, as there's much to say about Meeting versus Church management, such as about the difference between "remunerated positions" (e.g. child care) and rotation-with-term-limits under governance by Nominating, a separate practice (conceptually). 

A rogue Nominating committee is able to "lock up" a Meeting and keep rotating the same clique, however a big city meeting is often less like that (almost by definition of what "big city" means). Then you might get the pattern of "leading families" and a more Mafia-like analysis of how a Meeting moves through time.  I do enjoy analogies twixt Quakerism and organized crime, most illuminating.  Lots of patterns...

I become more aware of the variety of patterns, both existing and contemplate, as I discover more about Quakerism (ongoing process).   As I mentioned early today, I'm expected "freakish forms" given the playfulness of liberal Friends.

At NPYM we have a paid Secretary position and from my interviews with Linda at Annual Session I'd say she's keenly aware of the culture clash that appears once someone is paid, others volunteer.  That's what I could go on and on about, or rather she could -- I would not presume to speak for her.  Maybe when she's out of the thick of battle?  Right now she's in the middle of getting out the regional Directory, something I've written about in older posts here... more on npym-it-discuss...

The Standard American Way (I've determined), at least around business, is quite pyramidal-hierarchical, in stark contrast to the Liberal Quaker Way.  USers seem very "boss-oriented" and have the org charts to prove it.  Talking over the head of a supervisor is often a recipe for disaster and therefore people walk around with elaborate pyramids in their heads, about who to say what to, a lot like in Japan.  We pretend we're in some kind of free wheeling society, but Quakers have always noticed a strong militarism, which relates to rigidity, strictness, bordering on xenophobia (ironic given the history, but there ya go).

When Congressman Wu addressed DjangoCon (one of many geek conferences written up in my journals) he spoke of a possible breakthrough he perceived, wherein a Geodesic Sphere might be the more applicable visual metaphor, versus a Pyramid, in relation to the design of Government. 

Case in point: here he was, addressing a bunch of Python computer language engineers who just happened to be in Portland, and he'd met one of their subculture's leaders in first class by pure happenstance.  No ruler had decreed it, no boss had demanded it.  He'd simply agreed to address us, impromptu.  Freedom at work.

A breakthrough speech I thought. 

Fast forward and Wu is back in private practice, still friends with my friend Steve Holden, now back in the UK.  But I wander.

Kirby

Jack Ohman, Sunday Oregonian Dec 19 2004

Comment by Howard Brod on 9th mo. 27, 2015 at 8:05pm

I do think Kirby is correct that we will see continued expansion of the "liberty" in liberal Quakerism.  I am noting what was once unthinkable among liberal Quakers: accepting in yearly meeting association Quaker meetings with paid ministers and meetings with a stated orientation for Christ-centereness.

Hold on Friends!  The liberal tent in liberal Quakerism is getting BIGGER as the spiritual journey of individual and completely autonomous meetings (not just individuals in a meeting) is becoming highly respected among liberal Friends to the point of nurturing all meetings on their particular journey.  And I predict that if Evangelical and FUM Friends do not follow suit, they will eventually lose en masse many of their meetings/churches to liberal yearly meetings.  Could FGC ironically end up the big tent that unites all Quakers in the U.S. again over the next century?

Although Elias Hicks may be turning in his grave (wondering what in the hell he started almost two hundred years ago); the long extinct Progressive Quakers are having the last laugh as their outlook of unbridled acceptance and "worldliness" has slowly taken over liberal Quakerism - even though Progressives long ago laid down their own monthly and yearly meetings.

Comment by Forrest Curo on 9th mo. 27, 2015 at 8:11pm

Um, we're more like Roman patron/client networks than like anything Japanese -- If you read something like Thank You and OK you'll see that we don't even come close to Japanese ways, even though we may well be drifting in that direction. (The old Roman patron/client thing was very Mafia-like, but a natural development of favor-exchanges, which seem to be everywhere & unavoidable in any human society whatsoever, probably dating back to "Ungh! He give me leftover mammoth last week. Now his turn!"

Comment by Kirby Urner on 9th mo. 27, 2015 at 8:19pm

Yeah, the reach for Japan was far fetched and I'm no authority.  Lost in translation.  My actual experience was "being my own boss" for much of my adulthood, then going through that recent economic downturn only to find myself in the depths of a big company, with a lot to learn about how pecking orders work.  It's not like we didn't have pyramids in NGO world, just I was seeing them more from the outside, as the computer guy you'd hire to program a summer camp registration program, the benefactor a Chinese American United Methodist (true story).  Fun times!  Northwest Regional China Council was another client.  I'm not just making it up with that "gateway to Asia" shtick.  Nevertheless, you're right, more Roman in flavor, down to football guys looking ever so much like Centurions its ridiculous (OK, it's entertaining -- but hard on one's head).

Comment by Forrest Curo on 9th mo. 27, 2015 at 8:33pm

Not to be 'an authority' -- but should read (It's a gas!):

http://www.amazon.com/Thank-You-Ok-American-Failure/dp/1590304705

Comment by Kirby Urner on 9th mo. 27, 2015 at 8:45pm

Thank you, I'm looking forward to reading it. 

One I read in university days (published 1973, me Princeton 1980) and enjoyed, sounds like same genre:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Empty-Mirror-Experiences-Monastery/dp/031...

Comment by Forrest Curo on 9th mo. 27, 2015 at 9:51pm

Yeah, Van de Wettering, likewise fun. Wrote some pretty good mystery novels about the Dutch police force (one bad book in the lot, somehow) which was where a lot of basically nonviolent Dutch guys worked out their military draft... (We should staff our own police force that way!)

Comment by Jim Wilson on 9th mo. 27, 2015 at 11:47pm

Howard:

That's a really interesting bit of news that speaks to me.  I studied Buddhism in Korea and Japan.  In Korea that various approaches to Buddhism were all under a single umbrella organization (called the 'Chogye Order').  In Japan the different approaches have all formed separate and exclusive organizations.  So in Korea Zen is not a separate organization but a way of approaching Dharma within the Order, and Pure Land is not a separate organization, but a way of approaching Dharma, etc.  Japanese Buddhism is more 'Protestant' in terms of its organizations with lots of schisms and articles of faith, etc.

I have had the fantasy that Quakers could mimic the way Korean Buddhism works in the sense that silent meetings of the Liberal stream, and more Church-like meetings of the Evangelical stream could be considered ways of travelling the Quaker road.  Your post would seem to indicate something similar; though I'm not sure I'm reading it right.  

Thanks,

Jim

Comment

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• …
• 8
• 9
• 10
• 11
• Next ›
• Page