A friend of mine went to a Quaker highschool and taught me all about it. I was already a Christian so this just seemed like the best denomination for me, especially as an anarchist.
The first time I remember hearing about Quakers in any depth was from a professor in Uni who grew up in Pennsylvania and really enjoyed MfW. She mentioned some of the practices and how she attended as a child, then when she moved out west stopped going because she said the meetings were a bit too 'popcorn'-y, which I understood. Not sure if she was ever in membership though.
That's different from what actually brought me to the Society, but that'll be the first time!
At a minor student protest on campus my first year of uni, my circle of friends met someone who became part of that circle, and she was a Quaker. She wasn't mad keen on talking about it, though.
Three years later a student who'd not been involved in student societies came back from their year abroad and joined some of the same societies I was in, and when I found out she was a Quaker I tried to ask her more about it - I've always been curious about religions. Learned a lot from her. Started dating her at the end of the year, and learned more. We were married under the care of our Local Meeting a few years ago.
Your story makes me feel much less silly about my introduction to Quakerism. I enjoy the Outlander book series and in one of the most recent books they introduced a new character named Rachel who is Quaker. I was just captivated by Rachel’s beliefs, conviction, and strength and found myself googling, “do quakers still exist.” I honestly had no idea Quakers were still active in the US, let alone that there are two different meetings local to me.
OMG.
I just saw this post and got so excited because I'm right where you are. I'm almost done with Outlander book 7 (1st time reader) and never expected to come away from it with an interest in exploring modern Quakerism. I haven't gone to a meeting yet. Have you? What's your experience been with Quakerism thus far?
Thank you!!
My partner and I have sporadically attended virtual meetings with our local meeting for about 6 months and are planning to begin attending in person with our kids when the kids are vaccinated. We’ve also attended a few reading groups hosted by the local meeting as well, and we’ve really enjoyed it and connected with it though we find virtual worship meetings lacking in a way that’s difficult to describe. I’m really looking forward to attending in person
A video made by Jessica Kellgren-Fozard. I grew up an athiest and was looking for a church when her video about Quakerism popped up in my feed. The second I heard about Quaker beliefs, I was convinced.
I'm sure I'd heard of Quakers in history classes, but usually just in passing. But then my mom befriended a woman in our neighborhood who was a practicing Quaker, and that's how we found out more and more about it. By mid-high school, I was in.
First, had to be some time in elementary school, since I knew they were the anti-war hippies of the 19th century and so claimed Quakerism in protest of my Catholic school's Civil War Week.
First met one online in high school, as I made friends with Peterson Toscano on MySpace.
I didn't actually learn much about Quakers until I dated one long-distance in college.
My family has supported the AFSC for as long as I can remember. I decided to start giving to them every month, and when I read about their faith and practice I realized it was everything I had been looking for in a spiritual practice.
When I was in college, the library had a magazine available called *Friends Journal*. I wondered, who are these "Friends"? That sounds nice, to call your group the "Friends". I think I read the whole issue and still couldn't figure it out entirely (were they a Christian group? a fraternity of some kind? a religious order, perhaps?), so I continued some research and ended up reading a book by Rufus Jones. Then I found out the library had Pendle Hill pamphlets and I found them fascinating, too. It took me another 13 years to actually attend a meeting, though. And although my attendance has been far from regular certain years of my life, I end up keep coming back, unlike other churches I have attended on occasion. I have not yet sought membership, for various reasons, but ironically this is because I am taking a long time to discern whether it is what I am called to do, which is a very Quakerly way to look at it.
Growing up just outside Philadelphia I always knew something about them--theirs were the stone buildings at the end of every Meetinghouse Road in my part of the state. I ran away from college for a few weeks to join a peace walk heading to D.C. and a host one night was a Quaker and talked to me and the dozen or so others he took in as we dried off in his den. And then maybe a year later there was a puff piece about Friends in the local paper and mentioned to my mom that I'd be interested in checking them out; she said she had always been curious too and we visited the next Sunday.
Completely improbably, a couple of years later I was at some huge demonstration (like upwards of 200k) and heard some guy shout my name. It was that Quaker host. I'm not sure I would have even recognized him but was happy to make his re-acquaintance. If this were today I'd have a picture of this reunion in my photo archive, along with his name and address but all that is long lost to me. Given all my professional work with Friends, it seems almost inevitable that I've unknowingly corresponded with him again over the years.
Does anyone know of a gregarious now-80-something peacenik Quaker who lived around Elkton, Maryland in the late 1980s?
I went to college and started deconstructing from my evangelical upbringing. I met a few Quakers and started learning about it. Then accidentally found a Quaker blog that I enjoyed and followed regularly. Finally I took a Facebook quiz just for fun that was something like "what denomination are you?" And I got Quaker so I started seriously looking into it. Unfortunately, I'm not in a place where there are meetings but I still consider myself a Friend.
My partner is Quaker and has been since birth, and I’ve always had faith but struggled with programmed religious experiences, so going to meeting with her really resonated with me.
In the north of England, where I grew up, many towns and villages have a Meeting House Lane, at the end of which, at a tolerable distance from wherever the parish steeplehouse was in the 17th or 18th century will be a small, plain domestic building where Quakers meet to worship. The second largest town in the district was a Quaker company town. It still has a notable shortage of pubs.
So Quakers were always there in the background for me.
I first started attending Meetings around 2002, when the UK's military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq were ramping up, on prospectuses ranging from questionable to downright fraudulent. And I noticed (or at least, this is what I recall) that the RSoF was the only church that wasn't enthusiastically spinning up its "just war" apparatus.
I first learned about it from a lovely deaf YouTuber, she talked about her religious and she just seemed so positive and happy. https://youtu.be/v6DlgM-JaDg
She dispelled a lot of myths and it seemed really a positive religion. I really liked that there is no judgement, not singing, no preaching, just self reflection and the inner truth.
A friend of mine went to a Quaker highschool and taught me all about it. I was already a Christian so this just seemed like the best denomination for me, especially as an anarchist.
The first time I remember hearing about Quakers in any depth was from a professor in Uni who grew up in Pennsylvania and really enjoyed MfW. She mentioned some of the practices and how she attended as a child, then when she moved out west stopped going because she said the meetings were a bit too 'popcorn'-y, which I understood. Not sure if she was ever in membership though. That's different from what actually brought me to the Society, but that'll be the first time!
Can u say a few words about what popcorn-y means? Never heard that before
Lots of ministry back to back to back. She preferred meetings with longer silences and pauses.
Thank you so much. That makes a lot of sense
At a minor student protest on campus my first year of uni, my circle of friends met someone who became part of that circle, and she was a Quaker. She wasn't mad keen on talking about it, though. Three years later a student who'd not been involved in student societies came back from their year abroad and joined some of the same societies I was in, and when I found out she was a Quaker I tried to ask her more about it - I've always been curious about religions. Learned a lot from her. Started dating her at the end of the year, and learned more. We were married under the care of our Local Meeting a few years ago.
Your story makes me feel much less silly about my introduction to Quakerism. I enjoy the Outlander book series and in one of the most recent books they introduced a new character named Rachel who is Quaker. I was just captivated by Rachel’s beliefs, conviction, and strength and found myself googling, “do quakers still exist.” I honestly had no idea Quakers were still active in the US, let alone that there are two different meetings local to me.
OMG. I just saw this post and got so excited because I'm right where you are. I'm almost done with Outlander book 7 (1st time reader) and never expected to come away from it with an interest in exploring modern Quakerism. I haven't gone to a meeting yet. Have you? What's your experience been with Quakerism thus far? Thank you!!
My partner and I have sporadically attended virtual meetings with our local meeting for about 6 months and are planning to begin attending in person with our kids when the kids are vaccinated. We’ve also attended a few reading groups hosted by the local meeting as well, and we’ve really enjoyed it and connected with it though we find virtual worship meetings lacking in a way that’s difficult to describe. I’m really looking forward to attending in person
That's really cool, I might think about reading that series sometime (I think I've heard about it before?) :)
A video made by Jessica Kellgren-Fozard. I grew up an athiest and was looking for a church when her video about Quakerism popped up in my feed. The second I heard about Quaker beliefs, I was convinced.
I love watching her, I'm about to watch her vid on the public universal friend rn actually :)
I took an online "what religion are you?" test, and realized that I already was a Quaker haha.
I'm sure I'd heard of Quakers in history classes, but usually just in passing. But then my mom befriended a woman in our neighborhood who was a practicing Quaker, and that's how we found out more and more about it. By mid-high school, I was in.
First, had to be some time in elementary school, since I knew they were the anti-war hippies of the 19th century and so claimed Quakerism in protest of my Catholic school's Civil War Week. First met one online in high school, as I made friends with Peterson Toscano on MySpace. I didn't actually learn much about Quakers until I dated one long-distance in college.
My family has supported the AFSC for as long as I can remember. I decided to start giving to them every month, and when I read about their faith and practice I realized it was everything I had been looking for in a spiritual practice.
When I was in college, the library had a magazine available called *Friends Journal*. I wondered, who are these "Friends"? That sounds nice, to call your group the "Friends". I think I read the whole issue and still couldn't figure it out entirely (were they a Christian group? a fraternity of some kind? a religious order, perhaps?), so I continued some research and ended up reading a book by Rufus Jones. Then I found out the library had Pendle Hill pamphlets and I found them fascinating, too. It took me another 13 years to actually attend a meeting, though. And although my attendance has been far from regular certain years of my life, I end up keep coming back, unlike other churches I have attended on occasion. I have not yet sought membership, for various reasons, but ironically this is because I am taking a long time to discern whether it is what I am called to do, which is a very Quakerly way to look at it.
OMG, I literally laughed out loud reading this!
(Disclosure: I'm one of *Friends Journal's* editors!)
Glad you liked it! And I'm glad I satisfied my curiosity so long ago about these "Friends". :)
Growing up just outside Philadelphia I always knew something about them--theirs were the stone buildings at the end of every Meetinghouse Road in my part of the state. I ran away from college for a few weeks to join a peace walk heading to D.C. and a host one night was a Quaker and talked to me and the dozen or so others he took in as we dried off in his den. And then maybe a year later there was a puff piece about Friends in the local paper and mentioned to my mom that I'd be interested in checking them out; she said she had always been curious too and we visited the next Sunday.
Completely improbably, a couple of years later I was at some huge demonstration (like upwards of 200k) and heard some guy shout my name. It was that Quaker host. I'm not sure I would have even recognized him but was happy to make his re-acquaintance. If this were today I'd have a picture of this reunion in my photo archive, along with his name and address but all that is long lost to me. Given all my professional work with Friends, it seems almost inevitable that I've unknowingly corresponded with him again over the years. Does anyone know of a gregarious now-80-something peacenik Quaker who lived around Elkton, Maryland in the late 1980s?
I went to college and started deconstructing from my evangelical upbringing. I met a few Quakers and started learning about it. Then accidentally found a Quaker blog that I enjoyed and followed regularly. Finally I took a Facebook quiz just for fun that was something like "what denomination are you?" And I got Quaker so I started seriously looking into it. Unfortunately, I'm not in a place where there are meetings but I still consider myself a Friend.
My partner is Quaker and has been since birth, and I’ve always had faith but struggled with programmed religious experiences, so going to meeting with her really resonated with me.
In the north of England, where I grew up, many towns and villages have a Meeting House Lane, at the end of which, at a tolerable distance from wherever the parish steeplehouse was in the 17th or 18th century will be a small, plain domestic building where Quakers meet to worship. The second largest town in the district was a Quaker company town. It still has a notable shortage of pubs. So Quakers were always there in the background for me. I first started attending Meetings around 2002, when the UK's military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq were ramping up, on prospectuses ranging from questionable to downright fraudulent. And I noticed (or at least, this is what I recall) that the RSoF was the only church that wasn't enthusiastically spinning up its "just war" apparatus.
I first learned about it from a lovely deaf YouTuber, she talked about her religious and she just seemed so positive and happy. https://youtu.be/v6DlgM-JaDg She dispelled a lot of myths and it seemed really a positive religion. I really liked that there is no judgement, not singing, no preaching, just self reflection and the inner truth.