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evangelicals being like "god made men to do This and be like This and women to do That and be like That that's just how it is" and it's just a picture of a white man and woman following traditional gender norms makes me so insane like you boring fascist fucks. god made 2 million species of beetles. god made whales, ducks, humans, and 1500 other species capable of same sex behavior. god made fish and amphibians that change sexes. god made more than 30 different intersex variations in human beings. god, in his infinite curiosity. wake up!!! fuck!!

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advertisement should be illegal. this is based in the 3rd pillar of my belief system: leave me the fuck alone

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Quaker worship is not based on silence, which is neutral and depends on what it’s filled with. Instead, we are brought together to wait on the Lord, and we expect Him to show up and lead us.

Epistle from a gathering of young adult Quakers, Jordans UK, 2024

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half-hanged mary by margaret atwood / agnes of god by john pielmeier

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Notes from a meeting about lighthouses

Well, of course, it wasn’t all about lighthouses. It was about a lot of things, actually. Our pastoral minister is retiring after over 4 decades, and it seems at this point that he’s just lobbing truth bombs meeting-ward every week.

This past First Day’s meeting was about being a Quaker - how we define membership, how we relate to the outer world, how we can shine a light without ever recruiting or evangelizing (now, how I feel about that is a different post for a different day). For now, I want to mention two things that happened that I need to remember.

First of all, during his message (among other things),  David talked a lot about New Garden as a gay-friendly place, and spoke about how it seemed obvious that you couldn’t affirm the Divine Light in all people while at the same time condemning how they lived and who they loved.

David told a story about one of New Garden’s Friends who, when asked by a Quaker from a different meeting, “What is it, with New Garden and homosexuality?” replied, “Well, it’s not a requirement,” which of course made everybody laugh like crazy.

During waiting worship, the Friend who had made the comment stood up and said, “As much as I love that that story makes me seem very clever, the best thing that happened was what happened next. Because, then, he and I, we had a conversation.”

The Friend went on and said something I must keep close. He said, “Some people can’t affirm the Light in people because they disagree with their sexuality. I can’t wrap my head around this. I can’t believe that there are people who I care about who hold this view. A person’s sexuality is no reason to deny that they are of the Light. However, that person who disagrees with you on this issue, or another issue, or five issues… Issues that are important to you, sure. Issues about which you should stand strong. But ask yourself - do you deny the Light in that person? Do you deny that person humanity, because of how they feel about a handful of issues? Just keep in mind - not everyone is where you are.”

Then he sat down, and I buzzed with the scolding he didn’t know he had just given me. Because I do judge, harshly, and deny the Light in people who differ from me on these key issues. They are hateful, I think to myself. Why must I give them even a second of thought. Why give them love? But perhaps those people are just not where I am. Not being in the same place doesn’t mean I can deny them humanity. I must affirm their light, and hope it leads them to love and truth some day.

So that was the first thing about meeting I need to remember.

The second has to do with lighthouses. This woman was wearing a coat with lighthouses on it, and during waiting worship, a woman behind her stood and remarked on that coat, talking about the lighthouse as a metaphor for the meeting, how meeting can be a beacon in the storm, a safe haven for all of us.

A few minutes later, my favorite gentleman Friend stood up (he of the bow ties and the strong singing voice). He said, “That woman with the lighthouses on her coat is my sister.” He told a story about his hometown in Maine, which had a historic lighthouse that had been decommissioned when technology seemed to have evolved so much that lighthouses were no longer necessary.

“But the people of my town, they put the light back up. Because sometimes the GPS fails. Sometimes you can’t see the treachery in the water. Sometimes it is dark. Sometimes it storms. And this lighthouse, this isn’t just a historic artifact. It’s a matter of survival.”

And just like that, with the words, “matter of survival,” my breath caught in my throat and my eyes filled with hot tears. I thought of all the gay teenagers out there, some of whom won’t survive the hatred lobbed at them. I thought of my own father, who had no meeting like New Garden, which would have confirmed his humanity. So he stayed closeted, until his parents were long buried in the Carolina clay. What if there had been any safe place, any beacon, for him?

Times are changing, of course. Thank god. But some young people are still suffering. And so we must be lighthouses for them. It’s a matter of survival.

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only address me as The Friend from now on

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“This decidedness in a Christian, in a Quaker, is not to be confused with the decidedness of the bigot, or the decidedness of the man with a one-string gospel. It is not a decidedness about a particular doctrine. Such ‘decided’ Christians are plentiful, but they are not the answer to the world’s need. True decidedness is not of doctrine, but of life orientation. It is a commitment of life, thoroughly, wholly, in every department and without reserve, to the Inner Guide. It is not a tense and reluctant decidedness, an hysterical assertiveness. It is a joyful and quiet displacement of life from its old center in the self, and a glad and irrevocable replacement of the whole of life in a new and divine Center. It is life lived out from an all-embracing center of motivation, which in glad readiness wills to do the will of the Father, so far as that will can be discerned. It is a life of integration, of peace, of final coordination of all one’s powers, within a singleness of commitment. It is the final elimination of all tolerated double-mindedness, and the discovery of the power which comes from being ‘in the unity.’”

— Thomas Kelly, Friends and Decided Friends (via milkboydotnet)

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My friend and I love identifying fellow Quakers.

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i love when my friends are in my home like FUck yah! can i get u a beverage!!! 

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Quakers should actually never study because studying leads to being late for committee meetings, at which point the world explodes

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Photos of Jordans Meeting House, built late 1600s

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To put it very bluntly.

You will always make a better impact helping people who need it than trying to hurt people you think deserve it.

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I think Hestia would appreciate quakerism

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Quaker Discord Sever

I cant find my og promo post so make a new one:

i just made a Discord server for other quakers. I dont know if one exists, but I couldnt find one so I made one.

A Discord server for anyone who doesnt know, is an app that you have to download: works like an old school forum mixed with a high tech groupchat.

Anyways, im part of a few religious and queer discord servers and its been really great - so I hoped we could make one for Friends.

If youd like to— Download the app, then follow this link to join!

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i think about this scene all the time

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5, 9 and 21!

Already done 5, so I'm going with 9 and 21!

9. Tell a story about your childhood

When I was a kid, I'd always be the first one home after school. My folks would be at work and my siblings would take a different bus. And if my mom came home first things were usually fine, but if my dad came home first he'd have something to yell about, so if I got home and the house was empty sometimes I'd pop the screen out of my bedroom window and climb onto the roof and just sit there a while. We lived on a farm, and the drive from the main road up the hill to the house was long enough that I could see whose car was coming and climb back down with enough time to look like I'd been cleaning.

There was a nice little incline beside the chimney where you didn't have to worry about rolling off, and nobody could see you from the ground.

21. Are you a spiritual person?

I believe that time as we experience it must go forwards. And if it must go forwards, then whatever the next step we take is, it must happen. As a result, whatever does happen is, in it's own way, inevitable.

We can choose where we go, but we must go, and as such, a destination is destined, inescapable. Just... not predetermined.

So, like.

I believe that whatever happens is meant to happen, because if it wasn't inevitable, it wouldn't have.

We just don't know what inevitable looks like until it can't be changed.

And if that's all due to a higher power or not, it's all way above my pay grade regardless.

So I wouldn't say I'm spiritual so much as I've just invented a convoluted philosophy that supports all the not giving a shit I was already doing anyways

Peace and love?

♡ Thanks for the ask