QuakerQuaker & Me

I came upon the QuakerQuaker scene two years ago. I still feel like a relative newcomer, but folks have made me feel very welcome. Martin Kelley was especially helpful in getting me, an unknown, established in the community.

Communication is an adventure. People have never been able to communicate like this before. I love being able to talk to you, having never seen your faces, knowing most of you live in different countries that me. My husband calls it the "self-expression revolution." But I think of it as a realm of collective thought. Sure, people can misconstrue a post or a musing comment because words as communication are incomplete; even so, we get to think collectively. The QuakerQuaker community is a bit like a clearness committee. Through our blogs and comments to each other, we draw ourselves to greater clarity.

To use the old Quaker greeting, "how doth truth prosper in our parts"? I think it doth prosper very well.

I see things as having relevance for the time period in which they occur. It strikes me that we have this never-before capacity to communicate with each other because we have a never-before need to communicate at this level. There is so much that needs to be done. We need to be able to think collectively and communicate instantly. An idea starts as a nudge in someone's head, turns into a meme as it connects with other nudges in other heads, then becomes a worldwide movement that can't be stopped. There's hope in the way that the international interconnected community has taken on roles in wresting power away from those who don't care.

QuakerQuaker is a part of that movement.

Since starting my blog, I've been really pleased and touched by the people who have visited it. NonQuakers have dropped in from time to time -- that's always intrigued me. How did they find my blog? Why did they come? Who are they? I follow their link back to their site to see who they are, these individual people who have no connection to me but who by some miracle shared in my thoughts this one day.

What's changed for me since starting this blog? Greater clarity. This blog community has pulled at me in a way that regular meeting hasn't in a long time. It's prompted me to read books that people have recommended, follow links to articles that crystalize new ideas. Even the task of putting a vague nudge into words makes it take a form and shape, sometimes something new.

As if something speaks to us through nudges.

I'm glad to be here.