The Quaker Youth Book Project, on which I've been working for about two years, is into its final months of collecting nonfiction writing and art by Quakers ages 15-35 from all around the world and across the branches of Friends. Submissions are due by February 28th, 2009. All information on how and what to submit is available here: www.quakeryouth.org/quipbook.
I first started working on the QYBP two years ago in the depths of winter in Philadelphia, writing grants and proposals and querying a few Friends to get their ideas and suggestions. (The project was not my idea, but rather is a continuation of a collective leading felt by Quakers Uniting in Publications (www.quaker.org/quip).)
It's not my baby anymore - there are dozens of people directly involved (including an amazing editorial board of young adults) and many many more who are excited about the Project - but it still feels like some of the most important work I've done so far in my life. I constantly marvel that it came at such a tumultuous and transformative time for me (that's another post). It's a gift I have not entirely unwrapped yet - I'm humbly anticipating, as best I can, what it will bring next.
There are a handful of other books that gather creative work by teenage and young adult Friends, and they are mostly out of print. This project is exciting because it will be very international, include Friends from all branches of the Society, feature teenage and young adult contributors, and will be multi-lingual so that it can be read by Friends everywhere.
When I talk to Friends (and this Project has afforded me the opportunity to talk to many Friends), no matter who they are -- Bolivian Quakers, Kenyan Quakers, FGCers, FUMers, Convergent, British Friends, EFCI Friends, Conservative - there is often a simultaneous movement of energy around youth concerns and a profound sense that there is much work to be done.
The issues vary: shrinking population numbers and a dearth of youth, the dominance of older Friends and pastors, youth concerns that challenge the status quo, truly inter-generational communities that are striving to remain so, a hunger for revival and renewal, meetings and churches trying to work with cultural and generational differences, etc.
We are all working to live in community, whether its in our own micro or macro Friends community, the broader family of Friends, or the larger societies we live in.
And I'm fairly certain that telling stories and making art, whether we do it with words or with images and color, is central to what we need as people to remind us and to allow us to create who we are, where we come from, who we are held, loved and held accountable by, and what our future may be. There is value in the crafting of stories - in the self reflection and creative work this project encourages young people to undertake - and value in their telling, hearing, and broadcasting. Stories nourish and challenge us.
Practically, this book will be a snapshot of contemporary Quakerism at the beginning of the 21st century. It will provide Friends all over the world the opportunity to learn about Friends far away from them geographically and theologically. It will highlight differences and underscores commonalities; it will trace the shared root and the flowering branches. I am confident it will spark more than one passionate conversation and a deepening of understanding among Friends.
It will also, most importantly, give voice to rising generations of Quaker writers and artists, ministers and leaders, and give Friends everywhere, of all ages, the chance to hear those voices and be challenged, encouraged, amused, concerned, renewed and maybe transformed by them.
I am of the opinion that our diversity as Friends - among nations and races, economies and theologies, ways of worship and witness in the world - is one of God's greatest gifts to us. (Profound challenges are also often tremendous gifts.) Within our own house, we are challenged to find ways to live together, to claim common history, to own diverse experiences and beliefs, to find our common roots. It seems like good practice to lives lived in larger world, particularly a world so deeply in need of what we have to give.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the power of invitation - invitation to speak, invitation to dance, invitation to join - and about how at it's deepest an invitation extends a hand and says "You are wanted." Imagine if Friends of all ages spoke to each other that way - "You are wanted, we are incomplete without you."
So this is your invitation. If you are a Friend roughly (roughly) between the ages of 15-35, I hope to hear from you. And I hope you'll spread the word and invite others, no matter how old you are.
There are a handful of other books that gather creative work by teenage and young adult Friends, and they are mostly out of print. This project is exciting because it will be very international, include Friends from all branches of the Society, feature teenage and young adult contributors, and will be multi-lingual so that it can be read by Friends everywhere.
When I talk to Friends (and this Project has afforded me the opportunity to talk to many Friends), no matter who they are -- Bolivian Quakers, Kenyan Quakers, FGCers, FUMers, Convergent, British Friends, EFCI Friends, Conservative - there is often a simultaneous movement of energy around youth concerns and a profound sense that there is much work to be done.
The issues vary: shrinking population numbers and a dearth of youth, the dominance of older Friends and pastors, youth concerns that challenge the status quo, truly inter-generational communities that are striving to remain so, a hunger for revival and renewal, meetings and churches trying to work with cultural and generational differences, etc.
We are all working to live in community, whether its in our own micro or macro Friends community, the broader family of Friends, or the larger societies we live in.
And I'm fairly certain that telling stories and making art, whether we do it with words or with images and color, is central to what we need as people to remind us and to allow us to create who we are, where we come from, who we are held, loved and held accountable by, and what our future may be. There is value in the crafting of stories - in the self reflection and creative work this project encourages young people to undertake - and value in their telling, hearing, and broadcasting. Stories nourish and challenge us.
Practically, this book will be a snapshot of contemporary Quakerism at the beginning of the 21st century. It will provide Friends all over the world the opportunity to learn about Friends far away from them geographically and theologically. It will highlight differences and underscores commonalities; it will trace the shared root and the flowering branches. I am confident it will spark more than one passionate conversation and a deepening of understanding among Friends.
It will also, most importantly, give voice to rising generations of Quaker writers and artists, ministers and leaders, and give Friends everywhere, of all ages, the chance to hear those voices and be challenged, encouraged, amused, concerned, renewed and maybe transformed by them.
I am of the opinion that our diversity as Friends - among nations and races, economies and theologies, ways of worship and witness in the world - is one of God's greatest gifts to us. (Profound challenges are also often tremendous gifts.) Within our own house, we are challenged to find ways to live together, to claim common history, to own diverse experiences and beliefs, to find our common roots. It seems like good practice to lives lived in larger world, particularly a world so deeply in need of what we have to give.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the power of invitation - invitation to speak, invitation to dance, invitation to join - and about how at it's deepest an invitation extends a hand and says "You are wanted." Imagine if Friends of all ages spoke to each other that way - "You are wanted, we are incomplete without you."
So this is your invitation. If you are a Friend roughly (roughly) between the ages of 15-35, I hope to hear from you. And I hope you'll spread the word and invite others, no matter how old you are.
