Yesterday was a good mail day. Going to read this new 33 1/3 book by my colleague @jmayward.bsky.social over the weekend!

Can confirm as a professor at a Christian university that this is definitely a dynamic for young men, although they do not usually talk about their conversions in political terms, at least to me.

"Attendance at Arch Street was so low . . . that the few people present began to meet in a smaller room. But recent years have produced an unprecedented surge in the number of attendees at Sunday worship — from about 25 before the coronavirus pandemic to up to 100 today." apnews.com/article/quak...

Went out and bought what I presume to be my last six-packs of Rogue tonight. RIP, Dead Guy: www.pastemagazine.com/drink/craft-...

I've been appreciating this poem in the midst of the autumn rains here in the Pacific Northwest: harpers.org/archive/2025... @harpers.bsky.social

Not all of us have forgotten this century . . .

"the broad-brims"

Had not heard of this new bio:

I've officially signed a book contract with @psupress.bsky.social for my manuscript, Quaker Jeremiad, a literary history of Quaker agrarian writing in early America. I'm very grateful to Tristan Bates and the rest of that editorial team for their support. Looking forward to getting this in print!

14 Oct 1644: b. Willian Penn, future founder of #Pennsylvania #otd in #London. When arrested at a #Quaker meeting in #Cork city in 1667, he was heir to an estate of 7,500 #Irish acres in Co. Cork

"To be human is, it seems to me, to care about the origins and sources of things, but we know very little, it also seems to me, about what most deeply shapes us." blog.ayjay.org/revival-retr...

Giles Calvert (d. 1663) was a prominent printer in 17th century England known for his association with religious dissenters and radicals. His shop, the Black Spread Eagle, was near near St. Paul's Churchyard in London. His shop was a hotbed of radical and egalitarian thought. (1)

Don't usually post about baseball, but this was a prescient @williamfleitch.bsky.social article about how the Guardians could catch the Tigers back on August 12 when their chance of winning the division was 6% according to @fangraphs.com. They took lead today. www.mlb.com/news/guardia...

The Quaker Theological Discussion Group (of Quaker Religious Thought) is excited to share our 2025 call for papers on the theme: "Quaker Public Ministry: History, Practice, Challenges." See qtdg.org for further details.

From my Met daily art calendar today: www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...

"At times, you will sense no response. You may feel an emptiness, darkness or frustration. Do not despair, this is part of the process of becoming empty for God. Persevere." dailyquaker.com/2025/09/beco...

Looks like a great issue!

"A few years ago I said that vindictiveness was the moral crisis of our time. But some (not all, but some) of our rage has burned itself out. The passive acceptance of utter cruelty . . . has become the most characteristic feature of our cultural moment." blog.ayjay.org/the-ai-busin...

Encouraging:

David Bentley Hart: "I have a great affection for George Fox and considerable admiration for many Quaker figures throughout history . . . . If all Christians were more like the Quakers at their best they would also be more like Christ." davidbentleyhart.substack.com/p/q-and-a-13

From my Met daily art calendar today: www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...

This is my time! www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Well, call me ignorant. Have never read Moby Dick and decided, for reasons, that this summer I would. Became instantly obsessed with "Etymology" and "Extracts," the actual first line about the pale usher and of course the sub-sub librarian. And have starting reading some scholarship on same.

Great to see @newsberg.org, "a two-year-old hyperlocal digital news outlet serving Newberg," my hometown, featured in the @columjournreview.bsky.social‬! www.cjr.org/analysis/ore...

@psupress.bsky.social is having a 2-week sale on its Christian studies books www.psupress.org/two_week_sal.... The New History of Quakerism books are in this sale. Get them while they're hot and relatively affordable! #Quaker #history

Looking forward Jon Fosse's newest: www.newyorker.com/books/this-w...

"Whenever I see the words cascade down my computer screen, I get a sinking feeling. Do I really have to read this?" hedgehogreview.com/web-features...

Great thread. It's amazing how understudied and potentially misunderstood Gurney is:

Benjamin Franklin did not read articles from The Spectator, recreate them from memory, translate them into verse, and back into prose, sometimes improving upon the original- in order to become “a tolerable English writer” - just for you to use the trash robot app to spit out terrible sentences!!!!!

Good:

Requiescat in pace.

Stillwater Meetinghouse in Barnesville, OH, was built in 1878 in federal style to house the Ohio Yearly Meeting of Conservative Friends. The members of the Yearly Meeting built the structure in 90 days for $9,000. The building, on the campus of Olney Friends School, has a Quaker Heritage Museum.

If Jesus had focused more on kitchen table issues and less on unpopular outcasts like lepers and prostitutes, he might have won more support from white working-class Judeans.

Advocacy alert: @humanitiesall.bsky.social has learned that DOGE is targeting the NEH "with the aim of substantially reducing its staff, cutting the agency’s grant programs, and rescinding grants that have already been awarded." Tell your officials you support the NEH: p2a.co/DdtlGIT

Picked up Dash Shaw's newest graphic novel Blurry at the library yesterday. I came to Shaw's work through Discipline, which is about a man who leaves his Quaker meeting to fight in the Civil War. If you don't know it, I would highly recommend: www.nyrb.com/products/dis...

I was able to watch No Other Land tonight at @cinema21-portland.bsky.social. Grateful for independent theaters that are making it possible for people to view the film. It should be seen by many despite the fact that distributors have been unwilling to pick it up. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/02/m...

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW! Today’s ep is about the event that is sometimes - but not always - called the English Revolution: the Civil War of the 1640s and the short-lived republic that followed. David talks to historian Clare Jackson about the thinking that inspired it. Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

"Highlands" by Bob Dylan (and any Dylan song over six minutes really).

"Although their enemies portrayed them as salivating agents of antichrist who were intent on turning society on its head, the real nature of the Quaker threat was the plausibility of their views." Kate Peters, *Print Culture and the Early Quakers* (252)

You can currently preorder my forthcoming 33 1/3 book, "Sufjan Stevens' Carrie & Lowell" at Barnes & Noble and get 25% off in their Preorder Sale. www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sufjan-ste...

I'm seeing lots of love for Quakers here, particularly in relation to what's going on in the US, which is great, but I'm prompted to remind Quakers to resist wallowing in a good reputation we don't individually deserve. 1/

Co-sign:

The very week that my American religious history course covers William Penn and the Friends: newrepublic.com/post/190756/...

"Let Carter’s personal virtues stand as a rebuke to the rest of our . . . political class. But his record can tell us little about what kind of collective efforts might have led somewhere else in the 1970s, or might now lead us out from oligarchy." ourtime.substack.com/p/jimmy-cart...

This is probably the @alissawilkinson.bsky.social article that stood out to me most from the past year:

Great mini-documentary of Folk Singer and f/Friend Seth Martin. youtu.be/EUbfo5b9Onw?...

ICMI: Great news! ⬇️

Hey y'all, my friend and colleague Huaping Lu-Adler is doing an NEH summer institute on Slavery and Early Modern Philosophy. Please spread the word www.neh.gov/programinsti...

Still thinking about Professing Criticism. Looking forward to this new book:

It was lovely to have Robynne on campus recently, and to have other great scholars of Quakerism in the audience!