Black Quakers Build The Beloved Community on Their Own Terms

Download the transcript and discussion questions.

Discussion Questions

1. Ayesha says, “In unprogrammed meetings, more and more people seem less and less comfortable with spiritual and religious language.” How does this statement resonate with you?
2. What cultural barriers exist in your faith community and how can you begin to address them?

Ayesha Imani

So you can sit in silence all you want, but if you don’t have a way of connecting with the other part of yourself, so you’re not complete without us. It’s not like diversity is cute and you just like all the different colors because it’s so pretty. Ok. It’s that there is that which you won’t know, you, you don’t have a history, if you don’t know my history, like you’d like so there’s just that of God, you will never know without me. Right? And there’s that of God, I’m not gonna know without you.

Various

Thee Quaker Podcast. Story Spirit Sound.

Georgia

I’m Georgia Sparling.

Jon

I’m Jon Watts. 

Georgia

And we want to welcome you to episode 1 of season 2! 

Jon

Yes! It’s been a few months since we’ve been in your feed. Georgia, how’s it been going?

Georgia

It’s been great. It’s been super busy. We’ve got a lot of stories to share this season and so that’s meant I’ve been hitting the ground running. Doing lots of interviews for our upcoming episodes.

Jon

So what can listeners expect?

Georgia

Yeah well, if you take a look at our new logo, you’ll get a hint at one of the stories we’re working on this season —  which is a profile on Bayard Rustin. He was a Civil Rights leader and an organizer. His name has come up a lot lately. I even heard his name on Jeopardy! the other day. So we really wanted to explore the role of his Quaker faith in the monumental work he did and we also want to take a broader look at the Civil Rights Movement and the role that Quakers played in it. 

We’re going to look at the impact of Friends whose names are probably not going to be answers on Jeopardy!

We’re introducing a new segment this year too. We’ll tell you more about after the credits.

And we’re going to dive into some of the frequently asked questions about Quakers. Jon, do you want to say more about that one?

Jon

Yeah one of the things I learned in my time running a Quaker Youtube channel is that if you want to know what people are wondering about you, figure out what they are googling. Of course you have to filter out all of the oats and amish stuff…

Georgia

The Quaker Oats jokes, they just never go away.

Jon

It’s very visible. But there are actually some interesting questions in there when you dig down. One of the most Googled questions about us is what do Quakers believe? That’s a tough one. Do Quakers drink alcohol? That’s an interesting one. Why are Quakers pacifists? Things like that and we’re excited that this medium, our 30-minute, weekly podcast, is an opportunity to go a little deeper than you might normally get in a Google search.

Georgia

Yeah those are all going to be really great to dig into. But let’s talk about today’s episode, which brings up some big topics in Western Quakerism today: How do you make space for minorities and marginalized people when you have a mostly-white religious community?And what does it look like to create worship spaces that are culturally inclusive? And then what about activism? How can that grow faithfully while taking into account both worship and culture?

And we’re going to explore these questions today through the story of the Ujima Friends Peace Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and also through the story of Ayesha Imani, who is one of its founders.

Jon

Oh great! I remembered that you spoke with Ayesha the last time you were in Philly, and I’ve been excited to hear that tape.

Georgia

Yeah well a few minutes with Ayesha and you know you’re talking to somebody who is really special and thoughtful.

Jon

Indeed. Ok let’s hear it.

[Music]

Ayesha 

I’m Ayesha Imani and I have been a Quaker for about 40 years. 

Georgia

Ayesha is an educator who is in leadership at two African-centered charter schools in Philadelphia. She’s also one of the founding members of Ujima Friends Peace Center and Ujima Friends Meeting, which occupy the same space in a corner of North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It’s a community center and a worship center rolled into one. But if you attend worship there, it will be unlike any Quaker worship service you’re likely to find in America.

Ayesha

First of all, there is space for our traditions. So when you come to a Ujima worship, it’s going to start with the pouring of libations, is going to start with the remembrance of the ancestors and reference to, to God, right, known by many names in different different ways. So you’re going to hear some Ashay, and some Amen, too. 

Georgia

Ayesha has a lot of examples of how cultural expression is a natural part of their weekly meetings.

Ayesha

This brother came with a staff, it was like, I just thought it was the African staff. Then in the middle of worship, he takes the staff and he starts playing it, like a flute, you gotta get ready for that at Ujima. You might hear, a gospel song or you might hear a rhythm and blues song. You might, you might hear prayer and laughter, and tears. But there is like room for expressions of the Spirit and there’s more inclusion of our cultural expressions.

Georgia

I’m sitting with Ayesha in a large open room at the Ujima Friends Peace Center. Nearby is a circle of chairs for the Ujima Friends Worship, there’s a Djembe and bright wall hangings. It’s fitting because the peace center began with worship. But first, what does Ujima mean?

Ayesha

Ujima, means collective work and responsibility, and it means that we commit to making our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems, and solving them together. And so that the spirit of Ujima is the spirit of collectivism of working together, and not it’s not missionary, it’s not I’m going to solve the problems of other folks. It’s that I’m really realizing that their problems are our problems. And so we’re going to solve them together.

Georgia

For Ujima that means a Freedom school for Black children in the summers, giving away groceries to low income members of the community, hosting an international sewing initiative, and worshiping however they please. Maybe that latter part maybe feels a little bit un-Quaker or at least un-traditional and loud for an unprogrammed Quaker meeting in the States.

But before we get into that, let’s take a step back and find out how Ayesha even got here.

[Music]

Ayesha

I’ve been on quite a spiritual journey in my life, you know, starting out as a Evangelical, fundamentalist Christian, and then becoming a Muslim. And I think probably the biggest thing was, I fell in love with someone who was Jewish. And I still wanted to be Muslim. He still wanted to be Jewish, and we needed to find a place that would give us room to continue to journey. 

Georgia

Ayesha tried Unitarian Universalists, Baháʼí, and a few other religious groups before she gave Friends a try. She attended her first unprogrammed, silent meeting in the early 1980s, and was reminded of a passage in the New Testament book of Acts. In this passage, the apostles sat waiting on God in the upper room. The story, in Acts chapter 2 then sees an unleashing of the Holy Spirit on this early Christian church.

Ayesha

And so I walk into this Quaker meeting. And I, like, you know, there’s the silence. But I get the sense that they’re waiting because people gathered in the upper room to wait. So I’m like, wait a minute. These people are waiting to hear from God. Like they still think that God can actually talk directly to them. I’m like, Okay, I’m down with this, I’m so down with waiting and listening for the voice of God, because I do still believe that God is speaking that God is moving and I felt that I was in this continual conversation with God. And the idea that there are these other folk who are waiting to hear from God, that just blew my mind. 

Georgia

Ayesha was kind of in awe of Quaker worship.

Ayesha

Then I noticed how many people were white. 

[Music]

And I said, Okay, I gotta think about, like, how this all plays out. Because I was not seeking to be away from Black folk.

I love my people. And I, I love building with Black people, and growing with Black folk, and working on issues of our liberation. And so I wasn’t looking to be in an overwhelmingly white community. But I feel like that’s where the Spirit of God sent me. And so I’ve been working it out since then.

Georgia

Ayesha grew up in Philadelphia in a religious family, where her culture and identity were celebrated. Her mother was a member of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Plus, Ayesha was a child of the ’60s. Activism, for her, was as natural as breathing.

Ayesha 

I was, you know, participating in protests: I’m also the, you know, the niece of a Baptist preacher, and there were so many preachers in my family. So I really grew up very early on with this passion for God and the Spirit. And this love for Black people and this sense of mission around Black people and Black self determination. 

Georgia

As she became more involved in the Quaker world, she also began to feel the confines of worship among mostly-white Friends. She recalls this interaction that she had at a meeting many years ago.

Ayesha

Okay, so first of all I was late, but I sqt on the facing bench. And I had like the cutest, this red dress. Oh, I was wearing this dress, it was not wearing me. And I have to say, I looked good in that dress. So I’m on the facing bench with my red shoes, my red high heels, my little slinky red dress, and I’m just in the Spirit and I’m happy. And someone, a white man; came at the end and said, you know, Friend, you know, Quaker women, they don’t wear like red to meeting. And I said Black women do.

Georgia

Ayesha says the homogeneity of her Quaker meeting also affected her worship. She felt restricted but also that she was not being true to God’s leading in her or to her own cultural expressions of faith.

Ayesha

Why when I’m sitting in meeting, that I don’t say hallelujah, like, why when the Spirit, like when I’m feeling the spirit to fall on my knees? Why won’t I do that? Why, when a gospel song comes to me, why am I not standing up singing that? Like, why? Right? And so for me, it was like, Okay, you’re a coward. Right, you’re buying in too much into what these people do, and so I had to then say, I gotta find some spaces. 

And if I can’t find them, I have to help create some spaces where I am faithful to the Spirit of God in me, and the expressions of that spirit, based on my culture. Right? And so, and as I do that, then it does change Quaker culture, because it’s as Quaker as when white Quakers are performing Quakerism through their cult and I think that’s what Ujima Friends Meeting is about — creating spaces where the Spirit is free. So it’s not only about our liberation. 

I know this sounds bizarre, but it’s almost like God has to be liberated. Because we entrap the Spirit in our cultural expressions, our political perspectives. It’s like, look, you know, you can tell me anything, but it has to be this and it has to sound like this. Right? So if I’m in Quaker meeting, but the only way the Spirit of God can reach me is through speaking Quaker-ese, like and whispering it. 

Then, I’m building this little narrow cell for the Spirit to operate in. So I’m about like, let’s give the Spirit more space, right? Let’s give her room to show up in in a different way than she’s showing up in a traditional Quaker meeting. 

Georgia

By now it was the mid-1980s or so, a few years since Ayesha visited her first Quaker meeting and decades before Ujima was even a thought. But Ayesha had begun to connect with Black Quakers from across Philly, gathering in homes around the city for worship and community. Then those Black Quakers, who called themselves the Fellowship of Friends of African Descent, started to look further afield. 

Ayesha 

What would it mean if we reached out to Black folks in Quaker meetings all over this country and the world. So we did that and we had our first gathering at Pendle Hill. 

Georgia

A retreat and learning center just outside of Philadelphia.

Ayesha

About 100 people came. Some white folks came out of curiosity. But there are Black people that came from all over this country, and from the Caribbean, and places in Africa, and we came together, and that first worship was three hours long, because it just, there was this liberty of the Spirit that was just so awesome. So there was silence, and there was laughter, you know, you know, because Black people were gonna have jokes, and there was singing and just praying.

Georgia

Those gatherings became the foundation out of which Ujima would eventually grow, propelled by national reports of violence against Black men at the hands of police officers.

Ayesha 

The weekend of July 4th, 2016. when Anton Sterling, Felipe Castile, were murdered by the police that weekend, I just think Black people all over the country just felt like sick, you know, and for some of us, it was like, we gotta do something like, we have to do something, so what can we do? And, and so we got some Friends together, over at our house, and just, you know, just praying and seeking, and we developed this minute, you know, Quakers will create minutes, a declaration. So we, we have developed this declaration this minute on state sanctioned violence, and as a part of that minute, we talked about things we could do, not just say, we’re against it, we’re against the way, you know, you know, Black bodies are imperiled that like we can, we talked about some of what we thought the roots of this violence, and we expanded the definition of violence. It’s not just physical violence, right? It’s economic violence, it’s educational violence, it’s like, it’s all of those things, most of which are rooted in greed from this capitalistic system. 

Georgia

The Fellowship of Friends of African Descent outlined four points of action.

One: the creation of a peaceforce of police and community peacekeepers — all unarmed — to introduce non-violent responses to conflict

Two: establish peace centers – safe havens of “educational, cultural and recreational opportunities for young people.

Three: Community training for police

And four: Disarming communities

But what to do first?

Ayesha

Somebody said, Let’s do the Peace Center first. And so we put our money together and said, Let’s go, right So what we didn’t do, we didn’t ask for permission to come into being. We didn’t ask for people to give us money. 

We were like, okay, let’s, let’s put some money together. Let’s go look for a place. And let’s open a Peace Center. 

[Music]

We had no idea what it was gonna turn into. And we said once we got it, we said, Okay, what’s the first thing we should do? We should establish worship.

Georgia

After the break, the Ujima Friends Peace Center launches and Ayesha asks why Quakers, when are you going to start making reparations?

[Phone ringing]

Jon Watts  

Hey, Becca, it’s Jon Watts. How are you?

Becca Godwin  

Hi, I’m doing well.

Jon Watts  

You gave us a donation in June of 2023. Thank you so much for your contribution. And you left us a comment that said that you’re quasi Quaker who loves good storytelling. So I was wondering if you could tell me about that. How are you? What does that mean to be a quasi Quaker?

Becca Godwin  

Yes, so my mother was raised Quaker. Her grandfather became Quaker after his experience in the military. And so we grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, she would take the four of us kids to meetings. So I was, you know, held as a baby in the Quaker meeting. And then when I moved away, and started living in different cities, I would go, I would go in the different cities that I went, but I never really started going regularly as an adult until last year, when I was living in Nashville. Started going regularly, really got a lot out of it. And then I moved away from Nashville. And I haven’t gone to, to the local meeting, where I live now yet, but I have had the podcast to listen to. And so it’s helped sort of bridge this transition. 

Jon Watts  

Yeah. Thank you. So. So what was it like to go to Quaker meeting again?

Becca Godwin  

It reminded me a lot of my experiences when I was younger, just, you know, it’s always a different building, but the what in my experience, there’s always a similar kind of energy and calmness As that just radiates from these from these spaces. I think in that first one back, there weren’t any messages even given. But I still just felt the sense of like, Ah, yes, this is good. This is what this is what a part of me has been searching for and, and desiring.

[Music]

So in the end of 2022, I stopped drinking. And in January 2023 is when I started going to a meeting in Nashville. And I sort of joke that I didn’t start going to AA, but I started going to Quaker meeting. And someone there happened to also start sharing messages about their experience in recovery. And so it was really, it really was helpful for me during that time where I felt like it was important to to have something that was sort of soul satisfying, but uniquely for me. Yeah.

Jon Watts  

Yeah, what happens for you in that, in that hour of silence? 

Becca Godwin  

It oftentimes feels like a circus is happening in my head, but it’s the circus that would be happening anyway. And I’m just actually able to, to let it play and let it run in a space where I feel anchored by the presence of the other people that are there.

[Music]

Quakerism has is part of my family’s story. And as much as people talk about it, within my family, I think there’s always still this sense of like, mystery or intrigue around it, you can talk about it as much as you want. And it still feels like this, this thing that’s different than almost anything else in my life anyway. It’s just not quite containable. And so listening to the podcast helps give some some depth to these like intangible things that I’ve that I’ve always heard and felt and provide some context.

Jon Watts  

So I wonder if you have any advice for us in in making, you know, season two of the of the podcast.

Becca Godwin  

I mean, not really, just to keep doing what you’re doing. When I heard that this podcast would be coming out. I was like, oh, man, this is either going to be like really, really good. Or it’s going to struggle. And just, I mean, that’s the case with most podcasts in general. And but I was really like hoping and pulling for this one to be in that really good category, and it has exceeded what I was hoping for.

Jon Watts  

Thank you. 

If you’re like Becca, and you’re hoping and pulling for this podcast to be the best Quaker podcast it can be then we could really use your support. Thee Quaker Podcast is listener supported. And I’m so happy to say that in season one, we met our financial goal of 65 monthly supporters. Thank you, so much. However, we know from the analytics that this show is reaching about 3,500 listeners every month. So if you’re one of those, those 3,435 folks who are listening, but haven’t quite made it yet to QuakerPodcast.com/Support please do. It would mean a lot to us and to listeners like Becca. Thank you. And back to the show.

Georgia

Welcome back. Before the break the Friends of African Descent had just established the Ujima Friends Peace Center. In this half of the show, we’re going to explore what that center has become and why worshiping as a Black Quaker community has been such an integral part of Ujima’s and Ayesha’s journeys…plus we’re going to talk a little bit about reparations.

Ayesha

We established worship and then we started establishing some community based programs. 

We did reach out to other organizations in the community. And I think our first major ministry was our food giveaway. When you add up the numbers of people in the families, it’s more like 800-900 people every other Saturday, and we bring together all kinds of volunteers, young people, older people, it’s just like real cool. 

Because we believe and hunger is a form of violence. We started having renters rights classes because eviction is a form of violence, and it is perpetrated against Black women with children in similar ways that incarceration is perpetrated disproportionately on Black males. 

Georgia

Through this work, Ujima is building a community, at least that’s the goal, one where the people in their neighborhood become part of Ujima’s work instead of just the benefactors.

Ayesha

Even when we’re doing our food giveaway, it really feels like a food share. And, and we have so many folks in the community now, who were getting food in line who now just volunteer to help. And we have folks from the community, this elder in the community. And she probably is like 90, and she comes to the food giveaway. She said God sent her to the food giveaway to pray for us. So everything stops, and the elder prays. This elder, everybody, everybody you Muslim, wherever you are, we just stand here, let this elder do her thing. And she does. And we you know, we pour libations we have some silence we you know, we do our thing. But like, whatever we’re doing, we really want to operate in the spirit of like, Y’all, we got some food, let’s share it. As opposed to we’re here doing something for you. Like we all in it. We all in it together. And that’s that’s the spirit of Ujima.

[Music]

Georgia

We started our interview in the main room where the worship groups meets, but now Ayesha leads me through to the back of the building where a lot of the action happens. We go down a few hallways and through some doors.

Ayesha

So this is where magic gets made.

Georgia

There’s a room with chest freezers and refrigerators where the food is stored for the bimonthly food donations. Nearby, metal shelving houses sewing machines and fabric and suitcase for — PASHI — the Pan African Sisterhood Health Initiative. This initiative is one of Ujima’s partners in peace. They use the space to sew reusable menstrual pads and birthing kits that have been sent to women around the world — throughout the continent of Africa, in Cuba, and in other developing areas. The sewers gather every week and are teaching girls in the community to make them, too.

Ayesha

They just make magic. So you have this group of Black women elders that now have expanded to these young people who they’re teaching how to make menstrual pads, reusable menstrual pads, right, because of the period poverty that’s going on, not only in Africa, but here. 

Georgia

There are sometimes 20 women working on the project, sometimes they’re joined by a dozen or so school girls. 

Kids are a big part of Ujima’s work. They have a Freedom School in the summer for middle schoolers, many of whom are of African descent and who attend Sankofa Charter School, where Ayesha is head of school. Last summer, they spent almost all of their time outside, including visits to the grounds of Friends meetings beyond Philly. 

Ayesha says that since COVID,

Ayesha

Middle schoolers and teenagers, we’ve had such an uptick in cutting and, you know, suicidal ideation, and, you know, just just general depression. And so we decided to have a program that first of all, we would unplug them, we’re not gonna do anything with any computers, nobody’s gonna be on screen, and it’s gonna be all outdoors. And so instead of having it here, we said, we would be in friendly spaces. 

Georgia

That’s Friendly with a capital F. Kids spent the summer sitting under trees, reading bell hooks, learning about social justice, and their own emotional and mental well being, and also about Quakerism.

It’s been good for the kids and good for the mostly-white meetings that have opened their properties to the children. It also highlights the economic and racial disparity in Quakerism.

Ayesha

I’m grateful for folks that have supported the center and the work that we’re doing.

Georgia

But Ayesha says white Quakers can do more to rectify these racial disparities that are still so prevalent in Philadelphia and in the rest of the country.

Ayesha

How could Black Quakers be in a rented space? Oh but you have meeting houses and land that you inherited from labor that no my ancestors provided, in many cases, and unjust systems that allowed you to prosper while we could not. So let’s have those conversations about how you make that right. Right? So you have these Black students sitting under a tree, you know, talking about the Black Quaker Movement, but they see, they see the contradictions. What are you gonna do about that? 

[Music]

I’m hoping that at some point, that Quakers won’t be like the rich young ruler that goes to Jesus and says, like, you know, how can I have, you know, this, this salvation this? And he says, Give everything you have. And he walked away, sadly, right? Because he was too attached to those material things. Right. So when people are wringing their hands about racism, I’m not that impressed with it. 

Georgia

So, I want to circle back to worship because the peace center was built on Quaker worship. It was the first thing the Friends of African Descent established when they got the building, before they began welcoming school kids and feeding the community.

But I wondered, what is it that draws these Black Friends to Quakerdom? Afterall, as Ayesha shares, Black Quakers have challenging experiences of racism among white Quakers and honestly, if you look at the history, that’s not new.

Ayesha

I don’t imagine that there have been very many Black Friends who have not encountered micro aggressions, macro aggressions, you know, been confronted with, you know, racism and marginalization and, like, you can’t be Black and Quaker and not have had those experiences. But you can’t be Black in America and not have had those experiences. And I think that I think that one of the differences is that many Black Quakers, in my experience, experience hurt, because they come into Quakerism expecting Quakers to be something other than white Americans.

Georgia

So why is Quaker worship still part of the equation and why does it resonate with this African-American community?

Ayesha 

I think there’s this wonderful liberty of the spirit that is difficult to find in some other places. 

Being able to share spiritual community without sharing doctrine is a gift. Right. And so they’re, particularly today amongst young people, they’re people who they love God, they would consider themselves spiritual, but they can’t fit into the, the dogma, the sexual morality rules, the, you know, they just don’t the hierarchy, the patriarchy, like they have some things that they want to be free from. 

And so there are Black people who are looking for spaces like that. So this African centered approach to Quakerism, I just feel like why not? You know, I think that that’s, that’s The beauty of Quakerism that I want to share, just creating safe spaces for Black people to be gay, lesbian trans out, like, just bring it, bring it all right here, and we’re going to, like, respect one another and I like I can listen to your ministry. And I think Quakerism creating a space like this provides that opportunity. 

Georgia

These Friends have found, in Quakerism, a place where they feel they can worship freely, yet it seems, this group also exists, in part, because they didn’t always feel this liberty in white Quaker spaces — the freedom to express their spiritual identities and their cultures.

Ayesha

I think people are more comfortable, comfortable referencing the Spirit, referencing spiritual matters. And in unprogrammed meetings, more and more people seem less and less comfortable with spiritual and religious language. Right? And so there are lots of meetings where, like references to Jesus, you know, people, you know, kind of get freaked out because it’s like, well, what about the Muslims here? And what about the Jews here? And I think amongst, amongst Friends of African Descent, like you’ve got, we got Rasta Quakers, we got Muslim Quakers, we got, you know, Christian Quakers. It just doesn’t bother us. 

Georgia

This is the group that built the Ujima Peace Center. Today, Ujima Friends Meeting is a separate entity from the peace center, something that happened during Covid when worship moved online. But the two are still closely tied together.

Ayesha says that they are also still figuring out how their Quakerism and African heritage coalesce while not defining it in opposition or juxtaposition to white Quakers. 

Ayesha

I’m very clear that I call myself a Friend of African Descent, right, because it’s, for me, it’s an affirming statement of what I am, as opposed to a person of color for me, which puts white people at the center and says, There’s white people, and then there’s everybody else. 

And so I just choose not to think of myself that way and organize myself that way. And to give white people that much space, in terms of my self-definition.

Georgia

There is a lot for everyone to learn, and there will be culture clashes. And that is alright. Remember the red dress story from before? Well, Ayesha became friends with that fellow Quaker. And she says she has found that white Quakers often want to know how they can make spaces more diverse and welcoming.

And that’s is something they’ll have to do to thrive in the years ahead, she says.

Ayesha

I believe that the future of the Religious Society of Friends, is dependent on what happens to Friends of Color, Friends of African Descent, poor Friends, right? That if if the Religious Society of Friends thinks it’s going really realize its full spiritual potential without this diversity, it’s sadly mistaken. 

[Music]

So as I come into, like the fullness of, you know, the woman that God intended me to be, and I show up with who I am, and you show up with who you are, there gonna be some problems. And if we are all like really trying to live our lives based on the ethos of love, you know, then it means that we’re going to be willing to struggle with one another. Right? And so that’s what I’m here to do. I’m here for the struggle.

Georgia

So how can Quakers respond? Well, Ayesha says they need to get serious about reparations.

Ayesha

At some point, Quakers need to figure out their ownership of land, and they need to give us some land to have this peace center on and build a space for our children. And they need to open some Quaker schools that poor children can go to as opposed to one or two scholarships to their schools. If they want to work on that, I would appreciate that, give me a call when they figure that out. 

Georgia

If you don’t have any money, that’s no problem. Friends have done meditation and art and music projects with the kids, and anyone is welcome to sew menstrual pads or create birthing kits.

Ayesha

Like we welcome that kind of participation. So we welcome Friends doing things with us. We just don’t want them to organize busloads of white people and don’t come because you’re curious, you know, come because the spirit has sent you here. And you you know, truly want to worship and you really feel like you’ve been led to be a part of this, this ministry. 

[Music]

Georgia

Thank you for listening and thank you to our guest Ayesha Imani.

Find a link to the transcript, reflect on our discussion questions, and find more information about Ujima Friends Meeting and Ujima Friends Peace Center at QuakerPodcast.com.

Today’s episode was reported and produced by me, Georgia Sparling.

Jon Watts wrote and performed the music.

Studio D mixed the episode and our moment of Quaker Zen was read by Grace Gonglewski. (Make sure you listen to the end of this episode to find out what that is!)

Thee Quaker Podcast is a part of Thee Quaker Project, a Quaker media organization whose focus is on lifting up voices of spiritual courage and giving Quakers a platform in 21st century media.

If you want to support our work, please consider becoming a monthly supporter. Every contribution expands our capacity to tell Quaker stories in a fresh way and it makes this project more sustainable!

Visit TheeQuaker.org for more information.

Ok. An announcement: As I teased early, we’ve got a new addition to the show and I’ve got my colleague Maeve here to tell us all about it.

But first, Maeve will you tell everybody who you are?

Maeve Sutherland

Hi, I’m Maeve Sutherland. I’m the social media and newsletter coordinator for Thee Quaker. 

Georgia Sparling  

Awesome and we’re so glad that you’re on the team now. So yeah, tell us about this new segment. What is it called? What’s it all about?

Maeve

So at the end of your regularly scheduled podcast episode, we’re going to have a moment of Quaker Zen. And that’s going to be a quote from a Quaker thinker, visionary. And it’s going to just give you something to hold as you carry on into your week until the next episode. 

Georgia Sparling  

I’m really looking forward to these. And they’re also part of a bigger project that you’re working on. Would you tell us more about that?

Maeve

Yeah, well, we’re starting a daily Quaker devotional email. That’s for people who want to start a daily spiritual practice. And it’s going to be called the Daily Quaker Message, and it’s going to have a quote, it’ll have queries, it’ll have things to try out in your own life to help with your spiritual growth.

Georgia Sparling  

And people can go ahead and sign up for that now.

Maeve

Yes, they can, and I hope they do. It’s going to be great. 

Georgia Sparling  

So go to DailyQuaker.com to join the mailing list. That’s DailyQuaker.com. Okay, here is our very first moment of Quakers Zen.

Grace Gonglewski

Thomas R. Kelley, 1996, The Eternal Promise: “The Quaker discovery and message has always been that God still lives and moves, works and guides, in vivid immediacy, within the hearts of men. For revelation is not static and complete, like a book, but dynamic and enlarging, as springing from a Life and Soul of all things.”

Recorded by Georgia Sparling and Jon Watts.

Produced and edited by Georgia.

Original music and sound design by Jon Watts (Listen to more of Jon’s music here.)

Image by Freepik

Supported by listeners like you (thank you!!)

Referenced in this episode:

• Learn more about Ujima Friends.