Jay David Miller

Q & A 13 French prose and Greek lexica, poetry and poets, VN and PW, Quakers and running dogs of capitalism, baseball and dinosaurs...

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

Auguste Renoir | Bouquet of Chrysanthemums | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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

"America" would also have been a candidate.

How Much Do You Know About Early American Literature? (Gift Article) Before the Independence Day fireworks this week, try this short quiz on America’s popular books published during the country’s formative years.

This is my time!

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

I've seen #2 and #3 . . . an interesting cultural diptych!

"True contemplation is not a psychological trick but a theological grace. It can come to us only as a gift, and not as a result of our own clever use of spiritual techniques."

Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer

Screenshot of the title page of the first edition of "Moby-Dick; or, The Whale."

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.

Pioneering Payback The potential of the Oregon Journalism Protection Act.

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...

Sweet, so glad you are getting to teach this!

Christian Studies Sale

@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

Jon Fosse on Writing as an Act of Listening The author discusses his story “Elias.”

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...

The real hot take is that a little hierarchy is not a bad thing (and that it already exists in Quakerism)!?

I thought of you when I heard he passed away. Grateful for the way you've used his work to think about Quakerism.

The Dandelion references are on pages 39 and 57 of Open for Transformation.

I remember that article now. Good to revisit it. I wonder what the history is for the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

What would you think of going back to the practice of only Elders shaking hands at the end of meeting? More hierarchical, but fewer people would need to shake hands.

I only really know about it from a couple of references in BPD's published Swarthmore lecture. He says that before the 1970 only the elders of the meeting would shake hands; then the gesture was democratized after an influx of Anglicans into BYM who were used to the tradition of "passing the peace."

I'm pro-handshake for traditional reasons, but I like that you are thinking about it. What did you find to be the best resources for learning about the history of this gesture?

YouTube video by GEORGE FOX TALKS Joseph John Gurney | CULTURE

A couple of years ago I had a conversation about Gurney with my colleague Jamie Johnson:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbjc...

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

I was digging into Gurney a few years ago and was surprised how understudied he is. Thanks for this thread.

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.

URGENT: Save the NEH I just took action to oppose the elimination of the National Endowment for the Humanities! Join me and take action here.

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

I am looking forward to this!

Grateful for your voice on this, thank you.