Tuesday, March 18, 2025
Mental illness
One more time, a couple of days in the hospital with a poor kid, a seven-year-old, who I barely knew, but who was off to a hospital for mental or "behavioral" issues. I couldn't help but think of other kids I'd had who had been down this same road. And a persistent fear of mine that it's actually a kind of spirituality crisis. The kid gets off the path where they can clearly see God, themselves, the path, and their place in the world.
In this case, a seven-year-old, it may have been very tenuous that she had any idea of what she was not seeing or knowing. Sure, they take young kids to church, and the kids make as much sense as they can out of what they hear. We, as I said, barely knew these kids (she had a twin, whom she almost killed), and with such short notice may have been unable to even affect the outcome where a lifetime of training led her to be who she was. What could spirituality have had to do with it?
Yet part of me says, "everything," in this case and in every case, and in trying to unravel how such cases end up in hospitals with mental health drugs involved and everyone hoping for "stablilization."
If I want queries for my silence, this week and those to come, here's a start.
In this case, a seven-year-old, it may have been very tenuous that she had any idea of what she was not seeing or knowing. Sure, they take young kids to church, and the kids make as much sense as they can out of what they hear. We, as I said, barely knew these kids (she had a twin, whom she almost killed), and with such short notice may have been unable to even affect the outcome where a lifetime of training led her to be who she was. What could spirituality have had to do with it?
Yet part of me says, "everything," in this case and in every case, and in trying to unravel how such cases end up in hospitals with mental health drugs involved and everyone hoping for "stablilization."
If I want queries for my silence, this week and those to come, here's a start.
Sunday, February 23, 2025
Beginner's Guide to Quakerism
At the moment they are $.65 each plus postage. Postage is about $5 to send 20, much less to send a single one. Inquiries can be made to me here or you can communicate directlly on paypal at tlevsp @ gmail.com, no spaces.
The batch from the printers is really nice, well done, but underpriced, according to him. I told him to make me a sustainable price so that we can fix the price permanently. Also I will work on ordering more than 200 (requires more money than I can take out of the family budget) and that will lower the price further. Our goal is to keep the price as low as possible.
The batch from the printers specifically is a little more than 60 cents each. I round up to make sure I cover envelopes and gas to the post office. I do not charge for my time.
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
Beginner's Guide to Quakerism
by Maurine Pyle, Margaret Katranides, Thomas Leverett, and Fernando Freire
$3.83 + postage on Amazon
$0.99 on Kindle
Followers of this blog and the press will recognize this as the pamphlet, published in 2021 and printed at home by me for $0.80 each + postage. It will still be available in pamphlet form, printed more professionally, and possibly cheaper; stay posted. This Amazon version is at least available now, here from this site.
It was intended to give the average outsider a good general overview of what Quakerism is. It is, after all, a discipline to live by Truth and integrity, and to have as your community people who may feel differently about the exact role of God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the literal doctrines of mainstream Christianity. Many Quakers today do not call themselves Christian; if so, what do they have in common? This pamphlet will explain.
Stay current here.
Sunday, January 12, 2025
New Chapter for the Pamphlet
Long-time readers of this blog will know which pamphlet I'm talking about: Beginner's Guide to Quakerism. Just to recap: it's a 12-page document, written mostly by Maurine Pyle (but also by Margaret Katranides, Fernando Freire, and me), put into a 4 1/4 X 5 1/2 pamphlet (40 very small pages) with a cardstock cover that, in good times, is in color. I have been constructing them at home with a worn-out home printer, collating and stapling one at a time, at the price of about ten minutes each. St. Louis Meeting has been my main customer and I have not advertised widely, partly for lack of time.
I sent an order for twenty out a couple of weeks ago to Villa Park Illinois in preparation for a class they were doing called Quakerism 101. I sent the best pamphlets I could make yet they were still unacceptable. I'd become used to reading poor printing yet that was because I knew what it said. The color printing on the cover was long gone. Our home printer just wasn't handling it and I could not rectify the situation even with enough ink, constant head cleaning, etc.
When they complained, I put it on Amazon. This was a quick decision yet something I knew how to do and could do within a day. It is now here, $3.83 in paperback and $0.99 kindle, with its color cover and guaranteed printing, but it's 5 X 8, barely 25 pages. I could get them 20 author's copies for $2.30 each and $11 shipping, but that was disappointing; I'd hoped for much cheaper. Turned out they have to put a lot of work into making 5 x 8 pamphlets.
There were some objections to Amazon; it turns out that it's not a very good fit for the Quaker community, even if they do print things at a reasonable price and quickly. I didn't have to do much checking around to find that several Quakers were not fond of Amazon. Now as it turns out I use Amazon often and have come to just not worry about its unsavory methods as, for starting authors, it's the only show in town. So I didn't really ponder it hard when I had to produce documents; it was just the quickest way to get where I was going. I couldn't print them at home. I can't even find someone in town to do it reliably.
It has brought up the topic of religious harmony, namely does the printer actually feel good about printing what they're printing? As a commercial printer I'd probably accept any job that came my way but things would change when coming up against one's religion and it would also change if the documents advocated revolution, etc. Not sure how I'd handle it. But I don't entirely blame Galesburg printers for basically hemming and hawing and not wanting to do it except for healthy profit. They didn't really want to do it at all.
I was given the name of Barclay Press in Oregon, and wrote away to them, and then to three printers in the Chicago area. These last three weren't until Fri. and I have no idea what they will say (beyond that they received my request). But Barclay wrote back and said they can do it for about 25c each but depends on how many. I thought quickly. Surely at 100 it would be significantly more because they would still have to set it up, etc. At 100 each it would be $25 + shipping, but probably way more, but at 500 it would be $125 + shipping minimum and the higher we went the closer we could probably get to $0.25 each. Very cool!
Following through on this logic it seems I'm being called to set up a distribution system in Oregon, with my son and his young family (wife is also Quaker) who could then just drive out to this press (it's about 30 mi. from Portland) and pick up the 500. I am now thinking maybe I should ask them if they are interested in setting up a Quaker pamphlet distribution system.
I have not heard from any of the Chicago printers. Remember that Galesburg printers pretty much weren't enthusiastic. One got into a convoluted argument about setup and formatting which led me to believe that something spiritually was troubling his soul about doing it. Ideally we would have it aligned: everyone involved believes in it. If we do it right it will be more likely to succeed.
By the way you might ask why I don't simply use Canva or some online printing service. These printing services have proliferated lately and they will send twenty, or a hundred, of anything, to your doorstep. I have not ruled them out. I tried Canva and got hopelessly tangled up in setting up an account (bad omen), and also was unable to verify that one could set up a pamphlet of the size I want (I am not actually fussy on the size) - another bad omen. If you can't, through online scrolling, determine that this will be possible, then it's not. But I'm still open to trying.
The present plan is to wait until the facts come in, and possibly run the scenario past my son, who may simply have no time. He would do anything for me, but I would want him to want to do it before I'd want him committing his time to it.
I sent an order for twenty out a couple of weeks ago to Villa Park Illinois in preparation for a class they were doing called Quakerism 101. I sent the best pamphlets I could make yet they were still unacceptable. I'd become used to reading poor printing yet that was because I knew what it said. The color printing on the cover was long gone. Our home printer just wasn't handling it and I could not rectify the situation even with enough ink, constant head cleaning, etc.
When they complained, I put it on Amazon. This was a quick decision yet something I knew how to do and could do within a day. It is now here, $3.83 in paperback and $0.99 kindle, with its color cover and guaranteed printing, but it's 5 X 8, barely 25 pages. I could get them 20 author's copies for $2.30 each and $11 shipping, but that was disappointing; I'd hoped for much cheaper. Turned out they have to put a lot of work into making 5 x 8 pamphlets.
There were some objections to Amazon; it turns out that it's not a very good fit for the Quaker community, even if they do print things at a reasonable price and quickly. I didn't have to do much checking around to find that several Quakers were not fond of Amazon. Now as it turns out I use Amazon often and have come to just not worry about its unsavory methods as, for starting authors, it's the only show in town. So I didn't really ponder it hard when I had to produce documents; it was just the quickest way to get where I was going. I couldn't print them at home. I can't even find someone in town to do it reliably.
It has brought up the topic of religious harmony, namely does the printer actually feel good about printing what they're printing? As a commercial printer I'd probably accept any job that came my way but things would change when coming up against one's religion and it would also change if the documents advocated revolution, etc. Not sure how I'd handle it. But I don't entirely blame Galesburg printers for basically hemming and hawing and not wanting to do it except for healthy profit. They didn't really want to do it at all.
I was given the name of Barclay Press in Oregon, and wrote away to them, and then to three printers in the Chicago area. These last three weren't until Fri. and I have no idea what they will say (beyond that they received my request). But Barclay wrote back and said they can do it for about 25c each but depends on how many. I thought quickly. Surely at 100 it would be significantly more because they would still have to set it up, etc. At 100 each it would be $25 + shipping, but probably way more, but at 500 it would be $125 + shipping minimum and the higher we went the closer we could probably get to $0.25 each. Very cool!
Following through on this logic it seems I'm being called to set up a distribution system in Oregon, with my son and his young family (wife is also Quaker) who could then just drive out to this press (it's about 30 mi. from Portland) and pick up the 500. I am now thinking maybe I should ask them if they are interested in setting up a Quaker pamphlet distribution system.
I have not heard from any of the Chicago printers. Remember that Galesburg printers pretty much weren't enthusiastic. One got into a convoluted argument about setup and formatting which led me to believe that something spiritually was troubling his soul about doing it. Ideally we would have it aligned: everyone involved believes in it. If we do it right it will be more likely to succeed.
By the way you might ask why I don't simply use Canva or some online printing service. These printing services have proliferated lately and they will send twenty, or a hundred, of anything, to your doorstep. I have not ruled them out. I tried Canva and got hopelessly tangled up in setting up an account (bad omen), and also was unable to verify that one could set up a pamphlet of the size I want (I am not actually fussy on the size) - another bad omen. If you can't, through online scrolling, determine that this will be possible, then it's not. But I'm still open to trying.
The present plan is to wait until the facts come in, and possibly run the scenario past my son, who may simply have no time. He would do anything for me, but I would want him to want to do it before I'd want him committing his time to it.
Saturday, January 04, 2025
Shelter
Gimme Shelter, Jeff Kisling
The blog I linked to is by a friend of mine and I will try to link to it permanently, soon.
The article is interesting and raises some interesting points, only some of which I'll hit here. He is like me in that some of his tangents are more interesting than the focus of the article itself.
The point he made that really hit home was that the small Iowa rural Quaker communities are endangered. The one he grew up in, Earlham, was home to several friends of mine, but it's not the only one: Paulina is another good example, and Clear Creek another. The older people who were the mainstays of these communities have been dying and in many cases not really adequately replaced by the younger generations. This is a recurring theme of our online Quaker meeting Cloud Quakers as we experience this problem first hand.
He also suggests an interesting solution. In a world where people can live where they want (due to being able to work digitally), why not bring back intentional Quaker villages? I have brought up this point before, I believe, but I'm still exploring ways of making it work.
One way would be to set up a school; this worked for Scattergood and West Branch, which was one Quaker community. If you have about a dozen meaningfully employed Quakers you have a community and, having lived at Scattergood, I can speak to how valuable it is to have real live Quakers amongst your neighbors.
Another way would be to have a very well-organized way of telling people who are interested where they could settle that would be a Quaker-leaning village and that would welcome them. Some plains communities have actually paid new settlers and they are especially generous to people with children as they recognize that it's the future that's important.
I believe in Quaker villages and in community. Community is the foundation of Conservative Quakerism (conservative = conserving the silent meeting format) and, in the modern world, we have to struggle with the meaning of community. Either we live near each other and have Quakers we can touch at the end of meeting, or we continue to meet online which we can all know is not quite the same. I'm for trying to keep places like Paulina, Clear Creek and Earlham alive and vibrant. I'm wondering who else is thinking like I am.
The blog I linked to is by a friend of mine and I will try to link to it permanently, soon.
The article is interesting and raises some interesting points, only some of which I'll hit here. He is like me in that some of his tangents are more interesting than the focus of the article itself.
The point he made that really hit home was that the small Iowa rural Quaker communities are endangered. The one he grew up in, Earlham, was home to several friends of mine, but it's not the only one: Paulina is another good example, and Clear Creek another. The older people who were the mainstays of these communities have been dying and in many cases not really adequately replaced by the younger generations. This is a recurring theme of our online Quaker meeting Cloud Quakers as we experience this problem first hand.
He also suggests an interesting solution. In a world where people can live where they want (due to being able to work digitally), why not bring back intentional Quaker villages? I have brought up this point before, I believe, but I'm still exploring ways of making it work.
One way would be to set up a school; this worked for Scattergood and West Branch, which was one Quaker community. If you have about a dozen meaningfully employed Quakers you have a community and, having lived at Scattergood, I can speak to how valuable it is to have real live Quakers amongst your neighbors.
Another way would be to have a very well-organized way of telling people who are interested where they could settle that would be a Quaker-leaning village and that would welcome them. Some plains communities have actually paid new settlers and they are especially generous to people with children as they recognize that it's the future that's important.
I believe in Quaker villages and in community. Community is the foundation of Conservative Quakerism (conservative = conserving the silent meeting format) and, in the modern world, we have to struggle with the meaning of community. Either we live near each other and have Quakers we can touch at the end of meeting, or we continue to meet online which we can all know is not quite the same. I'm for trying to keep places like Paulina, Clear Creek and Earlham alive and vibrant. I'm wondering who else is thinking like I am.
Saturday, November 30, 2024
Giving up the pamphlet
Spent all week musing about writing a post that says, basically: Quaker printer wanted. Someone who will take over the actual printing of the Maurine Pyle pamphlet, since I am somewhat suspended in quicksand over it.
For some reason, I couldn't bring myself to write it. I've become a little shy of all things Facebook, since I occasionally get reprimanded for facebook promotional posts, but that's not it. In the bitter cold, windy, bleak weather here, I just didn't want to start up with anyone.
So if that second one is the reason, I should have that post out tomorrow, or as soon as the weather breaks. Often mulling it over in a place like this is enough for me to get my things going.
I won't be giving it up entirely. I'll supervise the care of the document, in whatever form it's in, and work with any new printer until we have something we like. It shouldn't be as complicated as it has been. It's mostly complicated by the fact that I am not a printer, and, I have way too many other things to do.
Stay posted.
For some reason, I couldn't bring myself to write it. I've become a little shy of all things Facebook, since I occasionally get reprimanded for facebook promotional posts, but that's not it. In the bitter cold, windy, bleak weather here, I just didn't want to start up with anyone.
So if that second one is the reason, I should have that post out tomorrow, or as soon as the weather breaks. Often mulling it over in a place like this is enough for me to get my things going.
I won't be giving it up entirely. I'll supervise the care of the document, in whatever form it's in, and work with any new printer until we have something we like. It shouldn't be as complicated as it has been. It's mostly complicated by the fact that I am not a printer, and, I have way too many other things to do.
Stay posted.
Monday, November 11, 2024
Quaker play ideas
As readers of this blog, you know I write Quaker plays. I should say that as time goes by I am more aware of my shortcomings as a playwrite, but still conscious of my role as one of the only Quaker playwrites in the generation.
So, I'm thinking of yet another volume and using this post to explore possibilities of things I could write about. There are a few left over from last time that never were realized; I'll try to put them here too.
Thomas Paine - (biography here) - an interesting guy, father was a Quaker - found himself in the middle of the Revolution and wrote accordingly.
Wetherill brothers - these guys were part of a Colorado ranching family, and stumbled on Anasazi ruins; they had to decide what to do with them, and whether it was ethical to take them to a museum or sell them. Of course the people around them worried much less about ethics. Somewhere in there is a Quaker play on a topic that is very interesting to me.
Here are some from before:
Quakers in the World: Interaction with Tsarist Russia
Elizabeth Vining & the Crown Prince Akihito
Mary Fisher - (not to be confused with the AIDS activist) - wikipedia article
Josh Humphries - a modern character, died recently, had trouble with his Virginia meeting. I have friends who are bold, honest, truthful, and assertive - and sometimes don't get along well with their Quaker meetings. It's not always clear who's at fault when they fall out. The reference for this is somewhere in Chuck Fager's blog; I will have to search for it. I knew him only casually.
More? write me.
Thomas Paine - (biography here) - an interesting guy, father was a Quaker - found himself in the middle of the Revolution and wrote accordingly.
Wetherill brothers - these guys were part of a Colorado ranching family, and stumbled on Anasazi ruins; they had to decide what to do with them, and whether it was ethical to take them to a museum or sell them. Of course the people around them worried much less about ethics. Somewhere in there is a Quaker play on a topic that is very interesting to me.
Here are some from before:
Quakers in the World: Interaction with Tsarist Russia
Elizabeth Vining & the Crown Prince Akihito
Mary Fisher - (not to be confused with the AIDS activist) - wikipedia article
Josh Humphries - a modern character, died recently, had trouble with his Virginia meeting. I have friends who are bold, honest, truthful, and assertive - and sometimes don't get along well with their Quaker meetings. It's not always clear who's at fault when they fall out. The reference for this is somewhere in Chuck Fager's blog; I will have to search for it. I knew him only casually.
More? write me.
Thursday, October 31, 2024
pamphlets & spiritual wholeness
Good and bad news on the pamphlets. The printer broke down about 24 pamphlets in on an order of 100 which I'd already made about a dozen (have to look that up) so there's both - the good is that I had 24 to send, and sent them right away; the bad is that I have to get my old printer back up and running and this may be easier said than done. The other bad thing is that I take this as a sign of spiritual disharmony.
The printing, cutting, collating, and stapling are my meditation, in a way. I'd spent about 40 minutes a day doing a batch of four - ten minutes apiece, a pretty steep price to pay - but I had 40 minutes, enjoyed it, looked forward to it, etc. I don't feel the same way about actually fixing a printer, or going about figuring out why it would be "not connected" - who knows? It's not connected because it's not connected. I can turn it off and turn it back on again until the sun goes down, unplug and plug in the router, I've tried all that. The wifi is supposed to just connect. But it doesn't. Is there spiritual disharmony in my life?
There are so many other things in my life that it's too easy to just put off fixing (?) one printer or starting up another (it should at least start up, figuring out how to actually use it might be a different matter)....so I've gone through a couple of mananas putting it off.
Meanwhile, inside, I'm hurting. Spiritually missing a meditation. Losing out on quiet time, making my pamphlets. My epistellary silence.
The printing, cutting, collating, and stapling are my meditation, in a way. I'd spent about 40 minutes a day doing a batch of four - ten minutes apiece, a pretty steep price to pay - but I had 40 minutes, enjoyed it, looked forward to it, etc. I don't feel the same way about actually fixing a printer, or going about figuring out why it would be "not connected" - who knows? It's not connected because it's not connected. I can turn it off and turn it back on again until the sun goes down, unplug and plug in the router, I've tried all that. The wifi is supposed to just connect. But it doesn't. Is there spiritual disharmony in my life?
There are so many other things in my life that it's too easy to just put off fixing (?) one printer or starting up another (it should at least start up, figuring out how to actually use it might be a different matter)....so I've gone through a couple of mananas putting it off.
Meanwhile, inside, I'm hurting. Spiritually missing a meditation. Losing out on quiet time, making my pamphlets. My epistellary silence.
Thursday, June 27, 2024
Another year has come and gone, and I missed anotehr ILYM. I have never actually seen the place, and it is only about an hour and a half away, through Peoria and up or snaking along country roads straight east, crossing the Illinois river at Lacon. No, I passed again, too tired from door dashhing, needing to work and rest on a Saturday and unprepared really for the Quaker social whirl.
I think we can do a lot more as a group than we can alone, so I totally support the gathering of Quakers and the mechanics of having meetings, teaching each other how to help out the world, and getting actively involved in our world. The world needs us, no question. Our voice does make a difference. The world of religion also needs us. Imagine this: A huge number of churches not only supporting Trump but also working actively to get him elected. What does that say for the state of religion in the USA today? Young people are avoiding it in droves. A church like that is not speaking for modern American youth, or even paying attention to it. And it will pay, its structures fading back to the earth from whence they came.
A huge, beautiful church is for sale on my street; it was a Christian Scientist church. Its organ alone is supposedly worth over $100,000 and can't easily be removed from it. It's a grand old thing with elegant gardening around it and stained glass, I believe, kind of dominating a corner that I go through maybe a hundred times a day. I always laugh at the "spirituality.com" electric sign as I sense a little desperation in watching them come online looking for anyone young, knnwing full well that an app might reach them but very little else will. They're not flocking to Christian science, that's for sure, but they're not flocking anywhere else either. The megachurch leaders keep going down in scandal, and the Catholics are notorious.
But the Quakers need a little more before people will actually flock to us. Childcare, for example. We need something for our kids to do.
Then we can buy that church on the corner, and use the organ for our own kinds of music.
I think we can do a lot more as a group than we can alone, so I totally support the gathering of Quakers and the mechanics of having meetings, teaching each other how to help out the world, and getting actively involved in our world. The world needs us, no question. Our voice does make a difference. The world of religion also needs us. Imagine this: A huge number of churches not only supporting Trump but also working actively to get him elected. What does that say for the state of religion in the USA today? Young people are avoiding it in droves. A church like that is not speaking for modern American youth, or even paying attention to it. And it will pay, its structures fading back to the earth from whence they came.
A huge, beautiful church is for sale on my street; it was a Christian Scientist church. Its organ alone is supposedly worth over $100,000 and can't easily be removed from it. It's a grand old thing with elegant gardening around it and stained glass, I believe, kind of dominating a corner that I go through maybe a hundred times a day. I always laugh at the "spirituality.com" electric sign as I sense a little desperation in watching them come online looking for anyone young, knnwing full well that an app might reach them but very little else will. They're not flocking to Christian science, that's for sure, but they're not flocking anywhere else either. The megachurch leaders keep going down in scandal, and the Catholics are notorious.
But the Quakers need a little more before people will actually flock to us. Childcare, for example. We need something for our kids to do.
Then we can buy that church on the corner, and use the organ for our own kinds of music.
Friday, March 15, 2024
More pamphlets
I'm trying to get a supply of pamphlets printed and done so that when I put it out on social media, I'll have a back supply. Things have been busy around here, though, and it's hard to do them when there's no immediate demand.
Part of the problem is that they're very labor intensive anyway. We looked into shipping them out and they would be way more than $1 apiece that way, as far as we know. But the way I'm doing it takes a lot of my time which I no longer have. I'm mulling over alternatives.
The big printer works and is actually more efficient. It has the wrong kind of ink and seems to be stuck on that even though it worked fine for a long time with that. Now I need to find non-continuous, or something like that. I write this down here as a way of motivating myself to do something unpleasant that I really don't have time for.
I do have time for keeping my puppy on my lap; the puppy has a raspy cough or something caught in his throat, and we're afraid of taking him in and finding out bad news. He doesn't however appear to be sick or failing in health, as he sits here. But the plumber came and he couldn't even bark; he just rasped. Made me worry. I'd rather sit here and worry than run around dealing with printing issues. Meanwhile the plumbers have found very rusty pipes.
I vow here to get the Maureen Pyle pamphlets organized. You however have heard this before.
Part of the problem is that they're very labor intensive anyway. We looked into shipping them out and they would be way more than $1 apiece that way, as far as we know. But the way I'm doing it takes a lot of my time which I no longer have. I'm mulling over alternatives.
The big printer works and is actually more efficient. It has the wrong kind of ink and seems to be stuck on that even though it worked fine for a long time with that. Now I need to find non-continuous, or something like that. I write this down here as a way of motivating myself to do something unpleasant that I really don't have time for.
I do have time for keeping my puppy on my lap; the puppy has a raspy cough or something caught in his throat, and we're afraid of taking him in and finding out bad news. He doesn't however appear to be sick or failing in health, as he sits here. But the plumber came and he couldn't even bark; he just rasped. Made me worry. I'd rather sit here and worry than run around dealing with printing issues. Meanwhile the plumbers have found very rusty pipes.
I vow here to get the Maureen Pyle pamphlets organized. You however have heard this before.
