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.
