Songs of the Spirit

Way back in the pandemic I was in a mountain compound out in southern New Mexico, and I made this attempt to give away Quaker songbooks that were sitting around in my shed. I had about a dozen of them, and don't remember where I'd got them; somebody gave them to me thinking I was a Quaker musician and should know somebody who could use them. Nobody answered my blog post. Oh well, I thought, not much of a market for Quaker songbooks.

We had to move to Illinois and, not wanting to carry a dozen of them, I took them over the Tularosa Basin and White Sands to the Las Cruces Meeting and left them on their doorstep. It never rains there so I figured they'd be ok until meeting, when somebody would take them in and do something with them. I kept one or two for myself but, because they had been in a set, they weren't really with my other books and I'm not sure what happened to it/them. Two may have turned to one over the years also, because I remember saving two, but only remember seeing one, the last time I saw anything.

Finally a woman wrote me the other day wanting one. I have thirteen kids the last six being adopted or fostered, but none of them are busy singing Quaker songs and I don't especially have a program for them anymore. But the more I think about it, the more that's what I want to do. Somebody with a seven-year-old who wants to sing, should be able to find one of these, and I should be able to point them to one, even if it is only a photocopiable copy or a pdf I can send them. I am being more led to provide Quaker materials; this would be a good place to start.

All my books are dusty and make me ashamed, even looking through them. Kids don't read much these days. We should take what they do want to read and make more of it, and make it accessible. Is there a primer for kids of Quaker families that explains what it is to be a Quaker? If not I should make one. Make and distribute.

I wrote the woman and told her of my state of disorganization. I couldn't find the one(s) I had. I told her about the Las Cruces Meeting and she said that the meeting in Albuquerque actually had some. Whoa! Guess where they probably came from. Without digging, I'll just say I know I'm in the right crowd, when useful things like songbooks end up in the right place.

Hopefully I can carry out this inspiration to do what I resolve to do, quick before it's too late. And find my copy(ies) of Songs of the Spirit.

Purver cont'd

I'm a little disheartened today, because I did a little research on Anthony Purver (see post below), and as a result feel a little less likely to embark on a huge project that I don't have time for.

First thing: in spite of the fact that I'd written a play about him, I'd remembered his name as Jacob, and just now had to go back and change that. Why did that happen? How? I'm not sure. But that's just me getting old, I assume.

Second thing: you don't have to go very far into the world of Bible interpretation before you run into intense bickering about translations from ancient Hebrew or ancient Greek, or what words really meant in those languages. He's accused of being untutored, unscholarly, etc. but of course he was just a farmer who decided to tackle these things himself: that's what I liked about him. Boy did they lay into him.

I would clearly have an attitude, if I were to take on this book. I hate banal arguments about the meanings of words, partly because they're so hard to resolve. How do you say definitively what someone meant?

There's some interesting stuff in there, though. Purver said, "Hebrew doesn't have a word for Heaven - which makes you wonder. Things like that, I'd like to get to the bottom of.

Let's start by getting his name right. Friend Anthony.

Someone needs to tell this story

So I got a leading today, in the morning, and it stuck with me all day, right through the Quaker meeting where I actually brought it up. I don't quite know what to do with it, but there it is. Sometimes you just get a message, and you have to at least consider it.

The message was, in essence, tell the story of Anthony Purver, early 1700's English Quaker farmer, because his story needs to be told. I even got a title: Friend Anthony. This would be the title of the book.

I've already written a play (here) which tells a little of his story. Most of my plays by the way are on this very blog, but somewhat hidden as this one is, though I didn't hide it deliberately. In essence, I've made the outline. He lived in the early 1700s; he decided to study the Bible and rewrite it into "modern" language; in the process he had to learn ancient Latin, ancient Greek, Aramaic, and several other languages; it took him four or five decades to actually do it (it was a life project); a wealthy friend underwrote its publication and a limited number were made; it was not a best-seller but copies were distributed throughout the world including a few in North America (by now it was about 1780); Quakers worldwide didn't really adopt it or do anything about it, but others referred to it as a Quaker Bible because he was Quaker; it went into obscurity except in the world of Biblical Studies where his observations and translations are at least read and considered. He was a very careful scholar, being a farmer and being very observant, but also frugal; I haven't read much of it but in general, there are about two pages of notes for every page of Bible so it's an enormous book or set of books.

Today it is sold for like $60 a copy by one of those companies that just reprint old things and, probably, they manage to sell one every once in a while; I'll find out and refer you to it here. I considered printing it myself much more cheaply, on Amazon, and still might do it; even that would be a monstrous task of putting voluminous information formatted into an Amazon template. What I need, basically, is one I can read.

So I've done some of the general work already: an outline of his life, his story as we know it; what came of it, etc. I still need a grasp on which languages he had to learn and why. One guy in my meeting seemed to know this: the difference between Classical Greek and Ancient Greek, or the language it actually went through in order to get where we know it today. Some basic education here would really help.

But there's nothing secret about his life or what happened. It's a story about a farmer who just decided he would learn the truth himself, even if he had to do it the hard way.

I'll keep you posted.

No Kings 3-28

My reading into the early Quakers, Nayler and Fox and their separate movements, showed me that much of it was about social justice. In those days church and state were bundled together, and getting out in the street for religious reasons was their equivalent of a No Kings protest.

Galesburg had its own No Kings protest (see below), but the War is a Racket sign deserves its own story.

Smedley Butler grew up Quaker in the early years of the 20th century, and went off to join the Marines in the Phillipines where he became very well decoorated as a hero (this went against his Quaker upbringing). Sent back to serve in Cuba and Central America, he became disillusioned, not so much with the army but with the US government for using the army to support the corporations. His book War is a Racket dealt with this issue. Hey - American kids are dying here - and it's all because you're trying to make more money?

Today millions are being made in the back-and-forth as they say the war will end, the war will drag on, etc. Somebody would rather keep this little game going and watch the millions get raked in. But people are dying.

I want to write about two encounters I had recently in Galesburg. I am still reflecting on them.

In the first, a very old guy approached me and basically said, it's heaven or hell. A minute after you die. Then he gave me a pamphlet which was appropriately named, "One Minute After You Die," which it's possible he wrote himself. It was actually a pretty well-made pamphlet, and clever the way it folded up into itself, to the point that I thought I might like to copy his method of folding a piece of paper so cleverly.

But there was something disturbing about the interaction, too. I almost felt like he was leaning on a threat to get me to believe. Fear works for so many other things, why not use fear to get these guys like me to just fold up and believe. The thing is, I believe we have both heaven and hell here on earth. I am on his side, really, in seeking the kingdom of the Lord and wanting what's good in the world. But I didn't want to engage in a discussion of heaven and hell, rather I was just hoping to accept his blessing and good will as a general offering and read the pamphlet later.

I'm not actually big on discussing the fine points of theology with guys like that, as it's clear that many hours out working on people has made him only more sure that the switch gets pulled one minute after you die. Well, he's also probably looking at death a little sooner than I am, though not much sooner, so grant him the need to put forward what he believes or is certain what will happen. I admit, I'm not so certain.

The second guy was giving away Bibles in the Walmart parking lot. I drove up to him, opened my window, and asked him "How's business?" He admitted it was kind of slow. But I loved this guy right away. He too was old, probably older than me. He had signs all over his car, but his car was very much like mine too, dark blue, very compact, maybe an old Honda Fit. Without question, he just handed one over. It's paperback, thick, and all it says is KJV Bible on the front. Mass produced, no doubt, yet this church had decided that was a good way to spend their money, getting bibles out to a guy like me. On the inside cover, a little sticker that gave his church's name and information about how to get to their service.

I actually wanted to do what he was doing, in fact I may go back, and ask him if I can have a shift doing that same thing. Standing there giving away bibles seems to be a very gratifying thing even if no one actually reads them. But some people do, I'm sure, and some like me just like bringing home a big fat holy book just to fill up my space.

For a while I entertained fantasies of giving away Purver's Quaker Bible. There are lots of problems associated with this idea. Purver is an eighteenth century English Quaker farmer who thought he'd get to the bottom of what the Bible really said, by studying himself the ancient languages and the translations of them. He wrote copious notes on every verse so that his Bible is almost twice as big as the one I was just given, which itself is plenty big. His notes covered mostly how difficult it was to translate something from ancient Aramaic into modern English, "modern" being what they were using in about 1750. It didn't go over so well even with Quakers, so it's a little bit of a misnomer to call it "Quaker Bible" although that's what this one printer called it shamelessly.

So what would this plan look like? Print my own, obviously. Stand out there and be ready to discuss differences between versions, and know the differences. Get versed in Christian theology. Already more than I can imagine. I would have fun, but I'll never be "versed;" it just isn't me.

I'd enjoy learning, though.

Ten Quaker Closet Plays

Tide of Employment - what Hoover promised us - one of Ten Quaker Closet Plays - he was Quaker, but couldn't imagine using the government to help with starvation. KINDLE SPECIAL TH-SAT Jan. 29-31 #quakers https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C7K3R6B5

Another truck accident

I ran across this earlier in the day. By the way, I'm sick and there's weather here, and I have to get out driving in it, though not on the interstate, did that earlier.

I am now having trouble documenting what I read about this truck accident, and what I said about it. One guy, on this site, said, in essence, Why West Branch? Why are all these accidents happening on this stretch of road? So I related to him what I've said earlier on this site; I worked at Scattergood; there was a cemetery there; somebody told me that they'd actually moved I-80 because of the cemetery; that that put a curve and a hill in the road; and that that curve could be the only one on I-80 in the whole state of Iowa.

I don't want to give Scattergood a bad name, but I figure if accidents keep happening there, getting at the reason would be good and the truckers will surely spread the word out amongst themselves, watch out for that curve just east of West Branch. But here's the truth: I have no solid evidence that they're even connected. The "mass casualty event" of around Dec. 12, which put 20 people in hospital but didn't kill anyone, was somewhere east of West Branch and I'm still not sure where; there were accidents on both sides of the road. In some six-mile stretch between West Branch and Springdale, though that distance is only about twelve, and there are only so many places it could be. For the truck fire it says "mile marker 257" but I swear the fire departments are probably the only ones who know where the heck that could be.

Somewhat disturbing is the implication by that commenter that these two were not the only ones, that perhaps there's been a string of them with "West Branch" attached to their report. If so all the more reason to get the word out: there's a hill here, and a curve in the road, watch out, slow down!"+

A commenter below me was somewhat inarticulate but said that it was simple: the wind hit the road differently on that stretch of the road, for most of the road you go straight into the wind, but in that little stretch it hits you at an angle and that really matters when it's raining and freezing at the same time.

Put two and two together and you can see why accidents keep happening. The fact is that when the road is straight for 100 miles you get lulled into thinking it's always straight or that the weather you are experiencing is not worth slowing down for. Slowing down is the one surefire antidote and perhaps they need speed limit signs getting everyone to slow down a bit at that hill. Or perhaps the hill is not even part of the picture. But whatever it is, the road is getting very croweded out there, and there have been a few casualties besides the ones I'm showing you.

Here's the link: