Quaker Pagan Reflections

I guess when you have to complain about an overabundance of love, you don't have too much to complain about. As Erik of Executive Pagan commented recently , the world of Pagan bloggers "is a mini-community." This makes me particularly happy, as one of the editors of Metapagan, since my purpose in contributing to that project has been to encourage the kind of blogging community I see in the Quaker community, thanks to Martin Kelley and the editors at Quaker Quaker . I would like to thank the bloggers who nominated Quaker Pagan Reflections for the Blog Love award: Erik , Yvonne , Cosette , Mahud , and David Miley . Perhaps you'll be relieved to know: I'm going to pass on the opportunity to post the award here four times, or to put up an additional 28 links to more blogs I love. Nor am I simply going to turn around and toss this Valentine into the Quaker ring, now that it's made the rounds of so many of the Pagan blogs I love. Instead, I'm going to try to...

My in-laws are thrifty people, who waste very little. One of the ways this gets reflected is in their careful use of leftovers--the one baked potato that didn't get eaten gets saved, fried up with onions, and served all around, the quarter cup of pasta and seafood is set out on a plate next to the half a reuben sandwich left from the trip to the diner, and so on. I hate leftovers. With the exception of Thanksgiving turkey, stuffing, and pie, I'd just as soon never see the food again once it's been cleared away at the end of the meal, and I'm personally affronted to discover some mouldering brick that used to be a last half-slice of lasagna, that nobody ever got around to eating, after all. I will, in fact, go to any lengths to get the food eaten the first time it's set out... Be aware, if a guest in my home, you will be expected to finish up that last little spoonful of green beans left in the serving bowl! All because I hate leftovers so much. And yet here...

I'm in Maine for the rest of the week, and though the wonders of technology have made it as far as the beautiful lake where I'm visiting my folks, the only Internet access is dialup. Dialup which is so slow that I literally cannot use my web-based email--with patience, I can open an email and read it, but I believe I could paddle the length of the lake and back before I'd be able to get the "reply to" feature to open and load. So here I am, having to face how used to feeling busy and important I am, and how little able to slow down and just be I've become. No high-speed Internet! No email! What a scandal! Oh dear oh dear, however shall I live? More slowly, and that's clearly the trouble. Having been here for less than 48 hours, I'm already itching to gear up--surf my favorite blogs, leave "insightful" comments everywhere, keep up a lively stream of email correspondence (again, so, so insightful!)and top it off with a trip downtown to cr...

Sometimes, the universe throws you coincidences that are too good to go by that name--synchronicity sounds so much nicer, doesn't it? In any case, just at the time when I was corresponding with a group of Pagan and Heathen bloggers I admire about this wonderful tool that the "Quaker Blogosphere" had for itself in the brainchild of Martin Kelley, QuakerQuaker: A Guide to the Quaker Conversation , Quaker blogger Chris M. was suggesting it was high time for a QuakerQuaker blog carnival . Pagan readers may have a sense of the importance that QuakerQuaker holds for Quaker bloggers, if I compare Martin Kelley to Fritz Jung or Wren Walker at The Witches' Voice , though the two pages are very, very different. Where Witchvox has become an enormous community forum and news page, with thousands upon thousands of regular visitors, the scope of QuakerQuaker is far smaller--and more focused. QuakerQuaker is not an attempt to bring its readers the whole of the Quaker world... j...