Author Description

Quakers are often very interesting people. And generations come and go.These are the modest theses behind this book. In fif-ty-plus years among The Religious Society of Friends (our rather pompous official name), its members, attenders, hang-ers-on and even antagonists, I have kept bumping into and hearing about interesting people. And many very interesting people.And having had what some call "a good run," my generation (beginning, as I did, in the depths of World War Two, and extending, with a stretch, to the early 1960s), is now on its way out."Generations come and go," is how the Preacher of the biblical book of Ecclesiastes (one of my favorites) dryly put it. And it's our turn. Then the Preacher rubs our noses in the fetid fact of evanescence: "in future generations no one will remember what we have done here."This last, I think, many of us don't yet believe. We've been told, from many quarters, for a long time, that ours was a critical, historic vanguard. More recent voices have condemned us as the phalanx of decadence, decay and disaster, which seem to be running amok in our culture as these pages take shape and the curtain began descending over us; but maybe that's just envy. We're also not the first ones to think we can escape this descent into the abyss of the forgotten. Indeed, attempts to defy this fate are among the oldest recorded human activities. Such efforts come in several forms, prominently monuments, stories, and books or other writings.Of these, stories are the most weightless, typically composed and carried in memory and words. Yet they are the most durable; though they too can die. The biblical Exodus saga is one of the oldest such stories, at least in the Jewish-Christian world. The retelling of key passages at annual Seders includes elements that are likely 3,000 years old or more. And that ritual story's role in the persistence of Jewish culture and religion is inarguable.Have we, today's elder (mainly American) Quakers done anything to elb