The Fell

But seriously, our aim with this thing was never to enlighten you or to bring you good news or to Za-Zen that thang right back to Beijing. It was simply to point out the rather obvious though surreptitiously disguised truth here at H-Ford that Quakerism never ceased to be, nor kicked the can, nor dressed the Pennsylvanian landscape years ago only to leave behind words, written in leather-bound or moleskin journals of this or that type—words, which surely were scribbled. Did you think that these now decayed journals propped charily inside smelly libraries (for fear they might fall apart) over which boring gray-headed scholars pore in steep, unrelenting rotes were the only remnants of a long lost Quaker religion? Of course not! Quakerism is enormous, you see! Quite enormous indeed! It cannot be CONTAINED in a library, in one antiquated institution like Haverford College, nor inside one building, town, or province. Nor can we measure Quakerism, in all its fantastic provenance, merely by the apex of the perorations of such sibylline caricatures as Thomas Jefferson or John Woolman—writers from a long lost American past. Quakers have ancient ways, and mystical strands, and evangelical stratifications: and yet, our Friends or friends or F(f)riends, Quakerism is alive and kicking.

Andrew Ross and Zachary Dutton, the humble editors of this issue of the The Fell have attempted to bring to you, dear reader, the greatest gift of all—a living shard of Quaker glass. We invite you to take this piece to heart, and we hope that it will lead you to find other shards, and together we may indeed form the beloved… glass thingy. Whatever it’s called. Mosaic.