In this episode of Quakers Today, we ask, “What does Quakerism have to offer society?”

Co-hosts Peterson Toscano (he/him) and Miche McCall (they/them) explore the concept of prefigurative practice within a Quaker classroom and beyond. What happens when students don’t just learn about the future but begin to live it? They also feature queer Jewish poet Jessica Jacobs, who in her new book of poetry, interacts with the ancient book of Genesis. 

Sam Thacker and Zoe Levenstein

Sam Thacker is a history teacher at Germantown Friends School. Every January, GFS offers “mini-courses” that provide teachers and students a space for experimentation, investigation, and reflection. In his Friends Journal article “Let Your School Speak: The Power of Prefigurative Practice in Friends Education,” Sam wrote about his course, “Another World is Possible.” Through it, he invites students to engage deeply with hopeful and ambitious visions for social change. Sam and one of his students, Zoe Levenstein, explore how they brought prefigurative practice to life in their classroom. 

Sam explains that prefigurative practice is about more than just learning about change; it’s about living it. We don’t have to wait to build the institutions that will bring about the change we seek. Instead, we can start creating those institutions and practices now, making sure they align with the inclusive, just, and loving world we envision for the future.

Sam says, “If, for example, we are working toward a just, inclusive future, our institutions now should be just and inclusive. Prefigurative practice is proactive, courageous, and true to itself. In Quaker parlance, its life speaks.” 

Sam reasons that prefigurative practice is nothing new for Quakers, “I see Quaker institutions as examples of prefigurative practice. By and large, I mean in my article, I discuss meetings for business. Quaker meetings are prefigurative, both in their organization and in the form of worship: Prefigurative practice is vital.”

Zoe shares her experiences of engaging with this radical educational approach. Through readings from influential thinkers like George Lakey, Joanna Macy, and Adrienne Maree Brown, the students were encouraged to reimagine the world and consider how they could contribute to creating it. 

I imagine a world where everyone is engaged because I think what really dampers my hope a lot is that it seems like people don’t care in 20 years, my hope would be that even on the street level, I see people actively working to help each other. I also kind of imagine a world where song and music is more incorporated and like groups singing because I think it just kind of boosts the mood. I imagine a world in which doing activities like that is more encouraged. Yeah, I think it all comes down to human connection, and that makes people care.

Sam Thacker (he/him) teaches high school history at Germantown Friends School in Philadelphia, where he works with students on sustainability and climate action. He lives with his wife, Pam, and two young children; they are pursuing membership at Germantown Meeting in Philadelphia, Pa. He is a songwriter, musician, artist, and lover of nature. In this episode, you heard Sam singing Purple Dreams.  Hear more of his music on his BandCamp page: 2xtruck.bandcamp.com

Zoe Levenstein is a rising junior at Germantown Friends School, a member of the Quaker Unity & Inclusivity Team (QUILT) at GFS, and helped to plan the 2024 Quaker Youth Leadership Conference in partnership with Penn Charter. Next year, Zoe will be the Environmental Action Club’s student leader and participate in the community-wide Campus Climate Coalition. Zoe’s passion is music—listening, singing, and playing the oboe.

 

Jessica Jacobs 

In the August 2024 issue of Friends Journal, Michael S. Glazier reviewed Jessica Jacobs’ latest poetry collection, Unalone: Poems in Conversation with the Book of Genesis. Jessica Jacobs shares her journey as a writer, teacher, and editor, including founding Yetzerah, the first literary organization in the U.S. dedicated to supporting Jewish poets. Jessica reflects on her secular Jewish upbringing, her return to spirituality through studying the Torah, and the seven years she spent immersed in the Book of Genesis. She reads her poem  “Prayers from a Dark Room,” where Jessica reimagines Gehenna—not as a place of torment but as a mirrored space of self-reflection and repentance. 

Jessica Jacobs (she/her) is the author of unalone: Poems in Conversation with the Book of Genesis (Four Way Books, March 2024); Take Me with You, Wherever You’re Going (Four Way Books, 2019), one of Library Journal’s Best Poetry Books of the Year and winner of the Devil’s Kitchen and Goldie Awards; and Pelvis with Distance (White Pine Press, 2015), winner of the New Mexico Book Award and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award; and is the co-author of Write It! 100 Poetry Prompts to Inspire (Spruce Books/Penguin RandomHouse, 2020). Jessica is the founder and executive director of Yetzirah: A Hearth for Jewish Poetry.

Learn more about Jessica through her website, jessicalgjacobs.com, on X @jessicalgjacobs, Facebook, and Instagram @jlgjacobs

After the show notes, you will find a complete transcript of this episode below.

Question for next month

Here are our questions for next month: What is a Quaker response to climate change? What is a queer Quaker response to climate change? ​​By looking at climate change-related issues through multiple lenses, like queerness and/or Quakerism, we can discover fresh ways of responding. Answer the question that calls to you, or both! 

Leave a voice memo with your name and the town where you live. The number to call is 317-QUAKERS, that’s 317-782-5377. +1 if calling from outside the U.S.

 

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Transcript for Quakers Living in the Future

SPEAKERS

Peterson Toscano, Zoe Levenstein, Jessica Jacobs, Sam Thacker, Miche McCall, Various Speakers

Miche McCall  00:02

In this episode of Quakers today, we ask, what does Quakerism have to offer society in 2024?

Peterson Toscano  00:08

Jessica Jacobs, a queer Jewish poet, tells us about her new collection of poems unalone: Poems in Conversation With the Book of Genesis. She will read one of her poems for us.

Miche McCall  00:21

We also explore prefigurative practice in a Quaker classroom. What is prefigurative practice? It’s a little like time travel. We will hear from Zoe Levenstein, a high school student from Germantown Friends School, and her history teacher Sam Thacker.

Peterson Toscano  00:37

Zoe and Sam will not only tell us about how they imagined the future, but also reveal how they lived in it. I am Peterson Toscano, 

Miche McCall  00:45

and I’m Miche McCall. 

Peterson Toscano  00:47

This is season three, episode five of the Quakers Today podcast, a project of Friends Publishing Corporation.

Miche McCall  00:54

This season of Quakers today is sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee.

Peterson Toscano  01:04

What is your relationship with time travel?

Miche McCall  01:07

Some people might be reluctant to travel to the past because of their identities and bodies. Creative writers who have historically experienced oppression often have opted instead to travel to the future through science fiction.

Peterson Toscano  01:21

A high school history class at Germantown Friends School did something a little different. As they studied the past, they chose to create the classroom of the future. Their teacher, Sam Thacker, refers to this as prefigurative practice.

Sam Thacker  01:42

Drawn from anarchist thought, prefigurative practice is a way of doing things based on two notions. The first is that we don’t have to wait to build institutions that will help realize the change we wish to see in the world. The other is that the institutions and practices we develop along the way ought to embody our ultimate vision. Put another way, prefigurative practice aligns its means for achieving change with the ends sought. 

Peterson Toscano  02:07

That’s Sam Thacker reading from his article, Let Your School Speak: The Power of Prefigurative Practice in Friends Education. It appears in the August 2024 issue of Friends Journal,

Sam Thacker  02:20

If, for example, we are working toward a just, inclusive future, our institutions now should be just and inclusive. Prefigurative practice is proactive, courageous and true to itself. In Quaker parlance, its life speaks. Friends education, in this conception, honors every learner’s unique gifts, offering learning experiences that speak to differences and tap into the power of a group’s diversity. It radiates an infectious love for truth and an openness to continuing revelation.

Peterson Toscano  02:50

Sam speaks glowingly of the experience.

Sam Thacker  02:54

I was really jazzed by it. It was very empowering, I think. It really says, hey, we don’t need to wait for anything. If we’re very unhappy with kind of our mainstream politics, our mainstream government, the way things are in general, there’s nothing stopping us from just going out there and starting something different, doing something very tangible that does align with whatever set of values you would really like to see advanced in the world, or whatever type of work you would like to see advanced in the world. It was sort of revelatory to me in that regard, and then I started sort of thinking about how it applied to work as a teacher.

Miche McCall  03:26

Sam named the course, Another World Is Possible. In it, his students studied hopeful, ambitious visions for change and strategies for achieving them.

Peterson Toscano  03:35

They read the writings of George and Brett Lakey, Joanna Macy and Rebecca Solnit. They also studied adrienne marie brown’s Emergent Strategy.

Miche McCall  03:45

But what do his students think? 

Zoe Levenstein  03:47

Even at a Quaker school, there is much more of an even playing ground between teachers and students. This felt like an elevated version of that, where students really did have the opportunity to voice exactly how they felt about what we were learning about.

Miche McCall  04:03

That’s Zoe Levenstein.

Zoe Levenstein  04:05

I’m going into 11th grade at Germantown Friends School. I’m an environmentalist. I am a lesbian, and I am very interested in Quakerism.

Miche McCall  04:17

Zoe appreciated the new authors she encountered in the class, especially adrienne marie brown,

Zoe Levenstein  04:24

The way that they write is just so radical to read, especially in their prose. There was talk of like animism and thinking about how structures of power or structures of activism correspond to structures we see in nature, which I found really interesting. Reading these types of texts helped me and my classmates imagine a world that’s not structured the way that our world is currently structured.

Miche McCall  04:55

Sam facilitated projects that allowed his students to stretch their creativity and imagination.

Zoe Levenstein  05:01

We did a puppet show at the end of the course imagining a different world, or like, what the world would look like in 1000 years, I think it was. In our puppet show, it was something like about a very decentralized government, where some people were like hair dressers, but then some people were like scavengers. It was very fantastic. It felt kind of like fantasy sci fi, but it was really fun.

Sam Thacker  05:28

The values that sort of underlie my notion of prefigurative practice as a teacher are really trying to offer an alternative learning experience that forces really students to engage with their learning on different terms, to really kind of step up and engage with the course and with each other in a way that’s that’s very personal, and helps them build what I think is probably a more authentic relationship to the subject matter when you’re going for something that is sort of counter cultural, or is against what students are sort of used to, or what people are used to, in general, there’s some resistance there, you know, there’s a learning curve.

Miche McCall  06:06

After taking this class, Zoe has a clear picture of the future she wants to pursue.

Zoe Levenstein  06:11

I imagine a world where everyone is engaged. Because I think what really dampers my hope a lot is that it seems like people don’t care. In 20 years, my hope would be that even on the street level, I see people actively working to help each other. I also kind of imagine a world where song and music is more incorporated, and like group singing, because I think it just kind of boosts the mood. I imagine a world in which doing activities like that is more encouraged. Yeah, I think it all comes down to like human connection, and that makes people care.

Miche McCall  06:53

They spent time in the classroom of the future and imagined the society that they want to live in. Is that just a pleasant escape from the real world we’re in today? Zoe describes that longing for a better, more just world leads to action.

Zoe Levenstein  07:08

Well, I’m already thinking about going into climate policy work, and I I have been since I joined the, there’s something, another initiative Sam started, which is the Campus Climate Coalition, which is faculty and students and other community members as a collective. So we organized community potlucks, which are like plastic free potlucks. We had a campaign called use less plastic, or useless plastic, to try to have people trash their plastic so our recycling stream is more pure. The most successful was we did a clothing swap which people love. We do them in the fall and in the spring, and we’ve had four so far. And it was just, it’s been great. And those like initiatives have really inspired me to work in climate in the future, or in climate justice. This class really solidified that for me.

Peterson Toscano  08:05

Sam Thacker reasons that prefigurative practice is nothing new for Quakers, and that it easily extends beyond the classroom setting.

Sam Thacker  08:14

We have this foundation. It’s laid out there. So what can we do as Quaker schools or as Quaker meetings, for that matter, as Quaker organizations? What can we do that would both work toward bringing desired changes about in the world, but also like we can do this now, I see Quaker institutions as examples of prefigurative practice by and large. I mean, in my article, I discuss meetings for business, Quaker meetings are prefigurative, both in their organization, both in the form of worship. Prefigurative practice is vital, like we have to live these alternatives and try them out and experiment with them and try to bring other people into them too. There are so many things where fundamentally better ways of being together and being in institutions that I think will speak to so many different people too, once they sort of experience it.

Zoe Levenstein  09:00

Another World Is Possible was kind of marketed in the world of prefigurative practice without exactly using that word. It’s not a term that most people know.

Miche McCall  09:13

That was Zoe Levenstein, a high school student at Germantown Friends School, and her history teacher Sam Thacker. Sam designed the course, Another World Is Possible.

Peterson Toscano  09:24

He wrote the article, Let Your School Speak: The Power of Prefigurative Practice in Friends Education. It appears in the April 2024 issue of Friends Journal. You can read it for free at FriendsJournal.org.

Miche McCall  11:11

In preparing the show, we read the the August 2024 Friends Journal book reviews. Michael S Glazier commented on Jessica Jacobs new book of poetry unalone: Poems in Conversation With the Book of Genesis. He wrote “Many of these poems quite literally took my breath away with their startling insights and explications of biblical texts in ways that not only make perfect experiential sense but also break through the crusty standard interpretations that have left us unsatisfied in the past.”

Peterson Toscano  11:46

As a Bible geek who loves poetry, I had to read it for myself. Then I said to Miche, let’s invite Jessica Jacobs to come on the show.

Miche McCall  11:55

And Jessica agreed. She told us a little bit about herself and her new collection of poems.

Peterson Toscano  12:01

And she read one of her poems for us.

Jessica Jacobs  12:12

I am a writer, a teacher and an editor, and I’m also the founder of Yetzirah, a heart for Jewish poetry, which is the first literary organization in the country supporting Jewish poets. I am a Jewish woman. I’m a queer woman, I am an athlete, I am someone who loves to be outside. For whom community is very deeply important to me, personally and professionally. I grew up in a secular Jewish household, and really walked away from religion for most of my life, and then in my 30s, read the Torah all the way through, I had some really big questions that writing really brought up for me. I was shocked by how that text spoke so directly to my life and to the world around me. So I spent the next seven years immersed in deep study of the book of Genesis. This new collection unalone is conversations with the book of Genesis. There’s a joke that if you ask 10 rabbis a question, you’ll get 11 answers. There’s not really a set idea of the afterlife, but one of the ideas is that there’s something called Gehenna, which, instead of hell, is almost like kind of a limbo, but it’s a limbo in which you have time to reflect and perform teshuva, which is repentance and see yourself more clearly, perhaps before going on to a better realm. So that was a big part of this. And just thinking about, what does that mean? What does that mean to see yourself that clearly? And this is actually responding to a photograph by the photographer Leslie Dill, who took a photograph of a woman’s throat with a line from Emily Dickinson, which you’ll hear in the second section, “I am afraid to own a Body— I am afraid to own a Soul”. This poem is really in response to that idea and that image. 

Jessica Jacobs  14:17

Prayers from a Dark Room Gehenna If Hell is less fiery furnace than a mirrored room with all the lights left on, with nowhere to hide that what burns is within us—all the guilt and sorrow from which we now can’t look away, then let us accept our faces as they are. Let us remember that one word: doleket, means both “in flames” and “full of light” and know our pain can be a source of sight. I am afraid to own a Body—I am afraid to own a Soul— In Eden, garments of light sufficed, each human a lantern lit from within, inextricable from their ignition—but now, banished, this dim skin suit, by which the spirit is dimmed to firefly: such faint flares, such cold glow. Lonely lighthouses, each of us. We blink, we beacon, we long to chorus, we wait for a blaze in return, until—there!—allied, we pulse one to the next; bind in divine synchrony: for a moment, the whole planet a field of fallen stars. And from this ensemble bonfire, like smoke scorching from the narrows of a throat, our fears. A cry for not ownership but communion, a cry to be answered with expanse of air, of wind, of  ruach, that godbreath, gentling in toward every torn thing, its breach however meager—moving leaf into leaves, melding body to soul, making of every opening a mouth and setting us all to singing. Can you hear it? A torch song for the kindred world, this fleeting one we’re searching for. Prayer for the Word Made Light Bathe the window within us in photo-sensitive silver. Let us aperture. Let us dilate. What lasts is what is found by light. Negatives of the divine, let us enter the stop bath of the ordinary world. Where we are most vulnerable, most exposed, that’s what makes the print. We become what is burned into us: what we open ourselves to.

Peterson Toscano  17:58

That was poet Jessica Jacobs reading the poem Prayers from a Dark Room. It appears in her book on unalone: Poems in Conversation With the Book of Genesis.

Miche McCall  18:10

Learn more about Jessica and her other writings by visiting JessicaLGjacobs.com. That’s JessicaLGjacobs.com. you can read Michael S. Glazier’s full review FriendsJournal.org.

Peterson Toscano  18:29

Thank you for joining us for this episode of Quakers Today. Quakers Today is written and produced by me, Peterson Toscano.

Miche McCall  18:37

and me, Miche McCall. Music on today’s show comes from Epidemic Sound, and earlier in the episode, you heard a song by Sam Thacker and his band Double Truck. You can find more of their music at 2xtruck.bandcamp.com

Peterson Toscano  18:55

season three of Quakers today is sponsored by American Friends Service Committee.

Miche McCall  18:59

Do you want to challenge unjust systems and promote lasting peace? The American Friends Service Committee, or AFSC, works with communities worldwide to drive social change. Their website features meaningful steps that you can take to make a difference. 

Peterson Toscano  19:17

Through their Friends Liaison program, you can connect your meeting or church with AFSC and their justice campaigns.

Miche McCall  19:24

Find out how you can become part of AFSC’s global community of change makers. Visit afsc.org That’s afsc.org

Peterson Toscano  19:35

Visit QuakersToday.org to see our show notes and a full transcript of this episode.

Miche McCall  19:40

And if you stick around after the closing, you’ll hear listeners responses to the question, “what does Quakerism have to offer society in 2024?”

Peterson Toscano  19:51

Thank you, friend. We look forward to being with you again soon.

Miche McCall  19:55

Thank you.

Peterson Toscano  20:13

Miche, hearing Sam and Zoe talk about living in the future they want to co-create got me excited about our co-creation, the season finale of Quakers today podcast. You and I share some important passions and identities.

Miche McCall  20:28

True! We are both Quakers and we’re both queer. I describe myself as truly non committal in the gender and sexuality department. I am a non-binary bisexual, and I use they/them pronouns. 

Peterson Toscano  20:31

And I am a fem-leaning cis-gender gay man, or as I like to refer to myself, a sissy, and that’s spelled with a C. I use he/him pronouns.

Miche McCall  20:55

Amazing. We are both obsessed with climate change, yes, and with finding creative ways to address its many issues.

Peterson Toscano  21:04

So Miche and I decided that we would mash all these personal elements together, and we are creating a show that explores queer Quaker responses to climate change. Joining us will be other queer Quakers concerned about climate change. That’s hard to say, actually, we’re like a whole cohort now.

Miche McCall  21:26

Haha, don’t worry if you’re not queer or a Quaker or even concerned about climate change. We’re working on an episode that will be engaging for all. The episode airs on Tuesday, September 17, 2024.

Miche McCall  21:49

In a moment, you’ll hear listeners voicemails about what Quakerism has to offer society in 2024.

Peterson Toscano  21:56

But first we’re going to share next month’s questions with you. Here are the questions. What is a Quaker response to climate change? And, what is a queer Quaker response to climate change?

Miche McCall  22:09

Climate change is a huge topic that needs serious attention. How we communicate the world we want to co-create while tackling its causes and impacts matters. By looking at climate change related issues through multiple lenses, we can discover fresh ways of responding.

Peterson Toscano  22:27

Now, you may already be part of a creative effort to address climate change, or you may enjoy this thought experiment as you imagine Quakers and queer Quakers influencing the climate movement.

Miche McCall  22:40

What is a Quaker response to climate change, and what is a queer Quaker response to climate change? Answer whichever you want or both,

Peterson Toscano  22:48

Leave a voicemail with your name and your town. The number to call is 317, QUAKERS , that’s 317-782-5377. 317-QUAKERS. +1 if calling from outside the USA.

Miche McCall  23:06

you can also respond to this question on one of our social media platforms, Instagram, Tiktok and X. I have these contact details in our show notes over at QuakersToday.org

Peterson Toscano  23:19

Now we hear answers to the question, what does Quakerism have to offer society in 2024?

Miche McCall  23:26

Peterson, we received many responses on our various social media channels.

Peterson Toscano  23:32

Yeah, those channels are really popping.

Miche McCall  23:34

I know! Quakers are online. Luap Iyasi said, “Quakers have a great deal to offer to the current generation. True Spirituality that surpasses all understanding. I am talking about the true bible based spirituality that wholly submits to the leading of the Holy Spirit.” 

Miche McCall  23:55

Lori Piñeiro Sinitzky said, “A practice of pausing. A practice of listening. The lack of both of these in everyday U.S. culture contributes to the growing inability to be in community across differences.”

Miche McCall  24:13

Pete Siebert wrote a “a proven history of offering silence before speaking” Chris Yates simply states “decency”. 

Miche McCall  24:22

Alessandra Smith says “That link between faith or spirituality and everyday human diversity. Among the current tide of divisive far right voices appropriating the name of Christianity to drive wedges among people, I think Quakers have a real role to play in continuing to speak for who we and others are and bringing community together. Quakers are a force for empathy and it’s that that the world needs a shedload more of in the here and now.”

Peterson Toscano  24:52

You have to be careful how you say that one a shedload. 

Miche McCall  24:56

A sheadload! And Ben Wood said, “a reminder of God’s love for the world; a recollection of a Larger Life which is always longing to meet us.” Blue heart emoji, fire emoji.

Peterson Toscano  25:13

We also received voicemail responses and answers from people who attended the 2024 friends General Conference gathering.

25:22

My name is Eric Sidener. I live in Philadelphia. The Quaker testimonies about peace and integrity are kind of timeless, although I’m feeling that they’re particularly maybe needed more right now, in 2024. When there’s a lot of misinformation and disinformation going around Quakers are really, in my view, on a search for truth, a quest for truth, and trying to look at everything and find out what is really real and true about the world. Quakers do a very good job at following the teachings of Christ. I was not brought up a Quaker. I was brought up in the Methodist Church. Christ was teaching about living a life of love and peace and kindness. And I don’t see that being the dominant way that people live their lives in the United States right now. And I’d like us to move honestly towards that. Another thing about Quakers is the idea of continuing revelation that we haven’t all figured everything out yet. There isn’t the final word on God and the universe and the world and everything, and we are trying to understand it, and again, with integrity, trying to understand and find the truth.

26:33

Hi, I’m Levi and I’m from Richard, Virginia. The short answer is speaking truth with love. And I think what I mean by that is there’s a real need in our society to be able to connect to people and reach out and understand experiences better in order for us to be able to really address the underlying inequalities and destructive practices that we all engage in, including me, in order to do that, though, like, we need to have more connection and more trust and yeah, that, like, we need more truth-telling as part of that, and we need to practice that skill. Quakers do a lot of practicing that skill, and we do it often in community, where we practice it with love. And I think that is something we can offer. And I think there’s a connection there to some of the lessons from deep canvassing, in terms of, like, having extended conversations with people about their lives and values and your own life and values. That’s, you know, something that the research shows actually moves people on political and policy issues, particularly policy issues, in a way that, like a lot of the rest of what we do, doesn’t move people’s opinions on policy issues. I think there’s some connection there between, like, the idea of speaking truth with love and with deep canvassing that, like we can offer to the world and we could practice more.

Various Speakers  28:00

Hello. My name is Mahayana Landowne. I’m a member of Brooklyn really. I don’t know if it’s Quakerism, but I think the big thing for me is Friendship. We as Quakers or as people or as human beings, have a gift of being able to be friends with each other and and friends that accept each other as they are with loving generosity and grace and courage and interest and intrigue and the sense of being there for our friends, even the people we’ve just met, because the potential for anyone and everyone to become a friend is a huge gift of Quakerism. So in 2024 in this time, when people are stressed and worried and isolated, this sense of I can be your friend because you are beautiful, exactly as you are, is a real thing that Quakerism can offer society. That radical assessment and generosity of spirit and the potential for everyone and anyone to be a friend with no strings attached, no judgment and no new qualifiers on it, it’s just you are who you are, and that makes me want to be your friend. Thank you and wishing everyone well. Blessings to you all. Thank you. 

Various Speakers  29:30

Penelope. Ridgecrest, California, Quakers Today says that it seeks wisdom and understanding in a rapidly changing world. I think that would help with the divisions within our country, and to help unify the citizens of our nation. We need to have compassion to people with differing views. Many of us have been taken in by false information and scams. Thank you.