The last week of Peace Month on Community: Our Shared Life.

Dear Friends:

In the latest issue of Friends' Journal there is an article, featured on the cover, called 'Quaker Communion' by Bruce Neumann.  The author writes, 'for many years, I harbored a rather untypical Quaker longing.  Occasional oblique comments to other Friends didn't seem to engender interest, so I held the longing to myself . . . the longing was to share communion with a small group of other Quakers, after the fashion of Friends.'

Eventually the…

Jeremiah 6 - Destruction threatens immediately from the North, and the Lord encourages it; for Jerusalem has become full of violence and oppression.  There is no one in her to whom the Lord can appeal.  “[T]heir ears are uncircumcised, they cannot give heed; See, the word of the Lord has become for them an object of scorn, which they will not have. Therefore my wrath brims up within me, I am weary of holding it in” (6:10-11). It will be poured out on…

We long for connections to others. We want to belong to something greater than ourselves. At the same time, we demand autonomy and freedom from constraints imposed by virtue of belonging to a group. These opposing pulls cause stress on both institutions and individuals as we try to meet the requirements of our outer and inner worlds. How do we genuinely balance our need to be self-determining persons and, at the same time, contributing members of society?

The answer…

Jeremiah 5 - We are dealing here with what the writer insists is universal corruption. God just looks for one righteous man.  It isn’t a matter of not “knowing” what they are supposed to do—God could forgive not knowing.  But even those you expect to know, “the great ones”—they too have “[broken] the yoke, torn off the harness” (5:5) Their faithlessness leaves them prey to the wolf, the lion and the leopard (5:6--images Dante uses in the Divine Comedy).…

Jeremiah 4 – If Israel wants to return to the Lord, she has but to do it.  But they must “remove the foreskins of [their] hearts [take the tough cover off their hearts” (4:4). Today’s English Version, which I like for the simplicity of its language, has nothing like this in its translation – I don’t understand why. It says, “Keep your covenant with my, your Lord, and dedicate yourselves to me, you people of Judah and Jerusalem.”

The Lord is going to bring…

The last day of Spring Residency for my writing program (Northwest Institute of Literary Arts), guest faculty Kathleen Dean Moore talked with the Craft of Nonfiction class about writing essays.  A philosophy professor at Oregon State University, Kathleen writes prose that questions…

Listen to this post: http://www.turtleboxstories.com/audio/take20.mp3

This morning, after a swim and before I sat down to do some work, I worried myself into some centering prayer. I have been trying to make it a somewhat regular (almost daily) practice because it sets a much…

Jeremiah 3 - The terrible unfaithfulness of Israel (the northern part of the ancient Davidic kingdom) is recounted as if the relationship between God and the two sister kingdoms of Israel and Judah were akin to marriages. If a wife is unfaithful and the husband divorced her; and if the divorced wife ten married another (or others – other gods), then no reconciliation was possible under Jewish law (see Deut 24:1). And, not learning from the “divorce” the Lord dealt out to Israel, Judah…

Historical Information: To review very briefly the history of the people Moses and Josiah established in the “Promised Land” – we have, after all, just flipped from the end of Deuteronomy where Moses had brought the people of the Exodus to the borders of that promised land – to the very end of the monarchical period, some 600+ years later - VERY BRIEF:

Joshua, who received his appointment as leader from Moses, led the people into the land Moses had led them to. Under his…

We had a retreat together last weekend at our meetinghouse, and during Sunday morning worship we had two people from our community share about their lives and faith. It was a really fun way to get to know some people  a little better, and it's an annual retreat tradition. Check out thepodcast!

Listen to this post: http://www.turtleboxstories.com/audio/purityofclearness.mp3

In 12 years of being Quaker and participating in as many clearness…

Listen to this post: http://www.turtleboxstories.com/audio/quietgiant.mp3

I want to rail ... rail that someone I consider a rock is suffering. I just don't understand this kind of pain and why it's inflicted so randomly. The phrase shit happens comes to mind, but that does not begin to cover the scope…

Deuteronomy 33 – Moses addresses all the tribes and grants them each a special thought or blessing along with a portion of the land into which they will be going.  For some reason Simeon is not mentioned and the sons (tribes) of Joseph are given shares.  The Levites, the ones who helped execute the Lord’s vengeance over the golden calf incident, receive praise for putting God ahead of family (33: 9). The Schocken version points out that this blessing differs somewhat from what is…

There is a prophet in our midst, and her name is Maggie Harrison. Rousing many like fire, making my skin itch at being possibly excluded from this club that I don't even belong to, really (when asked if I am a Quaker, I always respond, 'Not yet.'), but want to think I can put on and off like so much-- clothing?

And, nakedness. Taking off the mantle of Religious Identity, making space for the un-knowingness of living INTO something, removing armor and…

Deuteronomy 32 – The Song of Moses [the number of verses equals the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet – 23 - times 3. It concludes the teaching books of the Old Testament: “my teaching will fall like drops of rain and form on the earth like dew. My words will fall like showers on young plants, like gentle rain on tender grass” (32:2). From the beginning, the Judeo-Christian vision has been that we humans are here on earth as creations of a “mighty,” “just” and “perfect”…

The Quaker testimony of integrity has its foundation in the belief that there is the light of God within each of us. The human heart, at its very core, is God’s dwelling place. The measure of “light” we each possess is who we are at our deepest level, therefore, being true to ourselves means, at the same time, being true to God.

Being true to God is not a matter of adhering to custom, creed or ritual, but rather of choosing to live in such a way as to make…

downtoegypt.blogspot.com

In Nador, ready to catch the ferry to Spain after a three day police escort.

Deuteronomy 31 – The next four chapters bring the Torah to a close.  The Schocken version points out that they end not with achievement of the goal—entry into the Promised Land but with a people filled with hope and commitment and readiness; and he says, furthermore that the very end of the Hebrew Bible—II Chronicles 36 parallels this with Cyrus vowing to build a house for YHWH in Jerusalem and inviting the people to “go up.”

Moses is 120; he will not cross over the…

Deuteronomy 30 - Even if you fall into error and endure the curses, there is always restoration: “[I]f you return to Yahweh. . .if you obey his voice with all your heart and soul in everything I enjoin on you. . .then Yahweh will bring back your captives, he will have pity on you and gather you once again. . .” (JB 30:2-3)  Every translation of these words is good, but I particularly like the Schocken version here: “Yahweh your God will “circumcise your heart [not…