I played alone for hours in the late evening under the illuminated carport, lost in the freedom of play, exploration and pure joy.  Within this place, I could go anywhere I pleased with no worries, no fears and no limits to where my…

T. of OO: Grounded in a truth of our own, the Court of Quaker Opinion is asked to decide for the defense in this case.

T. of O: We attest, as plaintiff, of one's own truth not measuring up to the truth of oneself.

T. of OO: Possession is still the greater part of the law in which truth plays a decisive role.

T. of O: Possessed of the truth of oneself frees us from both that law and the onus of ownership.

T. of OO: Wouldst thou not defend thy own truth against that…

From a message delivered on February 13, 2014, in ESR worship:

Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage.

Do you remember that line? It’s from The Smashing Pumpkins song, “Bullet with…

This morning I posted 2 status updates on my QuakerQuaker page, the 1st:

"Two years ago today, 23.04.2012, whilst at World Gathering of Friends in Kabarak, Kenya I realised I was a convergent Friend."

 I am Friend through convincement, a Christian from the mystical tradition but I also love working ecumenically, and doing out-reach work.

In Kenya 2012, I met several flavours of Friends and saw how much I shared with Conservatives (without being one)…

The last of the snow, the first of the green plants...miracle enough.

While talking with a neighbor this week, he ( being a Catholic) remarked on the importance of Easter Sunday in his faith. He made the observation of how lucky we are to live in New England where we have a physical, tangible reminder every Easter that resurrection is possible. Last week snow and…

Have you checked out the QuakerQuaker homepage lately? We've been doing some redesigning lately: it's more spacious, with commentary in the posts and more visuals throughout. The conversations on the site have also been unusually fruitful and there's been a lot of great blog posts and video sharing.

I'd like to share some of the ways we've been sharing more of the Quaker conversation out into the world.

Tumblr: We have had a quiet presence on the…

The only reason to learn to "wait your turn" or "take turns" is because of the wrong turn humanity took towards individuality. The ancient wisdom of Anaximander(the first scientist) that things(and people) pay the penalty of injustice(individuality) according to the disposition of time is more simply cited by Schopenhauer as "a wrong" that humankind perpetuates in the name of self-fulfillment.

That Quakerism has gotten lost in individual discernment of paths to righteousness when our…

"But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing." (James 1:25)

I have the heart of an artist. I was raised in the collaborative community of the theater. I received professional training as a theater director. The culture of creativity I come from encouraged, rather than criticized, the exercise of intuition and initiative. This may seem foreign to the dominant…

When it comes to seed falling on stony ground Jesus said it all when he explained that the seed falling on stony or rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy.  But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.…

George MacDonald in his 'Cross Purposes and the Shadows" writes:

... for many things we never could believe, have only to happen,  and then there is nothing strange about them.

The awakening into a new way of being through the illumination of consciousness and conscience by the inward Light is unbelievable outside the experience. However, when the Light shines within the soul it is as natural as the former life outside the Light.

Lately,  as I…

Constructive: Affirming the Einsteins on the Court of Quaker Opinion, we follow the course of experimentation to arrive at truth.

Principled: Strange, then, that Einstein formed theories, as "special relativity", based on elementary principles.

Constructive: Experiments, like the double-slit, allow quantum leaps in an explanation of reality.

Principled: Supplying the "How" but not the "Why" of truth, as explanation is not understanding of reality.

Constructive:…

In part as a response to comments on a recent QuakerQuaker post about whether Friends should engage the political system at all, this post is meant to stimulate further discussion by citing examples from the history of early Friends that…

Plato's "Symposium" presents the original poverty of humanity("Penia") as gaining the advantage over the intoxicating abundance of culture("Poros") in order to create the unanswerable query/mystery("Eros").

No wonder Friends have difficulty in both identifying and naming The Word Made Flesh. No wonder science scratches its head at the puzzle that is nature and nurture. No wonder the human body, an open-armed image of the cross, is the doubted means to salvation.

"Perhaps"…

Energy: In the Spirit of Quaker Opinion, we propose, for the Court's consideration, the energy of life.

Matter: The positive force of matter or the negative force of gravity?

Energy: Er, well, we're speaking, then, of the spiritual energy of life.

Matter: Again, the positive or the negative sort?

Energy: The sort that some people have tapped into for spiritual understanding.

Matter: As they understand how positive and negative forces of energy…

John Barclay 

Hastings, in Sussex, 8th mo. 1837

Many there are, who have retired from all other persuasions and systems, and walk much alone in religion, and these often say, Friends are not what they once were; that they unite with G. Fox, Barclay, &c, but not with modern Friends. Many hidden, precious, seeking characters there are, scattered up and down ; so that I have been ready to think the messengers will have to go more into the highways…

“But today we know that Paul’s expectation of God’s imminent kingdom, an expectation which he seems to have shared with Jesus and his disciples, was mistaken. Injustice, horror, and death have not been vanquished; the “new heavens and new earth in which justice dwells” (2 Pet. 3:13) have not appeared. The possibility of faith and hope as Paul understood them is ended for us not by the eschaton but by its failure.”

I disagree with this conclusion, George. If one looks outward at social…

Over the weekend, I watched a well-made documentary. It discussed how the language and content of the New Testament changed considerably from the time of Jesus to hundreds of years later. During the program, multiple biblical scholars were interviewed, and many of them disputed the authorship of particular books.

The focus was specifically directed on…