There’s a guy on campus who stands around with signs that say things like “God hates sin!” and “Repent or perish” with accompanying ham-fisted Bible citations. Yesterday he was outside the university library droning at people.

To begin with, I disapprove of more or less every sentence that begins “God hates”, because I firmly believe that focusing on hatred is like, exactly not God’s thing. If God is love, it follows that hatred would be not really what God’s into. Furthermore, there…

Here I sit in a popular reposteria, Café Belen, sipping coffee, eating a pastry and writing this in true spoiled gringa fashion. A woman in her late-twenties holding a toddler walks up to the open doors and looks at me imploringly. She is mouthing something and apparently asking for one Córdoba. I shake my head “no,” but feel anguished. Guilty. Uncertain. But by all accounts, it is not good to give money to those begging. It encourages a sense of dependency and a belief in the inferiority of…

When the world shook and the sun was wiped out of heaven, it was not at the crucifixion, but at the cry from the cross: the cry which confessed that God was forsaken of God. And now let the revolutionists choose a creed from all the creeds and god from all the gods of the world, carefully weighing all the gods of the world, carefully weighing all the gods of inevitable recurrence and of unalterable power. They will not find another god who has himself been in revolt. Nay (the matter grows…

The bible speaks of the mind of Christ.  In 1Co_2:16 we read "For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ."   And again in Rom_7:25 Paul writes "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin." where he tells us it is with this "mind" that we follow the law of God.  Slowly but surely I am coming to believe there is a new…

Numbers 14 – The exaggerated reports of the scouts—that the Anakim are giants, etc—bring threats of revolt from the people.  Again they yearn for the old slavery: “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt. . .Why is the Lord bringing us into this land only to have us fall by the sword?” (14:2-3)

They even agitate to appoint another leader who will bring them back! What does Moses do? He (and Aaron) prostrate themselves before the community, reassure…

My husband, Tobin, our three-year-old son, Micah, & I are stepping off the proverbial treadmill, and spending a sabbatical year in Nicaragua.

2012 was one of the hardest years of our lives. I underwent (and successfully completed!) breast cancer treatment, and Tobin lost his job. Yet, as so often happens, misfortune and crisis gave birth to opportunity and grace. After a long discernment process involving much prayer, weekly mind-mapping sessions, and a clearness committee, we…

Below are the notes from a message delivered by ESR student Martin Melville at Williamsburg Friends on Sunday, April 14, 2013:

Numbers 12 – Miriam and Aaron both complain to Moses of his marriage to Zipporah, whom they consider a “despised foreigner.”

But the complaint is a pretext for their jealousy of him. “The complained, ‘Is it through Moses alone that the Lord speaks?  Does he not speak through us also?’” (12:2) The Lord orders the three of them to come out to the meeting tent where he has this to say: “Should there be a prophet among you, in visions will I reveal myself to him, in…

Numbers 11 – The first of what Schocken Bible editors call “rebellion narratives,” [there will be six] the people become discontented in the year following the second Passover celebration, angering God, so that “the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed the outskirts of the camp” (11:1).

Despite the organization of the people and the establishment of a kind of community order; despite the loving care of the Lord in providing manna and water for the…

Numbers 9 – The second Passover is celebrated and Moses, after consulting with the Lord, decides that uncleanness due to contact with the dead or absence on a journey will not totally prevent celebration of the holiday, but it will need to be celebrated in the second month, fourteenth day—not the first month.

The Israelites have been organized into the various offices, both military and religious that will characterize it during the time in the desert.  We see in…

Tania Citvaras, a Florida resident, has been helping children in the developing world most of her life.  In Nicaragua she was a member of work brigades which helped build wells.  In 2007, she helped over forty children in Nicaragua's historic city of Granada, buying them backpacks and school supplies and throwing a party for them, complete with ice cream and acrobats.

In 2010, she met former ProNica…

This is the third in a series of posts about the Bible in which I want to say how and why I find the Bible essential for my spiritual life. (The first is here. The second is here.) I hope these musings may be useful to others.  The reflections in these posts about the Bible draw on material I presented at the…

Below is an excerpt from a message delivered in ESR worship on Thursday, May 2, by Bethany Theological Seminary and Earlham School of Religion's Seminaries Librarian Jane Pinzino:

It is from a place of self-trust that relationship trust becomes possible, trust in another, trust in others. In the gripping…

Numbers 6 – Nazirite vows - nazir means “set apart as sacred, dedicated.” Those who take the vow may not drink wine or strong drink (anything from grapes). He may not cut his hair or enter where a dead person is—even family.  If someone dies suddenly in his presence he must cut his hair seven days after, bring two turtle doves or pigeons to the priest to offer as sin offering and holocaust and renew his vow.

When the period of dedication is over, he shall…

Introduction to Numbers:

The common Hebrew name for this book is “bemidbar” (in the wilderness). It seems to collect everything relevant relating to the wilderness travel of the Jews. Schocken Bible editors see it as a narrative about “the death of the old and the birth of the new.” It starts with life in the camp, goes on to stories of rebellion and challenge, both from within and later from without.  It ends with preparations to enter the Holy Land.  The book is…

The Minnesota legislature is considering passing a law allowing for full marriage equality. It's made me think of my own marriage to Liz on May 20, 2000 at Twin Cities Friends Meeting, and the very large and beautiful certificate we have on our wall. And it made me ask a question of TCFM, what, if any, accommodation will TCFM make for couples whose marriage they took under their care before it became legal to file for a marriage licence?

TCFM is taking the question under consideration…

New Blog Post: "Growth and the Society of Friends"

http://wp.me/p1OXtI-3b

Leviticus 26 – There can be no idols or sacred pillars and the Sabbath must be honored.

Then comes the setting forth of blessings and curses—this was common in contracts in the ancient Near East according to Schocken (632]. The reward for obedience will be God’s care—rain, harvests, food in abundance, security in the land, peace (26:5-6).

“I will set my Dwelling among you, and will not disdain you. Ever present in your midst, I will be your…

May 3, 2013

I have been rummaging again in the Friends Journal archive. Access to back issues is a terrific benefit of a subscription. In the June 15, 1968 issue (page 296) I found this gem, “‘Amo’ or ‘Credo’?” by L. Willard Reynolds, then a pastor in Nebraska Yearly Meeting (FUM).  His piece–could have been written today–follows.

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 Robert Frost, in an…