At the last stop along my religious journey, I was summoned to meet with the clerk of the Meeting and the alternate clerk. The reason was never expressed until I arrived, and I have to admit that it felt a little like I was being sent to the principal’s office. After I sat down and listened to the argument presented me, I was instructed to not make written…

Please follow link to FFC blog for report.

http://http://freedomfriends.blogspot.com/2016/01/11th-annual-state-of-church-report.html

Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection served as a lay brother in a Roman Catholic monastery in Paris. Christians commonly remember him for the intimacy he expressed concerning his relationship to God as recorded in a book compiled after his death, the classic Christian text, The Practice of the Presence of God. Despite his lowly position in life and the priory, his character…

The professors of politics, economics, and religion stand in the valley of human consciousness crying out for attention. They seek to capture the source of human conscious itself with their outward political, economic, and religious ideologies. They cry out "look here" and  "look there." They say: "Look to and trust in my outward prescriptions and I will remedy the ills (defined by me) of this world (way of existence)"

All these professors of politics, economics, and religion seek to…

We know the meaning of "out" from LGBTQ discourse [1].  To be "out" about X is the opposite of being "in the closet" about it, i.e. secretive about X, whatever X is (sexual orientation or whatever).

In the dark past, "coming out" as a Quaker (Friend) could be costly, in terms of reputation, ability to hold on to property and so on, so many kept their convincement in the closet or revealed it only to close others, many of them likewise in the closet.

Nowadays, we suffer a…

Posted to my Facebook profile this morning:

http://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjanuary.htm…

Today in history (some years ago), the Religious Society of Friends declared itself to The Man, notifying said "King" of their opt out policy w/r to SOWs (stupid outward wars -- redundant).

"Inward wars" e.g. the Lamb's War [tm], which is a war of the…

If we are followers of Jesus, are we willing to emulate our Lord at the expense of our very well-being, our health? We know of Christians who are persecuted daily in far flung lands. We know of Friends who were jailed and even killed for their religious daring. Our faith reminds us of the sacrifices of our forefathers and foremothers who dared to spread a…

It is Martin Luther King Day and I am thinking about how difficult it is to know our own worst capabilities.

I’ve been thinking about an experience in the 1980s. I was living near a Quaker day school that had an ugly, racist incident. The school community awoke one day to find a large surface on the school grounds had been painted with unquestionably racist graffiti. There were KKK-robed figures, there was an African-African head with a bullet traveling through it, there was the…

I do love our faith community, even the wooly thinking that sometimes erupts. We're all aware of our idiosyncrasies. We balance them against our good qualities and, after all (and here's an often unsaid but loudly thought bit of self-congratulation) - didn't we do a good job on slavery! And, it's true, we led the early movements, invented ethical consumption, and were critical to bringing legal slavery to an end.

And then ... we dropped the ball. Slavery never…

The cynic rejects organized religion because of the perceived damage it creates to the believer. The atheist believes in no higher power, no higher authority. The atheist may observe nothing, but the cynic observes everything.

Certain biblical narratives in the life of Jesus could be said to invoke guilt to enforce belief. Matthew 23 speaks harshly to…

Hey folks,

Over on the Quakerism subreddit, a student showed up with a list of questions they needed to ask Quakers about our beliefs and how we put those beliefs into action. I suggested they make a form that could be shared around on here, Twitter, etc. since there are way more Quakers not-on-Reddit than on Reddit. They obliged. Here are their questions

Last year, after some time in reflection, I chose three words as a focus for the year. It was a valuable exploration, so wanted to refresh with new words for 2016. Here's the post from my blog, Simplicity Process.

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In the earliest years of our faith, buoyed up by currents of the Enlightenment, Friends professed Truth as they drew it from individual revelations. Even though they shared a common Christian background and perspective, early Friends’ revelations multiplied wildly, leading to strife and confusion among them. By 1666, many prominent Friends had been executed or imprisoned, and the faith seemed destined to fizzle. What saved Friends’ faith was Friends’ invention of practices of corporate…