A new post on Quaker Universalist Conversations by Larry D. Spears…

Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is pleased to announce the formation of a new Conscience and Religious Freedom Division in the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR). The announcement will take place at an event at HHS headquarters from 10:30 a.m. to noon. It will be livestreamed here. Speakers will include Acting Secretary Eric D. Hargan, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Representative Vicky Hartzler, Senator James Lankford, OCR Director Roger Severino, and…

Your Heart Knows What to Do

We have a traveling minister in our midst. Chuck Schobert, a member of the Traveling Ministry

Corps of Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC), recently visited West Richmond Monthly Meeting. An article about this visit written by Anne Hutchinson was distributed via the Madison Meeting Listserve. Here are excerpts from Anne’s article.

Chuck's message, entitled "Your Heart Knows What to Do," began with a reference to

Acts…

As I say sometimes, I am "not literal enough to be a Mennonite" and "not liberal enough to be a Quaker".

I suppose that this is partly a matter of class consciousness. I have grown up in a small village where most men were industrial workers (with some additional farming) and even if  I am lazy by nature I have internalized the small people work ethics.

Now, Anabaptism is historically a religion of (and for) farmers and craftsmen. The good side of that: They have still some…

It was very hot and humid with no breeze. Pete Moss and Random Hazard were in a very small hut which a local villager had transformed into a bar like establishment. Pete and Random were excited over the day’s events. Early in the morning they had climbed into a giant Bullet Tree, near the Central American village, that grew along a lagoon.

They were interested in the mini eco-systems anchored by the epiphytes that grew on the huge branches of the Bullet Tree. Specifically,…

The following excerpt is from the essay "Moses and the Burning Bush," which can be found at https://patradallmann.wordpress.com/ The essay is based upon ministry given on 12/31/17 at Germantown Meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

To Moses, who saw his limitation and confessed his need for…

About ten years ago it was discovered to me through the immanent impulse of eternal Presence in my conscious and conscience that the very act of setting aside specific times and places in pursuit of spiritual nurture was a hinderance or impairment relative to spiritual being and sustenance. Even was discovered to me even 25 years ago and is discovered to me even today. There is a relationship, interaction, and unity with immanent Presence that is consummated in the laying down of all…

Mic 6:8 He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

When I taught law I took great pains to make the point that as great as our legal system is, you can't count on it to "do justly" or dispense justice, the best you can hope for is to be treated fairly and unfortunately that doesn't happen often enough. Unlike Sharia law it does have room for Mercy and we can probably thank Micah…

Monday, January 8, 2018

The Angel of Presence

The circumstance of life has found me in Central America and the Caribbean for a couple weeks. The coming out of a life guided and informed by outward perceptions, sensations, thoughts, feelings, and desires and into a life guided by the immanent Presence has discovered to me a ministry wherein the very act of holding in immanent divine Presence itself in itself while interacting with others is, in itself, ministration…