In my professional life I talk with many people before I actually meet them.  Several times people have told me that I didn't look like I sounded.  I have heard that many Hollywood stars of the silent movie era never made the transition to the "talkies" because their voices didn't correspond with their "on screen" appearance.

Which is the real person?  The one we see or the one we hear?  That might sound like a stupid question but there are people who are hard to look at who are easy…

We don't have to go any further than Genesis 1:27 as explained more particularly in Genesis 2:18 to establish our need for relationships.  Relationships empower us.  The greater the relationship the more we are empowered.  Not all "empowerment" is good.  Some relationships are definitely detrimental to our and society's well being.

The power from a relationship flows from the relationship.  The relationship doesn't change who we are so much as it changes our capability.  Consider the…

Love and trust are not the same.  Jesus loves us.  He doesn't necessarily trust us (John 2:24 - 25  But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man.)  Nowhere in the scriptures are we commanded to Trust our Neighbor.  We are told to turn the other cheek, go the extra mile but not to trust.  In fact we are told to be as innocent as a dove and as wise as a serpent.  When people on spiritual journeys…

Continuing on my sharing of my weekend at Powell House in November I want to share another mini-revelation.  It's very easy to fall into the trap of judging if a "retreat" was good or bad.  Some years seem to have more powerful moments than others but does that make them better?  Opening ourselves up to the Holy Spirit, making ourselves vulnerable, is like undergoing surgery.  After the operation you have to wait for the anesthesia to wear off, then you have to handle the pain and do…

Just got home from a weekend at Powell House in NY on "The Greatest of These is Love".  Like most of the weekends I spend at Powell House, I came away with a mini-revelation of how God is working in my life.  Being a bible believing disciple of Jesus I find these weekends with fellow Christ Centered Friends fill me with the Holy Spirit and energize me for another year of service at my Monthly Meeting and recently the YM as well.

This year my mini-revelation concerned how Love moves in…

So here you are.  God himself!  You have created the universe, Angels, Adam and Eve, and now you have to make two coats for Adam and Eve so they can survive outside of Eden.  Do you think you can do better than loin cloths?  Can you do better than Isreal (Jacob)?  Better than Hannah?  How about better than Mary, Jesus' own mother?  I think the coats they made are a shadow of the coats God made for Adam and Eve.  How about you?

Ever since the Tower of Babel we each insist on finding a "better" way of expressing something even if it means everyone who is used to a term has to learn a new term.  So I hear all sorts of expressions for what we are.  Why can't we just agree on what Genesis says we are, that is a "living soul"?

Then we can discuss what a soul is and maybe build each other up.  I'll start with my simple model of what I perceive as the main components of a living soul: A mind (consciousness), a…

In the 3rd verse of the 3rd chapter of the prophet Amos we are asked:

Can two walk together, except they be agreed?  There have been more than a few nights where I cried this scripture out to God because of personal desires to end a relationship.  I would wail in the night with moanings and groanings  citing this scripture thinking it justification for ending a twenty year marriage that had created three children,between the ages of 19 and 14 at that time only to be redirected to…

Isa 1:1 The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

Isa 1:2 Hear, O heavens, and…

If you think of your meeting as being on a cul-de-sac you would understand that you have three types of people driving in front of your door: those who live there, those who are visiting; and those who are looking for someplace else. You don’t get much through traffic on a cul de sac and few people actually pass by it by mistake. Especially today with GPS/webpage availability.

If you have a Healthy Meeting you probably are not on a cul-de-sac. A healthy meeting is located on a through…

Friends from a neighboring local meeting are uprooting themselves to follow a leading at an age when most of us are looking at brochures for retirement venues.   Another Friend couple try to follow their hart in establishing a Christ centered Friends Meeting in a major metropolitan area but can't find a neighboring Quaker Meeting to help them because of their belief that Jesus has something special to offer to the World as much today as He did back in the day.  It is refreshing to see…

I know Quakers like to preach Peace.  It's hard not to point out reasons why War is wrong.  The maimed, the dead.  However, I think that it's a waste of time.  You can't convert people to live in peace who believe in their heart that justice requires an eye for an eye.  As Jesus taught peace requires going the extra mile and continuously forgiving each other.  Not just seven time and not even seven times seven times but all the time.  And yes preaching forgiveness can be just as hard as…

Read an interesting article on the religious aspects of ISIS.  Reading the article reminded me of many of my own experiences as I started on my spiritual journey.  The article points out that the people of ISIS believe they are on a spiritual mission  It's my experience that you don't get this kind of fervor and the results they have achieved without some spiritual support.  In the old Testament there are several instances where nations rose up and seized power and even took the Isrealites…

Amy Outlaw writes that there is only Love or Fear.  I agree that Fear is an impediment to Love.  A strong one.  It's also an impediment to the Quaker Process that relies on access to the divine to find what action a community or meeting is to take.  There is a fear that if we actually sought with all our heart to determine what the Divine was calling us to do it might require us to do something we intellectually will not accept.  At stake is our Identity.  Everyone has an Identity.  It's…

When I was younger it was quite common to hear "Love conquers all".  Not so much now.  Maybe Divorce has beaten it down.  I don't know.  But I suggest that it's true:  Love does conquer all!.  I think if Adam had just admitted to God that he ate the forbidden fruit out of love of Eve and fear of losing her mankind's story might be entirely different.  But instead Adam threw Eve under the Bus and we have had to spend all these years learning that Love not only conquers all but LOVE IS…

Once upon a time there was a hungry Quaker.  He consumed & collected everything he thought would make him what he truly felt inside he was meant to be.  He knew he was meant to rise above everyone else and be special and so he consumed & collected the nicest things he could afford and in some cases things he had to borrow to get;  he traveled places he thought would allow him to soar above everyone he knew; he consumed things not only for himself but his family as well.  Finally he…

The gospel of John ends with the writer noting that there weren't enough books in the world to record all that Jesus did during his ministry (John 21:35)  I believe that among those unrecorded acts was the following discussion between Jesus and one of the Apostles who because of the personal nature of the conversation will go unnamed:

Anonymous Disciple/Apostle: I don’t understand why Peter loves his wife so…

Well the man of Peace has spoken and everyone agrees we have to stop ISIS and kill them.  Recognizing that most US citizens don't want to see more of their loved ones and neighbors die or get maimed on foreign soil we are only going to use sophisticated weapons to degrade and obtain victory over this barbaric enemy.  This decision was preceded by publicizing atrocious acts perpetrated by the enemy on innocent or at least less militarily prepared, victims.  This raises the threshold of…

This past weekend I and many others were blessed to spend it in the company of Jim Atwell as a fellow traveler on life's spiritual journey.  Jim is a cheerful and gifted Friend overflowing with love for everyone who has found a fitting home for his gifts and love within the Quaker community.  Jim has a serious physical ailment which he openly discusses in his book Wobbling Home ( …

My meeting has an old Oak Tree standing at the front of the meeting house.  How old I can't tell you.  but I can tell you someone wrote an article about this same "Old oak Tree" about one hundred and sixty years ago.  There's even a picture of the oak tree with the article (which we keep posted on our bulletin board) showing the "Old oak Tree" which shows a good healthy oak tree that you would think was a hundred years old.  Massive trunk.  Robust branches.

Today the "Old oak Tree"…