Being from Brooklyn, I came to manure late in life.  By that I mean in my 30's when I started reading Organic Gardening magazine.  Free is good, I thought.  So at first I picked up some free manure from a local horse owner.  Good stuff but along with my tomatoes were an awful lot of weeds.  There had to be something better and off I went to the local nursery where it wasn't free but it was close to dirt cheap.  And it was sterilized - no weeds, no hay!

A few years ago when I first…

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I was reading Ashley W's short post about what she perceived as a generation gap between her and the older members of her meeting.  The topic seemed familiar but being a 70 year old convinced Quaker I knew it wasn't age alone that she was running into but something more problematical.

In the 13th chapter of the Gospel of Luke, starting at the 6th verse, Jesus tells the story of a…

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Once upon a time many years ago I was a young married Catholic.  I was raised as a Catholic, attended catholic elementary and high schools and joined a Catholic fraternity when I went off to college.  I even graduated from a Catholic Law School.  In short my moral upbringing was based on Catholic teaching which in turn formed my conscience.    No matter what my personal behavior was at a particular time I was always aware of this conscience judging my conduct as right or wrong.

After…

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When I was growing up it was common to hear people exhorted to become productive members of society. I was thinking of that today as I waited for my Grandson to be dropped off so I could take him to the house where he is presently living. He is 21 and has Aspergers. He is very bright but obsessive about some things of no productive value to Society and very naive or clueless about social standards. Now not caring about social standards is one thing, not being aware is another. He is not now a… Continue

I was having a conversation with an old friend the other day about organized religion when an analogy popped into my mind. It was this. Life is like jumping out of an airplane while it is cruising along above the earth. Everyone of us has a parachute on. Some of us know we have a parachute on and some of us don't, but everyone has one. Naturally those who don't know they have a parachute on are much more stressed out as they come closer and closer to the earth than those who know they have a… Continue

In Matthew 7:7 Jesus tells us to ask and it shall be given to us, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. I want to address this verse and especially the word "seek". It has been my observation that most people don't seek the truth. They might ask someone they know what is the truth but they don't ask God. And when they do, they don't seek the truth. It is my position that like the Israelites in Exodus we are willing to send Moses… Continue

Everyone is against war. But we still have wars. No one wants to see their son, daughter, nephew, niece or neighbor maimed or killed. But they still are. So what good is a peace testimony except as a means of justifying the existence of the Religious Society of Friends? A peace testimony without peace is useless. It's not even a light in the darkness. It might be a candle, but it's an unlit one. If you want peace it's time to light the candle.



I am not a political activist. I am a… Continue

I want to share my reflections on the comments to my original post on Unity. I think Friend Raye nailed it. The key to Unity with God is Holiness. If we all concentrate on becoming Holy as our Father in Heaven is Holy we will draw closer to Him and each other. We have to resist the strong temptation to get sidetracked by religious beliefs, dogma, theology or whatever you want to call our convictions about God. Our job is to love our neighbor and our God. If I do that and you do that, we will… Continue

There are a lot of options in life, Unity joins forgiveness as not being one of them. From the 15th Chapter of the Gospel of John we read in verse 4(b): As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me; and again in verse 5(b):He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. Furthermore, Jesus prays for us, not the Apostles, in John Chapter 17, verses 20 and 21 as follows:… Continue