Holly Anderson

Dear Editor: Thanks to Sharon Doyle for her interesting and informative article in the Nov/Dec 2020 Western Friend about the evolution of the peace testimony. She walked us through centuries with a thumbnail sketch that managed to contain the essence of our inconsistencies, both successes and failures. I have a truer and humbler appreciation for our past. It strikes me that I had similar feelings after reading Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship. Somehow, I feel that I don’t have an impossible standard to live up to, that Quakers then are like Quakers now: We have some brave, insightful trail-blazers, and the rest of us are trailing along behind, finding excuses until our lack of integrity finally becomes clear, and we see the Light.

Dear Editor: I met Lynnette Arnold last year at Pacific Yearly Meeting when she called for interested Friends to meet to discuss the problems of the overwhelming numbers of children fleeing to the U.S. from Central America. For Lynette, this concern has evolved into serving as the convener of a sub-committee of the PYM Latin American Concerns Committee (with monthly conference calls), two trips to a detention center for families in Karnes, Texas, and fasting recently in solidarity with a hunger strike by detained mothers. Lynnette is a member of the Santa Barbara Meeting and is currently completing a PhD in Linguistics at UC Santa Barbara. We met at the Santa Barbara Meetinghouse where she was fasting, and I am sending you my record of my interview. Please share this with “Friends Everywhere.”