I have been a Friend for forty-five years. I started attending a few years after returning to the U.S. from a tour in Vietnam. It was a stressful time. We had two young children. At the encouragement of Charles and Mary Minor, we visited Flagstaff Friends Meeting on South Beaver Street, just off the campus of Northern Arizona University.
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one has to take sides
sometimes, and it’s always right
to side with the hurt
the poor, the widow,
the orphan, the captives and
the huddled masses
always
new allegory
of the peaceable kingdom:
hawks lie down with doves
On a narrow country road eleven miles north of Santa Barbara, California, you will spot the sign for Chumash Painted Cave State Historical Park.
In January this year, I submitted an article to Western Friend about Friends and the “Beloved Community,” and I received the best rejection letter ever.
The show goes wrong. This is my mantra as a pastor. My congregants hear me say it a lot, and it’s usually followed by a laugh. It’s not something I came up with myself. I give credit to Andy Dwyer, a character from the sitcom Parks and Rec. His “incorrect” version of “the show must go on” is actually far better than the original. His version is one to live by.
Military forces in the 18th and 19th centuries employed a deceptive tactic called “the Quaker gun trick.” This involved using wooden cannon replicas, sometimes painted black, to trick an adversary into withdrawal or surrender – without a shot being fired. We are not talking Peace Testimony here, but perhaps Friendly Trickery – deception for the greater good of de-escalation.
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Cone on a twig
My first present
Of the day.
So grateful.
Be here now!
I heard a message in our meeting once about learning to listen to the silence. I could not make any sense of it. I left it alone.
As I sit in Quaker silence, my mind roams back over the wild places I know – icy cold snow falling all around me at a favorite mountain lake, trees I have held and spoken with, and vistas where my gaze enfolds itself into the hills and valleys far off and far below. Wilderness speaks itself deep in my soul.
It helps to belong somewhere. Belonging can be quite healing.
This is a big reason that people in my monthly meeting and yearly meeting are working to make those spaces more welcoming. We hope for a greater diversity of people to feel like they belong to our meetings. We hope for them to find the healing they need there.
