Inward Light

the child        my woman-girl
like a snow leopard
I see her        shrouded
in mountain mist        shreds
of vertiginous fog

not        please not
crashing         past God
into  light

Helen Bruner is a member of Marin Friends Meeting (PYM).

This article is in dialogue with “The Bonds of Animal Agriculture” by Friend Joe Snyder in the May-June 2013 issue of Western Friend. I commend Friend Snyder for highlighting the destructive aspects of the prevailing system of plant and animal agriculture, which fail to respect God’s creation.

Some Western Friend readers may have already met RantWoman, an official Quaker holy terror known for telling too much of the Truth about all kinds of things, at rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com. Recently a call went out for Friends to write articles about the 14th White Privilege Conference, held near Seattle in April 2013.

Manifest Destiny Revisited

by Laurie Childers

The high plains summer day had ended – long and hot, heavy with spiritual ceremony, with talk of intergenerational trauma, with concern for the earth and for human societies. It was dark, and thirty of us were gathered under the a canopy of branches, introducing ourselves in a talking circle. 

Since biblical times, humanity has lived by an ancient contract: We the first party (animals) give you our wool, milk, hides and meat, draw your plows and carriages, guard your houses, control your vermin, and fertilize your fields.  We the second party (humans) promise to keep you safe from predators, bind up your wounds and treat your diseases, provide you shelter from the elements, feed you

1
Walking the labyrinth in June
Birds sing one onward
Ants see no obstacle in bare feet

2
Two roads to freedom
The beggar and the scholar
One takes the other gives away

3
By the waterfall’s chorus
Orange Kimono butterflies mate
Droopy redwood sapling

4
Fluttering in dappled sunlight
Tender green shoots

The way of love is not a subtle argument,

The door there is devastation.

Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom.

How do they learn it? 

They fall.  And in falling

Are given wings.

--Rumi

Considering Water:
     I settled deep into my body
           feeling my way into prayer
           for the waters of Japan.
     And the waters there, so injured
          by the radiation they have absorbed
          while helping humans harness atomic energy
to power all manner of uses,

“Does my life reflect my values and beliefs?” This query is often on my mind, and probably yours too. As a child in Mountain View Friends Meeting (Denver), I learned the Quaker belief that there is “that of God in everyone,” sometimes called “the Light within.” The Light is our best and most holy potential, our goodness, our groundedness, our Truth.

Two years ago, I was one of those people who flinched every time I heard the word “Jesus.”  When I told this to my friend Joe Snyder, he said, “Read the Bible. That'll take care of that flinch.” And then he told me about Mark.