Dear Editor:
We really appreciate several things that you do at Western Friend: Nancy uses every one of the “Pages for the Ages” for lesson plans in our Sunday School, and Vance appreciates the listing of resources on films and peacemaking, with references to various websites. We like the thematic organization that gives each issue focus. Keep up the good work.
Dear Friends Everywhere:
Pacific Yearly Meeting 2019 Annual Session attendees have the opportunity to hear David Johnson, our keynoter, speak on Saturday, July 13, at 11:15 AM. David Johnson is a seasoned Friend, an activist, and a pragmatic man who is being worked by the Divine. He lives in North Queensland, Australia, with his wife Trish, who will also be at Annual Session.
Dear Editor: The articles in Jan/Feb 2019 issue, “On Weapons,” speak my mind and enrich my thinking, each in its own way.
Dear Friends: A few years ago, a friend of mine came to his first-ever Quaker Meeting. Salim is an Indian actor, a Sufi, a Reiki master. I was nervous in case the ministry didn’t speak to him. But he came out of that meeting having loved the silence and feeling that the ministry had flowed organically from it. “But,” he said, “you’re all so incredibly serious.
Dear Friends: Albuquerque Meeting supported our friend Emma in sanctuary for twenty-one months. [See the July/August 2017 issue of Western Friend.]
Dear Editor: I observe faithful Quakers often desire to travel to far countries by jet to follow their leadings. Surely there is merit in this, but how does that merit weigh against the harm to our atmosphere caused by jet emissions? Air travel harms our Earth, and jet emissions will contribute to the destruction of this world, which is not ours to harm.
Dear Editor: I am part of the Council of Elders, a volunteer organization in the Rogue Valley of southern Oregon, committed to promoting civil discourse. We started this organization after hearing about Better Angels (www.better-angels.org), a nation-wide organization that sprang up after the politically polarized 2016 elections.
I came to California and PYM over three years ago. PYM is my seventh yearly meeting. One of the delights for me of yearly meeting is wrestling with a seasoned minute brought forth by some group. Often I knew of the concern, sometimes had even agonized about the concern, but now there was a minute.
Dear Friends: We needed to learn the struggle of Quaker Alice Herz, who died in 1965. Without warning, we are plunged into her story by the poem “Ten Days,” found in the Jan/Feb 2019 issue of Western Friend.
Dear Editor: I am saddened by your increasing use of web sites for you publication. Like nearly half of Americans, I cannot afford a computer system and, as we age out, that number will increase. This is a new form of classism and exclusion. My understanding of Quakerism is to be in the world but not of it – and to strive for simplicity.
