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Friendly Leadership (review)

Donn Weinholtz’s practical new book, Friendly Leadership: Humanely Influencing Others, connects Quaker values with research on how organizations function (or don’t). In it, Weinholtz shows ways for Friends to bring their Quaker spiritual practices into the secular mix as well as in service to their Quaker meetings.

On Conflict (January 2023)

Can You Believe?

Johan Maurer is a member of Camas Friends Church in Washington State who has been publishing a blog called “Can You Believe?” since June 2004. He is also a member of Moscow Friends Meeting in Russia and is a recorded Friends minister. In his blog, which he produces virtually every Thursday, Maurer reflects frankly on religion, politics, philosophy, and more.

On Perception (March 2023)

Close-up on The Lord’s Prayer

This is my path: a struggle to learn to be willing to surrender to the Holy Spirit, to finally go home. I have been on this path for years, struggling with the idea of an “other,” an incomprehensible energy. Recognizing the necessity of surrendering to something greater than myself – and interior to me – has taken a long time. I have learned that transformation is about choice, action, willingness to surrender, and knowing that I am never alone.

On Perception (March 2023)

Quakers, Yemen, and Ukraine

 

On Perception (March 2023)

Telling the Truth about God (review)

Rhiannon Grant’s small book Telling the Truth about God (2019) is immediately engaging in its conversational style. She draws from her experience leading workshops at Woodbrooke in England and offers brief introductory chapters for both Friends and non-Friends. To the Quaker reader, she expresses the hope that, after the reading, “you feel that you are better able to tell the truth about God as you understand it.”

On Perception (March 2023)

Beyond Linear Thinking (review)

Beyond Linear Thinking (2022) is a page-turner in which Linda Seger uses humor, spiritual wisdom, and practical advice, supported by scientific research, to describe ways of moving beyond linear, competitive, hierarchical, patriarchal thinking – toward cooperation, equality, and diversity. I love the metaphors of line, circle, spiral, and web that she uses to explore these different thinking models. I also like her repetition of this point: holding a goal larger than the self is one way to avoid the pitfalls of pride and the pettiness of hierarchy.

On Perception (March 2023)

In Solidarity with Migrants

Annunciation House is a non-profit organization that sustains a network of shelters, facilities, and services for migrants in El Paso, Texas. When I applied to be a volunteer, I had no expectations or even knowledge of what lay ahead, no idea what I was getting into. I only knew I wanted to help migrants.

On Perception (March 2023)

On Perception

Like circus cars ejecting impossible numbers of clowns right before our eyes, we humans emit endless parades of bright ideas into the crowded world. Then we jostle among all the world’s other creatures – animals, vegetables, minerals – and find ourselves wondering, now and then, about our own integrity, the coherence of our lives.

On Perception (March 2023)

Living Cello

 

On Loss (May 2023)

The Man in the Dog Park (review)

One day in 1982, I realized I was homeless. I didn’t own a single key! No house, no car, no bank box. I had just flown to Los Angeles from Hawaii after selling my business. I tried to rent a car. I was refused for lack of an address! But I had a rather large bank balance, academic degrees, a good vocabulary, the confidence of the educated middle class, and a trustworthy smile. The car rental clerk let me use my Timex as collateral and gave me a car.

On Loss (May 2023)

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