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Immersed in Prayer (review)

• Authored by:
• Margaret Kelso

Over two dozen people share their thoughts and stories about their prayer lives in this collection edited by Michael Resman. Immersed in Prayer: Stories from Lives of Prayer arose from a project of the editors of the publication What Canst Thou Say, who developed sixteen queries about prayer life, which they sent to their subscribers and Quaker organizations. They ranged from “What happens when you pray?” to “What ways did you find to work around your impediments to prayer?” The sixteen queries form the structure of this book.

On Place (May 2022)

On Living with a Concern for Gospel Ministry (review)

• Authored by:
• Susan Loucks

Quakers assert that everyone can have direct access to the Divine and that anyone can step up to or away from ministry at any time.  Brian Drayton’s On Living with a Concern for Gospel Ministry (revised and updated) is relevant for anyone who wants to embody that power in their lives more fully. One clear intention of this book is to provide guidance to individuals with particular gifts that Quaker meetings might be rusty in recognizing and supporting.

On Place (May 2022)

Growing into the Light

• Authored by:
• Daniel Clarke Flynn

Is youth “wasted on the young,” as some have said? No, it is not. I have learned through my experience and that of others that we carry our youthful amazement within us all our life. It simply gets buried under our adult concerns.

On Normality (July 2022)

Three Numbers

• Authored by:
• Linnea Wang

Three numbers to remember: 2, 16 and 20,000. What’s the story behind three such different numbers, and how are they all related?

On Normality (July 2022)

Gandhi’s Smile

• Authored by:
• David H. Albert

So, if you are anything at all like me, you might have to admit that, underneath it all, you are angry – and angry most, if not all, of the time. I know I am. This is not the world I bargained for. This is not the economic system I bargained for, the political system I bargained for, the system of education I bargained for. I never signed up for global racism, for worldwide environmental collapse, for overpowering patriarchal institutions that devalue more than half the world’s population, for a cloud of nuclear war hanging over my head.

On Normality (July 2022)

Normal Feelings

• Authored by:
• Leo Dahlsten

Hate is something normal. We know lots about hate, but hate is corrupt. Hate prevents change; hate crazes people. Hate hurts people. Hate kills people, too. We know hate, but love, love helps people. Love heals people. Love promotes justice and change. Love is peaceful and gentle. [pullquote]Love is new and different. Change scares people, but it shouldn’t.[/pullquote] We’ve gone through change multiple times. But love is normal. It always has been. It’s just mysterious. We don’t know. Love is what is life. When love’s full power is released, we become loved. Love is big, and everyone needs LOVE.

On Normality (July 2022)

All Our Histories

• Authored by:
• Susan Cozzens

To the editor: Mackenzie Barton-Rowledge begins her article in the May/June 2022 issue of Western Friend with her grandfather, modeling the integrity she is seeking from Quakers in North Pacific Yearly Meeting (NPYM). She calls attention to one set of family histories in NPYM, which she calls a “settler-majority” community. I am writing to remind us that there are other family histories in NPYM, too.

On Normality (July 2022)

Friendly Access for Inclusion

• Authored by:
• Gale Toko-Ross,
• Rosemary Blanchard

The following text was transcribed from a recording of an interest group at Intermountain Yearly Meeting (IMYM), where Gale Toko-Ross was a co-Presiding Clerk and Rosemary Blanchard was the meeting’s ombudsperson for accessibility concerns.

On Cooperation (September 2022)

Two Hands of Nonviolence

• Authored by:
• Donna Eyestone

Dear Editor: I am writing to thank David Albert for his article, “Gandhi’s Smile,” in the July/August 2022 issue of Western Friend. I have been studying the life and work of Barbara Deming, and Albert’s article resonated with those studies. Like Gandhi, Deming addressed ways we can make use of the positive energy that anger brings, while not allowing ourselves to become overcome by its force. She used a “two hands” metaphor to help describe the tension that many of us feel in moments like the one we are living in now.

On Cooperation (September 2022)

The Life and Religious Labors of Lloyd Lee Wilson (review)

• Authored by:
• David Nachman

To be precise, the title of this book is: Memoir of the Life and Religious Labors of Lloyd Lee Wilson, a Minister of the Gospel of the Religious Society of Friends, Particularly of North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative), to describe the workings of the Lord in the various stages of my life, showing how God is at work in all things for good, whether we perceive it so or not, and how our surrender to divine providence allows God’s work to be done in and through us for the advancement of the Realm of God.

On Cooperation (September 2022)