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Dancing with History (review)

The title of this book beautifully describes George Lakey’s preferred way to engage with the world: Dancing with History. I thoroughly enjoyed this memoir about Lakey’s roots and his path over eighty-four years.

On Cooperation (September 2022)

Uplifted in Witness Together

What stays essential and what needs to change in the Religious Society of Friends? I remember thinking when I was a teen that many older Friends seemed to have lost the ability to listen. Fortunately, older Friends in my own local meeting believed in us young Friends.

On Cooperation (September 2022)

Revolutionary Nonviolence

Dear Editor: I was delighted to see an article about Lawrence and Viola Scott and their Quaker activities in the “Pages for All Ages” section of the July/August 2022 issue of Western Friend.

On Science (November 2022)

Vanguard SOS

Dear Friends: I encourage you to learn about the remarkable “Vanguard SOS” campaign, organized by a coalition of which Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT) is a member.

On Science (November 2022)

Please Do Not “Believe in” Science

Cautious confidence in the scientific process is, I believe, the best perspective. Science is akin to continuing revelation and undermined by groupthink. However, modern science is fundamentally materialistic, and we do not live by bread alone.

On Science (November 2022)

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)

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)

Pieces and Patterns

The man I married, physicist Daryl Reagan, was a skeptic. It gave him an endearing humility. He loved explaining physics to me. When he used his brakes, which produced heat by friction, he explained entropy. He told how eventually all energy would be dull heat energy, a heat death of the universe.

On Perception (March 2023)