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Somewhere in My Youth

• Authored by:
• Mike Paul Michaels

Mike Paul Michaels began his life among the littler folk in 1963 at Pacific Oaks Children’s School, founded by Friends. His journey has included teaching and living among children and their families in five cultures on three continents. He attends Friends House Worship Group in Santa Rosa, CA, and is a member of Orange Grove Meeting in Pasadena, CA (PYM).

On Expansion (May 2018)

Please Proofread More Carefully

• Authored by:
• Marian Rhys

Dear Editor: I was startled by several errors in the May/June 2018 issue of Western Friend.

On Bosses (July 2018)

A Great Place to Work

• Authored by:
• Robert Levering

An Interview with Robert Levering

On Bosses (July 2018)

The Legacy They Gave Us (review)

• Authored by:
• Vickie Aldrich

I really enjoyed this short book by Matilda Hansen, who grew up in Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative) in the mid-1900s. Luckily for us, Hansen decided to research and document her Norwegian Quaker ancestors. The resulting book has a lot in it – a love story, a story of conscientious objection, immigration, travel, a Quaker split, and the Underground Railroad. If you are interested in the history of western Quakers in twentieth-century America, you will also likely be interested to read about some of the roots of that history in nineteenth-century Iowa.

On Bosses (July 2018)

Uprooting Racism (abridged)

• Authored by:
• Vanessa Julye

My son was raised as a Quaker, but he left the meeting and joined an African American mega-church. Both our daughters were raised as Quakers, and they also left. During a retreat I attended this summer, several African American Friends told me they no longer attend their Quaker meetings because they cannot tolerate the racism they experience there on a weekly basis.

On Children (September 2018)

In Memory of Mary Dyer

• Authored by:
• Stanford Searl

The martial music plays, bronzed alive only the invisible songs survive to fuse two sculptures in a final swoon singing today’s melodies of hope and doom, the Holy Spirit’s breath whispering between them as Mary Dyer speaks to the Colonel’s men, urging them to ascend to Jesus once again, chanting songs of the beginning and the end

On Mixture (November 2018)

Warner Mifflin, Unflinching Quaker Abolitionist (review)

• Authored by:
• Emily Teipe

In Warner Mifflin, Unflinching Quaker Abolitionist, Professor Gary B. Nash brings to life a long-neglected leader of the Quaker abolitionist movement. Although largely unknown to historians and scholars, Mifflin was known and admired by his contemporaries – including such prominent figures as Washington, Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson – who saw in him a tireless and premiere legislative lobbyist who worked at the local, state, and federal levels for the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery.

On Puzzles (May 2019)

Black. Christian. Anarchist.

• Authored by:
• Zae Asa Illo

I am an African American whose encounter with God is more an attitude than belief system, a certain swagger and daring in the face of what black liberation theologian James Cone would refer to as “obvious failure.” By all quantitative standards, the post-Reconstruction experience of African Americans would meet the definition of failure. Today, the median wealth of single Black women is – prepare yourself – five dollars. In San Francisco, African Americans are only five percent of the population. If all religious practice is a response to a set of particular historical circumstances what can speak to this collective misery? The African American religious experience is ultimately about the quest for freedom and self-determination.

On Control (July 2019)

Friends-of-Color Epistle, June 17, 2019

• Authored by:
• Amanda Beattie,
• Zae Asa Illo,
• Kat Northrup

Dear Friends Everywhere,

On Control (July 2019)

David Johnson at PYM

• Authored by:
• Sandy Kewman

Dear Friends Everywhere:

On Control (July 2019)