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237 Acres of God

Authored by: Thistle West , Hannah Mackinney
It’s lizard season. Driving down the Rough and Ready Highway, the air is hot and dry, a tangible manifestation of the California drought. But here, everything is alive. The Woolman Semester School sits on 237 acres in historic gold country, but more immediately, it’s my favorite place in the world. I’ve been coming to Woolman for various reasons as long as I can remember – College Park Quarterly Meeting sessions, summer camp, family work camp, visiting Friends – but today, March 30th, 2015, I’m returning to visit for the first time since graduating from the Fall 2014 high school semester. Driving past the orchard, it already feels like home.
On Needs (May 2015)

Irish Hospitality

Authored by: Sara Keeney
In the fall of 2015, my long-time friend Helen was about to move away from her family farm in Northern Ireland, where she had lived near her brothers for the previous seven years. My husband Tom and I decided to join her there and to visit some of the Quaker heritage sites that she had often described remembering from her childhood.
On Countries (January 2016)

Bolivian Becas Give

Authored by: Nancy Marshall
Dear Friends: This year my meeting, Phoenix Monthly Meeting, decided to sponsor a Bolivian university student for three years, at $750 per year, through the Bolivian Quaker Education Fund. (See bqef.org .) This decision came after we seasoned the idea in our Peace and Social Concerns Committee and with interest from our First Day School. This expenditure – of an annual “beca” or scholarship – is now the largest item in our budget, other than property expenses.
On Countries (January 2016)

Emancipation without Freedom

Authored by: José Santos Woss , Aristotle Jones
Racism and white supremacy, the malignant cancers plaguing America today, are a joint system destroying black and brown bodies. In the past, the Klan did that destroying. Today, statistics do. Those statistics amount to the erasure of people. The destruction of black and brown bodies is hidden in statistics on poor health, poor housing, inadequate schooling, over-policed communities, and mass incarceration. These social ills, which overwhelmingly affect black and brown communities, are ills that Friends can help to correct. With the realization of their whiteness and their dominant position within a racialized country, Friends have the power to define spaces outside their communities, as well as the opportunity to break the past and change the future of race relations.
On Politics (July 2017)

Queer Quaker Kinship

Authored by: Damon Motz-Storey
The first time I worshipped with the Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns (FLGBTQC), I experienced a profound sensation that spirit was moving in a way I had never felt before. I entered the room after navigating a sprawling and meticulous college campus in Greeley, Colorado, and encountered an energy that I could immediately tell was unique among spaces at that FGC Gathering. I don’t even remember any of the words spoken in ministry that day, but I do remember feeling that a weight had been lifted from my shoulders and I could breathe more freely.
On Home (September 2017)

Race and Quakerism

Authored by: Kat Northrup
The first time I was confronted with my identity as a “Brown Woman” was my first trip to North Pacific Yearly Meeting (NPYM). I had never experienced such a direct external approach to my skin color before. My family celebrated my adoption day as a family holiday. We went back to India to see my heritage history, and I was raised with some Indian cultural education, but my racial background wasn’t ever the first characteristic that came to mind when examining my personal identity. The welcome I received because of my brown skin from the Quakers was both amazingly compassionate and entirely unsettling. At that time, I had only just begun to explore this part of my identity. As an extension of this experience, I began to pay more attention to race relations within the Quaker community, and the struggles of different races around the U.S.
On Expansion (May 2018)

A Progressive Water Policy Platform

Authored by: Dan O'Connell
The San Joaquin Valley of California is the most productive agricultural region in the world yet also has the highest levels of poverty, pollution, and hunger in the United States. This paradox did not occur by happenstance, nor should the poor be blamed for their condition. Geographies are planned and constructed; by definition, imprinted with our designs.
On Water (March 2019)