Western Friend logo

Search

A search result that only shows a person’s name often links to a list of articles written by that person.

William Penn’s “Holy Experiment” (review)

I’d be interested in this book even if I weren’t a Quaker.

On Normality (July 2022)

Toward a Life-Centered Economy (review)

Inspired – simply put, this is the feeling I’m left with after reading Toward a Life-Centered Economy. This volume is the twelfth “focus book” from The Quaker Institute for the Future, a spirit-lead research organization working to “envision a global future in which humanity is in right relationship with the commonwealth of life.” The book explores the mindset of unlimited growth, which drives our current global economic system, along with the impending repercussions of that mindset on our global ecosystem. Further, this book spells out the inability of our ecosystem to support our current intense patterns of human consumption, and it offers advice about what we can do to change humanity’s impact.

On Science (November 2022)

Phoenix Meeting on Abortion

Dear Friends: On Sunday, December 4, 2022, at our regular Meeting for Worship for Business, Phoenix Monthly Meeting approved a minute on abortion.

On Conflict (January 2023)

Begin Again (review)

This collection of autobiographical stories by Paul Lowance Niebanck, Begin Again, is a treat for ear, eye, and Spirit. Paul shares escapades and events from his life with entertaining and inspiring verve.

On Conflict (January 2023)

New Voices: Contemporary Writers . . . Holocaust (Review)

New Voices: Contemporary Writers Confronting the Holocaust, edited by Howard Debs and Matthew Silverman, was released this April by Vallentine Mitchell, a publisher of books in the fields of Jewish, Middle Eastern, and Holocaust studies. It is a collection of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction from dozens of writers and poets, including Marge Piercy, Ellen Bass, Tim Seibles, and Tony Barnstone, but it is not in a strict sense an anthology. That is, the volume is not a collection of existent works, but rather a creation of new works produced together to help update our understanding of the Holocaust and its lessons.

On Loss (May 2023)

Quakers in the Age of the Internet (abridged)

Quakers in the Age of the Internet: Keynote presentation by Jon Watts to Intermountain Yearly Meeting; June 24, 2023; Fort Lewis College, Durango, Colorado

On Healers (September 2023)

On Heelers

In the world of working dogs, there is a breed called Blue Heeler or Australian Cattle Dog. The names derive from these dogs’ inborn tendency to work cattle from behind, their origins in Australia, and the typical “blue” coloring of their fur. They are often somewhat aggressive and may need to be approached with caution.

On Healers (September 2023)