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In Solidarity with Migrants

• Authored by:
• Justine McCoy

Annunciation House is a non-profit organization that sustains a network of shelters, facilities, and services for migrants in El Paso, Texas. When I applied to be a volunteer, I had no expectations or even knowledge of what lay ahead, no idea what I was getting into. I only knew I wanted to help migrants.

On Perception (March 2023)

Bittersweet Wisdom

• Authored by:
• Earl Piercy

We all have something to say about loss, because all of us have experienced it – yearning for what used to be, but is no more. And perhaps, as our years pass, we wrestle with the issue of loss even more, having chewed some of the gristle of life, as it were, not just the low-hanging fruit.

On Loss (May 2023)

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

• Authored by:
• John Brantingham

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)

On Loss

• Authored by:
• Mary Klein

Many Friends in the West today trace our religious ancestry back to the arrival of Joel and Hannah Bean in California in 1882. The monthly meeting that the Beans enlivened in San Jose eventually became the root stock of three new yearly meetings – Pacific, North Pacific, and Intermountain (to oversimplify). Thirty years earlier, Joel and Hannah had traveled with the pioneer “Bean wagon train” that relocated dozens of Beans from New England to the brand new “free state” of Iowa. The Beans were central in the formation of Iowa Yearly Meeting, and Joel and Hannah clerked its two constituent meetings (men’s and women’s) for about ten years.

On Loss (May 2023)

Spiritually Clean – A Social Laundromat Ministry

• Authored by:
• Zae Asa Illo

For a few years, San Francisco Quaker meeting has been meeting Christ outside its doors, literally. The voiceless, forgotten, and politically marginalized gather outside our building to seek refuge. We welcome them to service on Sundays, make sandwiches and food, and charge their phones on Fridays, and that’s all needed. Another quiet ministry is the washing of laundry – which a few Friends take back to their places to wash and return.

On Dignity (July 2023)

Othering Among Friends

• Authored by:
• Erin Wilson

As humans, we are taught from a very young age to categorize things based on their characteristics. In my former life as an elementary school teacher, it was part of my job to help young children develop a sense of what is the same and what is different. Children sort things by size, color, shape, texture, etc. This skill serves a purpose, but it also gets used in ways that are problematic.

On Dignity (July 2023)

Quakers in the Age of the Internet (abridged)

• Authored by:
• Jon Watts

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)