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Peace Tax Fund Advocates Needed

Dear Friends: The National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund is seeking a volunteer in each congressional district to communicate with their representative about the Peace Tax Fund Bill and urge its passage. Time commitment is two to four hours a month.

On Flesh (November 2016)

The Dazzle of Day – Review

Here’s a challenge: Write a novel in which a Quaker business meeting is the dramatic pivot point . . . and make it a compelling read.

On Flesh (November 2016)

Quaker Culture: Contributing to Decisions

Decisions [among Friends] are not made based upon how many agree most and most loudly, but upon whether the speaker has caught the Sense of the Meeting and articulated it well. Speaking twice does not give your words more weight. . . . We may have to train ourselves out of some of the attitudes we have learned from the cultures we grew up in. We may have to leave behind a need to always be right, to be obeyed, to be “the best.” We may have to leave behind a manner of speaking (either too softly or too loudly) that doesn’t communicate well what we have to say.

On Competition (January 2017)

Partisanship and Quaker Meetings

Dear Editor: When I was a kid, I thought elections were exciting! All the speeches, the ads, the canvas voting booths going up all along the school hallways. Lately, I have come to hate election season. I find that the yelling, name-calling, anger, and general distrust of one another is distressing to me. And yes, it affects our Quaker meetings as well.

On Competition (January 2017)

Recovering Innocents

Saturday morning, I reach the border at Nogales, Arizona. From near and far, the fence rises. From a distance, it appears as a blade that slices apart both the wholeness of the natural world and the wholeness of a human community. Up close, the twenty-foot barrier imprisons and excludes, looming like a nightmare. The huge, vertical, rust-colored metal slats nearly overlap. I peer through them, looking down a cliff at a street below, and at the sidewalk across that street, in front of a little store. On that spot, sixteen-year-old Josè Antonio Elena Rodrìguez was killed, shot repeatedly by a jumpy American border guard.

On Competition (January 2017)

On Balance

In the “capstone talk” of the American Friends Service Committee’s Centennial Summit last month, former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias framed his remarks with reference to an episode described by Henry Cadbury in his Nobel Lecture of 1947. In that lecture, Cadbury recounts, “In 1665, some English Quaker carpenters were building wooden ships on the Thames. They thought they were pacifists and had renounced war, and when there was danger of invasion by a Dutch fleet, these carpenters were required to carry arms. Naturally, they refused to do so, but it never occurred to them that what they were building were warships. It comes slowly, this discovery.”

On Balance (May 2017)

An Under-Appreciated Point

Dear Editor: As an engineer who went to seminary, I often find myself defending both Science and Faith. Like Jim Humphrey (“Here Sleep Dragons,” March/April 2017), I’m a “pro-science guy” who agrees that science often gets distorted by materialism. And like Brylie Oxley (“Time Crystals,” same issue), I am fascinated by discoveries, like time crystals, that open our minds to the awesome structure of reality.

On Balance (May 2017)

Trapped in the Temporary

Part One: Chios, Greece, May 2017 – Each morning we wake to the contrasts of this place. A sea of luminous blue, rugged mountains, and clear skies – these surround a lively tourist strip along the water, with its overpriced but friendly cafes and restaurants. From the vantage point of a cafe chair, it is hard to imagine the underside of this place. If one ventures just a bit further down the coast, though, one finds a long strip of UN tents and “containers” – large plastic boxes that serve as tiny temporary houses – awkwardly set beside the remains of an old castle wall.

On Politics (July 2017)

Return to the Farm

Eleanor Dart is an author and psychotherapist and a lifelong Quaker. She is a member of Pima Friends Meeting in Tucson, AZ (IMYM).

On Home (September 2017)