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Trust is Key

• Authored by:
• Fred Koster

Dear Editor: I enjoyed Robert Levering’s interview in the July/August issue, “A Great Place to Work,” because amongst all the negativity and suspicion today, it is uplifting to know that many corporations are great (not perfect) places to work. He identified trust between employee and management as the key ingredient. Trust develops at many depths, but perhaps at some level, there is a connection between good corporate governance and Quaker worship values. William Taber (Four Doors to Meeting for Worship) expressed it well: “….trust [is] a synonym of faith, for it takes trust to go out into the deep water.” Wading into any community generally involves some deep water. I’m grateful to Robert for rediscovering trust as essential.

On Children (September 2018)

Our Racism

• Authored by:
• john heid

Dear Editor: From cover to cover, the September/October 2018 edition of Western Friend made plain the grievous suffering caused by racism. Our racism.

On Mixture (November 2018)

A Thousand Times, Come

• Authored by:
• Ruth Cutcher

The room was dimly lit. I was one of fifty dancers standing in a circle, shoulder to shoulder, holding hands. Our leader, Johnathan, stood in the middle of the circle with his guitar. He said he was going to lead us in a practice to experience the aspect of God that existed before time began.

On Mixture (November 2018)

Empire of Guns (review)

• Authored by:
• Emily Garrison,
• Rocky Garrison

How free is your life from war, violence, and oppression? How free is your financial life from these forces? Satia Priya poses these questions as she traces the conflict between the Birmingham Monthly Meeting (BMM) in central England in the 1790s and the Galton family, who were members of the meeting and who made their livelihoods selling guns as England became the leading weapons manufacturer in the world. In fact, Quakers owned or managed over half of the ironworks in operation in England in the last half of the 18th Century, and weapons were a major product of the iron industry, sold to the Ordnance Office of the British Government and on the open market – throughout several decades of war and colonial expansion dominated by the British.

On Weapons (January 2019)

Amor Fati

• Authored by:
• Keith Scott Dickerson

Paradox defined: “Items and situations that seem mutually exclusive, yet somehow reflect upon each other, often creating a deeper, more nuanced truth, perhaps in dynamic tension, or complementing each other.” Like a Quaker serving in the military. I lived that paradox intermittently for seven years while serving in the reserves during medical school and residency. Then I lived it full-time during four years of active duty, which started when I completed my medical training in 2000. My first year of active duty seemed pretty benign, then 9/11/2001 happened, and my situation instantly became truly “military.” I faced impending deployment to “the sandbox,” the Middle East. 

On Weapons (January 2019)

Peace with Frisbees

• Authored by:
• Brian Murphy

Ultimate Peace, Inc. is a nonprofit organization that runs a summer sports camp, teaching ultimate frisbee to Muslim and Jewish teenagers near Ashkelon, at the edge of the Negev Desert in Israel, about eight miles from the Gaza Strip. For many years, I have helped to manage this organization from afar and have long been inspired by stories of Jewish and Muslim teenagers meeting each other, building relationships, and learning how to resolve their disagreements peacefully. But, after being asked to assume a greater leadership role, I felt that I had to see it for myself. My son, Aidan Murphy, had just graduated from college, and the timing was perfect.

On Weapons (January 2019)

Ten Days

• Authored by:
• Carlos Valentin III

Ten days a wisp of smoke from one ancestral strum to the next distant guitar on the horizon stark like a city sunset.

On Weapons (January 2019)

On Quakers and Guns (abridged)

• Authored by:
• Edward W. Wood Jr.

The following note was excerpted from a longer message. The original is published here in Western Friend’s online library.

On Weapons (January 2019)

Dispatch from the Edge

• Authored by:
• Peter Anderson

We had heard about the Snowflake Museum from friends in Kansas City and decided to make a pilgrimage for the holidays. The kids of course had never seen snow, though they had heard the occasional story. Our parents, after all, were the last generation to witness it first hand in Kansas. But there are several spots along the Continental Divide where a skiff of snow may appear from time to time, though it is very rare any more. It’s been ten years or so since the last sighting up on Monarch Crest, according to Professor Fairdiwel, the curator of the museum.

On Water (March 2019)

Be Still and Know

• Authored by:
• john heid

Psalm 46:10

On Water (March 2019)