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Unlacing the Heart - Review

Unlacing the Heart (2015) offers a series of vignettes from Henry Freeman’s life as a fundraiser and his subsequent break from his career to do service in Central America. The accompanying study guide (by Freeman with Colin Saxton, 2016) adds scripture readings and queries for each vignette. Freeman shares a variety of experiences, including relationships he developed in El Salvador while on a mission there and interactions he had with teachers, mentors, and clients. Taken together, they fit into the Quaker tradition of sharing impactful personal experiences in worship, personal journals, and diaries; and using those to develop spiritual insight and practice. [pullquote]With each story, Freeman examines his sense of connectedness to others and identifies guideposts for his future relationships.[/pullquote] The study guide invites the reader to further consider the impact of these insights on their own style of living and relating to others.

On Insight (March 2017)

Quaker Light in Australia and New Zealand

Last summer (last winter there), we spent several weeks traveling among Friends in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. During those travels, we gained some insights about ways that our yearly meetings in the U.S. could share our Quaker faith more openly with the world around us.

On Insight (March 2017)

On Balance

Authored by:
Mary Klein

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)

Emancipation without Freedom

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)

Conflict in Meetings

Authored by:
Joy Belle Conrad-Rice

Dear Friends: Conflict in our meetings is often not resolved in a manner satisfactory to all involved. Frequently, some individuals or groups are left on their own to swallow changes they are not ready for. This happens even though much willingness to being open to a way forward has been experienced within the meeting. It happens whether the conflict is instigated by the behavior and/or beliefs of one individual or by Friends who are promoting new perspectives.

On Politics (July 2017)

Money and Soul (abridged)

Authored by:
Pamela Haines

As I thought about where to start this talk, my mind went to a moment many years ago, when my friend, Nadine Hoover, challenged me to write my own statement of conscience. She had been spending a lot of time with young men who were struggling with the issue of conscientious objection. As they worked together on their statements of conscience, trying to articulate why they were choosing that path, she realized this was a process we should all be engaged in. After all, conscience is not limited to people of a certain gender or a certain age. So I confronted the question: “To what do I conscientiously object, and why?”

On Home (September 2017)

Awakening to the Presence (abridged)

Authored by:
Zachary Moon

I once lived with a cat named Francis. If he needed something, Francis would find me and invite me to help him. Regularly this invitation would come in the middle of the night when I was otherwise asleep in my bed. I would stir from my slumber to feel what would best be described as a gentle yet forceful kneading of my eyeballs by Francis’ paws.

On Home (September 2017)

Everyday Prophets (Review)

Authored by:
Stanford Searl

Recently, I read the wonderful 2016 Backhouse Lecture, Everyday Prophets by Margery Post Abbott. I identified with Abbott’s description of everyday prophets as “. . . people who listen to the voice of all that it Holy and follow its guidance” (p. 3). Yet these everyday prophets face challenges, too. “It takes practice to develop the skill of listening with an inward ear and coming to recognize the taste and color of all that it holy . . . Above all, such a person is one who listens inwardly and has learned to distinguish the voice of the Spirit, the presence of Christ, from their own desires or self-will, the pressures of the surrounding culture and the need to win approval from those around them” (pp. 5-6).

On Home (September 2017)

A Language for the Inward Landscape (review)

E.L. Doctorow once said, “Writing is like driving a car at night: you never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” Reading A Language for the Inward Landscape was a similar self-actualizing experience. Like a coastal sailor navigating through a fog, the reader discovers more about their journey as they take it. The fog lifts, the sailor sees a familiar landmark. By taking a compass bearing on this landmark, the sailor has a better idea of their location: the bearing defines a line and the boat is somewhere on this line. There is a feeling of safety with this bit of clarity. The fog may return, but the sailor proceeds, a bit more confident in their journey.

On Garbage (November 2017)

The Airtight Cage of Poverty

“We are tired of smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society,” said Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963). To address this crisis, Dr. King (along with Quaker activist Bayard Rustin) launched the Poor People’s Campaign, focusing on economic justice, especially around jobs and housing. In February 1968, King announced the Campaign’s specific demands: $30 billion for anti-poverty programs, full employment, guaranteed income, and the annual construction of 500,000 affordable residences.

On Captivity (January 2018)