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The Lure of Mount Madonna

The week of July 29 – August 3, 2013, will see PYM Friends returning to Mount Madonna near Watsonville for the sixth annual gathering we will hold there. Many Friends view the Mt. Madonna Center, with its spectacular view of Monterey Bay, as the most eye-pleasing site at which we have gathered, while others consider it problematic due to the fairly steep hillside terrain, which is adorned with religious iconography.  Moreover, unlike college campuses and other conference centers, Mt. Madonna Center requires us to interact with a faith community different from ours, as it is owned and staffed by an intentional yoga community, guided by the spiritual discipline of Ashtanga Yoga.  The community requires that food consumed on site be strictly vegetarian, which some Friends find challenging if not intolerable.

On Power (March 2013)

The Great March for Climate Action

As a religion major at Drake University in the 1980s, my field studies took me to worship with nearly every denomination in Des Moines. One experience that kept drawing me back was the local Quaker Meeting, where I appreciated the overt commitment to justice and the inner sense of peace.

On Consumption (May 2013)

Caring for Young Adult Friends

Monthly meetings all over the United States struggle with attracting new attenders, particularly Young Adult Friends (YAFs) who fall between the ages of 18 and 35.  It’s a rather large and indiscriminate cohort, but the people in that cohort (including me) have something in common: whether convinced, birthright, or exploring, we just don’t seem to be sticking around.

On Love (September 2013)

Charting Our Way

Tockhwock (AKA Geoffrey Kaiser) produced “The Chart” that hangs as a poster in many Quaker meetinghouses, depicting Quaker history as a tree. Beginning in the late 1960s, he revised and updated The Chart continually until 2010. During that time, he and his husband Bruce traveled widely among Friends in North America and gave lectures about Friends’ 350 years of schisms and associations. Tockhwock is a member of Appleseed Meeting in Sebastopol, CA (PYM), grew up in Gwynedd Meeting in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, and was a founding member of Friends for Lesbian and Gay Concerns in 1970. He spoke with Western Friend by phone on January 23, 2014. Following are edited excerpts from a transcript of that interview.

On Time (March 2014)