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Waging Peace – Review (2015)

Authored by: Jamie Newton
If war is not the answer, what is? David Hartsough’s Waging Peace: Global Adventures of a Lifelong Activist can help an uncertain reader progress to a firm conviction that effective nonviolent means of overcoming aggression and injustice really can be discovered and applied even in extreme situations – and that we “ordinary people” can do this. What makes the book so compelling is that it is an account of the author’s direct experience as an organizer and trainer in nonviolent campaigns, and as a participant in grassroots movements around the world.

A Quaker Approach to Research - Review

Authored by: Tom Head
This short book is the latest in a series from the Quaker Institute for the Future (QIF). All of the other publications in the series focus on pressing, specific, hot topics for our global future: genetically modified crops, energy and fuels, the economic growth dilemma, climate change, food security, etc. In contrast to these issue-oriented volumes, A Quaker Approach to Research (2014) explores methodology and our ways of knowing: How do we as Quakers approach research and understanding of critical issues? This book is a provocative exploration of how Quakers come to know what we know and how those methods might be applied to social research.

Our Life is Love - Review

Authored by: Carol Chatfield
The title of Marcelle Martin’s newly published book, Our Life is Love, echoes Isaac Penington’s well-known 1667 quotation, “Our life is love, and peace, and tenderness; and bearing one with another, and forgiving one another, and not laying accusations one against another; but praying one for another, and helping one another up with a tender hand . . . ” Martin’s book is about the transformative path taken by fervent men and women refined by the fire of truth, and the tender help from one another they receive along their way. It is the sharing of the many struggles and rewards experienced by early seekers of the Spirit, as well as contemporary followers of the Light.

Quaker Radio

Perhaps you know the joke, “What do you get when you cross a Jehovah’s Witness with a Quaker? Someone who knocks on your door and then refuses to speak to you.” At the same time that we want to create the Peaceable Kingdom, we’re a bit hesitant about making too big a deal about the event, figuring others need to find their own way to it, without us being too pushy.

Two Views of One Quaker Workplace

Katie: I’ve worked for Linda Seger for six years, mainly doing her typing. Linda is not supposed to work at the computer because she has a neurological condition called dystonia, so she has hired me part time to do typing and office management. However, that is not my background. I have an M.A. degree in Early American Culture and a B.A. degree in Art History. Before working for Linda, I had a thirty-year museum career at various institutions, the most recent being the curator of the Colorado Springs History Museum. 

Money and Soul

Authored by: Suzanne Aboulfadl
Dear Friends: I have just read Pendle Hill Pamphlet #450, Pamela Haines’s “Money and Soul,” and I encourage Friends to read it. It’s based on a talk that the author gave at Intermountain Yearly Meeting in 2017 (which was published by Western Friend; see: westernfriend.org/article/money-and-soul-abridged). Haines packs much that is central to economic justice into this little pamphlet – both on the institutional/systemic and the individual levels. The latter often seems more difficult to discuss. Because of its clarity and hopeful tone, this pamphlet would be a useful resource for study groups and worship-sharing groups in all our meetings.

Before the Monsoon (review)

Authored by: Natalie Ramsland
In the author statement that concludes Eleanor Dart’s latest book of poems, Before the Monsoon, Dart writes, “I don’t want to leave my writing buried in filing cabinets when I depart this life. Hence, this book.” I imagine her poems being rescued from papery depths, freed from the ponderous weight of file folders and metal drawers. Perhaps these poems once lived among tax statements, instruction manuals, love letters, but in this volume, they live together without any trace of compression or randomness.

Renewable (review)

Intermountain Yearly Meeting’s book of Faith and Practice advises us that Friends’ faith is a living faith; and it provides us with queries, which if held up close, serve as mirrors to our internal “what is” and move us toward action in the world.