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Our Neighborhood

• Authored by:
• Kristina Rozdilsky Stapleton

Once there was a broad forest. Once there was a deep field With horses and barbed wire. The grave of a fallen house now just Depression abandoned by settlers. Lilacs bloomed to mark the outhouse.

On Neighbors (September 2019)

Let Our Lives Speak

• Authored by:
• Michele Shields

Within the circumstances of our lives, the Light meets us. As we recognize the Light’s presence in the events of our lives, we see the lived testimony of the Light in our experience.

On Alternatives (March 2022)

Charting Our Way

• Authored by:
• Tockhwock,
• Geoffrey Kaiser

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)

Defend Our Natural Resources

• Authored by:
• Tom Vaughan

Dear Editor:

On Art (March 2020)

Vets in Our Meetings

• Authored by:
• Bob Jolly

Dear Editor:  I congratulate Zachary Moon for his fine article in the Western Friend (Jan/Feb 2013). It is well written and thought provoking.

On Power (March 2013)

Welcome, Caitlin Churchill, Our New Editor

Creative Listening for Our Quaker Future

Our Testimony on Alcohol

• Authored by:
• Margaret Fisher

Dear Editor: Thank you for reminding us of the traditional Quaker testimony on abstinence from alcohol. It is dismaying to see it increasingly forgotten in our meetings. It is one thing to recognize that outlawing alcohol and drugs leads to violent crime and mass incarceration. It is another to conclude that the use of chemical substances is desirable or even benign. When we are laughing about the casual use of wine or pot, we might want to ponder this question: Would we make a small sacrifice to help those in need? Are we able to forego a minor indulgence for the sake of those whom disease has made powerless? Because whether we are aware of it or not, we are surrounded by people who are caught with their families in a downward spiral of addiction.

On Reconciliation (January 2015)

A Year of Loving Earth

• Authored by:
• Klara East

On Seeds (November 2023)

Debrief Our Interview with Cherice Bock