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The Adventures of QuakerMan

• Authored by:
• Rob Pierson

Dear Editor: In a time when even Superman, Batman, Ironman, and Spiderman slug it out amongst themselves, I’ve been thinking about a new comic strip: The Adventures of QuakerMan. Cape, a big “Q” on the chest, able to leap over the ocean of darkness is a single bound, etc. A hero who flies in (no, actually – arrives by public transit) to solve the latest threat to peace and mutual understanding, using X-Ray Discernment and a tenacity greater than steel. An illegal immigrant whose homeland has been destroyed by military insurgents, he was hidden as a child in the American Midwest during the Sanctuary Movement and was raised by a loving family, who taught him about Truth, Justice and the Antiestablishmentarian Way.

On Insight (March 2017)

Time to Rise to the Call

• Authored by:
• Claudette Cervinka

Dear Editor: A couple of songs come to mind for me now: “This Little Light of Mine” and “Give Me Oil in My Lamp.” It is time to re-consider the complacent comfort zone of our lives up to this point, and rise to the call to live our Light in the world.

On Insight (March 2017)

Song of Myself

• Authored by:
• Graciela Martinez

 

On Balance (May 2017)

Silence as a Bully Pulpit

• Authored by:
• Lorena Bruff

Dear Editor: I wanted to thank you for undertaking a group discussion by videoconference. I listened to the entire hour. One type of “bullying” that did not come up is the personal use of the silence as a bully pulpit (I call it “Quaker open Mic”). I have participated in a number of meetings in different parts of the West. A weighty Friend in one meeting produced a sermonette each First Day. An individual in another meeting usurped extensive periods of the silence with his personal opinions and attitudes on current topics. People new to meeting groups tend to follow the example of older members or attenders. I think this is one of the more troublesome features of unstructured silence.

On Balance (May 2017)

Absurd

• Authored by:
• Carl Thatcher

Dear Editor: Regarding your attempt at calculating the carbon offset amount mandated by your and others’ air travel (WF, Nov./Dec.,’16) I am somewhat puzzled by the whole enterprise. Yes, we all participate in the machinery of ongoing environmental degradation and the apparently accelerating pace of climate catastrophe. But isn’t it misleading, even absurd to try to calculate this out in dollars-and-cents terms as if we could pay out toward our fiscal responsibility at an imaginary teller window somewhere? Really, how could mere humans have any real conception of the actual load placed on the biosphere by our various collective activities? And doesn’t reducing that responsibility to a dollar amount imply that we can simply pay for it, in whatever amount we reckon the damage to be, and then go back to our usual practices without another thought?

On Balance (May 2017)

Giving Up Something Good for Something Better - Review

• Authored by:
• Diane Pasta

Beth Blodgett and Prairie Naoma Cutting have chosen a simple life in rural Honduras, one of the three poorest countries in this hemisphere. Over several years, they became Hermana Alegría and Hermana Confianza, sisters of their newly founded monastic order, Amigas del Señor, which serves medical needs in the local community. They use their Methodist faith and Quaker practices to guide them in this new, but better, life. Giving Up Something Good for Something Better is based on emails the sisters sent home from computers costing $1.40 an hour. It consists of narratives of their daily life, their worship, and their work, which together chronicle their spiritual growth and the creation of this new religious order. The book includes a “geographic orientation,” a glossary, and worship-sharing guidelines.

On Balance (May 2017)

Illuminating Typo

• Authored by:
• Fred Koster

Dear Editor: Life can be like driving a car at night – you see only what is in the narrow beam of the headlights, but somehow finish the journey. Better and safer would be “wide-angle” headlights. But, as you typoed in your last “From the editor’s desk,” best would be those “wide-angeled” views illuminating the moral compass on the dash.

On Politics (July 2017)

Alternate Realities

• Authored by:
• Vona Van Cleef

Dear Editor: I was fascinated by Brylie Oxley’s article, “Time Crystals,” in the March/April 2017 issue of Western Friend. I’ve wondered before about reincarnation, but maybe it’s time crystals instead!

On Politics (July 2017)

Inaugural Climate

• Authored by:
• Claudette Cervinka

On Politics (July 2017)

Hillbilly Elegy (review)

• Authored by:
• Alexandra Hopkins

 

On Politics (July 2017)