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This Is the Work

• Authored by:
• Valerie Ireland

I am a twenty-year veteran teacher. I’ve always taught the littlest ones – first grade, kindergarten, and preschool for four-year-olds, otherwise known as early childhood education or ECE. I teach ECE today in a predominantly black district – Denver Pubic Schools – at Hallett Academy, where 99% of the students are black.

On Rules (November 2020)

Abolish the Police

• Authored by:
• Mackenzie Barton-Rowledge,
• Jed Walsh

Jed Walsh and Mackenzie Barton-Rowledge are close friends who do police and prison abolition work together. They sent Western Friend a conversation about what abolition means to them, and how it fits into their lives as Quakers.

On Rules (November 2020)

Illusions and Miracles

• Authored by:
• john heid

Military forces in the 18th and 19th centuries employed a deceptive tactic called “the Quaker gun trick.” This involved using wooden cannon replicas, sometimes painted black, to trick an adversary into withdrawal or surrender – without a shot being fired. We are not talking Peace Testimony here, but perhaps Friendly Trickery – deception for the greater good of de-escalation.

On Tricks (May 2021)

Pay Vaccines Forward with COVAX

• Authored by:
• Sister Alegría del Señor

Have you received your first COVID shot?  Have you been fully vaccinated? It is a nice feeling to be more protected from this disease.  

On Debt (July 2021)

Truth and Healing Commission for Native Peoples

• Authored by:
• Intermountain Yearly Meeting

Dear Friends, at their June 20, 2021 meeting for worship with a concern for business, Intermountain Yearly Meeting (IMYM) approved the minute below. It calls on individual Friends and monthly meetings to urge their Congressional representatives to support a bill that seeks to create a Truth and Healing Commission for the U.S. Indian boarding schools. Senator Elizabeth Warren is expected to introduce this bill before the August recess. 

On Cliques (September 2021)

On Cliques

• Authored by:
• Mary Klein

Semi-permeable membranes are essential to the flourishing of most organic life on Earth. From bacteria to civilizations, our lives exist within vibrant walls that delineate, protect, and provision us.

On Cliques (September 2021)

The Color of Law (review)

• Authored by:
• Sasha Bley-Vroman

The GI Bill was a White guy thing. Yes, the famous law that gave so many young veterans a good start in life after World War II. Although technically, it was for all veterans, in practice, African-Americans found it impossible to get the promised support. Before long, they stopped applying for it. And that was only the beginning. In his 2017 book, The Color of Law, Richard Rothstein shows that many housing laws were designed to discriminate against African-Americans. He shows that it was in fact the policy of the federal government to discriminate in housing. And he shows how racial discrimination in housing led to the segregated society we know today; divisions by neighborhood, by financial situation, by profession, and by level of education – all come out of housing discrimination.

On Cliques (September 2021)

Etude for Belonging (review)

• Authored by:
• Lisa Graham McMinn

Curiosity sent me to the dictionary to look up “etude” before opening this poetry collection.

On Cliques (September 2021)

Unfamiliar Arid Country

• Authored by:
• Chuck Fager,
• Jim Corbett

“Before going into unfamiliar arid country,” the late Jim Corbett wrote, “study maps that show the location of water.”

On Words (November 2021)

23rd-Century-Ready Quaker Institutions

• Authored by:
• Zae Asa Illo

Upon my arrival in Richmond, Indiana – after years of ministry in San Francisco, California – I would often walk the campus in the awareness that Earlham College had been standing at the time of the Civil War. I think often about the tension between spectacular, Ezekiel-like revelations from God and what happens when we attempt to translate such revelations into structured communities.

On Words (November 2021)