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Just Talking in Prison

• Authored by:
• David Poundstone

Looking out across the dance floor at the audience seated on aluminum bleachers and standing along the prison gymnasium walls, the incongruity was glaringly obvious. Me, with my Irish complexion, taking the microphone to make a statement to scores of Native Americans during their powwow. I could not even guess how many different tribal backgrounds were present. But here they were, with one thing in common: all federal prisoners, incarcerated at FCI Englewood (Federal Correctional Institution), all dressed in prison khaki or government-issued brown t-shirts and shorts.

On Reconciliation (January 2015)

On Media

• Authored by:
• Mary Klein

Immersed in stories as humans are – print, radio, television, internet, social media, interactive gaming, virtual reality – we can easily lose sight of truth. Especially when a story fills our imagination with images we dearly want to believe in, we can feel reluctant to break the story’s spell.

On Media (September 2016)

On Expansion

• Authored by:
• Mary Klein

Dear Friends: To be poor in spirit is not the same as to be poor materially or socially. Even so, material wealth and social authority tend to obstruct our view of the long arc of history that bends towards a world of justice and kindness. Although anyone is capable of recognizing justice and kindness as fundamental purposes of humanity – even persons with wealth and authority –  all too often, wealth and authority masquerade as justice and kindness themselves, a tricky sort of bait-and-switch that distracts us from keeping our eyes on the road.

On Expansion (May 2018)

A Great Place to Work

• Authored by:
• Robert Levering

An Interview with Robert Levering

On Bosses (July 2018)

Treasures Taken Away

• Authored by:
• Julie Peyton

On Puzzles (May 2019)

David Johnson at PYM

• Authored by:
• Sandy Kewman

Dear Friends Everywhere:

On Control (July 2019)

Soul Force

• Authored by:
• Jonathan Stoll

This summer, MC Stoll and DJ Cole dropped the first track of our new album, Soul Force Ones (SF1s). It’s not music (though an SF1s spoken-word album is in development), but it’s recorded to a sort of spiritual harmony. What does that mean?

On Relevance (March 2021)

Walk Humbly, Serve Boldly (review)

• Authored by:
• David Tucker

Friend Marjory Post Abbott wants modern Quakers to embrace their prophetic voices. While such a call to action might sound like a daunting challenge – the word “prophetic” does tend to imply something grand and anachronistic to our time – instead, Abbott’s 2018 book, Walk Humbly, Serve Boldly, tells us that prophecy can be ordinary and achievable, if it is approached as a gradual journey. Similarly, this book is also best approached as a gradual journey.

On Tricks (May 2021)

On Words

• Authored by:
• Mary Klein

Language is a technology, a means of employing experience-based knowledge for practical purposes. Words are torches that beam from mind to mind, prompting individuals to turn their attentions in the same direction and to coordinate their efforts for survival. Many species rely on communication systems in this way. Homo sapiens, however, is a species that seems to have undergone a freakishly powerful cognitive mutation about 70,000 years ago. We became enabled then to speak of fictions.

On Words (November 2021)

Words: The Saving Grace

• Authored by:
• Edward W. Wood Jr.

I reached maturity in a time when words were worth a death. Born in the 1920s, raised in the 1930s, I turned eighteen in 1942. As a young man, I knew, by the words Hitler used, that the Nazis represented a force that must be halted. The words describing horrors I could scarcely imagine evoked other words in opposition, words wedded to the deep meaning of the word justice my mother had so carefully taught me, sprung from her study of the New Testament. My mother’s abiding faith in justice, linked to the words of “freedom” and “liberation,” sent shivers over my flesh.

On Words (November 2021)