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With a Concern for Being Thirteen

My son Duncan’s best friends have been his friends his entire life. Really. We met his friends’ parents in a ten-week birthing class, where we watched our bellies grow, and shared our hopes and fears. I went into labor first, then Val, then Deborah. By coincidence, the boys all ended up in the same school. “Soul brothers,” they call themselves.

On Pride (July 2014)

The Veil, The Shadow, and the Abundant Life

Excerpts from the keynote presentation to Intermountain Yearly Meeting; June 11, 2015; Ghost Ranch, Abiquiú, New Mexico

On Play (September 2015)

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.

On Media (September 2016)

A Shift in Our Priorities

Dear Friends: In March, when the 2020 Pacific Northwest Quaker Women's Theology Conference was postponed, the planning committee was originally going to ask the plenary speakers, of whom I was one, to write something about how the topic of their plenary related to the COVID-19 pandemic. I'd been nearly constantly thinking about that –Earthcare in a time of COVID-19 – anyway.

On Wealth (May 2020)

Let Our Lives Speak

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)

Privelege, Interrupting

Some Western Friend readers may have already met RantWoman, an official Quaker holy terror known for telling too much of the Truth about all kinds of things, at rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com. Recently a call went out for Friends to write articles about the 14th White Privilege Conference, held near Seattle in April 2013. RantWoman was stirred to venture into print and even agreed to let the editor of Western Friend have a crack at making her slightly more presentable than she appears in her electronic journal.

On Superiority (July 2013)

Surmounting Limits in Quakerism

When I asked Mary Klein if she would publish an article about the 2016 meeting of Friends World Committee on Consultation, she suggested that I write one for the issue on “Limits.” My initial response was: “Is she kidding?” I was grateful for her offer, but something in me bristles at the word “limits.”

On Limits (May 2016)