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Public Meeting for Worship

Authored by: David Brietzmann
Dear Friends: On November 11, 2018, San Francisco Friends came to unity on holding a public meeting for worship every Wednesday at 5 PM at UN Plaza. Worship takes place across from the new “mobile command” police station. Worship lasts for 30 minutes and anyone moved by the Spirit is welcome to speak a Word, the same as our Sunday meeting for worship.
On Weapons (January 2019)

A Progressive Water Policy Platform

Authored by: Dan O'Connell
The San Joaquin Valley of California is the most productive agricultural region in the world yet also has the highest levels of poverty, pollution, and hunger in the United States. This paradox did not occur by happenstance, nor should the poor be blamed for their condition. Geographies are planned and constructed; by definition, imprinted with our designs.
On Water (March 2019)

Before the Monsoon (review)

Authored by: Natalie Ramsland
In the author statement that concludes Eleanor Dart’s latest book of poems, Before the Monsoon, Dart writes, “I don’t want to leave my writing buried in filing cabinets when I depart this life. Hence, this book.” I imagine her poems being rescued from papery depths, freed from the ponderous weight of file folders and metal drawers. Perhaps these poems once lived among tax statements, instruction manuals, love letters, but in this volume, they live together without any trace of compression or randomness.
On Water (March 2019)

Renewable (review)

Authored by: Gretchen Reinhardt
Intermountain Yearly Meeting’s book of Faith and Practice advises us that Friends’ faith is a living faith; and it provides us with queries, which if held up close, serve as mirrors to our internal “what is” and move us toward action in the world.
On Water (March 2019)

Water Camp

Authored by: Quaker Oaks Farm
On January 12, 2019, Western Friend conducted an interview with several members of the Quaker Oaks Farm (QOF) community. Located in the Central Valley of California, Quaker Oaks Farm is an environmental and cultural learning center that is supported by Visalia Friends Meeting. Since 2013, QOF has hosted annual service-learning camps, which have brought together youth and adults from Wukchumni, Mexican-American, and Quaker communities in the Central Valley and beyond.
On Water (March 2019)

Two Quaker Observers to COP24

Authored by: Annette Carter , Frank Granshaw
2018 was a year of climate records. The fourth warmest year since the beginning of the industrial revolution, it featured intense drought and wildfires in western North America, a devastating hurricane season in the Southeast, unprecedented flooding in southern Asia, and continued loss of Arctic sea ice. It was also the year that the U.N. International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that humanity had twelve years to stave off global climate catastrophe.
On Puzzles (May 2019)

Making Peace a Reality

Authored by: Diane Randall
OUR principle is, and our practices have always been, to seek peace and ensue it; to follow after righteousness and the knowledge of God; seeking the good and welfare, and doing that which tends to the peace of all. . . All bloody principles and practices, as to our own particulars, we utterly deny; with all outward wars and strife, and fightings with outward weapons, for any end, or under any pretense whatsoever; this is our testimony to the whole world world.
On Control (July 2019)

Prayer

Authored by: Joann Renee Boswell
I don’t know if you are real and I don’t want to be fooled anymore, letting myself be born into beliefs that are both wrong and profoundly harmful – two-edged sword slicing my insides as it tears stranger into enemy.
On Control (July 2019)

Seek to Truly See

Authored by: Ruben Soliz
I was in my last semester of grad school, sitting in a café, repressing a broken heart, and working on my thesis. After several hours of non-stop reading and writing, I started to feel a deep sense of despair. My head spun. My breath became heavier. I paused and took a step back from myself. Right then I did an online search for “Maintaining an everyday relationship with God.” Before I saw the results, something told me, “Look up.” Right out the window, I saw two young men in black pants and short-sleeved white shirts: Mormon missionaries. I rushed outside and said to them, “Hey there, I need to talk to you!”
On Neighbors (September 2019)