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Self-Respect

Dear Editor: When my “article” called Pride was edited to appear as a “letter,” I felt an essential something was missing. Someone once remarked “You must be very proud of your children.” I responded, “No. For them I feel love, respect, enjoyment, sympathy. Not Pride, which I have long understood as the deadliest sin.”

On Family (September 2014)

Self-Compassion and Quakers

Like many others, I was drawn to the Religious Society of Friends by its compassionate work with people in need. As an undergraduate in the 1960s, I witnessed that compassion first-hand by participating in several AFSC projects, including visiting mental-hospital patients in the Bay Area and working with disadvantaged children during Freedom Summer in Memphis, Tennessee. Those experiences inspired my later career as a child psychologist. Yet almost from the beginning, I have found it difficult to live up to Friends’ idealism; and over the years, I have grown to perceive among Friends a hidden, unmet need – for self-compassion.

On Mixture (November 2018)

Forging a Relationship with Self

When I was a child, I craved quiet places where I could be alone with my feelings. Sometimes I would go along the side of the house where camellia and pomegranate grew or down the stone steps to a small orchard under a tangerine tree in full fruit. Later in life, when I was old enough to be trusted, I would venture to a meadow and lie down in the tall grasses or climb high in a tree. Each of these places offered an essential opportunity to experience my inner being. [pullquote]Children have access to this “still small voice” in nature, preferably alone, where they can connect with their dreams and harness themselves for disappointment, which will surely come in life.[/pullquote]

On Place (May 2022)

Unite for Dignity and Respect

It’s 7PM the first time I answer the phone. “Hi. My name’s Amy,” I hear on the other end, “I’m calling because we need a union at my clinic.”

On Bosses (July 2018)

The Flint and Light of Respect

This is a testimony to the value and differences of Quaker and Indigenous ways of respect as I know them. Quaker testimonies were taught to me through words and light. Indigenous teachings were relayed with the spark of truth and few, if any, words. I find it difficult to use words to describe the latter, but I will try because I was asked to do so.

On Dignity (July 2023)

Towards a Quaker View of Love

[The author chose the title of this article to honor the ground-breaking 1963 pamphlet from Friends in England, Towards a Quaker View of Sex.]

On Expansion (May 2018)