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Radical Vulnerability

• Authored by:
• Elena Anderson-Williams,
• Kylin Navarro

There is an instant when the truth of your soul sears through your every fiber and the indescribable is revealed. It is the fierce light that splits you whole and reveals the poet Rilke’s words, “You must change your life.” It is an opportunity to bring one’s life into alignment, but there is sheer, holy terror that accompanies this process. When the Light cuts through your pretense and pride, you are vulnerable, the most vulnerable. The Light illuminates and clarifies our shadows and our love. To come closer to God we must be bold in our vulnerability. We must learn to dance on the edge of our unknowingness. This is when we give ourselves over to God. We are exposed.

On Knowing (March 2015)

Radical Vulnerability Revisited

• Authored by:
• Allison Kirkegaard

In moving from Claremont to Los Angeles this year, one of the hardest transitions has been to try to get used to the little signs that my new neighbors post in front of their houses: PROTECTED BY XXX SECURITY SYSTEM – ARMED RESPONSE. After ten months, I still flinch each time I see these signs. They weigh on my heart as constant reminders that we don’t quite trust each other, that we’re not quite ready to be in community.

On Secrets (July 2020)

Radical Welcome

• Authored by:
• Linnea Wang

It was curiosity to see if there were still people called Quakers that brought me to my first meeting at Frank and Jeanine Walker’s home on McLeod Avenue. It was radical welcome that kept me coming.

On Dignity (July 2023)

Radical White People Class (news item)

Quaker Culture: Radical Hospitality

• Authored by:
• Lloyd Lee Wilson

Three principles which are especially relevant to this effort [to act in accordance with perfect virtue] are inclusiveness, self-sacrifice, and noncoercion, which are each part of the nature of God. Our practice of these principles may be grouped together as radical hospitality. Radical not in the sense of oppositional or of extreme political identification, but in the sense of “at the root.” Hospitality lived “at the root” says everyone is welcome, everyone has a place at the table, everyone has enough, no one has too much. Rather than putting myself and my possessions at the center of the story, radical hospitality remembers that God is at the center of the story, guiding us to act as God acts.

On Home (September 2017)

Practicing Radical Inclusivity (abridged)

• Authored by:
• Mica Estrada

[The following text was excerpted from Mica Estrada’s complete keynote talk, which is published at: https://westernfriend.org/media/practicing-radical-inclusivity]

On Teachers (September 2020)

Radical Transformation – Long Overdue (news item)

A Call to Radical Vulnerability and Love (abridged), One

• Authored by:
• Elena Anderson-Williams

As a child of this meeting, I grew up with a myth about the faithful life. It wasn’t a myth in the sense of a falsehood, but it was a story I told myself about the noble call and the noble answer. And I desperately wanted this story for myself. And part of what I wanted was certainty.

On Children (September 2018)

A Call to Radical Vulnerability and Love (abridged), Two

• Authored by:
• Carin Anderson

When I was twenty-seven, I went through a life-changing transition catalyzed by Archbishop Oscar Romero, John Woolman, Thomas Kelly, Dorothy Day, and the people of El Salvador. I was lead to many parts of the world, working with children and families suffering from war, from poverty, from U.S. imperialism. Then over the years, I began to find that the message that was continually coming to me during worship as ministry was one that I felt would make Friends too uncomfortable, perhaps even angry. So I began to withdraw from the Quaker community.

On Children (September 2018)

A Call to Radical Vulnerability and Love (unabridged) (library item)