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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)

Quaker PopOffsets Wanna buy baby?” I was eleven years old and traveling with my family in Latin America. We were climbing up a dirt path in the humid heat when we passed a young woman, perhaps only five or six years older than I was. She was holding an infant in her arms.

On Balance (May 2017)

Positively Quaker My smartphone bristles with news every day. I mostly ignore it, knowing the news items trend toward the sensational and quirky, not balanced reporting. But recently, the words “Toxic Positivity” appeared as a headline, and that got me to thinking.

On Cooperation (September 2022)

Partisanship and Quaker Meetings Dear Editor: When I was a kid, I thought elections were exciting! All the speeches, the ads, the canvas voting booths going up all along the school hallways. Lately, I have come to hate election season. I find that the yelling, name-calling, anger, and general distrust of one another is distressing to me. And yes, it affects our Quaker meetings as well.

On Competition (January 2017)

Quaker Composer When the English composer Solomon Eccles became a Quaker around 1665, he sold or gave away all his musical instruments and all his printed music. Then, fearful that by doing so he had led the recipients morally astray, he bought everything back, carried it to the top of London’s Temple Hill, stomped it to pieces, and set it all on fire.

On Music (March 2018)