Pages tagged "Catholic"

On a quiet residential street in the heart of Mexico City, in the former home and studio of the noted muralist Jose Clemente Orozco, your find a modest Quaker institution. To the casual observer, this is a spacious residence, frequented occasionally by young foreigners. It appears at various times to be a home, a guesthouse, or a community center. It is, in fact, a quiet non-profit with a unique flavor, Casa de Los Amigos.

It is so hard to escape teenage-land when you’re on a trip with nineteen other teenagers. Our Junior Friends Service Trip to Guatemala was full of silly dramas and crushes and a lot of very loud laughter. In my head, I was culturally sensitive, inquisitive, and open. But I’m not sure that’s how I appeared to the Guatemalans I met. We dressed respectfully, and I used my broken, beginner’s Spanish. We loved it all – and we didn’t quite know how to interact with any of it.

To celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the Progresa program in Guatemala, program participants and supporters gathered in Guatemala in April 2013 to review the program’s history and accomplishments. Looking back across forty years, we found much to celebrate.

Dear Editor: We just received the March-April issue of Western Friend, “On Beginnings.” Thanks for including my “recipe” for peanut butter cookies! One clarification: Multnomah Meeting does not “support” Amigas del Señor in any financial or legal way. Rather, we “spiritually share in a Covenant of Caring.” It is a promise to stay in touch and hold one another in the Light.

There are many fine books exploring the relation of science and faith, including excellent texts by Friends who are scientists, theologians, or both. Paths of Faith in the Landscape of Science: Three Quakers Check Their Compass, however, offers something distinctively Quaker. Canadian Friends Strunz, Miller, and Helmuth use their personal life stories – testimonies – to show continuing revelation as involving all truth, whether spiritual or scientific.

Even though Quakers possess skills in conflict resolution (as well as conflict avoidance), a perplexing conflict seems intractably lodged in our Quaker community: a split between Quakers who are drawn primarily to the spiritual side of our practice – emphasizing silence, contemplation, and stillness over all else – and Quakers are who are committed to social action – including demonstrations, lobbying, letter writing, and various forms of political protest.