Pages tagged "Social activism"

When my husband and I moved to the Bay Area during the dot-com boom, we didn’t know a soul. We needed to get involved with a community and get to know people. After checking out the Buddhists and the Unitarians – even though we didn’t come from a faith tradition in DC – we decided to visit the Quaker Meetinghouse in San Francisco. It featured a prominent sign and was situated at the edge of the Civic Center, Tenderloin, and South of Market (SOMA) neighborhoods, which are also advancing edges of tech gentrification in the city.

Friends would find the works of Anna Fritz worth knowing about simply because this talented folksinger and cellist is “one of us.” She grew up in Milwaukee Monthly Meeting; she’s highly active in Multnomah Monthly Meeting in Portland; she’s a frequent attender at the New Year’s Gathering of Young Friends, and she recently made a tour of Quaker meetings throughout Oregon and Washington. But listening to her album, The Gospel of Tree Bark (2013), makes it clear that Anna deserves to be known wherever Western Friend is read, because her music is truly ministry.

Dear Editor: Thanks to Friend Kirby Urner for throwing light on the sometimes troubled relations between Meetings, their Nominating Committees, and their Peace and Social Concerns Committees (“Sticking Out Like Sore Thumbs,” July/August 2015). My Meeting has felt this tension, and I’ve talked to other Meetings that have as well.

It’s the end of July. The community of Anaheim is outraged.  In separate incidents over the past few days, two unarmed men of color have been murdered by the police.  A round of public protests and police suppression of protests have followed. I have just returned to Southern California in the middle of this turmoil.   I make plans to meet with my affinity group and head to a rally at the Anaheim police station.

Dear Editor: A couple of songs come to mind for me now: “This Little Light of Mine” and “Give Me Oil in My Lamp.” It is time to re-consider the complacent comfort zone of our lives up to this point, and rise to the call to live our Light in the world.

Leah Bolger is a former National Board President of Veterans For Peace and continues to serve on the VFP board.  She is currently touring the U.S. to promote the work of VFP’s “Drones, Robots, and Future Weapons Working Group.”  Leah has worked with Quakers on many common causes over the years, and she spoke with Western Friend by phone on January 25, 2013.

“Before going into unfamiliar arid country,” the late Jim Corbett wrote, “study maps that show the location of water.”

Dear Editor,

Waging Peace: Discipline and Practice (Pendle Hill Pamphlet 420) by Pamela Haines, reviewed by Forrest Curo of San Diego Friends Meeting