Dear Editor: I am writing to thank David Albert for his article, “Gandhi’s Smile,” in the July/August 2022 issue of Western Friend. I have been studying the life and work of Barbara Deming, and Albert’s article resonated with those studies.
So, if you are anything at all like me, you might have to admit that, underneath it all, you are angry – and angry most, if not all, of the time. I know I am. This is not the world I bargained for. This is not the economic system I bargained for, the political system I bargained for, the system of education I bargained for.
Dear Editor:
I serve on the planning committee for an upcoming celebration of Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birthday, which will be held October 11-13, 2019, at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Institute for Non-Violence at Stanford University. All Friends are encouraged to attend. For more information, look online at: kinginstitute.stanford.edu/institute/GKGI
Something truly historic has been happening in California regarding solitary confinement. Prisoners and their family members are leading the movement against it, dramatically reducing the number of people held in isolation.
Excerpts from a presentation to Intermountain Yearly Meeting; June 12, 2014; Ghost Ranch, Abiquiú, New Mexico
The first query in your call was, “What do we have to offer as Quakers to the challenges of our times?” I feel that part of my job is to help us know the reality of our history. Friends are not only the myth and the uplift.
As a religion major at Drake University in the 1980s, my field studies took me to worship with nearly every denomination in Des Moines. One experience that kept drawing me back was the local Quaker Meeting, where I appreciated the overt commitment to justice and the inner sense of peace.
