WF Podcast Seventeen – Frank Granshaw on Science for Justice
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A thrill is in the air when a storm is on the way. Some creatures run and shout and seek the highest vantage point. Others look for the nearest root cellar. Reckless versus responsible, selfless versus selfish – any reaction to danger can be seen in various lights. Some good neighbors rush to warn the rest to hurry up and take cover.
Dear Editor: Thanks to Sharon Doyle for her interesting and informative article in the Nov/Dec 2020 Western Friend about the evolution of the peace testimony. She walked us through centuries with a thumbnail sketch that managed to contain the essence of our inconsistencies, both successes and failures. I have a truer and humbler appreciation for our past.
We hate to admit that we are confused, desperately longing for direction. We seem to deny that man was made in the image of God and that we are meant to be creative too, each in our own way. . . If the artist’s work is his worship, [then]. . . Greed will have to go. Greed, which is hunger for the power that money can buy . . . Speed will have to go.
Dear Editor: I came away from Hayley Hathaway’s upbeat “A Vision of 2050” in the May/June issue thinking, “Sounds great, but does she really believe in what she says here?
My article certainly was an experiment in speculative fiction. I think that trying to create a strong, inspiring vision is one of the most important first steps in making change.
Dear Friends: Quakers embrace the inward light to illuminate the dark corners of our own hearts. I have been generous and helpful and empathetic on many occasions. But an underlying selfishness has been sort of hidden there all this time. So, I want to make amends right now and admit to something I failed to do forty years ago.
My guess is that, on average, across every dozen large Quaker gatherings, at least one person will share the insight that “We are human beings, not human doings.” (I’ve heard this said in non-Quaker circles as well.)
Dear Friends: Our bodies cannot live outside of history, nor can we live outside of history’s cruelty, its “mixing memory and desire.” Rowing our boats with our backs towards the future, we despair at the carnage we watch flowing out from our wakes – oceans choked by our poisons, lives crushed by our bigotry, truth and kindness twisted by our greed. Some bits of beauty bob along, too.
A familiar scene: Bright morning sunlight streams in through the glass of paint-chipped windows of a Friends’ meetinghouse, a simple room filled with wooden benches and quiet people.
