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End Times and Solid Ground

It has been said that growing old is not for the faint of heart. I would say that living in the twenty-first century is not for the faint of heart either—and there are many of us who are trying to do both! These are times when the ability to rely on strong spiritual foundations has never been more critical. An old hymn speaks to the importance of standing on solid rock, not sinking sands, yet I wonder if our spiritual foundations are as solid as we would wish.

Our world has been dramatically transformed in the last handful of centuries, leaving traditional religion scrambling to meet our psychic and spiritual needs. And, while these may or may not be end times, they are certainly calling into question the future of life on Earth as we know it. With dire climate warnings, soaring inequality, corrosive racism, and frightening cultural divides, the unrelenting and escalating bad news on all fronts collides with our society’s deep-rooted narrative of inevitable progress and our need for a place to stand. 

We find ourselves disoriented—shell-shocked even—and desperate for relief. A competitive and individualistic culture focuses our efforts on personal goals, providing little space for engaging with loss and fear. It leaves us vulnerable to the lures of consumption, distraction, addiction—anything to numb us to emotions too painful to feel. And it sets us up to grasp at modern forces for a certainty that seductively claims solidity but still leaves us on shaky ground. 

One is that narrative of inevitable progress; another is the lure of separation. Whether we are speaking of independence, privacy, or even loneliness, all rotate around the sanctity of the individual that has accompanied modernity. Though there is certainly something to value about individual agency and choice, there is also much to challenge us when we consider our spirituality. 

Though there is certainly something to value about individual agency and choice, there is also much to challenge us when we consider our spirituality. 

This seems clearest when we frame the issue as one of private ownership. Wealth and progress—we have come to believe—depend on the individual being able to reap the rewards of individual effort. Extending this logic, we ask what it means to have private ownership of our own separate lives. How does that affect the way in which we engage with other people, other groups, other species, other generations to come?

Privatized lives are, at their root, protected lives—whether in the form of isolated individuals managing their own separated existence and engaging with the world’s problems as best they can or whether in the form of small self-identified groups building walls between themselves and the rest of the world and creating their own narrative of reality. To the extent that our lives are privatized, in whatever form, our feet are slipping toward sinking sands.

Another central thread of modernity has been humanity’s concerted quest for greater knowledge. That process has been steadily accelerating, with scientists having opened up whole new frontiers of knowledge that would have been unimaginable to our grandparents. There is certainly much to celebrate in this process. Knowledge, they say, is a powerful thing, but it is also a fearful thing. We have become increasingly vulnerable to the belief that it is all-knowing: that knowledge equals wisdom. Traditionally, to know the name of something was to hold power over it. Misused, that power would break the sacred order and wreak havoc. Why, I wonder, does that ancient warning ring so eerily true in our present condition?

For those of us who have shifted our allegiance from an all-knowing God to an all-knowing science, our salvation rests in immersing ourselves in trying to stay current, to understand the pressing issues of the day while continuing to process more. Though there may still be a place for the spiritual, those beliefs and practices come to conform more and more to the ways of knowledge acquisition and application in the secular world.

If, on the other hand, we’ve never made that shift in loyalty or have simply decided that there’s no way to absorb so much information, then our commitment may be to wall off that sea of knowledge, refuse to give it legitimacy, and base our lives on whatever guiding principles can bring the greatest measure of peace or happiness.

One approach supports a spirituality more grounded in science and the big picture, the other in the small joys of daily life. One tends toward pessimism, the other toward optimism, but both are engaged in a dance around the power of knowledge, and neither seems built on completely solid ground.

Another more timeless dance that we are all engaged in is the intimate dance with despair. Some of us embrace despair as a sign that we are strong enough to face reality and still continue to put one foot in front of the other. Some respond with a set of rose-colored glasses and a fierce determination to control the narrative on our own terms.

Yet despair dominates both approaches. Those who choose for the rose-colored glasses are grasping for protection against despair, desperately needing to believe that everything will be fine. Our wishful take on reality is our protective armor. The doomsayers move straight toward despair, trying to gain strength by embracing it as closely as we are able, hoping that our willingness to claim the most unpalatable take on reality and to look the most unpleasant facts in the eye in spite of how we feel will somehow stiffen our spines and prove our worth.

Do we go with a resolute pessimistic acceptance of what we can see of reality in a stubborn determination to press on regardless of the odds, or do we wall off that which seems unthinkable with a protective rosy narrative and equally resolute optimism because that’s all we’ve got?

I see signs of a third way: one that doesn’t center despair as the most powerful player in the room. I remember sharing some despair with a friend and realizing that the voice I was hearing sounded like that of a very little girl: a voice from my childhood. Of course, I was too little then. The forces that governed my life were way beyond my control. 

It was an “aha” moment. The despairing feelings that come up so quickly, with regard to climate for example, were present in my peers and me long before we had ever imagined what we’re now witnessing. They are old feelings, lingering still from when we were too small to have any impact on the world around us. I find it very clarifying and refreshing to consider that they are therefore not inevitable. They are always looking for a convenient place to attach in the present—and the climate has become an irresistible magnet—but they are ours to challenge. 

This is not to say that we don’t have a problem! As the big international forces that have brought us to this point grow in their complex interconnections and global impact, the magnitude of the threats we face is unprecedented. We may not survive. But what if we could look despair in the eye and still embrace an alternative place to stand?

As we engage with all these powerful forces of separation, secular knowledge, and despair, I see a common choice. Do we go with a resolute pessimistic acceptance of what we can see of reality in a stubborn determination to press on regardless of the odds, or do we wall off that which seems unthinkable with a protective rosy narrative and equally resolute optimism because that’s all we’ve got?

If we are willing to question our allegiance to these constants around which our lives are oriented one way or another, what do we replace them with? As I consider the common thread of protection, I wonder what would happen if we decided instead to dance with openness? 

This would mean abandoning privacy and all the walls that protect us and then opening ourselves—with our own hearts and minds and bodies—to connection with the human beings around us and with the ecosystems in which we are embedded. It would call us to dig through the layers of culturally accepted individualism in many of our Quaker meetings to get to the radically corporate foundation of our tradition. 

It would require the humility to assume that anything we learn will illuminate bigger areas of unknowing that were previously invisible to us. It would call for the cultivation of an attitude of wonder at the unknowable. It would remind us to center experiential knowledge above all else, as early Friends did.

It would center a loving heart, as we open to the possibility that love’s opposite is not hate but despair. It would call us to welcome and build our capacity for grieving, to pierce the numbness that allows us to accede to evil, and to maintain our capacity for expectation and hope. Without openness to grief, we have little choice but to protect ourselves from anything that might elicit it.

It would invite us to open ourselves to the unseen, breaking through the story line of the permanence of what is and engaging with a vision of what could be: human beings centered in their goodness and capacity, communities building their own common wealth, non-extractive social relationships, regenerated soil: rewoven webs of life. 

The world needs people who can exercise our imagination and weave new realities from the most insubstantial of threads, people who can say “this is real” even when nobody else around can see it—and act on that reality. Buoyed by that vision, we are better able to step into the unknown and better able to help each other out of the sticky immobility in which so many of us have been ensnared and into the nature to which we were born and move toward our highest dreams. 

A dance with openness calls us to cultivate our ability to listen for what rings true. Tuning our ears and starting with small moments in our daily lives where we feel such alignment, we can build that capacity to listen in other places, at other times. This involves noticing and addressing what keeps us from being able to hear that “clear and certain sound,” as John Woolman says. What clutters our minds? What messages have we absorbed, and what habits have we developed that muffle the ring of truth?   

Somehow we have to believe more fully in our ability—in our right—to listen for the Divine and to manifest what we hear. Ultimately, I believe that all those little moments of clarity, each inhabited fully, will join together to shape a life of ever-increasing integrity and purpose, and I can think of no greater and more grounded gift to our battered world. By following any of these invitations to stay open, I believe we are finding our way toward a more grounded spirituality. 

Grounding ourselves in hope is a workout. It calls for a rigorous discipline of cultivating gratitude. It calls us to remember that regardless of the magnitude of the forces we find arrayed against us, we always have power over our viewpoint about the nature of humanity and the possibilities for transformation.

There are other disciplines as well beyond a commitment to maintain an open heart that can help us along this way. One is cultivating a discipline of hope. This is different from being a fan of hope, passively enjoying the feeling when it descends upon us. It is different from focusing only on happy things and refusing to engage with anything else. Rather, this is a repeated decision to be present to the goodness at the heart of reality, regardless of all the reasons for despair that clamor for our attention on every side. 

Grounding ourselves in hope is a workout. It calls for a rigorous discipline of cultivating gratitude. It involves getting access to perspectives and information that are not readily available. It requires moving beyond basking in obvious beauty or goodness to finding them in places where they are obscured, bruised, and battered. It calls us to remember that regardless of the magnitude of the forces we find arrayed against us, we always have power over our viewpoint about the nature of humanity and the possibilities for transformation.

A second discipline that has been calling my name recently is that of deciding to show up. Generations of training in the Protestant work ethic have conditioned many of us to measure our value in the work we can do to make this sorry world a better place. But no matter how long and hard we work, no matter the depth of our determination, we are bound to fall woefully short. There is no way this work ethic can be the solid foundation for a fruitful spiritual life.

This alternative discipline seems utterly simple and surprisingly profound at the same time: to show up as fully myself as I possibly can—in every moment and every place and with every person and institution, reaching deep into my roots and stretching up and out to my full extent. It might seem safer to hide in quiet despair, knowing that who we are can’t possibly be enough, but somehow, this discipline has the ring of truth. 

As we face these challenging times, my mind goes to how much energy we expend in bracing ourselves. Some of us are braced as we head resolutely into the storm: calling out warning in the voice of the prophets and refusing to be comforted by more hopeful perspectives that seem too naïve. Others have searched out a space that provides some shelter from the storm, bracing themselves by building what protection they can and resolutely turning their energy and attention toward the possibilities of the present.

Some are braced to stay upright in the midst of the storm; others are braced to ward off its horrors. I know the feeling of bracing against the despair that comes with looking out and knowing that anything I can do is wholly and hopelessly inadequate. I know the alternative of claiming whatever power I can by refusing to look beyond what I can control. I’m ever more committed to a third way: shifting our energy from bracing to grounding. My intention is to show up clear-eyed and openhearted; deeply connected and undefended; present to both the challenges and heartaches of this world, as well as all its incredible richness and joy, rooted in spirit; and ready to do my share.

Whether or not we can successfully find our way through this tangle of crises that have been centuries in the making and into a livable future, we can still show up. Now this has the ring of truth, the feel of solid ground.

Theologian Walter Wink offers advice about discerning the nature of that share: finding our way between the hubris of assuming the burden of the world on our shoulders and the lonely conclusion that we have nothing to offer. He suggests that our role is first to listen for what is ours to do, then to do that: no less and no more. And finally, we are to wait in quiet confidence for a miracle. Whether or not we can successfully find our way through this tangle of crises that have been centuries in the making and into a livable future, we can still show up. Now this has the ring of truth, the feel of solid ground.

The post To Dance with Openness appeared first on Friends Journal.

Every morning, I am reminded that another day has been gifted me, one in which I will most likely have food to eat, water to drink, and a roof to provide shelter. 

If you spoke to anyone in my family who came before me, you’d find none of the above were foregone conclusions. They came from Russia and Ukraine in the early to mid-twentieth century, and those who made it to America survived pogroms, Stalin, starvation, and Hitler. While their spiritual optimism grew quite dim before they arrived in the New World, they wasted no time in reconnecting with their faith once they settled into 1950s America. Having survived their darkest nights, my family taught me to notice how each new dawn negated the darkness that at times can envelop us all and leave us bereft and hopeless for the future, whether on a global, national, or individual scale.

In the Slavic tradition of my forebears, a candle is lit on the birthdays of those who have passed, in remembrance of their strength and courage and the hope that we can be guided by their examples. These ritual candles call to mind the Quaker tradition of seeking the Inward Light: that which guides our lives towards hope and the greater good. The act of striking a match and burning a candle gives hope. It is the essence of spiritual optimism. 

In the Slavic tradition of my forebears, a candle is lit on the birthdays of those who have passed, in remembrance of their strength and courage and the hope that we can be guided by their examples. The act of striking a match and burning a candle gives hope. It is the essence of spiritual optimism. 

When my daughters were eight and ten, I turned my love of being with children into my full-time job, working as a preschool teacher during the day and attending graduate school at night. Extremely optimistic, as usual, in my new endeavor, I was surprised to find this was emotionally and physically taxing and would require an extraordinary amount of patience both from myself and my family. 

As it always does, life intervened soon after when my mother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer. After class one evening, I approached my professor, apprised her of the situation, and told her I’d be missing several sessions.

“You cannot miss any more classes,” the woman responded.

I looked at her and attempted to breathe. I was stunned. Had she really just said that? Perhaps, in my fatigue, I was imagining it. No, she just stared back at me, as I planned my next move. Having long ago learned that the best words in scenarios such as these are no words, I simply bid her good night and left the class.

I could not remember a time in my recent life when I was so angry. As I left class and made my way to the subway, I decided to drop out of school. There was no point. I sat down on the train and thought I had one thing going for me: I had taken action. However, as the train made its way in and out of lit stations and dark tunnels, I became less sure. By the time I got home, I had made another decision: to give this situation time. At this late hour, while hungry, tired, and not thinking straight, I was in danger of reacting rashly from a place of resentment.

In the light of morning, I had an insight. (One day was what I needed, a setting and rising of the sun.) This made me feel better, almost hopeful, as if my Quaker faith was slowly returning. “Faith is more than insight,” Quaker Rufus Jones once wrote. “It is always the beginning of action.” By the end of the day, I had done some math: how much time had I invested in graduate school, and how many credits had I completed? The answer came in the dwindling light: I was more than 50 percent in. Was a dark moment with an unempathic professor going to damage my career?

The action that Jones refers to must have impact. Time to reflect as well as going to work comforted me. After all, the professor’s words had nothing to do with children or my love of teaching. She could not take away what I already had: the absolute delight of educating young children and the respect of their families.

Longtime Quaker and Virginia poet Maria Prytula, who happened to be my late mother-in-law as well as the aforementioned relative, once said that our biggest adversaries are our greatest teachers. It would take me some time to come around to this, but the professor was simply doing her job, informing me in no uncertain terms of what the rules were. In programs where licensing is the end goal, the state requires a certain number of classroom hours. Miss those hours and you don’t get your license. The most obvious question is why the professor did not simply respond by saying, come see me because we have to discuss the hours you will miss.  

Choosing not to drop out, I spent less time visiting my mother-in-law, and I passed the class and was one step closer to graduating. Most importantly, the time I spent reflecting on the incident that almost cost my career resulted in not only an important action but a deeper sense of the meaning of faith. I was also more resilient. After all, one careless comment was nothing compared to the daily challenges I faced as a classroom teacher and longtime student. It should be noted that I went to graduate school on my terms, choosing to expand a two-year program to six in order to spend more time with my family. In the end, the professor taught me that her lack of sensitivity was no excuse for my loss of faith. She also taught me that time and decision making must be done in the Light. 

In the end, the professor taught me that her lack of sensitivity was no excuse for my loss of faith. She also taught me that time and decision making must be done in the Light. 

One never knows where a message of faith will come from. Who would have thought an unpleasant exchange on a cold, dark night would remind me to stay faithful, to always take an action of impact—no matter how small—and to always return to the Light so as to connect with a sense of spiritual optimism?

Many people talk about how awful things are in the United States: that there is no sense of hope and that we, as a country, are headed in a terrible direction. While I certainly agree that we are at a crossroads, I know from my family’s experience that things have always been challenging and that there have always been new demons to face. After all, just a decade after my family’s arrival, I was born into the tumult of the 1960s: the daily domestic bombings, the escalation of the Vietnam War, and the violence that resulted in the Civil Rights Movement. These tumultuous times led into a new decade with rising gas prices, high unemployment, massive inflation, and the political landscape of Watergate.

Yet amidst the chaos, there were always the “helpers” that the late Presbyterian minister Fred Rogers referred to: those willing to communicate, fight, and agitate for social justice. In the June 1, 1964 issue (PDF) of Friends Journal, Quaker John de J. Pemberton Jr. said, “Civil rights issues cannot be resolved by officials alone; only a total commitment of the conscience of an entire people to fulfillment now of the promises of 1776 will do it.” Helping is optimistic action at its most exemplary.

Let us dwell then not in our dark moments, but in the reflection of candles lit with relentless optimism.

Are we, as a country, headed in a terrible direction?

The results of the presidential election might answer this question. Or perhaps not. It is possible that this moment, like others throughout history, is an opportunity to turn our collective despair into “the beginning of action” that Rufus Jones spoke about. It might be that such adversity proves to be our greatest teacher.

After a period of reckoning, as well as recovery—because self-care at times such as this is crucial—it is time to begin action, once more. Action is empowering, feels good, and gives us focus. Work is always better than wringing our hands. What actions can we take toward “forming a more perfect union”? The list is endless but for the purposes of brevity, I will simply choose three.

First off, there is work to be done saving the planet, volunteering at any local organization that fights climate change is a great place to start. Second, children always need our help, especially those from vulnerable communities and in the current moment, the migrant population. Finding a way to support such children and their families is another opportunity. 

My work at the polls in the past two elections has given me a new sense of the never-ending U.S. voting dilemma. In the twenty-first century, American voters still face issues of suppression, intimidation, and access, culminating in the attempted power grab of the 2020 presidential election. There is however a vast disparity in understanding simply how to vote. The inadequacy of American voter education is clearly at fault. I hope to use my skills as a writer and researcher to better understand how I can contribute to making our system one where every citizen votes, every vote is counted, and that every vote counts.

Each of the above actions reflect our inner light, guiding us towards a future filled with spiritual optimism. As Quaker Edward Burrough said, “All that dwell in the light, their habitation is in God, and they know a hiding place in the day of storm; and those who dwell in the light, are built upon the rock, and cannot be moved.”

Let us dwell then not in our dark moments, but in the reflection of candles lit with relentless optimism.

The post A Moment of Darkness, a Decision Made in Light appeared first on Friends Journal.

Update, December 5, 2024: Killer of Quaker Clerk Convicted of Second-Degree Murder and Sentenced to Life in Prison

On November 21, Sean Rivera, 30, pled guilty to second-degree murder in the April 2023 shooting death of his mother, Carol Clark, 72, clerk of Unity Meeting in the Frankford section of Philadelphia, Pa. Rivera also pled guilty to kidnapping charges, possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, weapon possession, false imprisonment, unlawful restraint, and reckless endangerment, according to the Bucks County District Attorney’s office.

Judge Stephen A. Corr sentenced Rivera to life imprisonment without parole. Rivera will simultaneously serve 28 to 56 years on the additional charges, according to the Bucks County District Attorney’s office.

Our original reporting from April 11, 2023:

The clerk of Unity Meeting in the Frankford section of Philadelphia, Pa., was found dead Sunday night in a shed on the property of the historic meetinghouse, according to the Bucks County District Attorney’s office. Carol Clark, 72, suffered fatal gunshot wounds after being drugged with fentanyl and kidnapped, according to an affidavit of probable cause filed by detectives. 

Police charged Clark’s son, Sean Rivera, 28, with criminal homicide, kidnapping, aggravated assault, possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, unlawful restraint, reckless endangerment, and possessing an instrument of crime, the affidavit stated.

A Friend who knew Clark through work with Philadelphia Quarterly Meeting described her as dedicated and generous with her time. Clark worked full time as a lawyer but still found time to administer an afterschool program, hold Friday evening meetings for worship, and offer youth cooking classes on Saturdays, according to Hollister Knowlton, who served as clerk of Philadelphia Quarterly Meeting from 2012 to 2019. Clark also served on the board of Frankford Friends School, according to Knowlton.

“I just want people to remember how much she gave of herself to the Frankford community,” Knowlton said.

Rivera’s brother, Adam Clark-Valle, of New York State, called police after Rivera told him conflicting stories about their mother’s whereabouts, according to the affidavit. Rivera first told Clark-Valle their mother had died of an illness, then claimed she was hospitalized due to a heart attack. Clark-Valle drove to the Morrisville, Falls Township home his mother shared with Rivera then looked for her at area hospitals.

After obtaining a warrant, police searched the 505 Berwyn Road home and discovered two Glock 9 mm guns with receipts bearing Rivera’s name. They also found one padlock and an empty padlock package. Police searched a Toyota RAV4 registered to Carol Clark and found a pair of bolt cutters.

According to the affidavit, Rivera told detectives that he had purchased fentanyl, which he mixed with iced tea and gave to Clark, along with a dinner of Chinese takeout on Saturday evening. Between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. Sunday, while Clark was lethargic from the drug, Rivera put her in her wheelchair, pushed her outside to her RAV4, put her in the vehicle, and drove to the Unity Meetinghouse. He pushed her in the wheelchair to the shed, put her inside, and shot her about five times, according to the affidavit.

Rivera told investigators that he had cut the padlocks off the shed and locked it with a new padlock after the killing, the affidavit states. 

Police used a key they found while searching Rivera’s person to open the lock on the shed. They found a dead woman inside covered with a blue tarp, according to the affidavit. Her appearance matched photos of Clark provided by Clark-Valle. Detectives found a spent casing and spent bullet nearby.

Authorities do not have a motive for the alleged murder, according to Manuel Gamiz of the Bucks County District Attorney’s office.

Bucks County Public Defender Lisa Williams is representing Rivera. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for June 7. Williams did not return a phone call requesting comment on the case.

Authorities placed Rivera in the Bucks County Correctional Facility without bail, according to the district attorney’s office.

The post Quaker Clerk Murdered on Philadelphia Meetinghouse Property (UPDATED) appeared first on Friends Journal.

A few years ago I was talking with a fellow Quaker dad who was worried about his college-aged daughter. She was emotionally exercised by the challenges of the climate emergency, to the point of depression and a kind of future paralysis. My oldest was about the same age but has never fretted very much about the future. He grew up in scouting, spending considerable portions of his teenage years outdoors, and is keenly interested in nature. He has decided on an environmental sciences career and is clearly ready to be part of the solution.

This contrast in approaches to future disruption is one I think we all face: when should we hope, and when should we worry? What is the source of our faith, and how can it help us find a path between apathy and paralysis? A world in crisis is nothing new. Past civilizations have collapsed from localized climate emergencies, and as a species we’ve inflicted any number of horrific human-created injustices on one another, like chattel slavery and the Holocaust.

We can’t take easy solace by identifying as Friends. Even the relatively short timeline of Quaker history has found us alternately acquiescing to injustice and bravely standing up against it. There have been times in which we’ve averted our eyes from misery, times we embraced it and enriched ourselves, and times in which we helped lead the way to a better world.

Has there ever been an age in human history in which we could be purely optimistic or purely pessimistic? Quaker founder George Fox wrote that his ministry arose “when all my hopes in [preachers and experienced people] were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could tell what to do.” He famously found inspiration, guidance, and courage in “one, even Christ Jesus,” who could speak to his condition. What keeps us going today in a world always ready to implode or blossom?

When we planned out this issue, we knew that the authors would be writing before a major U.S. election that would likely scramble everyone’s sense of optimism and pessimism. We now have our answer to that question, and the earliest rounds of cabinet nominations indicate we should buckle in for a wild ride.

Friends do not all vote alike, despite the cliches, but then again, many facts remain the same no matter who sits in the U.S. White House. Somewhere in the world, people are being killed by American-made bombs. Cries for justice and mercy are going unheard. Fossil fuels are continuing to spew into the atmosphere (just at different, policy-driven rates). Elections matter, certainly, but our duty and challenges remain consistent: to “speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute; to speak out, judge righteously, and defend the rights of the poor and needy,” as recorded in Proverbs 31.

Here at Friends Publishing, we hope that the work of our contributors is helping you find ways to steady yourself and be part of the solution. Our goal is to amplify voices of hope and justice and to share stories that will connect and deepen spiritual lives. Across many media, we seek to knit together and grow Friends. Could you help that mission continue by considering a year-end donation? Together we can help shape the world we want our children to inherit.

The post Where Do We Find Our Hope? appeared first on Friends Journal.

Facing the Stages of Life with Our Faith Communities

On a Sunday morning 20 years ago, I sat with a Friend, Sandy, at her home during our 10 a.m. worship hour at Atlanta (Ga.) Meeting. She was in home hospice care after several years of battling cancer. Conscious of the day and time, halfway through the hour, she said, “Mary Ann, you have to tell them to let me go.” When I sat nodding and crying, she said, “Now! Go!” I drove to meeting and, with tears, asked Friends to let her go. She died a week later.

On a Saturday afternoon in 2023, I sat in our meetingroom with a small group of 18 Friends gathered to help support Lynn, Georgia, and their son, David, for Lynn’s decision to end treatments for multiple health conditions. Lynn loved to joke about everything, and the message on the T-shirt he wore read, “I’m not dead yet.” It conveyed well his struggle to hold on to life, and we knew it was hard for him to say to us, “I’m tired, and I want you to let me go.” Georgia told us that she wanted to honor his wish and needed our help. After 40 years of a loving marriage and family, they knew they faced an everyday challenge in his remaining time. This meeting for Lynn was a time to prepare this group for the work ahead, using lessons we discovered while assisting Sandy and her husband, John, in the last year of her life.

We agreed to work in nine teams of two, each team being on call for a week at a time. While we were all members of Atlanta Meeting, we did not all know each other well and so began with introductions, describing how we knew Lynn and Georgia and the skills we could offer. During the three months we worked together before Lynn’s passing, I was amazed by the generosity of each Friend but also by what we gained in the process of working together. Sharing the care, asking for help from others on the team and in the meeting, strengthened our community and each of us.

Photo by Neil Thomas on Unsplash

I realize that the process of sharing the care also offers lessons in loving and letting go. I wondered what gave Sandy and Lynn the courage and faith to ask us to let them go for their last transition and what helped us meet that request. Could it be that this involvement helped us prepare for our own passing one day? Do we share a spiritual optimism, a belief that way will open even in death? Reflecting on my own experience, I see how being born in the safety of a loving family and community taught me the need for community and our interdependence. Freedom to move away from these early ties when I was ready and find new support helped me develop the courage to let go, trusting I would find my way. My home among Friends teaches me an optimistic spiritual faith.

One Sunday before Lynn’s passing, I reflected on his request while in meeting for worship. I heard a small toddler friend looking out a window at the birds, naming what he saw as his grandmother held him with open arms. I remembered seeing this grandmother and her husband bring each of their three children to meeting, and I watched them grow to be parents with children. The way she held her grandson reminded me of the poet Kahlil Gibran’s advice that our children are not really our children but “of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you.” I realized that we love and let go of those we most want to hold onto from the time our children are born. Parenting, teaching, and many kinds of caregiving provide daily challenges in letting go, as we watch children grow through stages of development into adulthood. They become our teachers and help us keep learning to let go when they are ready, and to be there when they fall and need help at any age.

Children are learning these lessons, too, when they are born into a loving family. As toddlers learning to walk, they find the help to take the next steps when they are ready. I remember my own childhood experience needing special shoes for flat feet and weak ankles in order to walk and finally, at age ten, my celebrating the day when I no longer needed special shoes. This example is just one of the many helps that I had in moving beyond the support of family.

At 78, I am learning a spiritual optimism for life’s end and know that when I follow Sandy’s and Lynn’s examples and ask this community to let me go, I will have that support. 

It was important for me to grow up in a faith community. The church activities—and there were many—gave me a second family with strong ties. Lottie, my nursery caregiver and friend for 60 years, taught me that God is love and lived in that Spirit. Her support and my family’s help continued as I moved toward independence, leaving home for college, a career, marriage, and motherhood.

My faith community also taught me that we are interdependent, helping others when needed and receiving help for our needs. This was especially true for our family during the four years between my father’s first heart attack and his death when I was 17, in my senior year of high school. Although I did not see it then, I now realize that both my parents received the support of friends in our Baptist church community through this time, much like what my meeting did for Sandy and Lynn.

The absence of a faith community during my college years and after having a child were powerful reminders of my need for this support. I saw that even as I grew in independence, I needed a home, a place to nourish the Spirit within me, guidance of friends, and help teaching my daughter. After first attending Stony Run Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, during an American Friends Service Committee summer project, I attended Charlotte (N.C.) Meeting with my young daughter for several years. I found a home among Friends in Atlanta (Ga.) Meeting in 1979.

In one of my first visits to Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting, I heard a woman sing the hymn that begins “We are one in the Spirit; we are one in the Lord” during worship. I felt myself affirm the words with my whole body and mind, grounded in faith, and felt held in the arms of God and this safe community. The words to this hymn and others learned in my Baptist church often come to mind in worship as affirmation of a faith that keeps me grounded in work for our meeting and supports my ministry to travel among Friends and my writing.

Photo by Georgia Lord

Recently, I’ve realized that both Sandy’s and Lynn’s requests for us to let them go were also affirmations of faith, acknowledgements that they had been held by our community well enough and long enough that they trusted Spirit to go with them on their journey. Their requests expressed a faith, a spiritual optimism that death was not the end of their journey but a continuation. I was reminded of words attributed to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin that we are not just human beings having a spiritual experience but spiritual beings having a human experience. His writing affirms our belief as Friends that we are born with the Light of God within, a spiritual guide that we can turn to for all the challenges of this human experience. Death, in our faith, is a step on the journey, a continuation of our spiritual journey.

Since 1979 I have received my meeting community’s support for many of life’s challenges: my husband Dave’s death, my own stroke, the celebration of a second marriage, and many other joys and sorrows. At 78, I am learning a spiritual optimism for life’s end and know that when I follow Sandy’s and Lynn’s examples and ask this community to let me go, I will have that support.

In The Book of Hours, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke writes:

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night. . . .

Give me your hand.

The post Loving and Letting Go appeared first on Friends Journal.

Following the Examples of Saint Paul and George Fox

If I weren’t a person of faith, I would probably be a dark-spirited pessimist. However, my faith—supported by the integration of my contemplation of Scripture and my learnings from the hopeful examples of Saint Paul and George Fox—gives me hope in God’s unfolding plan of salvation.

The Context of Humanity Within Reason Alone

While a person without faith might reasonably be optimistic about the likely success of a project to be finished in the immediate future, natural hope seems insufficient to sustain an optimistic attitude about our planet’s long-term future. Consider a few of the major discouraging events over the last 175 years.

The United States has engaged in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Africans brought to the United States suffered in slavery for over 200 years and a civil war was fought to secure their freedom. The United States was assaulted on 9/11/2001, and the assault led to wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan, the latter of which lasted 20 years. Russia and Ukraine are currently at war. Some fear nuclear weapons could be used in the conflict. Israel and Hamas are at war, a war that could spread throughout the Middle East and beyond.

Some in the United States desire to militarize space. The police forces in some U.S. cities are equipped with military-grade weapons. Additionally, U.S. citizens are legally permitted to own military-grade weapons. There were over 600 mass shootings in the United States during 2023. Between the years 2000 and 2020, more than 800,000 people died by suicide in the United States, with firearms being among the leading means.

Further, our planet is facing a severe climate crisis as evidenced by intensified hurricanes, tornadoes, and rising temperatures. The summer of 2024 was the hottest summer ever recorded. Rising sea levels are a threat to coastal communities around the world. Yet the 2023 report regarding progress toward the climate goals set in the Paris Climate Agreement warned governments that the world is not on track to meet the long-term goals of the Agreement.

Religious institutions, historically a stabilizing social factor, are losing influence. In March 2024, the Public Religion Research Institute issued a report that found that 26 percent of American adults identify as religiously unaffiliated, a five percentage point increase since 2013. Given the influence of age displacement—as elderly religiously affiliated Americans die and are replaced by younger religiously unaffiliated Americans—the percent of the religiously unaffiliated will continue to rise.

It’s said that hope dies last. Most people have a natural hope that the future will turn out well. I don’t discount such hope. However, if asked to make a prediction based on reason alone about the chances of humans surviving the twenty-first century, I’d have to say that I’m extremely pessimistic.

Photo by mrpluck The Context of Humanity from a Faith-based Perspective

If we hope to move beyond the pessimism triggered by the realities of the modern world, we need a faith that gives rise to a theological hope. For me, such hope is nurtured in the coincidence of mediated experience (contemplation of Scripture and the example of ancestors who have lived hope-filled lives) and my immediate experience in the stillness of prayer.

The observable world is not the only context of our life. A person of faith lives life in the context of “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1 [NRSV]). We live with an assurance that God’s plan of salvation is unfolding toward a recapitulation of all creation (Rom. 8:15–25). We might imagine history as pointed toward a return to the Garden of Eden prior to the Fall of Adam. George Fox entertained such a thought in his time.

Hope is about the future. “For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what one already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (Rom. 8:24–25). What do we hope for? Saint Paul tells us:

With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth (Eph. 1:8b–10).

It’s a tall order to live in hope of a plan to be realized in the fullness of time. Hope is our trust in God extended into the future. Whether I’ve trusted God or not in the past will determine whether I trust God in the future. My present faith will mark the level of my hope for the future.

Scripture presents hope as a firm conviction. The Epistle to the Hebrews describes hope as “a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul” (Heb. 6:19). It goes on to exhort us to hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering because God who has promised is faithful (Heb. 10:23). Saint Paul says much the same thing when he writes that “hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts” (Rom. 5:5). Paul further says that “we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28). A more optimistic statement has never been uttered.

If we hope to move beyond the pessimism triggered by the realities of the modern world, we need a faith that gives rise to a theological hope. For me, such hope is nurtured in the coincidence of mediated experience and my immediate experience in the stillness of prayer.

The Examples of Two Hopeful Ancestors: Saint Paul and George Fox

Saying that things will work together for good for those who love God doesn’t mean life will be free from trials and tribulations. In fact, Saint Paul tells the Romans to boast of their afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope (Rom. 5:3b–4).

Paul was no Pollyanna. He tells us in multiple places of his trials. When “boasting” of his apostolic ministry, Paul writes that he is a better minister than others because he endured “far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless floggings, and often near death” (2 Cor. 11:23).

Yet Paul was able to rise above his tribulations. In Second Corinthians, he writes that he was “content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities” (2 Cor. 12:10). He learned to be self-sufficient in whatever situation he found himself, for he knew he could do all things through God who strengthens him (Phil. 4:11b–13).

George Fox, like Saint Paul, faced enormous obstacles as he lived out the truth of his ministry. In his Journal, we read that as early as 1649 he experienced rage and scorn, heat and fury. He suffered blows, punching, beatings, and imprisonment. He reports that in the town of Mansfield Woodhouse, people fell upon him with their fists. They threw him against walls; they punched and set him in stocks; they threw stones at him. He was so bruised that he could not turn in bed. In addition to all this, Fox was jailed multiple times. In 1651, he reports that his most recent imprisonment lasted just three weeks shy of one year in four different prisons.

Nonetheless, Fox was able to reach the same degree of contentment as Paul. As he later recounted in his Journal, his jailers in the Derby dungeon in 1651 faced uncertainty as they tried to resolve his case that “their good report and bad report, their well or ill speaking was nothing to me; for the one did not lift me up, nor the other cast me down, praised be the Lord.”

How were Paul and Fox able to achieve such spiritual optimism in the face of such difficulties?

The answer is that both men were grounded in mystical experience. With regard to Saint Paul, he tells the Galatians that his gospel was not of human origin. He didn’t receive it from a human source, nor was he taught it, but he received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. Although he had persecuted the church of God, God was pleased to reveal his Son to him so that he might proclaim Christ among the Gentiles (Gal. 1:11–16). Elsewhere, without wanting to boast about his personal mystical experience (or even write in the first person), he writes to the Corinthians:

I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows.  And I know that such a person—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows—was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat. On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses (2 Cor. 12:1–5).

In 1647, at age 23, George Fox struggled with how he might become a true minister of God, rather than one simply educated about God at Oxford or Cambridge. He heard a voice that caused his heart to leap for joy: “There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition.” He went on to note:

And when at any time my condition was veiled, my secret belief was stayed firm, and hope underneath held me, as an anchor in the bottom of the sea, and anchored my immortal soul . . . causing it to swim above the sea, the world where all the raging waves, foul weather, tempests, and temptations are.

As a result of Fox’s mystical awakening, the contingencies of life—described as “raging waves, foul weather, tempests, and temptations”—failed to sway him. His secret belief and the hope underneath it anchored him. His experience lifted him above the ups and downs of life and enabled him to be a spiritual optimist even in the face of life’s difficulties.

Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on UnsplashA Spiritual Practice Rooted in General and Individual Revelation

When discerning how I might develop a hope as discussed in Scripture (general revelation) and exemplified by Saint Paul and George Fox (in their own individual revelations), I have sought to integrate scriptural revelation and the example of earlier mystics into my own experience of the presence of God.

As a help to me, I, like many people, seek a level of stillness by slowly repeating phrases such as: “Be still, and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10); and “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord” (Ps. 27:14); and “Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him; do not fret” (Ps. 37:7); and the phrase “his steadfast love endures forever,” a phrase which is repeated 27 times in Ps. 136.

For future assistance, I recall that Jesus includes a mini sermon as a part of his Sermon on the Mount in which he exhorts us not to worry:

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. . . . Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?. . . But seek first the kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well (Matt. 6:25, 27, 33).

If we’re worrying, we aren’t still. We are allowing surface level storms to disturb our inner peace. We’re not waiting patiently with courage for God. Our efforts need to be toward a deep level of stillness in order to encounter the Divine within.

Quaker practice of silent worship is geared toward this stillness, toward an encounter with the God within. We seek to encounter the Lord’s Light and Spirit present in that still point at the ground of our being. George Fox was critical of meetings where the congregation did not sit to wait upon God to gather their minds together to feel God’s presence and power. His letter to Lady Claypole reads in part:

[B]e still a while from thy own thoughts, searching, seeking, desires and imaginations, and be stayed in the principle of God in thee, to stay thy mind upon God, up to God; and thou wilt find strength from him and find him to be a present help in time of trouble, in need, and to be a God at hand.

Fox, of course, was not the first person to offer instruction in discovering the image of God within. He may well have been aware of the guidance offered in The Book of Privy Counseling, written by the same anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing. In the former book, the author writes:

When you go apart to be alone for prayer, put from your mind everything you have been doing or plan to do. Reject all thoughts, be they good or be they evil. Do not pray with words unless you are really drawn to this; or if you do pray with words, pay no attention to whether they are many or few. . . . See that nothing remains in your conscious mind save a naked intent stretching out toward God. . . . [K]eep only the simple awareness that he is as he is. Let him be thus, I pray you, and force him not to be otherwise. . . . [R]est in this faith as on solid ground. . . . [L]et grace unite your thought and affection to him, while you strive to reject all minute inquiry into the particular qualities of your blind being or of his.

When I’m able to follow this counsel, whether in meeting or in private, I become detached from my worries and am able to accept in faith whatever is happening in my life. I’m able to give up my anxious care. By being still, and waiting patiently on the Lord, my worries cease.

Theological hope is our trust in God’s fidelity to God’s plan of salvation revealed in Scripture. Our task is to trust in God’s general plan being worked out in our individual lives. By seeking to live out God’s general revelation in our individual lives, with the help of imitating the examples of past mystics like Saint Paul and George Fox, we can be spiritually optimistic.

The post Toward Spiritual Optimism appeared first on Friends Journal.

Adrian Glamorgan is featured in the December 2024 episode of the Quakers Today podcast.Holding Fast to the Promise of New Creation

By temperament, I am naturally optimistic about what humanity can ultimately achieve, and yet ever watchful, I tilt toward the heavily pessimistic when I consider where we are heading. This native combination has given me the energy to work for change, usually without being overwhelmed by what looms ahead. This feels a lighter burden than if I dared to fully grasp the destruction that manifests around us now: for example, in our climate. I can’t dally too long to imagine what the next years of heat and fire and flood will be like; nor consider too many details of a “limited” nuclear war leading to a global catastrophe; nor contemplate the meaninglessness that artificial intelligence may scramble out of our human capacity to create. These threats are real and generally destructive, but they cannot occupy and decimate my inner compassion or willingness to engage. I keep these threats outside the inner calm, or they will burn away my capacity to love and to act.

Not everyone is naturally disposed this way. They may feel the pain more fully when they watch the news or see where things are heading. We need people with such a range of compassion and empathy. But sometimes grasping the fuller realities of the planet’s existential threats can lead to despondency or to a protective withdrawal from harsh realities.

We can consider other spiritually empowering alternatives, finding ways intrinsic to being a Quaker. We can hold fast to the new creation, without being mesmerized by the ocean of darkness. We can discern to avoid having either optimism or pessimism pull us away from our true calling. We can be strengthened by gratitude, especially when we consider others in our Quaker community and the way the Spirit has held us in the past. And we can come to understand the power of devotion when it settles in us and gives us the strength to persevere.

The Promise of the New Creation

A good starting point is to inhabit the vision of the world we want. The term “new creation” flourished when radical religious thinkers emerged victorious out of the decade-long English Civil War (1642–1651). Many of the first English Quakers experienced this new creation in their lives and felt it in their meetings for worship. They no longer felt their humanity to be entangled in the ways of the world. When they opened their New Testament, they could find this experience described; how humanity’s fallen nature had passed away in Christ, so that the risen could now walk “in newness of life.” Quakers embraced the profoundly optimistic promise of the new creation: human perfectibility.

The English Civil War was supposed to secure religious liberty, so that this new creation could flourish. But Oliver Cromwell’s status as Lord Protector demonstrated that new kings could be borne out of the old. His Protectorate, and the Restoration of the king that followed him after 1660, taught painful lessons to Friends. Religious persecution—state-condoned as well as mob induced—showed not everyone was convinced or inspired by the message of this new creation. Members of the Religious Society of Friends were carted off to prison, sometimes for years, and even died from harsh conditions. Quakers were excluded from many forms of employment. They were dragged out of meetings, leaving their children to fend for themselves. Yet these challenges did not completely overwhelm the movement. Friends who remained faithful kept to the ways that brought them closer to the Divine. Between excess optimism and excess pessimism was simple grit and a practical way of organizing among Friends that upheld core Quaker practices and spiritual insights when other religious radicals fell away.

Friends continued to hope for a better world, but they had learned the world’s harsh ways. Nevertheless their new creation, however expressed, remained an intrinsically optimistic belief and way to engage with others that has stayed with Friends and strengthened us ever since. In the support given to numerous causes over many years—abolition of slavery, women’s equal rights, post-war and famine relief, prison reform, peace, environmental concerns, and integrity in public life—Quakers have imagined a better future for the world, and however dark the surrounding portents, kept their eyes on the prize.

When we heed the promptings of love and truth in our hearts, we seek a useful passage between hope and despair, and we know that often enough it leads to transforming results. 

Managing Hope

Experience tells us that getting too close to an atrocity can engulf the psyche. Humans have, after all, primitive biological fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses that can render us prisoners to our own reactions, unless we step back. As it happens, Quakers step back a lot. We call it listening. We listen to each other, our own selves, and to the deeper wisdom within and beyond us. As we listen, we come to places and are pointed to directions in ways that might surprise us. Many Friends have learned to trust these invitations that nudge us into transforming action. This inner compass seems to know more than we do, and if we are able to trust it, we only need to know what we are being asked to do now; the future will come to us soon enough.

So listening and choosing a path of holy obedience carry us through the times when we do not know. Our worship is borne by expectant waiting, an intrinsically optimistic approach to the Divine. Our work is sustained by honoring Friends’ testimonies and practices, reflecting what we have learned about a more skillful, Spirit-centered way to live. We have each other to keep ourselves accountable and foster understanding. When we heed the promptings of love and truth in our hearts, we seek a useful passage between hope and despair, and we know that often enough this leads to transforming results. We don’t have to know how it all ends; we just listen to what we need to do now and have the courage to act accordingly. Giving support to each other as we go, the work gets done.

Managing Excessive Optimism or Pessimism

Still, we might wish too much, be too hopeful. Excessive optimism can be a problem. There is no sense in conjuring up a vague hope of new technological fixes that will stop climate change or for charismatic leaders who will save us from calamity. Fancifulness is no plan. Yes, something may turn up, but perhaps only where conditions have been prepared in ordinary ways. The responsibility best falls with those who dare to labor daily to build this new creation.

Excessive pessimism can be even more of a problem. In the last years of the Cold War, I happened to hear a radio interview about a dissident poet from Yugoslavia. I heard her voice distinctly, but did not catch her name. Thinking Communism would last a thousand years, this poet took her own life in 1987. Two years later the Soviet system collapsed in eastern Europe. By 1991, it had ended in Yugoslavia. When a system seems its strongest, it sometimes is most likely to crumble.

In 1942, the world was at war, and totalitarianism and brutality seemed ascendant. And yet by 1945, the world was preparing to establish the United Nations and give birth to the UN Charter; a new world suddenly became possible.

All we need to know is that we must listen for our task today and, perhaps, tomorrow. History will look after itself. New creation breakthroughs come unexpectedly, even during times when the oppressed are told that change will only come slowly or within regimes that seem unassailable. We saw this with the rapid formal end to segregation in the United States, the end of apartheid in South Africa, movements for peace in times of war, the freeing of political prisoners and the ending of juntas, and steps toward the equality of women and others who have been denied rights because of perceived differences. If there is a new creation, there is no detailed road map to it, except returning to our weekly meetings and daily spiritual reflections to see how each small part reveals itself.

Photo by Daniel Gutko on UnsplashThe Grace that Comes with Letting Go

In the 1980s, people seeking this new creation were burdened by the threat of nuclear war. We marched, not knowing how we could persuade U.S. President Ronald Reagan or Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev to stand back from the nuclear trigger. The more we learned, the more alarming the situation seemed to be. And there were times, like military exercise Able Archer 83, that brought us closer to nuclear annihilation than anyone then knew.

The weight of knowing could lead to despair and exhaustion. One day, in March 1988, I was in Australia’s center, standing beside what I was told is the world’s oldest river, which the Indigenous Arrernte call Larapinta (what White people have briefly called the Finke River), a watercourse that has apparently existed for three and a half billion years. As I looked at this dusty riverbed—it is a river that does not always obviously flow—it came to me unbidden that no matter what humans might do, life will always come back. We may write ourselves out of the picture, but the beauty, glory, creativity, and generosity of life will always be prepared to be on this planet. I found grace and relief in that surrender. Letting go has a way of making space for new hope.

Gratitude as an Antidote to Despair

Gratitude can also sweep away despair and help us see the world as it really is. Early Friends might have been astonished or inspired by aspects of our modern age. While not solving the crises of our time, we can connect with humanity’s achievements and remind ourselves of the nobility and dignity that comes with humanity’s progress. There is multilateralism that outlaws certain sorts of war and slavery, and there are agencies that provide food and aid globally to those in need. There is an increasing sensitivity to the needs of people with disabilities and those managing mental health issues. We can see the smiling faces and hear the chanted vision of young climate strikers. We hear of quiet diplomacy addressing tyrants’ excesses. Neighborhoods are being transformed. Sustainable development goals are becoming a shared language. Connective technologies help distant Friends come closer to each other.

If we are looking for mental calm between spiritual optimism and pessimism, then recounting points of gratitude, not calculating and depending on certain results, helps restore inner balance.

Photo by Fahad Bin Kamal Anik on UnsplashGratitude for My Community and My Place in It

When I am overwhelmed, it’s also helpful to remember to give thanks for our life as a community of Friends. It turns out that I don’t need to do everything. I can be grateful for the people in our larger collective who are answering many of the calls for action in so many places, attending to the many crises. The load on my shoulders can be lifted off and shared.

The gratitude, too, can be directed to Friends who have come before us, across 370 years. They provide us with wisdom that can be found in the writings and stories that inspire us.

In recognizing other Friends’ efforts, queries can arise: Am I recognizing and encouraging other Friends’ callings? What support can I offer others to further their work? And what am I myself called to do? Yes. What are you being called to do? What am I being called to do?

Accepting the Call

Friends’ processes come from more than the seen material world, and begin by setting aside our default assumptions to seek the source of divine guidance and find spiritual refreshment. If and when this call comes, we have to choose whether to accept the spiritual invitation. It is a gift we are always free to decline to receive. But coming to conviction and accepting the call can allow us to grow spiritually in ways that otherwise would be unfeasible. If we can accept the call, we switch from incapacity to empowerment. We move from deflating despair to active hope. The pathway is likely to point you toward working for a better world and a greener planet. Interestingly, we can sometimes sense an accompanying spiritual presence that reassures us.

Active hope is nothing more than heart and mind prepared and applied. But be warned: If you are not a little scared, you aren’t paying enough attention!

If we can accept the call, we switch from incapacity to empowerment. We move from deflating despair to active hope. The pathway is likely to point you toward working for a better world and a greener planet.

Rising Devotion

What follows takes effort: a lot of it. And yet key doors open with surprisingly little effort. Events defy realistic probability or the laws of causation. Between excesses of hope and despair is a discerned path that opens the way. At other times, it’s a slog. Be prepared to work hard, without your work being seen or understood.

In Buddhism, the practice of the bodhisattva is to stay engaged in this life, to bring compassion and attention to the task at hand, and to help people become relieved of suffering. Friends may travel a similar way, for we encourage each other to recall that our witness calls us to be faithful, not successful. Our commitment is to God—the Divine, the best that can be found in us—and the best we can hope for is the general dignity of following the call.

As the way is traveled, it gradually integrates itself into you; then one comes to the place where others might speak of your devotion. Devotion comes when a personal obligation to follow the call is fully accepted and guides the work. Devotion provides us with a quiet conviction to press on and not feel burdened, despite the load being weighty.

Some may rightly warn us that “devotion” has been misused elsewhere against the faithful. But considering devotion in its most emancipated form, one can see it in Friends’ everyday work. We are freed of pessimism or expectation. Devotion reminds us that the most optimistic act is to breathe in life deeply and exhale all that the world does not need. Devotion is to follow the path knowing we do not need to carry the world but only this day’s task. We have become incorporated into the daily prayer: “Thy will be done.”

Conclusion

Each Friend contributes to the making of this promised new creation. There is spiritual community to be grateful for, the gossamer thread that links us to our Quaker past and our present, listening for the deepest wisdom within and among us.

By heeding the promptings of love and truth in our hearts, we can curb any excess of optimism or pessimism. Friends’ spiritual engagement inevitably joins inward reflection with outward concern. Quakers witness because integrity, justice, the environment, community, and peace matter. We speak truth to power and mean it, but we do so with a compassion that knows that improvement is possible and that the powerful can be won over. We spiritually labor knowing that we are never alone, and the eventual outcome is never knowable.

Between despair and hope lies a simple devotion. All a Friend needs to ask today is a simple question: What does love require of me? And all a Friends meeting need ask might be: what does love require of us together?

The post The Devoted Path appeared first on Friends Journal.

The Clarity of Spiritual Joy

Optimism and pessimism need not be related to spirituality; hope, however, can ironically lead to depression if what is being hoped for is never realized. Similar to hope, skepticism born in the pessimist can be self-fulfilling: doom-and-gloom prophecy may provide a sense of joy that accompanies an “I told you so.” Both “isms” occur emotionally and are often void of evidence.

For me, spirituality is not akin to anything associated with intuition, mood, aura, or whatever is “felt” hovering in the ether. It’s the knowing, concrete awareness that we naturally look out for one another simply because we are all connected, can relate to one another, and are strongly associated with one another’s genuine welfare, well-being, and success.

As a “Foundational” Black American, I try to examine my ancestor’s determination and sheer will to live peacefully despite all obstacles: displacement, abuse, dehumanizing policies, and unfair, manmade laws and practices. How could a people want to push through such despair? My takeaway is that they knew their heirs’ conditions would be more humane and that opportunities would be theirs because of their hard work and labor. They were not optimistically hoping for the best or pessimistically expecting nothing would change the status quo. I am clear that my ancestors’ spirituality and their choice to be neither pessimistic nor optimistic made them confident. They unselfishly and systematically developed a spiritual system that provided fail-proof positive outcomes for the individual, community, and the children that would come after them. This system would be sustainable, resistant to anything pessimistic, and void of empty promises.

Spirituality is something we all innately have; keeping it full of joy is the assignment. Adopting an attitude of spiritual joy gives us a happy heart that moves us to see clearly and realistically what social and political challenges are before us and to develop an action plan that will work for society’s betterment.

And what would that have looked like? Historians and some experiences during my childhood showed me what “that ole time religion” spirituality looks like in real time. In witnessing my elders’ worship, one might have thought that the shouting, the fainting, and other outward expressions were indications of their hopefulness and prayerful wishes that one day soon their bondage would be broken and they would be free at last: that at last freedom would come. No, it’s just the contrary. As a little girl, I would ask my mother why people at church seemed out of control of their bodies, running up and down the aisle and screaming audible and sometimes not-so-audible phrases. My mother would say, “They are happy.” Happiness was evidence that change is before us all. 

As a child, such behavior did not compute with what I considered to be happiness. Happy was the feeling I would get when I received an A in school; or when I arrived home to the aroma of something delightful being cooked by my mom; or when my dad came into the house, and I felt safe, just knowing he was within arm’s reach. The running up and down in a place of public worship yelling and screaming did not match my idea of happiness. It wasn’t until I got older that I began to ponder what would make stoic adults lose control. As a child, I thought “being happy” was the cause. Later, I began to think perhaps it was some form of outlet or release for the sake of mental health. Now, I have come full circle. The little girl in me was given the correct depiction, after all. They were indeed happy! Knowing their spiritual connection, they were assured that being happy and being hopeful were indeed two distinct conditions. Why wouldn’t the witnessing and realization that joy has revealed itself make anyone jump up, shout, and run laps around the church aisles? It takes a lot of courage to demonstrate one’s spirituality outwardly. We are all different in how we convey it: some of us work in communities, knowing we are making a difference; some may practice furtively and secretly; and some shout for joy in the morning!

Okay, how about the spiritual, pragmatic optimist and practical pessimist? There may not be a full-throttle joy for either. A pleasant disposition about the future may be fulfilling and more than enough. The spirit we allow to be with us is partly determined by one’s capacity for joy and happiness; I like to call it your own personal heart-size fuel tank. Continuing with this metaphor, I find that some of us prefer to keep the gas tank more full than not, never getting below halfway; there lies full enjoyment. Some are fine with a quarter tank of the joy-filled spirit; and others pay no attention until that blinking caution light warns that they are running on fumes—do something or else. Perhaps in this scenario, the pragmatic optimist believes there’s a gas station just a block away. And the practical pessimist now worries they will inevitably become stranded and in danger. Spirituality is something we all innately have; keeping it full of joy is the assignment. Adopting an attitude of spiritual joy gives us a happy heart that moves us to see clearly and realistically what social and political challenges are before us and to develop an action plan that will work for society’s betterment.

Photo by Fitz

Spirituality laced with happiness brought not only my family together in worship but also my community. I was fortunate to grow up in a household where my parents did not emphasize one denomination or religion as superior to others. My mother often said, “If you combined and put all the religions in the world into one sentence, they would all say the same thing: just be nice to one another.” As a child, I knew exactly what she meant: don’t get hung up on religious practices and customs; go out into the world, and be nice and kind to everyone you meet. Lead by your “happy” spirit, not by being optimistically hopeful or doubtful. Being emotionally optimistic has nothing to do with it, nor does being expressly pessimistic.

Our Sunday mornings began with a hot breakfast, and all seven kids and parents coordinated how to use one bathroom without anyone being late for church. My dad, who was a Southern Baptist, and my mom, a member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, would separately go to their places of worship. Sometimes they would visit each other’s place of worship. We, as children, had options, too. My parents never demonstrated disappointment or approval if we decided to attend their church or another’s. My takeaway about praying, hoping for betterment, and being spiritually engaged was I had freedom of choice and would not be judged, and the Spirit is not to be dictated by anyone, any event, nor time.

My spirituality is not optimistic or pessimistic. It simply has degrees of a love of humanity and a love of community. I prefer to welcome my mother’s explanation: being genuinely nice to one another. 

Putting the vantage points of spiritual optimism and spiritual pessimism up against each other can connote some competition or, at best, could be seen to suggest an oxymoron. If one accepts spirituality as a worldview or something to get in touch with, then, yes, there could be degrees of spirituality and levels of optimism. Another school of thought might be that spirituality is embedded in the human soul, and without spirituality igniting, the soul may become dormant and reduced to being described as optimistically or pessimistically spiritual.

As a Quaker, clarity brings forth smoothness and reigns supreme. My spirituality is not optimistic or pessimistic. It simply has degrees of a love of humanity and a love of community. I prefer to welcome my mother’s explanation: being genuinely nice to one another. Is it always easy? Nope. My mom gave my siblings and me a lifelong spiritual homework assignment. It would take a commitment of mammoth proportions to dig deep into every opportunity to be friendly and kind, even when others did not reciprocate. My dad would always say to me whenever we parted, “Stay sweet.” As a child, I assumed all I had to do was be myself because my dad saw me as a naturally sweet child. It wasn’t until later that I realized that he, too, was giving me a lifelong spiritual homework assignment: to stay sweet and patient on the inside even when others may not recognize or value a pleasant disposition. In other words, optimistic emotions and pessimistic feelings have nothing to do with one’s soul and need not be welcome inside its hallowed gates. Feeling amicable toward one another is not the same as intentionally continuing to be friendly; after all, it is a spirit-filled happy thing!

The post My Happy Heart Is Full appeared first on Friends Journal.

Presence, Humility, and Hope

I admit I am somewhat confused by the terms “spiritual optimism” and “spiritual pessimism.” Therefore, I will begin by contrasting the words optimism and hope. I use an informal definition of optimism: a good feeling about the future based on reliable information. I do not see either optimism or pessimism as choices; rather, I see them as the product of evaluation. And I offer an equally broad definition of hope: a good feeling about the future based on what is beyond my knowing, control, or manipulation.

In practice, I refer to my consistent lack of optimism about the world, which lies within the many critiques of capitalism. And I perceive capitalism to drive attitudes of greed, dominance, and disregard. I choose to devote my life to mitigating these impacts. Conversely, hope, my essential orientation toward life, is rooted in my faith in a benevolent and caring God who desires that our “joy may be made complete” (John 15:11).

With optimism, there is a natural bias toward control and success, a bias to fulfilling your optimistic goals. In science, this is called “confirmation bias.” With hope, there is a similarly innate bias, but it is toward surrender and acceptance. Ideally, these are aspects of trust, the opposite of control.

The problem arises when we react to any pressure with optimism, as this can lead to false forms of optimism, such as willingly clinging to chosen ignorance (e.g., ignoring statistics of child poverty in the world) or repeating empty slogans like “it’s all good” and “every cloud has a silver lining.” Whether such words from time to time describe reality is irrelevant. They are nothing more than assertions and have no factual nexus. They compete with hope for attention. And all this produces the significant risk of ignoring hope itself: Everything is going to be fine, so who needs hope?

The problem arises when we react to any pressure with optimism, as this can lead to false forms of optimism, such as willingly clinging to chosen ignorance or repeating empty slogans. They compete with hope for attention. And all this produces the significant risk of ignoring hope itself.

And so, I turn to the biblical tradition of lament: a lost and forgotten art and practice? In Born from Lament, Emmanuel Katongole, who writes about lament in the context of present-day Africa, suggests that “the notion of lament held the key to a full explication of the nature and reality of hope.” Katongole traveled to Eastern Congo and Northern Uganda “to collect poems, songs and artistic pieces,” which all communicated the common experience of lament. His research included leading Bible studies on the Book of Lamentations among victims of violence in the Great Lakes Region of Eastern Africa, where leaders “were immediately able to identify with the plight and lament of Daughter Zion.” Katongole’s central argument is that “in the midst of suffering, hope takes the form of arguing and wrestling with God.” He explains:

If we understand it as lament, such arguing and wrestling with God is not merely a sentiment, not merely a cry of pain. It is a way of mourning, of protesting to, appealing to, and engaging God—and a way of acting in the midst of ruins.

In considering this perspective laid out by Katongole, one might see the danger arising from adopting a “spiritual optimism” that would shortcut the process he describes.

Trying to follow Katongole’s path to hope, I turn to the writing of Canadian theologian Douglas John Hall, who contrasts hope and cynicism in his 1989 essay “Invitation to Theology”:

The cynic can carry on nicely within the officially optimistic society, mouthing the necessary platitudes and going through the motions of business, professional and social life. An unspoken convention in the public realm anticipates and even encourages these attitudes in persons. The open articulation of cynicism is contrary to the social code. But the living of cynicism is a well-documented phenomenon in North America today.

What an embarrassing revelation! We live in a culture that forbids cynicism by word yet encourages it by example. If we see cynicism as antithetical to hope, we live in an intolerable time: bouncing back and forth between optimism and pessimism, flitting between places of willful ignorance and despairing cynicism. Cynicism is an ineffective—if not outright false—defence to despair, enabling us to sidestep away. By contrast, lament leads us deeper into despair. And hope then draws us forward and upward from our lament.

I had a colleague, Yoshi Masaki, who was born and raised in a Christian family in Japan in the years leading to and through World War II. Even as a child, the idea that a Christian nation could drop an atom bomb on his homeland took as much of his attention as the devastation itself. One day, Yoshi drew a simple two-lined picture of a fish. His drawing looked like both the universal Christian symbol and the atom bomb. He had to hold these two experiences together. He saw the United States as dominated by Christians who embodied God’s love. And he experienced the most devastating military strike of all human history coming from that same country. Yoshi’s fish is vertical with its mouth pointing down, accentuating its likeness to a bomb and representing his path down to despair on one side and then up the other side with hope and his desire to remain a Christian. For Yoshi, it was not a matter of choosing between theological pessimism or theological optimism but the absolute need to choose both despair and hope and to continue to live his life.

I know what I have done here, and I expect you do, too. I have chosen an example from a continent continually devastated by war to depict lament and hope. I used an example of a devastated island in East Asia to highlight another path of descent and rebirth. And I used an illustration written by a Canadian to describe my world, swirling around in denial and cynicism. I claim that these are fair choices, not to make sweeping, continental generalizations, but to compare and highlight the options that we all share as we approach all things.

There is no need to either puff yourself up with optimism or beat yourself down with pessimism.

In its Faith and Practice, Central and Southern African Yearly Meeting offers the following advice on how to live adventurously:

No matter how difficult the circumstances, look for the good and positive in everyday life. Face the reality of sorrow and hardship, but make a conscious choice to live with joy, encouraging those around you.

While suggesting that living with joy is a conscious choice, it is a joy that must be tested by the daily reality of sorrow and hardship. The two forces are constantly in motion, one with the other: weaving, dancing, vaulting? Use the metaphor that works for you as you try to keep the dialectical balance a fruitful one.

We also have advice from Ohio Yearly Meeting’s Book of Discipline:

Follow steadfastly after all that is pure and lovely and of good report. Be prayerful. Be watchful. Be humble. Let no failure discourage you. When temptation comes, make it an opportunity to gain new strength by standing fast, that you may enter into that life of gladness and victory to which all are called.

The positivity described by this advice is neither claimed nor simply assigned: we gain it. What is more, we gain it through temptation, defeat, and failure. We gain it by touching pain with love; living with the consequences of that choice; and then surrendering the result of such efforts, being neither optimistic nor pessimistic but rather only present, humble, and hopeful. There is no need to either puff yourself up with optimism or beat yourself down with pessimism.

And lastly, I offer the riddle of my life: How is it that I can “give thanks in all circumstances, as advised in 1 Thess. 5:18? I am enabled by surrendering outcomes and sinking to a place where the only response to our hurtful world is one of lament, knowing the promise of hope will always abide.

The post Three Aspirations appeared first on Friends Journal.

Friends Organizations Offer Programs to Revitalize Meetings

Friends meetings committed to revitalization can take advantage of several programs offered by Friends United Meeting (FUM), Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) Section of the Americas, and School of the Spirit Ministries. FUM offers a congregational coaching initiative called Flourishing Friends. In 2025, FWCC Section of the Americas will convene the first two-year long cohort of a new spiritual companionship program called Quaker Connect. School of the Spirit Ministries offers Faithful Meetings, a faith development program that Friends can sign up for on a rolling basis.

Left: Cathy Harris and Wayne Carter, of Plainfield (Ind.) Meeting, talk with Colin Saxton as part of FUM’s Flourishing Friends program in September 2023. Right: Scott Wagoner (right) leads a discussion of basic principles. Photos by Dan J. Kasztelan/FUM.

FUM’s Flourishing Friends invites each congregation to define for itself what flourishing means, according to Michael Sherman, coordinator of North American and Caribbean Ministries for FUM, who provides oversight for Flourishing Friends. Engaging Friends in conversations that invite answers is one of the responsibilities of Scott Wagoner, who serves participating meetings and churches, Sherman explained.

Some values congregations want to promote are sustainability, viability, and a clear future direction, according to Sherman. Meetings and churches involved in the program often define what they hope for.

“Hope has a lot of different answers,” Sherman said.

He noted, for example, that roughly half the congregations desire to find pastors. Sherman is also a preacher at Muncie (Ind.) Friends Church.

Around 2016, Wagoner, a certified congregational coach, and Colin Saxton, who holds a doctoral degree in spiritual programming, generated the idea of what became Flourishing Friends. They organized one-time events that later evolved into the first long-term cohort in 2020. From 2011 to 2018, Saxton was the general secretary of Friends United Meeting. The organization was actively serving Friends in the West Bank, Africa, and Belize; North American Friends asked FUM staff how FUM could better support them.

Participating congregations focus on identity, mission, and vision as well as developing “functional structures,” according to Saxton. A primary question participants are asked to consider is about how their meeting’s building and staff are used to help with the work to which God calls the community. Involvement in Flourishing Friends leads to a deeper experience of unity and engagement, which sometimes leads to numeric growth in members and attenders.

Meetings are struggling with “post-COVID malaise,” Saxton said. He cited studies that estimated that 20 percent of members and attenders at churches nationwide have not returned since the height of the pandemic. The estimate refers to the period from 2020 to 2022. Anecdotal evidence he has informally gathered confirms this estimate, Saxton said. The Friends who remain have less energy and need support to build community. One of the strengths of meetings is the shared belief of that of God in each person. The challenge is having a collective sense of identity.

The program offers nonthreatening discussions in a nine-month span that includes an in-person daylong retreat. These gatherings include Friends in close geographic proximity to one another. Mutual learning is important. The initiative seeks deeper connection among members of yearly meetings, according to Saxton. Saxton or Wagoner meet monthly with participating congregations by Zoom; they also hold a half-day Zoom meeting mid-year.

Meetings thinking about whether to participate should think deeply about who is called to take part and who can commit the needed time, Saxton explained. Determining who can participate might involve figuring out who can be released from other meeting obligations.

The program includes times of worship that includes silence and queries. The queries encompass mission questions as well as questions that promote worship sharing about “blocks, barriers, and opportunities,” Saxton explained.

“We’re not offering six easy steps to anything,” Saxton said.

FWCC Section of the Americas’s Quaker Connect program will encourage Friends to connect with the communities around their meetinghouses. Photos courtesy of FWCC Section of the Americas.

Quaker Connect will also offer Friends a chance to engage in work intended to bear spiritual fruit. The program is open to Quaker congregations within the FWCC Section of the Americas regions—North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean—that speak English and/or Spanish. Each participating meeting or church will discern an area of growth to work on, according to program director Jade Rockwell. Growth projects will be time-limited, so they will be “safe to fail,” Rockwell explained. Feedback cycles are built in.

Quaker Connect will work at the local meeting level to encourage Friends to connect with the communities around their meetinghouses, according to Evan Welkin, who supervises all programming at FWCC Section of the Americas as its general secretary. Participants will seek to respond to the needs of local community members while offering space to experiment. FWCC will offer participating congregations opportunities to evaluate and change the program.

Rockwell hopes meetings will expand their participation into long-term projects based on physical and demographic maps of surrounding neighborhoods.

“Good ministry is rooted in knowing and loving the local community,” Rockwell said.

Program staff plan to offer companionship, coaching, and support to participating meetings. They are currently recruiting coaches who exhibit leadership skills, commitment to pastoral care, and intercultural sensitivity, Welkin explained.

A lot of thought has gone into meeting congregations’ diverse needs, according to Rockwell. All of the FWCC Sections, covering four broad regions of the world, have expertise in working with ethnically diverse Friends.

To encourage language inclusivity, the Quaker Connect program offers bilingual materials in English and Spanish, Welkin noted (Rockwell speaks both English and Spanish). Rockwell’s responsibilities as program director include developing curriculum, introducing Friends at yearly meetings to the program, and supervising congregational companions.

Quaker Connect started as a way to address concerns of Quakers in monthly meetings.

“It originated from a sense that a lot of Friends have had that our monthly meetings are struggling,” Rockwell said.

The program will invite participants to reconsider some Quaker practices from the Quietist tradition, according to Rockwell. For example, requiring an indefinite period of contemplation to precede any action is one Quietist practice that contemporary Friends could re-examine. In the Quietist perspective, Friends emphasize waiting to see if an action is directed by God.

In 2023, FWCC Section of the Americas received a $1.125 million grant from the Lilly Endowment’s Thriving Congregations Initiative, which will fund Quaker Connect. Additional funding comes from the Thomas H. and Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

These two streams of funding allow ambitious planning, such as including meetings and churches in the Caribbean and Latin America, according to Welkin. FWCC Section of the Americas staff did not initially know whether they would have the funding to reach all the geographic areas in the section.

“We’re able to consider our biggest dreams,” Welkin said.

Quaker Connect cohorts are two years long; the first cohort will meet in spring of 2025. Applications will be accepted until early January. They intend to add at least ten more meetings in 2026.

Friends participating in a School of the Spirit Faithful Meetings retreat at the Red Cedar (Mich.) Meetinghouse (left) and the Chattanooga (Tenn.) Meetinghouse (right). Photos courtesy of Mary Linda McKinney.

Faithful Meetings, a School of the Spirit program, offers Friends opportunities to reflect and connect even if they cannot make regularly scheduled meetings. Participants can read along if they are not able to attend because the sessions are designed to be asynchronous, according to facilitator Mary Linda McKinney. The three components of the program include an online classroom, spiritual formation, and multiple whole community gatherings.

Over a nine-month period, participants meet once a month: an opening weekend retreat, seven four- to five-hour half-day sessions, and a concluding daylong retreat. McKinney, who is a spiritual director, builds an online classroom for each participating group. The program can be completed by whole meetings as well as smaller groups of five or six Friends within meetings. In the online classroom, study is organized around monthly themes. There is a forum at the bottom of each topic page so participants can interact with each other.

The half-day gatherings, worship sharing, and spiritual formation groups have been rich for McKinney, who is a member of Friendship Meeting in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Spiritual formation differs from other get-togethers, McKinney noted. The meetings are not a time for small talk; instead, participants focus on their spiritual lives. To avoid having the meetings taken over by chitchat, McKinney developed queries that would speak to group members’ conditions and invite reflection. Not every participant responds to the same query, McKinney observed.

One question participants consider is how to name the Divine. Considering this query helps bridge the chasm between theists and nontheists, McKinney explained. Many nontheists have had negative experiences in the churches in which they were raised. People with such experiences often come to Friends for something different, McKinney noted.

She prepares a primary topic for each session, including quotes from historic and contemporary Friends with links to resources. Following the links can be a spiritual practice, McKinney explained. Resources include Friends Journal articles, podcasts, and video recordings. At the session, participants engage in worship sharing around the designated topic.

McKinney spent a long time wrestling with God’s call to nurture others’ spiritual growth. The program is not about teaching the right way to be a Quaker, McKinney said. Rather, she wanted to create an experience that would meet needs she felt all along her own faith journey. She intends to support newcomers and longtime Friends.

School of the Spirit has been around for over 30 years; from the start, it offered a spiritual nurturer program. Before facilitating Faithful Meetings, McKinney previously served as a co-clerk of the board. She hosted listening sessions to discern what Friends were longing for in community and spiritual life.

McKinney noted that she does not have a divinity degree but has faith in her divine calling.

“What I have is a profound trust in the Holy Spirit,” McKinney said.

When new meetings consider whether they should participate in the group, McKinney provides a discernment process involving those who attend business meeting. Four communities have participated in Faithful Meetings since she created it in 2023.

“Each one has gotten something meaningful out of it. What they most treasured was the intimacy they experienced,” McKinney said.

Correction: A previous version of the photo caption for the School of the Spirit Faithful Meetings program incorrectly identified the group of Friends shown in one of the retreat photos. The retreat pictured on the left took place at Red Cedar (Mich.) Meetinghouse, not Chattanooga (Tenn.) Meetinghouse.

The post Hope’s Many Answers appeared first on Friends Journal.

When forty-four summers have touched your face
And sown long furrows beside your eyes
When restless nights suck sleep and trace
Faint memories of our children’s cries,
If I’m asked where autumn’s beauty resides
Where the seed of light and love endures
I’ll look beyond to the field and confess
It elides, eludes, yet somehow ensures
We persist in seeking that which if found
Would bear us away to that wintertime
-Over twenty years the world’s spun round-
Since first we met and Inward Light would shine
Within your eyes, your laughing eyes, the evergreen,
The night, the crèche, my winter life set free.

—after Shakespeare’s Sonnet 2

The post Before the Fireplace: December, 1993 appeared first on Friends Journal.

I was a believer. I grew up
with a firm faith in the Tooth
Fairy, Jesus, and Santa Claus.
The grown-ups in my life
said it was so, and I believed
them. The Fairy left monetary
evidence, and the Sunday
school stories about Jesus
were too good not to be true.

While the logistics surrounding
Santa Claus puzzled—how
could he visit every
house in the world in a single
night and how could his sleigh
hold all that stuff—I didn’t let them
trouble me for long. After all,
he always showed up at my
house just in the nick of time
to make Christmas morning
magical. I asked for nothing
more.

The post In the Nick of Time appeared first on Friends Journal.

A hen pecks the ground   to loosen soil
          ruffles       a shallow hole
              flicks dirt    to dust feathers
rid herself           of lice       and mites.

So too, the soul      delights in dust baths
          scours        ancient feuds and
            sifts through ashes       to free
the future       of grudges      and regrets.

The post Cleansed appeared first on Friends Journal.

Members of the Quaker Initiative to End Torture (QUIT) laid down the group on July 15, after more than 19 years. Participants’ age and fatigue as well as the public’s emotional difficulty with contemplating torture are reasons the group disbanded, according to founding member John Calvi.

“Torture is one of the most unattractive topics,” Calvi said.

The nonprofit organization’s outreach included offering conferences to educate about U.S.-sponsored torture and updating followers on social media. QUIT advised concerned citizens to join anti-torture demonstrations, urge media outlets to report on the issue, write to the president and Congress, support a UN Convention opposing enforced disappearances, and urge political candidates to publicly disclose their stances on torture, according to the group’s website. The group’s Facebook page and website will remain online, but donations are no longer being accepted.

Friends Journal talked with founder Calvi and fellow member Chuck Fager about what led them to work with QUIT and what sustained them during nearly 20 years of work against torture.

In 2005, Calvi read an op-ed in The New York Times by the sociologist Arlie Hochschild about children being imprisoned and tortured in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the U.S.-run military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“That upset me deeply,” Calvi said.

Calvi contacted other Quakers, including Joe Franko, who was then directing the Pacific Southwest Regional Office of American Friends Service Committee (AFSC); Chuck Fager, then director of Quaker House in Fayetteville, N.C.; Liz Keeney, a knowledgeable Friend; and Scilla Wahrhaftig, then program director for AFSC’s Pennsylvania Office. He found that these Friends shared his interest and commitment to forming a working group.

Older Quaker women from the World War II era were some of the first members of QUIT, Calvi noted. Young people who were surprised that the United States was endorsing torture also joined, according to Calvi. The group established a listserv and a website. Monthly and yearly meetings across the country adopted minutes of support.

In 2006, the group held its first conference with 126 participants representing 18 yearly meetings from four countries. The gathering at Guilford College in Greensboro, N.C., featured a speech by international human rights lawyer and author Jennifer Harbury. Harbury was married to Mayan Guatemalan Efraín Bámaca Velásquez, who was murdered after being tortured following his capture in 1992 in a battle in Guatemala. She sued CIA director John M. Deutch, stating that the agency contributed to her husband’s torture and death.

At the last QUIT conference in 2010, 36 people attended, Calvi observed.

QUIT convened four conferences, offered presentations at yearly, quarterly, and monthly meetings in the United States, and gave the keynote address at the Friends General Conference Gathering in 2011, according to a press release announcing the group’s end.

Billboard along New York State Route 22 in 2008, after President Bush vetoed anti-torture legislation. Paid for by Old Chatham (N.Y.) Meeting in collaboration with QUIT, the advertisement depicts a torture victim and asks, “Is this love?” followed by Bible verse Luke 6:27.

Calvi taught about U.S. involvement in torture whenever he traveled the country to educate about his healing work.He began his work as a Quaker healer who served rape survivors. Calvi considers rape the oldest form of torture. He also worked with patients with AIDS during the height of that epidemic. Calvi sustained himself in his work by getting a lot of sleep, meditating, surrendering to Spirit, spending time in solitude, and practicing proper nutrition.

While living in Washington, D.C., from 1988 to 1990, he offered massage therapy and laying on of hands to refugees who had survived torture. Many of the people he helped were from El Salvador.

“For me it was this lovely change from helping people to die to helping people to live,” said Calvi, who is a member of Putney (Vt.) Meeting.

QUIT member Chuck Fager also began working against torture as part of related employment.

From 2002 to 2012, Fager worked as the director of Quaker House in Fayetteville, N.C. Quaker House offered counseling to soldiers stationed at Fort Bragg (now called Fort Liberty) who opposed war as “organized mass murder.” Fager’s father was a World War II bomber pilot and Fager grew up on military bases. He was raised as a conservative Catholic and planned to go to the U.S. Air Force Academy in El Paso County, Colo. In addition to meeting the application requirements, candidates for the academy had to be chosen by a congressional representative. Fager’s congressperson chose him as an alternate. The congressperson’s first-choice candidate went to the academy. Fager went to Colorado State University instead and joined the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. Some time after, he quit ROTC, got involved in the Civil Rights Movement, and opposed the Vietnam War.

He grew to see war as immoral which undercut his belief in the morality of U.S. involvement in the world. He became a Quaker after encountering Friends through the process of applying to be a conscientious objector. In 1969, he joined Friends Meeting at Cambridge (Mass.). He has been a member of Spring Meeting in Snow Camp, N.C., since 2016.

As director of Quaker House, Fager made a point of being ready to respond to unexpected concerns.

In 2004, Fager heard in the news that U.S. troops had been torturing people in Abu Ghraib, a U.S.-run military prison near Baghdad, Iraq. A U.S. soldier in Baghdad leaked information about torturers and took photos of torture victims.

Fager had not previously been thinking about torture but saw a connection to Fort Bragg. Soldiers from Fort Bragg who had worked in Iraq alleged that U.S. troops tortured detainees there. Fager came to see addressing torture as part of his work at Quaker House.

Although torture is a crime under U.S. and international law, the Office of Legal Counsel advised the George W. Bush administration to describe the CIA’s torture of terror suspects as “enhanced interrogation,” Fager explained.

“It created a state of impunity,” Fager said.

Some torturers at Abu Ghraib were court-martialed, but many perpetrators and officials who gave the orders to commit human rights abuses were not prosecuted, Fager explained.

Torture victims should not be outside the protection of the law, according to Fager. If an official can torture someone with impunity, that official is above the law, Fager explained. Placing some individuals outside the protection of the law and others above the law are two indications of a totalitarian society, according to Fager.

The regional airport in Johnston County had planes operated by Aero Contractors that flew terror suspects to sites abroad where they were tortured, Fager explained. Friends Journal’s phone calls seeking comment from Aero Contractors went unanswered. Fager was part of an effort by North Carolina Stop Torture that organized volunteers to pick up trash along the highway outside the airport. In exchange for clearing the litter at least four times a year, the group was allowed to post a sign with its name, as part of the Adopt-a-Highway program.

Fager explained that QUIT did not achieve its goal of holding the officials who ordered torture legally accountable. A few low ranking soldiers who took photos of torture victims went to jail but most perpetrators did not face legal consequences, Fager noted.

“QUIT was a noble effort. It was good work, but it was a failure,” Fager said.

The post Quaker Initiative to End Torture Laid Down After Nearly 20 Years of Advocacy appeared first on Friends Journal.

“If they find us before we hide the ship,” said an older man, “it won’t matter if we hide the pilot.” He wasn’t angry . . . resigned.

The Auto Doc beeped beside her. The two men were talking in hushed tones—they didn’t know she was awake. Both had long, dark hair. She guessed Latino. The younger was in his 20s, the older in his 50s and starting to show a little gray. Father and son? They wore loose, beige button-up shirts—homespun linen—with khaki pants, stained with dirt and plant matter.

The camouflaged cornfield. . . . They were farmers in a hidden settlement.

Limping away from a Chodin squadron, she’d crashed her fighter into their farm tucked into the rolling California hills. It was coming back to her.

“Will the village support my decision”? asked the younger farmer.

“The meeting has considered these scenarios. You found her, and you have to follow your conscience. They’ll support you.”

The younger man nodded.

She saw her guns on a book-lined counter across the room, the adobe wall behind them. Just a few strides. . . .  She hurt all over and only succeeded in gasping.

The younger man looked over and said, “You’re awake.”

No use pretending now. She met his gaze. Had to admit he was handsome despite his shabby clothes and sweat-matted hair that had been oddly dented by the wide-brimmed straw hat hanging by the door. Calm intelligence. Fit from farm work, no doubt.

“Probably best not to try and move for a bit,” he said. “Auto Doc says it’s almost done with treatment. You’ve got a number of broken bones and plenty of soft tissue injuries. Good prognosis, though. Just need time to heal.”

“I need . . . my weapons,” she said.

“I won’t keep them from you. But I won’t help you get them, either. You don’t need them here.”

“Remains to be seen.”

“I’m a pacifist. This,” the young farmer gestured as if to take in everything in the valley outside, “is a Quaker settlement. We call ourselves “Friends.” I’m not going to turn you over to the Chodins.”

“You might not have a choice. I evaded them, but they weren’t far off. And they’re merciless. Just as soon kill as look at you. Be as peaceful as you want. You can’t negotiate with these heartless monsters.”

“I haven’t met enough of them to know. But you might know them better. How many have you met, Pidgeon”?

The call sign on her helmet, of course. But speaking it felt like a violation. The twinkle in his eye pissed her off. She glared and wanted to cross her arms but remembered last time she tried to move. Of course, she’d met precisely zero Chodins, except in battle.

But everyone had seen what they’d done. Alien bombs ruthlessly destroyed cities, her parents, sisters, best friends, Robert. All dead. Maybe these ignorant farmers somehow missed the Chodin invasion.

On the other hand, they had camouflaged their cornfield. They would have heard LA bombed from here. And they were working to hide her ship and repair their camo cover. They weren’t Luddites; they had an Auto Doc, clearly a high-end model and well-maintained. Plus they had the power to run it. With electric grids down around the world, they were well off.

A young woman burst into the room. “They’re here”!

“Give me my guns!” Pidgeon demanded.

“I’m sorry; I won’t assist you in killing.”

“Just arm me; leave; and send them in. You won’t be pulling the trigger, and I’ll take out as many as I can.”

“I’m not going to assist them in killing or capturing you, either.”

“You’d be better off!” 

The fire of anger died down.

“Well,” she said, “if I did go out in a blaze of glory, like the general says, they would blame you. And if we’d found your settlement on our own, the general would order us to steal your harvest as a tax. Hell with the general. I’ll go peacefully. Maybe they won’t bother to wipe you out.”

The three farmers stared back at her. The young woman sighed and looked at the floor.

An alien kick burst the door down. Four soldiers swarmed in. Matte black armor hid their orange skin that only showed when they raised their visors after the first soldier gave a hand gesture. Stubby energy rifles blended into their armor, humming at a frequency she didn’t so much hear as feel.

She’d never been face to face with one of them before, though she’d seen plenty of up-close photos from surveillance, battle footage, or autopsies: like hairless tigers. The young farmer’s head came up to their chests, and he was the tallest of her three misguided rescuers. Predatory split irises pinned them all down, as if they didn’t need guns.

Then a fifth Chodin strode slowly through the damaged doorway. Where most Chodins had brown or yellow eyes, this one’s were green. Their shoulder was adorned with three gold pips: an officer. A ragged purple scar sprawled across their left cheek.

Prisoners were given an hour of exercise, and after a week she’d recovered enough for that. She’d sat against the shaded wall of the dirt-floored courtyard, staring at a scrawny olive tree in the center.

“Prison suits you,” she’d said when he sat down beside her. His baggy purple jumpsuit looked better than his dusty farm clothes.

“You look healthier than last time I saw you, too.” He brushed his long hair from his eyes, smiling warmly.

“Their torture tech only causes pain, no damage. At least not until they crank it up to kill. But they’re feeding us, and your Auto Doc did its job.”

“They’re torturing you”?

“They’re not torturing you? Maybe they haven’t gotten around to you yet.”

“I’ve been interrogated regularly.”

“I’m sure your day will come, unless we escape. I’ve been building up strength with exercise; we need to be ready.”

“Do you think your general will stage a rescue”?

“Honestly? No. She might attack the base for strategic reasons. The longer we stay here, the closer we get to death. Chodins are ruthless.”

“I talk to my interrogators about democracy. About how our world had some dictators but also free countries. And even those had problems, but many of us worked to make things better. They try not to show it, but I think they’re interested.”

“They’re just building your trust. It’s an interrogation technique. You ended up with a skilled interrogator. Your day will come, Farmer.”

They rotated who went out together. Later, she realized she hadn’t seen the farmer in the two weeks since. Was he still alive?

At night she sat on her pallet, pulled to the narrow slit of a window for the cool breeze. During the day, she could see the olive trees the aliens cultivated. Military scientists speculated that olives held some compound rare on their home world. Soldiers said it was Chodin pot.

An explosion shook the walls.

This was it!

Power went out. The cell door clicked open.

She couldn’t hear the whine of ship engines, but she didn’t care how they pulled it off. Focus on escape; ask questions later.

The market occupied a former warehouse store. The farther Pigeon looked, the more the tables of handcrafts, refurbished portable tech, and produce blurred under the jerry-rigged, solar-array-powered lighting.

The general’s orders were to recon—not the enemy but fellow humans: foodstuffs, tech, and anything a desperate army might need.

The attack on the base that set her free was still a mystery. If there was a new resistance group they didn’t know about, she wondered if she could join them.

A towering cloaked Chodin surveyed a stall with handmade wreaths of olive branches. Maybe the general was right. Maybe these plebes deserved to be robbed because they were too stupid to support their protectors!

Pigeon noted a table full of corn.

No, it couldn’t be! The farmer: he was alive!

He stood as tall and serious as she’d first seen him. He slipped away from the corn stall, absently dropping a loosely folded apron on a cart behind him.

The alien paid for the wreath. It glanced back: the green eyes, the sprawling purple scar. It was the officer. It followed the farmer.

So, the farmer lived but might not for much longer. Pigeon nonchalantly joined the chase, her hand occasionally dropping to the sidearm hidden beneath her cloak.

They turned a corner, and she rushed to peek around it. The corridor was empty.

She glided down the corridor to a storeroom and saw the wreath discarded on the floor. Farmer was almost to the other end, Chodin officer stalking behind.

The farmer would be dead soon. If she prevented that, her mission was compromised. She drew her sidearm and moved to line up a shot that wouldn’t hit the farmer if she missed.

Farmer turned around. “No! Don’t shoot!,” he yelled.

She had to, the fool!

The Chodin froze. If it went for a weapon, she was ready to drop the creature.

Why did she listen to him? Her mission was blown, and the threat still lived.

“It’s okay, Pigeon,” the farmer said.

But she didn’t lower the weapon. The alien raised its arms and turned slowly. Farmer came closer, and they converged near the Chodin.

“Don’t shoot him. He’s my contact.”

“What, you’re a spy?”

“I’m part of a resistance movement.”

“The ones who sabotaged the base?”

“No. We’re nonviolent. Alne is my contact with a resistance movement inside the Chodin military. They don’t support their government or the invasion.”

“You’re still on that? How do you know he’s not duping you in order to expose your network?”

“There’s always a risk,” he acknowledged, nodding to the Chodin. “Alne helped me escape in the confusion of the attack on the base that his movement carried out.”

“If they’re violent, then why are you helping them?”

“I’ve been recording videos that document the humanitarian toll of their invasion. Their state controlled media paints a different picture. I show the truth.”

“Sounds like they’ve tricked you into doing reconnaissance for them.”

“I’m careful. The videos could fall into the wrong hands. And I share a message of peace: how nonviolent resistance movements have been more than twice as effective on Earth for the past hundred and fifty years. I show them the keys to making such a movement successful that we have learned through human history. That’s how I’m helping them.”

Alne spoke in an angry-sounding growl with hard consonants. “Chodin are not of one mind, but most believe they are powerless to resist the government. We commit sabotage or revolt out of frustration rather than hope. We know we’re not powerful enough to overthrow the government, but we could recruit so many more civilians to commit disruptive nonviolent resistance. For the first time, we see another way, a path to hope.”

Pigeon lowered her weapon.

“Thank you,” said Alne. “Please hand your weapon to my lieutenant,” he gestured to her right. From a shadowy corner another Chodin emerged. She raised her sidearm at him again.

She felt the energy weapon’s vibration as the second alien drew closer.

“See, I told you that you couldn’t trust them!”

“Actually,” the farmer said, “I was talking as much to the lieutenant as to you when I shouted not to shoot. If you had, he would have killed you in response.”

“We’ll return your weapon,” said Alne. “Our government tells us humans are cruel and cannot be trusted. You just said that you couldn’t trust us. Forgive me for taking precautions.”

She would die, but she could take out an officer. Fair trade, the general would say: blaze of glory.

She surrendered her weapon butt first to Alne. Farmer smiled.

Pigeon scoffed.

She expected the meeting to be curt and business-like. She’d been on clandestine operations. This was heartfelt with words of encouragement. The farmer and Alne actually hugged when their discussion was done.

As they left, Alne returned her side arm. She handed the officer the wreath she’d retrieved while they talked.

“What is it with the olive trees?” asked Pigeon. “What do you do with them?”

“What do you mean, do with them?” asked the Chodin.

“Do they contain some chemical compound you don’t have on your world? Some think you smoke it, like a drug.”

“We . . . just grow them. They’re beautiful. Reminds us of home.”

The post Olive Branch appeared first on Friends Journal.

When Lisa settles in for meeting for worship, she likes to think about the Buddha: not just any Buddha. She thinks of the huge Buddha in the woods behind her house. When she found him first, wandering the woods as a child, she thought he was her secret. Now that she’s grown, she knows he’s well-known around town, but he still feels like her special mystery. Walk up the hill, the leaves of the trees all red and yellow at this time of year, and you stumble upon him, sitting lotus posture, his knees propped up, so he won’t fall on his face. He’s an ordinary Buddha in most ways: stocky but not round-bellied, with tightly curled hair and a round face, his lips a small O, ordinary except for his location. He’s huge. Who brought him up the hill? Who left him there, solitary in the middle of the woods, and why? If she brings his face clearly to mind, perhaps her thoughts will settle into some kind of peace. If not, perhaps he’ll at least supply distraction. And she needs peace, or at least distraction.

She fidgets on her bench. The meetinghouse is one of the oldest buildings in town and has old-style long benches, dark brown wood covered with flat cushions. She has visited Quakers in other towns, in newer buildings and modern chairs, but this meetinghouse, the one with benches for worship and an old graveyard outside, is hers. It’s a reminder of earlier generations of Quakers who never thought of the Buddha, when they settled into worship.

Think of the Buddha or think of those old-time Quakers. Think of anything but her own life here and now.

That morning, before meeting for worship, Friends had a Quaker dialogue on “simplicity.” There’s a repetitiveness, for Lisa, in Quaker reflections on simplicity. Marge, who is old enough to be Lisa’s mother, will speak about her challenges with simplicity. So many things to do! So hard to focus! And soon others join in. Their lives aren’t simple and they aren’t simple, it seems to Lisa, because they’re all busy doing good deeds. One works on immigration. Another works with a battered women’s shelter. Their challenges with simplicity aren’t Lisa’s. Lisa isn’t challenged because she’s so dedicated. Lisa is challenged because she is such a screw-up.

Lisa opens her eyes and looks at the sign to her left: “Be the change that you want to see in the world.” The change that Lisa wants to see in the world is an end to debt: specifically, an end to her debt.

It’s not all Lisa’s fault. She had cancer. There were co-pays to the hospital and co-pays for the chemotherapy. There was less income, as her husband still worked but she went on short-term disability. She couldn’t help these things.

It’s not all Lisa’s fault. But Lisa thinks some of that debt is absolutely on her. There were new dresses and new shoes and new necklaces because Lisa just had to feel beautiful again. There were dinners ordered in from restaurants that they really couldn’t afford because Lisa had to enjoy food again. There was a cruise to celebrate “no evidence of disease” because if there’s one thing Lisa had learned from cancer it’s that tomorrow wasn’t guaranteed.

Now it’s three years after that cancer diagnosis, and the debts haven’t gotten smaller, and even if tomorrow isn’t guaranteed, Lisa needs to learn to spend as if she might, after all, see many tomorrows. She imagines what those old-time Quakers would say about her feckless, modern ways. Did any of them run up debt the way she did?

Lisa tries to picture the Buddha in the woods, but the Buddha vanishes in a mountain of bills: the electricity bill put off so she could pay the car registration and the credit card racking up late fees and higher interest rates.

She sees George stand to speak. George is an older Friend who is often moved to speak about his dog. Lisa settles back to listen to a story about a creature far more faithful than she is.

This time, George doesn’t talk about his dog. He says, “It took me years to request membership, because I thought I wasn’t good enough to be a Friend. I am here to tell you that you are good enough.”

No, I’m not, Lisa thinks. I’m not. But George’s message sinks in despite her protests. As she settles back into silence, a thought comes to her. Talk to Ministry and Counsel. Ask for a clearness committee.

She’s back to tensing her shoulders and calculating which bills can be paid and which put off, as she sees the clerk turn to shake hands. Hands are shaken all around. Announcements follow. Justin has come through his surgery well and is grateful for being held in the Light. Jenny talks about the movie night coming up: a film about the climate emergency. Julio says the book group is now reading Braiding Sweetgrass. The recording clerk needs reports before next week’s meeting for business.

After Friends rise, Lisa catches Vera by the refreshments, loading a plate with cheese, crackers, and grapes. Vera is a member of Ministry and Counsel Committee.

“Can we talk?” Lisa asks.

Vera takes her to the library for privacy. There, by a shelf with Rufus Jones and Thomas Kelly, Lisa spills out her tale.

“I’m a mess,” she says.

“Lots of people come out of cancer with debt,” says Vera.

Lisa can’t accept the reassurance. She remembers too vividly a day on that cruise. She sees herself inside a small jewelry shop in Puerto Vallarta looking at the display of real silver necklaces. Shouldn’t she have thought of her medical debt then, before she added buying jewelry to the cost of her cruise? She shakes her head.

“I’m not asking for money,” she says, “I got myself into this mess, and I’ll get myself out. But could I have a clearness committee?”

Vera gives Lisa a hug.

“Lisa,” she says, “It doesn’t matter how much of your debt is because you were sick and how much is because you messed up. Of course you can have a clearness committee.”

She sits with Lisa for a few minutes as Lisa cries, and hands her a tissue to dry her tears.

“Now,” Vera says, “Who would you like to serve on your committee”?

Once Lisa has suggested her names, Vera heads back out to the hospitality room, but Lisa stays behind in a chair near the bookshelves. She closes her eyes and imagines again the Buddha in the woods. She sees herself walking up the hill and sitting cross-legged near him. Thoughts of her debts still buzz in her mind, but for just a few minutes they float in the distance. For now, it is enough.

The post Monkey Mind appeared first on Friends Journal.

It seems like just last week, yet so long ago that the entire universe was a uniform, velvety nothing—deep, without form, and void—that I dreamed in my heart of light.

What is light? Energy, brilliance, love. I loved the velvety depths with all my being, and how could the universe remain empty and void with such love to fill it? The radiance grew and spread and became light, and now the depth of the universe was no longer void, and it was good.

Now there was light and shadow, brightness and darkness: each beautiful, each enhancing the other, and I dreamed in my hands of creation. I gathered the soft darkness by the handful and sifted the light in glittering cascades. I ran my fingers through the depths and pulled the numinous darkness into eddies and swirls, and through it all was the glow of my love. Worlds I made, and around them skies, gasses and clouds and winds and love.

Oh, I enjoyed the currents, the ebb and flow, tides of light and dark, and I dreamed in my arms of embracing the oceans. I pulled the water into armfuls, and I built up mountains between them, with cliffs and beaches where water and land could meet, and it was good.

While the waters were always dancing, the dry land was stately and slow, and I dreamed in my soles of walking. I took my love and made of it seeds: all of that energy squeezed into such tiny space that when it burst, it could not help but unfurl into something green and growing and magical. And when I walked across the land scattering those seeds all around me, they took root and covered the earth, and it was good.

The more I created, the more love I had, infinite beyond infinite, far too much love to be spent on the dry land alone. My love filled the entire universe, and now I gathered up great masses of love and made more seeds of light to fill the whole of that beautiful, velvety space: enormous balls of energy, erupting with light, strewn through the heavens. I set them spinning and coalescing and dancing in their own cosmic currents, and bringing light to the skies and the waters and the dry land, day and night—and it was good.

It was all good: the darkness and the light, the stillness and the tides, the ocean and the land, the burning stars, the sturdy rocks, the growing plants . . . and I dreamed in my heart of life. Already the plants were setting their own seeds, growing more love, more energy, and sending it off in the wind or sprinkling it across the soil to spread that love. Now I made new kinds of life in the oceans and the skies: creatures with scales to slide through the water and creatures with feathers to lift them on air. I made tentacles to touch the world; eyes to behold all the beauty I had created; and senses to feel the pull of tides, the scents swirling on the currents, the gravity and the magnetism, and the time of the days and nights. I created creatures with ears to hear and voices to call out to each other so that they could love each other as I loved them. All intertwined, I created them: webs and currents and circles of energy and love, each creature needing others in life and in death, sharing the energy and the love. And it was good, and the more love I used in my creation, the more love I had, infinite upon infinite.

Anne E.G. Nydam, Behold, It Is Good, 9″ x 9″, rubber block print, 2021.

Days were flying by, darkness and light, and currents whirled and spun, stars and planets, winds and tides. Seeds took root, and creatures lived their intertwined lives, and all of it was my love made manifest, and all of it was good. Oh, it was good! But what is creation that cannot be shared? The more delight I felt in my creation, the more I longed to share that delight, and I dreamed in my heart of people. I dreamed of people who could recognize the universe as energy, light, and love. I dreamed of people who could explore the universe and marvel at it, and know body, mind, and soul, how good it is. I dreamed of people in whom love would be an impulse to dream of their own small creations and share their own delight in it: people of love and creativity, just as I am. They would be created of the same substances as the other creatures: the velvety darkness and the glowing light, the flowing water and the steadfast rock, the seeds that carry life and love, and the senses to see and hear and feel. But they would also be made in my image: alight with wonder on seeing what is good; delighting in creativity to build their own dreams; and seeded with love so that it would be carried wherever they went, growing and spreading and taking root and binding everything in light. And you are very good. You are all good.

Now, do you feel that love of which you are made? Do you see that light with which you are filled? Do you pulse with that energy that creates and loves and spreads my light? Do you remember what it means that I made you in my image? Do you know what it means that you are Good?

And how will you live in my universe, and how will you love my creation, and how will you be with all that I have created when you remember that everything is made of my love, infinite upon infinite? And it is all Good.

The post Good appeared first on Friends Journal.

Since his appointment as Penn Spring’s Building and Grounds Committee clerk, Terry and the Quaker meetinghouse were adrift in a sea of troubles. In addition to a mysterious damp patch on the wall inside the worship room, there was the book crisis. Without warning, the library committee had stripped the shelves bare. Terry stepped into the building early the following Sunday to discover 20 tables wall-to-wall in the multi-purpose room, each covered with piles of books. Signs with “Do Not Touch,” “Keep,” “Sell,” “Give,” and “Not Sure” sat on various piles. 

Members and attenders stood in shock at the sea of books. “Terry, what is all this?” Margo, the meeting clerk, asked as her eyes darted around the room. “When will this be cleared up”?

As often happened with Terry when he experienced social anxiety mixed with shame, he stood silent, blinking. Margo softened her tone and put a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “It’s okay, dear. You will figure it out.” The touch, more than the words, steadied him. Terry’s mother died ten years ago when he was 17 years old, and Margo, like many in the meeting, had since endeavored to be a loving presence in his life. 

That same Sunday, Terry sat silently, as is the custom of Quakers, puzzled by a dirty patch on the wall opposite him. After the worship, he and Margo investigated and felt the spot was cool and damp. “Terry, you need to call Stoltzfus.”

When Terry let the old handyman into the meetinghouse the following day, Stoltzfus could smell no mildew or mold. The oblong wet patch, about the size of a pizza, stood out as a gray stain on the white plaster walls. “It makes no good sense. You sure the old Quakers aren’t being naughty over here when you got your eyes closed”? Stoltzfus made an obscene hand gesture, “Or maybe you’re scared of the outhouse and took a leak in here.”

The image of urinating on the smooth white plaster walls inside the 200-plus-year-old Quaker meetinghouse tapped into a lingering pool of shame that long before had settled as a permanent feature inside the quiet, 27-year-old man. Terry closed his eyes and scrunched up his face to erase the image. 

As Stoltzfus gently rubbed the palm of his right hand on the cool, wet surface, he saw the pained expression on Terry’s pale face. “You’re too young of a buck to be spending all your free time cooped up in some old building, holding this place together for a bunch of half-dead Quakers.” Terry wiped the sweat on his brow and rubbed the back of his neck. He volunteered for the Building and Grounds Committee to give back to the meeting after all the ways the members helped him through the years and because he hoped it was a job he could do successfully without bothering other people for help. The shame always bubbled under the surface, and the mounting troubles in the meetinghouse stirred up feelings of inadequacy that Terry had felt since his troubles in elementary school. 

Photos courtesy of the author

Terry struggled to process what people were saying, and as a result, he failed first grade. His mother and the small rural public school did not know how to respond to the dyslexia diagnosis that a psychologist from Harrisburg suggested during one of her quarterly visits to the region. After reading about the disorder online, Terry’s mother had her doubts. However, with a diagnosis, she felt relieved that her son would receive extra help. Second grade was even worse, though, and with Terry looking lost and confused in the classroom, the other students bullied him whenever adults were out of sight. 

“You need to enroll him in the Quaker school,” the mother of one of the bullies told Terry’s mom. “They’re good with special needs kids.”

To pay the tuition for Penn’s Spring School, Terry’s mom picked up extra shifts at the Dollar General where she worked. After a year at Penn’s Spring, Terry was relaxed and curious, happy as a duck in a pond.

“You do not have a learning deficiency,” Miss Elizabeth, his third- and fourth-grade teacher, told Terry after the first month of school. “You have a different way of learning. Together, we are going to figure it out.”

On the first day of fourth grade, Miss Elizabeth sailed into the classroom, umbrella and raincoat dripping on the floor. After a summer researching various learning differences and techniques, she overflowed with ideas. Miss Elizabeth pulled Terry aside, “I believe you have an excellent brain, but you have a blockage. We store much more information than we can easily remember,” she said. “You study hard and still struggle to remember what you know. You get nervous and can’t find the place in your brain where you keep the information. It is in a mental file cabinet; you need a key to pull the information out. Another way to think of it is like a stream blocked by logs, branches, and leaves. Get a long stick with a big hook, and you can break up the blockage; the stream will flow freely.”

Terry knew this blockage well, even if he didn’t have a name for it. It was like the garden hose with the tap on, but the nozzle was closed. Someone would ask a question and he froze, but inside, Terry scrambled to understand what was said and to form words in response. “Some people use images, sounds, or wordplay,” Miss Elizabeth explained. “We are going to figure out what works for you.” 

After trial and error, they identified two tools that helped Terry get unstuck. First, wordplay unlocked the mental door to the information and to an image. Terry then used the image to hook the words he wanted. 

They tested it with Bible memorization. “Rejoice in the LORD” became “Joyce again is large.” Joyce was the school receptionist. Tall with broad shoulders and large hands, she resembled a wrestler to Terry. When he thought, “Joyce again is large,” he saw Joyce standing tall, hands on her hips like a warrior guarding the school entrance. 

Terry concentrated, mouthing, “Joyce again is large.” He closed his eyes and sat still for three minutes. Miss Elizabeth was about to interrupt, but the words spilled out before she did. “It was just like the fountain that burst out of the rock when Moses hit it with his staff,” she later told the headmaster, who didn’t understand the Bible reference but got the point.

“Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous! For praise from the upright is beautiful. . . .” Word for word, Terry recited the Bible passage he had labored to memorize for the past weeks: “. . . By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap; He lays up the deep in storehouses.”

Nearly 20 years later, Terry could recite quotes he had memorized in school, including a William Butler Yeats poem. The words “Pondering Me” unlocked an image of a boy with a fishbowl pond enclosing his head, stirring up feelings of calm. Then, as if by magic, the words materialized. 

We can make our minds
so like still water
that beings gather about us
that they may see,
it may be, their own images,
and live for a moment with a clearer,
perhaps even with a fiercer life
because of our quiet,
our silence.

The learning technique helped Terry with his schoolwork, memory, and communication skills, giving him confidence and much-needed peace of mind. Over the years, he had hoped breakthroughs like this would make him less dependent on others to help him in school, work, and life. 

Stoltzfus smacked the plaster wall with a slap that echoed around the room, pulling Terry up from his sinking feelings. “The Devil’s playing tricks on you, or you people pissed off some Quaker ghost.” 

Hezekiah Stoltzfus grew up an Old Order Amish-Mennonite. Rumor had it that when he was in his late teens, the elders excommunicated him, and his people shunned him ever since. 

For nearly 40 years, Stoltzfus embraced the life of an unrepentant sinner with his heavy drinking, obscene language, and hyperactive sex life. One day, his long-suffering neighbor Nora scooped Stoltzfus up when he had passed out on her front lawn as an early spring rain began to fall. He was 62 years old, thin, with a constant hacking cough and a liver that was about to give out. Nora nursed Stoltzfus back to health and put him to work fixing up her house; it needed about as much of a resurrection as the former Amish. He moved in, and they have been a couple ever since. After drying out, the handyman’s most potent drink became iced tea. The only remnant of his wild past was his coarse humor. 

Terry first met the old handyman on a Saturday workday a few years back. Stoltfuz smelled like dried grass and sour milk; his work clothes had gaping holes revealing shaggy underarm hairs. Stoltfuz grabbed Terry’s hand, shook it vigorously, and would not let go. He looked Terry up and down, appraising the younger man like the boy was a plank of cherry wood that would make a fine table top. He said, “What’s a buck like you doing in this corral of Quakers? It’s rutting season for young bucks. You gotta get yourself some tail.”

Unlike the older Quakers who tut-tutted, rolled their eyes, or glared at Stoltzfus for his inappropriate remarks, once Terry got over the initial shock, he sensed something behind the crude jesting. Whenever he thought of the old handyman, Terry saw a turtle’s shell covered in porcupine needles: defense mechanisms protecting something soft and wounded.

Three months after Terry began overseeing the meeting’s building and grounds, the multi-purpose room looked unchanged except for more signs on the piles of books. “We’re working on it,” Shirley, the Library Committee clerk, assured Terry. “We’re old like this building and don’t function like we used to.” 

Terry and Stoltzfus saw each other weekly, and the mystery of the damp patch on the wall only grew along with the size of the stain. “It makes no good sense,” Stoltzfus said. “Your building has got no plumbing. You got no well. You’re nowhere near a stream or creek. And it is the hottest, driest, damn summer I’ve seen.”

Terry jimmied a window open and slid in a foot-long piece of wood to keep the window from slamming shut. He worried about Stoltzfus and the heat. “I’m well hydrated,” the old man said, taking a slug of iced tea. 

At one time, the Penn’s Spring School and the Penn’s Spring Meetinghouse stood near each other, with the meetinghouse on the banks of the usually quiet stream and the school on a ridge closer to the road. After the1936 flood filled the meetinghouse with a foot of water, the members decided to relocate the building three miles away to the property left by a devout Quaker spinster. With a team of horses on a makeshift flatbed, they spent two days transporting the meetinghouse in one piece to the clearing on a hill. When the trees were bare in winter, Terry looked down and saw Penn’s Spring in the valley. 

“Do buildings have memories?,” Terry thought as he swept the floor around and under the tables in the multi-purpose room while Stoltzfus fussed and cussed in the meetingroom. “Does the wood beneath the plaster hold onto memories of floods?” Terry envisioned the planks with water flowing through the grain, swelling the dry wood with moisture. 

Nearly 100 years after the relocation, the number of active participants in Penns Spring Friends Meeting had dwindled, and the savings were drying up, too. During the hour-long worship, Terry, the youngest person by at least 40 years, heard more snoring than the members’ messages. The meetinghouse felt like an outdated museum with few visitors.

In a rare spirited business meeting a year prior, the members had agreed to make the meetinghouse available to lease out for “family-friendly events” and groups “aligned with Quaker values.” It took eight months before a potential customer requested to use the meetinghouse. A nearby farm collective sought a space to hold weekly ecstatic dance parties on Saturday nights. Initially, the majority of the meeting members, who feared the meetinghouse would turn into a dance club “with drinking, drugs, and sex on the benches!” resisted. However, attitudes shifted once the applicants appealed directly to the members. Armed with baskets of vegetables, fruits, and flowers from their organic farm, eight farm collective members—all in their twenties, strong, healthy, and dressed in their Sunday best—charmed the Quakers. Their vision of peace, harmony, community, and healthy eating brought many old Friends back to memories of their hippy roots. 

Nayla, one of three Black members of the farm collective, had attended a Friends School in Philadelphia and loved the weekly quiet worship. Her personal meditation practice led her to ecstatic dance gatherings in West Philly. As she spoke, Nayla’s athletic, graceful body flowed like water. She explained how ecstatic dance felt to her, much like Quaker worship. “I float in an ocean of love; the music rises, swells, and carries me along.”

Their DJ, Ethan, a ginger-haired White man, tall and lean with a beard that made him look like he was in his early thirties when in reality he had just turned 25, took out a phone with a cracked screen and placed a small speaker about the size of a soda can on one of the benches. Strings hovering above a gentle beat filled the meetinghouse. The beat gradually grew in intensity and speed. “You can start seated,” Ethan said. “If you like, close your eyes.” The group settled into their seats. “Focus on that place inside of you where you find wisdom, that oasis of peace and sanity.” Then, like waves carrying driftwood out to sea, one by one, Quakers in their seventies and eighties rose to their feet and swayed along with the music. As the beat increased and the strings gave way to woodwinds, the dam broke, and people, who only ever occupied what they felt was their corner of the meetinghouse, moved freely and spilled over into the multi-purpose room. 

They wound around the book tables and back into the meetingroom. In her silky light clothing, Margo lifted her arms and bent her wrists, palms facing the ceiling. Her face was upturned as if she were under a waterfall. 

The impromptu dance party ended in a group hug, with Terry sandwiched between Nayla and Ethan. He felt paralyzed by the physical intimacy and the mixture of smells—body odor, crushed lavender, and coconut.

“You should definitely join us!” Ethan said to Terry as they untangled themselves. Ethan put a hand on Terry’s upper arm, squeezing it. Nayla leaned in, “Absolutely. You’re very welcome.” Terry, confused, thought they were inviting him to join the collective. “To our dance sessions,” Ethan said after seeing the perplexed look on Terry’s face. Terry blinked, swallowed, took a deep breath, and said, “Yeah, thanks.” 

Terry had no choice but to show up each Saturday for the Ecstatic Dance Party. Since the all-purpose room, flooded with books, could not be used for the dancing, Terry needed to oversee the moving of the benches and make sure that the worship space was returned to order once the dance ended. 

Terry’s increasing responsibilities at the meetinghouse were turning into a full-time job. This was in addition to his regular employment as a home health aide, where he worked 12-hour shifts, mostly with nonverbal clients.

Terry excelled at the job. Freed from most verbal communication, Terry anticipated his clients’ needs by interpreting multiple visual clues. Cara, an aide who was often on shift after Terry, watched him engage with their client and marveled at his agility and confidence. “You’re like an otter!” she said. “I wish I had half your speed and flow.” But as soon as Terry had to speak, Cara saw the flow stop as he concentrated on finding words.

The hardest part of the job for Terry was the paperwork; with each passing year, the many forms and reports he had to complete only increased. Fortunately, the office manager, Nancy, had helped him since he first turned up in front of her desk nine years before, almost in tears, with a dozen half-completed forms in his hands. She wasn’t one to bail out the staff when they didn’t get their paperwork done, but Nancy knew Terry had lost his mom the year before. He was 18 and seemed young and vulnerable, so she offered to double-check his paperwork and broke down office tasks into smaller chunks.

“Terry, I want you to be the first to know. I will retire later this summer,” Nancy said as he handed in his weekly reports and forms. Terry stood expressionless; Nancy waited. By now, she was used to his pauses before responding. When he continued to stare at her with a blank, distant look, she thought perhaps he didn’t understand her. “You know Bill retired last year, and we want to use that RV we bought and see a little of the country.”

Still nothing from Terry. Then she saw his eyes fill with tears. He sat down in front of her with his head on her desk and sobbed. Terry was perplexed by his response. It felt too deep, too raw, but he couldn’t stop. He often struggled to know exactly what he felt; he imagined a deep well inside of him, so deep he couldn’t see the bottom.

The Ecstatic Dance Party’s third weekend saw its highest participation yet, with over 30 attendees ranging from teens to 20-somethings, plus a few of the elderly Quakers. While some left early, most danced for three hours straight. The sunset brought no relief from the heat, but with almost zero humidity in the air and box fans in the doorways, the heat caressed them. Terry watched the dancers as he picked up people’s cups and refilled the water pitcher from gallon jars he kept in a cooler. Ethan, the DJ, fully caught up in the music, was in a trance. Terry liked watching Ethan move his body to the music while standing in place and how, now and then, Ethan would suddenly jump straight up in the air as if he had experienced an electric shock from the ground. After each jump, Ethan broke into a big smile and shook his sweaty, reddish hair. Terry saw Nayla standing near him, watching Ethan, too. She sensed Terry looking at her, turned, and grinned, “Hey, wanna dance with me?”

The following day, Terry was surprised to see Ethan across the worship room, near the damp patch that had grown as big as a tabletop. At the dance parties, Ethan wore cut-off jeans with well-worn T-shirts that said things like, “You are the life of my party.” Most of the time, Ethan DJed barefoot. That morning, Ethan wore tan suede shoes with leather laces. His pants were bright yellow, like French’s Classic Yellow Mustard. Despite the heat, Ethan wore a soft, long-sleeved T-shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. The shirt was green. Terry knew it had a name: sage? teal? moss? Yes, it was the color of moss. Ethan looked fresh and cool. 

The nine other people in the room settled into silence. Terry sat with his head down, feeling drowsy from the heat. Twenty minutes into the hour-long worship meeting, Terry was startled when Ethan spoke. “Good morning, everyone. Can I read something?” Margo said, “Yes, of course, dear.” Ethan read a passage from an old book he had picked up from the next room. His voice was strong, warm, and controlled. As Ethan read, Terry felt something churn inside, a deep stirring. The words cleared Terry’s head and filled him with longing and hope. Ethan finished, and silence filled the meetinghouse again, except for the ticking of the old wind-up clock. 

But what did Ethan say? Terry remembered nothing, just the feelings he had. He couldn’t recall the passage, not even the author’s name. 

Immediately after the meeting, he resolved to ask Ethan about the passage, but Margo, Shirley, and Frances mobbed the visitor, thrilled to see a new young face in the meeting. Giles, one of the members of Building and Grounds, questioned Terry about an invoice Stoltzfus had submitted. Terry looked up, and Ethan was gone. “I’ll ask him at next Saturday’s dance party,” Terry thought. But Ethan didn’t show up. Nayla said he was visiting his family in Ohio and would be gone for a few weeks. “Wish me luck, Terry. I’m excited and terrified to DJ!” 

Over the next month, Terry scoured hundreds of the books piled in the all-purpose room. He flipped through delicate, dry pages, soaking up Quaker classics, obscure journals, and dusty theology books. This is stupid, Terry thought. Ethan probably took the book with him and may never return. 

One Saturday afternoon, when the temperature topped one hundred degrees, and the brown grass was so dry it crumbled and turned to dust when anyone walked on it, Stozfus showed up at the meetinghouse and found Terry sitting and reading next to the ever-widening damp patch on the plaster wall. The patch filled the entire bottom half of the wall, and condensation formed, wetting the top of the molding. 

“I’m afraid I’m gonna have to tear her open,” Stoltzfus said. “It’ll make one helluva mess.” Terry nodded, imagining the wall split open, a monster’s mouth vomiting dust and broken plaster. “We need to get to it soon after one of your Sunday meetings.” Terry needed special approval from the meeting for this job. “Just keep an eye on her,” the handyman said, “and if she gets soggy, let me know. And for God’s sake, tell me as soon as you see mold.” However, with the heat and dry weather, Stoltzfus couldn’t imagine that happening. Terry nodded and returned to his reading. 

The demolition of the meetinghouse wall would begin in two weeks, and it took that time for the library committee to finally finish sorting, distributing, and restocking the books. The Saturday night before the work commenced, the Ecstatic Dance Party finally got to use the multi-purpose room. For once, Terry didn’t have to spend his evening moving the meetingroom benches up against the walls and back again. Instead, he stayed home, lying under a fan with the lights off. Nancy’s retirement party had been the day before, and the well inside him felt deeper. “It’s stupid,” Terry said out loud. But he knew it wasn’t. Something was hurting him, and it was more than just Nancy retiring. He felt hollow, so hollow he almost imagined he was caving in. “It’s just stupid,” he whispered and rolled over to try to sleep. 

He woke up refreshed, and the air felt different. It was still warm, but something had shifted compared to the relentless heat wave of the past two months. He walked into the meetinghouse and saw an uncluttered multi-purpose room, spacious and clean. Someone had brought fresh cherries in a big white porcelain bowl. A clear glass urn was filled with iced water and lemon slices. Margo swept past Terry, holding a bouquet of hydrangeas. “They’re from my garden. I can’t believe I kept them alive in this heat,” she said as she entered the meetingroom and placed the vase of flowers on the mantel. 

Terry looked out the window and saw Stolzfus’s rusty pickup truck. Terry assumed the handyman would stay in the truck until the meeting ended, but Stoltzfus got out and walked into the multi-purpose room. “Buck, we’re gonna get to the bottom of this one,” he said with his toolbox in one hand and a bottle of iced tea in the other. Terry asked, “Are you coming to meeting”? “Nah, I’ll just sit out here and wait until you people finish your business in there.” 

About 15 regular members and attenders gathered in the meetingroom. Terry sat in his usual place, across from the gray, moist patch that filled most of the wall. He settled in, bowed his head, and closed his eyes. 

Moments later, someone sat beside him, so close that their legs almost touched. Terry opened his eyes and saw a man’s sandaled feet. The toes were long and tanned with little tufts of reddish-gold hair on the big toes. The man wore mustard-colored pants. “Ethan!” Terry thought and stifled a gasp. Ethan leaned in towards Terry, “Hey,” he whispered, and Terry looked up to see Ethan’s smile with reddish stubble on his chin. “Hey,” Terry whispered back. 

The meeting settled into a deep silence. It may have been the break in the heat, but the air seemed extra fresh to Terry, and his mind was crystal clear. Ethan shifted slightly and pulled up his long, green sleeves. Terry smelled Ethan’s smell, crushed lavender and an earthiness. They sat in silence. After 20 minutes, Terry smelled something else: a sweetness in the room. The air felt thick and cool, like in a forest. Everyone sat extra still, waiting. Terry had heard stories about “gathered meetings” when something suddenly shifts among the worshipers, and there is a spiritual unity and holy presence. Ethan leaned into Terry and whispered, “This is amazing.” Terry turned towards Ethan’s ear and could only sigh. He felt like he was expanding from the inside, filling with a sweet nectar. 

Terry looked within himself to consider the deep feelings welling-up, feelings that had eluded him. He breathed deeply, relaxing into the quiet of the room, and as he did, a feeling erupted within him. 

“Is this anger?,” he wondered, and like the fizzing explosion in his clients’ sink drains whenever Terry cleaned them with baking soda and vinegar, feelings of rage and fury surged from within him. He felt searing anger about always needing someone to help him, always working twice as hard to understand, and always feeling ashamed. This rage had long simmered under the fear and the shame, and now it was boiling over. 

The Quakers taught him to acknowledge and be curious about feelings, so he sat silently as the emotions spewed.

“I’ve worked so hard to be independent, to look after myself, but I still always need someone to rescue me.” Feelings of self-loathing overwhelmed him, welled-up in him, and diluted the anger. He took a deep breath and let the feelings flow without questioning or countering them. He broke into a sweat and felt shaky. He continued to sit silently, waiting for the feelings to subside. He focused on breathing and being in the room with his friends. He imagined the many Quakers who came before him who sat quietly in this room as they rode out a storm within. Gradually, the intense feelings dissipated, and he felt a cool blankness inside him, a comforting quiet where he felt suspended inside himself.

Words formed in his mind, “Independence does not require isolation. Self-reliance doesn’t mean going it alone. I need others, and others need me.” 

He held his breath and waited. 

In a flash, a phrase came to him. 

“Canned Altoona.” He saw a Pennsylvania-shaped piece of tuna in a giant sardine can. He sat with this image, and more words emerged. 

“Pen in a tin.” Pen in a tin?

Penington! The old Quaker writer Isaac Penington. Like the locks of a canal slowly opening, letting in a fresh flow of water, words poured up into his mind. The quote Ethan read aloud over two months ago forcefully came to him: 

As the life of God grows and revives in the heart, and the life of the creature is brought down and subdued, oh! How sweetly doth the life flow in! How doth the peace, the joy, the righteousness, the pure power of the endless life spring up in the vessel!

Terry closed his eyes tight as the tears gathered. He took Ethan’s hand, turned toward him, and smiled, his face moist with crying. 

No one else in the meeting noticed Terry’s tears or how Ethan tilted his head and put it on Terry’s shoulder. No one heard the rain as it gently fell outside. They didn’t see the mist spreading in the room. They didn’t notice the water as it surged out of the wall and spread across the floor. Or how the water rose high enough to lift Shirley’s purse off the ground. They didn’t see the well-worn copy of Philadelphias Yearly Meeting’s Faith and Practice float past Margo. They were oblivious as the water covered their feet and ankles. They were caught up in a liquid silence that lifted them, carried away piles of fears and doubts, and soothed their sorrows. They didn’t even hear the sound of Stoltzfus, the old handyman, sobbing in the next room. 

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A narrative imagining the inward life of Quaker artist Edward Hicks, of Peaceable Kingdom fame. A glimpse into how a dystopian surveillance state might inspire newly distinctive Quaker accessories. Friends as deathless cosmic nomads setting down roots for habitation and worship. A story of Quakers compiling a cookbook that may just inspire readers to take to their own kitchens. A dramatization of William Penn presiding over a fishy witchcraft trial. All this and more you will find within this, Friends Journal’s fourth annual Fiction issue. And don’t forget to go online, where you’ll find four more brand-new Quaker short stories on Friendsjournal.org. We hope you find these pieces as fun to read as we did.

What inspires Quaker creative writers? Our staff writer Sharlee DiMenichi spoke to several authors and poets about their work and spiritual lives and shares their answers in “Deep Enough for a Lifetime of Exploration,” which is a title-worthy quote from one of the Friends interviewed.

Where I live, November is autumn: harvest season, with deciduous trees having shed their colorful leaves, temperatures dropping, and woolen sweaters coming out of storage and onto our backs. It’s the perfect time to curl up with a magazine or book. To aid fellow cozy readers, this issue includes our annual expanded book review section. Which of the 15 titles reviewed will make its way to your to-be-read pile this month? Check back next month for our Young Friends Bookshelf, just in time for holiday gifting.

I returned from the World Plenary Meeting in South Africa this past August more convinced than ever of the fundamental commonality among Friends worldwide. What meeting attenders experienced there was nothing less than the communion of a Quakerism spanning global geographies and diverse palettes of culture, practice, and belief. I emerged from this communion charged with a new sense of duty and possibility for the mission of Friends Publishing Corporation.

This month, we’re launching a new recurring “Bible Study” department in the magazine. Friends Publishing’s own Ron Hogan weaves a reflection on culture and the Quaker prophetic tradition anchored to the story of Moses and the Elders from the Book of Numbers. Not all Friends Journal readers come to us with a familiarity or strong relationship with Scripture, yet the holy texts are a lingua franca for many, many Quakers worldwide. This much was abundantly clear to me in the context of a global Quaker gathering, where we explored our fundamental unity and interconnectedness and learned more about our approaches and relationships with Spirit and tradition. Our hope is that many of these Friends as well as fellow Christians on a quest for the right spiritual fellowship may find the Friends Journal Bible Study department a compelling point of entry into the body of work we share and into the community our content fosters.

As ever, our mission is to communicate Quaker experience in order to connect and deepen spiritual lives. It is a blessing to be so connected with you.

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