During life’s overwrought moments, we could use a simple, practical tool like the Welcoming Prayer.

During life’s overwrought moments, we could use a simple, practical tool like the Welcoming Prayer.
SHIPHRAH AND PUAH BROKE THE LAW. When Pharaoh ordered the midwives to kill the male Hebrew newborns, they conspired instead to lie to him. "Hebrew women are not like Egyptians. They give birth too quickly, before we arrive." This implies that Pharaoh wanted the deaths...
INCREASINGLY I AM SEEING ARTICLES AND DISCUSSIONS about the urgent need to rebuild the structures of community that have been shredded in our American life. Recently The Atlantic published an insightful essay by David Brooks called, Why are Americans so Mean? This was...
Sunbrick field, in Cumbria, where Margaret Fell and a host of 17th century Friends are buried.UNLIKE SOME FAMILIES, mine never had the tradition of visiting cemeteries to put flowers on graves. My father was not one to discuss the afterlife — or any faith issues. My...
Like a birth announcement, there are stories to tell of how “Forgiveness: Freed to Love,” Chris Hall’s new Pendle Hill Pamphlet, came to be.
THIS WEEK I WATCHED AN EPISODE of “The Nature of Things” called the “Intelligence of Trees.” It was a fascinating account of how academic studies are finding that trees—through their root systems—are communicating with one another. They are sending out messages of...
MANY QUAKER MEETINGS write annual "state of" reports. How we do it differs a lot. My own yearly meeting asks each local meeting to write a "state of the meeting" report, and then these reports are read by a yearly meeting committee and conglomerated into a "state of...
"These things I have spoken to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full" —John 15:11 EARLY IN THIS SEASON OF ADVENT, my daughter brought home a new addition to our Christmas decorations. It was a cheerful wooden plank that proclaimed: JOY to the...
The track leading to Colthouse Meeting VISITING AMONG FRIENDS RECENTLY felt like oxygen to me, after COVID lock-downs and the forced cancelation of earlier travel plans. With Sophie’s hospitality of lunch and driving guidance (see below), and the welcomes we received...
Life-giving intentions serve as a kind of bridge between our lived reality and our values or ideals. Like a bridge, we’re on one side of a crossing; we can see the far side. Intentions offer solid support for steps forward.