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Quakers are Way Cooler Than You Think | Hospitality for isolated Friends | Waiting with the Outcasts and Strangers

Q u a k e r T H O u g H T a n d l i F e T O d a Y

Membership and the Generation Gap

2 April 2012 Friends Journal

Friends Publishing CorporationGabriel Ehri (Executive Director)

Editorial: Martin Kelley (Editor), Rebecca Howe (Associate Editor), Steve Davison (Freelance Editor), Judith Brown (Poetry Editor), Karie Firoozmand (Book Review Editor), Eileen Redden (Assistant Book Review Editor), Mary Julia Street (Milestones Editor), George Rubin, Mathew Van Meter, June Wiley, Jo Ann Zimmerman (News Editors), Patricia Dallmann, Judith Inskeep, Lisa Rand, Marjorie Schier, Tom Smith (Copyeditors), Patty Quinn (Volunteer), John Anthony (Intern)

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Friends Journal (ISSN 0016-1322) was established in 1955 as the successor to The Friend (1827–1955) and Friends Intelligencer (1844–1955). Friends Journal is published monthly with the exception of a combined June/July issue by Friends Publishing Corporation, 1216 Arch Street, 2A, Philadelphia, PA 19107-2835. Telephone (215) 563-8629. E-mail [email protected]. Periodicals postage paid at Philadelphia, Pa., and additional mailing offices.

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Copyright © 2012 Friends Publishing Corporation. Permission should be received before reprinting excerpts longer than 200 words. Available on microfilm from Bell and Howell Information and Learning.

How Do We Define Who Is One of Us?W hen our staff decided to try an issue focused on the topic of membership, we knew two

things for sure. The first was that talking about membership is central to any discussion of the health and vitality of Quakerism today. After all, to care about how we’re doing, we have to ask “who do we mean by we?” and “how do we define who is one of us?” The second thing we knew for sure was that we couldn’t possibly cover all of membership’s aspects and intricacies in one issue of the magazine. The approach we chose was to view it through the lens of another critical topic in Quakerism, the so-called generation gap.

The mere naming of the “generation gap” was the subject of much discussion in the office. It’s a difficult thing to talk about because it seems to have the power to divide us. When a young person talks of being dissatisfied with the state of his meeting, is that an indictment of his elders? When an older Friend laments the dwindling number of young adult Friends in her circle, is a criticism implicit in her words? One thing our authors share is a deep and loving concern for the great people gathered together under the name Friends, regardless of one’s card-carrying Quaker status.

In “Belongings: Quakers, Membership, and the Need to be Known” (p. 9), Emily Higgs talks about the shame and frustration that attached to her longtime status as someone very involved and committed to Quakerism but without the legitimizing badge of membership in a monthly meeting. In “Crossing the Monkey Bridge Together” (p. 17), Mary Klein shares the words of Friends young and old from Pacific Yearly Meeting, gathered through cross-generational interviews about what it means to become a member of the Religious Society of Friends.

I hope you’ll gather tips and insights from this magazine that will help you improve the quality and faithfulness of your community. We realize that there’s much, much more to be said on both membership and generational issues among Friends, and we look forward to carrying on that conversation with you through the ministry of Friends Journal.

I was 20 years old and 2,300 miles away, in college, when the meeting I’d grown up in sent a letter asking whether I’d like to apply for membership. I understood the responsibility

of membership to be a serious one, and I had no idea where in the world my life might take me after college. I worried about not being able to hold up my end of the bargain if I couldn’t be in physical community with my meeting. I was secure in my identity as a Quaker, and I was sure that wherever I landed, I’d find and join a meeting there. I assumed, naïvely, that it would be simple to find a meeting that seemed “just right” to me and to which I’d apply for membership. I know I’m not alone in having once had that illusion! I’m still looking for that meeting and discerning where I’m led to be in community. I haven’t moved back to my hometown or found another meeting quite like University Friends in Seattle. My search has taught me that meeting members should be thankful to have found a community to call their own and to help build. I’ve also learned that one can be called to serve Friends, one’s fellow humans, and the earth with or without formal membership in the Religious Society of Friends. One can practice faithfulness to the Inner Light whether or not one calls oneself—or is called—a Friend.

If they wish to grow and thrive, Friends meetings must learn to express to their members and to all who might walk through their doors what they have to offer the seeker, the traveler, and the “Quaker without a meeting.” In doing so, we are likely to rediscover how we can help each other build a community that truly speaks to the human condition.

I’d like to thank Steven Davison, who joined us in the Friends Journal office in January and February to help fill in for editorial staff on family leave. His fingerprints are on the

March, April, and May issues and we are grateful for the chance to have worked with him. You can follow his writings on Quaker spirituality, faith, and practice at throughtheflamingsword.wordpress.com.

A n I n d e p e n d e n t m A g A z I n e s e r v I n g t h e r e l I g I o u s s o c I e t y o f f r I e n d s A m o n g f r I e n d s

Moving? Let us update your address.Friends Journal, 1216 Arch St., 2a, Philadelphia, PA 19107-2835 • (215) 563-8629 • (800) 471-6863 Fax: (215) 568-1377 • [email protected] Web: www.friendsjournal.org

Friends Journal April 2012 3

a p r i l 2 0 1 2 • V o l . 5 8 , N o . 4 w w w . f r i e N d s j o u r N a l . o r g

d e p a r t m e N t s

2 Among Friends

4 Forum

24 ReflectionsWalking from the Shadows into the LightWar, Compassion, and Devonshire Pasty

26 Spiritual PracticeNo Religion. Always Practicing Quakerism.

28 Pastoral CareLast Date

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f e a t u r e s

Quakers Are Way Cooler Than You Think

Emma m. ChurChman

There are many ways to equip and engage our young adult Friend members

and attenders.

Belonging: Quakers,

Membership, and the Need to be Known

Emily higgs

Can we honor the role of membership and still offer alternatives?

Requesting Hospitality for Isolated Friends isabEl PEnraEth

A look at reasons and methods for reaching out to isolated Friends.

Waiting with the Outcasts and Strangers

mark grEEnlEaf sChlottErbECk

A principled stance keeps a Friend outside a beloved meetinghouse.

Crossing the Monkey Bridge Together

mary klEin

Friends respond to questions about how to close the Quaker generation gap.

A Quaker Bar MitzvahJamEs kimmEl Jr. and adam kimmEl

Coming of age among Friends: Father and son work with their meeting

to craft a celebration of commitment to Friends’ testimonies.

p o e t r y

22 GrandfathermadElinE sChaEffEr

Contents

29 Witness General Sam

Wants You! (And Your Tax Dollars)

30 Books

39 News

40 Milestones

46 Classified

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FOcus:membership

and the generation gap

Cover photo © Mike Goren


F o r u m

Fetishization of biblical passagesI was glad to see David Zarembka’s

letter about African Friends in your February issue. I am a representative to the upcoming World Conference of Friends in Kenya, and I highly recommend David’s book A Peace of Africa to everyone who will be attending. I hope to be a forthright and loving example of FGC-type “Liberal Friends.” I went to the World Conference in 1991 and did not speak up as clearly there as I would have liked.

In particular, it helps me to know where in the teachings of Jesus our testimonies of peace, equality, integrity, and so on have their roots. (Most of these can be found in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 5.) A little-known passage in Jesus’s teachings is Matthew 19:12, where he seems to urge tolerance towards gender-variant people, whom he refers to as “eunuchs.” I guess most of us know that in Matthew 5:38, Jesus specifically says he does not believe in the old concept of “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” It’s good that Friends United Meeting went on record as supporting that concept. I don’t understand people who say they are Christians and yet support capital punishment and other violence.

Many of us have been victimized by what I call a “fetishization” of certain Bible passages. There was a recent political controversy in Mississippi about pardon and forgiveness, and someone said there were “New Testament Christians” and “Old Testament Christians.” I have gotten strength from hearing about Liberation Theology in both Latin America and the teachings of people like Martin Luther King, Jr. There are many places in the Bible that preach justice and harmony among human beings, even in the Old Testament.

Jeff KeithPhiladelphia, Pa.

Ambivalence About RacismI was reminded by Sue Carroll

Edwards’s excellent article in the February issue of Friends Journal (“Housing Desegregation in a Small Town”) that Quakers have not always followed our testimonies. The Swarthmore Meeting failed to support Friends who wished to integrate their neighborhood. That was shortly before I

entered Swarthmore College, and I am happy to write that the College later became active in peaceful efforts to end racism. The article also mentioned that my favorite biology professor, Ken Rawson and his wife Anne, took a positive stand for integration.

This ambivalence about racism is not new. Members of the meeting of my childhood, Germantown, wrote a petition in 1688 against slavery. It was first sent to the monthly meeting, then quarterly, then yearly—but all those Friends refused to go against what was thought to be “politically correct” at that time. The response of the monthly meeting is typical of all three; it wrote: “We find it [the petition] so weighty that we think it not expedient for us to meddle with it here.”

I wonder what actions we are taking (or not taking) today that Friends of the future will look back at with shame.

Richard GrossmanBayfield, Colo.

At a meeting for worship Pittsburgh in the early 1960s, a Friend shared her distress at being in a position similar to the Yarrows. Several recommended she buck up, secure in the knowledge that she was doing right. Finally a man pointed out that conviction is seldom enough to ease the pain attendant on hurting others, especially when those others are good friends and neighbors, albeit wrong. This, he said, was evidence we live in an imperfect world (he expressed it better than I have here). I was a college student just starting to attend Friends meetings, and this memory has remained with me fifty years as an example of what can happen in meeting.

Dee CameronEl Paso, Tex.

A Quaker response to the “Occupy Wall Street” movement

At its meeting for worship with attention to business on January 15, 2012, the Brevard (N.C.) Meeting approved the following minute:

We have listened to the concerns of the Occupy Wall Street movement with a growing sense of appreciation for its seeking to “speak truth to power,” a longtime Quaker tradition. We agree that our current economic system is unsustainable, undemocratic, and

unjust, and that the world’s resources must go toward caring for all the people and for the planet we all share, not just the privileged few. We are grateful for the movement’s efforts to bring these issues to national and world attention. We are impressed that there is a desire for consensus building among the many participants and that most of them are striving to do so in a nonviolent manner, in the traditions of Jesus, Gandhi, King, and our own Quaker testimonies.

Further, we want to acknowledge that most of the participants are of the younger generation and that it is in the youth of our nation that the fires of idealism and reform often burn the brightest, while we who are older often are willing to settle for the status quo. We thank them for their insights, their passions, and their belief that together we can build a more just and equitable world.

We see the aims of Occupy Wall Street as being similar to the mission statement of our Friends Committee on National Legislation: “We seek a world free of war and the threat of war. We seek a society with equity and justice for all. We seek a community where every person’s potential may be fulfilled. We seek an earth restored.”

Richard ZelmanClerk of Brevard

(N.C.) Friends Meeting

Self evident truth in contextCaroline Whitbeck’s article (FJ, April

2011) comparing 18th-century rationalism to Quaker thought seems unduly critical of the Enlightenment assumptions of Thomas Jefferson. Especially so when she cites the U.S. Declaration of Independence as an example of an inflated view of reason in declaring human rights as “self evident.” Quoting out of context does not promote Whitbeck”s idea of “critical thinking.” The Declaration is quite clearly concerned with human rights in a legal and political sense. Just read the first three paragraphs.

Why blame rationalism for the ideal of human rights when religion seems to miss the boat in that regard?

Michael R. MillerFredericton, N.B., Canada


Divine presence always with usThe article on “Quaker Communion”

that appeared in the February 2012 issue of Friends Journal provides us with an opportunity to reflect on the differences between traditions and rites.

Quaker history is certainly rich with traditions that carry a great deal of symbolism. In generations past, plain dress and address were a symbolic way of expressing the idea that all people are equal, regardless of their supposed social status. The use of facing benches is a symbolic way to show that we can look to each other (rather than a single authority figure) for inspiration and guidance. Even the lack of symbols in many of our meeting houses is symbolic of our recognition that the spiritual life is an inner event.

The concern with rites such as communion and baptism is that so many people regard these not as symbolic gestures, but as mechanisms for actually invoking God’s presence, thereby putting into human hands the ability to bestow or withhold the divine. Even the author of the article expected his communion experience to somehow produce a “visible manifestation of God’s presence.” I certainly agree that it’s easier to feel that presence at some times more than others, but I far prefer the Quaker understanding that the divine presence is with us always. We do not have to summon it by breaking bread or sprinkling water. It’s already here.

Sabrina DarnowskyLoveland, Ohio

Friends continue prison advocacyThank you for the rich diversity of

articles in February’s issue on “Crime and Punishment.” There are two things that I wish had received more attention in the mix, however:

While Murray Hiebert mentioned Friends’ pioneering role in establishing the first “penitentiary,” his statement that “Over the years, Friends abandoned the notion of isolating prisoners” fails to point out the unfortunate fact that their model of long-term, extreme isolation has returned to haunt the U.S. prison system in recent decades. Friends—and most of the rest of the world—abandoned the use of solitary confinement when the detrimental psychological effects became impossible to ignore. In 1842, Charles

Dickens wrote about his visit to the Quakers’ penitentiary: “I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body.”

Today, Quakers are at the forefront of efforts to end the use of prolonged solitary confinement in U.S. prisons. American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) has provided leadership and resources through its StopMax Campaign, and the Quaker Initiative to End Torture (QUIT) has also taken up this concern. AFSC and QUIT are both member groups of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT), which has just released an excellent 20- minute DVD, titled Solitary Confinement: Torture in Your Backyard, with an accompanying discussion guide (www.nrcat.org/backyard). The DVD features the story of the recent grassroots effort in Maine (with Quakers and other people of faith playing an active role) that helped secure a 70 percent reduction in the number of the state’s prisoners held in solitary confinement. Interviews with former prisoners and family members, along with reflections from interfaith religious leaders, make this a useful educational resource for meetings that want to learn more about the issue and how to get involved.

John HumphriesHartford, Conn.

The members of the Sandy Spring (Md.) Meeting have been involved in prisons for over forty years. Historically, Quakers have been prison reformers as well as prisoners from their start in the seventeenth century.

Prison visitation: Sandy Spring members have maintained a biweekly Quaker presence in the Patuxent Institution, a state prison in Jessup, Md., for thirty years. We have been conducting worship sharing and discussions, and we have had (usually) from 4-12 men each night. Recently, we encountered a Department of Correction rule that a prisoner must select one-only religious service to attend and we’ve had to lay this down. The Frederick and Patapsco Friends Meetings (Md.) have established a monthly worship group in MCI-H (Maryland Correctional Institution—Hagerstown), largely with “alumni” from the former Patuxent group.

Magazines: Another activity of the

Prison Committee for 20 years was collecting discarded magazines from the Friends House Library. Over many years we have delivered magazines to Patuxent, Anne Arundel county detention center, the Brockbridge Road Men’s Prison, and the Women’s Prison (MCI-W). However, due to the ever-changing myriad of bureaucratic rules, we are no longer doing magazines at all.

Prison Journal: The quarterly Prison Journal was started by John Worley as an outgrowth of the prison visitation program. The aim of the Prison Journal has been to provide an outlet for inmates to express their creativity, to increase their self-esteem, and perhaps to give some people on the outside a glimpse of the humanity that has been incarcerated. Some of the men at Patuxent had written essays and poems, and it is now receiving submissions from all over the country. Many inmates are overjoyed at seeing their work published.

Pen Pals: The Pen Pal program began in 2008. The program is quite simple. When an inmate expresses an interest in the program, we connect the inmate with an outside Pen Pal. The Pen Pal then writes the inmate, using the address of the meeting as the return address. When a letter is received from the inmate (via the meeting address), the letter is then forwarded to the Pen Pal by our “postmaster,” Mike Bucci, and the cycle repeats.

This ensures that correspondence takes place via an anonymous or “blind” address. If you choose to use a “pen name,” be sure Mike knows it so he can forward your prisoner’s letter to you. At the present time, we have about 36 matches and as many prisoners waiting for a Pen Pal. If you feel that you’d like to participate in this program, send your name and address to [email protected].

Jack FogartySandy Spring, Md.


Quakers Are Way Cooler Than You ThinkE m m A m . C h u r C h m A n

George Fox was 28 years old when he stood on the top of Pendle Hill in England and envisioned a great people to be gathered.

Samuel Bownas began his ministry at the age of 20 when traveling minister Ann Wilson caught him sleeping in the back of his meeting for worship and called him to account. She asked him essentially why he was wasting his life, and within just a few weeks, Bownas spoke in meeting for the first time. In 1698, when he was 22 years old, he set off on his first ministerial journey, walking across Scotland with a traveling minute from his monthly meeting. When he was in his 70s, he wrote a seminal guide for Quaker ministers: A Description of the Qualifications Necessary to a Gospel Minister.

John Woolman was 23 years old when he experienced his first leading to stand against slavery. Susan B. Anthony was 28 years old during the Seneca Falls Convention. Friend Thomas Kelly was also 28 when he went to Germany in 1921 to work with American Friends Service Committee, after having served for two years as a professor at Wilmington College. Bonnie Raitt, raised a Quaker in New York Yearly Meeting, produced her first record album when she was 23. Jon Watts did so when he was 21 years old.

Our Religious Society has a historical track record of being shaped by Young Adult Friends (or “YAFs,” Friends in their 20s and 30s). Today we have a steady decline of young adult Friend members and attenders in our monthly and yearly meetings.

I have known many older Friends to bemoan this, wring their hands, pray about it, talk about it, and wish it were different. I’d like to encourage us to shift the question from “Why don’t we have more young people in our meetings?” to this:

How are we meeting the needs of our young adult Friend members and attenders, and how could we meet them better?

These days I mainly hang out with high school and college-age Quakers through my job at Earlham College. This is what I love about working with younger Friends: they are open and inquisitive and engaged. They are still figuring out who they are and how they want to be in the world. This generation especially is remarkably

intuitive and so smart about so many different things. They are always interacting with their growing edges. They are, in fact, our hope for the future, and I want to encourage them and support them to bring their brilliant, beautiful selves into our religious society in powerful ways. They are our true leaders of tomorrow (often even today!), and I want to do everything I can to help equip them for this leadership and keep them engaged in our Society.

Here are some specific ways you can help to equip and engage them:

Ask. Here’s a radical idea: Ask the young adult Friends you interact with what it is they need to feel engaged in your monthly or yearly meeting, Quaker organization, or just our Religious Society in general. What do they need/want/desire and how can you help them get it? They might surprise you with their specific ideas.

Be invitational. Here’s another radical idea: Invite someone under the age of 40 to clerk your meeting or your membership committee, or to serve as a director of your Quaker organization. Or just begin by saying hello to a young adult at your meeting. I travel in the ministry, and 95 percent of the time I’m at a new meeting, no one introduces her/himself to me, even when I’m the guest speaker. Yikes! And, technically, I’m not even a young adult Friend anymore. Can you imagine how YAFs must feel when they attend a meeting for the first time and no one talks to them?

Be willing to transform. The structure of monthly and yearly meetings doesn’t work for a lot of younger Friends. Many young adult Friends identify with a yearly meeting rather than a monthly meeting. Other YAFs identify themselves as Quaker without membership in a monthly or yearly meeting at all. These young people are unable to commit to a monthly meeting, primarily because they move so frequently, or because they attend school far away from the meeting in which they grew up. They struggle with membership in a religious society that requires them to remain in one place. Often, they also are unable to fulfill the financial requirements of membership.

Other YAFs feel that their needs are not being met in the context of a monthly meeting. Nothing entices them to become engaged. They are looking for like-minded peers, for social and social justice activities that help them explore their interests, and for opportunities to make a

Emma M. Churchman is a member of Friends Meeting of Washington D.C. and an associate member of Chavakali Yearly Meeting in Kenya. She founded and facilitates the Quaker Fellows program for Earlham College in Richmond, Ind., and she is completing her Master’s in Divinity degree at Earlham School of Religion.

Friends have a historical track record of Young Adult Friends shaping the direction of our Religious Society.


difference and be nurtured as leaders. Here’s my motto: If it’s not working, stop doing

it. Standard membership right now isn’t working for the majority of young adult Friends, especially those between the ages of 18 and 25. What are we going to do about it?

Are you willing to help this age group consider what membership could look like outside of the typical structure of monthly or yearly meetings? What could it look like for them to retain their membership in Friends General Conference, say, or Friends United Meeting, instead of a specific monthly meeting? What if we revitalized a national Young Adult Friends Meeting that housed membership for young adults in transition between the meetings they grew up in and their next home meetings? What are we willing to do, as a religious society or at least as a specific branch of Quakerism, to embrace these young people in new ways?

Discern. Most of my conversations with young people revolve around discernment of pretty big life issues: What do I do after high school? How do I make new friends and let go of old friends? How do I respond to my parents getting divorced? How do I grieve my friend having committed suicide? How do I figure out what my passions are? What should I do for a living? Young adults are continually faced with intense life issues like these. Granted, I teach discernment specifically to young adults, but generally this is just an excuse to invite

young people I meet to get real with me. On a good day, I can be real in return, which is a rare and precious gift to a young person: to be equally honest, vulnerable, and open with them. Have you been vulnerable with any young adults today? Have you sat with them and really helped them to sift out what they are struggling with?

Stop talking and start doing. Invite the young adult Friends group from your yearly meeting or nearby college to have a weekend retreat in your meetinghouse and cook for them. Become a spiritual friend to a teen in your meeting. Write a letter to a young adult Friend from your meeting who is in college. Better yet, send a care package. Invite a young person to spend one-on-one time with you—protesting, having tea, watching a movie, knitting, playing a game. If you are not his parent, he will love you for it.

Be visible. As a Society, we have got to put ourselves out there! Young adults exploring faith during or just after college may first learn about Quakerism by attending a protest or other social justice activity and meeting a Quaker. Or they learn about Quakerism through attending a

Are you willing to help this age group consider what membership could look like outside of the typical structure of monthly or yearly meetings?


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Quaker high school or college. At Earlham, we have seen a significant number of non-Quaker students embrace Quakerism as alumni, especially as they are looking for a faith home for their family or looking for like-minded people in a new city.

It takes an average of seven impressions before a person notices a particular message or idea. What types of impressions are we sending about Quakerism, and is this age group receiving enough impressions? When attending a protest, do you talk about Friends testimonies of peace and equality? Do you connect your outward actions with your faith? Is the Quaker high school or college you are connected with proactively teaching Quaker faith and practice?

Many young adults also learn about Quakerism through the Internet. Friends, we need to expand significantly the explanations of Quakerism that are currently available, using the blogosphere and YouTube. Because we currently articulate a narrow understanding of Quakerism on the Internet, young people who are exploring Quakerism for the first time get a pretty skewed view of it through the World Wide Web. You may not want to hear this, but it’s true. We can either accept the technological realities of the twenty-first century, or continue to lose connections with young adults.

Use the M word. Quakers have a serious marketing issue. We look funny, we talk funny, we refuse to list our phone numbers in the yellow pages or to have updated websites. We figure that people will find us if they need us. That’s cool. And humble. And not working.

For Earlham College last year I designed a T-shirt that declares, “Quakers are way cooler than you think,” as a way to address said marketing issue.

When I’m feeling particularly gloomy about the future of our religious society, I like to wear my T-shirt to the grocery store because inevitably someone (i.e., a non-Quaker) will stop in her tracks, stare at my chest, and say, “Yes! Quakers are cool!” I love that. And then I get to have a conversation with a total stranger about her theology and my theology. (Yes, that is my idea of a good time.) You can wear the shirt too! It’s for sale in the Earlham College bookstore.

Educate. We need radical education of our young people. We need to take seriously our intention to offer actual religious education in First-day school. I am embarrassed by the number of young Friends I talk with who have no idea that Quakerism has its roots in Christianity. I have students who are 18 years old and who grew up in a Quaker meeting and have absolutely no knowledge of scripture, of Jesus’ teachings, or of the connection between Friends testimonies and our roots in these teachings.

Call me an evangelical if you wish, but here is

the reality: By not teaching our young people the ways of early Quakers, we are raising people to believe in whatever they want to believe in and to call themselves Quaker only when it is convenient or makes them look good. I’m not making this up; I literally had a Quaker college student tell me this yesterday. And I agree with him. This model of believing whatever we feel like, when we feel like it, is not serving us in the long run, Friends. I know you know what I’m talking about.

We also need more specific opportunities for young adults to learn our practices, especially the practice of spiritual discernment, the Clearness Committee model, the art of consensus decision-making, and the role of clerking. These Quaker tools are awesome! We need to be more intentional about teaching our young people how to use them. How can we expect to grow future leaders if we don’t provide them with the tools they need?

Put your money where your mouth is. I hear a lot of older adult Friends talking about how important YAFs are to them. I also see a recent trend of eliminating funding for programs that support young adult Friends, especially in terms of nurturing their connections to the Religious Society of Friends and cultivating their leadership skills. I would like to suggest that there is a correlation between our decisions not to support YAF programs and initiatives financially and the lack of YAF presence in our meetings and organizations.

Can you tell that I’m irritated? I don’t understand, Friends. Who the heck do we think is going to lead our Society into the future? We need to provide generous support for the programs that still exist to cultivate Young Adult Friends’ leadership development. At this point our Quaker colleges are the ones leading the way in this area. Earlham College, George Fox University, Guilford College, and Wilmington College all have scholarship-based Quaker leadership development programs. Donate to them.

There are so many ways for Friends to support our young people as they engage in life transitions and in their articulation of their faith. I encourage you to embrace any of the ideas suggested in this article, and to create new ideas of your own to share! In doing so, I hope that you will also join me in living into the possibility of the Religious Society of Friends growing its membership in the 21st century by reaching out to and supporting young people more proactively. q

Who the heck do we think is going to lead our Society into the future? We need to provide generous support for the programs that still exist to cultivate Young Adult Friends’ leadership.


BElonGinG Quakers, membership, and the need to be KnownE m i l Y h i G G s

What role does monthly meeting membership play in our understanding of faith and belonging? Can someone be a Quaker

without being a member or attender at a monthly meeting? Religions world-wide face the challenge of navigating the relationship between core theological tenets, the power of faith, and the structures that contain and provide organization for the institution. Quakerism has historically struck a positive and organic balance among these dynamics, but it is not immune from the struggle to blend spiritual Mystery and organizational architecture. The Quaker practice of monthly meeting membership offers us a concrete example of this tension regarding how we define our belonging to God, to Quakerism, and to one another in blessed community.

I was raised Episcopalian, and while I was a member of a church and felt deep connections to that community, rarely did someone ask me to which congregation I belonged, and never to which diocese. With that as my context for the social etiquette of introducing one’s religious affiliation, I have yet to become accustomed to the common practice within the Religious Society of Friends of becoming acquainted with other self-identified Quakers by asking them to which monthly meeting or yearly meeting they belong. Why do we do this? At best, do we ask in order to establish a geographical or even broadly theological context for this new person? Or, at worst, are we asking to distinguish between those who are members and those who simply want to identify with something? Are we trying to prove that we are well-versed in the Quakerspeak that so immediately establishes us as a unique and sometimes exclusive community?

Before going any further, I would like to note that for the sake of simplicity in this article, I am largely ignoring long-time attenders who have ingrained themselves in a particular monthly meeting but who have chosen for intentional reasons not to seek membership. While I have been liberal with my application of the word membership, there still are elements of this article

that apply solely to official membership as an institution. The important element here is affiliation with a monthly or yearly meeting, and the ways in which we separate people with a meeting from those without a meeting.

I came to Quakerism at age nine and fell in love with it at age 12 by way of Catoctin Quaker Camp in the Baltimore Yearly Meeting camping program. It took me those three years to realize that silence every morning was part of a faith tradition and not a quirky part of the morning camp ritual. I began spiritually considering myself a Quaker when I was in high school, and then attended Haverford College because of its Quaker character, hoping to continue to surround myself with Quaker community.

My time at Haverford opened many doors for me. I found myself traveling among Quaker communities in Africa and becoming deeply engaged with multiple Quaker organizations and service agencies, including American Friends Service Committee, African Great Lakes Initiative,

Alternatives to Violence Project, and others. While at Haverford I worked with several other Friends to build up a new Quaker student community, which blossomed, grew, and continues to be one of the strongest Quaker elements of the college today, thanks to the hard work of its current students. These efforts to build Quaker community not only fed me spiritually but deepened my commitment to the Religious Society of Friends and to nurturing the leadership and spiritual foundations of Young Adult Friends (YAFs). At the same time,

The centrality of membership to the structure of the religious society of Friends can be alienating to those for whom membership or having a regular worship community is not feasible.

Emily Higgs is a member of Lancaster (Pa.) Meeting and lives in Philadelphia, Pa., where she is a part of the West Philadelphia Worship Group. Emily serves as the Director of Quaker Affairs for Haverford College, and is the Clerk of the Board of the Young Adult Friends Leadership Institute.

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Young Adult Friends meet at the Friends General Conference Gathering, 2007 (above) and 2010 (page 10)


while I was becoming invested in the Religious Society of Friends in a rich and generative way that fit my needs and phase of life, I still was not connected to any monthly meeting.

My experience of college, post-college, and transient communities of Young Adult Friends is that our spiritual needs aren’t always best met within the monthly meeting structure. This is a common sentiment within YAF communities, and the reasons for that pattern do not necessarily

reflect poorly on the vibrancy or quality of monthly meetings. Rather, YAFs often do not live near their home meeting, and knowing that they might live somewhere for only a brief period, they may hesitate to spend a great deal of time putting down roots in a new community. In keeping with this general tendency, I attended monthly meetings around the world and worshiped actively as a Quaker for years but avoided membership—early on because I was so committed to our student community at Haverford and later because I did not stay in one place for more than a year at a time.

After a year working at the Quaker United Nations Office in New York, the way opened for me to come back to Haverford and continue the work I had begun as a student by serving as the Director of Quaker Affairs for Haverford College. Still, I resisted membership. During those years, I had several interactions with Friends that made me feel “less than” for not being a member. I was once told that I was, in fact, not a Quaker because I had no regular meeting. In another instance, at a 150-person Quaker gathering at which I was the only person without a meeting on my name tag, someone actually said that he was glad I was there, even though I was not “one of them.” I felt shocked, alienated, and embarrassed by these experiences and came away feeling that I was left out of the in-club of my own faith.

While these comments may have been more callous than your everyday membership conversation, I felt that they illustrated the dominant assumption that card-carrying membership is the most necessary essential of

Friendliness. The centrality of membership to the structure of the Religious Society of Friends can be alienating to those for whom membership or having a regular worship community is not feasible. Since the group most often left out of this equation is Young Adult Friends, I find this pattern to be incongruent with our Testimonies of Community and Equality.

And yet slowly, in spite of holding my non-membership flag high, things began to change. Two things came into my life, almost simultaneously in that startlingly synchronistic way that reveals God has something planned for you, despite your convictions or stubborn woundedness.

First, my parents moved to Lancaster, Pa., and I occasionally attended Lancaster Meeting when I was home on Sundays and then more frequently, about two years ago, due to a family illness. Over several months, I learned that the meeting community had been holding my family in the Light in our time of greatest need. I was so moved that a meeting at which I was a new attender would reach out with such love. I felt lucky to be able to come to worship when I could, and I was touched when the meeting offered me a laminated name tag—I felt more included in an established meeting community than I ever had before.

During this time, when I was marveling at how much the simple gesture of offering a name tag mattered to me, I attended a YAF Dessert & Discussion Night about the question of membership with Arthur Larrabee, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting General Secretary. The evening was organized by Sadie Forsythe, the yearly meeting YAF Coordinator (a position that no longer exists), to follow-up the YAF epistle that had been written at annual sessions in 2008, which questioned the requirement for meeting membership to serve on yearly meeting standing committees. While I went into the conversation that night prepared to share the grievances of feeling “less than” for not having a Quaker home to speak of, I was incredibly moved by the way some talked lovingly about membership, not as a stamp on your name tag but as a beautiful symbol of mutual accountability, commitment, and community.

I began to feel a rising and powerful need to be a recognized part of a meeting, to be spiritually grounded somewhere, and to be held accountable by a faith community. While my concerns still remained about the way membership is seen as the single most important way Friends identify one another, my understanding of what membership means began to broaden and to let a little Light in.

I found that I deeply craved the mutual responsibility and accountability of a monthly meeting; moving forward to become a recognized member of the Religious Society of Friends felt like plugging a hole in my life where Spirit had been leaking out. A long road led me to the place where

Becoming a member of the religious society of Friends felt like plugging a hole in my life where spirit had been leaking out.

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I sought membership, and I am honored to have become a member of Lancaster Meeting. My request for membership was unorthodox: I was a transient young adult who did not live in Lancaster and was still relatively new to the community. Yet the meeting met me with open arms and received my request because they saw the deep desire for belonging and my commitment to Quakerism.

I am sure many Friends understand the delight I felt when I first put my name and meeting on my Quaker name tag. No one would ask me why it did not have the name of a meeting! I have been a member of Lancaster Meeting for almost two years now, and though I cannot worship there often, I feel loved and respected by my meeting. They understood and accepted me where I was, and they put my needs above the norms to which we often default. So while I cannot give as much time and service as I would like to Lancaster Friends, my understanding of how transformative membership can be has deepened.

Despite my joy in finally finding a spiritual home in Quakerism, I still firmly believe that membership as it is commonly structured is unfortunately inaccessible to the majority of transient young adults. I find myself surprised, time and time again, when I hear older Friends speak with urgency about the future vitality of the Religious Society of Friends and express dismay at the lack of young adults in their meetings. If Friends are committed to addressing these concerns and not simply wringing their hands, perhaps it is time to explore new approaches to membership with the needs of the younger generations in mind. If the monthly meeting structure is frequently less relevant to the “next generation” of Friends, then is it wise to use monthly meeting membership as the primary measuring stick by which we gauge the

Queries on Membership • Whatdoesmembershipmeantoyou,personallyandasamonthlymeeting?• Whatistherelationshipbetweenmembershipasaformandasanexpressionofstewardship,commitment,

conviction,andservice?• Howdoyouwelcomeindividualsfullyintoyourcommunityandrecognizetheirgifts?• Whatistheessentialfunction,intention,andreasonformembership?• IsthereadifferencebetweenbeingaQuakerandbeingamemberofamonthlymeeting?• Howcanwere-patternthewaywetalkaboutourspirituality?• Quakerismisinitsessenceaboutone’srelationshipwiththeDivine;whatroledoesmembershipplayinthat?• Howcanweexamineandquestionthewaywetalkaboutmembershipandnotchallengemembership’s

importanceinthelifeofthemeeting?• Howdoesthemeetingcommunitynurtureandmeettheneedsofitsmembersandattendersatvariousstages

inlife?• Howcanwevalue,connectwith,andsupportcommunityforyoungadultsandotherswhodonotfitneatly

intomeetingmembershiporotherestablishedpatternsofbelonging?

health and vitality of our faith community? Quakerism is vibrant and thriving in many worship groups and Quaker colleges, to name two examples, yet our declining membership statistics fail to take these groups into account and thus paint a rather grim picture of our future. Perhaps we can envision a more optimistic landscape if we let go of our historical attachment to monthly meeting membership as the locus of all meaningful Quaker community?

Understanding that membership does not and cannot independently characterize a relationship with God, with the Earth, and with community, the YAFs present at the Dessert & Discussion night developed a number of important queries (boxed below–eds.) that speak to these concerns, hoping that they would reach monthly meetings.

While many Quakers have different and varied experiences of membership within a monthly meeting, I hope that the story of my journey toward membership in the Religious Society of Friends will encourage some deeper reflection for us all on the way we welcome individuals into our communities by being inclusive, not exclusive, with the questions we ask and the comments we make. I pray that we might also find ways to confirm and hold up the importance of membership and the monthly meeting as a cornerstone of Quakerism, while also cherishing those who have not yet found a Quaker community but are unwavering in their commitment and love for the faith and practice of Friends.

I believe we are capable of valuing meeting membership as an institution and of affirming daily that we are so much more than what is written on our name tags. q

is it wise to use monthly meeting membership as the primary measuring stick by which we gauge the health and vitality of our faith community?


requesting hospitality for isolated Friendsi s A B E l P E n r A E T h

is Quakerism a community limited by geographical constraint, or is it a spiritual understanding that can be

shared and lived outside of that constraint? Is being a Quaker all about practice within the Quaker community, or is there a way to support like-hearted and like-minded Friends without direct face-to-face contact?

The plight of isolated Friends can easily go unnoticed by those Friends who have access to a meeting or church, but our small numbers scattered across a large world can mean real challenges for those convinced of the principles of Friends (of whatever branch) who seek to connect with welcoming, like-minded Friends. I am regularly contacted through my website by those seeking such connection, and while I assist as I am able, it is disheartening to them to find that in some cases “their” branch of Quakerism has no particular mechanism for helping them feel

isolated Friends long for the spiritual community of like-minded and like-hearted Friends, and when face-to-face fellowship is not possible, they desire to have meaningful connection with an official Quaker organization.

Isabel Penraeth is the author of QuakerJane.com. A member of Mountain View (Denver, Colo.) Friends Meeting, Isabel is active with Denver Conservative Friends’ mid-week worship group. She currently spends most First Days at First Denver Friends Church, Denver, Colo.

that idea, then [the] third phase (1660-1695) was the one in which Friends had to make up their minds as to who, among their diverse attenders, down to the most oddball and the most ordinary, really did fit that idea enough to deserve the name ‘Friend.’ . . . Thus, only thirty years after Quakerism was born—which was much sooner than most modern Friends realize—the need to know precisely who was a Quaker and who was not was already of real concern at a national, policy-making level.”

notice Massey’s use of the phrase “deserve the name ‘Friend.’” Recognizing the difference

between the historical and the modern conception of “deserving” the name Friend is pivotal. Early Friends had to concern themselves with how they were perceived more widely by “the authorities” in order to diminish the consequences to themselves of extreme behaviors by some who claimed to be Quakers. They also offered financial assistance to indigent members and those Friends suffering for their faith. They had to define who qualified for that assistance. Today, we don’t really have those concerns. The behavior of any particular member no longer has any real consequences to the wider community, and I know of no Quaker meetings that offer substantial financial assistance to members in difficulty, having ceded that to local, state, and federal government assistance programs. Yet even today, without those inducements, many Friends feel strongly about who does or does not “deserve” the name Friend. My concern here is not to parse deserving but to advocate for compassion for a subset of believers who are constrained from participating fully in our religious society. Can we not enlarge our sense of community to include those who, for whatever reason, cannot actually cross the threshold of a Quaker meetinghouse?

My own experience informs my

community as unprogrammed Friends. It is easy to speculate that those drawn to Evangelical Quakerism might more readily find an alternative spiritual home with other Evangelical Christians, but whatever the real reason, I will be primarily confining my discussion to those branches of Quakerism that preserve waiting or silent worship.

Membership is our primary mechanism for recognizing fellow travelers, and I believe Friends should recognize that the mutual responsibility of membership is possible even for isolated Friends who cannot enter the meetinghouse doors. Official membership has long been important in the Religious Society of Friends. Marshall Massey (Iowa Yearly Meeting-Conservative), in his incomplete but intriguing post at the Street Corner Society website (www.strecorsoc.org/docs/mbrshp1.html), posits that there were four stages in its development:

“If the first phase (1647-55) was one in which Friends developed the abstract idea of what a Quaker was, and the second phase (1656-59) was one in which Friends began separating themselves from those who did not fit

accepted into the fold. The isolated Friends who contact me

have all felt drawn to waiting worship or silent worship, which could be a function of the nature of my website. However, in my time among Evangelical Friends, I have not found that their isolated Friends feel the same sense of loss and longing for spiritual


sense that the answer to this question is “yes.” God “made” me a Quaker on a First Day morning, sitting by myself in a chair in my bedroom. I knew nothing of Quakerism beyond some vague impressions from a Lucretia Mott biography I had read in third grade. Shortly before my convincement, I was an active member of a Unitarian Universalist congregation, and, while I was intellectually satisfied, I felt deeply

unsettled and unhappy. Each First Day, I felt strongly that there was someplace I was supposed to be, and not with the UUs. It is hard to describe the agony and frustration I felt. I was unable to satisfy or silence that unnameable longing. Finally, at the end of my spiritual rope, I told God that if God had something to say, God should just say it. Interestingly, God did. What God made clear was that I should become a plain, Christian Quaker. I knew nothing of Friends, of plain Friends, of the Christian faith as understood by Friends, or of any of the branches of Quakerism. Given my past intellectual comfort with universalism, the transition was challenging, but I complied and eventually found my real spiritual home with Conservative Friends.

I can report a deep sense of connection and satisfaction when reading George Fox, Robert Barclay, Elizabeth Stirredge, Thomas Kelly, and other Friends through the centuries. Although they lived in very different times and circumstances, it is clear to me that they describe the same spiritual reality I am experiencing and that the Everlasting Gospel they proclaimed is alive and well and living within me, a Seed of Truth waiting for nurturance.

It therefore makes perfect sense to me that the Lord will bring some to

it might be hard to picture what a liberal meeting would do for someone who felt consonance with its faith and practice but could not attend. nevertheless, there are such people, and they may be the seeds of the future of Quakerism.

monthly meeting to request membership. This request can be a little fraught with peril. Some monthly meetings have taken that responsibility on with enthusiasm, while others, feeling unable to offer care and support to a distant member, have declined to accept anyone into affiliate membership. Some monthly meetings of Ohio Yearly Meeting are also known for being conservative on matters of marriage and sexuality, so not everyone would feel comfortable affiliating.

Conservative Quakerism is a difficult row to hoe. The ranks of Conservative Friends are seriously depleted, with the majority of their historical meetings located in rural areas that have declining and aging populations with limited opportunities. Some within Ohio Yearly Meeting see contact with isolated Friends as a part of their Christian responsibility to raise one another up, and effort is made on the part of individual recorded ministers to visit such Friends. The Wider Fellowship of Conservative Friends began in the late 1960s as a Concern Committee within North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative) and emphasized intervisitation among the three Conservative yearly meetings (North Carolina, Iowa, and Ohio) by recorded ministers. Its management has since moved to Ohio Yearly

the Everlasting Gospel who have no direct access to a Quaker meeting but who have direct access to Christ Jesus, their Inward Guide. It also makes sense to me that such a person, sometimes called an isolated Friend, should have meaningful access to fellowship with others who have had the same spiritual experience. Though I have access to a small Conservative worship group, a healthy Liberal meeting, and a vibrant Evangelical Friends church, God has given me a heart for the plight of isolated Friends and led me to put forward a few web pages that they might find helpful. Unfortunately, the efforts of one small website are not sufficient. Isolated Friends long for the spiritual community of like-minded and like-hearted Friends, and when face-to-face fellowship is not possible, they desire to have meaningful connection with an official Quaker organization.

With the same understanding that the Everlasting Gospel can break into the lives of those who live

nowhere near a meetinghouse, Ohio Yearly Meeting has developed a level of membership that accommodates those who believe they are experiencing the same spiritual reality described by early Friends. Called affiliate membership, it entails a slightly awkward process in which an individual contacts a

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Meeting, and its primary purpose now is to be a point of contact for isolated Friends who have a traditional understanding of Quakerism. The Wider Fellowship hosts a cherished biannual Gathering of Conservative Friends in Barnesville, Ohio, where isolated Friends can experience traditional Quaker worship and fellowship.

I don’t know how enthusiastically Liberal meetings would embrace something like this, as their understanding of Quakerism is quite different. In my experience, Liberal Friends emphasize the practice of Quakerism in determining membership: attending meeting for

For all that may not be happening in our meetinghouses, there is an enlivening world of writings by Friends online, drawing seekers and believers to the Truth.

worship and committee work. They also pay considerable attention to private and communal activism on various issues and concerns. It might be hard to picture what a Liberal meeting would do for someone who felt consonance with its faith and practice but could not attend. Nevertheless, there are such people, and they may be the seeds of the future of Quakerism. Nurturing isolated Friends would be important not only for them but also for the organization as a whole.

Below are some suggestions for reaching out and becoming hospitable to isolated Friends.

My own spiritual experience, the

spiritual experiences shared with me by readers of my website, and the experiences of our spiritual ancestors as shared in their journals and sermons, show us that when we reach the end of our own endeavors and finally plead with the Lord to show us our path, then does the gate through the narrow way open, and our duty and hope become clear. For all that may not be happening in our meetinghouses, there is an enlivening world of writings by Friends online, drawing seekers and believers to the Truth. Though that may not mean more people walking through the meetinghouse door due to geographical distribution, it can mean the multiplying of the Truth and the growth in love and discernment of Christ’s people in unity under God’s loving guidance. Perhaps that is the most important thing today and something that should not be left solely in the hands of individual Friends. q

1. Have younger Friends improve the design of meeting websites. All branches of Quakerism suffer significantly from meetings and churches with poorly designed websites that can be bizarrely uninformative. Concern for the aesthetics of the meetinghouse is common, but many meetings do not seem to understand that a website leaves an impression as well. Unfortunately, by putting out such a poor public image on the web, individual meetings and churches are advertising their inability to understand the concerns and perspective of Gen Xers and Millennials. Challenges can range from having difficulty finding sufficient consensus on content to lack of budget or expertise, but these challenges must be taken seriously if any particular meeting wants to present itself respectably to younger seekers. Untidy and unhelpful websites prevent younger seekers from

walking through the meetinghouse doors as much as an untidy landscaping job prevents others. Improved websites would also open improved avenues for isolated Friends to connect.

2. Have a special section on the website for seekers and isolated Friends. Even if a meeting has no official means of recognizing isolated Friends, it can express some hospitality to them through the website by acknowledging their existence and trying to speak to their needs. Most websites have been designed primarily for the needs of active members, so while there might be something for seekers, invariably there is nothing for non-attending isolated Friends. I hear from many isolated Friends through my website, largely because I acknowledge their existence and my writings express that I have a heart for their concerns. I imagine monthly meetings would hear from isolated Friends, too, if they provided clear lines of communication.

3. Consider assigning a concern for isolated Friends to a committee. Sometimes isolated Friends are created by geographical isolation, but other times they are isolated by physical infirmity or other life circumstances. Even if a meeting feels unable to concern itself with isolated Friends who are at a geographical distance, they should take seriously a concern for those who are near but cannot attend for other reasons. Once an official mechanism is in place for these Friends, it might become more obvious how to be of assistance to those farther afield. An Evangelical Church I have attended has designated volunteer “Cheer-givers” whose sole task is to visit people who might be in need of Friendly Christian fellowship. As our membership continues to age, these sorts of isolated Friends become an obvious issue.

Becoming more hospitable to isolated Friends


Waiting with the outcasts and strangersm A r K G r E E n l E A F s C h l o T T E r B E C K

By being part of FUM, we ourselves, we Durham Quakers, participate in excluding gay and lesbian people from positions of service and employment.

I thought I should leave Durham Meeting quietly rather than raise this question very strongly. I thought this for two reasons. First, I had been a regular attender for only two and a half years, and though I could not feel more fully or warmly welcomed, I think a relative newcomer should hesitate to press his or her perspective. Second, I

have held clergy positions in the past, and I have some strong feelings about how clergy folks who aren’t currently pastoring should conduct themselves. Besides observing other guidelines, we former ministers do well, I think, to avoid involving ourselves too intensely in congregational issues.

I surely affirm that matters as deep as this particular question of justice are profitably discerned by the whole community of faith, the whole meeting. I am wary of one person’s taking a stance without testing that stance with others in the meeting. Yet my conscience is clear that I cannot continue to attend meeting for worship when others, for reasons I cannot affirm, are not welcomed fully into our circle. And I felt that it was not I who should press our meeting to consider

Mark Greenleaf Schlotterbeck claims Durham (Maine) Meeting as his community of meaning and spirituality. He values and misses its people, music, worship, humor and perspective on life. He presented the above words at a Durham gathering that focused on matters of inclusion. Mark composes music and lyrics for choral works rooted in “spirituality, justice and whimsy.” He teaches English language to immigrants in Lewiston, Maine, where he lives.

i have found in Durham (Maine) Meeting a community of faith with which I identify very much. At Durham Friends, I have begun to find

a home, a circle of people whose weaving together of spirituality, integrity, and engagement in the world around us I take seriously. I have found people whose values and genuineness give me hope for what life can be. I have found people I like to be with.

To sit in this room on a Sunday morning, surrounded by the others; to sit in the quiet; to look out the windows at the trees and the sky; to find the Presence among us; to listen and wait; to talk with one another afterwards; to spend time in each other’s homes; to journey together through life and its days and questions and moments—this is a gift beyond explaining.

I long imagined the arc of my life as coming back to the Quakers. I sometimes saw my life as landing again among Friends, that body of people and that way I embrace and consider home. For 20 or 30 years, I said that I could be Quaker plus music, and then I found Durham and its music.

At the end of 2010, though, I stopped attending meeting for worship at Durham Friends. I felt, I feel, that I cannot participate in our discrimination against gay and lesbian people through Durham’s membership in Friends United Meeting, to which we belong through New England Yearly Meeting. I am troubled by Friends United Meeting’s personnel policy, which bars people in committed gay relationships—as well as any others who express their sexuality outside of man/woman marriage—from appointments to FUM staff and volunteer positions.

I don’t want a community of faith that feels the way I do about everything. Heaven forbid. I don’t want a community whose views regarding a given issue are forever fixed rather than evolving, growing, and being considered anew. But I felt, I feel, that our actions in this matter are so egregious, so offensive, so unloving, so at odds with our description of ourselves as people of justice, and so apart from a tradition that welcomes the outcast and the stranger, that I cannot take part.

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this matter anew.I told a few people in the meeting—gently, I

thought—that I wouldn’t be here on Sundays and why I felt I couldn’t. Maybe they told a few others. Several people offered warm and supportive words. Two people had lunch with me. They expressed friendly encouragement and the wish for a continued connection. Daphne Clement, Durham Friends’ pastor, asked me to tea, listened, shared her insights, and invited me to write about the step I have taken and the way I see these things. Now I am sharing the words I have written with you.

I am heartened by Durham Meeting’s wrestling and journeying over a period of years with questions of sexuality and faithfulness. When one of our members invited people to help celebrate her and her partner’s 25th anniversary, she reflected that earlier at Durham, she would not have been so sure that her announcement would be welcome. The shift she described is like a scrap of music that you hear in the air. How deeply our meeting has embraced these two women and others! Sometimes we have welcomed and included people and said that the word “we” includes all of us.

It is good that we talk about these things, that we listen to one another and acknowledge that we are not all in the same place. As we celebrate our shift and our warm embrace of our sisters and brothers, it is also important that we face the reality of our continuing, as part of FUM, to discriminate, discount, and bar.

In their book Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship: Quakers, African Americans, and the Myth of Racial Justice, Donna McDaniel and Vanessa Julye say that many Friends today mistakenly hold that the early Quaker “abolitionists, Underground Railroad activists, [and] Freedom Riders . . . represent[ed] the Society of Friends as a whole,” whereas, in fact, for about 90 years, Quakers themselves bought, owned, and sold other human beings, enriching themselves in the process. Friends at that time who spoke out against slavery were often regarded in their meetings as disruptive, as “acting too hastily and on their own accord, unwilling to wait for guidance from the Light Within.” “The prevailing view” of Quietist Friends, McDaniel and Julye say, “was that God’s will would be revealed in the silence of meeting for worship.” Friends who dissented were seen as radicals. The “vigorous action” those radicals proposed (namely, ending Quakers’ engagement in the slave trade) was sometimes discounted as “detrimental to religious spirit and solidarity.” As a consequence, several more generations of human beings—purchased, transported, owned, or sold by Quakers—were enslaved, mistreated, raped, and separated, child from parent and spouse from spouse.

The same can be said of Friends institutions of learning, most of which, from grade schools through the Quaker colleges, did not admit

African American students as late as the 1940s, say McDaniel and Julye. Some Friends who asserted that the refusal to admit black students conflicted with Quaker principles were accused of wanting to destroy these Quaker schools, which since their founding had admitted only students of European ancestry. The oversight committee of George School “concluded that the school should not put itself ahead of the parents or the yearly meeting by admitting African Americans.” Thus, for about 250 years, Friends demonstrated “little interest in educating students of color in the schools they had created for their own children.”

Can we learn from this history rather than repeat it? Can we shorten the time in which we pride ourselves on welcoming the outcast as fully one of us, yet do not do it?

I wish we would quit excusing our participation in the evil of this exclusion by saying that we are doing the necessary and more difficult work of engaging with those who feel differently. Yes, of course we must engage with those who see things differently. Of course we will acknowledge that Friends of faith and integrity see these things in a variety of ways. We will persist in listening, talking together, and inviting the Spirit to move among us. We may take part in New England Yearly Meeting gatherings and discussions forever and a day. But we will not do so as members of any body that excludes gay people.

We know better. We have no excuse. To exclude gay people from staff and volunteer positions is morally indistinguishable from excluding people because of their skin color or gender.

I imagine sometimes that Jesus comes here on a Sunday morning but stands outside, knowing he cannot enter as long as others are told that after walking through the doors, they may not sit in every seat among us. I imagine that Jesus waits outside, just past our brick arches. He greets those who are fully welcome as they walk inside, and he stands outside with those who aren’t.

It is a very clear, simple step to say that we will exclude gays and lesbians no longer. We too will stand outside as long as they must. How else can we consider ourselves human beings or Friends?

If we cannot take this step of solidarity, I propose that we make changes to our meetinghouses, changes that require only the services of a plumber: Let us have two drinking fountains installed in the vestry. Let us place a sign over each of them. Over the right-hand drinking fountain the sign may read, “For genuine Quakers and our friends, pure as the driven snow, unsullied by a tendency to fall in love with people of the same gender as ourselves, worthy of entering fully into each corner of our fellowship from this monthly meeting to positions of service in our

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To exclude gay people from staff and volunteer positions is morally indistinguishable from excluding people because of their skin color or gender.


o ne of my summer camp highlights as a child was to help build the Monkey Bridge every year and then cross it. My mother would not

have approved had she known, due to the danger and to her ignorance of our native ways. But the grown-ups who stored the ropes all year long, who knew how to tie solid knots and to make us brave, were people I could trust, even though my mother might not have done so.

As Friends, we strive to weave bonds of trust among ourselves, and it takes special effort to weave them across generations. In the summer of 2009, Pacific Yearly Meeting (PYM) approved the creation of a Youth Program Coordinator position for a three-year trial period. Our community felt called to strengthen the bonds of faith and fellowship among our different generations, especially between youth and older adults. We agreed that by hiring a staff person to support us in working towards this goal, we would be more likely to reach it. Sarah Beutel filled this position from May 2010 through July 2011, and Alyssa Nelson has filled the position since then. I have been a member of the program’s Supervisory Committee from the start, nominated because I have raised my two teenagers with the support of our yearly meeting.

What does it mean to become a member of Friends? How does that meaning differ from one generation to another? Our committee cast out

these questions to 11 Friends in Pacific Yearly Meeting, whose ages ranged from 16 to 63, and we interviewed them for answers that reflect on the material, social, and spiritual aspects of membership in the Religous Society of Friends.

As I mulled over these Friends’ responses, I imagined the vast network of relationships in our yearly meeting that stretches across the West, and the Monkey Bridge came to mind. We made that bridge from scratch every year and stretched it across a deep ravine—a sort of 50-foot rope ladder slung between two huge tripods of branches. The middle rope, the one that you walked on, was as

thick as your ankle. But the whole enterprise was shaky, and it took a lot to make you haul yourself up to the top of that first tripod and wobble your way along that arm-breaking line from one bank of the ravine to the other. Similarly, we Quakers cast our lines of spiritual friendship across great chasms between our different situations in the world. So what does it mean to be Friends together today in Pacific Yearly Meeting?

Our generation gap is due in part to geography. We comprise 37 monthly meetings and 13 worship groups that are scattered over an area greater than 285,000 square miles (California, Hawaii, and Nevada), and that doesn’t count Guatemala and Mexico City, nor the 2,387 miles between Honolulu and San Francisco. Young Friends find it especially hard to gather together with others of their own generation. Very few of them live close to a meeting, and the cost and logistics of traveling to quarterly and annual gatherings are daunting. Even so, the Young Friends that we interviewed tended to cite Pacific Yearly Meeting as their spiritual home, rather than the monthly meetings near them. “I’m in a new city now and these elders didn’t know me growing up. They don’t know anything about me. Unless I relate to that person, it’s hard to have a spiritual conversation.”

Basic material considerations of money and effort are central to the question of membership. Young Friends know that membership involves a reciprocal commitment between a Friend and a

Mary Klein is a member of Palo Alto (Calif.) Meeting and works as a nonprofit communications consultant. In addition to Pacific Yearly Meeting’s Youth Program Coordinator Supervisory Committee, the following Friends contributed to this article: Cara Arcuni, Elizabeth Boardman, Anna-Lisa Chacon, Anthony Chang, Kate Connell, Nora Cooke, Robert Hinson, Rose Hinson, Sarah Rose House-Lightner, Lanny Jay, Nick McCormick, George Mills, Alyssa Nelson, Kate Watkins, and Steve Wolgast. The photos feature Jarod and Ray Rischpater.

CrossinG ThE monKEY BridGE ToGEThErm A r Y K l E i n

As Friends, we strive to weave bonds of trust among ourselves, and it takes special effort to weave them across generations.

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monthly meeting, and many know also that they are not ready to make such a commitment. One Young Friend, self-described as being in her “itinerant 20s,” told us, “I feel very strongly that membership is too big of a commitment to be lightly transferred from meeting to meeting.” Another explained, “This is the period when you’re figuring out what’s going on with your life. . . . You don’t know where you’re going to be next summer. Our lives are so unknown right now that it’s hard to make that commitment.” Yet another explained, “Since I’m strapped for cash, I wonder how else I can give to the meeting, other than the committee work? As I say this, I know there are other ways, but generally speaking, that’s how I understand giving my ‘dues,’ so to speak—money or committee work.” For the older Friends we interviewed, the decision to seek membership generally occurred when they settled down, when

they started their first jobs or started families. They also spoke of membership in terms of the material investment of themselves in their meetings: “Membership meant that I gradually took responsibility for business meeting. I was promising to be there when the meeting needs me, to do my share rather than assuming someone else will do

it. . . . I want community, so I’m willing to do what it takes.”

The social aspects of community are also essential to the meaning of membership in Friends. No religious society exists unless two or more are gathered together. The purpose of the yearly meeting’s Youth Program Coordinator experiment is to strengthen the bonds of faith and fellowship throughout our intergenerational community. Our committee’s interviews with Friends revealed that simple fellowship precedes deep sharing of faith. For Friends of different generations to become “capital-F” Friends together, they must first become “little-f” friends together.

In our interviews, Friends observed that fellowship is nourished both by unstructured time together and by structured activities. For the past few years, Junior Yearly Meeting (our teen program) has hosted a session of “new games” at each of Pacific Yearly Meeting’s annual gatherings. While this session has brought some welcome lightness, Friends also long for other types of informal sharing with each other. One Young Friend asked for “more intergenerational activities. Not just having games one time, but things like hikes, with everyone of different ages going together. There’s always a tendency of age groups to divide by age lines. Figure out some way to force it not to divide that way.” One of the teens requested, “Do more things that involve people of

different ages. One of the main reasons I don’t approach people is that I don’t know them at all.” And experience shows that it works: “At one New Year’s gathering, I noticed that I was so relaxed, so just there, and I felt like I didn’t have to do anything except just catch up with people—people really hearing about you and caring about you, cooking together and recharging our batteries.”

In addition to wanting more unstructured time together, Friends also want to participate in more activities that offer safe structures for self-revelation. “How to have a conversation—that’s the biggest help that anyone could provide across generations. . . . I feel shy about working with younger people. . . . Mostly I don’t know where they’re at or what they’re interested in talking about. There haven’t been many situations that have been structured where I’ve talked to young people. And when they’re unstructured, it’s hard to get going, hard to feel you’re committed to the conversation.” Young Friends also emphasized that care is needed to structure any activity of self-revelation in a way that provides a level playing field. One advised, “If the intention of worship sharing is to build community, it’s really important that there are no right or wrong answers to the queries. A good query would be something like, ‘Share one of the most challenging experiences you’ve had.’” When done well, the disciplined sharing of personal experiences can foster deep bonds of mutual healing and growth across a wide range of ages. “When I was 12 or so, I went to PYM for the first time and was going through a painful time in my life. A group of Friends, most of them a generation or three older than me, got together as a sort of affinity group and sat in worship with me and shared how they had also gone through similar experiences. . . . It helped me to know I wasn’t alone in what I was going through. . . . It showed me that helping someone can be as simple as listening, and speaking from your experience.”

For Friends, the spiritual aspects of membership are intimately interconnected with the social aspects. An experiential faith of lived testimonies is revealed through the everyday actions of its people. Ideally, membership in a Friends meeting will heighten the tensions we feel between our values and those of the common culture, while strengthening our resolve to live by our Quaker testimonies. One Young Friend explained that “You and the meeting are supposed to have integrity, or keep each other accountable or grounded, but I’m not sure it ever works that way. Maybe membership represents an intentionality, a commitment. . . . It takes hard work, and you thresh through things; often times it’s worth it and you all end up growing from it.”

In our interviews, several Friends spoke about ways that other Friends served as role models in

simple fellowship precedes deep sharing of faith. For Friends of different generations to become “capital-F” Friends together, they must first become “little-f” friends together.

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their spiritual development. “The conversations I had with Earl Reynolds I remember profoundly. Earl was an old Quaker activist who’d sailed the Golden Rule into atomic test zones, a crusty, no-nonsense, old-time radical. Hearing him describe the voyages and how he dealt with the authorities in Japan . . . gave me an image of character—how to be a strong, independent person and live your life with integrity.” Another Friend spoke about joining Friends at the time when he registered for the draft: “Membership seemed more important at the time of the Vietnam War. . . to be in a community where it was okay to be against the war and government policies.” Friends also find spiritual role models in others who share their ignoble struggles as well as their noble ones. “[He told me how] he’s gone through some difficult times and how his spirituality helped him through it. . . . It’s important to see that even if you fall off the Quaker Wagon, it’s still there for you. He made me remember that it’s not about living the testimonies perfectly; it’s where your heart is and your intentions.

At times your life can be clouded, but you can always

find the Spirit and come back to it.”Membership in a spiritual community of

Friends requires us to speak truth about our testimonies while we try to live them. Disentangling the meaning of our actions from the values of the common culture is not something that we can do in isolation. Young Friends and new attenders especially want the guidance of seasoned Friends in this. “I don’t even know how to interpret the word ‘spiritual.’ I identify my upbringing as Quaker, but I am pretty strongly agnostic. . . . Dispelling myths of the superiority of a physicalist viewpoint . . . would probably be helpful in fixing generational gaps, because I think [today’s] aggressive atheism was not as common before [as it is] recently, when religious people are rarer than ever and being proud of your faith makes you a target on the playground.” Another Young Friend described the relief that just such a spiritual conversation conveyed: “As a young teen, I was perplexed about how Bible messages and Quaker ideas were not consistent [with evolution]. I was helped by an older Quaker who told me that God does not work in our time frame. You can believe in evolution and also put the Bible to good use.” Helping each other articulate our testimonies as we

try to live them in the world can help us to let our light shine. “As a kid, sometimes you don’t even know you’re practicing your religion in Quakerism; it’s not like being Catholic. As a young adult . . . I’m proud that I’m a Quaker. It’s a special part of me and is a huge part of who I am. If you say you are a Quaker, people know—that’s a compassionate person, that’s an honest person. But that pride can be lost. We need to make sure our youth can be proud, learn how awesome it is to be Quaker, how much freedom and support we have.”

The material, social, and spiritual ties that bind a member to a Quaker meeting are infinitely complex. The decision to become a member is also infinitely complex, but a simple invitation can help. “The clerk of the meeting encouraged me to write a letter asking for membership and stood with me while I wrote it. It was about two sentences long, and I handed it right to the clerk. It felt

perfunctory. But it was a big thing that someone invited and encouraged me to become a member. Yes, it’s nice to let people decide for themselves, but it’s also important to let people know they’re cared about.” Generally, such perfunctory moments lead to deeper processes of discernment, as another Friend remembered: “In my teens and

early twenties, I think that membership was generally something I avoided. The idea of having to be a card-carrying individual of an organization in order to be a true member was what was so unattractive to me at the time. This all changed when an elder in my monthly meeting whom I looked up to approached me and suggested it was time for me to consider membership. I thought, ‘Okay, I’ll get a clearness committee to explore the idea.’” One young Friend suggested that the yearly meeting might even develop an informal process of “checking in” with its young adult attenders about this. “There’s that time of transition that’s awkward. It could be more intentional. There could be a natural clearness committee for Young Friends about membership.”

My own membership in my monthly meeting began when my children were small, and my meeting helped me to raise them. The mother waiting at home is now me—wondering about my kids far away, crossing a Monkey Bridge with people I barely know. The work that Pacific Yearly Meeting is doing to strengthen our intergenerational community is work that strengthens me, too. Let us cast the ropes straight and tie them well, as we care for the bridge that is membership in the Religious Society of Friends. q

let us cast the ropes straight and tie them well, as we care for the bridge that is membership in the religious society of Friends.


A QuAKEr BAr miTZVAhJ A m E s K i m m E l J r . A n d A d A m K i m m E l

my son Adam recently celebrated his 13th birthday. Like many boys his age, he lobbied for an

Xbox 360 to be his birthday present. But like many Quaker fathers my age, I found myself yearning for a more spiritual way to mark this important milestone in my son’s life.

In some Christian churches, young teens embark upon the rite of passage known as Confirmation. Candidates for Confirmation undertake deep study of the tenets of their faith. When the priest determines that the candidates are sufficiently prepared, a ritual is performed during which they confirm their commitment to the church and, in effect, renew their baptismal covenants. In turn, the candidates are welcomed into the church as young adults. This often takes place in an elaborate ceremony that culminates with the laying on of hands by a bishop and concludes with a festive party and gifts for the newly confirmed.

Though now a convinced Friend, I was raised Episcopalian and went through Confirmation as a young teen. I took it very seriously, and I remember with fondness my weeks of study with the priest, the awe-inspiring appearance of the bishop before whom I knelt at the communion rail, and the party afterwards, complete with cake and gifts.

Judaism has a similar rite of passage, but in addition to confirming one’s faith, the ceremony has significant legal implications. In Aramaic, Bar Mitzvah literally means son of the commandments, and Bat Mitzvah means daughter of the commandments. To become a son or daughter of the commandments means to assume the obligation of observing the Jewish laws.

James Kimmel Jr. is a member of Kennett (Pa.) Meeting. He is the author of Suing for Peace and of the forthcoming novel, The Trial of Fallen Angels. Adam Kimmel is a member of Kennett (PA) Meeting and is a seventh grade student in the Unionville-Chadds Ford School District.

Before this age, a child is not legally responsible for his or her actions; the parents are liable for any transgressions their child may commit. By becoming a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, the candidate becomes an adult and assumes personal responsibility for upholding the laws, and personal liability for breaking them. A Bar or Bat Mitzvah is considered an adult in Judaism; the parents no longer carry the burden of liability for their children’s misdeeds.

Like Confirmation, the Bar and Bat Mitzvah ceremony requires a candidate to engage in a period of deep study of the tenets of the faith. The process also concludes with an elaborate ceremony and usually a festive party and gifts. Unlike Confirmation, however, the Bar Mitzvah or Bat Mitzvah ceremony centers on the candidate reciting a portion of the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) and giving a speech that traditionally begins with the phrase, “Today, I am a man” or “Today, I am a woman.”

What do we Quakers do to celebrate the passage of our children into adulthood? We do not have a special meeting or other ceremony. This is, of course, as it should be. Eschewing rote ceremonies in favor of direct experience of the Divine is a core tenet of our faith, but this tenet is not a negative injunction. Instead it instructs us to seek out the Divine at such moments and to be open to leadings of the Spirit.

Such a leading took possession of me as my son’s birthday approached. I yearned to celebrate Adam’s coming of age in unison with God and in such a way that he would remember the significance of this special moment in his life—the spiritual moment when he became a man.

As I researched the ceremonies of Confirmation and Bar Mitzvah, I began to consider what it would mean for a young person to confirm his or her commitment to the testimonies of Friends, what it would mean to become a “son or daughter of the testimonies.”

For me, the spiritual revelation of

What would it mean for a young person to confirm his or her commitment to the testimonies of Friends, what would it mean to become a bar or bat mitzvah, a “son or daughter of the testimonies”?

George Fox comes down to Jesus Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. I find this to be the ancient, crystalline testimony of our faith—the statement of our Quaker commandments from which all other testimonies flow. If a boy becoming an adult studies nothing else, he must study the Sermon on the Mount because it contains the wisdom and advice by which he can live a good life.

I also considered what type of ceremony might be possible during a Quaker meeting for worship. We at Kennett (Pa.) Meeting have a period just before meeting for worship called Gathering. During this time, we read spiritual texts and sing hymns. It occurred to me that Adam could read the Sermon on the Mount during Gathering, and since he also happens to be a violinist, he could perhaps perform a concerto as his gift to the meeting. During the coffee time afterwards, we could have a cake and celebrate with members and attenders.

It felt right.But the idea of Adam merely

reading the Sermon on the Mount seemed insufficient. In many translations, the words are arid and lose their meaning. I wanted this to be more than an exercise in reading; I wanted it to be a transformative experience.

This is when I came upon the idea of Adam translating the Sermon on the Mount into his own words by


reflecting upon his own experience and applying Jesus’ wisdom to the present day. I asked Adam if he would be willing to do this, and he agreed as long as I would do it with him. So together, during the weeks leading up to his birthday, Adam and I studied and translated the Sermon on the Mount. It was a beautiful experience, one that I will never forget.

Adam’s translation of the Sermon on the Mount appears below. He

recited it during Gathering at Kennett Meeting on October 30, 2011. Afterward, he played a Vivaldi concerto with great emotion and skill, and we all settled into silent worship. During the silence, I was moved by the Spirit to rise and speak. I was moved to repeat the words spoken by God from the heavens when John the Baptist baptized Jesus of Nazareth in the River Jordan: “This is my son, and he is perfect in my sight.”

Here is Adam Kimmel’s version of the Sermon on the Mount:

The Eight BeatitudesBlessed are the poor kids, because

the school of Heaven is all theirs. Blessed are the kids who are sad and

unhappy, because they will be taken care of, and everything will be okay.

Blessed are the nerds and the unpopular kids, because they shall inherit the sports fields, playgrounds, and classrooms.

Blessed are the kids who try to get good grades, because they will be given the best opportunities in the future.

Blessed are the kids who stick up for others, because they will be stuck up for.

Blessed are the good kids, because they will have lunch with the Principal who is in Heaven.

Blessed are the kids who break up fights and make peace at recess, because they shall be called the children of the Principal who is in Heaven.

Blessed are the kids who are harassed by bullies for trying to do what is right, because the entire school district of Heaven is theirs.

The sermonEveryone is the world’s light, a

thousand flashlights on a hill. Don’t take the batteries out of your flashlight! Let it shine for all kids to see.

If you call your friend an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the Assistant Principal.

If you curse out your friend, you are in danger of being cast into the boredom of weekend detention.

If you are standing before the teacher’s desk turning in your homework and suddenly remember that your friend is mad at you, leave your homework and go apologize to

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him and make up. Then go and turn in your homework.

The law of Moses says, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say, don’t resist punches with punches. If you are slugged in one shoulder, turn the other one, too.

There is a saying, “Love your friends and hate the bullies.” Wrong!!!! I say, “Love your friends and the bullies.” Pray for the bullies. In that way, you will be acting as the Principal’s favorites. For the Principal lets the fluorescent lights shine on the bullies and the good kids alike. And he gives cafeteria food to the kids who play fair and the kids who cheat, too.

If you like only kids who like you back, what good is that? Even bullies do that. If you are only friendly to kids who like you, how are you different from the bullies? You are to be perfect, even as the Principal who is in Heaven is perfect. When you are nice to a kid who needs help, don’t shout about it as the brown-nosers do. I tell you with all honesty that they have received all the awards they will get. When you do something nice for somebody, do it in secret. Don’t even tell yourself what you are doing. The Principal who knows all secrets will reward you.

When you pray, pray like this:

Our Principal, who hangs out in Heaven,

we honor your name.Your school district come;your rules be doneon the playground as they are in

the classroom.Give us this day our daily lunch,and forgive us our bad behavioras we forgive the bullies who are bad

to us.And do not let us be tempted to skip

school or take drugs,but deliver us from bad things,For yours is a great school district and

the authority, forever and always.Amen.

Don’t worry about candy, soda, and the latest styles from Hollister. You already have life and a body. They are more important than snacks and cool clothes. Why be like the popular kids who take

grandfatheri’ve never known what he doesin the silence—not conjuring images of heaven,or jesus washing feet or bearded men—he does not believe in god.

is he thinking about the economy, i wonder?or maybe his wife, whose grave sits outside—she loved to garden, loved snowdropsand stars, even novels.

one morning we shared ourbeliefs over newtimes and wall journals; or rather,argued until the truthfinally surfaced:

there is no goodness, he frowned,no redemption, no grace;only justice, greedand envy.

spirit spirals, twists, tanglesaround the wordsof his life, stories of wealth and failure—what he does not know—the silence— is simplya hungry empy void, yearning to be filled.

i do not feel his anger,but i understand its sadness.i do not know where his spirit rests,but i know where it lives.

we are connected throughfamily, blood, and searching , wading throughthis difficult, confusing,breathtaking world.

Madeline SchaefferPhiladelphia, Pa.

pride in all these things and look down on those who don’t have them? Your Principal already knows you need them, and he will give them to you if you give him first place in your life.

Don’t make fun of others and then you won’t be made fun of. Other kids will treat you as you treat them. Why tell some kid how to do his schoolwork when you yourself are failing your own classes? Hypocrite! First start getting better grades yourself and then you can try to help the other kid.

Ask for the school supplies you need, and they will be given to you. If you look in the lost and found, you will find what you are looking for. Knock, and the classroom door will be opened.

Do for others what you would want them to do for you. That is the rule of the school in a nutshell.

Beware of false friends, who can be disguised as nice kids but are corrupters and bad influences and will make you make the wrong choices. You can figure out who is a good or bad friend as easily as you can identify a good or a bad video game system. Just as you can tell the quality of a video game system by the integrity and authenticity of the graphics it produces, so you can tell the quality of a person by the integrity and authenticity of the life he or she lives.

All who listen to my lessons and follow them are wise. It is like a kid who builds his tree house in a sturdy oak tree. Though hurricanes and floods come, it will not fall down. But those who ignore my lessons are foolish, like a kid who builds his tree house in a tree that is already dead and rotting. When the hurricanes and floods come, it will fall down with a thud. q


“Colored only.”With the placement of these

drinking fountains, we will acknowledge the divided state of the welcome we offer. We will join those of our Quaker forebears who once declared those Friends divisive and unquakerly who said other Friends should stop buying, selling, and enslaving human beings. We will join those old Quakers from the days before Friends finally declared as one that enslaving other human beings is incompatible with the Light and impermissible, unimaginable, for Friends themselves.

Durham Friends, I am happy to say, are different from those old enslavers. I started attending Durham Friends regularly during a difficult chapter of life. People simply, gloriously welcomed me. Some of them communicated, usually without words, that falling apart, as I had done, is one thing that humans do sometimes, and they took me just the way I was. Just the way I was. At moments on Sundays I felt

larger associations. Drink here, O blessed ones.”

The sign over the left-hand drinking fountain may read, “For the rainbow of others, neither real Quakers nor really our friends, not so pure as the driven snow, stained by the tendency to fall in love or partner with people of the same gender as yourselves, welcome to sit in meetings for worship as if you were genuine Quakers, but unworthy, as sullied persons, of holding positions of service in our larger associations. Drink here, you strangers. Drink to your hearts’ content.”

This proposal cannot be taken literally, of course. So many words will not fit very well on a sign. Rather, over the right-hand drinking fountain, for those whose light is unrefracted, whose inner being remains pure and white as the driven snow, let the sign simply read, “Whites only.” Over the fountain for people whose light has scattered into a rainbow of colors, so that they are neither so pure nor so white as the driven snow, let the sign read,

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like a human being. That is Durham Friends. I don’t

want to forget. So it is as a Durham Friend that nowadays on Sundays, in my mind, I wait outside the meetinghouse, being a Durham Friend for those who cannot go all the way in. Out there I am trying, in my way, to stand in for Jesus and be a Durham Friend. q

i imagine that Jesus waits outside, just past our brick arches. he greets those who are fully welcome as they walk inside, and he stands outside with those who aren’t.


As a retired person, walking has become a way of life for me. I have always been an active person

who enjoys being outdoors as much as possible. After graduating from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, I was truly fortunate to find a career in Morristown, New Jersey, training Seeing Eye dogs to guide blind people. Having grown up with German Shepherds, I had a good understanding and a strong connection with dogs. To be able to put my love for dogs into a career with the worthy purpose of helping blind people to achieve independence and dignity through the mobility that a Seeing Eye dog provides was beyond belief. The fact that most of my daily work, which involved

training the dogs and teaching our blind students, took place outdoors on the streets of Morristown was an added attraction for me.

My experience at The Seeing Eye also brought me the love of my life and future wife, Jane, who came to Morristown for her first Seeing Eye dog in June 1965. Jane, who is totally blind, has taught me a new way of “seeing” that is from the heart. She has an intuitive way of knowing how others are feeling and how to reach out to them. As Jane is

appearance. I can easily imagine what darkness and despair lived behind those walls for over a hundred years. As I walk closer to the building, it strikes me that there is a fine line between living in the light and becoming lost in the shadows of the darkness.

While I am walking with the sunlight behind my back I am constantly aware of my shadow, which is always a step ahead of me. As a Quaker I know that the Inner Light that guides us is the same light that reveals the dark places or shadows that occur in our lives. As the awareness of the Light grows stronger within us, our human faults and weaknesses are exposed, like the shadows in front of us. These dark places in our lives are there to remind us of our selfish, egoistic desires and deep-seated fears that separate us from God, and cause emotional pain, even to those we love. These shadows from our past can lead us astray and those old emotional patterns can pull us back into the darkness. How can we walk away from these shadows of fear, anger and guilt that can push us over the edge into the dark abyss?

As Quakers we turn to the Light and let the Light Within be our truest guide. Through prayer and deep listening we have faith that our hearts will be opened to the Inner Light, and that it will show us the path that is already given to us. By walking with the Truth we become free and are able to follow that path that leads us out of the darkness. As we walk into the Light, which shines upon our face, the shadows of our past then fall behind us. We are then able to hear the call to say “yes” to the movement of that of God within us, which brings peace with every step. Our growing awareness of the Light brings healing and relief from those dark, painful experiences of our past life. Those old negative thoughts no longer control our minds and our lives, but are overcome by an “ocean of Light and Love” (George Fox). Even though there may be times in our spiritual journey when we become lost in the shadows of our past, when we turn to the Light, God shows us the way home.

“Where the pure Light of God is witnessed, it guides to himself.” (George Fox, Epistle 20) q

unable see facial expressions or body language, she listens to what others say and feel with her heart. Whenever one of our friends is going through a dark period in her life, Jane, with her inner vision, is usually able to help the person gain a greater insight into the problem and find the way out of the darkness. Without a doubt, Jane has taught me more about “seeing” than I would ever have known on my own.

After my 43-year career at The Seeing Eye, I tentatively looked forward to retiring at the approach of my 65th birthday and I realized that I would need to find a physical activity to replace the active life style of my work at The Seeing Eye. I began a disciplined walking routine, partly for my health, but also because I find pure joy in

walking freely in the beauty of nature. Walking makes me feel alive!

When I begin my morning walk shortly after breakfast, I breathe deeply to fill my lungs and bring energy into my body. I also offer a prayer of thanksgiving for the gift of a new day and ask the Lord to guide my footsteps in his Light. As I find a rhythm in my gait, I seek to open my heart so that peace may flow through me. Sometimes I will repeat a

mantra from the scriptures, such as: “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10), which helps me to stay centered in the Light and in rhythm with the universe. As I walk peacefully over the earth, I find myself falling gently into meditation, which often leads me into prayer. It is during this prayer-walking that I often have my deepest thoughts and insights.

On one of my morning walks, I found myself heading west on a quiet street that leads to a deserted hospital building. This austere looking building with boarded up windows is four stories high and extends more than six hundred feet in width. It was built in 1876 as a hospital for the insane and now 135 years later it has been abandoned in favor of a new, modern mental health facility. Even on this bright, sunny day, this grotesque structure has a gloomy, almost haunted

R e f l e c t i o n

Walking from the Shadows into the lightPeter lang

Peter Lang lives in Morris Plains, N.J., and is a member of Chatham-Summit Meeting. As a traveling Friend, Peter has visited numerous meetings in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and New York Yearly Meeting sharing his program, “My Journey with Thomas Kelly; Seeking the Light Within.”

“. . . for we walk by faith not by sight.”

(2 corinthians 5:7)

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My boyhood was spent in Plymouth, on the southwestern coast of England near the little

harbor from which the Mayflower left for America. Our home was in a large old house, subdivided into three flats. My uncle Bill, a railway laborer, with Auntie Flossie, lived on the third floor; a naval officer, Lieutenant Basset, and his family were on the second floor; and our family lived on the first floor.

As war approached in the summer of 1939, things were changing. Air raid shelters were being dug and important office doors sandbagged. We had practice air raid alarms, the sirens whoo-whooing up and down for the Warning, wailing at an even pitch for the All Clear. In Septem-ber, three weeks before my fourteenth birthday, Germany invaded Poland. The city blacked out. Street lights went off for the duration, car headlights were dimmed, and house windows were taped and light-proofed with funereal black material.

I saw everything through thirteen-year-old eyes. I had no contact with Friends at that time. When Britain declared war, I wanted to ride my bike through the streets with a sign saying “WAR!” At going-on-fourteen this was almost the total of my thoughts. But I saw newsreels of Hitler ranting to great stiff-armed, frenzied crowds, and of jackbooted stormtroopers goose-stepping among massed red-and-black, swastika-branded banners, and I felt a deep disgust and fear. For the first time in my life I became a joiner, joining my school’s Officers’ Training Corps (OTC). Dad became an Air Raid Precautions (ARP) warden at the local post, a window-less concrete box where the wardens would gather during a raid. During the Spring of 1940, I decided the OTC wasn’t enough for me and I became an ARP Messenger, as well, my second impulse to volunteer.

At times during that summer of 1940, when the Battle of Britain was going on well to the east of us, an air raid warning would sound during the night. Dad would go to the post and we men, Uncle Bill, Lt. Bassett, and I, would stand at the front door and wait for action. Later, during that winter, there were only a few nights when I

War, compassion, and Devonshire PastyKen Southwood

didn’t have to scramble into my clothes, grab my ARP helmet, and, at the very least, go to the front door and discuss the war with the men.

During most nights the raid would last half an hour or so. A plane might fly across the city, engines throbbing, and the beams of five or ten searchlights would wave like the antennae of giant cockroaches and, every now and then, illuminate a small moving point in the dark sky. When the familiar throbbing sound came in from the sea and the lights jumped up into the sky and began searching too close for comfort, and the guns sounded off, we’d all go indoors and downstairs to the basement shelter. But then I would gather up my ARP-issue gasmask and tell Mum that I was “going to the post.”

With that, I would walk out the back door and down the garden path in my steel helmet with the search lights probing, guns crashing, and the airborne engines thrumming, and my heart full. Looking at TV news of boys riding in pickups, looking stern and holding automatic weapons in civil-war-torn Beirut, or Somalia, or Baghdad, I can understand them, at least a little. I wasn’t bloodthirsty, and I might have jibbed at shooting somebody, but the action and the excite-ment made me breathe deeply with sheer joy. I knew the threats that fell from the air and when to hide from them. After a heavy raid, there were usually undetonated incendiary bombs at the post, and it was my—important!—job to take them up to ARP headquarters on my bike. A bomb killed a police officer in our back lane. A boy in my class was killed. Houses burned down. Despite my exhilaration, I hated the Germans. I was at war.

Repeated raids destroyed the familiar city center, now still remembered as it was. On one day, after a very large raid, I rode home from school, turning off through side streets and past the newly empty, blackened frame of Charles Church weeping smoke, down to Norley Church, my family’s “chapel.” When I got there its two buildings were vacant shells, blind walls around smoldering, charred timbers. The pipes of the great organ were twisted, scorched, and fallen. The stained glass windows, eyes to heaven, were gone and the smoking ruin within the walls was open to the sky. A large part of my family’s life had disappeared and I wept.

But a very different kind of incident stayed in my mind, making a more important impression, one I have also never forgotten. Lieutenant Bassett had assured us that he was not your heroic type of naval officer, being a cook, up from the ranks, in charge only of the kitchens at the naval barracks in Devonport. Nevertheless, he had strong opinions about Germans. These were that no prisoners should be taken; Jerries were swine, to be shot at sight. He expressed these opinions forcefully.

One night, in the early hours, the front doorbell rang. Dad went to find two Naval police asking to speak to Lieutenant Bassett, who dressed and left with them. Our conversations buzzed with specula-tion. He returned later that night, and when we three again stood at the front door, Uncle Bill asked, in his Devonshire brogue, “Well, wha’ wuz that, las’ noight, then?” Lieutenant Bassett looked thought-ful and told us, reflectively, that the Navy had sunk a U-boat in the Channel that day and had later found German sailors afloat in the sea. They had picked them up and brought them in to port. The prisoners had not eaten, so he was called out to feed them. In the middle of the night.

This was a confrontation. “Well, then,” asked Uncle Bill, “wha’d y’ do?” I listened, expectant. Lieutenant Bassett looked a little abashed.

“Well,” he said, “I never saw a sorrier-looking lot of fellows in all my life. Wet through, all wrapped in blankets. They looked like drowned rats. Miserable faces, all of ‘em. Prisoners . . . Well, I just called the lads out and we cooked ’em a good supper of Devonshire pasty.”

Meat and potato pasties were our staple in Devon and Cornwall. Lieutenant Bassett, faced with the humanity of the hungry German prisoners, had cooked them one of our own good, nourishing meals. q

Ken Southwood was a boy of 14 when the bombing of Great Britain began in 1940. He is a member of San Antonio (Tex.) Meeting and lives in San Antonio.


S p i r i t u a l p r a c t i c e

Quakerism was not my first choice. When I was 17 and decided to visit some churches, I originally thought

the Unitarian Universalists were the best match for me. It looked great on paper: liberal politics and no expectation that you even believe in God. I visited the local church and found lots of friendly people. I decided to come back some Sunday, but I wanted to visit a Quaker meeting first.

I never made it back to that UU church. Richmond (Ind.) Friends Meeting, in its unobtrusive white wooden building, felt like home. Sitting for an hour in silence wasn’t the deep experience I had hoped for, but I wanted more of it.

As the years have passed, I have grown more involved in Quaker meetings wherever I have lived, but I’ve remained unsure about what place there is for an agnostic like me in the Religious Society of Friends. How could I join a meeting when I’ve never experienced anything I can call God? How could I be part of a sense of the meeting when the only force I feel at work is that of people and their various opinions, not a divinely-inspired third way? Could I be a hanger-on to a religion just because I loved the community? Was it right to sit daydreaming through an hour of silence because there was a potluck lunch afterwards and a vigil for peace outside the post office next week?

This year I started working at Pendle Hill. I had hoped that the chance to study Quakerism—and just to steep in a Quaker environment—would help me clarify things. But if I was hoping to find some kind of secular, community-centered model of Quakerism that I could be part of, I certainly didn’t find it. Instead I’ve been impressed by how intensely Spirit-centered Quakerism has been and continues to be for some Friends. My concept of meeting for worship has changed, especially: instead of using the time to let my mind wander, I’ve tried to settle into the receptive state that others describe.

I’ve also been thinking differently about individual Quakers. I read John Woolman’s journal, expecting it to be the record of a committed activist whose actions were perhaps informed but not

No religion. always practicing Quakerism.Julia Wise

dictated by his faith. Instead I found a man who begged God to let him die rather than continue the work laid out for him. What kept Woolman going was not a belief that his actions were effective—it was faith, his belief that this was what God asked of him. People like Woolman and Mary Fisher don’t seem autonomously compelled; their stories are amazing because of the extent of their submission to what they experience as God’s will.

If I am a Quaker at all, I’m definitely not that kind of Quaker. This fall I’ve been sitting in meeting with a new awareness of what other people may be experiencing in their worship, but although I make an effort to tune in to that frequency, I’m not picking anything up. I haven’t heard any divine calls to activism, so my work will have to be motivated and guided only by my own ideas of what is right.

When I lay it out like that, I wonder if I hadn’t better just go back to the Unitarian Universalists. But although I’ve visited more UU churches over the years, they have always felt aimless and unfocused to me. The class I’ve been taking at Pendle Hill stresses Quakerism’s religious roots, roots that continue to anchor it. I am not grounded in that faith, but I don’t want to leave for something more vague and less rooted. I want to stay with Quakerism in whatever way I can without weakening it for others.

Instead of “faith,” I find myself returning to the word “practice.” It’s got that double meaning: a practice is something you do routinely, but to practice is also to work on something so you’ll get better at it. A few years ago I filled out a form that asked: “What is your religion? How often do you practice your religion?” I’m sure they meant “How often do you go to religious services?” but that seemed a silly way to measure a person’s faith. The only honest answers I could come up with were, “No religion. Always practicing Quakerism.”

I don’t know where I need to go from here. I don’t know if I’ll ever become a member of a meeting, or if I’ll ever feel guidance from a source outside myself. Maybe I’ll continue sitting in quiet rooms with wooden benches for the rest of my life, listening for something I’ll never hear. But I do know that I need to continue practicing. q

Julia Wise wrote this article in 2007 while living and working at Pendle Hill. She is now a social work student and attends Fresh Pond Meeting in Cambridge, Mass.

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P a s t o r a l C a r e

On my last visit, we had the white-tablecloth lunch in the Friends Fellowship dining room

while your peers glanced over our way, wondering whether I was a son, or a nephew, or the younger friend that I was. Once, I would have picked you up at your own house, found our usual corner table by the window at the Olde Richmond Inn, and ordered two glasses of wine, feeling slightly naughty, “Fast Friends” maybe, the kind of Quakers who indulged in the world of the flesh more than others might deem fit.

After lunch we went back to your new room in the assisted-living wing. I knew it rankled you, this last letting go of your independence, but you didn’t complain. Instead, you fished out a baggy of old bread crusts that you had salvaged from the dining room and said, “Let’s go feed the ducks.” So I wheeled you out to the pond, and those ridiculous ducks came waddling over, and we fed them together, amused at their squabbling. And later, back in your room, after we had said everything we could think of to say, you asked me to take you to your friend’s room. So I wheeled you down the long, white-walled corridor and we knocked on Martha’s door.

Your friend was propped up on her pillow, lightly dozing in the blue TV light of an Indianapolis Colts game. “I brought the hand lotion you wanted,” you told Martha, and I wheeled you over to her bedside. You introduced us and then I sat down behind you, watching from behind your shoulder as you took out the lotion and warmed it between your palms. I wondered at first why you had asked me to come. “All the Colts have to do is run out the clock,“ the TV announcer said. All I had to do was to sit and listen as you comforted your friend who believed that her long-deceased husband had recently asked her for a divorce. All I had to do was to see her hand taken in by yours. q

last Date (in memory of Mary elizabeth long)By Peter anderson

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W i t n e s s

General sam Wants You! (And Your tax Dollars)

Kyle Chandler-isacksen

Kyle Chandler-Isacksen and his family have been war tax resistors for the past five years by living below the poverty line. They are the founders of Be The Change Project, an urban homestead devoted to family learning and service in a low-income neighborhood in Reno, Nevada.

Imagine this year that we will all be paying our taxes in person, with cash. Come April, you’ll take a walk to your

library and hand over your share directly to Uncle Sam, who, for the sake of this story, we’ll call General Sam.

When you arrive, you find a long line of people approaching a row of folding tables. As you move up in line, you notice several boxes, each labeled for a different area of government spending. You see education, social security, transportation, health, and so on, and finally, “defense.” And sure enough, seated behind this box on a stackable plastic chair is General Sam with his white goatee, steely eyes, and hawkish nose. You are just a few places back in line when you realize what an unprecedented opportunity this is to share your thoughts on war and military spending directly with General Sam. You start rehearsing in your head and are all fired up by the time you reach the table.

You launch right in on the obscenely high military budget, and point out that the United States spends almost as much on its military operations as do all the other nations of the world combined. The first box is for education, and you pause in your speech just long enough to slip in a few hundred dollars.

You start in again by laying out the lost opportunity costs of that military spending, and ask, “What if that money went to social programs, healthcare, or the environment? What kind of world could we create with the nearly $600 billion dollars we currently spend on the military each year?” Everyone in the line is listening now. General Sam strokes his goatee as you shuffle over to the next box labeled “healthcare” and count out your bills.

You change tack and start talking about the senseless violence of war, the waste of life, and the great misery and suffering

millions endure. “And war never makes us safer!” you scoff, as if dismissing his potential retort. He raises an eyebrow while you push more bills into the social programs box.

You’re on a roll now, really giving it to General Sam about the consequences of a government that lies, the erosion of democracy, and our diminished standing in the world. The skills you learned in your high school speech and debate class are resurfacing just in time. You hastily push more of your tax dollars into the “transportation” box and a couple more boxes you barely notice because you’re so worked up.

You’re approaching the climax of your argument, the moral and spiritual basis against war. You pull from the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the Peacemakers,” and then throw in a commandment, “Thou shall not kill!” for good measure. Your energy is radiating to the taxpayers queued behind you, who’ve gotten very quiet now.

“Would Jesus bomb anyone?” you ask with your hands splayed out. “Would Jesus sell weapons to anyone? Would Jesus condone torture?” You say the last a bit too loudly for a library. “No!” Your finger stabs the folding table holding the boxes. “No!” you say more gently. “Never. Never. Never.” You’re spent. You’re emotionally drained as your heart stands with those your government has hurt and killed.

You could hear a pin drop in the room. You feel the eyes of all the citizens behind you on your back. General Sam nods, a look of deep, grandfatherly empathy on his face. You think he’s about to respond, but instead, he points to the $2,000 left in your hand and to the last box on the table: military spending.

You look up at him. You look down at the money in your hands. You turn to the expectant faces in line behind you. What do you do? q

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b o o k s

Lucretia Mott’s Heresy: Abolition and Women’s Rights in Nineteenth-Century AmericaBy Carol Faulkner. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. 291 pages. $45/Hardcover.

Reviewed by Robert Dockhorn

Even though I have a high appreciation for the legacy of Lucretia Mott (1793–1880), I probably would never have gotten around to reading Lucretia Mott’s Heresy if Carol Faulkner hadn’t been speaking at the annual meeting of Friends Historical Association last November on the same day I was at Arch Street Meetinghouse in Philadelphia for another meeting. I stayed for her presentation, and after sensing from her talk that Lucretia still has some very important lessons for us today, I bought the book.

Prior to Faulkner’s book, the best-known study of Mott was Margaret Hope Bacon’s well-written and very readable Valiant Friend: The Life of Lucretia Mott, published in 1980. I found Faulkner somewhat unfair to Bacon when, in her acknowledgments, she quotes a teacher who asked, “Can you believe there is no scholarly biography of Mott?” Faulkner then invokes that comment as “the first spark for this book.” Nonetheless, Faulkner’s careful, meticulously footnoted monograph is very welcome. It relies heavily on the extant records of Mott’s speeches, as well as on her extensive correspondence with family, friends, and other leaders in the abolitionist and women’s rights movements. One of Mott’s virtues was her ability to maintain friendships—or at least cordiality—with others, even those with whom she had substantial disagreements on some issues. Although Lucretia Mott’s Heresy is not nearly as flowing in style as Bacon’s biography, it has the virtue of enabling the reader to see more precisely the contours of Mott’s place in history.

Mott stood at the intersection of two great 19th-century movements: the abolition of slavery and women’s rights. For Faulkner—as indeed for Mott herself—the word “heresy” aptly expresses Mott’s non-adherence to the standard beliefs of her times. Her involvement in both movements had the same source: her clarity about human rights in general. This had roots in her Nantucket Island origins, her education at Nine Partners Boarding School in New York, and the ministry of Elias Hicks.

Faulkner leads the reader through the intricacies of the Orthodox-Hicksite split in Quakerism after 1827. For Mott, the fact that the Bible did not speak in favor of women’s rights or against slavery in unambiguous terms convinced her that the Light Within held primacy over the Bible as the source of divine inspiration. But Mott was no partisan; as Faulkner writes, “Mott viewed these arbitrary sectarian boundaries as a detriment to true religion.” Although criticized even by fellow Hicksites for her activism, Mott remained loyal to her faith tradition and rejected the “come-outerism” of some of her contemporaries, who renounced their allegiance to religious bodies because they were unwilling to take clear moral stands and support activism against slavery or for women’s rights.

Mott played a key role in the women’s rights movement, culminating in her leadership at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, but her speeches and writings leave no doubt that the abolitionist movement was her central focus. She was clear that the injustices and brutality of slavery required priority in her attention. She called for immediate abolition and opposed such gradualist solutions as purchasing the freedom of individual slaves. She also opposed the moral compromise of reimbursing slaveholders as a means to end the institution.

In regard to women’s rights, she was somewhat equivocal about the importance of women’s suffrage, which, I suspect, could have been related to her appreciation for Friends decision making without voting, a perspective that Faulkner, apparently not a Quaker, does not explore.

Mott was not opposed to the possible break-up of the United States. Faulkner writes: “A disunionist who distrusted party politics and condemned political compromise, Lucretia was only too happy to bid farewell to slave states.” Then she adds, “The fact that Mott was willing to leave slaves at the mercy of their masters suggested that perhaps she privileged her

own purity over the welfare of those in bondage.” This I take to be a serious misunderstanding of Mott. However, Faulkner clarifies, “But she also believed that disunion would lead to the disintegration of the South’s peculiar institution,” which I think gets closer to an understanding of Mott’s values and perception of how change takes place.

During and after the Civil War, Mott held firm to her perspective that it was not military action in the war that promoted emancipation, but the “moral suasion” of abolitionists—the “moral war against the great system of American slavery.” Mott further understood fully that the nominal end of slavery did not end the oppression of African Americans, for which full civil rights and social acceptance were required.

After the experience of the Civil War, Mott became involved in the movement to end war. She worked with the Universal Peace Union and the Pennsylvania Peace Society. These involvements were a natural extension of her commitment to nonviolence as the true agent of change.

There are ways in which I felt Faulkner could have been more helpful to the general reader. It was easy to lose the threads of the different abolitionist movements and confuse them. Also, I would have liked a better explanation of the context of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution than the few words that Faulkner offers. There were times when I felt she expected her readers to be fully versed in the history of the times. On the other hand, I appreciated that Faulkner included discussion of topics like contraception, free divorce, and free love, as well as of Mott’s peculiar interest in phrenology, rooted in her predilection for scientific explanations for human motivations that negated old superstitions.

I have come away from this book with an appreciation for what was vital to Mott’s astounding success as a promoter of reform. Her activism gave substance to her work, but what was so powerful was her clarity and steady judgment on the great moral issues of her time, spoken incessantly, with great precision and tenderness.

Robert Dockhorn, a member of Green Street Meeting in Philadelphia, Pa., recently retired from the staff of Friends Journal. Trained as a historian, he is preparing a general commentary on contemporary trends.


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strength in Weakness ManifestBy Elizabeth Stirredge. Ed. by T.H.S. Wallace. Camp Hill, Pa.: Foundation Publications, 2011. vi + 172 pages. $10/Paperback.

Reviewed by Thomas D. Hamm

Elizabeth Taylor Stirredge (1634-1706) is a now largely forgotten early Public Friend. A native of Gloucestershire, of Puritan parents, in 1654 she heard the preaching of John Audland, one of the “Valiant Sixty” come down from the North of England. Audland had the same effect on Stirredge that George Fox had on Margaret Fell. As Stirredge remembered it: “As soon as I heard his voice, it pierced me and when I came into the Meeting and heard his testimony and beheld his solid countenance—oh!—how my heart was troubled within me.” A year later, the ministry of another well-known Friend, William Dewsbury, sealed her commitment to Quakerism. A decade later, Stirredge herself emerged in ministry, speaking in meetings for worship with regularity.

Three themes run through this work, which is partly autobiography, partly exhortation. The first is spiritual struggle. Stirredge keeps constantly before her readers her own spiritual inadequacy. God, Christ, and Satan are equally real in her life. She contends again and again with the last, who tries to fill her “heart with thoughts and imaginations.” But the ultimate note is one of triumph: “Many various straits and hardships has the Lord my redeemer brought me through, which, when I look back and consider, I am filled with admiration, in consideration how my soul has escaped to this very day.”

The second theme is warning. Early Friends faced bouts of persecution, and Stirredge was imprisoned more than once.Stirredge was nothing if not brave—in 1670 she felt led to bear a warning against persecution to King Charles II, and more than once she confronted judges and local officials to bear witness against their actions. The last section of the book consists of Stirredge’s exhortations, first to the people of Bristol and then to all of the people of England, to give up their sinful ways and repent.

The final theme is sorrow over the most serious schism among Friends in George Fox’s lifetime, the Story-Wilkinson controversy of the 1670s. John Story and John Wilkinson were Public Friends who broke with George Fox over women’s business meetings (they opposed them)

and response to persecution (they wanted to meet secretly). Stirredge was unfaltering in her opposition to the two men, but they had significant support in Bristol, where Stirredge lived.

Wallace sees in Stirredge not just a historically interesting figure, but one whose experiences should still resonate with Friends. His editing is often pointed; the introduction includes a scathing critique of postmodernism, and of historian Phyllis Mack’s reading of Stirredge in her influential book, Visionary Women (1992). He also reveals a strongly Christocentric vision that this reviewer shares, but which some Friends will not. Whatever our differences about contemporary Quaker belief, a wide variety of readers should find Stirredge’s life meaningful and moving.

Thomas D. Hamm is professor of history and director of special collections at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. A member of Indiana Yearly Meeting, his most recent book is Quaker Writings, 1650–1920, published in 2011 by Penguin Classics.

The Tin Ticket: The Heroic Journey of Australia’s Convict WomenBy Deborah J. Swiss. Berkley Books, 2010. 333 pages. Illustrations, endnotes, bibliography, index. $24.95/Hardcover.

Reviewed by Marty Grundy

Through the carefully researched lives and imagined details of several poverty-stricken women who chose crime over starvation, the author memorializes some 25,000 women and children transported from Great Britain to Van Diemen’s Land (later named Tasmania). Their crimes were often petty theft. The government hoped to populate the colony by providing women for the male convicts already there. The resilience, strength, and determination of these women, first to survive and then to forge a better life for themselves and their children, helped Australia lead the modern world in equal rights for women. But their story is not why this book is being reviewed for Friends Journal. Elizabeth Gurney Fry, intrepid prison reformer, appears in the book. We are used to almost hagiographic accounts of Elizabeth’s determined work. Those who have read her diaries (or books based on them) glimpse her as a sometimes absent mother who denied her own children the carefree life she had as a girl. This book sees Elizabeth through the eyes of female prisoners in Newgate and on the

convict ships.The clean, simple clothing Elizabeth

and her volunteers gave the women was very much appreciated. Learning how “to sew clothing, knit socks, and make patchwork quilts” was better than the chaos and boredom experienced by the 300 petty thieves, murderers, mentally ill, and sick women and children who were crowded into dark, damp, impossibly small quarters in Newgate. But the Bible reading and prayers made little impression on many for whom religion had played no part in their lives, although at least it entertained. As soon as the Quakers left, “drinking resumed, hidden card decks magically appeared, and fights ensued.” This is not the usual picture offered of Fry’s work.

Over the years, Fry visited 106 convict ships containing about half the women who were transported. The sketch of her arrival, prayers, and lengthy sermon is rather unsympathetic. Fry presented a bag of sewing things and a small Bible to each woman, most of whom were illiterate. It was her suggestion to hang a tin “ticket” with a number stamped on it around the neck of each convict woman. It made record keeping easier for the administrators, but robbed the women of their names.

Some of Fry’s suggestions for prison reform, such as female matrons for women prisoners, were implemented, but her insistence that kindness rather than cruel punishment worked better for reformation was ignored. She organized a school for the young children imprisoned with their mothers, taught sewing and supplied materials, then enabled the women to sell what they made, even setting up a small shop inside the jail where they could buy sugar, tea, and meat. She lobbied for “barracks” for the convict women who landed in Australia awaiting assignment as indentured servants, even though too soon these Female Factories became dreadful places of imprisonment and hard labor.


Fry did not transcend her culture’s abhorrence of illegitimacy, apparently unable to comprehend the reality of rape or abandonment by the fathers.

Although the author carefully researched the convict and court records, she misses on clothing details. She dresses Elizabeth Fry in 1813 and 1818 in multiple starched crinolines at the height of slim, Jane Austen-style Empire gowns. Later, in 1838 she has Fry again in modish clothing; apparently, Swiss is unfamiliar with Quaker dress even though she does include the well-known painting, “Elizabeth Fry Entering Newgate with Mary Sanderson.” Such an obvious mistake, although minor, opens other details to questioning.

Although Fry didn’t exhibit all of today’s sensitivities, she was ahead of her time in many ways and, with the help of her Ladies Associations, did a great deal to ameliorate the lot of poor women caught in a vicious system. The Tin Ticket is a good read that vividly reveals through personal stories this horrific system as well as the courage of its survivors and its reformers.

Marty Grundy, a Quaker historian, is a member of Cleveland Meeting, Lake Erie Yearly Meeting.

This Will be Remembered of HerBy Megan McKenna. Wm. B. Erdsman Publishing Co., July 2011. 224 pages. $15/Paperback.

Reviewed by Robin Mallison Alpern

In This Will Be Remembered of Her, Megan McKenna challenges the slogan, “Anonymous was a woman.” Sharing fables, folktales, biographies, and Bible stories, she names and celebrates dozens of women who have made a difference.

The reason, of course, that anonymous was a woman is that women have been much more easily ignored and forgotten in our culture. McKenna says Jesus of Nazareth contravenes this practice when he “defends, protects, stands with, and praises women in public.” After a woman ministered to him before his death, Jesus commanded that “this will be remembered of her” for all time (Matthew 24:18). Paradoxically, her name has been forgotten, but McKenna claims biblical scholars have determined she is in fact named Salome. The book’s purpose is to “re-member” a story of humanity that includes the significant contributions of woman. Friends will appreciate this support for our commitment to value women equally with men.

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“Not only is another world possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”

Some stories confirm the power of a single woman: Marthe Dortel-Clodot, who initiated Pax Christi; Catherine of Siena, who gained the ear of the Pope in the 1300s; Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, who became the hub of Jesus’ ministry, opening her home to all.

If I had one regret about this book, it is that the women are all, in some sense, social justice activists. I would love to read a companion volume remembering women who have shaped the world through raising children, teaching, nursing, art, farming, homemaking. So often not only the names but the work of such women is devalued and utterly forgotten. How might it change our world if all these accomplishments were remembered of her?

Robin Mallison Alpern, a member of Scarsdale Meeting, Purchase Quarter, NYYM, is a lifelong Quaker. Also a lifelong female.

Red summer: The summer of 1919 and the Awakening of black AmericaBy Cameron McWhirter. Henry Holt, 2011. 352 pages. $32.50/Hardcover.

Reviewed by Donna Bowen McDaniel

Red Summer is not “an easy read.” In fact, it is a very difficult “read,” for it opens the eyes and minds of people of African and European descent alike to the unimaginable cruelties inflicted on African Americans between April and November 1919. Even in the twentieth century in both the North and South, African Americans were “kept in their place” through intimidation, denial of civil rights, hideous lynchings, other forms of murder, and rampant terrorism. Like the recent work, Slavery By Another Name by Douglas Blackmon, Cameron McWhirter’s book holds up to the light the utter untruth that slavery ended after the Civil War.

When I’ve mentioned to friends this book’s topic—the bloody summer of 1919—they have not, sad to say, been surprised at the bloodiness. But they have been surprised by the year—1919. Why 1919? The Civil War was long past and African Americans had rights (yes?). No.

Of all that I learned in the research for Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship, what has moved me the most is how little truth there is in the common belief that the end of slavery brought equal opportunity to the formerly enslaved. Underlying that

Remembered is written in what I consider a womanly style. McKenna streams consciousness rather than logically telling her tales. As women often do, she savors telling stories. She frames each heroine’s story within a larger narrative to give context. Women tend to look for relationship; McKenna focuses on how her characters connect to one another and to their environment.

The women in these pages range from servants to queens, from lone crusaders to founders of global movements. The youngest I recall was Sophie Scholl, executed at age 21 for anti-war activism in Munich during World War II. One of the oldest was Dorothy Stang, murdered at 73 for organizing farmers in Brazil over a 40-year period. Many women in this book gave their lives to make change. May their legacy continue.

What gifts come from remembering these women? Three stand out: the power of relationships, the inspiration to act, and evidence that we make a difference.

Women tend to love connections. The author describes how Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan awarded the 2004 Nobel Peace prize for environmentalism, related poverty to the breach in women’s bond to the land. Nicole Sotelo explained in her “Column/Opinion” in the National Catholic Reporter that battlefield violence spills over into domestic violence. Kathy Kelly, co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, wrote to McKenna that our “criminal neglect of the poor” leads to homeland insecurity.

McKenna inspires us with stories of courage and powerful quotations. Kathe Kollwitz wrote, “The important thing . . . is to hold one’s banner high and to struggle. . . .” Barack Obama acknowledges he “stole” Dolores Huerta’s slogan, “Si, se puede,” which translates, “Yes, we can!” Arundhati Roy prophesies,

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assumption is, I think, an implication that if African Americans are still struggling, it is their own fault. After all, they were freed almost 150 years ago! Officially slavery ended; unofficially it continued into the 1900s in share-cropping, purposefully unequal education, discrimination in job and housing opportunities, the practical impossibility of voting, “Jim Crow” codes, and illegal forced labor, all held in place by the lynchings and terrorism McWhirter describes.

As it happens in history, several factors came together to make 1919 particularly violent. For one, thousands of Southerners of African descent left home during and after World War I, propelled by crop failures and lured by the promise of jobs due to the war-time shortage of factory workers. Between 1910 and 1920 the African American population in the North and West grew by 333,000, mostly in urban areas. Secondly, among that flood of African Americans were thousands of veterans ready to enjoy the equality they had earned by serving in the military. Instead, they found themselves in the midst of conflict between factory owners and the much-despised union organizers. This was the third element, that African Americans were unknowingly being enticed to places like Chicago, Omaha, or San Francisco to be strike breakers.

The geography of the race riots spread wide: Chicago; Knoxville; Omaha; San Francisco; Longview, Texas; Washington, D.C.; Bisbee, Arizona; Elaine and El Dorado, Arkansas; Wilmington, Delaware; and New London, Connecticut. In these cities it was labor unrest, and very often the arrival of imported strike breakers, that spawned the violence: burning African American churches, businesses and homes, sometimes with people inside; shooting sprees in neighborhoods; beatings of men and women who were simply walking home from work.

In the South the “red summer” ran across the lower South and up to South Carolina and Virginia. Again the scenarios were familiar: a black man would be charged with and jailed for a “crime” (defined arbitrarily—a glance or comment perceived as disrespectful and/or involving a white woman). Then word of the alleged deed would spread and crowds would turn into mobs surrounding a jail and intent on revenge.

Time and time again the accused would be dragged out of jail, hung on a nearby tree, set afire, and used as a target. The sight attracted even more spectators, often

Friends Journal offers the classic book

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smiling and laughing adults and children immortalized on souvenir postcards sold later (Red Summer includes a section of photographs). For years, pleas for help were ignored by authorities fearful of opposing the crowds (their own neighbors) or, like President Woodrow Wilson, for their political careers.

But another response also began to form in this “bloody summer.” In 1919 African Americans who had not initiated violence began to defend themselves when attacked. This is the “Awakening of Black America” in the title, especially embodied in the growth in 1919 of the ten-year-old National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which doubled in size to nearly 100,000 in that year. African American newspapers and NAACP speakers became a force for their people’s rights, laying groundwork for the Civil Rights movement to come. The new activism was blamed on foreign radicals; President Wilson warned of “hyphenated Americans [who] have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life. . . .”

Distressed by the epidemic of violence, the NAACP and others sought anti-lynching laws from Congress. Adding a Quaker note, the American Friends Service Committee and committees of Philadelphia Friends supported NAACP anti-lynching proposals for decades. A few bills passed the House, but southern filibustering assured that none of the two hundred submitted to the Senate ever passed. In 2005 the Senate formally apologized for its failure to make lynching illegal all those years.

McWhirter’s well-written and thoroughly researched work tells truths about the death or wounding of hundreds of African Americans and millions of dollars in damage to their property, another phenomenon on which history texts are silent. If we are to speak truth to

power, McWhirter gives us vital truths to confront. His book may help European-American Friends understand better how heavily the past can weigh on African Americans. My hope is that it will also inspire conversations with our Quaker brothers and sisters of African descent willing to explore territory that is often easier to avoid.

Donna Bowen McDaniel, a member of Framingham (Mass.) Friends Meeting (New England Yearly Meeting), is a freelane writer and co-author with Vanessa Julye of Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship: Quakers, African Americans, and the Myth of Racial Justice, published by Quaker Press in 2009.

In brief

sufi Flights: Poems of Yunus EmreTranslated by Judith Reynolds Brown and Nuket Ersoy. Self-published, 2010. 124 pages. $24.25/Hardcover.

Friends Journal poetry editor Judy Brown brings a lesser-known Sufi poet to the English-speaking audience in this translation from Turkish. These poems were sung during the poet’s lifetime and only later written down. Like other Sufi poetry, they celebrate the ecstatic experience of transcendent universal love.

A Peace of AfricaBy David Zarembka. Madera Press, 2011. 316 pages. $25/Paperback.

Quaker David Zarembka has decades of experience studying and living in Africa. He has been the coordinator of the African Great Lakes Initiative since 1998. In this memoir, which includes photos throughout and a glossary at the end, the author provides analysis of current situations, African culture, the role of peacemakers, the role of the West, and personal stories.

Finding sara: A Daughter’s JourneyBy Margaret Edds. Butler Books, 2010. 304 pages. $15/Paperback.

This memoir is the product of research mainly using hundreds of letters written by and to the author’s mother, who died unexpectedly when Friend Margaret Edds was a young child. It is a view into America in the 1940s, but above all, the author’s gradual discovery of the real person she might have known. It includes a section at the end with steps for “(Re)Discovering Your Mother.”

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The Collected Essays of Maurice Creasey, 1912–2004: The social Thought of a Quaker ThinkerEdited by David Johns. Edwin Mellen Press, 2011. 422 pages. $169.95/Hardcover.

Earlham School of Religion professor David Johns edited this scholarly collection, which introduces a British Friend who was director of studies at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in the mid-twentieth century. His theology concerned itself with one of the signal problems of the twentieth century: how to include both tradition and new knowledge and experience in religion.

killer CureBy Elizabeth L. Bewley. Dog Ear Publishers, 2010. 182 pages. $19.95/Paperback.

The purpose of this collection of true stories is to educate readers on taking charge of their own health care. Gaps in the “system” and often erroneous assumptions about patients can have damaging and even deadly results. Written by a Quaker who is also a physician.

A Life of searchBy D. Elton Trueblood. Edited by James R. Newby. Friends United Press, 2009. 127 pages. $12/Paperback.

This volume is a second printing of five selected but undated essays by D. Elton Trueblood (1900-1994), who was a professor at Earlham College. The essays, each with a study guide, deal with Trueblood’s search in following Christ, but he does not identify himself as a Quaker within any of the texts. Editor James Newby is also a Trueblood biographer.

Lazarus, Come Forth!By John Dear. Orbis Books, 2011. 177 pages. $20/Paperback.

This latest book by Jesuit priest and prolific author John Dear is subtitled, How

Jesus Confronts the Culture of Death and Invites Us Into the New Life of Peace. The triumph of life with compassion, nonviolence and universal love is resurrection itself. The resurrection of Lazarus, told in the gospel of John, signifies Jesus’ presence as the

power to live a life freed from the fear of death and violence. Resurrection is into the power of living now, not later, in the grace of God. Reflection questions follow the text.

The Community of the Ark, Twentieth Anniversary EditionBy Mark Shepard. Simple Productions, 2011. 57 pages. $12.50/Paperback.

Author Mark Shepard visited and photographed this utopian community in France in 1979 (the book was originally published in 1990). The Community of the Ark (L’Arche in French) was founded by Lanza del Vasto to model the teachings of Gandhi. Shepard’s visit in this remote area lasted six weeks; at that time the community comprised over 100 people. Founder del Vasto spent several months with Gandhi, whom he had sought out in response to his distress over past and future violence in Europe. Del Vasto founded the Community in the 1930s as his own spirit-led response to the world’s injustices and violence.

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n e w s

Gretchen Castle of Philadelphia nominated to serve as FWCC General Secretary. The Central Executive Committee of Friends World Committee for Consultation has agreed that the name of Gretchen Castle of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, currently Acting Dean at Pendle Hill Quaker Study Center, should go forward for approval as Nancy Irving’s successor as General Secretary. This proposal will be considered at the International Representatives Meeting at the World Conference, in April, 2012.

Once Gretchen’s name is approved, she will join the team at the World Office in London as Associate General Secretary in October, taking over from Nancy in January 2013.

Gretchen writes: “It is with great joy that I anticipate taking on this work. I am grateful to serve Friends through FWCC, a vital organization that is connecting Friends, changing lives, and gathering our voices as Friends worldwide.”

José Aguto joins FCNL as Legislative Secretary for Sustainable Energy and the Environment. As the Legislative Secretary on Sustainable Energy and the Environment, José will direct lobbying efforts that reflect and advance the policies of the FCNL community to “Seek an Earth Restored.” His portfolio includes advocacy on the development of clean energy resources and meaningful actions to help peoples here and abroad prepare for and withstand the profound impacts of climate change.

Prior to joining FCNL in February 2012, Jose worked for the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), the oldest, largest, and most representative intertribal organization in the nation. At NCAI he helped to lead efforts that resulted in the inclusion of tribal nations and peoples in several climate initiatives from Congress and the administration. He helped develop and advance legislation tapping the vast energy potential on Indian lands and helped create and advance the work of Our Natural Resources, an alliance of intertribal organizations promoting the sustainability of Indian Country’s natural resources, cultural lifeways, and ecological practices.

Prior to joining NCAI in 2008, Jose was a Policy Advisor for the American Indian Environmental Office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where he helped advance and protect the sovereign authority of Indian tribes over their lands and natural resources. He is a graduate of Brown University and Villanova University School of Law, and a member of the Maryland Bar.

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M i l e s t o n e s

DeathsAnthony—James W. Anthony, 73, on July 15, 2009, in Sudbury, Mass. Jim was born on June 17, 1936, in Columbus, Ga. His father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather had been Methodist ministers, and there was some expectation that he would follow in their footsteps, but instead he was led to study English literature and earned a master’s degree in that subject at Emory University. Over the next twenty years, his career as an English teacher took him to Denver; St. Louis; Istanbul, where he chaired the Department of English at Robert College; and finally, the Boston area, where he taught at Phillips Academy Andover and the Pingree School. Though he traveled widely and lived far from home, Jim maintained a warm relationship with his parents. He reflected his mother’s appreciation of art, literature, and music, and had, his brother remembers, many of his father’s mannerisms, the greeting on his voicemail evoking the elder Anthony’s “intoning of scripture as he served communion to his congregation.” Uncertain and vulnerable as a youth, Jim became his older brother’s best friend and advisor, showing wisdom beyond his years. He took part in the civil rights movement in Atlanta and Dallas and became a Quaker when he moved to Boston, serving as assistant director of Beacon Hill Friends House in 1981 and 1982 and as clerk of Beacon Hill Meeting from 1985 to 1987. When he applied for the assistant directorship of Beacon Hill Friends House, his openness about his sexual orientation allowed the Board of Managers knowingly to hire a gay man. Later, he spoke movingly and powerfully about the fact that, though the community welcomed his participation, it would not conduct a marriage ceremony for him, a message that may have been a turning point in the meeting’s decision-making on same-sex marriage. Jim was active in Friends for Lesbian and Gay Concerns (now Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns) and served on their Ministry and Counsel committee. In 2006 Jim and his partner, Bruce Steiner, joined Friends Meeting at Cambridge, Mass. Friends remember Jim as wise, kind, reflective, and good at drawing others out, with a sharp sense of humor, a delightful smile, and a hearty laugh. Jim became a special source of strength to a friend with Alzheimer’s disease, showing kindness and tact. As he came to recognize that he, too, had serious memory losses, he became active in Alzheimer’s advocacy, mobilizing his gift with the English language and his experience in social activism to convey to colleagues, the care partners of patients and their professional care givers, and ultimately legislators and staffs on Beacon Hill and Capitol Hill the experiences of an Alzheimer’s patient and what had proved to be most helpful in his struggle. His eloquence, honesty, and courage stirred all who heard him. Friends remember his mix of depth, delight, and mischief. He loved friends, books, music, art, good food and drink, and fun. He kept his sweet disposition to the end,

his gentle spirit intact, and his manner smiling, even though he could no longer recognize people. Jim is survived by his partner, Bruce Steiner; his brother, Bascom Anthony; and eight nieces and nephews.

Condon—Marie Powers Condon, 83, on February 20, 2011, in Bradenton, Fla., of lung cancer. Marie was born on June 21, 1927, in North Bennington, Vt., to Marion Church and Michael Powers. She met Robert Behrens Condon at University of Vermont, where they and another friend coauthored the script for a one-act play for a college function. Bob and Marie married after Marie’s graduation in 1949 and lived at first in Burlington, Vt., and then in Nyack, N.Y., while Bob attended graduate school at Columbia University. Marie and Bob looked for a church that was different from those in which they had grown up, and they discovered Quakers in Nyack. When they moved to Wilmington, Del., for Bob’s work as an engineer at DuPont, they attended Wilmington Meeting. Marie and Bob did not enjoy corporate life or being separated when Bob had to be away on business, so after two and a half years at DuPont, Bob resigned his position and they spent a year traveling throughout the West, returning to Vermont as managers of a motel in Burlington. In 1955, they bought a ten-unit motor inn in Bennington, Vt., and operated it for 23 years, developing a relationship with Bennington College as the only innkeepers in town who happily rented to people of all colors. They added on to the inn until it had 53 units when they sold it in 1978. Bob and Marie attended a worship group in Arlington, Vt., and became members of the Religious Society of Friends when New England Yearly Meeting formed Northwest Quarterly Meeting. Often their winter meetings convened at the motel. Marie and Bob adopted Robert Powers Condon in 1959 and Catherine Church (Kate) Condon in 1961. They bought a house in town and Marie semi-retired to take care of the children. They traveled through Brazil, Alaska, Mexico, Guatemala, and Panama. Marie took part in nonprofit and Democratic Party affairs, helping to organize and serving as board member of Bennington-Rutland Opportunity Council and Bennington Day Care Center, of which she was also president. She was also a board member of residential centers for delinquent-adjudicated young people. Marie served for five years on the state Board of Education and, beginning in 1980, served three terms in the legislature, working on the Education Committee and chairing it for two terms, helping to get legislation passed for mandatory kindergarten. Former Vermont Governor Madeline Kunin praised her “ability to combine good cheer with good policy.” In 1992 Marie and Bob retired to Florida, transferring their membership to Sarasota Meeting in 1993, and Marie served as presiding clerk in 1996 and 1997, helping to hold the meeting together during turmoil that occurred when a potential Quaker retirement community met financial problems and failed to come to fruition. She was later recording

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clerk, and in 2009, while undergoing treatment for cancer, she began a committee to aid soup kitchens and day centers for the homeless in Bradenton and Sarasota. The North Quakers, a group that meets for fellowship monthly in Bradenton, owes its existence to Marie’s impetus. Friends recall Marie’s gentle guidance and calm voice of common sense and found that her thoughtful words in meeting helped them along the right path. She was a rare combination of intellect, warmth, and spiritual depth, interested in every person she met. Her living out of her personal philosophy, internalized from Quaker testimonies, looked effortless. Marie is survived by her husband, Robert B. Condon; a son, Robert P. Condon (Sandy); a daughter, Kate Hamilton (Ken); a brother, Lawrence Powers (Bernice); a grandson, Jay Condon (Sara); a great granddaughter, Makenna Kate Condon; and nieces, nephews, and cousins.

Esmonde—Philip Douglas Esmonde, 61, on December 27, 2011, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, after a struggle with esophageal cancer. Phil was born on March 3, 1950, in Oxford, England, to Celia Fairmaner and Roderic Esmonde. His father was a mechanical engineer, and his mother, a nurse, worked as a full-time mother. He grew up as a Catholic in Montreal, Que., Canada, and at 17, enlisted in the U.S. Air Force rather than be drafted, after his family moved to Raleigh, N.C. He applied for Conscientious Objector (C.O.) status, but his application was denied; his commanding officers destroyed the letters of support he had provided, and he was denied access to documents that the American Civil Liberties Union requested on his behalf. Phil served out his enlistment as a non-combatant in the Air Force’s telephone system. In 1972, he enrolled in University of Victoria and worked as a photographer and journalist on the student newspaper. At this time, he first encountered Quakers, and after graduation, he worked for the Energy Conservation Centre and attended Vernon (B.C.) Meeting. He helped to found Victoria International Development Association (VIDEA) and took part in the Greater Victoria Disarmament Group, organizing the third annual PeaceWalk. In 1981–1989, Phil was a founding director of Pacific People’s Partnership. He joined Victoria (B.C.) Meeting (now under the care of Vancouver Island Meeting) in 1987 and went to Sri Lanka in 1991 to represent British Quakers in efforts to resolve peacefully a decades-old conflict. In 1994, he married Kaushalya Jayaweera, whose Buddhism brought a new dimension into his life. Phil worked as human rights and humanitarian advisor to the Canadian High Commission in Sri Lanka from 1994 to 1998. Then, recalling his own lonely application for C.O. status, he returned to North America to serve as director of Quaker House from 1998 to 2000. Here he responded to calls to the G.I. Rights Hotline and visited high risk prisoners at Camp Lejeune. Phil worked especially with young people who had entered the Delayed Entry Program (DEP) without having had a chance to consider their options. Learning that recruits


with health problems were often told by recruiters not to reveal them on enlistment forms, only to be subject after enlistment to court martial for falsifying the applications, Phil issued a press release with the help of Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors that resulted in a two-part television series, GI Lies, that aired in 1999 in Atlanta, Ga., and in Georgia Senator Max Cleland’s publicizing the report and sending copies of the program to the Pentagon. Soon after, Phil began work that led to the founding of Quaker UK-based Naga Conciliation Group in India. He left Quaker House to return to Colombo, Kaushalya’s home community, in 2000. There he worked with Oxfam and then joined Save the Children in Sri Lanka (SCISL) as director of advocacy and communications, developing a comprehensive five-year Child Rights Strategy and organizing a national Children’s Rights event at which children publicly questioned Parliamentarians (including Ministers) on their policies and suggested improvements. Starting in 2007, he worked for Nonviolent Peaceforce (NVPF) to lead recruitment and training of field staff from Colombo. He developed curricula and carried out training in Romania (2007), Mindanao (Philippines, 2009), and Chiang Mai (Thailand, 2010). He retired from NVPF in July 2010. Phil is survived by his wife, Kaushalya Jayaweera Esmonde; two brothers, Pat Esmonde and Jeff Esmonde; and a sister, Caroline Esmonde.

Hoskins—Lois Janet Roberts Hoskins, 94 going on infinity, on November 9, 2011, in Kauai, Hawaii. Lois was born on June 5, 1917, in Melba, Idaho, to Alice Mendenhall and Frank Delbert Roberts. Growing up in Greenleaf (Idaho) Meeting, her life was shaped both by farmers and educators and by an early and progressive loss of hearing that gave her a balance between her compelling, inward self-creation and her interface with the outer world. She attended George Fox University (then called Pacific College), graduated from Northwest Nazarene College, and worked as a teacher, librarian, printer, and editor. During her time at George Fox University, she attended Newberg Friends Church. Lois married Lewis Hoskins and attended Ann Arbor Meeting during the time he studied at University of Michigan. When Lewis went to China with the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU) during China’s civil war, Lois lived with their first child at Pendle Hill before joining him in Shanghai, where she managed the hostel for families of FAU members and other Quakers. When the family returned to Pennsylvania, Lois and Lewis joined Providence (Pa.) Meeting and worked with American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in residence at Pendle Hill. She also worked as librarian at The School in Rose Valley to help pay her children’s tuition and acted as mother/hostess to countless exchange students and foreign luminaries associated with AFSC. Lois gardened and cooked and baked and sewed and kept the lives of four small and two big people more or less in order while Lewis was often away on national and international travels. She

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never said no when she saw a need for help, and her behind-the-scenes presence made visible accomplishments possible. After a decade, the family moved to Richmond, Ind., to become part of the Earlham College community. She volunteered for the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, worked in a community center for disadvantaged families, did international relief work, and acted as hostess to foreign students and guests at Earlham, while participating in the cultural and social life of the college, community, and Clear Creek Meeting. Adept at fitting in and making warm friends wherever she went, she accompanied Lewis on sabbatical trips to Woodbrooke, England, and to Kenya, China, and South Africa. When she and Lewis retired to Lincoln City, Oreg., Lois supported friends, community needs, First Congregational Church, and Salem Meeting. She oversaw nights at the local battered women’s shelter well into her 80s. Nurturing her exceptional flower gardens, feeding people, sewing freely for others, and singing at the slightest provocation, Lois sustained a warm and inviting home for those who streamed to the beautiful Oregon coast. Her love of words and story unending, she never stopped reading every printed word she saw (making food shopping sometimes a challenge), and she could comment on almost any author or piece of classic literature mentioned. She was reading on the day she passed. Lois’s serenity allowed her to fall asleep anywhere, as needed. In 2008, when Lois and Lewis moved to Kauai, Hawaii, to live with their daughter Laurie and her husband, it was hard for her to give up her home and friends, but her interior life was so fertile and expansive that she never lacked for resources. In the face of a torn ligament affecting her mobility, she remained calm and patient, as with all her changes of aging. After Lewis passed, Lois felt that she too would be leaving and about a month before her passing began to turn herself in that direction. She slipped quietly and quickly away in her Kauai home. Lois is survived by her children, Theresa Michel (Anthony), Laurel Quarton (Gerry), Adrienne Muller (Michael), and Scott Hoskins (Susan); her grandchildren, Joel Michel, Sarah Michel, Casey Muller (Ana Yang), Laila Muller, Juna Muller, Nicholas Hoskins, and Dan Hoskins; and one brother, Wayne Roberts. Gifts in her memory may be made to Pendle Hill, AFSC, or Greenleaf Academy.

Hunter—Carole Faye Hunter, 70, on September 8, 2011, at home in Oak Ridge, N.C., following a six-month illness. Carole was born on May 6, 1941, in Surry County, N.C., to Rachel Durham and William Hassell Hunter Sr. A first-generation college student, she graduated from Pilot Mountain High School in 1959, and with the encouragement of teachers and Friends at Pilot Mountain (N.C.) Meeting, she enrolled at Guilford College. She majored in biology and was a member of the Biology Club and Honor Board and president of the Women’s Student Council, graduating in 1963. She earned a Master’s in Physiology/Anatomy at Case Western Reserve University

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in 1965, and following a physical therapy internship at Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital, she did post-graduate work at University of Michigan and Harvard University. She took part in an Ergonomics Study Tour in Stockholm, Sweden, and became a licensed physical therapist and a certified professional ergonomist. In 1969, she filled an emergency three-month volunteer appointment for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) at a prosthetics center in Quang Ngai, Vietnam. Carole also worked with the public health departments in Connecticut and Pennsylvania and the North Carolina Department of Human Resources. In 1981, after building a home in Oak Ridge that incorporated logs from her grandfather’s log cabin, she began her own business, Industrial Biomechanics, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in helping companies alleviate employee musculoskeletal problems caused by repetitive motion and improperly-designed work environments. Among her clients were Black and Decker, Burlington Industries, and Sara Lee Corporation. Carole was a member of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society and American Physical Therapy Association. She served on Guilford College’s Board of Visitors from 1995 to 2003, and in 2008 joined the school’s Board of Trustees, quickly becoming a valued member and serving as secretary of the board. Her sage advice, sense of humor, and dedication to Guilford were inspiring. She had a particular fondness for biology and began an endowment to support student research in biology. Starting in 2007, she was also on the Board of Trustees for Friends Homes, Inc., where she was instrumental in developing a strategic plan. As a member of New Garden Meeting in Greensboro, N.C., she served on many committees, including Investments, Quaker Relations, and Finance and Stewardship, to which she brought astute business skills, orchestrating a pizza sale that raised thousands of dollars. She was an active member of the Singles Group, which held meeting for worship in her home during her illness. In May 2011, she received Guilford College’s Alumni Excellence Award in recognition of her outstanding service as a humanitarian and professional. Carole was a true artist, in the kitchen, behind a camera’s lens, and in her garden. She enjoyed spending time with friends and family at her Ashe County cabin, sailing, and traveling. Innovative and knowledgeable, she lived with intention, and Friends describe her as the consummate hostess, as a voice of reason, and as a mentor, remembering also the care she provided for her mother, who died in 2009 at 98. She once said about a stew she had prepared, “If you want to get some of the really good stuff, you have to dip way down deep in the pot.” A Friend has said that Carole not only dipped down deep in life’s pot of stew and got the good stuff, she also encouraged others to go deep into whatever they were doing and come up with the good stuff that was there. Carole was preceded in death by her parents. She is survived by a brother, William Hassell “Bill” Hunter Jr. (Faye); a nephew, Jeff Hunter

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(Patrina Moore); a great-nephew, Braiden Hunter; a step-nephew, Gordon Myers (Pam); her beloved dog, Daisy; and many friends who loved her. Contributions in Carole’s memory may be made to Guilford College for The Biology Endowment, New Garden Friends Meeting, Friends Homes, Inc. Hospice & Palliative CareCenter, or other causes for the betterment of the human condition.

Lane—Richard T. Lane Jr., 80, on October 28, 2011, in Philadelphia, Pa., within hours of suffering a stroke. Sometimes known as R.T., Richard was born on July 4, 1931, in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., to Anne Brede and Richard Thatcher Lane and grew up not far from the Hudson River tracks of the New York Central Railroad. A lifelong Quaker, Richard graduated from Oakwood Friends School in 1949 and Haverford College in 1953. In the summer of 1952, he was a representative to an international conference of Young Friends, in Oxford, England. He lived in Philadelphia and Maine all of his adult life and enjoyed a lifelong fascination with trolleys and trains. After graduating from college in the early 1950s, he sought work with the Philadelphia Transit Company, which ran the trolley cars and buses in that city. Told at an interview that there was no future in electric streetcar transport, he went to work instead for the Pennsylvania Railroad in their Freight Rate Bureau at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. Because he was still interested in trolleys as well as locomotives, Richard spent several summer vacations as a volunteer restoring streetcars, first in the Philadelphia area and later in Maine. He retired from Penn Central in 1973 and moved to Kennebunk, Maine, to become Director of the Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport. He adopted three German Shepherds in succession from the Animal Welfare Society in Kennebunk. He retired as director at the museum in 1996 and enjoyed several years on the maintenance staff at Cliff House in Ogunquit, while still volunteering at the trolley museum and the animal shelter. In 2002, advancing age and uncertain health took him back to Philadelphia, where he lived at Wesley Enhanced Living at Stapeley Hall in the Germantown neighborhood for his remaining years. He was a member of Central Philadelphia Meeting and attended Portland Meeting while living in Maine. Along with his love for trolleys, Richard was always active in the local Railfan community, participating in many steam-locomotive excursions and train-spotting trips and amassing an impressive collection of books, photos, movies, and videos about trains and railroads in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His knowledge of the history and technical detail of railroading was a valued resource for fellow railroad buffs. Never married, Richard is survived by two brothers, Charles Lane (Marga) and Peter Lane (Juliet); one sister, Elizabeth Morrison (Vaughn); five nephews, David Lane (Jocelyn Kidd), Daniel Lane, Benjamin Lane (Anne), Matthew Ramsey (Aimee Code), and Alexander Ramsey (Kia Dallons); one niece, Alice Lane; three great-nephews; and four great-nieces.

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Classified rate is 94¢ per word. Minimum charge is $29.70. Logo is additional $20. Add 10% if boxed. 10% discount for three consecutive insertions, 25% for six. Appearance of any advertisement does not imply endorsement by Friends Journal.

accommodationsTraveling the west coast? Visit Ben Lomond Quaker Center in the redwood forest, near Santa Cruz, California. Personal retreats and an annual schedule of Quaker programs. (831) 336-8333. <www.quakercenter.org>.Rustic country home in the woods has a room available for travelers and a large room for meetings. Less than an hour from Washington, D.C., close to BWI Airport. Exchange and length of stay are negotiable. Contact us: <[email protected]>, or call (410) 531-5610.

Coming to london? Friendly B&B. A block from British Muse-um, 10 minutes walk to Friends House. Centrally located. Convenient for most tourist attractions. Direct subway from Heathrow. Easy access to most other transport links. Quiet, safe, secure. Ideal for persons travelling alone. Full English Breakfast included. Complimentary wireless connection. +44 (20) 7636-4718. <[email protected]>, <www.pennclub.co.uk>.

santa fe—Charming, affordable adobe guest apartment with kitchenette at our historic Canyon Road meetinghouse. Convenient to galleries and downtown. Pictures at <santa-fe.quaker.org>. Reser vations: <friendsguestapar [email protected]> or (505) 983-7241.

Quaker House Managua, nicaragua—simple hospitality, dorms, kitchen, laundry, WiFi, library, meeting space for individual travelers, volunteers, groups.<[email protected]>, +011 (505) 2266-3216.

<www. Quakers Empowering Nicaraguans

Project Partners in education, health, nutrition, economic development

Delegations, VolunteersManagua Quaker House

www.ProNica.orgdonations gratefully accepted

130 19 Av SE, St Petersburg FL 33705

Quaker House Managua, Nicaragua - simple hospitality, dorms, kitchem, laundry,WiFi, library, meeting space for individual travelers, volunteers, groups. [email protected], 011.505.2266.3216, www. .org

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Cleveland—simple, short-term accommodations at the Meet-ing House located in University Circle, Cleveland’s cultural, educational and health services hub. Off-street parking, access to public transportation. Contact Laura Lockledge— <[email protected]>, (330) 865-3665.

seeking spiritual Community? Beacon Hill friends House, Boston, accepting applications: 1–4 years, Quaker-based multi- generational community. All welcome. Guest rooms < 2 weeks also available. Information: <[email protected]>, (617) 227-9118, <www.bhfh.org>.

seaTTle QUaKeR HOUse/University friends Meeting. Self- service overnight accomodations. Free parking/Wi-Fi. Microwave/refrigerator/teapot. Near University Washington/Trader Joe’s/downtown buses. Minimum donation: $40/one–$50/two. (206) 632-9839. <[email protected]>.

Penington friends House: New York City. Quaker-based community for long- and short-term sojourners. A unique place where you can find hospitality, shared meals, and simple living. Many ages and many cultures. Shared facilities. Wireless. Three blocks from Union Square Subway. <www.penington.org>. E-mail <[email protected]>. Call (212) 673-1730.

WILLIAM PENN HOUSE

A Quaker Center on Capitol Hill

Lodging; groups, individuals, families inWashington, DC. Workcamps seminars. Internships, gap year program. (202) 543-5560; <[email protected]>; <www.williampennhouse.org>.

ashland, Oreg.—Friendly place in Southern Oregon for outstanding theater, rafting, fishing, birding, quiet time. Anne Hathaway’s B&B and Garden Suites. <www.ashlandbandb.com>; (541) 488-1050.

Books & Publicationswww.vin tagequakerbooks.com.

Rare and out-of-print Quaker journals, history, religion. Vintage Books, 181 Hayden Rowe St, Hopkinton, MA 01748. Email: <[email protected]>.

Western Friend (formerly Friends Bulletin), a magazine by and about Western Friends, supporting the spiritual lives of Friends everywhere. Subscription: $30, 8 issues. 5 month intro subscription just $10. Email for free sample copy. <[email protected]>. Western Friend, 833 SE Main St. Mailbox #138, Portland, OR 97214. Visit <westernfriend.org> for news, books, and more.

Pendle Hill Pamphlets, insightful essays on Quaker life, thought, and spirituality, about 9,000 words each. Subscribe: five pamphlets/year/$25 (U.S.). Also available: every pamphlet published by Pendle Hill. (800) 742-3150 ext. 2, <[email protected]>,

<www.pendlehill.org>.

for saleland & House for sale: 46+ acres, 5 BR 2 Bath 19th century house 5 miles NW of Mt. Airy, MD, in beautiful Frederick Co. Property is under conservation easement with Maryland Environmental Trust. $279,000. Contact C.J. Swet (301) 774-2513, <[email protected]>.

OpportunitiesCome to Pendle Hill

April 20–22: energy Healing for Mind, Body, and spirit, with Max Muenke April 27–29: Preparing the Way: a Working Retreat, with Lloyd GuindonMay 4–6: Qi Gong: Powerful, simple self-Care, with Kevin D. Greene May 13–17: John Woolman: Responding to the inner Teacher, with Michael Birkel

Pendle Hill338 Plush Mill RoadWallingford, PA 19086-6023(800) 742-3150, extension 3 <www.pendlehill.org>

Costa Rica study Tours: Visit the Quaker community in Monteverde. For information and a brochure contact Sarah Stuckey: +011 (506) 2645-7090; write: Apdo. 46-5655, Monteverde, Costa Rica; email: <[email protected]>; <www.crstudytours.com>; or call in the USA (937) 728-9887.

leadership studies at esROrganizational Leadership Leadership Formation Fiscal and Resource Stewardship Quaker Process. Take these courses and others!

For more information: <[email protected]>, (800) 432-1377, <esr.earlham.edu>.

fRiend in ResidenCe. 6 week to 6 month terms. Ben lOMOnd QUaKeR CenTeR, santa Cruz California redwoods. Members of Friends meetings come live, worship and share hospitality/on-call duties with our small staff community. Participate in Quaker Center programs. Call Kathy or Bob Runyan, Directors, (831) 336-8333. <www.quakercenter.org>.

do you care about the future of the Religious society of friends?

Support growing meetings and a spiritually vital Quakerism for all ages with a deferred gift to Friends General Conference (bequest, charitable gift annuity, trust).

For information, please contact Larry Jalowiec at FGC, 1216 Arch Street, 2-B, Philadelphia, PA 19107; (215) 561-1700; <[email protected]>. <www.fgcquaker.org/development>.

eden Valley llC is looking for a part-time organic, small plot intensive farmer and groundskeeper. Housing available as an exchange. Country home in the woods less than an hour from Washington, D.C., near Sandy Spring Monthly Meeting. Contact us: <[email protected]> or call (410) 531-5610.

Personals

QuakerSingles.comConnect with like-minded Friends.

Forums, Photos, Private Messaging, and moreIt’s Friendly, It’s Free, It’s Fabulous

Contact: <[email protected]>, (336) 303-0514.

links socially conscious singles who care about peace, social justice, race/gender equity, environment. Nationwide/international. All ages. Since 1984. Free sample: Box 444-FJ, Lenox Dale, MA 01242. (413) 243-4350; <www.concernedsingles.com>.

Positions soughtearlham College Bonner scholar seeking minimum seven week summer internship with a non-profit organization in New York City/Bergen/Rockland/Westchester counties. Focus on peace, homelessness, poverty, anti-violence, hunger, prisoner rights, social justice. Available June 1st–August 10th. Contact Noah Marshall at <[email protected]>.

Positions VacantRedwood forest friends Meeting seeks Resident Friend(s) starting 1 July 2012, or earlier. Private living quarters provided. Located 60 miles north of San Francisco and 25 miles from Pacific Ocean. Write to: Resident Friend Liaison, Post Office Box 1831, Santa Rosa, CA 95402; or, email: <[email protected]>.

friend in Residence search Atlanta Friends Meeting is conducting a search for a “Friend in Residence” for our Meeting-house. For more information, including an updated status of the search process, see our website <atlanta.quaker.org>, or email the Meeting at <[email protected]>.

friends General Conference seeks a deeplycommitted Friend to serve as development Man-ager in its Philadelphia office. Responsibilities include management of the FGC Annual Fund, grant

writing, DonorPerfect database, supervision, and communi-cations. This is an exciting opportunity to become part of FGC’s dynamic development program, working closely with the Associate Secretary for Development, an outstanding Development Committee, and FGC staff. full Time. excellent Benefits. Position begins summer 2012. Send cover letter, resume, and three references to Michael Wajda, Associate Secretary for Development, Friends General Conference, 1216 Arch Street, 2B, Philadelphia, PA 19107, or <[email protected]> by 04/15/12.

ann arbor friends Meeting seeks a part-time Meeting Worker for property and/or office work. Starting September, 2012. Information at <www.annarborfriends.org>, or from Personnel, AAFM 1420 Hill Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48104.new england Yearly Meeting is seeking a Yearly Meeting Secretary. The highest level administrator in NEYM, responsibilities include administration, pastoral care, budget preparation, and staff oversight. This is a full-time position with benefits. Selection to be made early summer. Start date in late 2012. Info at <www.neym.org>.Rountree farm: Marysville, in. Needed: Helper for emerging rural sustainable community. Committed couple or single. Housing, food, utilities provided. Modest monthly stipend subject to increase with growth of project. Opportunity to help demonstrate lifestyles that model social, environmental and economic responsibility. David Klaphaak; 11219 Hidden view Farm Rd.; Marysville, IN, 47141, <[email protected]>.

Rentals & RetreatsBurlington (nJ) Meeting House Conference Center (25 minutes from Philadelphia) offers meeting rooms of various sizes for groups of up to 200 for day use and/or modern, overnight accommodations for groups of up to 88 adults or school children at $32pp; large commercial kitchen and adjacent restored 1783 Meeting House; all ADA handicapped accessible; (609) 387-3875, <[email protected]>.

C L A S S I F I E D


Peaceful ridge-top sanctuary hosting workshops with Quaker- related themes, group retreats and individual sojourns. See our website for a full program listing. Woolman Hill Quaker Retreat Center, 107 Keets Road, Deerfield, MA 01342; (413) 774-3431; <www.woolmanhill.org>.

Blueberry Cottage on organic lavender, blueberry, and dairy goat farm in the mountains of N. Carolina. Pond, mountain views, protected river. Sleeps 8+. Family farm visit or romantic getaway. Near Celo Friends Meeting. By week or day. <www.mountainfarm.net>, or (866) 212-2100.

Cape May, n.J. Beach House -weekly rentals; weekend rentals in off-season. Sleeps 12+. Airconditioned bedrooms. Great for family reunions! Block from beach. Close to mall. Ocean views from wraparound porch. Call: (718) 398-3561.

Charming, updated 4-BR family cottage. Chautauqua beach community, Ocean Park, Maine. Ice cream parlor, bikes, clay tennis courts, 7 miles of sandy beach. Sleeps 7+. $1000/wk. <[email protected]>.

arizona sunshine! Friends Southwest Center, a Quaker founded residential community in S.E. Arizona, welcomes friends to share our high desert peace and beauty. Furnished rentals include a 30’ Avion trailer, a three bedroom house and a sweet renovated farmhouse. $200-$400+/month. Enjoy birding, hiking and Quaker worship.Contact <[email protected]>. (520) 508-4864.

Pocono Manor. Beautiful, rustic mountain house. Suitable for gatherings, retreats, and reunions. Seven bedrooms. Three full baths. Beds for 15. Fully equipped. Deck with mountain view. Hiking trails from back door. Close to parks and attractions. Weekends or by the week, April through October. Contact Melanie Douty-Snipes: (215) 736-0948.

Retirement living

Kendal communities and services reflect sound management, adherence to Quaker values, and respect for each individual.Continuing care retirement communities:Collington—Metro Washington, D.C.Kendal at Longwood; Crosslands—Kennett Square, Pa.Kendal at Hanover—Hanover, N.H.Kendal at Oberlin—Oberlin, OhioKendal at Ithaca—Ithaca, N.Y.Kendal at Lexington—Lexington, Va.Kendal on Hudson—Sleepy Hollow, N.Y.Kendal at Granville—Granville, Ohio The Admiral at the Lake—Under development on Chicago’s Lakefrontindependent living with residential services:Coniston and Cartmel—Kennett Square, Pa.The Lathrop Communities—Northampton and Easthampton, Mass.nursing care, residential and personal care:Barclay Friends—West Chester, Pa.advocacy/education programs:Untie the Elderly—Pa. Restraint Reduction InitiativeKendal Outreach, LLCCollage, Assessment Tool for Well Elderlyfor information, contact: Doris Lambert, The Kendal Corporation, 1107 E. Baltimore Pike, Kennett Square, PA 19348. (610) 335-1200. Email <[email protected]>.

friends HouseA Quaker-Inspired Elder Community

Friends House is a nonprofit Continuing Care Retirement Community located in Santa Rosa, in the Wine Country of Northern California. Assisted Living, Skilled Nursing, garden apartments for Independent Living, a Library of 5,500 volumes, and a Fitness Center are situated on a seven-acre campus. Residents participate in governance, educational programs, entertainment, and hospitality activities. For more information, call us at (707) 538-0152 and/or visit our website at: <www.friendshouse.org>.

RCFE#496801929 / SNF #010000123 / COA #220

Visit us and learn all about our:• TwobeautifulcampusesinMedfordandLumberton,NJ• Over200+acresofarboretumsettings• Widechoiceofgarden-stylehome&apartmentdesigns• Dynamic, resident-drivencommunity life• Ideal locations forculture&recreation• Superiorhealth&wellnessservicesFor details on our community and our many programs open to the public—call us at (800) 331-4302 or visit our website <www.medfordleas.org>.Home of the Barton Arboretum & Nature Preserve Member, American Public Gardens Association, Greater Philadelphia GardensMember, and Garden State Gardens

friends Homes, inc., founded by North CarolinaYearly Meeting of the Society of Friends, has been providing retirement options since 1968. Both Friends Homes at Guilford and Friends Homes West are fee-for-service, continuing care retirement

communities offering independent living, assisted living, and skilled nursing care. Located in Greensboro, North Carolina, both communities are close to Guilford College and several Friends meetings. Enjoy the beauty of four seasons, as well as outstanding cultural, intellectual, and spiritual opportunities in an area where Quaker roots run deep. For information please call: (336) 292-9952, or write: Friends Homes West, 6100 W. Friendly Avenue, Greensboro, NC 27410. Friends Homes, Inc. owns and operates communities dedi-cated to the letter and spirit of Equal Housing Opportunity. <www.friendshomes.org>.

schoolslansdowne friends school—a small Friends school for boys and girls three years of age through sixth grade, rooted in Quaker values. We provide children with a quality academic and a developmentally appropriate program in a nur turing environment. Whole language, thematic education, conflict resolution, Spanish, after-school care, summer program. 110 N. Lansdowne Avenue, Lansdowne, PA 19050. (610) 623-2548. <www.LandsdowneFriendsSchool.org>.

stratford friends school educates elementary and middle school students with language-based and similar learning dif ferences through a structured, multisensory program that celebrates students’ strengths, builds self-esteem, and develops self-advocacy. Guided by Quaker principles, the school provides individualized attention and instruction in an intimate, caring environment. For more information, contact <[email protected]> or visit <www.stratfordfriends.org>. 2 Bishop Hollow Road, Newtown Square, PA 19073.

services OfferedCustom Marriage Certificates and other traditional or decorated document s. Various call igraphic st yles and watercolor designs available. Over twenty years’ experience. Pam Bennett, P.O. Box 136, Uwchlan, PA 19480. <[email protected]>, <www.prbcallig.com>.

all Things CalligraphicCarol Gray, Calligrapher (Quaker). Specializing in wedding certificates. Reasonable rates, timely turnarounds. <www.carolgraycalligraphy.com>.

experienced Carpenter. Quaker background, close attention to detail; quality work. Additions, structural repairs, faithful historic restorations, new kitchens and bathrooms, sunrooms, basement upgrades, interior/exterior painting, new siding/decks. Of f ice remodels, store renovations, historic store fronts, commercial maintenance work. Bucks, Hunterton, Montgomery Counties/Philadelphia area, Scott Saunders. (215) 766-4819.

Purchase Quarterly Meeting (NYYM) maintains a peace tax escrow fund. Those interested in tax witness may wish to contact us through NYYM, 15 Rutherford Place, New York, NY 10003.

Insight and Clarity for nonprofit boards. Consulting and coaching on mission, focus, structure, vision. Help with board retreats, mission statements, governance, internal conflicts, outreach, social media. <ArthurFink.com>, (207) 615-5722.

Conducting business? Friend with over 30 years’ experience in organizations and businesses, for- and non-profit. Bringing servant leadership to fruition. Services include incorporation, setup, reorganization, accounting/finance, marketing/advertising, crisis management, ongoing support. On-site or distance. Deneen Consulting, <www.deneenconsult.com>, (407) 563-1370.

fRee The essiac Handbook. Learn about the famous Ojibwa herbal healing remedy discovered in Canada in 1922. Call toll free (888) 568-3036 or write Box 1182, Crestone, CO 81131.

summer CampsJourney’s end farm Camp

Quaker farm family shares simple farm living, nature, fun, and friendship with 34 boys and girls, ages 7–12 years. Campers milk cows, gather eggs, grow and eat organic vegetables, hug alpacas. Sessions of two and three weeks, one-week family camp. Kristin Curtis, P.O. Box 23, Sterling, PA 18463. (570) 689-3911. <www.journeysendfarm.org>. Apply early for financial aid.

fRiends MUsiC CaMP at Olney, 4 week summer program, ages 10–18. Musical growth in a caring, Quaker community. Parent comment: “A profound, life-changing experience.” Camper comment: “Awesome!” For information, including camp video: <www.friendsmusiccamp.org>, or P.O. Box 59311, Chicago, IL 60659-0311. (773) 573-9181. <[email protected]>

CaMP CelO. A small family farm camp in the mountains of North Carolina. Under Quaker leadership for over 50 years. Coed Ages 7–10 & 11 & 12. 3:1 camper/staff ratio. <www.campcelo.com>. (828) 675-4323.

Camp Woodbrooke—Quaker led summer camp in southern WI with emphasis on simple living and connecting with nature. 162 acres, pond, woods, swimming, hiking, nature crafts, woodworking, garden, chickens, goats. Labor Day Weekend Family Camp. Coed, ages 7–15. ACA accredited. (608) 647-8703, <www.campwoodbrooke.org>.

Internships and volunteering through the American Friends Service Committee pro-vide extensive opportunities for young people to gain life experience, to investigate peace and social justice issues, and to serve their communities. From Gaza to Los Angeles, Chicago to Indonesia, and many sites in between, youth join AFSC programs as diverse as planting vegetable gardens to organizing soccer games for immigrants.

Every year, bequests from AFSC supporters like you foster youth programs as well as our work around the world. We value all bequests—large and small—that help ensure the financial stability of our on-going witness for peace, justice, and human dignity.

Naming AFSC in your will or trust or as a beneficiary of your retirement account re-duces your family’s taxes and continues your commitment to Quaker Service.

For more information, call the Gift Planning Office at 1-888-588-2372, write to us at [email protected] or visit the website at afsc.org/giftplanning.

Your estate can build a future for youth.

Your Estate Can Build

A Future for Youth

AFSC is an

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