"Quaker" or "Friend"? An informal survey
This is one of those times when I'm sorely tempted to explain my motives behind posting a survey, but doing so would almost certainly influence some of the responses. So I'm holding my tongue and...
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Weighing the true cost of travel ... how do you decide?
Before I get to this week's post, have you seen my latest survey? I'd like to know whether you prefer the term "Quaker" or the term "Friend"—or maybe "it depends."The survey is here:...
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One final post about hell
Concerning my latest survey on the terms "Quakers" and "Friends"—I'm doing a bit of a cheat.One respondent wondered why there was no category for "Hicksites" and another wondered why there was no...
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Friends and Comrades: Sergei Nikitin tells the story of Quaker relief and...
Sergei Nikitin's book on the history of Friends relief missions in Russia, particularly in the years 1916-1931, and its English translation, Friends and Comrades. Translation by Suzanne Eade Roberts.In...
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Friends and Comrades, a Thanksgiving P.S.
Title frame from the film Famine. Screenshot from source.Historian Yulia Khmelevskaya—Famine.Historian Sergei Nikitin—Famine.Historian and journalist Sergei Kolychev—Famine.New York Times, July 23,...
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Retirement. (No, not that kind.)
Panther Pond, Maine.I've never forgotten a post I read back in 2007 on Contemplative Scholar's blog:On Being an Animal July 12, 2007 As a human being, I am an animal too. And so are you.This summer I...
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Inheriting the earth
I'm still collecting responses to my survey: Which term do you prefer, Friends or Quakers?Russian edition of John Woolman's Journal and Plea for the Poor (Moulton edition, translated by Tatiana...
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Collateral damage, part five: "We as a people" and Advent 2023
Triptych photos: Bob Henry Graphic: Bryce Haymond #gaza "Identify, Embrace, Welcome" (mixed media) by Bob Henry graced the front of Indianapolis First Friends Meetinghouse on Christmas Eve 2022. It...
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The gift of words. Mostly a repost.
My favorite childhood Christmas gift. Source.As I was meditating this evening on my blog's Christmas post, the word "gift" kept coming to me. Maybe it's been because I've been obsessing on what to...
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Digesting 2023
Giant's Stairs Trail, Bailey Island, Harpswell, Maine, USA. As the year 2023 makes its way into the New Year's Eve harbor, it's impossible to ignore the wreckage it left in its wake. I'm having a hard...
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"...The People, called in Scorn, QUAKERS": part one
The participants of the eighteenth-century movement that, under the leadership of George Fox and his fellow enthusiasts, claimed to revive Christianity after a "long dark night of apostasy," had a...
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"...The People, called in Scorn, QUAKERS": part two
Robert Barclay, source. "When speaking with non-Quakers, I find it more exact to say I’m a Quaker. Among other Quakers I prefer Friend to reinforce to each other our relationship with Jesus and each...
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"...The People, called in Scorn, QUAKERS": part three
A banner at Friends House, Euston Road, London.Source: Gillian O'Brien via Twitter"I think our jargon and collective theological vagueness sometimes gets in the way of welcoming new people. And YET,...
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Pure intention, part three: Fox, Penn, and deconstruction
(The ecstasy of worship is connected to pure intention. Pure intention, part two).Source. Do not satisfie yourselves with out-sides, with a Name, a Profession, a Church-membership, &c. For 'tis...
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To know our audiences—and to serve them
Northwest Yearly Meeting, 2013; photo was first used on this post.As the 20th anniversary of this blog approaches, I've been looking at some of my recurring themes. One of them is the importance of...
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Time (Elektrostal, shameless nostalgia, and repost)
Sergey Kadyrov's "Elektrostal City" video with his own composition.(All of his Elektrostal videos; his YouTube channel.)In the fall of 2004, I found out that McDonald's had established their first...
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Christians calling for a free Palestine
Christians for a Free Palestine: screenshots from this evening's Zoom call. Clockwise: Erica Williams, Cole Parke-West, Rifat Kassis. Others involved in leading this evening's presentation included...
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Aleksei Navalny 1976 - 2024
This issue of Sobesednik, the only national newspaper in Russia that covered Navalny's death, was seized by authorities when it hit the streets. Cover photo caption: "Aleksei Navalny before his death:...
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Saying goodbye to Aleksei Navalny
Yulia and Aleksei Navalny (2015). Photo: Sefa Karacan, Anadolu Agency via Novaya Gazeta Europe.Surveillance cameras, street patrols, and scaring students.Security beefed up at Moscow cemetery where...
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"...Nature cannot be fooled"
North Sea sunset.Source. The dream is almost always the same. I'm out in the open country. There's a roar overhead, and I see a missile crossing the sky, and I instantly know it's carrying a nuclear...
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"... Nature cannot be fooled," part two.
Selfie on the train from Birmingham to London, last autumn.Tomorrow I'll be on the train again, going to Klamath Falls, Oregon. This evening I have a pounding headache, so I'm taking the day off and...
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Palm Sunday (USA, 2024)
Entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem (1320) by Pietro Lorenzetti; source.The arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem, just days before his arrest and execution, is sometimes called the "Triumphal Entry." It...
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Death triumphs, or so it seems (mostly a repost)
When I wrote the meditation below back in 2018, we were reeling from the Parkland shooting and the terrible disaster at the Winter Cherry Shopping Center in Kemerovo, Russia.The spring of 2018 was our...
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Life after a tornado (Pam Ferguson, Winchester Friends Meeting)
When we heard about the March 14 tornado that ripped through Winchester, Indiana, we instantly recalled the last Randolph County tornado of equivalent destructive power—the March 10, 1986, tornado...
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"Are Quakers part of the Church?"
Source. I don't think I've seen this question asked any more bluntly: "Are Quakers part of the [uppercase-C] Church?" Or what? Are we on our own? Are we a new religion or meta-religion for...
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