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Western Friend

Building the Western Quaker Community Since 1929

The official publication of Pacific,

North Pacific and Intermountain Yearly
Meetings of the Religious Society of

Friends (Quakers. )

Opinions expressed are those of the

authors, not necessarily of

the Yearly Meetings.
Kathy Hyzy, Editor

Board of Directors

Clerk

Maria Melendez

Logan Monthly Meeting (IMYM)
Treasurer

Jessica Bucciarelli

Bridge City Friends Meeting (NPYM)
Recording Clerk

Jonathan Brown

South Seattle Friends Meeting (NPYM)
Members At-Large

Paul Christiansen

Eastside Friends Meeting (NPYM)
Langdon Elsbree

Claremont Monthly Meeting (PYM)
Sandy Farley

Palo Alto Friends Meeting (PYM)
Stephen Matchett

San Francisco Meeting (PYM)

Jerry Peterson

Mountain View Friends Meeting (IMYM)

Solomon Smilack

Mountain View Friends Meeting (IMYM)

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Western Friend January/February 2011

From the Editor’s Desk

Dear Friends-

This is an unusual issue of WF- new year, some new ideas.

As you might expect, I read quite a lot of Quaker writing, and
talk to many Friends about their ideas and experiences in the
world. Many of the most diverse and interesting conversations
I witness among Friends these days are happening online-
and Friends in the West are disproportionally active in these
conversations.

Many of these conversations are taking place on the dozens of
Quaker blogs written by Friends all over the country (and the
world.) The term “blog” is a contraction of “web-log” and is
used to describe what amounts to a publicly-available journal.
Bloggers may write about specific topics (such as Quakerism),
or they may blog about whatever’s on their mind— a good
recipe, current events, reflections on books, etc. The goal of
blogging generally isn’t to turn out a polished and edited piece
of writing; rather, it is to take a snapshot of thoughts or to
quickly share something of import. Oftentimes conversations
will spiral outward from a blog entry, drawing in reflections
from others who share their thoughts in comments they

post on a blog entry. Due to space constraints, I only shared
comments (and only a handful of them) from one blog post in
this issue, in Robin Mohr’s piece.

I realize many Friends are somewhat intimidated by the Digital
Age, or feel the internet and email do more harm than good.

I can understand this to some degree, but I have to admit

it’s foreign. I have owned a computer since I was eight years
old, and by the time I was a teenager, was visiting online chat
rooms (the precursor to instant messaging.) To me, it all comes
naturally. And while there is plenty about this time in history
that invites criticism, there is also a lot of good that comes of it.
It’s my hope that reading these articles— all blog entries posted
by Friends in the West— will intrigue you enough to make you
consider hopping online and checking them out on your own.
If computers make you nervous, head down to the local library
and ask a friendly librarian to give you a hand. Your first stop
should be westernfriend.org! In the “Community” section, I’ve
created a list of links to Quaker bloggers in the West. Chances
are, you'll see someone you know listed there.

In the Light, Kathy Hyzy, Editor

office ph: 503-956-4709

editor @westernfriend.org

P.S.- Please renew your subscription online today. I know how
easy it is to put it off, but renewal notices are expensive for us
to send. Check the back cover to see if you're overdue!

January/February 2011 Western Friend

In This Issue

NEA ON DISCEDMMENT + ionese 22 oo. toe pack e hel cv idee Oe ee: 4
by University Friends Meeting

NOUia eDITAMMGN ee GLOSGCR, 210i) dates luc visccccsecieevdneecsns 6
by Iris Graville

PANN MAI ce dotaat btn Geiek td cs Oe alt Ginbid bie wi-die s wh Oéeie mete 8
by Stasa Morgan-Appel

Going Back to fake Back Jesus «fice disci ccs otk desesmae ces 9
by John Pixley

Paving OWiia Cul al OLUCY 1.5.2 ccc; cc ons serch esecreoess nat 10
by Lynn Gazis-Sax

PLD AV AIICON2 O10 ora 6s lyvicioss lis ceidierdbeleieesceaes 12
by Robin Mohr

NP iMeAniation With POG? 5.05.25 22, Se eal eset cc 17
by Timothy Travis

BONMIEILANOS os so iieg essed uence c ee lei iees bee er herein 20
by Patricia Morrision

Tineteabadox Of Muth yt a rei ask 21
by Daniel Wilcox

Pe Bibtevand INCISION <2 22s: ieee se, oie ck 22
by Becky Ankeny

BOGKIROVIOWS seule hlivi cscs eveeeu ii icatis i eisdesseiuiscdsavens 25

MEMOlial MINULES 535.0000 eet acess eevedeutedsibssceecees 26

ClASSINIGUS color cater te reer ene eteso e cea ces c seeeivascenees 30

Cover Art

A word cloud created using www.
wordle.net. The word cloud is
based on text from this issue and
from synopses of blogs found on
QuakerQuaker.org. The larger
the word, the more frequently it
appears in the text. Try it out! It’s
very fun, and completely free.

Future Issues

April/May: Youth!
Date TBA: Friends and Food

Story suggestions, artwork and
more for all the above (other topics
too!) are always welcome.

Email editor @westernfriend.org
with your ideas!

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We Simplify Charitable Giving

Planned Giving and Administration Services
e Charitable Gift Annuities
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Learn how you and your donors can benefit from our
experience in planned giving.
215-241-7272 ¢ www.friendsfiduciary.org

4. Western Friend

January/February 2011

Let It Shine!

A YEAR OF DISCERNMENT
UNIVERSITY MEETING CONSIDERS COMMUNITY

aie nisgge

BY UF!

ae. so

PRES GaP

'’S DISCERNMENT YEAR STEERING COMMITTEE
EXCERPTS FROM HTTP://BLOGOFDISCERNMENT.BLOGSPOT.COM/

Many meetings, large and small, experience periods where everything in the community just seems “off’-
Nominating Committee cannot fill positions, projects become mired in conflict, and frustrations run high.
University Friends Meeting in Seattle took a unqiue approach to this problem, implementing a “Year of
Discernment” thoughtfully designed to raise big questions and to invite the meeting to focus in on what
matters most to them. The following is only a very brief summary of the wealth of information about their
experience (even photos!) available on the Blog of Discernment website.

le December 2007, the Nominating Committee
offered a proposal for a Year of Discernment for
University Friends Meeting (UFM). The proposal
arose from some months of discussion and
redefinition, and was prompted by Nominating
Committee concerns that it had become increasingly
difficult to find community members willing to

serve on our many committees. There was also a
general sense within the Meeting community that
we were overextended and had inadequate human
and financial resources to do all that is needed to
maintain our structure and campus, and to serve and
care for our own and wider communities.

Throughout our time together, the Steering
Committee for the Year of Discernment has
frequently come back to two questions to guide our
process:

1. Who are we as a community?
2. What are we called to do?

Nominating Committee originally discussed a wide
range of ideas for some sort of special year for UFM.
Suggestions included laying down “non-essential”
committee work (variously defined!) for the year,
or restructuring committees or committee work

in various ways. Nominating Committee talked
with Lorraine Watson of North Seattle Friends
Church about their radical simplification of their
committee structure and their decision to lay down
a major ministry. Prior to the approval of the Year
of Discernment proposal, Nominating Committee
presented two draft proposals to monthly meeting
for a “Sabbath Year,” with specific proposals for
the reduction of committee work for the year and

a somewhat simplified structure for remaining

work. Nominating Committee soon realized that
work which may seem less essential is often work
which people love, and that has led into some close
community for the people doing it. After receiving
feedback from monthly meeting and talking with
some individuals with concerns, a new proposal for
the “Year of Discernment” emerged.

Who are we as a community?
What are we called to do?

The Year of Discernment was not a time to stop our
work. We hoped it would be a time of excitement
and refreshment because work felt different from the
usual. The goal was a year to discern how to become
a community that people love and want to serve,
that allows all members to feel that their work fits
into the Meeting, that offers members a universal
sense of both caring for and being cared for, and that
efficiently identifies and recognizes the talents of
each member so that we are all left with ample time
to deepen our spirituality and community-building.
We hoped to be joyful, intentional and corporate in
our discernment, to listen to each other and to the
Divine, and to listen and share our leadings with one
another as we seek a deeper spirituality.

WHAT WE DID

Steering Committee members met with every UFM
committee and with officers and non-committee
members, interested individuals, Young Adult
Friends, and other groups, to discuss queries
expanded directly from the Year of Discernment
proposal. We discovered that for many committees

January/February 2011

Western Friend 5

the primary experience of UFM and commitment to
the Meeting centered in the work of that particular
committee. We also learned that for most committee
members, service in their chosen areas was a
pleasure and satisfying, rather than a burden. Thus,
we came to see UFM as composed of many smaller
communities and learned that all of UFM current
activities were deeply valued by those involved.

At the same time, the stress of trying to do

many things with limited resources was widely
acknowledged. This learning lead the Steering
Committee to seek ways to build a more cohesive
community and to involve committees in activities
such as planning and assisting with retreats. We
also moved away from considering adjustments to
the UFM structure and tried to help prepare the
community to unite in choices and ministries.

From the interviews with committees and
individuals, the Steering Committee distilled
four core values of the meeting. These four core
values were: worship; care and nurturing of
community and each other; stewardship of our
physical, financial, and human resources; and
service both to Meeting and in the world.

This is only a sampling of the activities of the Year of
Discernment:

We held four retreats with the purpose of
strengthening the four essentials, to get to know each
other and our work better, and to create broader and
deeper understanding of the practice of discernment.
Our retreats focused on worship, individual
discernment, corporate discernment, and the nature
and meaning of community.

We have seen an increase in the number of Young
Adult Friends attending and becoming involved in
the Meeting. One household of YAFs started a mid-
week worship. An older couple in Meeting has held
four potlucks at their home for YAFs.

The Sunday morning Adult Religious Education
program coordinated with the Year of Discernment,
giving participants the opportunity to explore some
of its themes in greater depth.

We enjoyed a lively Meeting-wide talent show.

Overall, Friends in the Meeting know each other
better and know more about the community

as a whole. There has also been a shift from

seeing committee work as an impediment to full
participation in Meeting, something that mediates
experience in Meeting, to an actual site of community
building, spiritual practice, and the life of the Meeting.

rwrw

WHAT IS THE YEAR OF DISCERNMENT?

This will be a year to discern how we become a
community:

& that people love and want to serve,

&™, that allows all members to feel that their work
fits into the big picture of the meeting,

™, that offers members a universal sense of both
caring for and being cared for,

&, and that efficiently identifies and recognizes
the talents of each member so that we are all left
with ample time to deepen our spirituality and
community-building.

We hope to be joyful, intentional and corporate in
our discernment, to listen to each other and to the
Divine, and to listen and share our leadings with
one another as we seek a deeper spirituality.

WHAT IT ISN'T

The year of discernment will not be a time to stop
our work. We hope it will be a time of excitement
and refreshment because work feels different

from the usual. We will not be “laying down”
committees or asking committees to stop doing
certain things. We have also come to realize that
work which may seem less essential is often work
which people love, and that has led into some close
community for the people doing it.

Rather, committees will be asked to examine their
work and their mission with questions such as:
how is the work connected to the big picture of
UFM's work; how can the work be more enriching
and fulfilling to committee members; how can
(does) the committee build community?

STRUCTURAL ASPECTS OF THE
DISCERNMENT YEAR

The year of discernment will have two parts: the
creation of a steering committee to guide the
process, and some reorganizing of committees to
make better use of UFM's existing resources.

STEERING COMMITTEE

A Discernment Year Steering Committee will
oversee the preparation, implementation and
analysis of the discernment process and prepare a
proposal for the actions that will follow the year of
discernment.

6 Western Friend

January/February 2011

MLD POUL LEE PALL LLLELL DPD LLLEEUUCELLLLLDELTULLLLEDDODLLLEELLODOLELLROTLLEMESOMM ELMER MES

VM NOT ABI REE RI Gh BibOG Ger

FROM

BLOGGER BY CONVINCEMENT
HTTP://WWW.BLOGGERBYCONVINCEMENT.BLOGSPOT.COM/

VAM LM ESI a a dldiiiiliiiiitthiliiiiipaliiliiiidbgiiidiittliiiii Tid

by Iris Graville
Lopez Island, WA

For most of my adult life, writing has been a vehicle for me to understand what I believe, feel, question,
and know. For the past ten years, I’ve recognized writing as a Spirit-led creative process through which I
come to know God, to understand God's presence in my life, and to minister to others. It is both my work
and my spiritual discipline. As a writer, I strive to give voice to the untold stories of ordinary people. Those
stories are often the most extraordinary and the most meaningful. I never know who or what might call to
me for telling, but I’ve learned to heed those stirrings of a good story. My first book, Hands at Work, was
inspired by a showing of Summer Moon Scriver’s black-and-white photographs of hands. They suggested
to me a passion for the kinds of work that have become rare for many Americans and that these were
people nourished by manual labor. I immediately wanted to give voice to their stories and to others who

work with their hands. www.handsworking.com.

May 17, 2010

’m not a birthright blogger. Unlike some of my
younger Quaker friends who were born in the
electronic social media age, I’ve come to this mode
of sharing ideas after years of devotion to pen and

paper and face-to-face conversation. It’s those
younger friends, though,
who have convinced me
that I need to be on board
with blogging (and other
electronic media) in order
to nurture and connect
with the next generation
of Quakers. That was the
message I heard over and
over again from young
Friends (and a few older
ones) at the QUIP (Quakers
Uniting in Publications)
conference.

I’ve concluded that entering

the blogosphere really isn’t all that revolutionary.

I got my first hint of that at the opening plenary at
the QUIP conference when Tom Hamm, a professor
of history at Earlham College, spoke about “The
Significance and Influence of Quaker Writing
Throughout Our History.” He claims that the
history of Quakerism IS the history of writing and

...the history of Quakerism IS the
history of writing and publishing
by Friends. For 350 years, Quakers
have been publishing in some form
or another to proclaim our beliefs to

the world; to engage in controversy;
to engage with each other; and to
entertain.... | came away energized
by the potential for new avenues for
wider and more diverse dialogue.

publishing by Friends. For 350 years, Quakers have
been publishing in some form or another to proclaim
our beliefs to the world; to engage in controversy;

to engage with each other; and to entertain.
Throughout the conference, bloggers, journalists,
editors, poets, and fiction and non-fiction writers
talked about Quaker writing in the future. I came
away energized by the
potential for new avenues
for wider and more diverse
dialogue.

I also came away with
concerns.

Do I want to spend more
of my already-full life in
front of the computer
screen engaging in this
virtual, but distant, way
with others?

I treasure my quiet,

centered daily meditation
time in my comfortable rocker by the window,
journaling with a wooden pen made by a dear
friend in the blank book I bound by hand. Will my
electronic journaling feed me in the same way?

What about those for whom words and images that
can be transmitted electronically aren’t their media
of expression?

January/February 2011

“Raven” by Barb Janoe

This blog is one way I’m testing my evolving beliefs
about the future of Quaker publishing and my own
ministry of writing. I intend to post something once
a week, writing a little more polished than what

I journal during my daily meditation but a little
more raw than writing I might submit for print
publication. I'll be sharing my journey with this new
publishing mechanism as well as my personal faith
journey. That last part is scary. What if nobody reads
my blog? What if somebody does?

Western Friend 7

~~ nN aN

In a less personal vein, I also plan to write about

the process of blogging. So far, I’ve been surprised
at how easy it is to learn the mechanics. I began by
going to blogspot.com. I already had a Yahoo e-mail
account, so I was able to log in with that address and
password (if you don’t have one, it’s easy and free

to set up). Then I watched the tutorial and followed
the step-by-step instructions to create a blog. I
played around a bit with layout design, sampling the
templates the site provides.

I composed today’s entry in Word on my desktop
computer. Now I'll sign in to my blog, click on the
NEW POST bar, and cut and paste this text into the
window that pops up. I can still edit once I paste this
in, I can preview it, and it won’t appear on my blog
site until I click on the orange PUBLISH button.
Pretty simple.

I’m also going to start contacting friends I think
might be interested in this blog to let them know
about my latest project. If you’re reading this, it’s
probably because you got an e-mail from me inviting
you to join me on this journey. I look forward to
reading comments and seeing what it’s like to
dialogue in this way.

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of Executive Director. FFC is a Philadelphia-based, not-for-profit,
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Salary will be commensurate with experience. Friends Fiduciary Corporation
offers a competitive benefit package with health, retirement, and vacation plans.

For details, please see our website:

www.friendsfiduciary.org

8 Western Friend

January/February 2011

SAMHAIN

FROM MAUSINGS OF A QUAKER WITCH 3& HTTP://AQUAKERWITCH.BLOGSPOT.COM/
BY STASA MAORGAN-APPEL

October 29, 2010

have been thinking a lot over the last few weeks
about Samhain (“Saw-wen”), which is also known
in different traditions as Hallowe’en or Hallowmas.

In my tradition of Feminist Witchcraft, Samhain is
the Third Harvest, the Witches’ New Year, and the
Feast of the Beloved Dead. This is the time when

we honor those who have gone before, our literal
ancestors and our spiritual ancestors, those whose
names we know and those whose names are lost to
us. We mourn endings and losses of the past year.
And we welcome babies who were born this year and
honor new beginnings from this last year.

It can be a very tender time of year for many of us. A
time to gather together, grieve, and rejoice.

For our potluck, my particular little group often sets
our theme as “Remembrance Food: Food that honors
your ancestors or cultures that have nurtured you.”

The time between Samhain and Winter Solstice

is the time between death and rebirth. At Winter
Solstice, the Sun is reborn— on the shortest day, the
Sun comes back to us; “life comes new from Death”
[Schrag, “Kore, Evohe”].

In our culture, we’re used to thinking of birth as the
beginning of life, and death as the end. But really,
death and life are a circle, and we can’t actually say
what comes first: death paves the way for new life.
Without the death of the old year, the new year can’t
be born; without the death of the old leaves, new
leaves can’t be born; without time in the Darkness,
seeds, ideas, and babies can’t germinate; without the
sacrifice of our food— the grain and the animals,
Lugh and the Horned One— we wouldn't eat; all
light casts a shadow.

Every seed becomes a promise
Kore takes them in Her hands
Into the Earth, and into the Darkness
And into the quiet lands...
- John Schrag, “Kore, Evohe”

With every change comes some kind of end: without
the “death” of an old way of being, the new way

wouldn't be “born.” Loss is inherent in change.

Witches have a saying: All things must change, or
die; and death is change.

This Samhain, I am remembering my grandparents,
their parents, and others who have died over the
years and who will always be with me— friends,
loved ones, family members, former partners,
teachers, mentors, spouses of friends, beloved pets...

I’m also honoring people who have died this year, or
whose deaths I’ve just learned of this year, several

of whom I’ve mentioned on this blog under the tag
“Samhain.” Christine Oliger, Father Emery Tang,
George Willoughby, Morton Kravitz, Mabel Lang, Art
Gish, Carolyn Diem, Sarah Leuze, Lynn Waddington,
Gene Stotlzfus, Betty Nebel, and others. And people I
didn’t know personally, but still honor, like Miep Gies,
Dr. William Harrison, Daniel Schorr, and others.

This Samhain, who are you honoring?

¥ Who are your ancestors, literal, spiritual,
metaphorical? Known and unknown?

2 Who are your beloved dead you honor?

x Who are your not-so-beloved dead you are glad to
release?

x Who are you mourning?

x What new beginnings do you honor from this last
year?

x What new babies did you welcome this last year?

Who is remembered, lives.
Blessed be.

As with all pieces in this issue, these words were
used with permission from the author.

About Stasa Morgan-Appel

I lived in the Delaware Valley (Philadelphia, PA area) for
15 years, then in MI for 3 years. I’ve just spent a lovely year
in Seattle, WA, and now we're in NJ for two years. (My
spouse is in academia.) Then we hope to settle back down
in one place! I’ve identified as a Witch since 1991, and as
a Friend since 1999; I’ve been active in specifically Pagan
Quaker/Quaker Pagan ministry since 1997. ’m a member
of University Friends Meeting in Seattle.

January/February 2011

Western Friend 9

GOING BACK TO TAKE BACK

JESUS

FROM QUEER3 3 HTTP://QUEERX3.BLOGSPOT.COM 3 BY JOHN PIXLEY

Thursday, February 18, 2010

“Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning

Our song shall rise to Thee;

Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty!
God in three persons, blessed Trinity!”

earing this song - let alone singing it - took

me way back. I’m talking way, way back. They
didn’t even sing “Holy, Holy, Holy” in the Catholic
church when I was a young teenager. They sang it
there when I was a little boy, when my parents felt
I was old enough to take to Mass. I’m talking my
Grandma’s Catholic church.

IT WAS QUITE A JOLT FOR ME,
AFTER YEARS OF BEING AT HOME
IN A SILENT, UNIVERSALISTIC,
UNPROGRAMMED QUAKER

INE INC

And this was the second time in recent months that
the song was being sung. It was quite a jolt for me,
after years of being at home in a silent, universalistic,
unprogrammed Quaker meeting and even with me
being as Christo-centric as I tend to be.

What was even more jolting was that the song was
being sung, full-throated and whole-heartedly, by a
room full of GLBTQ folks. Make that a church full
of GLBTQ folks. Led by a very out and very strong
lesbian pastor.

I have been visiting - “sojourning,” as I announced to
my meeting - at a Metropolitan Community Church,
and it has been quite eye-opening, to say the very
least.

Moving is more like it - powerfully so. I have written
several posts here about Jesus and his message

of radical love and inclusiveness, of loving the

other and even one’s enemies, have been hijacked
and distorted by Christian conservatives and

fundamentalists to, among other things, oppress
the queer community. The MCC, a Christian church
founded by a gay man to minister to the GLBTQ
community, boldly reclaims Jesus and points out
his true, original message of love for and to all.
Although I see Jesus more as a teacher and model
than as a virgin-born, resurrected savior, as posited
by the MCC, I am deeply inspired by how the church
not only takes back the Christ-centered language

as its own but also so plainly illustrates how it also
specifically affirms same-sex love.

Even so, I wasn’t prepared for the next song on the
recent Sunday morning:

“Jesus loves me, this I know,
Though my hair is white as snow.
Though my sight is growing dim,
Still He bids me trust in Him.

Yes, Jesus loves me!

Yes, Jesus loves me!

Yes, Jesus loves me,

For the Bible tells me so!”

Wow! A bunch of gay men and lesbians singing
that the Bible tells them that, yes, Jesus loves them.
A bunch of queer folks singing “Yes, Jesus Loves
Me,” which I always thought of as a conservative,
Southern Baptist, that-old-time-religion song (we
didn’t even sing it at Mass). That’s some powerful
stuff. Not only that - it’s power.

ee ——— ——
| about John Pixley i

Claremont, California

|I call my blog Queer3 because I'm queer in three ways:

1. I'm gay. 2. I'm severely disabled with Cerebral Palsy;
_hence, my physique, including my speech, is queer. 3. I'm
_a quaker (unprogrammed). Quakers have been called "a
peculiar people." Stretch this a bit, and you get queer. I
think this gives me a pretty unique perspective on things.
Hence this blog.

}

On

Laying Down
A Quran
—

From Noli irritare (eones wy http: ‘HInotfrisco2. com/leones/ MW by Lynn. Gazis- Sax

Friend January/February 2011

——

“artwork by Reza Antoszewska Ww http: llwww. ebrufineart. com

September 10, 2010

| Bed Sunday, I led the last session of the Quran
study at my Quaker meeting, Orange County
Friends Meeting. Perhaps some of you wonder why
a Quaker meeting is even studying the Quran, while
others wonder why, if we’re studying it, we should
lay down that study at exactly the time when tension
around Islam in this country is rising. The answer to
both questions is simple.

Years ago, I started not a Quran study, but a Bible
study. It was the kind of Bible study that you might
find at a UU or UCC church, if you didn’t
find it at a Quaker meeting— namely, a
kind of comparative Bible study. I made
an outline of passages in the four gospels
that would move us back and forth
between similar passages in different gospels, and
let us see how each evangelist has a slightly different
take on Jesus. And in between, I had other writings

that we could compare and contrast with the gospels:

Pirke Avot, passages from the Dead Sea Scrolls and
Gnostic gospels, passages that gave an idea of the
field in which the early church grew.

One Sunday, while I was leading a Bible study, as I
recall on a passage from the Sermon on the Mount,
someone raised the question of what the Quran said
on this topic. And I said, “Well, why don’t we look?”
And we set the next month, for the Bible study met
once a month, to be the month we would look at

the Quran. And the next month, my attendance
multiplied. In the wake of 9/11, Friends were
wondering, how do we better understand Islam, and
how do we build bridges?

So I began my Quran study, at 9am before meeting
for worship one Sunday a month, and became a sort
of point person for my meeting on Muslim/Quaker
relations. Sometimes we have done straight Quran
study, and more recently we have done Quran and
Bible study (where I take a passage in the Quran

and look for passages in the Bible that deal with the
same theme — whether the passages wind up looking
similar or different). And we have invited someone
in from CAIR to talk with our children in First Day
School about Islam, and to answer our adult questions
after meeting for worship (I collected questions from

In the wake of 9/11, Friends were wondering, how do we
better understand Islam, and how do we build bridges?

the Quran study group about how to understand
what we have read), and received the present of a
large Quran with Arabic and English on adjoining
pages, and footnotes and commentary. And we have
arranged two visits to mosques— one that wound up
being just me, and one that wound up being more
people, but happened when I was out of town.

But things come to an end, and study groups do not
last forever. Particularly study groups that meet
only once a month and involve getting up earlier
than you otherwise would on a Sunday morning.
Our group has dwindled, as one by one its members
have shifted to other activities. Among the last acts
that I took part in, before my term on Ministry

and Oversight ended, was a discussion of a change

January/February 2011

in our Sunday schedule (a discussion that has
continued since I left M&O). In October, we will
shift our meeting for worship back half an hour, to
begin at 10:30am, and we will start using the hour
before meeting for worship, every Sunday, for Adult
Education. And, rather than having activities like
Quakerism 101, or the Bible and the Quran study,
that meet once a month (and are therefore easy

to forget), we'll have a series on Adult Education
sessions on the same theme, to be followed by a
series on a different theme. I may be back leading a
Bible study again, or a Quran study, or some other
sort of study, but if I do, it will be on a different
schedule, a certain number of weeks from beginning
to end. For now, I sit back and let someone else lead.

The interest in keeping up an interfaith connection
with local Muslims continues, though; just a couple
of weeks ago I passed on my Muslim contacts to an
incoming member of Ministry and Oversight.

wrrrwrororew

Because we had dwindled, and were coming to our
natural end, I came to Quran study last Sunday not
knowing whether anyone else would be there, and
prepared to improvise depending on who did or
didn’t come. Two other people were there early, one
to open the meetinghouse, and one simply because
he chose to come early. That second early comer
joined me for Quran study. Since he had not come
to Quran study before, I spent the time talking with

him in general terms about our reading of the Quran.

I showed him how the arrangement of the Quran
differs from the arrangement of the Bible — while the
Bible is arranged in roughly chronological order by
when the events (whether mythical or historical) are
meant to have occurred, the Quran is ordered by the
length of the book. After the very short first book,

it goes from long to short (it occurs to me now that

I could have said that, though much of the Bible is
in chronological order, the ordering of the epistles
is actually done, as in the Quran, by length— once
they've been sorted first by author).

We read that very short first surah, which is a simple
prayer of praise for God, and I compare a line from it
to acommon line that starts Jewish prayers— blessed
are you Lord our God, king of the universe— and to
the “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy
name” from the Lord’s Prayer. And then I talked
about other things we’d found in the Quran, and

the ways in which, like many religious writings, it
sometimes appeals and other times alarms.

There are passages in the Quran that, if you pull

Western Friend 7

them out by themselves, sound dreadful, and others
that, if you pull them out by themselves, sound great.
Sometimes the passages that sound dreadful have
explanations, that Muslims will supply, that shift
their meaning considerably from what you might
have thought at first reading. For instance, there is
a passage that in some English translations reads
something like, “kill the infidels wherever you find
them.” It’s the kind of passage where, if you look at
it, may leave you thinking that perhaps after all the
Quran is on the side of Al Qaeda.

But if you talk with your friendly contact at the
local mosque, or check the footnotes of the Quran
generously supplied by CAIR, you'll find a different
interpretation of the passage, that it concerns a
time when pagans were attacking Muhammed

and his followers, and that it actually means you
may defend yourself against the infidels wherever
they attack you; if they attack you in your place of
worship, youre not obliged to submit passively to
their attack. Still a more warlike understanding of
faith than you’d get from a Quaker or Mennonite,
but a very different reading from the one in which
you'd be doing the attacking. On the other side,
there are passages that often get cited to show
Islam’s tolerance, particularly verse 256 in the surah
known as “the Cow’, where it is said, “There is no
compulsion in religion.”

I’ve also found the Quran an interesting contrast
with the Bible in other ways. Many of the same
people appear in both books, but where the Old
Testament tends to show more vividly the warts

of even its heroes (think David and Bathsheba),

the Quran dwells more on their heroism. I looked

up Jonah in the Quran, to see if the story bore this
impression out. In fact, both the Bible and the Quran

continued pg. 24
About Lynn Gazis-Sax

I grew up in New York, the child of a Greek immigrant
father and an American-born mother. I’ve lived all my adult
life in California. I’m one of nine children. I graduated
from Stanford with a degree in psychology, but also took

a number of computer courses both while at Stanford and
also afterward from UC Berkeley extension, and my work
has been various jobs in the computer field: computer
operations, technical support, software engineering, and
software quality assurance. Outside of my work, I’m active
in my Quaker meeting in various roles (recording clerk,
Ministry and Oversight committee member, First Day
School, leading a Quran study, etc.). I have been married
for eighteen years to Joel. We have no children, but are
abundantly blessed with nephews and nieces.

12 Western Friend

January/February 2011

by Robin Mohr

San Francisco, CA

You will say Christ saith this, and the apostles say this,

but what canst thou say?

Art thou a child of Light and hast thou walked in the Light,

October 09, 2010

here’s been a fair amount of buzz in the Quaker

blogosphere lately (and over the last five years)
about Revitalizing the Message and New
Wineskins. This is part of a more general
debate about the fate and usefulness of
old Quaker institutions. I think it is very
important to have these discussions on an
ongoing basis. But pontificating on the internet is
not enough. What are we going to do about the state
- of the Religious Society of Friends?

On that note, have you noticed how many of the
major Quaker institutions (and a few minor ones)
have been or are now, or will be soon, looking for new
executive leadership in the course of about two years?

American Friends Service Committee (2010)

Ben Lomond Quaker Center (2011)

Friends Committee on National Legislation (2011)
Friends Fiduciary Corporation (2011)

Friends General Conference (2011)

Friends Journal (2011)

Friends United Meeting (2011)

Friends World Committee for Consultation (2011)
Northwest Yearly Meeting (2012)

Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (2008)

Quaker Earthcare Witness (2011)

Quaker House in Fayetteville, NC (2012)

Quaker UN Office- New York (2008)

Western Friend (2008)

Woolman Semester (2008)

QUNO Geneva [added thanks to Eden Grace,
10/9]Earlham College [brought to my attention by
Martin Kelley, 12/8]

and what thou speakest is it inwardly from God?

-Margaret Fell, quoting from her
just encounter with George Fox

One Friend I know got interviewed for one of these
jobs and the first question the committee asked was,
“Out of all the Quaker jobs open right now, why do
you want this one?”

“OUT OF ALL THE QUAKER JOBS OPEN RIGHT
NOW, WHY DO YOU WANT THIS ONE?”

Why do you think this is all happening at once? Is it

just time in the generational cycle? Is it because the

financial crisis of the last couple of years has been so
hard on executive directors?

This looks like a wider nonprofit trend of long-time
executive leaders leaving. About 10 years ago, there
was a big fuss in the nonprofit world about a survey
that showed that half of all executive directors
planned to leave their jobs in the next five years.
Then five years ago, another survey showed that

the massive shift hadn’t happened but that most

EDs still planned to leave in the next five years. I
think that we are now seeing that shift starting to
happen among the Baby Boomers who founded
organizations in the 70s and 80s. It’s complicated by
the economic recession, and by the fact that Boomers
are living longer in better health and so working
longer too. I highly recommend a book by Frances
Kunreuther, Helen Kim and Robby Rodriguez, called
Working Across Generations: Defining the Future of
Nonprofit Leadership.

I don’t know enough about evangelical Friends
organizations, but there aren’t any on this list. Why
not? Did they already go through a shift or are they
just about to enter this phase? Or am I just not

January/February 2011

in their loop? [Editor’s Note: Northwest Yearly
Meeting, listed above, is an evangelical yearly
meeting in the Pacific Northwest. I added to Robin’s
list when working on this issue.]

I’m wondering how many of these jobs will go to
another Baby Boomer. (It’s two out of three for the
ones I know of that are already filled.) What kinds

of risks are the hiring committees/boards willing to
take on less experienced Friends? Will they just hire
another Boomer to stay another 2-5 years? Will we
have another generation of 20-30 year tenures at the
tops of these of organizations?

Will all these institutions survive this once in a
lifetime mass shift in leadership? How many will
move in new and vibrant directions? Are there

too many openings at one time? Are there enough
younger Friends who are ready, willing and able to
take on new responsibilities? To take on the hard
work and hard choices? To commit?

New wine needs new wineskins with every harvest.
But not a whole new winecellar every year, just to
continue the metaphor. I don’t want to reinvent the
wheel just for the sake of saying “I did it my way,”
or “We sure showed them.” Then again, when your
winecellar starts to cave in, it may be time to move
the whole house.

WHAT WOULD A GEN-X QUAKER
INSTITUTION LOOK LIKE?

WHAT ABOUT A MILLENNIAL
QUAKER ORGANIZATION?

Organizations help to coordinate the matching of
resources with missions. Structure can be helpful.
Systems liberate. Creativity flourishes best without
complete chaos surrounding it. One lone ranger, or
a small, committed group of citizens, can do some
things for a short time, but organizing materials,
money and manpower takes infrastructure to run
smoothly. What would a GenX Quaker institution
look like? What about a Millennial Quaker
organization?

Honestly, I don’t know or even have a fixed opinion
on what should happen. These organizations vary
widely in size, complexity and mission. Some are on
firmer financial and spiritual footings than others.
But all will depend on, contribute to, and have to
face either the diminishment or the revitalization of
the Religious Society of Friends.

In an era of reduced budgets and growing unrest,

Western Friend

’

13

what does the future hold for the Religious Society of
Friends?

Where do you see yourself?

COMMENTS

[Editor’s Note: People who post comments on
blogs may use their full names, or use an online
pseudonym. Because I could not contact every
commenter to ask for permission, I have only used
first names here.]

10/9/2010 11:30 PM
Martin said...

There’s an interesting phenomenon that you don’t
mention: much of today’s leadership got high-
responsibility jobs right out of college. I can think of
a handful of people who practically packed up their
dorm rooms to take important jobs in Philadelphia
in the early 70s— people still around, you’d know
their names.

Something happened forty years ago that there was

a complete leadership gap. There weren’t enough

30- and 40- and 50-somethings to step into jobs

or they weren’t qualified or they didn’t want them.
There were major economic problems then too,
organizations on the brink of bankruptcy. Maybe the
only ones who would work for the wages offered were
23 year olds? Perhaps the 1950s generation of leaders
acted as a forest canopy that kept new growth from
spouting until they fell down into retirement in the
early 1970s? I don’t know, but something certainly
happened then.

My pet theory is we're a few years away from a
similar period of mass turnover. I wasn’t given a lot
of organizational responsibilities during my eight
years on Quaker staff. I can think of some GenX staff
with responsibilities but they're not boat-rockers who
engage in public discussions of revitalization. It’s not
been a good career move to have strong opinions.

For what it’s worth, I’m not planning to apply for
anything. I don’t even think it’d be worth the time
to freshen my resume. Two of the jobs on your list
have turned over in the last ten years and both
bypassed strong GenX candidates who would have
brought the organization to a much different place
circa 2010. The people on one semi-official short list
of candidates I saw weren’t boat rockers (can I say
they were a completely BOOORING lot?). So much
of the time and energy in these jobs is maintaining

14 Western Friend

the infrastructure. I don’t see the 2010/11 round of
turnovers intersecting the revitalization talk.

A lot of the energy is passing back to the grassroots,
probably for good (and probably for the good).
There’s a lot more going to be turning over in the
next 15 years than name plates on the corner offices.

10/09/2010 11:30 PM
forrest said...

The fact that it’s “executive leadership” we're talking
about strikes me as part of the difficulty.

Somebody in an organization has to have a clear
sense of its mission and ways of carrying that out.

But what’s emphatically not needed is somebody
concerned with an organization following the
corporate model of ‘efficiency’, ‘setting goals &
objectives’, imposing ‘criteria for measuring success’,
continual reporting to supervisors, that old top-down
model that makes a joke of all the sincere, dedicated
effort that went into hiring a competent, trustworthy
staff in the first place. I think about AFSC with all the
elaborate mechanism for discernment, local advisory
committees— and (in my day) chain of command

de facto organization... We need to stop idolizing
models from secular business & government; we’re
in (should be) a different endeavor entirely!

10/10/2010 9:19 AM
Paul said...

Funny; my observation is the opposite of
Forrest’s, I think. My observation is that
many Quaker organizations are hobbled

by governance models that are too diffuse
and unfocused and which allow board and
executives and staff to too easily avoid
accountability. (I’m not sure whether your
example of AFSC’s elaborate structure was a
good or bad thing from your point of view.)

While I would not want the pendulum to swing too
far the other way, I do think the adoption of some
modern management and leadership methods from
business would help our religious organizations, too.
Yes, we are a different kind of endeavor, but it is an
endeavor nonetheless, and it has to be practically
organized to accomplish its mission.

I admit I’m at the moment a bit in the thrall of
Malcolm Gladwell’s most recent article in The New
Yorker where he argues, using the US Civil Rights
Movement as an example, that a tightly organized

January/February 2011

hierarchal organization is more likely to foster the
“strong ties” necessary to get a few people to do hard
things that need to be done than a network model
[he’s talking about Twitter and Facebook] which
create “weak ties” that are good at getting a lot of
people to do easy things. (He’s also talking about
social change movements and not institutions per se,
so maybe he isn’t quite on point.)

I think a good deal more discipline and focused
attention would help most Friends organizations
with which I’m familiar. I also think this can be done
without abandoning the Christian ethos or even
many Quaker peculiarities.

10/10/2010 2:00 PM
Christine said...

One of the things I observed coming to Philadelphia
nearly 30 years ago was that I was an unknown here,
and looked younger than I was at the time. Despite
having been mentored by some weighty Friends
while in Colorado and Canada, I was considered too
inexperienced in the complexity of Friends in SE
Pennsylvania to usefully contribute to the life of the
whole.

I was still considered a young adult Friend well into
my 50s. I’m one of those boat-rockers that folks who
prefer the status quo would rather not have over for
dinner, and certainly not at a “serious” committee
meeting. I tend to ask awkward questions.

WHAT WOULD “CHURCH” LOOK
LIKE, THEY ASK, IF WE DIDN’T HAVE
BUILDINGS AND INSTITUTIONS TO

MAINTAIN? HISTORY TO LIVE UP TO (OR
LIVE DOWN)? WHAT WE CAN SAY, NO
MATTER WHAT AGE WE HAPPEN TO BE?

I’m hearing similar things from Methodists and
Presbyterians, by the way. What would “church”
look like, they ask, if we didn’t have buildings and
institutions to maintain? History to live up to (or
live down)? What we can say, no matter what age we
happen to be? Can we get well beyond the ageism
that infects institutions (not just religious ones?)

Working together, perhaps we can come up with
something of value. It won’t happen unless we
actually sit — together — at the feet of the Teacher
with an eye — anda heart — to meet real needs that
surround us.

January/February 2011

We may be well into a significant paradigm shift in
the way we “do” our religious life... and it may just be
about time.

10/10/2010 2:52 PM
Tony said...

The core issue is not what to maintain or dispose of
in an organization, nor who has more education and/
or experience to lead. What is needed is actual belief
that the Spirit will Lead us into all Truth. Tired old
organizations get that way because they let go of the
radical pursuit of God’s will for us, in faovr

of a more democratic or autocratic model,
maintaining the garden or the cupula or

preserving some tradition.

And so we make idols of our institutions.
And because they have become idols, we
struggle to do God’s work because we are so
busy rearranging the draperies. When there
is real work to be done, meaningful work,
the leaders will be SENT.

A weighty Friend once said in a business
meeting I was attending, “We are asked
what shall we do with the old Meeting
House? Why does no one ever ask, ‘what shall we do
to please our God?’. I say, if the Meeting house is a
burden, burn the Meeting house to the ground, and
let us worship in the grass”. The matter of the old
Meeting House was quickly resolved and we went on
to the real business of the Meeting, helping folks find
God within them.

Our institutions are tools. If they serve us well, and
serve God’s will, then they are good tools. But if they
do not they should be laid aside like a rotten hoe and
a new tool sought. When institutions have at their
core real missions that light a fire in those within
them, finding leaders will be of little concern. God
will send them as God always has.

God calls people to serve God. It sounds impractical
because it is. God is very impractical, and yet
accomplishes great things all the same.

10/15/2010 1:27 PM
Steven said...
Wow. Great thread.

I agree with Tony that all these problems ultimately
need a spiritual solution: real renewal only comes
from God. Yet what that means in practice is that

Western Friend 15

real renewal comes from individuals called by God,
inspired by the Holy Spirit with creative intelligence
and energy. That does not mean that they will not
pick up a tool—and tools require practice and even
training to be effective. But spirit-led leadership
requires two things we may be a bit short on: a vital
culture of eldership in our meetings that can reliably
produce sufficient numbers of Friends who know
their Quakerism and know their God (and by ‘God’,
I mean the Mystery Reality behind our spiritual/
religious experience, whatever that experience is);
and boards that can function as spirit-led bodies of
discernment, nurture and oversight.

SPIRIT-LED LEADERSHIP REQUIRES TWO
THINGS WE MAY BE A BIT SHORT ON: A
VITAL CULTURE OF ELDERSHIP IN OUR

MEETINGS THAT CAN RELIABLY PRODUCE
SUFFICIENT NUMBERS OF FRIENDS WHO

KNOW THEIR QUAKERISM AND KNOW
THEIR GOD... AND BOARDS THAT CAN
FUNCTION AS SPIRIT-LED BODIES OF

DISCERNMENT, NURTURE AND OVERSIGHT.

For, in a way, I think we focus on the wrong thing
when we talk about executive directors. Especially
for nonprofits and Friends in particular, it’s

boards that choose these leaders and otherwise
give direction—or not—to Quaker institutions. I
suspect that Quaker boards are even older, more
conservative and less expert than the directors they
hire. And I think they may be even more tempted to
function like nonprofits and like committees, rather
than worshipping, spirit-led bodies of discernment.
This is a structural problem, exacerbated by the
relative infrequency of board meetings and the

way board members are selected by constituent
organizations.

As with the crises we face in ecology, economics
and politics, I am increasingly apocalyptic about
our prospects, as a society and as concerns our
institutions. I think we can expect more decline and
some localized collapse. Still, we’ve been here before.
I think of the 1860s and the appeal for renewal that
produced John Stephenson Rowntree’s landmark
essay Quakerism Past and Present in 1860, calling
for radical change in our practices, especially of
disownment. The very next year, London Yearly
Meeting published a new discipline changing more
than fifty rules. Likewise, the great conferences of

16 Western Friend

January/February 2011

“Juncos”
by Barb Janoe

Ne ty

the 1890s ushered in a new era on both sides of the
Atlantic. It has been a century since we saw such a
season of renewal. But...

We believe—and have repeatedly experienced—that
God is trying right now to get through to us, to

make of us a useful tool. At the heart of Quaker
spiritual practice lies the testimony of simplicity,

the commitment to strip away all that might distract
us from hearing the call and anything that might
obstruct us from answering. Right now, someone
could be trying to answer that call. Like Fox and
Howsgill and their cohort in the 1650s, they are

likely to be in their early to mid-twenties, not their
50s and 60s. So we boomers need to focus on
eldership, keeping our eyes open for younger Friends
who might need a word of encouragement, help
with resources (a stint at Pendle Hill or Earlham
School of Religion), a suggestion for reading, more
responsibility in the meeting. We won’t die out
tomorrow. Our institutions will lumber along for a
while. We have time, however dire our circumstances
feel, sometimes. But our culture of eldership really
is in dire circumstances, at least in the circles I move
in. That is where I plan to invest my energy.

11/19/2010 12:20 PM
Blogger Robin said...

Steven, I agree, this is a great thread. As with the
best of the Quaker blogosphere, my post itself is
okay, but the comments are what make it rich.

You are also so right about the boards that will
choose the new executive directors and then be
either a burden or a blessing, and probably both, to
the EDs they hire. The ones I know best are trying
hard. They’re trying to both follow legal hiring
procedures and be spirit-led at the same time. But
very few of them have much depth of experience at
either one.

[Side Note to young Friends everywhere: being

the HR director for a for-profit company is also an
opportunity to be of God’s service in the world. It
will involve compromises, but so does being a social

worker or an environmental activist. |

Back to the topic of reviving a healthy culture of
eldering. This is a long-term process that fortunately
does not require moving to Philadelphia or
Richmond, Indiana. We can start to do that now,
right where we live. I will second what Steven

said, “keeping our eyes open for younger Friends
who might need a word of encouragement, help

with resources (a stint at Pendle Hill or Earlham
School of Religion), a suggestion for reading, more
responsibility in the meeting.”

The question of the survival of our existing
institutions is still open. I expect that some will not
survive the next 10 years, but I wouldn’t take bets on
which. I hope that some of the new initiatives that
are cropping up will take hold. I hope that some of
the jobs in the GQT, as Chuck Fager called it, will go
to Friends in their late 20s and early 30s with grand
visions for what could be different. And I really hope
that the RSoF and our multiple institutions will all
come out of this period with a clearer understanding
of why they exist and what work they are called to do.

> Aan Aan

FRIENDS HOUSE

A Quaker-Inspired Elder Community

Independent Living ¢ Assisted Living
Skilled Nursing

684 Benicia Drive, Santa Rosa, CA 95409
(707) 53820152

www. friendshouse.org

RCFE #496801929 SNF #010000123 COA #220

January/February 2011

Big or No Big Deal?

North Pacific Yearly Meeting Contemplates

Affiliation with Friends General Conference

from One Quaker Take
http://onequakertake.blogspot.com
by Timothy Travis

Sunday, December 19, 2010

| Pernt in North Pacific Yearly Meeting are
considering affiliation with Friends General
Conference. To do so it would be the first time that
this yearly meeting has identified itself with one

or another of the existing domains into which the
Society is divided.

The fascinating history of how it came to bea
defining characteristic of this yearly meeting to be
non-affiliated is too complicated to go into, here. It
is enough here to say that this came to be and that
there was a reason for this that should be considered
in this process.

The forerunner of North Pacific Yearly Meeting,

the College Park Association of San Jose,

California, was intentionally organized not as a
meeting but as a California corporation. Setting
themselves aside from the recently-created

divisions and domains within in the Society,

and describing themselves as an independent

and unified body, Joel and Hanna Bean, and

those gathered with them, intentionally refused to
recognize the legitimacy of these divisions. They
lived in the hope (in the sense of that word that is a
synonym with “expectation”) that these divisions,
bitterly pried open among Friends over less than 100
years by remarkably “un-Quakerly” behavior one to
the other, would be closed and Friends would again
be united in a single Society. Open to correspondence
with all domains, they identified themselves with
none of these above any of the others.

At least at first, College Park had no members, as I
understand it, but was a gathering of those whose
membership in the Society was grounded in monthly
(or quarterly) meetings in those other domains.
Those who attended, whether by conviction or by
the necessity occasioned by the spiritual isolation
consequential to their westward migration, did

Western Friend 17

9900000000000 00 OOO OOD DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OO OOOO OOO OOOOOOO OOO OOOO OOOO OOOO OOO OO OOOO OOOOOOO OOOO

not jeopardize their standing in their Orthodox,
Conservative, Hicksite or Evangelical Friends
meetings by worshiping at College Park—all were
welcome in a gathering that was not a part of any of
these domains.

Eschewing organizational affiliation (while
maintaining individual affiliations) was part of the
re-unifying vision of those who founded College Park
Association of Friends and it remains a part of that
same vision to some in North Pacific Yearly Meeting,
today. Any single domain pursuing re-unification

is seen as trying to displace the others and absorb

Does North Pacific Yearly Meeting still carry the
Beanite leading to welcome all Friends, regardless

of their doctrinal beliefs, and in so doing keep

alive the expectation of a re-unified Society?

them, trying to “win” the doctrinal struggle rather
than overcome it, entirely.

That complicates the question of affiliation, today,
for some in North Pacific Yearly Meeting.

Some believe that the connections that have forged,
gradually, patiently, with some Friends in other
domains of the Society, who were similarly led to
reach beyond their own hedges, will be strained

if, by affiliation, our yearly meeting lays down its
“neutrality” and appears to settle, officially, into one
domain or another. It is that stated independence,
these Friends believe, that makes it possible to
straddle the divides, so to speak, until they close
beneath our feet.

Perhaps these Friends are mistaken. Perhaps
affiliation will not change the actual identity of
this yearly meeting, in its own eyes or those of the
Society, at large.

18 Western Friend

January/February 2011

After all, it my impression that, charitably, fewer that
1 in 10 among us has any idea of why North Pacific
Yearly Meeting is unaffiliated today and how this lack
of affiliation is (or was) an intentional “peculiarity”
(in the sense of “being set aside for a particular
purpose”) of this gathering. It cannot be said that
standing aside from identification and the vision of a
re-unified Society is uppermost (or anywhere, for that
matter) in the minds of Friends today.

Those among us anxious to affiliate believe, insofar
as they are even aware of this historical peculiarity,
that North Pacific Yearly Meeting has already
settled firmly into what is called the “Liberal”
domain and that the vision of a reunified Society is
as unimportant as it is un-understood among us.
Frankly, many in this yearly meeting are not at all
inclined to find unity with Friends in (at least some)
of the other domains of which they have a rather dim
understanding, one at least as dim as that of those
in those other domains have of us. Many of us are as
self-satisfied in our divided condition, as most other
Quakers seem to be.

Then, too, development of College Park Association
of Friends, and of the congregations that grew

up in the West and associated with it, into Pacific
Yearly Meeting and then into North Pacific and
Intermountain Yearly Meetings may well have
gradually amounted to the establishing of a whole
new domain within the Society. Holding to waiting
worship— as opposed to the programmed worship
that predominated on this side of the Continental
Divide at the close of the 19th Century— those of us
who came after Joel and Hanna Bean have definitely
morphed into gatherings made up of Friends
difficult to distinguish from some of those in the East

About Timothy Travis
Portland, Oregon

Iam a convinced Beanite Friend, a member of Bridge
City Friends Meeting, Willamette Quarterly Meeting
and North Pacific Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society
of Friends. Notwithstanding the doubts of some who
claim the name, I am a Christian who does a Buddhist
practice and believes that God talks to everyone, all the
time. I have worked in the judicial branch of government,
as well as being a trial lawyer, a public school teacher
(counselor and coach), a kite merchant, and a Marine
Corp Sergeant. Iam currently working as a consultant

to public and private agencies on issues of child welfare,
juvenile justice, and substance abuse treatment courts.

identified as Liberal. I attend meetings in the East
frequently enough to know how similar we are and
many among us here are surprised to learn, if ever
they do, that those at the roots of our yearly meeting
actually held an Orthodox, not a Hicksite, faith and
practice.

If all that is so, is the “independent” and “unified”
nature of our yearly meeting little more than a
largely un-understood fiction?

Did the very act of becoming a yearly meeting
(something those we claim as our “founders”
intentionally did not do) actually amount to stepping
off of the “neutral” ground upon which they stood?

Does North Pacific Yearly Meeting still carry the
Beanite leading to welcome all Friends, regardless of
their doctrinal beliefs, and in so doing keep alive the
expectation of a re-unified Society? Or are we open to
only Liberals, now— whatever the many things that
label appears to mean among us. Are we uninterested
in the challenges involved in coming to terms with
our history of bitter division and are we satisfied

with our prospects within an exclusivistic future? It
does appear that for us, like so many Friends today,
the direct transforming experience of Christ/Spirit/
Light is not a strong enough commonality to hold

us together in the face of differing rationalistic,
propositional beliefs and doctrines.

So, are we easy that our character and orientation

in North Pacific Yearly Meeting, as individuals and

a gathering, is today fundamentally different from
those of our dimly understood “founders” in that it
does not hold up unity among Friends as a vision? Are
we confident going forward with our sense that the
Beans were heroes of “toleration” (which many tend
to translate as “anything goes” so long as it comes in
the guise of our own image) and that the fractured

_ condition of the Society presents no problem for us?

By affiliating with Friends General Conference (or
any of the “umbrella groups” or “gospel orders” that
exist in the Society) are we endorsing and validating
he divisions among Friends and settling into a home
n one of those domains, or have we already done
hat such that affiliation would be little more than a
recognition of the reality of our condition?

This is, as we discuss and seek the leading of the
Light about the benefits and costs of affiliation,
something we should at least listen for in our
seeking. Notwithstanding the possibility that the
vision of independence and unity that we inherited,
and the policy based on it, might seem “obsolete,”

t is also possible that this vision is actually just

January/February 2011

Western Friend

1g

stuck away in the attic of our Quaker consciousness
where few of us have ever come across it, let alone
been contended with as to its implications for our
integrity, our community, or sense of equality and
harmony— as well as the future of the Society.

There was a reason, then, that those who came
before us recognized in this independence a

leading the Light had for them.

There was a reason, then, that those who came
before us recognized in this independence a leading
the Light had for them. Rachel Hicks—although
not among them—expressed their mourning and
their motivation. She eloquently lamented the way
Friends had rendered themselves largely impotent
to affect the condition of the world because of the
outcomes of the bickering over belief that would
take, from the time of her writing, two decades to
run itself out and leave Friends divided and alienated
from one another.

“And now, as I write this, after years of reflection
and observation of the effect of promulgating
opinions and doctrines not essential in
themselves, especially on the mission of Christ

in that prepared body, I am confirmed in the
belief that it tends to unprofitable discussion and
controversy, and often to alienation of love for one
another...and [that] we should have remained a
united people of great influence in the gathering of
nations to the peaceable kingdom of Him who was
ushered into the world with the anthem, Glory to
God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will
to men!

-Rachel Hicks “Memoir”
(New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1880) p. 39

How long will the Society of Friends last in this
divided condition? Can any claim that, except
where it exists as a certain strain of Protestantism
(and lives by the credo on the mast head of a 19th
Century newspaper, “Christian First, Quaker
Second”), the Society has a dynamic a presence

in the world? (Actually, of course, that masthead
meant “Protestant First, Quaker Second.”)

Are we comfortably living out, in our self-satisfied
way, the legacy of—as it is written—those who
divided a house and maintain it in such a condition?

Perhaps our general ignorance of what
“independence” and “unified” was about is an

indication that the Light is not showing Friends that
leading toward unity, any more—new light and all
that.

Perhaps, on the other hand, the endurance of that

leading toward unity in the hearts of some (in and
outside our yearly meeting) is an indication that
darkness, as it is also written, may temporarily
blot out much of the Light, but never completely
displaces it.

It seems unlikely to me that Friends in North

Pacific Yearly Meeting share the vision of unity

that independence was intended to foster. I would
just ask whether, in laying that vision down, we
might at least mention it in passing, understanding it
and intentionally leave it behind.

It is sometimes difficult for me to understand how
the process of spiritual transformation that almost
every Quaker I meet says is at the heart of our faith
and practice could really lead a gathered people into
such a fractured and inconsequential condition.

wren

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20 Western Friend

January/February 2011

Cr

July 4th and August 21, 2010

come from the space in between. Here, between
black and white, between one culture and another,
between you and me, we have made a home, a space,
a new creation in which there is room for everyone,
no one is invisible and whatever challenges arise,
we come together to figure them out. This is my
borderland.

All I can tell you about physical borders and
borderlands and about Arizona specifically is

what my experience has been. I have lived in the
borderland region within 60 miles of the US-Mexico

BY PATRICIA MORRISION

dialects, ethnicities, commerce, food traditions and
much much more. This is not to be missed. Where
polka meets Spanish troubadours, African rhythms
and indigenous instruments, this is a place where
life is never dull, where no one and everyone fits

in, the true west, where the American Dream of
being able to invent or reinvent yourself lives on,
where everyone has something to contribute and
something to learn. This place is not always easy.
There are conflicts. People are wary, suspicious,
fearful to be sure. But those who have lived here a
long time know that we all belong and as long as we
hold the space, respect the backgrounds and beliefs
of those we meet, the balance can be maintained.

border for over 2/3 of my life, 20 of my now 31
years, eight of those in Tucson, Arizona, the past
eight years, in fact. I came to Tucson for several
unremarkable reasons, many of the same reasons
most people come here, from north, south, east and
west. I came for a job. I came for the sun and the sky,
for the desert, which I missed bitterly while living
in the Midwest and on the East Coast. I came to be
closer to my family, specifically my grandmother,
who was elderly and living in my hometown in
southern New Mexico. I stayed for the wonderful
community of people, for the home I made here. I
stayed, because it felt like home, like the borderland
home in which I grew up.

The Border, you see, is a rich and fertile place, no
desolate wasteland. It is a meeting place of many
people, traditions, and ways of being. It is more

than a cultural crossroads, a melting pot or a salad
bowl. It is a river delta, an estuary. Places where

two or more distinct ecosystems interact and

form something entirely new and vital, something
infinitely more rich and varied, a biological treasure
trove. Where freshwater meets ocean, life takes

off and makes entirely new species to cope with

the interactions this new ecosystem creates. The
borderlands, whether in California/Baja California,
Arizona/Sonora, New Mexico/Chihuahua or Texas/
Coahuila/ Nuevo Leon/ Tamaulipas, represent our
very own deltas, estuaries, places of encounter where
many ecosystems come together and form something
different, new and worth preserving.

Border culture has produced music, myth, legend,

The border is not a static place. There are strong
traditions, both cultural and religious, but this is
also a place of constant flux, a place that feels the
economic and political decisions of both countries
first and strongest, a place to which opportunists,
missionaries of all kinds and those looking to escape
come.

I love the borderlands and though I have temporarily
given up my home along the border to travel around
the US with my music, I have no doubt they will

pull me back again as they have shaped my self and
continue to mystify and fascinate me. What you

may not realize about the border is that it not only
runs along 1,969 miles of the southern borders of
California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas and
along 3,987 miles of the northern borders of 12
states (not counting Alaska), but it also crisscrosses
the United States. It runs through every city and
town, through every heart of every person in the

US, even yours. You, too, live on the border, or have
the chance too. That richness, that challenge, that
fertile tilled up ground is there at your feet. Whether
you find the borders in your town or city or county
and cross them to be present with, listen with, get

to know folks you never paid attention to before or
whether you simply face up to the walls you may
have built in your own heart and mind, I invite you
to the party, to the rich cultural stew, the incredible
wealth of ecological and anthropological value that is
present in the borderlands. It’s a great place to live.

Patricia is a member of Pima Friends Meeting,
calling Albuquerque, New Mexico, home these days.

January/February 2011

The

D of
x Truth

hristian thought often seems dysfunctionally

extreme, so very false. On one side are the
exclusivists, the theological determinists (who I have
already dealt with in past blogs), ones who claim God
only wills to save a limited number of humans, and
the rest of us are preordained to Hell for his pleasure
and glory. Pray tell me where the Good News is in
that hopeless despair.

BE Ake

On the other side, are the inclusivists, the
universalists who emphasize that all humans will

be saved, that Hell will eventually be emptied. This
sounds so good and has found strong support among
great Christians of the past from Origen to the Greek
scholar William Barclay. The position has recently
been championed by the Quaker writers Phillip
Gulley and James Mulholland. But there is a huge
problem here as well. See below.

In the New Testament, Jesus, instead, speaks in
paradoxes. Consider this statement:

For the gate is small and the way is narrow that
leads to life, and there are few who find it.

Matthew 7:14 NASB

Why does Jesus talk so exclusively at this point
when elsewhere in the biblical text, he is the ultimate
inclusivist/universalist? He emphasizes how God

is not willing for anyone to perish in his or her
wrong ways, that God is like a father who longs for
the return of his wayward son, like a woman who
rejoices when her precious possession that was lost
is found.

Here’s the key:

As appealing as the universalism of the Good News
is—For God so loved the world; God sent not his son
into condemn the world John 3:16-17—of what use
is it to tell everyone that all people are saved, if we
don’t help each individual change? For in fact, at
this very moment millions of particular individuals
are living in minor or major hells on earth or ‘living

from Infinite Ocean of Light and Love

http://infiniteoceanoflightandlove.blogspot.com
by Daniel Wilcox

Western Friend a1

like hell’ hurting others. Of what use are liberal
religious platitudes, no matter how wonderful they
sound theoretically, if in fact we aren’t seeking to
help ourselves and others to change right now? Of
what use is theology claiming truth when at present
Christians and Muslims are killing each other
allegedly for God? Of what use is universalism when
at present millions of individuals are suffering loss,
being selfish, living immorally, being discriminated
against, drinking to excess, abusing others or being
abused, making war, living in greed, lust, envy...?

The Truth, the Good News, is only universal in
the here and now when it is accepted, when we
turn from our wrong thoughts, deceitful choices,
egocentric ways, bad actions.

God doesn’t cease being True, Good, and Loving, but
when we as humans refuse to respond to the Truth,
the Good, and the Loving, God incarnate is again
crucified within us and others suffer.

This is Jesus’ point! For example, Jesus loves the
rich young man, but he can’t help him when the
young man refuses to personally accept the truth and
change.

The way to Truth is narrow though the Truth of the
way is as wide as infinity.

About Daniel Wilcox
Santa Maria, CA

A committed theist, a follower and Friend of Jesus and
God; with a deep passion for worldwide outreach to those
in need. Loving and living for God in whom we love,

move, and have our being. For those into labels: liberal
Foxite, Mennonite, Hicksite, Beanite, Mottite, Erasmusite,
Denckite, Finneyite, Woolite, Wesleylan, Anabaptist, etc. A
poet and novelist; Married with three grown kids; Degree
in Creative Writing from Cal State University Long Beach;
Lived in the Middle East, Montana, etc; Former literature
and writing teacher.

22 Western Friend

from The Reconciliation Papers

on, and Sarah and Hagar

http://reconciliationpapers.blogspot.com/

January/February 2011

by Becky Ankeny

January 3, 2011

ECAUSE THE BIBLE CAME OUT OF PATRIARCHAL CULTURE,

WHENEVER WOMEN’S STORIES ARE TOLD IT IS UNEXPECTED.
In fact, I’ve come to see these women as signs of inclusion at many
points in the Bible. Inclusion often involves some sort of conflict or
trouble, which may cause people to consider women as causes of trouble
rather than signs that trouble is implicit in the cultural norms.

Recently I looked into various marriages in the Bible, starting with
Abraham and Sarah, because St. Peter refers to Sarah as a model for

all wives in her submission to her husband, calling him, “Lord.” So I
went to read the story. There are two places where Sarah joins Abraham
in lying about their relationship, acquiescing to being known as his
sister (which is apparently half-true, showing again that this culture

is not the same as ours). First, before they are known as Abraham and
Sarah—before God renames them—they take refuge from famine in
Egypt. Sarai is barren, so it is easy for them to mislead the Egyptians.
Because Sarai is beautiful, Pharaoh takes her into his house and gives

Inclusion often involves some sort of conflict or trouble,
which may cause people to consider women as causes
of trouble rather than signs that trouble is implicit in the
cultural norms.

Abram gifts, perhaps even the slave-girl Hagar. God sends plagues,
Pharaoh wises up, sends Sarai back to Abram, and complains about
being deceived. Much later, Abraham asks Sarah again to join him in his
half-truth in the land of King Abimelech; again, the king takes Sarah;
this time, God warns him in a dream that Sarah is married. (As an aside,
this shows God speaking directly to.a Canaanite king and the king’s
immediate obedience.) So two times, Sarah follows Abraham’s lead in
misrepresenting their relationship.

In the rest of the story, her submission is less obvious. When she can’t
conceive, she decides to help God fulfill God’s promise by offering
Abram her Egyptian slave, Hagar, as a surrogate; Abram listens to Sarai
and has sex with Hagar, who becomes pregnant. Sarai accuses Hagar of
having contempt for Sarai and treats her so harshly Hagar runs away.

God meets the pregnant girl in the wilderness and speaks directly to her.

Think about this: not only does God reveal God’s self to the chosen man
Abram, he also speaks to a Canaanite king and to an Egyptian slave-girl.
God tells her to go back to Sarai and be respectful, and God promises

that her son will be the father of multitudes too numerous to count. She

names her son Ishmael—“God
hears”—and names God as
“the God of seeing,” marveling
that she really saw God and
remained alive. Remember
this—a runaway Egyptian
slave-girl saw God, received a
command which she obeyed,
received a promise like the one
given to Abram, and lived to
tell about it.

In the past, some may have
read this passage as defining
the duty of slaves to be
submissive and respectful to
their owners. We wouldn’t
do that nowadays, now that
we know slavery is wrong.
But we don’t hear the rest

of the amazing truth in this
passage. God meets Hagar
face to face and reminds her
that he is taking care of her
and her unborn son. (I want to
write it this way: God. Meets.
Hagar. Face. To. Face.) He
also confronts her with her
contempt for Sarai. Hagar
affirms her human dignity by
choosing to obey God.

Fourteen years later, Isaac was
born to Sarah. When Sarah saw
Ishmael and Isaac together,
she said to Abraham, “Cast out
the slave woman and her son.”
Really Sarah is saying, “Cast
out your son who is not my
son.” Abraham loves Ishmael;
he doesn’t want to send him
away. God says, “Don’t worry
about Ishmael and Hagar;

I will make a nation of his
descendants also. Do whatever

January/February 2011

Sarah says because Isaac is the one I promised

you and intend to work through.” God can say this
because God is the one taking care of Hagar and
Ishmael. So in the morning, Abraham sends Hagar
and Ishmael off into the wilderness with a canteen of
water and some bread.

When they run out of water, she places Ishmael under
a bush and goes far enough away that she cannot see
him. She does not want to watch him die, and she
weeps aloud. God hears Ishmael, who must also be
moaning, and God’s messenger says to Hagar, “What
troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard
Ishmael’s moans. Go raise him up and hold his hand.
Remember that I will make a great nation of him.”
Then God shows her a well of water. They live in the
wilderness, Ishmael learns to hunt, and eventually his
Egyptian mother finds him a wife from Egypt.

It has to be noted that Hagar’s worst enemy is not Abraham
but Sarah; yet the grounds of their animosity is in the
patriarchal system that values women because they give birth.

Notice this: God again communicates supernaturally
with Hagar. God cares for her again in the wilderness.
God makes sure she and her son (and Abraham’s son)
do not die. God does not berate her for forgetting his
promise. God treats her tenderly and rescues them.
God includes the father of the Arabs in his care,
knowing full well that there will be enmity and war
between the descendents of Abraham, just as there
has been enmity between the mothers.

The lessons from this are so challenging: God is

the God of Hebrew and Arab. Indeed, with all the
attention paid to the supernatural nature of Isaac’s °
birth, it is easy to overlook the supernatural care
given to Hagar and Ishmael. God includes them. This
ought to challenge Christians who see Zionism as the
will of God, and it ought to challenge Christians who
see patriarchy and sexism as the will of God as well.

It has to be noted that Hagar’s worst enemy is

not Abraham but Sarah; yet the grounds of their
animosity is in the patriarchal system that values
women because they give birth. Barrenness is
shameful to a woman for the same reason a woman
must have a child on behalf of a dead husband;

the important achievement is to provide the man
with immortality through descendants. Sarah

wants a child for Abraham for reasons Tamar will
understand. In a patriarchal system, women compete
with women to be valuable to men. If what men want
is a son to carry on the patrimony, women will value

Western Friend 23

themselves as they are able to produce that son.

However, Sarah, who somewhere in her life called
her brother/husband “Lord,” has intrinsic value
before God. It isn’t enough that Ishmael was born
on her knees, symbolically her child. She wants

her own child. She cannot reconcile herself to the
legal fiction that makes Ishmael her child. Sarah
also wants to birth a child for her own sake, and

her jealousy of Hagar has to do with Sarah’s own
hunger for immortality. When she went through
menopause, she must have despaired. No wonder
she laughs bitterly when she overhears God’s
messengers repeating the promise to Abraham that
Sarah herself will bear a child. No wonder she laughs
with joy when Isaac is born. The gift of Isaac, the gift
of laughter, the gift of immortality comes courtesy
of God only, not from the legal fictions of human
beings. No wonder the child
of Hagar is an intolerable
intruder on this gift as Sarah
sees it. Sarah behaves cruelly
to Hagar; God does not punish
this cruelty, perhaps because
God knows that patriarchy has crippled Sarah’s
understanding of what gives a woman value.

A few generations later, Jacob’s two wives, Leah and
Rachel, compete to give Jacob sons. Leah is far more
fertile, producing three sons; so to compete, Rachel
gives Jacob her servant girl Bilhah as a surrogate;
those two sons count for Rachel. When Leah quits
having children, she gives Jacob another servant girl
Zilpah as surrogate; those two sons count for Leah,
who leads five to two. When Leah’s son brings her
mandrakes, which supposedly help make women
fertile, Rachel begs for the mandrakes. In exchange,
she sends Jacob in to sleep with Leah. Leah had two
more sons and a daughter.

When God opens Rachel’s womb, as the Bible

puts it, she has a son. Significantly, she rejoices by
saying, “God has taken away my reproach.” What is
reproachful about being barren? In this culture, the
wife has failed in her main duty to her husband—the
duty to make sure his line does not die out. Much
later, Rachel dies birthing her second son, whom she
names “son of my sorrow.” Her sorrow is not just
the hard labor, but the sorrow of being unable to
measure up to others. Despite being genuinely loved
by her husband, she values herself for her fertility,
and Jacob’s willingness to go elsewhere sexually in
order to have children shows that he too believes a
wife’s barrenness requires the remedy of more sexual
partners to ensure descendants.

24 Western Friend

Women are primarily property in these times.
Adultery is a property crime in a culture that permits
polygamy. It isn’t having sex with more than one
woman that is a crime; it is having sex with someone
else’s wife. If a wife has more than one sexual
partner, who knows which man’s descendant the
child is—who has gained immortality thereby? So
the response, as seen in the story of Tamar (which
will be for another day), is to kill the woman. This
ostensibly will reinforce the faithfulness of women
so that husbands can be sure the children are theirs.
Comically, it is after her sojourn in the house of
King Abimelech that Sarah gives birth to Isaac. This
seems to me to be a small divine joke at the expense
of patriarchal anxieties.

..people who know in their hearts that
God doesn't favor men over women and
patriarchy is wrong have felt that they
must stop respecting the Bible as an
authority for faith and practice.

It makes me sad that because of the mistaken use

of the Bible to perpetuate patriarchy, people who
know in their hearts that God doesn’t favor men over
women and patriarchy is wrong have felt that they
must stop respecting the Bible as an authority for
faith and practice. They dismiss and devalue a text
that is an enormous resource for understanding the
relationship between God and humanity—that tells
us over and over that even at our worst, God loves

us and is committed to making us whole and holy.
They don’t get to know the historical Jesus with his
tender heart and tough mind, his focused obedience
to his Father, his full humanity in such unimaginable
tension with divinity. How sad to know little to
nothing of how God has touched the lives of humans
in one small tribal group, how God has insisted that
other tribal groups matter to God also, how God

has entered the circle God drew, as William Blake
challenged him (William Blake: “To God/ If you
have formed a Circle to go into/Go into it yourself

& see how you would do.”), and how God has made
available to all a new way of living in this world and a
hope for joy after death.

ror

Becky Ankeny is a recorded minister in Northwest
Yearly Meeting. She lives in Newberg, OR.

January/February 2011

Quran, cont. from pg. 11

impression out. In fact, both the Bible and the Quran
describe Jonah fleeing, and both let you know that
he was wrong in the flight that brought him to the
belly of that big fish. But the Quran concludes with
reference to his prophesy, while the Bible concludes
with God’s response to Jonah’s long sulk (comically
flawed prophet that he is, he’s offended when the
people of Nineveh hear his prophesy and repent, and
God forgives them).

Finally, we talked about the difference in how the
Quran sees Jesus. We read the birth story as the
Quran tells it, which is pretty much the same for
John the Baptist, but diverges for Jesus’ birth,
having Mary give birth to him by herself under a date
palm, rather than together with Joseph in a manger.
More significantly, in the Quran, Jesus is a prophet,
and is the product of a miraculous virgin birth, but is
emphatically not the Son of God. Remembering what
Camassia recently said on her blog about the parallel
between how Islam views Jesus and how the early
Christian Ebionite heresy viewed him, I made the
parallel in our Quran study.

And that occasioned a discussion of the relation
between Christianity and Islam: When was the Quran
written, relative to when the Bible was written?
(Muhammed was born a few centuries after the last
book in the New Testament was written, at a time
when the Biblical canon had already been closed.)
How much contact was there between Christianity
and early Islam? (A heck of a lot; Eastern Orthodoxy
and Islam have interacted for pretty much Islam’s
entire existence, and Muhammed’s first wife,
Khadijeh, had a Christian cousin who was one of the
first to hear of the new revelation.)

The time for meeting for worship drew near, and

our study came to its last close. But after meeting for
worship, someone spoke to us about the Harvest Club,
a group that has formed in Orange County to glean
people’s excess fruits and vegetables, and take them to
people who need them. At the end of the presentation,
when the speaker mentioned how he was trying to
build the group by speaking with various churches,

a Friend spoke, and asked, have you contacted local
Muslims? Zakat, or giving to those in need, is one

of the five pillars of Islam. And the man from the
Harvest Club said no, but he’d be happy to talk with
them if we had contacts, and after the talk I brought
over my cell phone, and shared my contacts with him.

So this one study ends, but the work of building and
maintaining friendly interfaith connections continues.

rrw

January/February 2011

BOOK REVIEWS

CHOCOLATE WARS:

THE 150-YEAR RIVALRY BETWEEN THE WORLD'S
GREATEST CHOCOLATE MAKERS

BY DEBORAH CADBURY

$28, HARDCOVER

REVIEWED BY ISAAC WULFF

While I do believe in coincidence, I do not discount
the idea of Providence. So when a Friend asked

the intriguing question, “Why aren’t there more
Quakers in business?”, another Friend claimed
there was a book on that subject, and then we heard
an excellent interview with the author of that very
book, I suspected that something was up. My family
and I were compelled to purchase “Chocolate Wars”
by Deborah Cadbury. It is the compelling account
of the over 150-year struggle for dominance in the
chocolate business.

The protagonists of this story are the Quaker
families of Cadbury, and to a lesser degree, Fry and
Rowntree. These three dominated the voracious
English chocolate market for much of the 19th and
20th centuries, but their path to success was never
easy. The book is filled with nail-biting moments,
depicting a struggle that never seems to stop.

In 18th century England, Quakers were not allowed
to attend university, serve in Parliament, or fulfill
many of the usual roles in society. This left the
Society of Friends with very few choices, and many
of them chose the one that had the most potential for
success: business ownership. I found it fascinating
that had the English bigotry toward the Friends
church lessened, many of the most famous Quakers
in history might have become nameless barristers or
professors instead of giants of industry.

The manner in which the Cadbury family put

their eventual great wealth to use is amazing in its
inventiveness and scope. While Andrew Carnegie
simply ramped up his charitable giving and ignored
the plight of his own workers, the Cadburys created
an industrial paradise in Bourneville. The Garden
Factory, as it was known, had ample recreation,
affordable housing, excellent schools, and top notch
health care all before any of these things were
considered necessary for the well being of a society.

The book loses momentum as it reaches the
Information Age. The figures get more complex, the
maneuvers more nuanced, and the action dulled by
econo-speech.

Western Friend 25

At a time when many of the best and brightest of
Friends are working in the public sector, education,
and non-profits, this book asks us, “Where is the
enterprising Quaker?” If we are not happy with the
corporate machine and wish to fix it to work for the
people instead of against them, then where better to
position ourselves than on the inside? It worked for
the Cadburys and it may work again.

Isaac Wulff and his family are attenders at Olympia
Friends Meeting in Olympia, Washington.

A LIFE OF SEARCH
BY D. ELTON TRUEBLOOD, EDITED BY JAMES NEWBY
$12, SOFTCOVER

REVIEWED BY LILLIAN HENEGAR

“The Christian is called to think.” This line opens
the first chapter in A Life of Search, a collection
of lectures given by D. Elton Trueblood that are
supplemented with other writings and edited by
James R. Newby.

This first sentence describes Trueblood, a scholar,
theologian, thinker, writer, teacher, and Quaker.

D. Elton Trueblood called himself a committed
Christian who believed in Jesus Christ and life after
death. Trueblood was also thoroughly committed
to the life of the mind and took seriously the
admonition to love God “with... all thy mind.”

The first chapter explains how faith should be based
in reason. He thinks, “it ought to be possible to have
a warm heart and a clear head... to be both tender-
hearted and tough minded.” The other chapters
explain Christ’s importance, the Christian church’s
necessity to this world, and Christianity is a holistic
faith where the spiritual and rational coexist.
Finally, he shares his thoughts on what constitutes
Christianity’s future. The book includes a study
guide, a chronology of Trueblood’s life, and a tribute.

I grew up and spent time as an adult in Bloomington
Monthly Meeting - one of Indiana’s few
unprogrammed meetings. As a lifelong Quaker, the
Trueblood name is familiar to me. However, this
collection of lectures is my first acquaintance with
D. Elton Trueblood’s thoughts and writings. I do not
share his Christo-centric perspective, however, much
here does resonate, in particular his affirmation that
“the real presence is in the gathered community.”
There is much to learn from this teacher and I
commend this book as a good place to start.

Lilian Henegar is a part of Sacramento Friends
Meeting.

26

MEMORIAL MINUTES

Does your Meeting have a
memorial minute to share?
Please email it to editor@
westernfriend.org. It will be
published as space allows.

Virginia Barnett
University Friends Meeting
1913-2010

Virginia Barnett, who died in
Turlock, California, on March 11,
2010, at the age of 96, was the last
surviving founding member of
Seattle’s University Meeting. Born
in Seattle on July 4, 1913, she was
the daughter of William Robert and
Elizabeth Norwood. She lived in
the Seattle area for most of her life,
graduating from the University of
Washington with a major in Fine
Arts. It was at the University that
she met law student Arthur Barnett,
who became her husband in 1936.
Arthur was an Irish immigrant,
though born in Glasgow. His
Scotch-Presbyterian, ROTC
background was very different from
her more liberal family background.
They explored various churches
together and were most impressed
with the University District worship
group then affiliated with Seattle’s
Friends Memorial Church.

Virginia worked for the YWCA
while Arthur, after a few years with
a law firm, established his own
practice. Both were much involved
in the Friends Center run by the
University District group and had
joined Friends in time to help
establish University Meeting in
1940. Through the Friends Center,
they became active in assistance

to Japanese-Americans placed in
internment camps during WWII.
This defense of Meeting member
Gordon Hirabayashi, though
originally decided against them

by the Supreme Court, was later
vindicated when the Court reversed

Western Friend

itself in 1988.

Another c.o. Arthur assisted during
WWII was the young artist Morris
Graves. Virginia, with her fine

arts background, immediately
recognized his talent and the
friendship which developed led not
only to professional representation
of Graves, but other Seattle artists
as well, including Mark Tobey, who,
like Graves, became a good friend.
Often paid in paintings rather than
cash, and guided by Virginia’s
tastes, the Barnetts gathered a
superb collection.

Though raising three sons,
Gordon, John, and Frederick,

and a daughter, Molly, Virginia
remained active in numerous
organizations. At Meeting, among
other activities, she taught the
high-school-aged Sunday School
class for several years, and at

the Women’s University Club,

she arranged a number of course
sequences and frequently gave book
reviews. At the AFSC she was part
of the original Indian Committee,
visiting many Northwest Tribal ~
groups to interview high school
students in hopes of aiding them to
attend the University. She also was
much involved in organizing yearly
Interracial Family Camps and in
1963 she became Acting Executive
Secretary of the Regional AFSC
after the tragic death of Regional
Executive Secretary Harry Burks

in an auto accident. She served
until 1965 when John Sullivan was
appointed to that position.

In 1962 she was central to the
Indian Committee, which collected
Indian craft material from around
the US for both exhibition and
sale. The purpose of this was to
call attention to the work of many
fine artists as well as raise money
for the committee. This event was
highly successful in both its aims,
receiving considerable attention

in the Seattle press. Virginia also
served on the AFSC’s National
Board and carried out at least one
assignment involving visits to other

January/February 2011

regional offices.

In 1960 the Barnetts moved from
Seattle to Bainbridge Island.

They had spent summers there

for some years and had found it

an easy commute to their Seattle
obligations. They gave up their
summer cabin and bought a

home on Fletcher Bay where they
proceeded to build a community on
the acreage around them. Calling it
Fox Cove Lane, they provided lots
for a number of homes, including
one they built for themselves with
ample wall space to display their
fine paintings.

It was in the Barnett home that

the Bainbridge Island worship
group first met, the group which
ultimately developed into Agate
Passage Meeting. Virginia remained
active with Agate Passage as long

as her health permitted, though

she retained her membership in
University Meeting.

For a number of years in the 70s
and 80s, Virginia arranged tours
for small groups of interested
friends to places in Hawaii,
Alaska, and Europe. The European
tours included an emphasis on
art galleries and the Barnetts
continued their professional and
personal relationship with Mark
Tobey, visiting him in his home in
Switzerland.

Virginia’s mind remained sharp
while Arthur’s memory began to
fail and, she now dependent on a
wheelchair, they moved to a care
facility on Bainbridge. She stayed
there for a time after Arthur’s death
in 2003, but then it seemed best
she move to a facility in Turlock to
be near one of her sons. These last
years where unhappy ones for her.
Arthur’s death was followed quickly
by that of their daughter and this
second blow was almost more

than she could bear. She missed
her Bainbridge community and
longed to return, though she knew
it was not possible. Her sons visited
regularly and her Turlock daughter-

January/February 2011

in-law gave her loving attention,

but she spent most of her time with
others with whom she found little in
common. She who had spent her life
discussing books and ideas found
herself, as she quietly complained,
with women who had little interest
beyond Bingo.

Virginia’s last few months were
spent in hospice care. She is
survived by her sons, eight
grandchildren and ten great-
grandchildren. She has been away
from her Meeting for so long that
only a few remain active there who
had the privilege of knowing her.
For those few, that privilege is a
cherished memory.

Helen Bross
1918-2010

Helen was born in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, March 2, 1918, to
George S. and Elisabeth Hamilton.
She graduated from Bryn Mawr
College in Physics, 1939. Helen’s
continuing education, at Yale,
was interrupted by World War

II. During the war years, she
taught physics part-time at both
Vanderbuilt University and Fisk
University. In 1952 she received
her PhD in philosophy from Yale.
She received her MS degree in
mathematics from Columbia
University in 1959.

She met her husband, John R.
Bross, at Yale. She and John were
married under the auspices of New
Haven Monthly Meeting, New
Haven, Connecticut, December 26,
1941, at a Congregational Church
in Oak Park, Illinois. They were
married 59 years before John’s
death in 2001.

She taught at Talladega College,
Talladega, Alabama from 1952-
1964, and Rocky Mountain College
from 1964-1973. After leaving
Rocky Mountain College, she was a
mathematics substitute teacher in
the Billings secondary schools and

Hope...dnd

Western Friend

also worked for a CPA for two years.
Her commitment to education is
reflected in the scholarship funds
which she has established and
supported.

She volunteered her time as an
assistant leader in a Girl Scout
troop. She worked as a volunteer
with the Deferred Prosecution
Program for offenders, and with
the Montana Associated Refugee
Services, teaching English to
refugees. During tax season, she
worked for many years as a Tax
Aide, both in Billings and Moses
Lake. She was both president of
the Organic Gardeners Association
in Billings and treasurer for the
Billings Garden Club. She served on
the board of the Memorial Society
of Montana.

She was active in the Friendship
Force beginning in 1986. Her

first trip, as an Ambassador of
Friendship, was to Brazil. She went
on five other exchanges to other
counties, including Germany, New
Zealand, Mexico and Thailand.

She and John hosted Friendship
Force Ambassadors from several
countries. She was active in the
Billings Quaker Meeting and the
wider Meeting with which it is
affiliated. With her help, the Billings
Meeting was recognized as a Quaker
meeting. She and John were both

Where crushing poverty meets
we are

Right Sharing of
World Resources
Providing grants in support of women’s
development projects in south India,
Sierra Leone and Friends in Kenya

Mae Helste! TSWY OTL

27

active in MGOF until she moved
to Moses Lake in 2000 to be near
family.

Her commitment to peace included
establishing the Bross Peace
Seminar, offered by the Institute for
Peace Studies at Rocky Mountain
College in 2002. Both she and

John received honorary doctorate
degrees from Rocky Mountain
College in 1992.

She played both violin and viola in
the Billings Symphony and joined
the bell choir at Moses Lake United
Methodist Church after moving to
Moses Lake.

She passed away peacefully at
home July 6, 2010. As per her
wishes and desire to educate, she
donated her body to the University
of Washington. Survivors include
her three children, Carol Patterson
and John Bross of Moses Lake, WA;
Georgia Ruebsamen of Kennewick,
WA; and seven grandchildren and
seven great grandchildren.

Fumiye Miho

Honolulu Friends Meeting
1914-2010

Fumiye, the fifth of eight children,
was born in Wailuku, Maui, in
Hawaii in 1914. Her parents,
Katsuichi and Ayano Miho, had
immigrated from Hiroshima, Japan,
to the islands to teach Japanese
language and culture to the growing
Nisei population.

During her childhood years on
Maui, Fumiye experienced the
segregation and discrimination
implicit in the plantation system as
well as the close support of small
town life. Home life was traditional
Japanese while school life was
all-American. She attended both
Christian and Buddhist Sunday
schools. She graduated from Maui
High School in 1933.

Choosing not to accept an arranged
marriage, Fumiye entered the

28

Western Friend

January/February 2011

University of Hawaii in 1935. There
she was active in the Oriental
Institute, forerunner of the East-
West Center. Wanting to embrace
her Japanese heritage, she went to
Tokyo, Japan, in 1940. There she
taught English at a women’s college.

With the outbreak of World War
II, she was forced to stay in Japan
for seven years, stripped of her
American citizenship. “The war
years,” she later recounted to Tomi
Knaefler in the book, Our House
Divided, “were a jarring blur of
dissonance, disorder, and despair.”

By 1945, she and her sister’s family
had evacuated from Tokyo to
Hiroshima Prefecture. It was by
happenstance that she missed the
train that would have taken her
from her tiny village to Hiroshima
City on August 6, 1945.

She later recalled that from the
train station just ten miles away
from the city, she heard the noise
and saw a blinding flash, followed
by pastel colored smoke, shaped
like a tulip ascending higher and
higher into the morning sky. She
thought to herself, “My, those
Americans are using beautiful
camouflage.”

In the days and weeks that followed,
Fumiye nursed and carried from
the ruins many coworkers, friends
and countless other victims who
were either killed or injured. One
question repeated over and over

in her mind: “Why was I spared?”
Thus began Fumiye’s life work for
peace and justice.

Classified as a “stranded refugee,”
an American citizen unable to
return to Hawaii after 1941, she was
one of the first expatriates to return
to Honolulu in 1947. Immediately,
she began to talk to groups about
her experiences.

Moved to join a “peace” church,
Fumiye began attending Honolulu
Friends Meeting and joined in 1950.
She was co-clerk of the fundraising
committee when the Meeting House

was purchased and was a forthright
participant in Meeting discussions.
Ever on the move, she attended Yale
Divinity School and graduated in
1953.

Appointed by the American Friends
Service Committee, Fumiye served
as director of a neighborhood center
for refugees in Tokyo from 1954

to 1956. Then for two years, she
lived on Maui where she served

as a Japanese language pastor for
the Lahaina Methodist Church.
Returning to Tokyo, she headed

the Friends Center there from

1960 to 1967. Later, she studied

at Woodbrooke Friends Centre in
England and returned to Tokyo to
teach English and Bible classes at
Friends School. She was also active
at the YWCA until she retired in
1992. In between all these activities,
she often represented Quakers at
world peace conferences.

Upon her retirement, Fumiye
again immersed herself in Meeting
activities, often speaking on behalf
of simplicity, equality and peace.
She helped in the Meeting thrift
shop and provided buckwheat
noodles on New Year’s Eve to
promote good luck. Most of all she
shared herself and whatever she
had whenever needed.

Alfred Frederick
Andersen
Redwood Forest Friends Meeting
1919-2010

On July 25, 2010, at the age of
91, Alfred Frederick Andersen’s
life on this earth came to an end

at Friends House in Santa Rosa
California. His wife, daughters
and a large group of friends
gathered to sing as his body,
which was donated to medical
research, was taken away that
morning.

Al was born on June 27, 1919 in
Bridgeport, Connecticut, the only
child of Otto and Mette Marie
Andersen. He gained a degree

in civil engineering at Worcester
Polytechnic Institute, then studied
at Harvard and Columbia while
managing his father’s machine
shop. Al became a philosopher
after a course in nuclear physics
“threw” him into it, and William
Ernest Hocking became his
mentor. :

During World War II Al was
sentenced to Danbury prison
for refusing induction after

his request for conscientious
objector status was rejected. Al
had married Carmella (Connie)
Manende and they spent several
months at Pendle Hill where he
worked as groundskeeper while
waiting for incarceration. After
his release from prison in 1945
they moved to Ohio, where they
joined Yellow Springs Friends
Meeting. Al worked for Arthur
Morgan at Community Service
and ran a bakery while taking
graduate courses in philosophy
at Ohio State. His interest in
intentional communities led the
young family (which now included
three children) on an extensive
trip to east coast and southern
communities while living in a
remodeled school bus.

This period included a stay in
Chapel Hill, NC where Al was
lecturer at the planetarium.

The family moved to Richmond,
Indiana where Al taught

Junior High math and then to
Poughkeepsie, N.Y. where Al
was dean of boys in Oakwood

January/February 2011

Friends School. For the next ten
years the family lived in Tanguy
Homesteads, an intentional
community of thirty families west
of Philadelphia. While there he
built the family home, continued
graduate studies in philosophy,
taught math at Wilmington
Friends School in Delaware and
philosophy of science at Lincoln
University, invented and patented
a ratchet wrench, the Rapid

Grip. During the Tanguy years
the family belonged to Concord
Friends Meeting.

In 1964 the family moved to
Berkeley, California and joined
Berkeley Friends Meeting. Al
started several resident houses for
students and became involved in
the Free Speech Movement. He
wrote in his 1985 book Liberating
the Early American Dream, “1
felt the need for participation in

a community with sights on the
whole global scene.”

Al refused to pay federal income
taxes for most of his adult life on
grounds that he couldn’t in good
conscience give financial support
to a government too inequitable
and inhumane for his conscience
to accept. Their home was sold
at auction by the IRS in the early
1970's, but the consequences
were not as dire as might have
been expected. Al believed he had
persuaded the IRS agent of his
sincerity.

During the 1970’s Al designed,
manufactured, and sold a kitchen
flour mill, taught Philosophy

of Education at Simon Fraser
University in British Columbia;
lived for a time at Ananda
Community; and became active
in the owner-builder movement
in Northern California. He
participated in the forum of
non-governmental organizations
associated with the UN Special
Session on Habitat and Human

Western Friend

Settlements in Vancouver in 1976.
He helped compose a concluding
statement proclaiming that
housing, basic services, energy,
land use, participation, and
financing problems can only be
solved by a global and integral
approach which has to go to the
heart of the matter and transform
the economic, social, and political
structures which caused them. Al
was disappointed that no on-going
organization was formed to carry
out this immense assignment; he
continued to try to do so.

After their children were grown,
Al and Connie amicably separated.
In 1978 at the UN Special Session
on Disarmament he met Dorothy
Dungan Norvell who became his
second wife. Together they made
frequent cross-country trips to
various conferences carrying a
message of economic justice,
urging that income from land,
resources and the inventions

of previous generations (the
Common Heritage) should

be fairly shared. They found
widespread agreement on the
principle, but implementation has
remained daunting.

They moved to Ukiah, California
in 1979, where Al and Dorothy
became early members of Ukiah-
Lake County Worship Group.
They began spending winters in
Tucson in 1985 and soon joined
Pima Friends Meeting. In the
early 1990’s they began spending
summers in Eugene, Oregon and
became sojourning members of
Eugene Friends Meeting. It was
there that Al wrote Challenging
Newt Gingrich chapter by

29

chapter. In 2004 they moved

to Friends House, and Al spoke
often of his great gratitude for
the community they found there.
They soon transferred their
membership to Redwood Forest
Friends Meeting.

Al is survived by his first wife,
Carmella (Connie) Andersen;

his son, Richard; daughters
Janet McBeen and Laurie Brook;
five grandchildren; one great
grandson; his second wife,
Dorothy, and her children and
grandchildren.

One friend wrote “I have never
seen (or imagined) such devotion
as his to the principles of justice
and community. They were woven
into the fabric of his soul: he
spoke of them with the utmost
depth and centrality of feeling. I
know he lived by them, too, and
it was always touching to hear in
his voice how vital and seriously
urgent they were for him.”

30

CLASSIFIEDS

Quaker Life ©

A Publication of Friends United Meeting

Quaker Life—informing i
equipping Friends around the
world. Free sample available upon
request. Join our family of Friends for
one year (6 issues) at $24. For infor-
mation contact Quaker Life,

101 Quaker Hill Drive Richmond,
IN 47374.

Ph: 765-962-7573

Email: quakerlife@fum.org
Website: www.fum.org

Explore the
potential of
Quakerism and
Quaker action with
a subscription to
Friends Journal.
Each issue is filled

with unique and thoughtful articles,

news, book reviews and more.
Mention offer code WF2011 to start
your Friends Journal subscription
for just $40, a 45% savings off the
cover price. Order by phone toll-free
at (800) 471-6863 or online at www.
friendsjournal.org. A paper-free PDF

option is available.

6 PENDLE HILL

Pamphlets are timely essays on many
facets of Quaker life, thought and
spirituality, readable at one sitting.
Subscribe to receive six pamphlets/
year for $25 (US.) Also available:
every pamphlet published previously
by Pendle Hill, including recent
pamphlets by Warren Ostrom, Marge
Abbott, Robert Griswold and Steve
Smith. 800-742-3150 x2 or
bookstore@pendlehill.org.

Western Friend

| It Kalimba
5 Magic

We have a collection of Easter
Hymns for the kalimba!
The kalimba, or African thumb
piano, sings a song of joy and
celebration.
Learn more at:

www.kalimbamagic.com

(520) 881-4666

Vintage Books
Rare and out-of-print Quaker
journals, history, religion.
Vintage Books, 181 Hayden Rowe
St. Hopkinton, MA 01748.
Email: books@vintagebooks1.com
www.vintagequakerbooks.com

The Tract Association of
Friends

(founded 1816)

Offers pamphlets and books
on Quaker faith and practice,
Friends’ calendars and pocket
calendars.

1501 Cherry Street, Philadelphia
PA 19102-1403; phone: 215-579-
2752; e-mail: taf1816@verizon.
net; www.tractassociation.org

January/February 2011

EMPLOYMENT

OWaker

HOUSE
Quaker House, since 1969 an

active peace witness in Fayetteville,
NC, near Fort Bragg, seeks a

DIRECTOR to begin summer/fall
2012.

Qualifications: Alignment
with Quakerism and its peace
testimony; proven leadership,

fundraising, writing, management
skills; comfortable in a military-
oriented environment.

Appropriate salary and benefits,
including housing/utilities in

recently-renovated historic house
for Director and small family.

For more information:

http://quakerhouse.org.

inquiries to:
betsybrinson@yahoo.com.
Closing date August 1, 2011.
SESE SE ese se ste stots
NPYM Secretary Wanted
Quarter-time opening, starts
$13.50-14.50/hour. Position
to begin late spring 2011. Your
NPYM contact has information.
If interested contact Melody
Ashworth by February 28, 2011.
ashworth_mel@yahoo.com

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January/February 2011

oe eG Friends
Committee

ye N is on National
Legislation

(FCNL) is a Quaker lobbying
organization working to influence
national policy decisions. We offer
eleven month internships in our
legislative and campaigns programs.
As an intern you will change public
policy by attending hearing and
coalition meetings, writing articles
and action alerts, mobilizing
supporters, and producing
communications materials. You

will have top-notch professional
supervision and freedom to branch
out. The internship is a full-time
commitment, starting in September
2011. You will receive subsistence-
level salary, health benefits, vacation,
and sick leave. To find out more,
check our website at <www.fcnl.org/
intern> or write FCNL, 245 Second
Street, NE, Washington DC, 20002.
Applications due March 11, 2011.

Western Friend 2011
Advertising Rates: $.50 per
word for classified ads. Minimum
charge $15. Box ads: 10% extra,
25% extra for color. Logo + $10.
Display ads: $20 per column inch.

Discounts for consecutive ads,
special sizes of display ads. Call
Kathy Hyzy at 503.956.4709 or
email editor@westernfriend.org

http://westernfriend.org/about-us/

TRAVEL

Santa Fe Guest Apartment
Charming, affordable, with
kitchenette at our historic adobe
Canyon Road Meetinghouse.
Convenient to galleries and
downtown. Pictures at www.
santa-fe.quaker.org. Reservations:
friendsguestapartment@gmail.com

or 505 983 7241.

Western Friend

Journey to the Heart:
Compassionate Listening
Training
Delegation to Israel & Palestine
March 23 - April 3, 2011

Join delegation leaders Yael Petretti
and Cathy Keene Merchant and an

intimate group of participants for

an unforgettable immersion into
the heart of peacemaking. Practice
the art of listening and speaking
from the heart- peacemaking

skills that will serve you in all
aspects of your life: in your family,
community, workplace, and
beyond.

Yael and Cathy bring a wealth

of experience to this work

and are deeply committed to
Compassionate Listening — as a
process for humanizing the other
in any context, as well as a crucial
practice for systemic healing and
transformation.

To learn more or to register, visit

www.compassionatelistening.org/
calendar/delegations

Service-Learning Trip

to El Salvador June 11-27
Sponsored by Palo Alto Friends
Meeting. We invite youth aged
14 and up plus adults who
are young at heart to join us.
We will do work projects, learn
Spanish, and meet with youth
and community leaders. We
will visit rural communities and
learn about the civil war and the

current political and economic
situation by listening to personal
experiences and visiting historical
sites. For information/registration
scroll to the bottom of http://
www.pafmelsalvadorprojects.org/
teentrips.htm

ZI

SCHOOLS, RETREATS

AND RETIREMENT

A Quaker Study-Retreat: Roots of
Contemplation, Roots of Action.
March 4-6th, Mt. Angel, OR.
Integrate inner spiritual life and
outward calling through readings,
presentations and prayerful reflection
in community. Details http://
rootsretreat. braidedwaters.com

Mee Se Slee dlede dene
Consider the Arizona Friends
Community for your next, or your
second, home. 360 degree mountain
views, 4,000 ft. elevation, often
near-perfect weather. Write Roy Joe
and Ruth Stuckey, 6567 N San Luis
Obispo Dr., Douglas, AZ 85607.
Ph.#937.728.9887. Website: www.
arizonafriends.com.

VEE Ne We le We Se dieaie
Ben Lomond Quaker Center
Personal retreats, family reunions,
weddings, retreats, and our own
schedule of Quaker programs.
Among the redwoods, near Santa
Cruz, CA. 831-336-8333.
http://www.quakercenter.org.

The
Woolman
Semester

Friends
high school
intensive

ie
1 WOLMAN
f SEMESTER

Interdependent studies of
peace, justice & sustainability

Project-based learning
Living in Quaker community
Extensive service-learning
trips
Call 530-273-3183 to
find out more.

www.woolman.org

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lo Be Broken
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a Quaker theology
for today

‘ Margery Post Abbot