My inter­view with UK Friend Rhi­an­non Grant for Friends Jour­nal’s Octo­ber issue on “Ecu­meni­cal and Inter­faith Friends.” She’s writ­ten for us many times before, but for this issue we have Con­fi­dence in Com­plex­i­ty: Hold­ing Firm to Mul­ti­ple Reli­gious Con­nec­tions. Rhi­an­non is very much a hyphen­at­ed Friend, draw­ing spir­i­tu­al insights from her par­tic­i­pa­tion in Druid and Bud­dhist com­mu­ni­ties. Even those of us who hew clos­er to tra­di­tion­al Friends’ prac­tice have many oth­er iden­ti­ties and influ­ences — place, fam­i­ly back­grounds, per­son­al friend­ships and yes, even pol­i­tics and lifestyle help shape who we are. 

I real­ly like the lessons Rhi­an­non draws about con­tex­tu­al­iz­ing our influ­ences and nav­i­gat­ing through their con­tra­dic­tions using a very Quak­er­ly process of discernment.