I had a nice inter­view with Wis­con­sin Friend Kat Grif­fith. She likes, even loves, going door-to-door in her “pur­ple” dis­trict and talk­ing pol­i­tics to strangers. She’s a won­der­ful sto­ry­teller too and it was hard not to laugh as she talked about some of these adven­tures (spoil­er: she’s braver than I am!). In a time of hyper-partisanship, it’s a good reminder to build our lives around curios­i­ty and communication. 

Kat Grif­fith: Build­ing Rela­tion­ships Across Pol­i­tics — Friends Journal 

Kat Grif­fith’s arti­cle, “Rhap­sody in Pur­ple,” appears in the Febu­rary 2025 issue of Friends Journal.

Friends Journal 

I wrote up a pre­sen­ta­tion that Sarah Clarke and Bo Mén­dez gave about their work with the Quak­er Unit­ed Nations Office.

Quak­ers Learn about Work at the Unit­ed Nations — Crop­well Quakers 

On Sun­day, Jan­u­ary 26, a pre­sen­ta­tion at the Crop­well Friends Meet­ing­house in Marl­ton, N.J., attract­ed near­ly two dozen…

Crop­well Quakers 

“I think Quak­er busi­ness meet­ings have anoth­er pur­pose: they give us prac­tice in deci­sion mak­ing, and we build trust in one anoth­er. When some­thing extra­or­di­nary comes up that has to be dealt with imme­di­ate­ly, we kick into action using the mus­cle mem­o­ry from all of those Sun­day after­noons spent talk­ing about the finances. Because we’re a reli­gious body that has tak­en the time to know one anoth­er, we can antic­i­pate con­cerns and move sur­pris­ing­ly quickly.”

Pre­pared for This 

How do Quak­ers make swift, faith­ful deci­sions in times of cri­sis? Mar­tin Kel­ley explains the role of trust,…

Friends Journal 

Philadelphia-area Friend Tom Gates has start­ed a blog. Tom’s a very ground­ed and thought­ful Friend and I’m glad to know we’ll be see­ing more of his writings.

Quak­ers and the End of Scape­goat­ing | Tom Gates | Substack 

Part explo­ration of Rene Girard’s ground­break­ing ‘mimet­ic the­o­ry,’ part Bible com­men­tary, and part dia­logue with ear­ly and contemporary…

tgates​.sub​stack​.com

Obvi­ous­ly the biggest Quak­er news this week is a num­ber of Quak­er bod­ies (includ­ing my own Philadel­phia Year­ly Meet­ing) suing the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty over pol­i­cy changes that allow immi­gra­tion agents to go into house of wor­ship. The suit is being wide­ly report­ed in main­stream media.

Quak­er Schol­ars and Oth­ers File Friend of the Court Briefs in Sup­port of Plain­tiffs in Law­suit Against DHS [Updat­ed Feb. 2026] — Friends Journal 

“Sim­ply put, so long as DHS may legal­ly raid a Quak­er meet­ing­house, reli­gious exer­cise is affected.”

Friends Journal 

Craig Bar­nett on UK meet­ings that are attract­ing new­com­ers: “New­com­ers need to be made wel­come, includ­ing chil­dren. They need to find peo­ple who enjoy spend­ing time togeth­er, who are open about their spir­i­tu­al expe­ri­ence, and will­ing to share the rich­es of the Quak­er way with them. They need to expe­ri­ence Quak­er wor­ship that is expec­tant and gath­ered, where peo­ple take the risk of open­ness to the Spir­it that leads to deep and vul­ner­a­ble spo­ken ministry.”

Choos­ing to thrive 

A thriv­ing com­mu­ni­ty is not comfortable.

quak​er​re​new​al​.sub​stack​.com