I’ve chosen nonviolence and nonviolent action as a means of social change partly because I believe that we’re all God’s children. We’re all brothers and sisters, and an injury to any person is an injury to me. We’re all related. So it’s morally right and it’s trying to walk our talk that love is not just something to talk about with your little family—the world is our family.

David’s all over the Friends Journal websites right week. Last week the magazine published his account of needing emergency heart surgery while on a friendship visit in Iran. True to form, he made it a teachable moment by using it to explain how American sanctions hurt everyday Iranians (I’m happy to report everything turned out okay). His most recent book is Waging Peace; FJ’s former senior editor Bob Dockhorn reviewed it in 2015.

http://quakerspeak.com/the-power-of-loving-your-enemy/

Most folks can guess what it means to travel in the ministry. You visit different churches and meetings and share gifts of ministry with the community there. “In the old style” is a reference to how many early Friends would travel, by sensing a call to go and worship with Friends in other parts of the country and world, with no clear outcome or goal, and only trusting that by showing up and worshiping with Friends “something divinely good would happen.”

http://gatheringinlight.com/2018/11/21/on-traveling-in-the-ministry/

But the hundred year anniversary also means we can start remembering the aftermath of the war. The First World War set up the second. We largely think of the mistakes and half-efforts of the victorious powers but Quakers were part of more righteous storyline:

Even more food was sent by American Quakers under the leadership of Herbert Hoover, providing daily meals for 60,0000 starving Berliners for five years. The Germans labelled this massive effort, Quakerspeisungen: “Quaker Feedings.” It saved thousands of lives, including those of the family of Oscar Schindler who famously went on to help 700 Jews to escape the gas chambers at Auschwitz in the Second World War. Schindler’s sisters spent six months recuperating with the Hall family and one even attended Thirsk Grammar School for a term.

Friends Journal Bonuses: Quaker work in Germany in the 1920s and 30s was the subject ofQuakers in Germany during and after the World Wars from 2010. Relief efforts in Spain were part of a more recent story that tied it to present-day refugee assistance in Gota de Leche.

https://www.darlingtonandstocktontimes.co.uk/news/17207689.heroic-quakers-and-a-fascinating-link-between-oscar-schindler-and-thirsk/?ref=twtrec

Standing up for peace means standing on the side of the oppressed, not throwing them into the lion’s mouth in the name of civility. And interrupting racist violence takes more than civil discourse: active disruption is needed in order for racism to be revealed and dismantled. What good is ineffective pacifism? My commitment to nonviolence is about saving lives.

I gave my take on Cadbury’s speech back in June. I was a little easier on Cadbury, mostly because I think we need to understand the Quaker worldview out of which he was speaking. It’s never good to lecture the oppressed on their oppression, but the classic Quaker idea of speaking truth to all sides still holds value and is something I think we miss sometimes nowadays.

Just a moment…

www.friendsjournal.org

The purpose of a covenant community is to provide a home for this transforming work. That means that joining a meeting that is a covenant community invites radical engagement with our spiritual lives on the part of our fellow members, who are to be the vehicles for God’s transforming work.

Meeting as Covenant Community

My experience that ‘conservative’ Friends do believe in God. But I have heard many Friends say they have not themselves had a personal experience with God. I often wonder what that means for their spiritual life. Having been blessed to have had such experiences myself has been so meaningful, in so many different ways, in my own life.

https://kislingjeff.wordpress.com/2018/05/05/we-dont-need-god/ a

Probably not: there are many issues for which we only get submissions in the last week before deadline (or the week after deadline, which is not to be encouraged). But if you are thinking of writing, or have been meaning to encourage a friend with vision to send us something, then by all means sit down in front of a keyboard.

Also, the issue after that is non-themed. If you’ve ever had any questions for writing a general submission, let me know in the comments or direct message me. I’m writing something about that process this week.

Just a moment…

www.friendsjournal.org

To “do the right thing” really means to seek and do God’s will in every situation.
— TABER