This morning I continued my "spiritual tourism" of the Bay Area, visiting the lovely Palo Alto Quaker Meeting. A number of Friends recommended this community to me, knowing of my plans to relocate to the Bay. While it's probably too far to be my main Quaker home here, I thought it was still worth a…
Tag: quaker
Awesome recipe for “Preserving Children” in the Powell House Cookbook
I love this recipe for "preserving children" that you can find in the Powell House cookbook (now out of print). Tom Rothchild brought this gem to my attention. The recipe is as follows: Take one large grassy field, half a dozen children, three small dogs, and walk along a narrow strip of brook, pebbly if…
Resting and Recharging with the Brooklyn Quakers
This weekend I got to enjoy the company of 40-some Quakers in upstate New York for the 2010 Brooklyn Quaker Meeting Retreat, which I helped organize. It was one of those times that reaffirm everything that I love about Quakers as a community. The locale was the historic and quaint retreat center called Powell House…
A Fantastic Weekend with the Brooklyn Quakers up at Powell House
I'm sure I will have more coherent comments about the past three days once I've had some more sleep and time to think about it. For the moment, let me just say that this weekend totally rocked. I was up in the beautiful retreat center run by the Quakers called Powell House along with about…
Quakers March for Justice & Equality in Pride Parade! (video)
I was proud to march with a group of about a dozen New York Quakers in the Gay Pride Parade yesterday in Manhattan, along with hundreds of other groups and tens of thousands of onlookers. It was a glorious, if hot, day in the city, and everyone seemed to be in good spirits. Local Quakers…
Living the Quaker Values: Wrap-Up
So over the past week, I've re-examined some of the core values of Quakerism, trying to be honest about my own feelings and experiences with each of them. I think I've a long way to go in fully integrating silence, worship, truth, simplicity, service and nonviolence into my daily life. At best I have flashes…
Living the Quaker Values: Nonviolence
One of the most emblematic and powerful values of the Quaker faith is nonviolence. From our earliest days in England, Quakers stance against physical violence as a means of solving disputes has put us in jeopardy and difficulties both with the local government and others in the community. Quakers have at great personal inconvenience and…
Living the Quaker Values: Simplicity
The Quaker value of Simplicity is probably the one that I struggle with the most. Traditionally, Quakers have sought to live simple lives of devotion to God in everything that they do. This manifests in a number of outward forms, from Quakers former distrust of the arts for "exciting the senses" to the "Plain Dress"…
Living the Quaker Values: Service (video)
Here's a video post that's part of my ongoing series ruminating about the different Quaker values and how I've integrated them into my life. This one focuses on Service. I hope you like it.
Living the Quaker Values: Worship
The Quaker form of worship is one of the most unique aspects of the Religious Society of Friends. Our practice is so simple as to barely qualify as a religious service at all. A Quaker worship service ("Meeting for Worship") is composed of two of more Friends sitting together in silence for typically an hour. …