Gathering In Light

Quotations

Truth as Blasphemy

The whole world is crazy…The only reason we’re not locked up in an institution is that there are so many of us. So we’re crazy. We’re living on crazy ideas about love, about relationships, about happiness, about joy, about everything. We’re crazy to the point,

Teaching

Quakerism 101: A Very Basic Introduction with Suggested Readings

Here is a short reading list with some basic background to the Quaker tradition in hopes of helping those who are getting started out and/or want to know more about the history, beliefs, and practice of the Religious Society of Friends. I hope that this list can be of

Blog Entries

Code Switch it President Obama’s Legacy

Code switch is a podcast about race in America with some really incredible hosts. It’s worth subscribing and listening to, but this last episode where the begin a three-part series of looking at President Obama’s legacy as president, especially in regards to race and how that plays into

Uncategorized

Moving Into Interfaith Leadership

I recently read Eboo Patel’s new book, Interfaith Leadership: A Primer (2016). I’d recommend it to any student looking to go into the field of interfaith work, or any minister or religious leader trying to find ways to reorient their spiritual work in this changing religious landscape. Patel’

The Political

Rev. Barber: We Will Take Back Our Country, by Moral Means | Diane Ravitch’s blog

Diane Ravitch recently posted excerpts from an article Rev. Dr. William Barber wrote for Think Progress on December 15, 2016. If you do not know who Rev. Barber is, you should find out. He is the president of the NAACP in NC and a pastor of a church in Goldsboro,

Uncategorized

Mary: Revolutionary for Our Time

It is advent, a critical moment in the church calendar. It is post-election, a critical moment in the life of the United States. Advent is marked as a time of quiet, expectant waiting. There is hope in birth narratives of Jesus, but it is hope tempered by loss, defeat, and

Blog Entries

Trello Love In a Tweet

I love trello.com and that’s not news to folks who know me. I use it for personal work and work work and everything in between. So I was happy to get Michael Chapman’s tweet and respond: Hey @cwdaniels, tweet me the product pitch/rationale/added-value of using

Blog Entries

(Untitled)

In preparation for a Bob Dylan-themed birthday party we’re throwing next weekend, I made a little Dylan “mixtape.” This is based on this post and some of the tracks my friends and I shared there. Listen to the mixtape here.

Uncategorized

Poverty, Empire and The Bible: Reading the Bible Off-Center (an online study)

Last night about 35 people from around the Greensboro area gathered at First Friends Meeting to begin a conversation around how we can read and re-read the Bible in ways that not only pays attention to our own privileges and biases we take to the text but the lenses and

Blog Entries

Revelation and Angelic Troublemaking

Over the last century, the book of Revelation has lost its edge in the West. What was understood as a letter written to small faith communities surviving the threat of Roman empire, propped up by its imperial religion, economics and violence, has largely become a book underwriting what some have

Featured

Empire & The Multitude (Rev 7)

Here is the message I shared at College Park Baptist Church in Greensboro, NC on July 31, 2016. Cross posted from my medium blog. The Rally Thank you for inviting me here this morning [my name is Wess Daniels and I’m a Quaker minister and teacher at Guilford College]

Uncategorized

Being bilingual in Quaker Outreach (Guest Post Robin Mohr)

This is a guest post from my good friend and General Secretary of FWCC Section of the Americas, Robin Mohr, following up on a talk she gave at the Emerging Practices in Quaker Outreach from NEYM. How many of you speak another language? Meaning, raise your hand if you speak

Uncategorized

Brother’s K, Liturgy and Broken People

“But they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death.” (Revelation 12:11) The work of the People One of the signs of a true artist is a willingness

Blog Entries

Blocking and Quakerism as a “No” Tradition

The Quaker movement began like other Radical Reformation traditions, rejecting the basic Christian creeds. This wasn’t because they weren’t Christian, but because they believed that creeds created a consumptive rather than participative faith. Quakers believe that creedal Christianity led to folks to professing rather than possessing authentic Christian

Blog Entries

Renewal and Outreach

I had the opportunity to spend time with a number of Friends in New England this past weekend to discuss the importance of Quakers practicing outreach. I am still processing what I heard and what I learned from that very rich and deep time. Here is one thought that arises.

Featured

The Lamb That Was Slain and the Politics of Scapegoating (Rev. 5:11-15)

This is the message I brought to Deep River Friends Church on April 11, 2016. A Revelation about Revelation I wanted to speak to you this morning from the book of Revelation, but as with anytime I talk on this subject, I want to give you a little disclaimer. A

Featured

A Concise Sermon on the Mount by Peggy Morrison

We currently have this up on the white board at Friends Center and we’ve been discussing it in various groups. It has generated a lot of good conversation and it seemed right to share it here with all of you. It is from my good friend, Peggy Morrison. A

Quotations

A Listening That is So Alive

Douglas Steere speaks of listening to one another with a depth that might change the speaker, and also the listener. He uses Kierkegaard’s image of vocal ministry in describing this listening which is ‘so alive that judgment is withheld…To listen correctly, we must radically shift the roles. Now

Uncategorized

Fear as a Prison

In The Way of Love, Anthony de Mello writes about the prisons we each live in created by layers of beliefs, ideas, habits and attachments and fears. Each layer is added by culture, traditionalisms, mass media, families, religions, etc. Each is a layer of prejudice that keeps us from being

Uncategorized

Life is a symphony – Anthony de Mello

I love this whole meditation on life and the sympathy from Anthony de Mello but this line in particular continues to ring in my heart. …You will no longer say to your friend, “How happy you have made me.” For in so saying you flatter his ego and manipulate him

Uncategorized

“We” Is the Most Important Word – William Barber

“‘We’ is the most important word in the social justice vocabulary. The issue is not what we can’t do, but what we CAN do when we stand together. With an upsurge in racism/hate crimes, criminalization of young black males, insensitivity to the poor, educational genocide, and the moral/

Uncategorized

Listening and Acting In Quaker Communities

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF8PABPq8AA&w=560&h=315] There is so much back and forth on Quaker process. So many jokes. So many who easily dismiss it because it “takes a long time.” And outcomes are all that REALLY matter. (I have plenty of

Featured

Why I Am Celebrating World Sketchnote Day #SNday2016!

The sketchnoting community is participating in “World Sketchnote Day.” Before I knew about the word “sketchnote” I had some idea of taking notes and thinking visually. I “bumped” into this idea when I was stuck writing my dissertation and didn’t know where to go with it. I had written

Quotations

Missing Out of the Orchestra – De Mello

I never tire of Jesuit Anthony De Mello’s thoughts and challenges. Here is one that I have been reflecting on recently: Now think of yourself listening to an orchestra in which the sound of the drum is so loud that nothing else can be heard. To enjoy the symphony

Featured

Advent, John the Baptist and Preparing for a Break

“John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God