Practices - Gathering In Light

A Hat Trick For Supporting Curiosity and Growth

I have a little trick, it’s kind of silly, but it helps me when I’m in trouble. I do it whenever my attitude isn’t great or I feel resistant about something I have to do. I call it the “hat trick.” While I consider myself to be

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Let’s Get Bored Together: The Practice of Silence and Resisting the Attention Economy

I am teaching a class this semester at Guilford College called, “The Practice of Silence.” The class is both what it sounds like and a lot more. We are studying the Quaker theology behind the Quaker practice of silence but we’re also studying it from the broader lens of

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Grief is Disconnection

A repost from November 16, 2022 Today, I was approached by a member of my workplace about hosting a space for grieving for folks who continue to struggle after painful decisions made in 2019-2020. The desire for this person was to process grief with the hope that we could find

Blog Entries

A Ritual to Read to Each Other by William E. Stafford

I love William Stafford‘s poetry. I came across him when we were still living in the Pacific Northwest where he is from. The first poem of his I heard from Parker Palmer when I participated in a renewal retreat with him years ago. It’s a poem I have

Productivity

Elizabeth Gurney Fry’s Checklist

I’m am interested in checklists, setting annual goals for myself, and working on specific habits I want to create or break. For example, I am currently working on a 2020 goal of “building a consistent habit of exercising.” So far I have been successful at this goal, going to

Creativity

End of the Year Reflections

We had some friends over for New Year’s, which was a lot of fun and just the right way to close out the year. Having a variety of people from across various social groups gather and enjoy one another’s company was a very real way for us to

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On Traveling in the Ministry

Learning How to Travel in the Ministry: The Past Bears Weight on the Present This is a post I’ve been wanting to write about my traveling in the ministry with Lloyd Lee Wilson, a member of Friendship Friends Meeting and North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative) this past June. It

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A New Kind of Nursery of Truth – Part 3

This is the third of a three-part series on whether or not Quakers can be “Publishers of Truth” today. In this series I want to talk about how I think early Quakers understood what it meant to be “publishers of truth” in earlier years (Part 1), just a couple challenges

Advent

Outline for a Candlelight Christmas Eve Worship Service

Immanuel, God With Us. I enjoy putting together meditative worship services. A couple years back I posted this resource for using with a Christmas eve Candlelight Service. I have been working to make an updated one and since it’s just about complete I wanted to post it here for

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Participatory Church and the Trials of Falling Asleep (Luke 22:39-46)

“He came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples followed him. When he reached the place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not come into the time of trial.” Then he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, knelt

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Meeting is a Muscle: Teaching Worship To Children / Chad Stephenson

This is a guest post written by Chad Stephenson a Quaker from San Francisco. It is a response to the Friends Journal article “Bringing Children to Worship” and my follow-up article found here. This article comes largely from Chad’s work with children as a librarian as the San Francisco

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Describing “Silent” Worship to Children

Awhile back I did a Godly Play story during our meeting for worship. We invited the children to say with the adults and participate in our listening to the story. After the story we had our normal 15 minutes of silent, or waiting, worship. This is a description I wrote

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Thoughts on Bringing Children To Worship

As parents bringing children and teens to a time of worship can be a struggle. We place a lot of expectations on our kids and often hope they won’t “misbehave” during church. Plus, it is easy to succumb to their rowdiness, distraction and desire for entertainment. The last thing

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Curators and Caretakers and the Practice of Giving (Gen 1. 28)

* “Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it; and rule…all the living things that creep on earth.” _Curators and Caretakers The church often uses the word “stewardship” to generalize things that have to do with resources that we share in common. We have stewards who take care

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Occupy and Convergent Friends

A couple of years ago I had an article published in the Quaker Studies periodical called “Convergent Friends: The Emergence of Postmodern Quakerism” that attempted to identify some of the features of convergent Friends. Convergent Friends is a hybrid Quakerism that attempts draw together the best parts of the Quaker

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Which Direction Are We Headed?

I love traveling, I always have. One thing I have learned is that the type of journey and its destination determine what youll pack in your bags. If I am going on a backpacking trip in the Alleghenies (PA) and Ill be out for 10 days, I will

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Discernment and Remix

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of speaking at George Fox’s Chapel on my talk which was titled Tradition, Quakers and the Resurrection Community. I’ll post it here within the next day or so. In the talk I tell a little of my own story, discuss the idea of

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Queries for Discernment and Seeking

I was asked by the clerk of a committee I am on to guide worship the other day. He wanted me not to prepare a sermon but rather help prepare our hearts and minds for doing work around discernment. The point for us as a group was to hold that

The Cultural

Has Christmas Lost its Power?

Going through Christmas this year I began to wonder if Christmas has lost it’s power as a symbol and sign in our culture today. Symbols can lose power over time and when this happens there needs to be a reformation of those symbols and signs, or a letting go

digital detox

Logging off from Facebook and Twitter

Some of you have probably noticed my absence already but last Friday I logged off of Facebook and Twitter for the month of december. Call it a digital detox, social media vacation or just plan weird but I decided I really needed a break over the advent season so that

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Escapism and Citizenship on the Web

The web has been a good place to me. I have formed many meaningful relationships over the web, I have maintained long distance ones, and I have had the opportunity to be a part of a variety of ministry, as well as academic, events because of it. Many of these

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If You Can’t Go Over It, then…

One of L’s favorite books, and if we’re being completely honest mine as well, is “We’re Going On A Bear Hunt.” It’s a great adventure story that begs to be interacted with, the pitter-patter of hands on your legs for running, the squishy sounds for mud,

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Creatures are not Machines

Wendell Berry, in an essay within his book Life is a Miracle (53ff), writes about the persistent problem of some analogizing humans with machines. You don’t have to look far for examples or remarks about the human mind being like a computer chip, or people being talked about as

Church in Mission

Bored at Worship?

I came across this post awhile ago and have been meaning to link to it. In the post Skye discusses bordem in our worship services, not just from the typical congregant but also the pastor. He also comments on that article that’s been pretty popular online about “Hipster Christianity.

Blog Entries

But Will It Make You Happy?

Jason Minnix, a friend and Quaker pastor, emailed this article to the NWYM pastor’s email list. I think it’s a good article worth discussion around the coffee table this week. She had so much.Two cars. Enough wedding china to serve two dozen people.Yet Tammy Strobel wasnt