Messages in a lively Quaker meeting often have threads. Life has threads, the blogosphere has threads, and some of them have been flowing my way lately. Richard M, at A Place to Stand wrote a recent post on the importance of eldering, in the sense of nurturing gifts when, like volunteer seedlings in a garden, they crop up unexpectedly. Though I’m not 100% sure I agree with everything he had to say (for instance, I question whether a lack of... Read more

So. The thought/message that came to me in MFW this week (it didn’t rise to vocal ministry, but it had that SMACK-into-the-baseball-glove feeling of a message at the time) came up something like this. As I was centering into worship, one of our members, a mom whose warmth and integrity I really admire, came into the meeting room. As she crossed to her bench, I noticed how lovely she was–regal, almost. And I felt a sudden fierce tenderness toward her... Read more

I keep thinking the word, “faithfulness,” and thinking about it. It’s a running theme in my head, in meeting for worship, but also at other times. For instance, in the second of the Lord of the Rings movies, there is a scene in which Gondor has just come under attack. Hundreds of years have passed since Gondor and their old allies, the Rohirrim, have had any meaningful contact, and Theoden, the King of Rohan has just barely survived a catastrophic... Read more

It has been a complaint of mine for quite some time how few really wonderful, spiritually reflective Pagan blogs I have found. There are good Pagan travelogues, news and political commentaries, podcasts and so forth… but very, very few blogs that discuss personal spiritual experiences in real depth. So I’m so happy to have found Diane Sylvan’s Dancing Down the Moon. What a terrific blog! Some of her entries, like her most recent, where she explains “Why the Rest of... Read more

The following is the text of a comment left by Michael H—, beloved chef at the retreat center where our Nameless Group has met for many years. It’s posted here rather than as a comment so that I could edit out personal identifying information, and with the permission of Michael himself. I think it’s important to share this, both because Michael is so loved by the members of the community (Stop blushing, Michael! It’s just the truth…) and because, on... Read more

We live in a strange and lovely world… I am typing these words from my laptop, sitting outside the tent we’re sleeping in in the middle of a hemlock wood in the Catskill Mountains. Let me describe the scene for you. I hear the soft, sweet soughing of the wind in the leaves over my head, a late-summer cicada very slowly marking time, distant shrilling of frogs, and a thread of flute music drifting in from across the stream very... Read more

Wow… I knew that posting was going to slow down once the school year began, but I had no idea twelve days had gone by since my most recent post. On the other hand, I’ve been very busy indeed at my classroom website and blogs. The teaching is starting to feel more manageable this year, and the tweaks and adjustments I’ve made to the weekly assignments seem, so far, to be keeping the grading load down to a manageable one.... Read more

It seems like cheating to have a big part of my blog entry be about another person’s blog entry, but Liz Opp has posted two in a row that really speak to me. Her post on Quaker Blog Ettiquette resonates with me a lot, though I must admit that I don’t entirely live up to some of her ideas as fully as I might–especially when it comes to seasoning my remarks, both here and in comments on other blogs. I... Read more

I totally forgot how utterly exhausting teaching school can be. It’s 8:30 on a Friday night… and I’m going to crawl into bed now. I can’t believe how tired I am already… Still. A great two days. The third year of teaching is much, much, much easier than the first two… Not only that, but: my class sizes are small, almost private-school-sized small (two sections of 17 students each and one of 24); I have, temporarily at least, a work-study... Read more