The world is once again being fragmented by fearful, angry politics and warfare, and religion is often in the mix in dangerous and destructive ways. Even so, we are seeing a resurgence of people reaching out with hands and hearts across the supposed boundaries of their…
Rick Brown, AICP, CBSP, has been an urban planner for nearly 30 years, primarily serving communities in the State of Michigan. He was convinced in early 2016, and he is very proud to be a liberal Quaker who strongly…
The Genius of Judaism , by Bernard-Henri Lévy, translated by Steven B. Kennedy (Random House, 2017) From the publishers blurb: “Bernard-Henri Lévy has been a singular figure on the world stage—one of the great moral voices of our time. Now Europe’s foremost…
The World After Truth … “You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” —John 8:32 … “’What is truth?’ said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.” —Francis Bacon … “The ideal subject of totalitarian…
“We, the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in the Philippines, hereby express our deep concern on the spate of killings and the intent to reimpose death penalty in our country which we vehemently oppose.”
Sin: The Early History of an Idea , by Paula Fredriksen (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2012) … The dominant current view of sin is that it changes throughout history to fit the culture, and that sin is rightly understood as a result of error…
The poet Jalaluddin Rumi writes of night travelers who search the darkness instead of running from it, a companionship of people willing to know their own fear. (91) Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart … What we are learning … Many modern people have a…
During August of 2016 in a blog post entitled “Neighbor,” we revisited Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan from Luke 10:25-37, in order to explore a deeper message from the Master which sometimes gets overlooked. Almost always our focus is on the…
I had a dream a few days ago, one of those rare wholly unambiguous dreams. It was a flying dream, but that’s not the relevant feature, just a plot device. I was returning home to an upper floor of a six-story apartment building. Flying over the roof, I saw that the…
Waging Peace: Global Adventures of a Lifetime Activist , by David Hartsough with Joyce Hollyday. Foreword by John Dear; Introduction by George Lakey; Afterward by Ken Butigan. (PM Press, Oakland CA, 2014. 243 pages. $20, paperback) Reviewer Rich Van Dellan is a…
