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While at the FGC Gathering in July, I decided that I would address my recent spiritual malaise by attending some programmed meetings and liberal churches. Last Sunday I began my experiement by visiting Smithfield (RI) Meeting with DC. In contrast to other programmed meetings I’ve attended, Smithfield felt much more like the programming arose from [...]

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It’s certainly not that there hasn’t been anything happening, or that I haven’t been reading. But it’s been a busy summer–full, fun, difficult, challenging, all over the map.
I’ve kept intending to sit down and write catch-up posts. Perhaps the best way to get started is just to summarize:

One of my best and oldest friends, BH, [...]

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If you aren’t familiar with Frappr, Google’s social networking map, then this Quakers Group Map might not be the most exciting introduction. On the other hand, if you are a Quaker, you can add yourself and have an incredible effect on the statistics!

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Here’s the UUA Staff Chapel service I gave on February 7, 2006.
Chalice Lighting
Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame.
Blessed is the flame that burns in the heart’s secret places.
Blessed is the heart with strength to stop its beating for honor’s sake.
Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame.
—Hannah Senesh

Responsive Reading
Worship in [...]

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In a previous post I described the knitting retreat I’m leading at Woolman Hill Nov. 4-6. (You can download a flyer with registration form there.)
I don’t have a very firm plan yet, but it will probably go something like this:
Friday evening:

collecting ourselves in the present with some silence
invite people to take out their knitting (if [...]

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I’d like everyone who reads my blog to know about this retreat I’m leading in November. It’s open to anyone who wants a knitting retreat. You don’t have to be a Quaker to come.
HANDWORK/HEARTWORKA Weekend Knitting RetreatNovember 4-6, 2005
We’ll have time for uninterrupted periods of knitting, both with conversation and in silence, as well as [...]

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Liberal Quakerism and Unitarian Universalism are certainly comfortable fellow-travelers. Today I had an opportunity to compare them in a structured way. The Unitarian Universalist Association (where I work) has a newcomers bulletin board, where visitors can post questions and have them answered by staff. Today this came into my email (edited, of course, for privacy):
> [...]

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There’s a great panel over at Barclay Press - Conversation Cafe: How (and when) then shall we die?. What these Friends say strengthens my commitment to conversations across the Quaker landscape and my conviction that we are all really Friends. The Evangelical/Fundamentalist interpretation of sexual ethics held by Evangelical Friends often makes me want to [...]

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Martin at Quaker Ranter is feeling the burden of the work: Youth Ministry, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Style:
So why not just admit that the yearly meeting is irrelevant to younger Friends? Why not turn our meetinghouses into retirement homes?
PS: How I wish I weren’t so cynical about the yearly meeting.

I left an equally heartfelt, but [...]

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You go Lillian! At 89, after a lifetime of peace activism and nonviolence organizing, my friend Lillian is in federal prison for a week in lieu of paying a $250 fine for blocking the federal building in Philadelphia the day before the current war in Iraq began.

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