Current News from
Western Quaker Meetings and beyond

Annual Sessions 2020 – List updated weekly
from Western Friend (to be Summer 2020)
 
U.S. Deporting Migrants with COVID-19
from School of the Americas Watch (to be 6/10/2020)
 
Virtual March on Washington
from Mico Sorrel and Dinah Bachrach, Redwood Forest Friends Meeting (to be 6/20/2020)
 
Poetry Readings by Friend Joann
from Joann Renee Boswell, Camas Friends Church (to be 6/20/20200)
 
Conflict Among and Beyond Quakers
from Tom Rothschild, Strawberry Creek Meeting (to be 6/28/2020
 
Mountain Friends Camp is On
from Anastacia Ebi, Mountain Friends Camp (to be July 2020)
 
Silence Kills
from Marybeth Webster, South Mountain Friends Meeting (6/3/2020)
 
Transformation Instead of Punishment
from Diane Pasta, Salmon Bay Meeting (6/3/2020)
 
Bond Fund for Immigrants
from Bea Quiroga, Pima Monthly Meeting (6/2/2020)
 
A Quaker Book of Wisdom
from Jim Shields, Honolulu Friends Meeting (5/31/2020)
 
Not Silent or Complacent
from Sandy Kewman, Presiding Clerk of Pacific Yearly Meeting (5/30/2020)

 

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Insomnia
by Bob Fisher
 
June 5, 2020, Ben Lomond Quaker Center

I woke up early to a moonlit sky, fawns grazing in our mountain meadow, their mother stealing prizes on her hind legs from the apple trees. I remember her, not long ago with roses from our bushes, dangling from her mouth.

I’m reminded of Wendell Berry, waking with despair for the world:

            . . . in the night
           At the least sound,
           In fear of what my life
           And my children's lives may be . . .

I’m, in turn, reminded of the countless horrors in the news and of the tidal waves of history which have, so recently, washed over that world, our world. America, that symbol of both hope and of the many injustices of empire, our America, has been hit especially hard by plague and repercussion and rage at the violence knelt upon people for being themselves.

And I’m reminded, also, of early Friends who first came together out of the chaos of civil wars and crumbling illusions. In 1666, William Penn, traveling through the London smoke of yet another plague, was moved and inspired by the commoners called “quakers,” who were heroically bringing food and comfort to the sick and the dying who were literally locked into their homes by panicked authorities. This, at a time when Friends themselves could be beaten and imprisoned for the crime of being themselves.

May we faithfully continue our great traditions of comforting the afflicted and of speaking Truth to Power, answering that of God in each and every person we encounter, through plague or peace or civil unrest.

Let’s see what love can do.
 

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