Category Archives: Arts: For Kids

Arts: For Kids, Biden, Election 2024, Fire This Time, Future, Hope, KKK, Life Is Good, Poets and Poetry, Signs of the Times

Rebuilding After the Earthquake, and A Birthday Rainbow

August 12, 2024 Chuck Fager 1 Comment

Spring Friends Meeting, Snow Camp North Carolina

This post was delivered as a message in Spring Friends Meeting on Eighth Month (August 11, 2024).

Today after meeting, Wendy and I are going to a small family birthday party, for a great-granddaughter who has turned seven.

That quiet gathering will be a very modest landmark in what has been a very intense and weird month.

For that matter, this last four weeks have been vivid pieces of a weird patchwork quilt that raggedly covers eight long years.

Or nine years actually. It began as I watched an almost surreal ride down a golden escalator. From there it set off an improbable clamor that reached its first peak in an earthquake on November 8, 2016.

Not a geologic earthquake, but a political and cultural shaking every bit as real. Continue reading Rebuilding After the Earthquake, and A Birthday Rainbow →

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Jesus’ First Prophetic Proclamation: “Release To The Captives” —

November 28, 2023 Chuck Fager 5 Comments

Luke 4:16-21 King James Version

¹⁶ Jesus went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, ¹⁷and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

¹⁸“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives . . .

. . . and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free,

¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”^[f]

²⁰Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. ²¹He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

[NOTES: Muslims regard Jesus as one of the great prophets who brought divine guidance to humanity before Prophet Muhammad.

Jews traditionally reject Christian theological claims about Jesus. However, “Considering the historical Jesus, some modern Jewish thinkers have come to hold a more positive view of Jesus, arguing that he himself did not abandon Judaism and/or that he benefited non-Jews.” (Wikipedia )]

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For Quakers, Friends & Others – A Welcome & Colorful Break From The Weekend Madness

October 8, 2023 Chuck Fager 3 Comments

Amid the upheavals, wars & rumors of war of the first weekend in October, 2023, there was a burst of light and fun and even joy, in one seemingly unlikely place — Alamance County, North Carolina. Let’s go visit it:

The occasion was as unlikely as the locale, by the historic railroad station in the city of Burlington, which was the scene of the ninth annual Alamance Pride Festival. It had the whole nine yards: tons of rainbow flags, stunning drag queens, and —yes, they went there— Drag Queen Story Hour— in fact more than one. (But, in truth, they didn’t really last an hour; too many other things to do — “Psst, hey: the Quakers have candy!”)
Continue reading For Quakers, Friends & Others – A Welcome & Colorful Break From The Weekend Madness →

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Move Over, Ron de Book Banner —Leftie Censors Are Even Worse

August 30, 2023 Chuck Fager 1 Comment

[NOTE: There’s unfortunately too much truth in this report to ignore. One implication is left unaddressed: it points to the increasing importance of independent publishing (typified but not limited to Amazon), OUTSIDE the increasingly hidebound and oppressive “legacy” publishing industry. PS. This report, alas, applies as well to much of Quaker publishing.]

From The Bulwark.com

The Book Banners on the Left

A substantial read: A major report warns that progressive activism is contributing to a chilly climate in publishing.

CATHY YOUNG — AUG 28, 2023

WHETHER THERE EXISTS in American culture a left-wing illiberalism that threatens freedom of thought and expression under the cover of social justice has been a subject of heated debate in the past decade. At a time when right-wing authoritarian populism is on the rise, many people have viewed warnings about illiberal progressivism as a distraction.

Continue reading Move Over, Ron de Book Banner —Leftie Censors Are Even Worse →