A bulletin from southern California: The biggest Quaker church in the world wants to shut down one of the smallest. The small church sued in late 2018 to stop the shutdown. But a hearing in Orange County Superior Court on January 31 could lock their doors & make the
Cambridge, Massachusetts, late 1970s “Heads up!” called the voice from the basement. “Here come the bags!” When they heard the cry a hundred men and women straightened up, like ragtag soldiers jerking to attention. Spaced about three feet apart, they stood in a line that ran from the open end of a big tractor-trailer truck … Continue reading A Between-the-Holidays Quaker Holiday Story: Beethoven in the Basement
. . . I grew up in a large, mildly liberal pastoral Friends meeting in Indianapolis. Amiable but tepid, it gave me little to rebel against, but not much to inspire or motivate me either. I did not attend any church or meeting during my college years. But I had a spiritual sense that gravitated … Continue reading “Passing The Torch”, Author Doug Gwyn: “I received a distinct calling . . .”
Quakers are often very interesting people. And generations come and go. These are the modest theses behind the new book, Passing the Torch. In fifty-plus years among The Religious Society of Friends (our rather pompous official name), its members, attenders, hangers-on and even antagonists, I have kept bumping into and hearing about interesting people. And … Continue reading Why “Passing the Torch”? And Why Now?
Helena Cobban I was born into a very traditional (Church of England, Conservative-voting) family of the British upper middle class. I was 14 when the Israeli-Arab war of 1967 broke out. As I recall it, just about all the news coverage on our grainy black-and-white television and in the two newspapers my father took, the … Continue reading “Passing The Torch” Authors Speak #3: “I utterly and humiliatingly lost my nerve. . . .”