“History doesn’t repeat,” Mark Twain supposedly said, “but sometimes it rhymes.” Are the conflicts within so many American churches over LGBTQ and associated issues part of some cruel karmic sonnet? The Separation Generation’s three volumes approach this question in prose, by chronicling disruptions among five American Yearly Meetings extending roughly from 2011 to 2018 (along … Continue reading Broken Churches, Broken Nation (Again?)
Besides his work and example, Friend David Zarembka also left a valuable and underestimated resource of writings for Friends and others. We’ll sample that legacy here, and point to where more can be found. Besides some personal contact, I learned most about Dave from his book A Peace of Africa. Here’s part of that context … Continue reading David Zarembka’s Memorable Writings: A Sampler
This is a developing story. Watch for Updates. I’m stunned. I just learned that David Zarembka, aged 77, a very distinguished Friend from Baltimore Yearly meeting, who lived for more than a decade among Friends in Kenya, and his wife Gladys Kamonya, 73 have both succumbed to Covid. Both passed in Eldoret Kenya. Gladys Kamonya … Continue reading Breaking! OMG — Friends David Zarembka & Wife Gladys Kamonya Dead of Covid
Is it over? Has The Separation Generation finished dividing U. S. Quakers? Yes and no. Yes, in a publishing sense: Book Three, the last of The Separation Generation series, is now done and available: Shattered By the Light; or The Ruins and the Green. In Shattered by the Light, parallel conflicts over sexuality, the Bible … Continue reading Is This The End of the Separation Generation?
Author and novelist Jessamyn West (1902-1984), was raised and shaped by a long line of Quakers. Rooted in Indiana, they wound up evangelical and Holiness-centered, as well as cousins to Richard Nixon, in southern California. West is best remembered for her classic The Friendly Persuasion (book and movie). Her family left their southern Indiana Quaker … Continue reading Novelist Jessamyn West, Her Friendly Un-Persuasion, Christmas & “Returning Thanks”