Quakers, Nonviolence & ISIS: A Dead End? A Quaker married to a non-Friend pleaded for help the other day, because her husband was very skeptical that any non-warlike response to the brutal conquests of ISIS in the the Middle East would have any chances of success. She couldn’t think of any adequate peaceful response, but … Continue reading Quakers, Nonviolence & ISIS
Three Pictures for Today: First, John Kiriakou, CIA whistleblower who confirmed the existence of the CIA’s illegal torture program, just got out of jail, after serving two years in a federal penitentiary. This twitter photo says it all: Well, not QUITE all. Kiriakou still has a million-dollar legal bill, five kids, one in college, no … Continue reading Torture Whistleblower John Kiriakou Is Out of Jail!
Be honest: Could you say “No” to “the war to end wars”? Turns out that president Woodrow Wilson didn’t coin that phrase, and reportedly only used it in public once. But it doesn’t matter. The phrase, along with one that Wilson did use, “to make the world safe for democracy,” became key pieces of a … Continue reading Progressive & Liberal American Quakers Face World War One
While she was the wife of a prosperous textile manufacturer, all her affluence and “privilege” did not save her first child, born in 1829, from an early death — or the next four after him: all five died, one after another, in infancy or shortly afterward.
As the fifth one faded, Chace penned a rhymed plea
“Oh! no, it cannot, cannot be;
My darling babe will live.
He must not go away from me,
He is the last of five. . . .
And, much and often have I prayed,
That so it might not be;
That in a little coffin laid
This one I ne’er might see.
“Oh! Father, spare him longer yet,
Our lonely home to cheer.
We’ve often said it was for this
That Thou hast sent him here.”
But it was not to be.