George Fox was plain-spoken and direct. He didn’t hesitate to use words like “wicked” and “evil.” In addition, he was a gadfly, pointing out to the magistrates that they told him to place his hand on the Bible and swear, when the Bible says “swear not at all.” (For a complete account of one of these episodes, see Fox Works, Vol. 2, p. 48)

Fox spent most of his life speaking truths that made others acutely uncomfortable. We read and…

In 1992, eight years after Mom died, my husband and I moved to Casper, Wyoming, where I’d grown up and where my widowed father still lived. By 1995, we had two children, and I often thought about how much Mom would have enjoyed her grandchildren.

But our move to Casper turned out to be lethal to my relationship with my father. If we’d lived elsewhere, possibly I wouldn't have noticed as much as I did. At 72, he still got his fun from…

Imagine bypassing an episode of excruciating emotional pain; not through your own efforts but by the foresight and wisdom of God. Ever since this occurred in my life, I’ve paused before every petitionary prayer, remembering that I don’t want to ask for something useless or worse.

It began in my childhood with my alcoholic father and enabler mother. To those not raised in a household ruled by an inexorable drug addiction, it’s difficult to…

Part Four, Selected beliefs

If there ever was a Bible-believing couple, it was Ernest and his wife. During the year I attended church with them, I observed how heavily they relied on the Bible, and how often they quoted favorite passages.

As I read the Bible myself, and also became attracted to the early Friends, Ernest and his wife’s constant Scripture quoting bothered me. But I couldn't put my finger…