10thMo. 2016 Blog Posts (4)

I give what the Lord gives to me. Yesterday and the day before were restless, gray days for me. Two things veiled my spirit: worry about my country and an unsettled sparring match with a Meeting surrogate. As the day turned to evening these two worrisome issues prompted an internal dialog. I went over what was troubling me and presented the situations clearly. I'll tell this to the Lord, I thought. It would be redundant; he already knew but I vocalized anyway, though not as clearly. I prayed…

It would seem reasonable to suppose that, nearly three centuries after the death of George Fox, there would be some measure of consensus among church historians concerning the place he should be assigned in Christian history. But this is not the case. They all agree that he has an assured place in history, but there is an astonishing variety of theories purporting to tell us exactly what that place is.…

A year and a half ago I wrote an essay titled “The Only Antidote,” in which I argued for the need to think critically: to use natural powers of reason and conscience to honor, discern, and communicate the truth. Referring to Hannah Arendt’s understanding of the cause behind the rise of Fascism and also referring to a Bible story of John the Baptist’s execution by Herod, I pointed to the crucial and perennial role of critical thought in containing the spread of evil.

Although critical…

Having faith doesn't mean believing in superstition. That thinking belongs to the ignorant and the atheists. Faith is not believing at all, really, but trusting--trusting in the Captain, Pilot, or Driver you've come to know over the many months or years you've traveled with him.

I had been thinking a lot about faith before I took a walk the first morning of a many days trip. My location at the time was a suburb of Chicago but my thoughts that morning were out west. I had traveled to…