I’m in my favorite coffee shop, trying not to hear two women behind me who are having a heated discussion about what it feels like to be listened to. One woman just gave the other some pretty hard feedback, beginning with the phrase, “I’m going to be really honest now.” It makes me realize how [...]

This week I attended my first Sinead O’Connor concert, which made me grateful that Quakers got over their historic aversion to music. It reinforced my belief that a good song can help us feel our connection to God and to other people. The fact that O’Connor’s new album is called Theology didn’t hurt, though I [...]

I once heard that Quaker teacher Bill Taber didn’t do a single thing before stopping and listening for God’s guidance. Even when he was leading a weekend workshop, he never planned more than a session ahead, stopping at each break to pray for guidance for the next hour’s work. I aspire to be so grounded [...]

My last post drew a number of comments, some of them criticizing my description of Al Gore as courageous. John Comma suggested Quaker peace activist Tom Fox as a better model. I agree. After reading Tom’s last post from Iraq and some of the 92 comments from supporters, I am in tears. Being willing to [...]

My eight-year-old son loves The Dangerous Book for Boys, which for anyone who has missed it, has been on the bestseller lists for months. It contains lots of old fashioned fun: how to build a go-cart, strategies for playing chess, even quotes by William Shakespeare. There is much to recommend it as an alternative to [...]

Yesterday I had a guest lecturer come to my class on South Africa during Apartheid, a black South African lawyer, here on an exchange program. She spoke eloquently about the changes she’s witnessed during her lifetime, and fielded questions on everything from poverty to the Iraq war. Then, since she had been talking about the [...]

Sunday on our way to Quaker meeting for worship, my eight-year-old son began talking about reincarnation and all the different things we could come back as. His imagination had been sparked by the Indian festival we had been to the day before, which included large posters illustrating the concept of karma. After some speculation on [...]

On Sunday a member of my Quaker meeting gave me an article on blogs about motherhood, which made me realize that I have not blogged on that topic for quite awhile. Partly it is the fact that my children have asked me to stop writing embarrassing things about them, thus taking away my best material. [...]

Several years ago I read a book called The Path: Writing Your Mission Statement for Work and For Life. Author Laurie Beth Jones argues that we will be more likely to fulfill our life’s purpose if we can articulate what it is, so she takes the reader through a series of exercises to help draft [...]

Surrender is one of those words with completely different connotations depending on the context. It can imply a spiritual letting go, floating in life’s stream with New Age music playing in the background. But surrender can also imply giving up, waving the white flag, often at gun point. I’ve been surrendering a lot lately, hoping [...]