Learning to Listen

It starts in the legs and shoulders.  A vague tension, a kind of nervousness that doesn’t seem to be related to anything in particular. I feel it before I understand it.  It’s not always a feeling of something being wrong, but it often is.  Eventually, when I can identify the cause, it goes away, easing me back to normalcy, like taking off a rubber band that has been on your wrist for way too long.... [more]
 
 

Tears of Love

Tears streamed down my face. I sat next to my husband in the back row of our little Quaker meeting house while dear Friend Peg spoke about violence and guns and bearing witness and having hope. She spoke about honoring others, recognizing our shared humanity, and living out our love for each other.   I quickly beckoned for a pencil and scribbled a note to my Bugs (the nickname my husband I use for each... [more]
 
 

Holding God’s Hand

Before I left for Bolivia, I ran across this biblical quotation: “For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.”  Isaiah 41:13. Little did I know, I would be holding God’s hand as well as the hands of most everyone on our team during this trip!   About two weeks before the trip, I injured my left knee at the... [more]
 
 

My Body is a Strict Schoolmarm

Glasses halfway down her nose, Staring me down— No ruckus allowed! Nagging me. I repay her with all kinds of grief: the same currency she grants me.   I cartoon her chin wattle, her saggy arms, laughing at her wide behind.  Caught, I’m banished to the Principal— Corporal re-education—a whacking! The old hag! I hate her! I know I do—but I—   I—love—her—yes—God, I do. In her I witness Mother Mary’s labor groaning, I see... [more]
 
 

Are We There yet?

I am on a long journey, and my body comes along like a child in the backseat.  Over and over, it asks me, “Are we there yet?”  From the back seat, my body complains about motion sickness.  It complains about being hungry.  Or thirsty.  It complains about the temperature.   With my eyes on the road, I tell my body, “If you’re quiet, I’ll buy you an ice cream cone.”   Out of duty, I... [more]
 
 

Becoming Myself

Over the course of my life, I have cried many times while looking in the mirror. Some tears have been shed mournfully, and others, joyfully.   I came to view myself as transgender at seventeen years old. Within a few days of coming to terms with this identity, I bought an ace bandage to bind my chest. At two o’clock in the morning, when my entire family was in bed, I snuck into the bathroom... [more]
 
 

My Body, My Teacher, My Life

I really want to write and the tremor makes me grateful for the computer, but my eyes keep returning to the waves.  I hear the breakers crash, smell the ocean air, and feel the warm wind.   Rhythm is in the waves, the tides, the days and nights, the moon, sun, seasons, and years.  It is also in family, community, and the worldwide network of living connections between us, nature, and the earth.  Life is so... [more]
 
 

Learning New Seeing

For most of my life, my body has been a teacher of lessons I often didn’t learn gently: e.g., energy limits; reality checks on life choices because I am female, not male; limits when I stretch for knowing beyond my intelligence or my human condition, etc.  Now as I age, the messages come with behavior limits that have changed my life and I can’t argue with them so well: e.g. eyesight failing (stop driving, thus be... [more]
 
 

Prescott Street

My job was a coveted position and a rare opportunity for students in my program. It was part-time, it allowed me to learn from other professionals in my field, it gave me an opportunity to do what I felt called to do, and it provided my family with some extra income. I got along well with my coworkers and my boss loved me.   Yet every night before work my heart would beat faster and... [more]
 
 

Acceptance

Because of injuries sustained in an automobile accident 27 years ago, I spend most of my time hooked up to an IV.  I usually carry it on my back or push it around in a stroller, and sometimes my dog carries it to give my body a rest.  It’s not something that was easy to accept, but I have come to a reluctant acceptance of it and try to be a good sport about it.  ... [more]
 
 

Dancing in the Light

When skies are clear on Winter days, the sun beams through tall windows and sparkles across the 90-degree therapy pool. Often the only one present, I feel the freedom to twirl and splash.  The salty water holds me upright.  I can dance in the beauty, joy and wonder of warm, liquid Light. —Thea [more]
 
 

Fiona’s Dream

Given as First Word on 4/11/16 at West Hills Friends    Hi, everybody.  My name is Fiona, as most of you know.   I think I might be the youngest person in this building to do First Word.   I’m pretty nervous.  This is my first time.  And I hope you like it.    So a few weeks ago, I had a dream.  I dream that seemed like it wanted me to do First Word.  So here... [more]
 
 

Where Words Come From

“I love to feel where the words come from.”  (From John Woolman’s Journal.  See full quote following story.)   The clearest time I felt an urge from the Light, an urgency to speak, is one I’ve written about in an earlier chapter, when I heard a Voice that would not be denied; but I haven’t heard that Voice in 16 years. Now I am learning to distinguish subtle nudges, such as learning the difference between speaking... [more]
 
 

An Empowered Moment

Anger empowers. Surprising? Let me explain.   I’m usually reserved around strangers, but on a particular summer day at the Oregon Coast, I was anything but that. Anger enraged me to action like never before.   My husband Dave and I were enjoying a lovely day at the beach. A stiff breeze blew off the breakers as we walked along the wet sand with our dog. At one point we decided to have lunch and... [more]
 
 

Speaking Out

I have spent much of my life passionately “speaking truth to power.”  Yet reflecting on the times that I have spoken out or stood up for something, I am aware of so many missteps, mistakes, missed opportunities, and misunderstandings.  What comes to mind are the times I failed to speak out or the times I did speak out but, in looking back, feel that I shouldn’t have.  Trying to find an answer to this query... [more]
 
 

Reassurance

Following an injury in an automobile accident in 1989, most of my intestines were removed, and I am no longer able to absorb nutrients and fluids.  Since that time, I’ve been dependent on total parenteral nutrition, or TPN, which means I receive all required fluids and nutrients intravenously.     In 1993 I received a scholarship to attend Pendle Hill, a Quaker retreat and study center in Philadelphia.  I lived in Arizona at the time and... [more]
 
 

Traveling Mercies

Last year was a very dark time in my life due to many moments of sadness and grief. One of the most difficult was the death of my nephew who was 22 years old.   The loss affected each of my family members differently. I personally was ill much more frequently than usual. Another family member also developed some serious health problems that required a hospitalization. Unfortunately, this happened during a visit to a friend... [more]
 
 

Be Praised, My Lord, Through All Your Creatures

When our little party arrived in Calais, it was all I could do to keep from laughing.  The group of Brits traveling with me had often sneered at tourists in London for their exuberant giddiness but the minute they were on foreign soil, they transformed into a bunch of hooligans no different than those they so despised in their own city.  We were on our way to spend Easter in Taizé, an international destination we... [more]
 
 

For Me

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A Summer’s Journey

In June of 1948 I had finished two years at UCLA and had no clear direction as to what I wanted to do, so I dropped out of school and worked for my father. We built greenhouses, and it seemed like we were always on the brink of bankruptcy.   The following summer I wanted to do something different, so I planned to visit my grandparents in Indiana. Working for my father, I rarely got paid... [more]
 
 

Now I Will Tell You a Better Answer

In the Old City of Jerusalem, the streets are too narrow for cars.  The streets stay narrow so they can squeeze through stone archways.  Neighbors who live across the street from each other can look up and see the awnings above their doorways almost touch.  Sometimes, a narrow street will become a staircase.  The stone steps have probably forgotten most of what they once knew about right angles.   On a rainy day in November,... [more]
 
 

Flight Into Egypt

“After the wise men had gone, an angel from the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up! Hurry and take the child and his mother to Egypt! Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is looking for the child and wants to kill him.’” Matthew 2:13, CEB. [more]
 
 

Gratitude for Traveling Mercies in the Everyday

I am grateful for my guardian angels.  These are not cherubic babes with wings and harps on clouds, but scrappy, fierce protectors alert of my blind spots and ‘heaven-may-care’ enthusiasm for adventure.  My partner jokes that God drew us to one another on the urgings of our respective guardian teams—mine calling in for a leave of absence, his antsy for a bit more spice and risk in life.   My awareness of these protective agents... [more]
 
 

Milepost 128

Diane and I spent our honeymoon roaming the western U.S. and Canada, living out of the back of our tiny Honda Civic.  Leaving the Honda in Chicago, our new home, we flew to Pittsburgh, site of our marriage earlier that summer, to gather our remaining clothes, wedding gifts, and furniture.  We loaded these into a rented U-Haul, hitched it to my mother-in-law’s 1972 Cutlass and, accompanied by Diane’s brother Richard, headed west on the turnpike... [more]
 
 

What a Gift

Sometimes the Light leads in a quiet way. And sometimes that still small voice can almost seem to follow decision-making, an inner validation to keep moving forward. I think that may have been the way I came to West Hills Friends.   When Patrick and I moved to Portland in the spring of 1988, we decided to find a spiritual community that would work for both of us. I was the daughter of a Presbyterian... [more]
 
 

Pew Art #1

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When I Reach the Place I’m Going I Will Surely Know My Way

On summer Sunday mornings, the year my daughter was about to turn one, I could usually be found hanging out with her on our front steps.  Most of those mornings, my neighbor Derek would slam out his front door, catch sight of me and yell, “Sister, do you want to go to Meeting with me?” I’d smile and say, “No, not this morning, Derek, thanks anyway.”  As a new Mom with a full-time job outside... [more]
 
 

My Kind of People

The other day I looked around the room at West Hills Friends, and it struck me that I was in a room full of people I love who know my story.  I thought about all the times in the last five years that I stood up to share during Joys & Concerns—about starting and completing grad school, getting a teaching job, a major illness and minor surgery, my mom’s illness and death, struggles with my... [more]
 
 

Pew Art #2

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Nicho by Claire Nail

This photo is a close-up of a nicho (niche) I created to honor the holy woman, Hildegard of Bingen. After viewing the religious art of Latin American countries, I was inspired to make nichos to honor saints and sages of all walks of life.     I am inspired by Hildegard’s words, “Dare to declare who you are. It is not far from the shores of silence to the boundaries of speech. The path is... [more]
 
 

Light

I followed my atheist husband to church. —Sarah Blanchard [more]
 
 

Love at First Listen

My church of origin was conservative and patriarchal, and I spent most of my young life wrestling the belief that I would never be worthy enough for God’s favor (even as a child, I was sensitive and perfectionistic – I didn’t need a church to condemn my faults, as I did so quite well on my own).  I left the church because I realized that I didn’t need God to still be good and worthy. ... [more]
 
 

My Angel

My angel led me to WHF in 1994.   One day I was led to try to try attending church again after a five-year abstinence.  Since I did not drive, I walked to the closest church up the street.  The people were so nice, and we met after for fellowship, coffee and chocolate cake.  Chocolate cake! Being that I am a true chocoholic, that surely was a sign I should go there.    On the way... [more]
 
 

Allowing Ourselves to Dream

In 2009, Beth and I (along with several college friends) moved to Denver, Colorado, hoping to start an intentional Christian community. After only a couple months, our hopes for that endeavor were shattered.  Conflict within the community grew to the point that we discerned it was time for us to leave Denver. I had spent the first half of that year in Denver desperately seeking work at places of worship where the theology fit with... [more]
 
 

It Took a War

On March 19, 2003, I watched in horror as the United States carried out its threats to make “Shock and Awe” a reality in Iraq. Deep psychological pain enveloped me as the bombs rained down. The realization that our government had used lies and subterfuge to get us to destroy thousands of people who had done nothing to us was overwhelming.   At this time my husband Wilbur and I were attending church in Vancouver... [more]
 
 

Best Dog in the World

We live next door to West Hills Friends, and some of you may remember our dog Sam.  He was a black retriever mix, with a heart as big as can be and a playful spirit. My husband called him “the best damn dog in the world.”  And he was!   On Sunday mornings, when children were playing outside in the playground, Sam would drop his tennis ball in the dug out space under the wooden... [more]
 
 

Come to the Table

In April 1987, I dreamed that I was being “called” and that I would have to give up my life to accept the call.  If giving up my life was a metaphor, I was ready to go anywhere, so I got down on my knees and offered my life to Jesus. I wrote in my journal that I wished I knew whether I was doing the right thing and whether Jesus was in my life.... [more]
 
 

How I Got Here

I came by boat, a wooden boat, half decked and half open. The barbarian crew carry animals to sell, in boxes and cages. When the storms lash our deck men and animals howl.   Now here’s land for sure: a smudge of blue hills, one lighthouse like a white tooth.   I’ve started to think how the rich people of this land will look at me when I get off this boat with all these... [more]
 
 

Young Friend’s Story

In Godly Play® I can speak without other people judging me. I feel respected by others, and I like the stories.   I also like the music and the singing at the beginning of meeting. —Beatrice, age 8 [more]
 
 

Held in the Light

“Blessed in the certainty that we are held in the Light.”  This was the final line of our wedding vows.  It’s a sentence that jumped out at me even when I was new to having a fully developed brain and planning a wedding; succumbing to the pressure to throw a Martha Stewart Weddings worthy event.  It’s a line that has stuck with me as a mantra during rough patches.  It’s a line that, even if... [more]
 
 

Stranger in a Strange Land

Have I ever felt more like an alien arriving in a place where I didn’t belong? I stood in the pouring rain at one of many tables at the 1990 Earth Day Fair in downtown Portland, still astonished that I had managed to find this place, since I was navigating in the days before the MAX, the Internet, GPS, or even cell phones in a town as unfamiliar as the planet Mars.  I looked into... [more]
 
 

Finding Love, Life and Joy

We moved in 2009, fully expecting to transfer our membership to a silent, unprogrammed Friends meeting in Portland.  We visited both meetings and finally took a week out to visit West Hills:  we knew that once we decided about our new Meeting, we’d not be likely to visit anywhere.  We were very curious about WHF because of the incongruity of the only three facts we had: WHF was a part of NWYM;  WHF was a... [more]
 
 

Seeking Truth

Before moving to Oregon, I was a member of an unprogrammed Friends Meeting in Tucson, Arizona.  My family felt closely connected to many people in the Meeting, particularly three other families.  We socialized, traveled and celebrated holidays and family occasions with these families and were supported by them and others in our Meeting during times of illness, loss and hardship.   Once in Oregon, I attended several unprogrammed Friends Meetings, but worshipping with these Friends... [more]
 
 

A Good Time to Listen

“Slow down!”  What? That didn’t make any sense, but that was the message I “heard” as I entered the on-ramp to the Houston freeway. To successfully merge into the speeding traffic you speed up, not slow down, and I could see the cars beyond were moving at a normal fast rate.   That on-ramp was an unusual one, though. It went up an incline and then dipped down before merging with the freeway, so when... [more]
 
 

Waiting for the Future

I’ve spent most of my life looking to the future, dreaming, and waiting.  When I was young, I waited for a better house, meeting “the right person”, and turning 18 so I could start my own life.  I wanted something better than what I had.  I dreamed of what my reality might look like in a far-off-distant future.  I’d have a husband who loved me, children I would love deeply, and a community where I could feel... [more]
 
 

My Vigil

Don’t go to sleep one night. What you want most will come to you then. Warmed by a sun inside, you’ll see wonders. —-Rumi I’m not very good at being quiet. Internal stillness is not a natural state for me. To tell the truth, external stillness isn’t my strong suit either. I’m always busy doing something. I don’t like to wait, and I’m beginning to realize this does not leave me space for the quiet... [more]
 
 

The Question

When I was about 4 years old, my mother bent down until she was level with my little face, pointed a red-nailed finger at me and asked, “Why did you do that?!”  I vividly remember my shock.   This was my first inkling that other people knew why they did things.  Apparently, some could even put their motivations into words! I had come into the world an impulsive little person who raced through life on a... [more]
 
 

Shattered

Why do Quakers want to remove us from the Yearly Meeting?   My wife Pat and I have been part of Northwest Yearly Meeting for a combined total of nearly 140 years.  Pat has served on several yearly meeting boards, including the Ministry Committee, where she was Clerk.    I served for 23 years on the George Fox College Board of Trustees and many years with Friends Fund. At Reedwood Friends, I negotiated the land purchase... [more]
 
 

Listening for God

I have been attending West Hills for something like eight years now.   During my early years here, I remember that one or more of Mike’s messages involved Jesus appearing in the form of a stranger at the door, speaking directly.  I have also heard others stand up to give First Word or messages where they have clearly heard the voice of God speaking to them.  The Bible is full of stories of God appearing or... [more]
 
 

Two Dreams

Though recognizing and honoring Gods’ leadings to wait has long challenged me, I hadn’t been able to think of a related story worth telling in “Minding the Light.” Then one morning I woke from two significant dreams.   In the first, I was playing a ball game with another person. Though the ball remained on the floor the whole time, it bounced off the walls of the small room, as in handball. One of us... [more]
 
 

A Time to Wait

When I was a Quaker Voluntary Service fellow serving in Atlanta, I experienced what felt like a leading to travel to Uganda.  Oh man…planning a trip into a country for the express purpose of breaking their laws by assisting LGBTQ people would require a lot of support and preparation.  I really did not fear consequences if this was indeed a leading, but I knew that the severity of those consequences meant that I had to be absolutely sure... [more]
 
 

The Mountain

Even now, over 20 years later, it is hard to tell the story of how my sister Nana and I became estranged.  It all began one Christmas when I realized that Nana had been sending Christmas gifts to my sister Clare’s little daughters, Jane & Julia, but giving nothing to my son Nick.  This made no sense to me! I had always given presents to all my nieces and nephews when they were small, even... [more]
 
 

Ice Cream at the Mall

The mall was crowded today—not surprising, considering the chill of the cold January spritz outside.  Holding my mom’s hand, we navigate through shoppers clutching large bags while balancing coffee cups and cell phones.  Like ants, they march with a sense of purpose.    We do not walk the mall for stuff.  We walk for movement, as a meditation and a chance to notice everything.  Noticing is important now.  All that is left is the moment. ... [more]
 
 

Reading the Signs

Tryon Creek State Park is a place I go to look for God when I feel disconnected.  The big trees, the slant of sun through branches, the startling shades of green on the moss and lichen against dark bark take me back to the relationship that guides me.     What sent me to the park that afternoon was a worry that had been growing for weeks.  My daughter was deep in the troubled waters of... [more]
 
 

The Obstacle is the Way

This past year I experienced something of a break down.  Things that I know should have brought me joy, like family and work left me empty. I thought I just need to “suck it up” “push through”.  I began to get afraid and negotiate. Okay, I can have this breakdown, but only while the kids are at school or only when it’s private and convenient. I will schedule it, experience it, and move on. Yeah,... [more]
 
 

Young Friend’s Story

God has helped me when. . . I am scared or frightened, when I am worried about someone or something.  When I pray to God, He hears me and He helps me.  I know I’m not alone. —Molly F, age 7    [more]
 
 

The Light Shining in Darkness

Despite many positive elements, my family of origin also included elements I later understood to be traumatic, including alcoholism, violence, drugs, incarceration, institutionalization, and, for me personally, shame, neglect, and drugs.  In choosing a college 2000 miles from home, I was pursuing a vision of who I wanted to become, but I was also seeking to escape a world I didn’t want to be a part of, and to start over again.  But such a... [more]
 
 

Wrapped in the Light

As one who’s wrestled with depression since early adolescence, there has been a lot of darkness in my life.  It’s like a dark pit I sometimes fall into, a beast stalking me in the deep jungle, a heavy cloud that obscures the sun and everything that might be illuminated by it.   I’ve learned what helps: quiet walks, slow breathing, long baths, gentle music.  People, often.  The tender, trusted ones.  The ones whose judgment I... [more]
 
 

Wild Plum Blossoms

In January 2009, a few years short of retirement, my husband lost his job.  The former boss wrongly accused him of misconduct, and thus, he was ineligible for unemployment.  We were depleting savings we’d put away for retirement. On a windy, frigid day, our furnace broke. For the first time ever, we relied on Food Stamps. I hadn’t worked full-time for several years due to a degenerative disease. I’d lost my part-time work, too.  Things... [more]
 
 

Light Along the Way

Several years ago I took my children on a church camp-out.  Being new to camping and the Northwest, I decided that—despite the approach of both dusk and a rainstorm—the first thing I should do, after emptying everything from the Suburban into a heap on the ground, was blow up my air mattress.  That’s when I discovered that I had lost the cap.  I piled everyone into the truck and headed for the nearest hardware store,... [more]
 
 

Drawing

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When Light Meets Darkness

Photo by Sarah Blanchard taken in Pinedale, Wyoming, 2015. [more]
 
 

Hold On Let Go

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A Crack in the Foundation

A giant crack had opened up in the core of my foundation and everything was being sucked in…at least that’s how it felt to me. Up to that point, my life had been easy. I was married to a professor and we lived what might be called a charmed life, both of us young, athletic, educated, and vibrant. Our home just north of San Diego overlooked a small, tranquil lake and we had an active... [more]
 
 

Body Blows

I have received two huge body blows of life.   When I was seven, my thirty-nine year-old father died suddenly.  I was raised by my widowed mother. More recently my twenty- two-year-old grandson Griffin died from a rare heart issue.   God, why do loved ones die before they grow old?  Two scriptures come to mind. Job 30:20, “I cry out to you, God, but you don’t answer” and Ecclesiastes 1:14, “I saw all the deeds that are done... [more]
 
 

Grace

These are the days of transformation Days where wood smoke scents the air for the first time Days where the light recedes and we grumble about how the dinner, that filled the home with warmth and the smell of cooked down onions, celery and carrots will be eaten as the sun sets Nights where as you approach the bed and nudge the opened window a bit closer to completely shut you think about what you... [more]
 
 

One Little Prayer

In 1999, doctors removed half my husband’s liver and gall bladder to eliminate a tumor.  Bill was expected home in ten days, but he survived 67 in ICU.  His nurse John was polite and thorough, but I found him very irritating. He never laughed or smiled, wouldn’t mention Bill had visitors, and worst of all, called me Ma’am! Arrgghh!   I tried to communicate with John. After sleeping at home, I would ask if anyone... [more]
 
 

Young Friend’s Story Chapter 20

Query:  When has God helped you see someone differently (like a friend or a teacher or a family member)?   I have a new boy in my class this year and he sits next to me. At first I thought he was annoying and I wished he wasn’t in my class. He kept interrupting the teacher during math. If I looked over at his side of the table he would say that I was copying... [more]
 
 

The Wall Between Our Houses

We happily introduced ourselves to our new neighbors when they moved in several years ago.  But they purchased the home for their future retirement, which means we rarely see them and have not developed much of a relationship. This summer my husband noticed the retaining wall between our houses was starting to crumble and was in need of an upgrade. He hired a contractor with a good price, but it’s taking a long time and... [more]
 
 

Dominos of Love

Choosing a single instance when following the light revolutionized my life seems impossible. Each time I have stopped and listened to my own inner voice something magical has happened. As a child, I recall setting up dominos in rows and mazes just for the pure joy of observing the chain reaction when they connected and came tumbling down, simply to be built again in another unique pattern. In a similar way, my actions of listening and acting have... [more]
 
 

How I Lost My Nemesis

How I Lost My Nemesis “…love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Matthew 5:44   I once attended church with a man who regularly joked about women, poor people, and those he felt were despised by God and hell-bent.  If I expressed my feelings about these slurs, he’d drag me into a long-winded argument that tried my patience. He loved to argue, even more if I responded to his bait. He labeled... [more]
 
 

Dazzled

My son Griffin dazzled me. I couldn’t look away. Each moment of his life was aglow, white-hot from the forge of living.   When Griffin died, the forge of his life went dark. His life no longer burns through the present. All the moments of his life are of equal brightness to me now. Each moment is a memory: Griffin made coffee with cinnamon, he loved the long take in movies, he read about dinosaurs,... [more]
 
 

Connections

I suspect there are others of you who feel like I do.  Many times, when I’m in a large group of people, I feel very alone.  That may seem odd, but it’s true. I may be surrounded by people, often people I know, but I feel very small and practically invisible. I don’t really feel connected to anyone when I’m in a large group…but Minding the Light helps change that.   When my copy arrives in... [more]
 
 

Acceptance and Navigating Grief

“Moses climbed from the Plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, the peak of Pisgah facing Jericho. God showed him all the land from Gilead to Dan, all Naphtali, Ephraim, and Manasseh; all Judah reaching to the Mediterranean Sea; the Negev and the plains which encircle Jericho, City of Palms, as far south as Zoar.   “Then and there God said to him, “This is the land I promised to your ancestors, to Abraham, Isaac, and... [more]
 
 

Change in Perception

After reading this query I tried to think of a sudden insight that had changed my perception immediately and irrevocably, forever transforming me.  I couldn’t think of one.  Instead I thought of the gradual change in my perception of my marriage.   I think of myself as a cat.  Sleek and self-contained.  Maybe a bit prissy.  Definitely discriminating and probably fastidious.  I am assuredly self-possessed.  I strive to be composed and poised and in control... [more]
 
 

Learning Ways of Sensing From the Mother

Somewhere in the mountains of Northern California, a winding dirt road meandered its way down to a sacred space in the small valley floor and welcomed all of us who came to camp, to sing, and to be a part of each other and the beauty of Mother Nature.  This was a yearly summer pilgrimage. The camp was encircled by Mother Nature.  The mountains gently shaped the flow of the river that found its path... [more]
 
 

Migration of the Tarantulas

I found myself driving to work every day on a crowded and dangerous piece of California freeway.  The sense impressions were heat, the smell of gasoline, and the blinding glint of sunlight reflecting off chrome.  Then I found the back road.  It took longer to get there, but I arrived refreshed, nourished.   The sense impressions were stopping the car in a dewy morning meadow to listen to the contrapuntal melodies of meadow larks, glimpsing a... [more]
 
 

Hearing God: Kay at 4

Augusta, Georgia: 1956  I God is alive.  God lives at our house.  God lives in the woods where I play and God lives at church, too.  Sometimes I want to say to God, “Are you following me?”   My Sunday school teacher told us that God is a boy.  But God is not a boy.  That’s silly!   You can’t see God but you can hear God.   God is magic.  God can fly!  God is... [more]
 
 

Light in Gramothe Village

This was my fourth year traveling to Haiti with West Hills Friends Medical Mission Team. In April of each year, I’ve worked as a nurse in Mountain Top Ministry’s extremely busy rural clinic pharmacy in a small village named Gramothe. Processing prescriptions and teaching health care has become fairly routine to me. What has not been routine, are some of the profound experiences I have brought back with me from Haiti!   This year’s trip... [more]
 
 

God – an Image

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Pancakes

One summer when I was in college, I traveled home to Portland from Florida by Greyhound bus.  I had some money in my pocket for emergencies.   Somewhere in New Mexico I woke to a breakfast stop.  In the food line I purchased some chocolate milk, my usual food for the trip. When the line had slowly passed through, with most folks ordering a more substantial meal, the cook came to the table where I... [more]
 
 

The Scent of Compassion

I was alone in the hospital when our 10-month-old daughter Annalee died.  My husband Fred was 2500 miles away in Boston at the bedside of his father, who had been badly burned.   Fred caught the first plane home, and friends took me to their house to wait. The house slowly filled with other friends bringing food and flowers. Mostly they brought themselves with anything they could to help me.   My good friend Chena... [more]
 
 

Voice of the Killdeer

Between a meadow and the woods, North Valley Friends Church has built a labyrinth. I had an hour to fill on a fine afternoon, so I decided to walk it.   This labyrinth is a medieval design, like the one at Chartres Cathedral, with eleven large circuits, twenty-eight 180-degree reverses, and six 90-degree corners. The idea is that by allowing the twisting path to lead you — eventually — to the heart of the design,... [more]
 
 

Sensing God’s Presence in the Mountains

It is no secret to anyone who knows me that the mountains are one of the places where I most reliably encounter God.  Last month I climbed to a favorite high ridge in Olympic National Park to spend a couple of nights in God’s company – and God, of course, did not disappoint.  While I have many special memories from this trip, this video captures the essence of what I want to say here.  http://tinyurl.com/ksnzm5m... [more]
 
 

Waterfall, Silver Falls State Park

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Reborn

Sensory deprivation may sound terrible at first, but for me, the experience of floating in a soundproof water tank roughly 10 inches deep, at body temperature, in utter darkness, filled with 800 lbs of Epsom salt, has become a safe haven of transformation.   In the early days of floating, I came face to face with my deepest, secret (even to me) fears via various images that appeared in the darkness weaving together the story of... [more]
 
 

Breath of God

Recently I calculated that I have practiced over 1000 yoga classes.  I started because I thought it promised it would give me a lean strong body, and help cure my stress-induced backaches.  I’ve never been talented at athletics, but yoga was something I could easily do and I found it was fun.  It produced all that I hoped, except for the lean part. That would mean I would have to give up sugar, which is... [more]
 
 

Called Home

The mournful Call to Prayer echoed against the dark purple hills of Northern Turkey.  A smoky haze from hundreds of campfires hung in the air like a grey blanket.  After two devastating earthquakes, this small city teemed with green canvas army tents filled with families who had lost their homes and loved ones.   It was December and the holy month of Ramazan (as they call it in Turkey).  For one not born in a Muslim country,... [more]
 
 

Questioning My Way to the Light

When I was 18, I had a list of questions.  Although they seem a little silly to me now, these questions routinely provoked a passionate response from the self-identified Christians at my high school.  How did the sons of Adam and Eve find wives?  How could a wooden boat (built with bronze-age tools) sustain two of every creature on the planet?  Could God make a rock that is too heavy for God to lift?  Time... [more]
 
 

The Unwelcome Insight

It began when my son came out as Gay during his senior year in high school.  My husband quit talking to him, although living in the same house. That only increased my commitment to support him–I loved this creative, sensitive, and gifted son.    I began learning from friends, books, and movies about LGBT issues and culture.  I helped where I could as my son found his new community and went off to college.  I feared... [more]
 
 

Reorientation

Years ago, in a troubled time when I was blind and lost and didn’t know how to navigate, God blessed me with a powerful experience that lasted for several days.  During that time, I could feel Jesus’ presence and his love for me.  This was the first time since I was a young child that I had experienced Jesus’ Presence, and it would be five years before I experienced his Presence again.   The experience... [more]
 
 

Dream Discoveries

I want to Serve God.  Seeking validation of this goal, I’ve often volunteered to do whatever hard job arose, the ones nobody else would do, whatever someone else asked me—disregarding what the Light might be calling me to do.   I stayed up late making up for my lost time. When I finally got to bed, I couldn’t sleep. My husband christened me The Queen of Insomnia. I’m working on losing that title.  The Light... [more]
 
 

Illumination

One morning in Meeting for Worship, I was powerfully blessed by a sudden shift in self-perception.   I’d been worrying about an encounter that I expected to have in the coming week, and as it played out in my imagination, it went badly.  The encounter as I imagined it left me feeling like a failure, ashamed and inadequate.  Suddenly, I received a powerful insight:  in the imaginary encounter, I had been seeing my mother, not myself!... [more]
 
 

A Turning Point

When I arrived at WHF in 1994 my faith was in tatters.  No, that’s too optimistic.  My faith was ground into dust.  I not only didn’t believe any of the Christian theology that had filled and satisfied my life, but I doubted God’s very existence, or at the least God’s goodness   My husband wanted a faith community, so I went along, week after week, faithfully yet faithless.  It was hard, with Friends around me... [more]
 
 

Motherly Love

At West Hills’ annual all church retreat this spring (2014), I had the extreme pleasure of sitting next to Erica and Graci Huber during our final meeting together for music and worship sharing. During the songs, I experienced a silent connection via my secret observations of Erica with her 19 year old daughter, Graci.  Graci sat with her legs flung over her mother’s lap. Erica held her lovingly, much in the same way that I... [more]
 
 

When the Change Came

When the change came I felt it in my back, in the lightening of a burden I had forgotten I bore.   I shifted my shoulders to re-balance my life and gazed around me, questioning my belonging here,   then, standing straighter, I breathed my first breath of a new season, and I stepped gently ahead into the garden of my future.   Weeds were there, some I had fought for years of my living.... [more]
 
 

I’ve Told This Story Before

I’ve told this story before (Minding the Light, July 2011) but I have been encouraged to tell it again from the perspective of the current query.  From around the age of 12 (or maybe younger) until the age of 61, I was frequently visited by sudden, unexpected states of altered consciousness that terrified me and played havoc on my social life and sense of well-being. From lack of any better point of reference I turned... [more]
 
 

Light to Fight the Shadows

In the spring of 2013, after returning to work from maternity leave, I began advocating for a student with a disability who shall remain unnamed.  Our new-to-the-field psychologist insisted that the student didn’t qualify for specialized instruction because test scores were too high.  Yet the teacher continually expressed concern that the student’s needs were not being addressed.    This was the kind of situation that involved multiple team meetings and conversations in which, at many... [more]
 
 

On Earth as it is in Heaven

One of the most meaningful ways that I have encountered the Light through music was during my sophomore year at George Fox University, when I took a History of Latin America course.  The class was one of my favorites, and it included watching a 1986 film called The Mission, which depicted a Jesuit mission in South America.  The movie touched my heart, and my less than favorable opinion of missionaries at the time, became more complex. ... [more]
 
 

He’s Chasin Me

Sundays we’d climb the hill threading our way on the worn path, fern banked, sprinkled with pine needles, damp breezes lifting off the lake, sun slipping through pines and cedars. A line of girls in blue chambray shirts with sailor collars edged in white, we’d take our orderly seats on split-log benches strewn with hymnals. Circled around the fire pit, we’d wait for Althea to say, “Open to Hymn 66.” Every Sunday we would start... [more]
 
 

Jukebox Driver

I long to close my eyes, but I can’t because I am driving.  I have traveled this long road between school and home a thousand times, but today is different.  Today I chauffeur my parents on a journey none of us are eager to take.  Since finding out my dad has weeks, perhaps days to live, they sit in back and hold hands like teenagers.    A golf-ball sized tumor grows in my father’s brain... [more]
 
 

Celestial Harmony

Today is Sunday, January 26th.  Before today, I didn’t expect to write anything for this chapter of Minding the Light.  I’d drawn a blank for this topic.  I’m not a musician, and while I like music very much, I’m not knowledgeable about past composers or present-day musicians or styles. I just enjoy it without knowing the style or the artist or group.  My experiences haven’t been much to relate, other than enjoyment—until today, in meeting,... [more]
 
 

Minding the Light

K.D., Ben, Leslie and I were out at the VA’s long-term care facility in Vancouver one evening playing music for the guys.  It was a thing I sort of felt led to do, and they thought it was a good idea and could make it so we went together.  We played “Country Roads,” and “Ghostriders in the Sky,” and a bunch of fun tunes.  We all sang, and traded lead vocals; Leslie had her violin. ... [more]
 
 

Citadel of Otherworldly Light

One day I was sitting at the piano, just dinking around on the keys and I came up with a bit of music that I thought was pretty cool; I wonder what I’ll call it—I know! I’ll call it Citadel of Otherworldly Light. But then I got caught up in the everyday routine, and I forgot how it goes.   Years later, sitting at the piano, I came up with a bit of music that... [more]
 
 

Comfort in the Night

For the first time all day I was alone. Not really alone, nurses bustled about down the hall and the whole hospital building buzzed with the hushed vibrating energy that was still new and uneasy to me. My sister had just left and I knew her leaving came with both relief and worry for her. This hospital was hard for her, but she had been my rock for hours.   For the last time in... [more]
 
 

The Light Illuminates Pride

Early in my music teaching career, I recall working with a student, perhaps 10 or 11 years old.  I’ll call her Mary.  Mary was pleasant, easy to work with, and put practice effort in; however I never felt a strong teacher-pupil connection or that she embraced being a musician.   After a few years of lessons, Mary took the summer off.  At the first class back, she told me she had been learning a new... [more]
 
 

Antigua Experience

A few years back I had the honor of being part of Progressa, a Guatemalan Friends teaching group. Our mission was to provide one-on-one English tutorials to university age young people who spoke little or no English.  Most of the students were from educationally underserved villages whose first language was a local dialect, with Spanish being a second, or even third, tongue.  Based in the magical old capital city of Antigua, Guatemala, we had endless... [more]
 
 

Journeys

Come walk with me, the journey is long…. the journey, the journey, the journey is long  And in isiZulu: Hamba nathi kalulu latu (repeat) Kalulu, kalulu, kalulu latu (repeat)   A powerful gift of music came to me on the Scottish island of Iona, halfway between Ireland and Scotland.  It is known for the abbey that St. Columba founded.  St. Columba retreated to Iona after a bloody war over scripture.  He felt responsible for having been part... [more]
 
 

Good Friday

Measured by the scope of itself, Good Friday ends in silence and death.  I’ve given up trying to lead worship on Good Friday.  It’s too painful for me.    A few years ago, a small group of us gathered for worship on Good Friday. I was only there to worship. That is, nothing was expected from me.  I could wander into the brokenness and grief of Good Friday without feeling responsible for anyone else’s experience. ... [more]
 
 

Song of Peace, Place of Peace

In the spring of 2010 my husband and I took a trip to occupied Palestine. On a Sunday morning we worshipped at Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem. Also visiting there was a group from Germany who sang “Dona Nobis Pacem” as a gift to those attending.   That afternoon the choir went their way and we went ours, spending time in Ramallah with the Ramallah Friends Meeting and Quakers from many places in the world... [more]
 
 

Communion

One night I was at an evening worship service with my mother.  The interior of the church was softly lit.  It seemed to be glowing, perhaps from candlelight.  The congregation was singing a hymn when, suddenly, I began to cry.  At first slowly, but within seconds I was sobbing, and then I was crying uncontrollably.  My mother handed me the keys and told me to go sit in the car.  I had the sense that... [more]
 
 

Is There a God?

For years I had been questing, endlessly searching—is there a God? I tried reading books on the different ways to call God (Creator, Higher Power, Divine, Universal Energy).  I attended Native American ceremonies.  I walked in nature where I found incredible peace.  I read Peace Pilgrim’s “Steps Toward Inner Peace”.  I attended Jewish ceremonies and Christian churches.  I even tried praying.  I believed I saw God’s light in my baby son, but I wasn’t sure. It... [more]
 
 

Conundrum

I’d like to say that we followed the Light into the wilderness.  In reality we headed off into the mountains unprepared and the Light accompanied us, knowing we would need divine intervention.   Years ago my husband and I decided to take our teenage daughters on a hike over the continental divide in Colorado (12,000+ elevation).  The payoff, we knew from past experience, was a natural hot springs set at 11,000 ft. high above the... [more]
 
 

Living in Jersey

In 1985, I moved from Oregon to New Jersey.  I found myself halfway between Philadelphia and New York City.  New Jersey challenged all my assumptions about pizza, recycling and customer service.  The people were more aggressive.  Wild spaces were harder to find.   Despite the significant cultural differences, I was grateful for the opportunity to live in New Jersey.  Being in graduate school felt like a privilege.  On my drive to campus, I passed a... [more]
 
 

My Light Babies

I am a proud mother of two beautiful children, a graduate of higher education, and an experienced professional.  I have a successful career as a Speech Language Pathologist and I own my own business, but I also have a traumatic past.   In spite of my immense progress, growth, and successes, way down in the abyss that is my deepest being, the shadows still exist and more often than I like, they come out to haunt... [more]
 
 

Birds Like Arrows

A beautiful summer Saturday, I was nine years old.  I faced a pile of ironing, high as my waist—punishment for some misdeed. I’ve forgotten what it was, or why I had done it, only that atonement waited in laundry piles: in washing, folding, and ironing.   I waited until afternoon. Then, in a panic to finish before the grownups came home, I crammed all the clothes into one wash load, even my wool school skirt,... [more]
 
 

Difficult Tasks and Weighty Responsibilities

In 2009 I was fired from an organization I had served for eleven years—working my way up to Vice President.  Part of me was angry, indignant, and ready to fight.  That isn’t the story though. Those are mundane human emotions, not particularly interesting.  But, how I was held—bathed, rather—in the light through this tough time is a much better story.   A week before I was fired my boss confronted me with her belief that... [more]
 
 

Windows

After the surgery my view from the hospital bed was of the shadowy tops of trees and the dark night sky.  The moon was full, adding light to the darkness, though I never saw the full round beauty of it shining in.   I woke up every hour that night.  The sky changed with bright stars, wisps of clouds, rolling clouds, changing constellations.   At midnight, I woke and slowly realized that it wasn’t pain... [more]
 
 

The Last Time I Saw My Father

My father had been a troubled man. As a nineteen year old Marine in Korea, he had participated in the landing at Inchon, and the breakout and retreat from the “Frozen Chosin” reservoir. He was deeply scarred by these experiences, and very seldom mentioned what he had experienced there.   Although he worked with the VA to find relief for what we now call post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), he found no relief. In the end,... [more]
 
 

A Visit from the Divine

The story that springs to mind when I’m asked, “When have you been comforted by God?” seems to need to be told backwards.   Quite a while ago at a Yearly Meeting session, I passed the table of a woman I considered to be an elder of the Yearly Meeting.  We got into a brief discussion, and in my unquestioning way, I announced my certainty of the presence of the divine.  She stopped my babbling... [more]
 
 

God Heard My Prayer

Young Friend’s Story   A few years ago, my sister, my mom, my cat and I were driving back from my grandparents’ house in the country. They live about an hour away from our house in the city. Right before we left, in the late afternoon, it started to snow.   As we drove, the weather got worse and worse. The snow was falling harder and the roads were covered with ice. We were all... [more]
 
 

Hope for a Distant Future

My childhood encompassed a special kind of chaos.  I lived in a tiny one-bedroom house with my family in Central California. I slept in a crib in my parents’ room until after turning six, when my grandmother’s Alzheimer’s Disease progressed far beyond a manageable state and she was finally placed in a nursing home. Then I relocated to her “hallway suite”. Our house was filthy and poorly cared for. Our front porch fell down bit... [more]
 
 

Release to the Captives

My son’s behavior was making me unbearably anxious, and I prayed almost without ceasing.  It was hard for me to focus at work and sleep at night.     It was January 1997.  Jesse had been paralyzed from the chest down two years earlier by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.  We had been devastated, but I had faith that God would heal him if he received all the help he needed.  To that end, we used every... [more]
 
 

Nothing Changed but Everything was Different

About halfway through my undergraduate program I hit a snag.  In order to proceed with the normal sequence of chemistry classes for my major I needed to have taken or be concurrently enrolled in general physics.  But I hadn’t started the physics sequence, and the first class in that sequence wasn’t going to be offered in the coming term.  The upshot of this series of falling dominoes was that I was going to fall behind... [more]
 
 

One Shining Light

Editors’ note: This story may be a trigger for victims of abuse.  Please make sure you are in a safe place when you read.   One night when I was ten, I woke up to an overwhelming presence. My 13 year old brother, M knelt beside my bed with his head down in shame. A pair of scissors lay by my side. My panties, my privacy, and my sense of safety had all been violated.... [more]
 
 

My Mother’s Gift

My mother, Louzelle, was the clearest and earliest manifestation of God for me.  She was spiritually and physically present in her quiet, strong love, which never stopped even when our paths diverged.  She taught me, by being herself, to see “unseen” things like intentions, the heart of a person, beauty, God’s love.   Mom was the youngest of six children.  Her father was a Welsh immigrant who became a County Judge in Oklahoma and traveled... [more]
 
 

Teach Your Parents Well

Sometimes Light comes to us as a gentle glow, other times a glaring searchlight. Raising kids is a crash course in blinding light and the afterglow. One event stands out among many.   My sister-in-law was fighting cancer in California. On a school night at dinnertime we received a phone call, alerting us that Chris had been hospitalized.  No one knew the prognosis, but the doctors were running out of options. Despite the urgency, we... [more]
 
 

My Mentor

As a child, I listened to the story of Saul’s conversion and transformation into Paul.  The story made it sound easy; well, maybe a little scary too.  Saul is on the road to Damascus and God comes to him.  Paul’s transformation overtakes him.  He does not have to choose to be transformed.   Cancer is like that too.  You don’t choose to have cancer.  It is something that happens to you.  What I missed in... [more]
 
 

My Sister, My Mother

One hot summer day about five years ago, I found my sister deceased in her apartment.  I felt that her Spirit had definitely departed. Thankfully, she was with God, but it broke my heart at the time. Although 12 years apart, we were close as our mother suffered from severe bouts of depression. She took care of me.   Three years of difficult probate followed to get her affairs in order.  Now, I’m glad my... [more]
 
 

Against the Tide of Cruelty

At some point in our childhood the painting of the farmer and his wife giving thanks in a field of freshly dug potatoes was taken down from its place above the dining table, and replaced with a photo of an atomic bomb exploding at night over the Nevada desert.  My father worked for the Lawrence Radiation Laboratories in Livermore, California.  For weeks on end he was away, joining engineers and scientists, testing nuclear bombs in... [more]
 
 

Young Friend’s Story

Query: When did your family, or a neighbor, or a teacher help you see something special about yourself or the world around you?  My substitute teacher made me feel good about my birthday.  She was really nice to us.  She gave me a birthday pencil, she complimented my necklace, and she let everybody count the apples on my shirt and have a look at them.   You and daddy made me feel good about my... [more]
 
 

She is My Light

I cried in the car recently.  As everyone knows, cars have a no-crying-allowed rule.   My daughter has an ongoing tantrum problem, and we’ve been at wit’s end trying to figure out how to stop them, or at least shorten them.  So when Taylor told me she found something that helps her calm down, I was thrilled!  She turned on the Ipad, and played an Alicia Keys song called “Never Felt This Way”.  The song... [more]
 
 

Held

When I was growing up, my grandmother practiced a very different faith tradition than the one I was raised in.  It seemed alien to me, and parts of it were even disturbing.  She once told me a story, however, that very much informed my ideas about prayer and intercession and God “hearing” us.   A few years ago I told her what an impact the story had made on me and she didn’t even remember... [more]
 
 

Night Light

Our room was shaped like an L — my sister Kathy’s bed at one end and mine at the other.  Four years stretched between us. Sometimes it was a small stretch, like our room. At other times, those four years were like a continent. In the dark, when I was very young, it was both.   I often greeted “lights-out” with fear.  It was such a lonely time and my loneliness would become fear and my... [more]
 
 

Finding the Light in Hospitality

My family has shown me the Light through their hospitality.  When my grandparents were young adults, they hosted a weekly event at First Friends Meeting.  It was called “Friday Nights.”   I think this happened in the late 1930’s. Grandpa would drive around the neighborhood and fill up his car with as many as 13 children.  Other children walked to the meetinghouse.  My grandma always provided snacks.  My grandpa taught wood shop during the day,... [more]
 
 

Kate

“If you believe you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” Mt. 21:22   I have learned more from Kate about compassion and empathy than from all of the books, theology, teaching and wise counsel yet received. Kate is my 27-year-old niece who happens to have Downs Syndrome.  With a ready smile, a twinkle in her eye and a good word for all, she is a walking sunbeam who radiates love and Light wherever... [more]
 
 

Left Behind

It’s a lesson too late for the learnin’ made of sand, made of sand In the wink of an eye my soul is turnin’ in your hand, in your hand. . . Are you goin’ away with no word of farewell, Will there be not a trace left behind? [Lyrics from Last Thing on My Mind by Tom Paxton]   When I was 5 years old, my mother made one of those unfortunate mistakes that parents sometimes... [more]
 
 

Are You There, Papa?

The web of Alzheimer’s disease is a thief of the worst sort. Much like a spider, it sucks out bit by bit a loved one’s mind and personality so that eventually only a barely functioning shell remains. The web reaches through the brain of the afflicted, tangling it with plaques so they can no longer think or communicate, and the person they once were disappears.      My father’s dementia was well along in its... [more]
 
 

In Christ, There Was no East nor West, and as Far as I Knew no South or North

As a teen I had directional dyslexia. I always carried dimes for phone calls in case I lost my way. Moving ten times before I turned sixteen may have thrown off my compass. While others might have become more competent travelers due to frequent relocation, I was hardly a trailblazer.   In 1971, I stopped for an unexpected layover in Paris with a group of twenty exchange students heading to Barcelona. All public transportation was... [more]
 
 

Stepping Off the Map

I always wanted to believe that God listens to prayers and that miracles really happen, but I’m not sure I was convinced until I stepped off the map. I mean this literally in that I had to give up some comforts, travel to very poor countries, and try to make a difference in the medical care in these places.   Sixteen years ago, I traveled to the Peruvian Yearly Meeting with a group of five... [more]
 
 

Maps

When I was a child, our breakfast nook had two maps of the world:  one was from the 18th Century, the other from the mid-1950s.  I was intrigued by the idea that, through the process of exploration and discovery, we could so improve our understanding of our world.  I decided then that I wanted to be an explorer and discoverer.   Maps tell me about my place in the physical world.  The sense of knowing... [more]
 
 

No Such Thing as Too Much Love

I didn’t intend to be a church-goer.  A solid decade since I took on the name “non-believer,” my re-acquaintance with church came via my daughter, who expressed an interest.  Not wanting to repeat my parents’ insistence on homogenous ideas, I played along, finding a church that would allow her to explore her theistic ideas, without instilling the bigotry and dreary doctrines of my youth.  West Hills Friends offered a community of love and acceptance, without... [more]
 
 

Navigating Without a Map

On June 3, 2005, my husband Matthew Lyon was killed on his motorcycle by a young woman who pulled suddenly into his lane from a side road.  He was on his way to Oregon Episcopal School, where he taught art and spiritual/philosophical courses.   Matthew and I had been married 21 years.    I was in my office, waiting for a client, when the doorbell rang.   I went into the waiting room and was elementally shocked... [more]
 
 

A psalm for the way

Every night it is the same:            no map, only a handful of trust in You.   I stand at the shore of my life each evening            while the day’s light flows away from me,                       all the color pulling down after it                       until only a dim edge remains,                                  and then it is gone too.   I fall over the edge of awareness            as light pulls away and I drift, afloat... [more]
 
 

The Difference

When I was ten months old, we moved to Alaska and I began to live at the edge of wilderness.  First we lived in tiny Skagway, surrounded by towering mountains on three sides.  In Palmer, the mountains filled our living room window, and in turn pulled our gaze back out to their shimmering snowy peaks. Moose wandered in our yard on occasion and we skated clumsily on a nearby frozen pond up the street. Wilderness... [more]
 
 

Soul Collage: Upside down in bluebell woods

– Margaret Kellermann [more]
 
 

wilderness

Thrust into the wilderness,    unwilling     terrified      without choice heels dug in, bloodied as I go       ahead         anyhow landmarks lost      gone life cracked     broken     stripped alone    grieving     lost.   Newness comes the present moment breaks through the Now is greater than grieving the past or fearing the future it demands I see    feel     hear around me I find  beauty     life     love and people,    old and dear      and new Spirit waits, and fills me when I trust... [more]
 
 

The Loss of a Self Among Other Things

  In the spring of 2011, I found joy throughout a rough work situation via solace and outward glow of a new life growing within.  I survived my workdays by patting my stomach and thinking of the little one that would join our family.  Taylor had her own glow as she ran to me, smiled, and hugged me more often than usual.  She could not wait to be a big sister.      I had tried... [more]
 
 

Casting Aside a Now-Useless Map

“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into His likeness, from one degree of glory to the next.”  2 Cor 3:18   “… make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these... [more]
 
 

My Wilderness

I first felt nudged toward pursuing a career as a mortician about three years ago. I quickly dismissed the idea and went on with my life. Every so often I would feel this thought fluttering on the fringe of my mind, as I thought about what I would do next (when my children started school full time and I planned to go back to work).   The little nudges began to occur with more and... [more]
 
 

Changing Form

At first You were my happiness When I felt none You gave me hope For something good And that hope Brought a secret joy You were a daughter Or son A sibling One we cherished And loved You were the smile On my face And the laughter In your sister’s voice. You were all these things From the time we knew you were there Tucked away inside me Until we understood So abruptly That your... [more]
 
 

A Walk to Remember

Sometime after my miscarriage in April 2011, I w as at Midas waiting for an oil change. I had spent at least two weeks sitting in our rocking chair staring blankly, crying, meditating, and communicating with our baby—conveying my deep love and apologizing for my inability to protect.     At the mechanic, I could sit no longer. I was completely numb and vulnerable. Everything reminded me of my loss. I did not want anyone to... [more]
 
 

Sheer Faith

They told me not to look down…yet I felt compelled anyway. I didn’t see a way up the almost sheer, nearly vertical rock face, so I looked down, hoping to see some way to move.  That was a mistake.   I was just learning to rock climb as part of a mountaineering course offered by the Mazamas, a local group here in Portland.  We’d driven to a butte in Washington to practice the skills we’d... [more]
 
 

My Body is a Strict Schoolmarm

Glasses halfway down her nose, Staring me down— No ruckus allowed! Nagging me. I repay her with all kinds of grief: the same currency she grants me.   I cartoon her chin wattle, her saggy arms, laughing at her wide behind.  Caught, I’m banished to the Principal— Corporal re-education—a whacking! The old hag! I hate her! I know I do—but I—   I—love—her—yes—God, I do. In her I witness Mother Mary’s labor groaning, I see... [more]
 
 

Glow in the dark

Glow in the dark (Photo by Margaret Kellermann) The windowsill saint is glowing from inside, at sunset. Her body is giving off light stored from the day. [more]
 
 

Lightness

Last September my children, a neighbor and I were outside in the front yard when we heard shots fired half a block away. We have always felt very safe in our neighborhood, so at first we didnʼt know what had happened.  Minutes later, police cars careened down our street and parked at the corner, where they remained until long into the night. We later found out it was a gang-related drive-by; neither of the parties... [more]
 
 

Not Another Step

When I went to visit Prague in 2002, I followed stories instead of streets.  I followed the story of Rabbi Lowe’s golem, the story of King Wenceslas, the story of Tycho Brahe’s silver nose.  I followed all the interwoven histories and legends of Prague.  It made for lots of walking.   My apartment was in a fairly mundane section of Prague, where cement buildings were tagged with angry scribbles of graffiti.  One night, as I... [more]
 
 

Exercise as Peaceful Prayer

I believe God wants me to be the best steward of my physical body that I can be. I believe taking good care of my body is a responsibility that comes along with the gift of life God has given me.   I haven’t always felt this way. When I was in high school, my asthma was bad and I looked like I was walking around the track at school when I was trying to... [more]
 
 

Discipline

In the spring of 1989 I joined a team to run the Hood-to-Coast Relay Race.  I was in my early thirties, and looking for some inspiration and motivation to get into shape and maybe lose some weight.  Running wasn’t fun, but it was aerobic and “good for you.”   There are no shortcuts, no easy outs when training to run 15 miles (the event has each runner out there 3 times, for distances of approximately... [more]
 
 

The Body is Amazing

This video is an invitation to honor and celebrate the gifts of the human body.  http://tinyurl.com/cbwjwpk —Melanie Weidner [more]
 
 

Listening With My Body

This experience has come through my awareness of a large construction project at my living community, Rose Villa.  Due to begin actively this coming winter and to last perhaps eighteen months intensely, this project will be big (about half of our landscape), disruptive (right in the middle and affecting everyone), noisy, dusty, messy, and totally transformative of the area affected.  Landscape will be vastly changed and nothing will be the same, except that this will... [more]
 
 

Ode to a Fibroid

Hard like a rock Round like a globe Blood filled Like you think you’re nurturing something Invaded my world   Just like a parasite Made of my tissue Blood filled Like you think you are part of me Devoured my energy   You act like a baby Make my body your home Took over my life Like you think you’re in charge Took my dreams   Hard like my heart Empty of life Blood filled... [more]
 
 

My Temple

Sometimes I feel prayers.   At those times, when someone is praying for me, my right temple becomes very warm.  This has happened both when I knew someone was praying for me and when I didn’t know.  On at least one occasion, I felt much better immediately.   I have no theories about my body’s response to prayer because it’s unpredictable.  It doesn’t happen whenever someone is praying for me, and it’s not connected to a... [more]
 
 

My Body as Teacher

My body has been one of my greatest teachers.   When I was a teenager, I used to wish I could have a miracle, so I could see 20/20 and no longer need glasses, which I’d worn since I was 10 years old.   Then one day when I was around 18 or 19 years old, I woke up in my University of Oregon dorm room from a short night’s sleep after a late night... [more]
 
 

A Warm Welcome

One of my best teachers is a girl with wheat-colored hair and green eyes that spark with delight.  She is a poet, world explorer, and horse enthusiast. Because of the West Hills Community, I know this little girl, her dear parents and her adorable little sister. I always look forward to time with my friend, her wisdom and whimsy—and how she runs up to hug me. We are an unlikely pair of friends, at least... [more]
 
 

The Quaker I Most Admire

Recently Mike asked committee clerks, and me, as treasurer, to submit profiles of ourselves for the West Hills Friends website because he wants the website to reflect the community’s shared leadership.   Mike also asked us to complete a survey, and one of the questions was, “Who is the Quaker you most admire?”  My first thought was Wendell Berry, only to discover that he’s not a Quaker!   I wanted to answer the question, so I... [more]
 
 

Light From a Stranger

When I was five, I composed a poem to God.  I remember thinking how amazing that was and how amazing I was.  I felt so capable and creative and smart and I sadly wondered why no one else had ever noticed those things about me.  Growing up, there was always the sense that no one really saw me, my value, or my experiences.  As a friend put it, “I wasn’t even a blip on my... [more]
 
 

Let Me Count the Ways

I am sorry to bring this up one more time to you all but the query for this Chapter overwhelms me with beautiful, grace-filled memories and endless gratitude.   When my husband was dying, we were sustained by community.  Early on, I learned to ask for angels and they came again and again. They came to walk with us literally in an enormous show of support at the ALS Walk. They walked with Fred for... [more]
 
 

Hyperemesis Gravidarum

My childhood religious experience was all about me and god and the relationship between myself and this mysterious all powerful, all loving being. “He” was all I had to cling to – my sense of love, acceptance, belonging, and hope. I was surrounded by believers – most more broken than I.  We masked our brokenness so others were oblivious to our hidden pain.   For 10 years after leaving that life, I worked endlessly to... [more]
 
 

Beyond the Mind

After the birth of my first child in 2003, I experienced an extreme bout of postpartum mania, culminating in a psychotic break. Though I was surrounded by family and friends, no one recognized the signs of my increasingly manic behavior. At first, I felt extremely good, like I could do anything, but I wasn’t able to sleep.  After five days, my sanity disappeared in a flash, and I thought I had entered a new plane... [more]
 
 

Discovering a Caring Community

In 1993 the state of Washington passed a Health Services Act that implemented at the state level much of what the Clintons advocated for (unsuccessfully) at a national level.  The state issued requests for proposals for consulting firms to assist with implementing various provisions of the law, and I led my firm’s proposal related to one of its primary elements.  In January 1994, having been awarded the work, I found myself in front of panels... [more]
 
 

Claire’s Dream

Claire’s Dream of Jesse, 10/06 — a dart to the heart of healing medicine that took me instantly from despair to joy. (Mixed media collage, by Sally Gillette) [more]
 
 

Silent Retreat Gift

I am a member of University Friends Meeting in Seattle and an appreciative attender of West Hills Friends when I’m visiting my sister Peg.   The Northwest Quarterly Meeting sponsors a weekend Silent Retreat every winter in Gold Bar, Washington. I went for the first time twelve years ago after reading another attender’s description of it in my meeting newsletter. His enthusiasm was very down to earth. He talked about Peanuts characters seeing wondrous things... [more]
 
 

Jury Duty

When I received a jury duty summons last November, my reaction was, “Oh, no, I just can’t put my life on hold during the holidays and change my busy schedule!” I read on and was relieved to find out that one reschedule was allowed. I breathed a sigh of relief and quickly filled out and mailed the postcard saying that I would be more available in February. I then promptly forgot about it.   Well,... [more]
 
 

West Hills Friends Loves You

[more]
 
 

Untitled Poem

You lift my heart and I praise You, Lord.   You lift my heart and I praise You; I praise You in the jay in the bare branches of March 1st beside the house,   in the puddle in the pothole reflecting the sky and the utility lines,   I praise you Lord in the neighbor’s flag, in his ornamental plums, in his child’s training wheels,   I lift You in my heart and I... [more]
 
 

By Kindly Words

By Kindly Words Even though I’m near a cacophonous corner on Hawthorne, I choose to sit at this cafe table because there’s always something of interest here.  I mention this to the man at the neighboring table. His name is Joe, I find, and we are instantly serenaded by an older gentleman on the corner. (I’ve seen him here before. Even though his back was turned, he’d swiveled and given me a knowing nod before... [more]
 
 

Jesse’s Stone

After her son, Jesse, died, my friend Sally faced some very hard times. Among much sadness was the significant reality that expenses of his long illness had left her with no financial reserves.  One of the important things that Sally had to defer was placing a marker on Jesse’s grave.   When a friend of Sally’s from West Hills learned that Jesse’s grave had no marker, she and other caring Friends secretly raised funds to... [more]
 
 

The Angel Interpreter Friend

On a raw November afternoon in 2002, amid the throng of weary passengers disembarking from the plane, strode M., a seemingly confident and stunning 16-year-old Honduran girl who spoke no English.  Only a half-smile betrayed her apprehension with us, her circumstances, her life.  With welcoming hugs, we embraced our new foster daughter into our family.   The ensuing couple of weeks were filled with a busy agenda of doctor appointments, introductions, and learning exchanges.  My... [more]
 
 

“Nos perdimos el tiempo por Dios”

Seven of us piled into the Toyota Landcruiser and drove off a half dozen miles from the lake. We were going to visit our friend Eusebio before leaving Peru.  Where the road ended, I scrambled out to walk another half mile across the barren altiplano landscape — three children in tow, baby on my back, husband in front, and our trusted friend, Ed, in the lead.   We were warmly welcomed by Eusebio and his... [more]
 
 

Ten Thousand Lights

As I grew up in the Los Angeles area I saw the few stars that shone through the hazy, but very well lit sky.  I knew there was more up there than the smoggy and light polluted sky showed, but I had rarely seen it.    In my senior year of high school our youth group went to a camp between Christmas and New Year’s Day.  The camp was well up into the mountains, above... [more]
 
 

Heart Filled With Peace

In the grand scheme of things, the surgery I had scheduled to replace my deteriorating hip was “routine.”  Hip replacement is one of the most effective and successful procedures in the annals of surgery, having been performed many thousands of times with few complications.  “You’ll be fine,” I told myself.  “Many friends have undergone far more complex surgeries and come through just fine.”  Conversations with my doctor and other knowledgeable and experienced friends (like Rosalie!)... [more]
 
 

Perfection Out the Window

  —Charles T  [more]
 
 

God’s Tower

My cousin, Jesse Gillette, died in June of 2006. We’d been good friends at times, especially as youngsters. I went through some bleak times in my life after Jesse’s death and for a period was gripped by a terrible fear of death. At that time in my life I seemed to be hopelessly stuck on a path I didn’t want to be on.   Two years to the day after Jesse’s memorial, I had a... [more]
 
 

The Eagle and the Sunrise

I wish the dying process were more like the movies — relatively quick without protracted pain or suffering — but it seems it’s rarely that way. It certainly wasn’t for my brother-in-law, John, as he went through this process a few years ago. He’d been diagnosed with colon cancer that eventually spread to his other organs and, bit by bit, over the year, his body deteriorated from the handsome, vibrant, strong man he used to... [more]
 
 

Lost and Found

I’ve always found it challenging to listen to God’s voice — but on one occasion, I heard it very clearly.   A number of years ago, as part of my job, I drove up the Washington coast to Westport, near Grays Harbor, to observe testing at a school.  I stayed in a motel right on the beach, overlooking the ocean.  When testing was finished for the day, I was free for the rest of the... [more]
 
 

In My Time of Darkness

This is, indeed, one of my treasured stories of Light on my spiritual journey.   It was one of the first times, if not THE FIRST, I came to worship with West Hills Friends.  I was in the midst of a time of spiritual confusion, of losing faith in a theology that had carried me through childhood, young adulthood, and safely into my early thirties.  But that day at West Hills I had nothing, and... [more]
 
 

Untitled

When skies are clear on Winter days, the sun beams through tall windows and sparkles across the 90-degree therapy pool. Often the only one present, I feel the freedom to twirl and splash.  The salty water holds me upright.  I can dance in the beauty, joy and wonder of warm, liquid Light. —Thea [more]
 
 

When the Light was Hidden

The darkest time for me in the last year was a place where the sun shines more than 350 days a year.  

   I went to Botswana with hopes of serving and of immersing myself in a new culture. I loved the Peace Corps, having served for two years in the late sixties.  My wife harbored a dream of the Peace Corps for more than forty years.  It was a gift to be given... [more]
 
 

Finding Home

I’ve been searching for over a year, waiting expectantly to find Home.   Actually, I’ve been looking for home since the day I left an untenable, unsafe home and marriage five years ago.  I also remember occasions as a child when home didn’t fit me, or vice versa: times I feared the anger of others and ran to find safety in a hiding place indoors or out, a place I could release emotions without anyone... [more]
 
 

Opening the Gift

The first all-church retreat that I attended with West Hills Friends featured Stan T. as our retreat speaker.  This was in the early- or mid-1990s, when I was already several years into a spiritual struggle with theology and faith and changing understanding of important things once believed with great certainty. As part of our time together, Stan led us in several guided meditations.    Imagine (Stan told us) that Jesus has a gift just for... [more]
 
 

I Am Not a Patient Woman

I am not a patient woman.   As a teenager, I waited for a respectable way to leave home and then I waited to find a respectable place to live when I was no longer welcome at home. Then I waited to save enough money to finish high school at night while I held down a day job to pay the rent.   A few years later I waited to qualify for enough financial aid... [more]
 
 

Waiting in the Silence

This story is one of many that could be told from this time of challenge and fear.  As in any complex situation, multiple threads can be followed and multiple stories told.   Years ago I was in a very difficult situation and received the unvarnished message that I was to make a major change.  There were many factors to consider because it would affect other people and also change family finances.  It was very clear... [more]
 
 

In the Shadows

Where the shadows live Where the terrors of imagination Stalk me Till I sink under The nightmare of dreaming   The dark specter haunts me my daydreams taunt me I seal the past Hidden at last In the dark places That I never forget   I have faced my fear and my fear came up short It won’t engage me Or give me credit for winning It merely slinks out Like it was never an... [more]
 
 

Something Happened

Without warning, I would feel a sudden pain inside my belly.  It was always a sharp, stabbing pain.  After a moment, the pain would vanish as inexplicably as it had arrived. For a couple of years, I endured this terrible sensation over and over.   Because the pain was so unpredictable, I never thought of myself as pain-free.  The pain was never gone; it was only lurking.  I knew it could ambush me at any... [more]
 
 

Waiting for a Child

Thinking of a time of waiting could not be easier.  The Light has been on a dimmer switch for the past year and a half.  In spite of our deep desires and vibrant hopes, my husband and I have been unable to conceive a child.  Month after month, we have been face to face with the same disappointment.  It is stunning.  Both very healthy, we’d expected to become pregnant easily.   With no idea what... [more]
 
 

The Great Wave

Whenever I feel led to do something that I’m afraid to try, images come to my mind of being adrift in a flimsy boat in a large ocean. My dad used to say, “It’s like being up a creek without a paddle.” The feeling is scary and it takes spiritual guidance, faith and a bit of courage to overcome the fear. Since I was a little girl playing with a stethoscope, I liked the idea of... [more]
 
 

Interminable

On the threshold of the Universe, at the cliff-edge where the impossible becomes real,   And with it, fear: why me, at this time, –and her?   Standing at a crossroads of galaxies of light years of lifetimes of synchronicity of coincidence of circumstance of attachment of existence –and not.   And not. Still.   Turning slowly against gravity, heart in throat, I accompany this one back to reclaim a home among stars.   Back,... [more]
 
 

Intervention

I don’t understand lots of things about God; but this was a God-thing that happened to me.  On July 16, 2009, I drove across Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, on mission for the Christian Peacemaker Teams.  By nine o’ clock that night in the rain I was rounding the ring freeway around Indianapolis, still headed east, and I was becoming afraid.  The last money I’d made had been in Oklahoma painting an outbuilding for Pastor Nagel. ... [more]
 
 

S.W.A.K.

I send letters.  And cards, and postcards, and manila parcels and care packages. This goes way back for me, a fact unearthed by the stack of letters and cards and drawings I have found in the attic that I left for or sent to my parents here and there from about age five.   Sending a letter is a real act of faith for me.  I have ripped open a letter and then resealed it... [more]
 
 

I Am Tired of Taking Care of Death

In July, my dad was diagnosed with a brain tumor and given six weeks to live.  I took leave from my job to care for him and those weeks were both a gift and a weight.  Fear often brought me to my knees; bent over in anger, sorrow and disbelief. Clinging to the lifelines of the friends, family and kind strangers kept me from sinking under a sea of sorrow. The doorbell would ring and... [more]
 
 

A Week in Haiti

In my sophomore year of high school, I joined a medical team to Haiti led by my mother. Throughout my life, my mother had been on many medical mission trips to third-world countries, but I had never gone with her.  My mother is a pediatrician and enjoys providing free medical care to people who live in poverty.  I had always wondered whether I would be able to go with her.   The medical team went... [more]
 
 

Storm Vision

“Storm Vision,” detail of 2007 painting — Margaret Kellermann [more]
 
 

What Doesn’t Bend

Buildings and bridges are made to bend in the wind to withstand the world, that’s what it takes All that steel and stone is no match for the air, my friend what doesn’t bend breaks what doesn’t bend breaks – Ani de Franco   What doesn’t bend breaks. As I contemplated how to tell this story, these lines kept going through my head. I grew up Southern Baptist, with what you could say was a... [more]
 
 

Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind: Grief, Fear and Awe

Luke 18:17:  “Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.”   On a Friday morning in June 2005, about 8 a.m., my life changed completely, without warning.  Matthew, my husband of 21 years, was an art teacher at Oregon Episcopal School and also a well-known potter and student of spirituality. That morning, he was killed instantly on his way to... [more]
 
 

Standing for Silence

When I first became a Quaker, I attended a large unprogrammed meeting that some called a “popcorn meeting” because of the high level of vocal ministry and the way people seemed to “pop up” immediately after another person spoke, without leaving time for silence.    In that meeting, it was customary to maintain silence for the first half hour, but after that, there was little silence.  The meeting was so large that someone always seemed... [more]
 
 

From Fear to Love

Twenty years ago after moving back home to the Pacific Northwest to start my pediatric practice, I had to drive through North Portland to see patients at Emanuel Hospital. I found myself locking my doors and feeling fearful as I drove through the neighboring streets. I had just witnessed the LA Riots and Rodney King atrocity in California, and had heard that North Portland was a dangerous area for shootings.  Soon afterward, I attended a... [more]
 
 

Meeting God in Technicolor

It’s fascinating for me to describe how a quilt comes to being: it begins as a subconscious collection of four or five fabrics, usually, and then I start to become aware of the collection that’s been swelling, and begin to do it more consciously. The quilt you see in the picture is a collection of fabrics from many sources: fabrics acquired on trips, fabric cut from clothing that didn’t fit after all, clothing bought at... [more]
 
 

Modern Ark

Modern Ark (watercolor) by Margaret Kellermann [more]
 
 

O Holy Spirit

I am alone in a small town in Texas, working for the Company, an introvert, living in a hotel, eating alone in restaurants, defaulting to invisibility rather than seeking out relationship.  The last thing I want to do is call attention to myself.   But still the creative spark burns.  Creativity and ego have been locked in an uneasy dance for over 40 years.  Sometimes there’s just a nanosecond between the spark and the thought,... [more]
 
 

Considering Water

Considering Water:                                 I settled deep into my body                                              feeling my way into prayer                                              for the waters of Japan.                               And the waters there, so injured                                              by the radiation they have absorbed                                              while helping humans harness atomic energy                to  power all manner of uses,                                                             both good and of dubious value,                                              echoed my prayer for their healing                                                             back to me, still in prayer, in my body.  ... [more]
 
 

Tsunami

Once I went to a birthday party. We were invited at this party to engage in a process called Soul Collage. We found images from magazines to use in collage that represented the journey we were on at this time.  I was happy to be there. This was my kind of party with my Friends- symbolic, process oriented, artistic, and metaphoric. Yes, I was ready and happy be there.   My husband had been recently... [more]
 
 

Minding the Light

I’ve heard that there’s nothing new under the sun, and that’s certainly true of Minding the Light. Our Collective Journal is a recent offshoot from a river of Light that Quakers have drawn from and written about for centuries.   Here’s what I know of the story.   When I came to West Hills over 20 years ago, my faith in God was based largely on personal experience, and I was thrilled to hear the story of George... [more]
 
 

Interconnections

When I read the query for this chapter, I began thinking about my artistic and creative journeying.  I love to paint, collage, sculpt, perform, write, speak, assemble, weave, design, sew.  I wanted to tell a great story of something I had created and how it had been in response to the Light.  But while trying to narrow in on one specific creation, I realized that all of the creative work I do is in response... [more]
 
 

Resolve

Bear him. Bear him lightly, as an incense bearer swings the censer,   as a dancer bears the air above her and across her shoulders,   as bread is borne home hot and light from market in a basket,   as bell notes borne on waves of air from open, arched courtyards,   bear him. Bear him like that Job, who bore sharp news with song,   who heard from God with one hand over... [more]
 
 

Jesus Under the Bridge

In the evening light on a river walk as we dipped under the thundering traffic a picture of Jesus pasted high on the undergirder beam smiled down at us How fitting it was posted on a span that crossed the waters and sad, that as in life, He too was trod upon, unknowingly by the feet of those who need Him most.     —K. L. Killian    [more]
 
 

A New Purpose

I don’t know that this story fits the query for this Chapter, but I offer it anyway.   A few years ago I was minding my academic business, largely doing what I had been trained to do: research in the basic biophysics of proteins. This work took me in a number of directions (as it still does), often guided by the interests of other researchers who come to me with problems that are perhaps amenable... [more]
 
 

Joining West Hills Friends Church

In 2006 I joined West Hills Friends Church. This was not a transfer from another Friends Church nor a simple transfer from another church body. I had been a member of the Presbyterian Church, and an ordained minister of that church for over fifty years.   I had spent part of the summer of 1949 traveling with a group of young people and working in churches in Texas and Louisiana. The rest of the summer... [more]
 
 

The Unwelcome Change

It began when my son came out as Gay during his senior year in high school.  My husband quit talking to him, although living in the same house. That only increased my commitment to support him–I loved this creative, sensitive, gifted son.   I learned from books and movies about LGBT issues and culture.  I helped where I could as my son found his new community and went off to college.  I feared for his... [more]
 
 

Just When You Think You Are Done

When I was young, my church taught that women were to be submissive, under the authority of some male:  father or husband or church leader.  Women were not to have authority over men.  This is a common teaching in Christian churches, but that did not make it easy for me to accept.  It felt wrong, even though I could read in the Bible where it was clearly right.  But if it were true, why did... [more]
 
 

The Turning Point

Introduction:  Last year, a week or two after we published the first chapter of Minding the Light, Fred Edera came to me and said, “I have a story.”  At that time, Fred was losing his ability to speak, but he was able to tell me the bare bones of the story below.  It was clear that Fred intended this story for Minding the Light, but it didn’t work for the chapter at the time.  I’ve held... [more]
 
 

Resisting Dream Wisdom

Until reaching middle age, I rejected the information dreams offered as mere concoctions of my unconscious mind, influenced by happenings of my day, or what I ate before going to bed.  I now see dreams as gifts from a loving God who is guiding me day and night.    Around 1983, I had a dream that ultimately landed me at West Hills Friends, but it took about fifteen years to get me there.  I had... [more]
 
 

Death Wasn’t Part of the Plan

Twenty-five years ago, I worked as a summer intern at Reedwood Friends Church. It was a great opportunity.  The church had four very competent pastors on staff.  In that company, “I felt like a grasshopper in my own eyes.”  I felt very inadequate.   Because my internship was during the summer, all of the other pastors kept leaving for vacation.  More than once, all of them were gone at the same time.  On those rare... [more]
 
 

“His name is Elmer, we have to take him”

My ears perked up when I heard the announcement in our small Quaker meeting concerning a young Guatemalan boy, crippled from the effects of polio.  He had been cleared to receive medical care in Portland and needed only a foster home for his time here.  My husband had also wrestled with polio in 1952, so I was sensitized to the ravages of the disease and couldn’t stop thinking of the fellow.    At the time... [more]
 
 

Na Rae

She was five when she plunked herself in front of the piano and proceeded to play Fur Elise…flawlessly.  In contrast to the other medically needy children that we had fostered, Na Rae was from economically able and educated parents.  The advanced technology, however, necessary to repair her fragile and sickly heart was not available in her home of Seoul, Korea.  For months preceding her arrival, my family anxiously awaited our new ‘daughter’, praying daily for safe... [more]
 
 

Held by Water

“I am haunted by waters.”  Like a song, the last refrain of the movie A River Runs Through It pulled at my heartstrings and released a flood of tears and buried longing.  Surprised by my response, I realized that I ached for the rivers of my youth.   I was born on the Rogue River in Southern Oregon. Too young to connect with this broad body of water, somehow by osmosis, the calm seeped into my soul. ... [more]
 
 

Climbing Trees

So close and so far. Standing there,  I breathe deep.    The smooth bark caresses my feet, Beginning my upward climb. Daring to reach for one more branch One foot after another.    Leaves rustle together, Birds sing their sweet songs  of yesterday.  The voice of nature is loud and clear.  One foot after another.    The rhythm of the branches drives me on.  Reality turns into a speck  Waiting for me at the ground. ... [more]
 
 

Easter Morning

This query about sacred space brought me many memories of remarkable places. Places recognized through space and time as holy sites, as thin places where the veil between this world and the sacred other is transparent and slight. I recalled walking the worn and ancient stone labyrinth in Chartres Cathedral beneath the stained glass rose window.  I recalled an eerily silent two-hour walk through the ruins of Chaco Canyon, one raven the only sign of... [more]
 
 

Reflections on Sacred Space

I first attended Meeting for Worship in a small house in Flagstaff, Arizona.  When I entered the gathered meeting, there was a hush that felt palpable.  The silence was like the cool, quiet of a cave; like a living thing, it embraced and supported me.   My first labyrinth walk was at dusk during a retreat.  The labyrinth, nestled in a clearing in the forest, consisted of three spirals with a space in the center. ... [more]
 
 

Sacred Mountain

Under a gray sky shaped like God’s hand A sea shore gentle and fresh Bright light from heaven shining through the sleeves On precious kindred dear   Leaving tumult behind A place of rest, rebirth and renewal Of new-found realization that life’s journey need not be frozen in time Abiding beside still waters   Mountains are seen differently by birds Song birds in suburbia surprise the newly arrived Sweet sounds that are a gift from... [more]
 
 

Sacred Space

I worked for a week at a project near the town of Needles. Its purpose was to clean up an incursion of hexavalent chromium seeping underground toward the Colorado River upstream from where the City of Los Angeles draws its drinking water. But there was a problem. The local Mojave tribe claimed the pipeline cut through its sacred space, the Mystic Maze, a series of furrows created by the ancient ones before the dawn of... [more]
 
 

A Medley of Sacred Spaces

While allowing my mind to savor and roam through the idea of “Sacred Space,” several memories formed almost simultaneously.  So much for roaming. . .   St. Meinrad Seminary.  The first memory took place at St. Meinrad Catholic Seminary/Monastery in Southern Indiana.  My good friend Joseph, who had been a student there, suddenly got a “hankering” (leading) to go to Sunday night mass, which was open to any interested person.  It must have been in... [more]
 
 

The Tree

Is something sacred because we, or others, hold it sacred?  Or is something sacred because it IS?   Knowing as I do that there are multitudes of answers to this question, I can still be bashful about acting on my answer in public.   Two weeks ago at my living community, several events marked the beginning of what will be a long process of structural renewal.  A particular event struck me with a call to... [more]
 
 

The Inward Sacred Space

I have always been directionally challenged, and I’m thankful for this because twice when I was lost, I found something sacred.       Many years ago, I took a year off from nursing and lived in Great Britain. While touring France, I lost my way and somehow found myself in the Taize Community.  It was near Easter time, and I stayed for a week in a loving, spiritual community surrounded by the beautiful Taize music... [more]
 
 

My Most Sacred Space

This morning I woke up in a temple–my body. I woke up and thanked God for this gift of flesh. Sometimes, I treat my body like a utility vehicle, driving around until a light on the dashboard alerts me, “You live in the Temple of the Holy Spirit! Show her some reverence!”  It’s hard not to override my body’s messages, even in Quaker Meeting.   Often in Open Worship the seating disrespects my spine, and... [more]
 
 

The Hill

When I was in grade school, West 37th Avenue came to an abrupt end.  There was a steel guardrail to mark the limits of civilization.  Beyond the pavement, the ground was covered with weeds and tall grass.  A path, curving like a question mark, slipped past the authority of the guardrail.  That path rose with the slope of the Hill.     There wasn’t much to entice you upwards.  There was no beckoning destination.  The... [more]
 
 

Better View

When my son Eric graduated from college in Malibu, California, he took his first job as youth pastor of the church he had been attending for four years. I visited that church several times and was struck by something strange every time. The rather new, imposing, richly designed sanctuary of that church was built on a bluff overlooking the ocean. It was a billion-dollar view. But the pews all faced in, toward a wall, away... [more]
 
 

My Safe Sacred Spaces

For me, a sacred space is usually a quiet place. It is any space where I stop what I am doing to listen or talk with God. There was a sacred space for me, a very long time ago when I was still single. It was a quiet beach in Marin county in California. In fact, I was alone. It was a wonderfully safe place where I was able to freely, angrily yell openly at... [more]
 
 

Somewhere Else

When I hear the words sacred space, I think of a place I have visited almost every day for fifteen years.  Some days, I stay only for a few minutes and others for an hour or more.  While there, I sit in the warmth of God’s comforting presence while something mysterious happens.  Healing energy, like a stream of living water, flows through me, flushing painful feelings from deep within and washing them away as tears.  When... [more]
 
 

Under a Pine Tree

In the summer before my senior year in high school, a friend of mine brought her Bible out and we read it together on the grass strip in front of her house. That was the first time I had read a Bible.   After that, I got a Bible and read it quite a lot. I read through the New Testament. I prayed and talked to Jesus.   One night, as I lay in bed,... [more]
 
 

The Glory of the Ordinary

In 2009 I was part of a community – a ministry school.  One of the things that was set in the curriculum were days of reflection – times set apart for seeking the presence of God – creating sacred space. . . Some of my classmates went off to remote places…the forest, Mt. Shasta – the lake.  I chose to stay home in my “cell”.  The following offerings came out of the very quiet space... [more]
 
 

Message in the Labyrinth

Labyrinths have always been sacred space to me, whether I’m walking the path in silence or to quiet music, alone or with fellow travelers, seeking an answer to a challenging question or simply seeking a deeper connection with God. Walking the labyrinth takes me deep into a place of inner stillness, as it has for countless seekers down through the ages. As I walk, I feel connected, not only to God and to my own... [more]
 
 

Sacred Spaces

Recognition of sacred space depends on my ability to see it:  to be open to it, aware of it, and be present with it.  Yes, I can name the ocean, the mountains, the many places where I have experienced the Sacred in nature, had a deep spiritual experience, or been with a person who radiated love.  When I remember those times I have been aware of sacred space, whether it be a physical place or... [more]
 
 

Freedom of Dead Clams

Over the years, I’ve learned how to talk like a pastor. However, it never feels like my native tongue. When I’m gathered with other pastors, I am acutely aware of the language barrier that separates us. They are a flock of unrelentingly cheerful sheep; I am an introspective goat, prone to melancholy. I feel like Woody Allen at a fundraising dinner for the All Stars of Jesus. When I am gathered with other pastors, I... [more]
 
 

Laughing at God’s Plans

In my experience, following God’s plans usually involves taking many small steps whose consequences are hard to see at the time; only looking back can I see the path God has been laying out, and my reaction is usually a smile or tears, not laughter.  For laughter, there must be an element of surprise.   I have been blessed by a few of these occasions, but none more memorable than last summer, the day before... [more]
 
 

One Smooth Stone

I was appalled.  I was at Yearly Meeting for the first time, and a speaker had invited people to come forward in a way that sounded just like an altar call.   The speaker had been talking about the power of words spoken in anger to wound people we love.  He said that being hurt by words can be as painful as being hit with a rock and can leave lasting scars.  At the end... [more]
 
 

Behold I Stand at the Door and Knock

Knock knock. Who’s there? God. Really?  Is it really You, at last? That’s not the right response.  You’re supposed to say, “God who?” Oh.  Sorry.  God who? Let’s take it from the top; works better that way.   Knock knock. Who’s there? Jesus. Wait; last time you said “God.” Can’t you follow simple instructions? Sure, but you said… Never mind; let’s begin again.   Knock knock. Who’s there? Banana. {slight pause} Banana who? Orange you... [more]
 
 

Playing Games

The low winter sun streams through the Douglas fir and cedar branches along the Wildwood Trail. The trail winds along a contour line out in the deep wooded heart of the park and I am alone. Well, almost alone. Around a bend in the trail comes my dog, running full out, her ears flapping and mud flying out behind her. She skids to a halt in front of me, her doggy face practically grinning as... [more]
 
 

Laughter in an Oasis

Our visit to Palestine was ending and we were in a small town not far from the Ben Gurion airport. The town was named Neve Shalom ~ Wahat al-Salam, Hebrew and Arabic meaning “Oasis of Peace.” Neve Shalom ~ Wahat al-Salam is no ordinary village, rather it is an intentional community where Jewish and Arab Israelis live together, working to create a place of peace in the midst of the rancor, fears and strife of... [more]
 
 

Waiting For a Sign

I’ve always been attuned to the natural world, particularly birds, so, not surprisingly, God often communicates with me through birds and nature. I learned long ago that when nature behaves in unnatural ways, I’m to pay attention: God is speaking and wants me to listen.   One day I had a strong leading to take a certain action, though I no longer remember what the action was. I do remember that I wasn’t sure I... [more]
 
 

What’s the Most Important Thing in Telling a Joke?

Yet once again I’m sitting in the back of the meetinghouse, feeling sorry for myself, wishing not so much to get back my lost theology as wishing there was something to fill the void of that loss.  Hearing everyone else happily singing the songs that once spoke of my faith, seeing others who are content with their knowledge and experience of God, feeling isolated, I find myself thinking, “I don’t belong here.”   Before you... [more]
 
 

Experience in Haiti

Last April, I went to Haiti with a medical team from West Hills Friends to provide free medical care in a clinic, and I’d like to tell you about one of the amazing spiritual experiences I had while working with “strangers” there.   I worked in the pharmacy, and one day the Creole translator called a 4-year-old boy to the window to take his liquid worm medicine.  The boy’s mother brought him forward, and his... [more]
 
 

Awkward Awakening

Strangers – stalking – stealthily – somberly – swiftly Strangely and awkwardly – to me at least – smiling Waving my way – arms out – but cumbersome me      Awkward – unknowing – “Who are you – what      Foreign space or time brought you?”   Quickly – change the lenses – filter the light May I dance back to back – now that’s not so bad –      But I cannot see your... [more]
 
 

Strangers on a Plane

We take as an article of faith that God is present everywhere, and that there is that of God in each of us, but I am still always amazed at the places God shows up to remind us of this fact – and the people God sends to remind us.  And one of the last places I expected God to show up was at the LA International Airport a few years ago when I was... [more]
 
 

Bend in Life’s River

A few months ago, as I helped prepare my childhood home for market, I envisioned a new family living there, a couple with two little girls. Laughter rang through the long-empty house; children raced and tumbled over the hills and waded in the shallow stream, feasting on blackberries, apples, plums, and pears. The family raised a garden together and gathered by the wood stove on a cold winter’s evening, as we had. I was captivated!... [more]
 
 

How the Garbage Lady Saved Our Lives

A little over twenty years ago, we were floundering.  We’d become very disenchanted with most organized religion, despite a few long and intimate involvements with a variety of churches.  We’d served in administrative and lay capacities in several congregations, had close friends in the ministry, and other friends that we believed would identify themselves as devout Christians.  But something was missing for us.   We identified a lot with Gandhi, admiring Christ, but rejecting Christians... [more]
 
 

The Raggedy Man

One day about ten years ago while I was living in California, I was driving back to my office at lunchtime when I noticed a man sitting on a bench at a bus stop.  His hat and clothes looked worn; his hair was longish, his beard unkempt.  He wasn’t begging or even looking outward, but my heart was strangely stirred to help him.  I had only a $5 bill to offer and considered driving to... [more]
 
 

Mysticism and Magic

When I was in college, I took a class called Medieval Mysticism.  I had high expectations for that class.  I wanted something much more than an academic experience.  I wanted something much more than a grade on my transcript.  Yes!  I wanted to hear the voice of God in my ears.  I wanted to see a vision.  I wanted to feel the presence of God in a way that would change my life forever.   ... [more]
 
 

Steve

In 1981 I lived in the Seattle area, and I decided to get involved in the train museum in Snoqualmie, Washington. I figured I would get out there early, while they were firing up their steam locomotive, and help somehow. There’s usually plenty to do on a steam locomotive, so I figured they would have me wipe grease off the siderods or something.   By the time I finally got there, it was about an... [more]
 
 

A Stranger in Istanbul

I once visited Istanbul, Turkey, on a cruise.  I boarded the last tour bus, which was only half-full.  I sat behind the other passengers, so that not only did I have a seat to myself, but an empty seat across from me.   I loved every part of Istanbul.  The buildings, the signs, the businesses, the people, the lush greenery between the buildings and on rooftops; it all just thrilled me.  I snapped pictures continuously,... [more]
 
 

The next table

Angel strolls down Southeast Hawthorne, raising his arms, making his baggy coat flare out like black wings. “Go out and buy things!” he yells to shoppers, who step a little livelier around his perimeter but are careful not to look at him. “Put them in your closet!” he urges. “Come back and buy more things!”   I’m sitting at a cafe table on the corner. Conor is at my feet, hoping for crumbs. I guess... [more]
 
 

When Truth is Spoken in Love

Potluck in the Park is an organization that has been feeding the hungry every Sunday afternoon in downtown Portland, rain or shine, since 1991. Currently four to six hundred people in need show up on any given Sunday. On the second Sunday of every month, someone from West Hills Friends delivers about 200 pieces of fried chicken to Potluck in the Park. With a desire to serve God and witness the circumstances of others, I... [more]
 
 

The Patron Saint of Impossible Causes

It was a typical Sunday afternoon at Winco; harried shoppers crowded the aisles, jostling carts and mumbling terse apologies. As usual, I stopped in the Mexican food aisle. The exotic brands, bright colors and Spanish words always entrance me…and the candles! These votives feature Our Lady of Guadalupe in her sunburst aura and other saints less familiar to Anglo Americans. This time I gave them only a glance, in a hurry to complete a long... [more]
 
 

Overshadowed by God’s Presence

As I sit writing, I recall that one year ago today I was in critical condition in a twenty-five bed hospital in Jenin, occupied West Bank, Palestine. Although I was in a coma and have no memories of the almost three weeks that I spent in two Middle Eastern hospitals, friends and family have reconstructed those days that were full of God’s presence and love that was shown, not by one stranger, but by many... [more]
 
 

Occupied with God

I spent November 12th and 13th of this year in solidarity with the Occupy Portland movement in response to the Mayor’s demand that the protesters leave Lownsdale and Chapman parks.   Politics aside, there were many times during the day and night when I saw God’s presence in the faces of strangers. I saw God’s presence when I witnessed a police officer respectfully assist a disabled veteran protester out of an area in the camp... [more]
 
 

Jesus Under a Streetlight

The East Hastings area of Vancouver, British Columbia is a rough neighborhood. I have volunteered in shelters in the Old Town area of Portland and I promise you, Portland has nothing to compare to this. Throngs of homeless people live on the sidewalks and in buildings that should be demolished. Many of them are drug addicts, so it has a desperation that you can almost taste. It felt to me like everyone was unpredictable and... [more]
 
 

El Desconocido

I leaned into the rain.  It was an epic Texan downpour, the kind of sudden, intense rain the old folks call a gully-washer because it could turn Austin’s creeks into floodwaters in the blink of an eye.  I was on foot, soaked to the skin, no coat, a mile and a half from home… How had I gotten myself into this predicament?   Just then a battered pickup truck pulled over to the curb and... [more]
 
 

Mon Ange

I was eighteen years old when I met my angel.   At age seventeen I was chosen for a fledgling study/work program in Switzerland run by an American professor and his wife. I would live in a chateau full of international students, study French, English literature and European history with the professor in the mornings, and help out with a little housework and cooking in exchange for my room and board. I packed everything I thought... [more]
 
 

Above the Treeline

There often exists a fine line between adventurous zeal and myopic irresponsibility.  My husband and I have erased it several times in several places.  In one quite memorable case, God protected us, strengthened us and blew our socks off.   It was nearing the end of summer 1994.  Our plates were typically full and overflowing, so inserting a family vacation into the agenda was more of a desperate attempt at escape than a wise well-planned... [more]
 
 

Coming Home Again for the First Time

I grew up as a child on my grandfather’s almond ranch in the flat, chemically controlled farmland of California’s Central Valley. I couldn’t wait to get out. The place seemed to have no nature and no culture. Two years of college did not still my restless spirit. It was the Vietnam War era and I took a job as a Conscientious Objector at a home for emotionally disturbed children in the lovely, golden hills of... [more]
 
 

The Book of Nature

When I was 21 I began observing the moon. I was well versed in the natural history and geology of my environment, but was woefully ignorant of how the sun and the moon cycles worked. Maybe I was inspired by the clear skies in Southern Oregon or my continuing interest in nature based spirituality. Maybe God was tapping me on the shoulder, pointing her finger at something I needed to see. Whatever it was, I... [more]
 
 

The Dance

She feels her heart pound.  She rises to the balls of her feet to shift into motion.  Gravity pulls on her bones as her weight tumbles forward.  The fall and catch of running takes her in a large arc.  She controls the momentum for a moment to hang suspended in time and space.  Her arms sweep and reach; the sinews taut, muscles balanced.  The slick cartilaginous surfaces glide as she transfers the sweep of her... [more]
 
 

Moving Sanctuary

As a teacher, back to school time causes me to reflect on my summer. One of my big questions every year is, “Did I get enough time in the forest, along the seashore, sitting near a river, sitting in my front yard soaking in the peace of the day and the trees that surround me?” To return to school feeling nourished and ready for “people time,” this time in nature is essential to my soul.... [more]
 
 

Nature’s Lessons

That the sun shines and the rain falls      on good creatures and bad,   That seeds must die that plants      may live,   That great trees grow from      tiniest of seeds,   That living things give their lives      so that others may eat,   That everything around us teaches      about life, death, love,      being,      change, and mystery,      —-in full color and      more than 3-D—-   Still... [more]
 
 

Surrounded by Life

For more than 20 years, I have lived in the same house.  Sometimes, I think about what the place would have been like as wilderness, many years ago.   It would have been a hillside.  Even today, heavy rains will form a creek on the downhill edge of my property.    The ground is clay.  Whatever sunlight reaches the soil is filtered by tall trees.  It is a place where ferns and blackberries thrive.  Most other... [more]
 
 

A Walk in the Garden

I awoke one fall morning to discover a dense, dripping fog.  I dressed extra warmly and headed over to the Rhododendron Garden, one of my most reliable places to encounter God.  I parked my bike and ambled down the winding path, noting the rich visual texture of the early fall colors wrapped in fog.  I mused, “So what does God have in store for me today?”   I walked out onto the low bridge across... [more]
 
 

Boulders in the Desert

Allan Hunter was on his knees right beside me stretching out over the pond to see the pollywogs.  “Look!  That one has hind legs now.  How’d that happen, Patty Lou?”   I remember trying to answer his impossibly huge questions.  Trips to the park with Allan, our minister, began very early in my life and were so special!  He actually asked everyone about these things because life for him was a miraculous adventure.  Other times he... [more]
 
 

The Perfect Stillness

Almost exactly three years ago, Beth and I were celebrating our honeymoon in southern Oregon. We had rented a cabin located deep into the Cascade Mountains. On August 9th, I entered this into my journal:   Beth and I went exploring today. We made our way through paths of pine trees, and impressive cedars. The smell of juniper and pinesap blew with the air, so sharp and intense. I was searching for a sugar pine... [more]
 
 

No Doubt Now

I don’t remember a time when I didn’t feel God’s presence in nature, but I do remember when I couldn’t put a name to the amazing wonder, beauty, and peace I felt whenever I was immersed in it. I’ve always felt that presence flowing around and through me, filling my senses, mind, and heart with love, but it wasn’t until I was 17 that I knew it was God.   Up until then, I questioned... [more]
 
 

Richardson Grove

Standing among the Redwood trees in California’s Richardson Grove State Park, I feel the presence of God so powerfully that I think everyone must feel it.  After all, it’s where God lives (or at the very least a favorite vacation spot).  The majesty, power, serenity and beauty of those towering giants all reflect and magnify God’s light as it streams earthward through the canopy on its way to the forest floor.  Not even the densest... [more]
 
 

Hallowed Be Thy Name

For many years I returned to an island in Maine for a few weeks in June. It was a quiet time, still between seasons, no longer spring but not yet full summer. The ferry ride to the island was an hour long ritual of shedding my winter skin, my city skin and settling into a different rhythm. The blue wind and wide sky, the sea scattered with bright lobster buoys rolling between the islands, the... [more]
 
 

Elizabeth’s day lilies

In February of 2002 my wife Elizabeth passed away unexpectedly. Fortunately we had talked about each other’s wishes for after death, although I had not thought I would be following those wishes so early in our life. As she requested, Elizabeth was cremated and when spring came I brought her ashes to my parents’ property in the Adirondack Mountains of New York to be spread amongst the day lilies that have been growing in a... [more]
 
 

Therefore Keep Watch

In June of 2007 I saw a crow in the neighbor’s swimming pool (down the hill from us) that looked like it was trying to get out and couldn’t. Other crows were flying about. I ran down, put my hand under it, it sat on my hand, and I lifted it out. It was small and somewhat fuzzy so I think it was young. I lifted it by the “tummy” up to the pool-equipment roof.... [more]
 
 

Untitled

Bill and I engaged in what I call “advanced family planning.” We decided to both adopt and make kids from scratch. My most vivid experiences of God’s voice all had to do with adoption. The first came years before we began the process and happened dur­ing open worship. I felt a voice very unlike my own – very de­cisive and commanding – saying to me that adoption would be some­thing that would happen in my... [more]
 
 

Suffering

In 1971 I moved from the West Coast to upstate New York and began working for a literacy organization in Syracuse. Later I travelled to Latin America to document literacy work the organization was doing in Colombia, Panama and Mexico as part of a fund-raising initiative. My job was to describe the organization’s work for its North American donor base.   I remember taking along a book by a popular evangelical writer, thinking to use... [more]
 
 

Double Search

I can’t do anything about God’s Presence, but I can fail to be open to it, and that is when I am in crisis.  My arrogance and self-will have been at times a barrier to God’s presence for me.  That’s when I am in crisis.  Sometimes it is not easy to be open.  When I am, regardless of other cir­cumstances, God is there.   I have been inordinately blessed in my life.  Simply being born... [more]
 
 

Lo, I Am With You Always

When I was new at West Hills Friends, a woman stood up in Open Worship and spoke with great emotion about feeling separated from God.  Though she cried out to God with longing and grief, she could not feel God’s presence at all.  I listened to her in shock, for I had never felt that way in my life.  It was as unimaginable to me as hearing someone say they had never seen the sun,... [more]
 
 

The Dark Night

My life was badly off track, and I knew I needed God.  My hus­band and I were separated, my 6-year-old was depressed and acting out, and I was in a painful on-again, off-again relationship with my supervisor “John.”  In frequent prayers, I asked God to take away everything about me that wasn’t good, including my attachment to John.     Things got worse, and I thought God wanted me to try harder.   Scripture says to think... [more]
 
 

Seeing the Light

When I was quite young, I asked my Mother if I could go to Church. She said,” Sure, if you can find a ride.”   This was the beginning of my spiritual hitchhiking. My next door neighbors accommodated me, the wayward child of liberal agnostics; where they went, so went I. The first Church was Congregational with a boring Sunday School. Every week I was given the same picture of Jesus on a card or... [more]
 
 

Light Within, Light Without, Light all Around

Words were new to me and God had no name. Light woke me up in the morning, and during nap time, the dust motes floated down a great pyramid of light, a host of ballerina fairies. In the kindly face of the moon, light followed me home from the movies, where light had danced stories onto the screen. Light came in from outdoors and enticed me to go see.   Out in the garden, light... [more]
 
 

Questioning My Way to the Light

When I was 18, I had a list of questions.  Although they seem a little silly to me now, these questions routinely provoked a passionate response from the self-identified Christians at my high school.  How did the sons of Adam and Eve find wives?  How could a wooden boat (built with bronze-age tools) sustain two of every creature on the planet?  Could God make a rock that is too heavy for God to lift?  Time... [more]
 
 

The Light in the Darkness

I was 5 years old, and I didn’t understand that my mother was dying.  I did know that something scary was hiding in our house, and I was afraid of things I hadn’t minded before, like the swans on the bathroom curtains and the gaping black hole of the closet doorway at night.  I was so frightened that my mother took the swans away at bath time and closed the closet curtain at bedtime.  ... [more]
 
 

Seeing the Light Within Darkness

When did I first know the Light, as in the Light, or Presence, of God? Though I’ve been Quaker all my life, it took until I was over 50 years old to understand that my inability to see – or my unknowing of God as – the Light was not due to my living in evil darkness or in some fold of the Heavens that excluded me from all those others who were able to... [more]
 
 

Untitled

It was terrifying. I was 12 years old. In the mountains above Death Valley, walking back to the campsite with my sisters I experienced a sudden, involuntary shift of consciousness, as if everything in my life up to that point had been a languid dream and then instantaneously, I was thrust into the unbearable realness of the present moment. I tried to tell my parents but all I could think to say was “I feel... [more]
 
 

I Didn’t See Fairies When I Was Young

I didn’t see fairies when I was little, I had to learn to see them after I was grown. As a child I played in redwood groves and mudflats, feeling the pulsing life in the land. My friends and I pretended to be raccoons, pioneers and alligators in oak groves, meadows and creeks. We were as close to the grass and sky as snakes and gulls. I didn’t need fairies to know the living presences... [more]
 
 

My Friend Jesus

When asked of my religious background, I often say I was raised by a pack of atheists.  I do this to distract people, to divert attention away.  I speak of my step-parents, who were raised as Catholics and hold residual anger from being forced to wear dogma that didn’t fit.  I mention my father, who says that he has heard brilliant people argue both for and against the existence of God and that both sides... [more]
 
 

When Did You First Recognize the Light?

Is this a trick question?  There should be a chronologically straightforward response here, right?    It might have been the time the seven year old me, seething from the clearly oppressive wrath of parental domination, ran out into the woods behind our house.  Seeking any kindred spirit to pour out my woes, I was drawn to a solitary young conifer surrounded by the oak-beech-maple forest.  Under that canopy I found shelter, solace, I felt accompanied. ... [more]
 
 

Life: More Than We Think

An experience at age five left me with a very clear understanding about life and the universe.  At the time I was very sick and ached so much it hurt to move.  Because of the polio epidemic my mother was really worried and a doctor actually came to our house.  I remember my mother crying when he told her that I did not have polio.  I remember that illness as different because I felt so... [more]
 
 

The Color of God

Growing up, art was something I was clearly bad at.  It wasn’t just the way that the art teachers pointedly ignored my work, or my close to failing grades.  It was the lost feeling I experienced in art class.  In writing, English, algebra or even public speaking classes, I knew what was required and it came naturally to me.  With art, I didn’t understand what I was supposed to be doing, never mind how to... [more]
 
 

 

Stories in this Chapter

 

Learning to Listen

 

Tears of Love

 

Holding God’s Hand

 

My Body is a Strict Schoolmarm

 

Are We There yet?

 

Becoming Myself

 

My Body, My Teacher, My Life

 

Learning New Seeing

 

Prescott Street

 

Acceptance

 

Dancing in the Light

 

Fiona’s Dream

 

Where Words Come From

 

An Empowered Moment

 

Speaking Out

 

Reassurance

 

Traveling Mercies

 

Be Praised, My Lord, Through All Your Creatures

 

For Me

 

A Summer’s Journey

 

Now I Will Tell You a Better Answer

 

Flight Into Egypt

 

Gratitude for Traveling Mercies in the Everyday

 

Milepost 128

 

What a Gift

 

Pew Art #1

 

When I Reach the Place I’m Going I Will Surely Know My Way

 

My Kind of People

 

Pew Art #2

 

Nicho by Claire Nail

 

Light

 

Love at First Listen

 

My Angel

 

Allowing Ourselves to Dream

 

It Took a War

 

Best Dog in the World

 

Come to the Table

 

How I Got Here

 

Young Friend’s Story

 

Held in the Light

 

Stranger in a Strange Land

 

Finding Love, Life and Joy

 

Seeking Truth

 

A Good Time to Listen

 

Waiting for the Future

 

My Vigil

 

The Question

 

Shattered

 

Listening for God

 

Two Dreams

 

A Time to Wait

 

The Mountain

 

Ice Cream at the Mall

 

Reading the Signs

 

The Obstacle is the Way

 

Young Friend’s Story

 

The Light Shining in Darkness

 

Wrapped in the Light

 

Wild Plum Blossoms

 

Light Along the Way

 

Drawing

 

When Light Meets Darkness

 

Hold On Let Go

 

A Crack in the Foundation

 

Body Blows

 

Grace

 

One Little Prayer

 

Young Friend’s Story Chapter 20

 

The Wall Between Our Houses

 

Dominos of Love

 

How I Lost My Nemesis

 

Dazzled

 

Connections

 

Acceptance and Navigating Grief

 

Change in Perception

 

Learning Ways of Sensing From the Mother

 

Migration of the Tarantulas

 

Hearing God: Kay at 4

 

Light in Gramothe Village

 

God – an Image

 

Pancakes

 

The Scent of Compassion

 

Voice of the Killdeer

 

Sensing God’s Presence in the Mountains

 

Waterfall, Silver Falls State Park

 

Reborn

 

Breath of God

 

Called Home

 

Questioning My Way to the Light

 

The Unwelcome Insight

 

Reorientation

 

Dream Discoveries

 

Illumination

 

A Turning Point

 

Motherly Love

 

When the Change Came

 

I’ve Told This Story Before

 

Light to Fight the Shadows

 

On Earth as it is in Heaven

 

He’s Chasin Me

 

Jukebox Driver

 

Celestial Harmony

 

Minding the Light

 

Citadel of Otherworldly Light

 

Comfort in the Night

 

The Light Illuminates Pride

 

Antigua Experience

 

Journeys

 

Good Friday

 

Song of Peace, Place of Peace

 

Communion

 

Is There a God?

 

Conundrum

 

Living in Jersey

 

My Light Babies

 

Birds Like Arrows

 

Difficult Tasks and Weighty Responsibilities

 

Windows

 

The Last Time I Saw My Father

 

A Visit from the Divine

 

God Heard My Prayer

 

Hope for a Distant Future

 

Release to the Captives

 

Nothing Changed but Everything was Different

 

One Shining Light

 

My Mother’s Gift

 

Teach Your Parents Well

 

My Mentor

 

My Sister, My Mother

 

Against the Tide of Cruelty

 

Young Friend’s Story

 

She is My Light

 

Held

 

Night Light

 

Finding the Light in Hospitality

 

Kate

 

Left Behind

 

Are You There, Papa?

 

In Christ, There Was no East nor West, and as Far as I Knew no South or North

 

Stepping Off the Map

 

Maps

 

No Such Thing as Too Much Love

 

Navigating Without a Map

 

A psalm for the way

 

The Difference

 

Soul Collage: Upside down in bluebell woods

 

wilderness

 

The Loss of a Self Among Other Things

 

Casting Aside a Now-Useless Map

 

My Wilderness

 

Changing Form

 

A Walk to Remember

 

Sheer Faith

 

My Body is a Strict Schoolmarm

 

Glow in the dark

 

Lightness

 

Not Another Step

 

Exercise as Peaceful Prayer

 

Discipline

 

The Body is Amazing

 

Listening With My Body

 

Ode to a Fibroid

 

My Temple

 

My Body as Teacher

 

A Warm Welcome

 

The Quaker I Most Admire

 

Light From a Stranger

 

Let Me Count the Ways

 

Hyperemesis Gravidarum

 

Beyond the Mind

 

Discovering a Caring Community

 

Claire’s Dream

 

Silent Retreat Gift

 

Jury Duty

 

West Hills Friends Loves You

 

Untitled Poem

 

By Kindly Words

 

Jesse’s Stone

 

The Angel Interpreter Friend

 

“Nos perdimos el tiempo por Dios”

 

Ten Thousand Lights

 

Heart Filled With Peace

 

Perfection Out the Window

 

God’s Tower

 

The Eagle and the Sunrise

 

Lost and Found

 

In My Time of Darkness

 

Untitled

 

When the Light was Hidden

 

Finding Home

 

Opening the Gift

 

I Am Not a Patient Woman

 

Waiting in the Silence

 

In the Shadows

 

Something Happened

 

Waiting for a Child

 

The Great Wave

 

Interminable

 

Intervention

 

S.W.A.K.

 

I Am Tired of Taking Care of Death

 

A Week in Haiti

 

Storm Vision

 

What Doesn’t Bend

 

Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind: Grief, Fear and Awe

 

Standing for Silence

 

From Fear to Love

 

Meeting God in Technicolor

 

Modern Ark

 

O Holy Spirit

 

Considering Water

 

Tsunami

 

Minding the Light

 

Interconnections

 

Resolve

 

Jesus Under the Bridge

 

A New Purpose

 

Joining West Hills Friends Church

 

The Unwelcome Change

 

Just When You Think You Are Done

 

The Turning Point

 

Resisting Dream Wisdom

 

Death Wasn’t Part of the Plan

 

“His name is Elmer, we have to take him”

 

Na Rae

 

Held by Water

 

Climbing Trees

 

Easter Morning

 

Reflections on Sacred Space

 

Sacred Mountain

 

Sacred Space

 

A Medley of Sacred Spaces

 

The Tree

 

The Inward Sacred Space

 

My Most Sacred Space

 

The Hill

 

Better View

 

My Safe Sacred Spaces

 

Somewhere Else

 

Under a Pine Tree

 

The Glory of the Ordinary

 

Message in the Labyrinth

 

Sacred Spaces

 

Freedom of Dead Clams

 

Laughing at God’s Plans

 

One Smooth Stone

 

Behold I Stand at the Door and Knock

 

Playing Games

 

Laughter in an Oasis

 

Waiting For a Sign

 

What’s the Most Important Thing in Telling a Joke?

 

Experience in Haiti

 

Awkward Awakening

 

Strangers on a Plane

 

Bend in Life’s River

 

How the Garbage Lady Saved Our Lives

 

The Raggedy Man

 

Mysticism and Magic

 

Steve

 

A Stranger in Istanbul

 

The next table

 

When Truth is Spoken in Love

 

The Patron Saint of Impossible Causes

 

Overshadowed by God’s Presence

 

Occupied with God

 

Jesus Under a Streetlight

 

El Desconocido

 

Mon Ange

 

Above the Treeline

 

Coming Home Again for the First Time

 

The Book of Nature

 

The Dance

 

Moving Sanctuary

 

Nature’s Lessons

 

Surrounded by Life

 

A Walk in the Garden

 

Boulders in the Desert

 

The Perfect Stillness

 

No Doubt Now

 

Richardson Grove

 

Hallowed Be Thy Name

 

Elizabeth’s day lilies

 

Therefore Keep Watch

 

Untitled

 

Suffering

 

Double Search

 

Lo, I Am With You Always

 

The Dark Night

 

Seeing the Light

 

Light Within, Light Without, Light all Around

 

Questioning My Way to the Light

 

The Light in the Darkness

 

Seeing the Light Within Darkness

 

Untitled

 

I Didn’t See Fairies When I Was Young

 

My Friend Jesus

 

When Did You First Recognize the Light?

 

Life: More Than We Think

 

The Color of God