Last fall a few of us (younger) Quaker ministers from the Northwest Yearly Meeting got together to start work on a podcast. After a little deliberation we decided to call it Composting Quakerism (Facebook page), bringing together two of my very favorite things. Compost is rife with theological allusion, and
Continue reading →Just the other day I said to my wife, Emily, “I really like being a dad.” I will tell our oldest daughter L that from time to time as well. I find that there are some events that take place, some moments along the journey of the day that really
Continue reading →Text from my sermon June 13, 2010. This morning we begin our summer long discussion on Quaker testimonies with the testimony of truthfulness, or what has more typically been called the testimony of truth-telling, honesty, integrity, against oath-taking, etc. Irregardless of what we call it, listening to, learning, and living
Continue reading →Here is a really great interview from the Iconoclast this week which looks at the difference between a theology of creation and a theology of empire. The person they interview is Wes Howard-Brook whose commentary on John “Becoming Children of God” is really good (from what I’ve read so
Continue reading →The text from my message given to Camas Friends Church June 6, 2010 Personal Histories In the last couple weeks, I have been reflecting a lot on my own history, my own personal narratives that have shaped my life. With having recently gone home this probably doesnt come as
Continue reading →While I was at Pendle Hill a couple weeks back I mentioned there was a lot of talk about meeting houses closing, there was a lot of talk about death, some literal death, some the death of our meetings and with it a (big) piece of our own stories. But
Continue reading →This morning someone in our meeting requested prayer for the oil spill and during the time of prayer the image of the oil spill came back to me in a powerful way. I envisioned the hole where the spill gushes out as a seeping wound. Creation is deeply wounded, and
Continue reading →Last week we discussed Proverbs 8, here are some of my thoughts on the passage. Lets be honest here, the (divine feminine) language in this passage can be little shocking to American Christianity, which is so often dominated by men. Who is wisdom? Well, whoever she is, shes
Continue reading →A lot of people want to know what a pastor does with her or his time throughout the day. I have one person who mentioned that they figured I had a lot of free time, because “pastor’s don’t do much more than prepare sermons right?” Right? Well not
Continue reading →One idea we’ve been doing at our church (Camas Friends) we started last fall, it’s called “Last Sunday’s for the Earth.” The idea was to create a forum where topics could be discussed using films as a starting point for those conversations. We have shown a number
Continue reading →Last week I wrote a little about our experience of visiting another Quaker meeting in Portland last Sunday. During that time of open worship I thought some about Acts 2 and Pentecost. It was obvious that there is much that these two communities have in common and can learn from
Continue reading →I came across this quote today while working on my sermon for Sunday: “We have tended to use particular power models for God that image divine power as like that of a monarchical ruler, or a military general who crushes all who oppose him. The model of power assumed here
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