Quaker Life
Our Ministry
Quaker Life is a quarterly publication which reports and reflects on how, as individuals and communities, we live our faith. Through Quaker Life, we share stories and images from Friends around the world about what it means to live faithfully, following a Quaker pattern, in these times. How does Christ inform your life, shape your life, lead you here or there? How do you discern and answer the call of the Inward Teacher? What obstacles to Love have you overcome? How is Christ redeeming you these days?
Written and illustrated by members of Friends United Meeting, our stories are addressed to both those who are already committed Friends and those still exploring. Friends’ faith. Quaker Life is sold in single copies and by subscription, through our online bookstore.
For Readers
Recent issues of Quaker Life have considered the themes: “Many Gifts,”“Sabbath,” and “Death and Resurrection.” We've also published a compilation edition, “The Best of Quaker Life, 2016–2023.”
Volume 8 | Number 3 | Winter 2024
Greg Morgan
When I arrive in the surgery prep area, I find Julia, a black woman in her late 70s, sitting upright on her gurney, legs spread in front of her under a blanket, with a despondent look on her face. I greet her and confirm she’d requested a chaplain visit; she looks at me, nods, then stares away again.
Volume 8 | Number 2 | Fall 2023
Katie Terrell
I was listed in the hospital database as the emergency contact for their mother. Early on in my time as director of an emergency drop-in shelter for women and children, I learned that many people become homeless because of a lack of resources, including a lack of family or social network. Without a support system, they not only have nowhere to turn for shelter, they also have no one who will go to appointments with them, no one in the waiting room when they receive hard news, no one to list as an emergency contact. So I’ve made sure that my guests at the shelter know they can always list me, that I’ll always sit in the waiting room with them, that I’ll always be there to drive them home when they are released, no matter what time of day or night. Little did I know that this could also mean becoming legal guardian of their children.
Volume 8 | Number 1 | Summer 2023
Julie Rudd
On Ash Wednesday, a couple weeks ago, I packed up the babies and headed to St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church in Lebanon for their midday service. In the Quaker tradition we don’t “do” Ash Wednesday; still, it’s the beginning of the church season of Lent in which people often adopt specific practices or short-term fasts as spiritual preparation for the joy of Easter. I’ve been spending enough time at the altar of our diaper-changing table that I didn’t feel the need—or the capacity—to take on some other new spiritual discipline, but I needed to practice transporting the twins on my own and I do love the Ash Wednesday liturgical experience.
Volume 7 | Number 4 | Spring 2023
Words & pictures by Betsy Blake
It took around two years for our committee to form and get on the same page. It felt like a small eternity. We yearned to follow scripture’s teachings, wrestling with our hesitations. Could we truly welcome the foreigner? What would it take specifically to help refugees resettle in our home city? I remember watching news stories during that lag. So many people who needed aid. They were desperate. The image of the drowned toddler, washed up on the beach. Still, we were organizing. And then, like that, we were clear. We were ready.
For Writers and Artists
Submit to Quaker Life on Equality
“So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” [Galatians 3:26-28]
“Keep to the equal measure and just weight in all things, both inwardly and outwardly, that you may answer equity, answer truth in the oppressed, and the spirit, and grace, and light in all people. And so, being kept in righteousness, and equity, and truth, and holiness, that preserves you over the inequality, injustice, and the false measure, and weight, and balance in all things, both inward and outward. And this keeps your eye open, keeps you in a feeling sense, keeps you in understanding, and true wisdom, and true knowledge, what you are to answer to all men in righteousness, and truth, and equity, both inward and outward.”
—George Fox, Epistle 272
Quaker Life is a periodical that seeks to capture a mosaic of spiritual experiences expressed by members of the FUM community. Each edition highlights a specific theme of spiritual life. Quaker Life, vol. 9 no. 3, will be focused on equality. Please consider sharing with the community of Quaker Life readers your stories about practicing equality. Write specifically for Quaker Life, or, if you have sermons or blog posts that you’ve already presented on this theme, send them on to us.
If you need help thinking about equality, here are some questions that might get you started—but if you have thoughts about equality that have nothing to do with these questions, we are equally happy to receive them:
• How would you define equality, when it’s clear in a practical sense that human beings have varying strengths and giftedness?
• In what ways has an orientation toward equality determined how you respond to other human beings—and perhaps to other parts of creation?
• In what ways does your Friends Meeting or Church practice and embody equality?
• Do you recognize a difference between equality and equity? Is it a difference that guides your actions?
What we are looking for in a submission is an account of your own experience with equality—personally, or within your family or work place or neighborhood, or in the life of your faith community.
We are also eager to accept visual art: concrete or abstract images about equality, accompanied by a brief description of the piece’s meaning, or the process of creation, or both. We have no word limits for textual submissions, but, as a useful guide, most of our essays run between 175 to 1800 words. Images should be digital files between 1–10 MBs in size, in jpg, tiff, or png format. We are not able to accept handwritten submissions. If your visual images are not digitized, please send us an inquiry about submission.
To submit your work (text or image), or for more information, please email danielk@fum.org. Also include with your submission a short biography of yourself, including the Meeting or church where you worship.
Submissions for Quaker Life vol. 9, no. 3, should reach us by 11/6/24.
Upcoming Themes
Updated themes coming soon.
Subscribe to Quaker Life
Subscribe through the FUM Bookstore Quaker Life page.
Subscriptions can also be made by email to info(at)fum.org, or by phone at +1-765-962-7573.
For group subscriptions, contact Kathryn Kouns by phone or email.
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