QuakerSpeak

Friends Journal presents interviews with modern-day Quakers & seekers on topics of spiritual concern.

09/05/2025

When Betsey Kenworthy’s adult son suggested she and her husband downsize from their large home, maybe he thought they’d get an apartment in town. But Betsey wasn’t ready to settle down—so, she told us, they put the house up for sale, bought an RV, and were on the road in three months.

When Betsey Kenworthy’s adult son suggested that she and her husband downsize from their large home, maybe he thought they’d…

08/29/2025

Last year, we spoke with Rania Maayeh, the head of Ramallah Friends School in Palestine, and Omar Tesdell, the clerk of its board of trustees. Founded in 1869 by two Quaker missionaries, the school has carried on through two world wars and several transitions of power in the region, from Ottoman rule to British administration, Jordanian governance, and Israeli occupation.

Earlier this week, Israeli military forces conducted a raid on the city of Ramallah, extremely close to the school's campus.

Ramallah Friends School was founded in 1869 by two Friends from New England, when Palestine was still under the rule…

08/22/2025

When we interviewed Sara in 2020, she talked about how "my religious experience has been a coming into and out of Quakerism my whole life." As a theater major in college, she found "the theater-making process was really a way into understanding other people and in telling stories, and it felt spiritual; it felt like an extended worship sharing sometimes."

“There is a lot of storytelling and a lot of theater-building in what we do as Quakers... We just don't call it that.”

08/19/2025

"Quakerism started as a revival or renewal process for Christianity at a time when some folks were feeling like the existing church wasn't possible to reform," Jade Rockwell, a pastor at West Elkton Friends Meeting in Ohio, reminds us.

Quakers today are "living in a time when we can see inaction is risky," she continues. "If we're not able to respond to our world, bad things can happen. And we may be morally responsbile if we aren't able to be responsive and active."

“Quakerism started as a revival or renewal process for Christianity at a time when some folks were feeling like the…

08/08/2025

Ron Hogan joined the Friends Publishing team in the spring of 2020, taking responsibility for our email newsletters and social media posts (including this one). Sheltering at home during the pandemic meant that we didn't meet him in person for more than a year—and when we did, we had all sorts of questions about what led him to Quakers!

The Kingdom of the Heavens is a massive project, for lack of a better term... it’s something we have to work towards."

08/02/2025

Solveig-Karin Erdal traces her Quaker heritage back to the first Norwegian Friends, who converted as prisoners of war in England and brought their faith back with them after Napoleon's defeat. The meetinghouse where her ancestors worshipped was also the place where Lars Hertervig, nineteenth-century Norway's most famous painter, was introduced to Quaker faith and practice.

During our conversation, Solveig-Karin shared a passage from Melancolia, a novel by the Nobel laureate Jon Fosse, in which the young Hertervig's father takes him to his first Quaker meeting.

Solveig-Karin Erdal traces her Quaker heritage back to the first Norwegian Friends, who converted as prisoners of war in England…

07/25/2025

"Quaker prayer," David Johnson explained to us in 2019, "is a matter of letting go of outward words, and of our thoughts and imaginations, and of centering down into a place of silence where we can wait and notice the movements of God within us."

What has your experience been with prayer as part of a Quaker practice? Have you felt what David describes as "a breathing from the heart of gratitude and joy"?

What does Quaker prayer look like? Australian Friend David Johnson says it’s something every human being does naturally, and it leads to inordinate spiritual refreshment.

07/18/2025

Even when there are conflicts around him, Pradip Lamichhane of the Bhaktapur Evangelical Friends Church says, "within myself, I feel peace." And it's that spiritually infused sense of peace that motivates him to try to resolve the issues that crop up within the family or the workplace or the church meeting. "Sometimes I fail," he admits. "That's okay!"

Pradip is one of many Quakers who've opened up, in our recent conversations, about how the peace testimony informs their faith, from individual encounters to perspectives on national and global affairs.

Even when there are conflicts around him, Pradip Lamichhane of the Bhaktapur Evangelical Friends Church says, “within myself, I feel…

07/11/2025

"The Book of Revelation... has been made into a joke and a laughing stock," C. Wess Daniels told us in 2021, soon after the publication of his book, Resisting Empire. He reminded us that the New Testament's grand finale isn't meant to be a prediction about the end of the world.

At its core, Revelation is "a two-thousand year old critique about stuff we’re still dealing with," Wess continued. "There’s a lot in there to unpack...There have been communities standing in resistance to this for thousands of years. Let’s draw on that wisdom and those tools where it helps—where we can—and join that community of resistance over time."

"Revelation doesn't have anything to do with predicting the end of the world," explains C. Wess Daniels.

07/04/2025

Willa Taber is a regular attender at Three Rivers, a q***r Christian Quaker Zoom-based group within New England Yearly Meeting. She had already been processing the emotional aftershocks of Donald Trump’s re-election last fall when, shortly upon taking office, he signed an executive order that, in essence, made her identity as a transgender woman illegal.

“Even in that numbness and shock,” she says, “my response was to take my Trans Pride flag out and put it on my porch—saying, ‘I am here, I’m not going anywhere, and I’m not going to hide.”

Willa Taber had already been processing the emotional aftershocks of Donald Trump’s re-election last fall when, shortly upon taking office,…

06/27/2025

"In the deepest well of my heart, there’s a place where I touch God and God touches me and it’s like a connection point," Christopher Sammond told us in 2023. It took him a long time to feel that connection, though. He shared a story about a Quaker retreat at Pendle Hill, where he was surrounded by Friends who seemed more spiritually attuned than he was at that time.

"I could see they had something I wanted, but I didn’t even know what it was," he recalled. "But I could tell that they had something that I was after."

“Putting language on the experience of that of God within us, I think, is a risky business,” says Christopher Sammond.…

06/23/2025

"My journey into faith and with faith and through faith is primarily to do with seeking a direct connection and communication with the Divine," Tim Gee explains—and for a long time, that led (as it has for many Friends) to Scripture taking a back seat.

"As I've experienced a number of things, though, I've found great companionship with different people in the Bible—wonderful empathy as I observe them seeking a direct relationship with the Divine, trying to understand what it is God wants them to do."

You know, there’s a story about a Jewish scholar, probably the same amount of time as Jesus was, and he was challenged to recite the whole of Scripture while standing on one leg. And he stood on one leg and said, “ Do not do unto others what is hateful unto yourself, everything else is detail.

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