I invite you to revisit these Queries, the vast majority of which are still relevant, whether we are talking about 10 years or over 90 years ago.

Pendle Hill Pamphlet

Queries

226. Homosexuality & the Bible: An Interpretation (by Walter Barnett; 1979)
Why should the biblical injunction against homosexuals be deemed bin-

ding on Christians when so many others are not?
If we take it for granted that Paul considered homosexual behavior a

sin, how is Paul's attitude towards homosexuality & homosexual

behavior as a sin God's attitude?

How is Paul's attitude due to cultural conditioning and Paul's predilec-

tions & prejudices?
Why would God make sexuality a snare & a trap to us?
What on earth do goodness, love, justice, mercy, & kindness have to do

with which sex a person prefers?
Who are heterosexual Christians to judge homosexual acts to be a sin

for homosexuals?

227. Woman Ministers; a Quaker Contribution (by Robert J. Leach; 1979)

228. With thine adversary in the way: a Quaker witness for reconciliation

       (by Margarethe Lachmund; 1979)
    What does it mean to live now as a Christian?
  How could nations live together from entirely egoistic points of view

without its leading to the catastrophe of war?

229. Henry Hodgkin, the road to Pendle Hill (by John Ormerod Green-

wood; 1980)
How is the state of luxury that separates us from even the best of our

native fellow workers necessary?

[How would] becoming Chinese subjects [completely]?
How have we been afraid to speak the truth about our own failure, that

of our own churches and countries, and so put back the cause of

truth?

230. The life of the spirit in women: a Jungian approach (by Helen M.

Luke; 1980)
How do we tell the difference between the message of a “worldly spirit”

and The Spirit?
What kind of free spirit is it that breathes through me & is the dominant

influence in my life?

231. Quaker testimonies & economic alternatives (by Severyn Ten Haut

Bruyn; 1980)

How should one develop business for his own advantage in the light of

his Christian beliefs?
How is it likely that wholesome conditions of work & adequate wages

will be attained if the employees have no share in determining

them?
How will sharing in management have great educational value &

possibly release latent energies in employees?”
What principles can Friends offer to business people, labor leaders,

consumer advocates, anyone who is deeply involved in the manage-

ment of the economy?

232. The life journey of a Quaker artist (by Dorothea Johnson Blom; 1980)
How can you move to higher ground without sometimes losing the view

and finding the going rough?
What is the inherent function of art?

233. Friends and the World of Nature (by Theodor Benfy; 1980)

Why should a Quaker open the door to a development so destructive of

religious concerns?

234. Lucretia Mott Speaking: (compiled by Mary Hope Bacon; 1980)
What does woman want more of than she enjoys?

Of what rights is she deprived?

What would this nation be … if she were free of this … injustice?
Why is it that your religious worship has regard to Sabbath day devotion

rather than an every day truth?
Why is it that you aren't uplifting the poor & the lowly?
How are you making the gospel “glad tidings of great joy” to all people?

235. A.J. Muste, pacifist & prophet: his relation to the Society of Friends

(by Jo Ann Robinson; 1981)

236. Four Women, Four Windows on Light by (by Carol R. Murphy; 1981)
“How will you open or close the door upon the angel visitant, who

cometh in the quiet of meekness, as he came of old to the patriarch

at noonday?”
How are there 2 worlds, a tangible and an intangible,
How is there only one seen in different perspectives?

237. Reaching Toward God (by Michael Marsh; 1981)
What can one reasonably believe about the reality & nature of God?
What does the awareness of a greater presence signify?
What is the nature of the ultimate explanation?
From what source do people get the capacity to grasp in part how the

universe [i.e. ultimate explanation] works?
How can the ultimate explanation “give” a person capacities?
What is my motive in seeking God?
How can we consider God the law-giver to be God as son, [Logos]

made flesh?

238. Lawrie Tatum, Indian Agent: Quaker Values and Hard Choices (by

Robert Hixson; 1981)
How can Quakers be as effective at policy-making as in policy-protes-

ting?
How can military force by justified if the only alternative appears to be

even more bloodshed and violence?
And if not, then what methods should Quakers adopt to prevent war-

like people from harming others and themselves?
How does the Quaker insistence on principle that makes for good

conscientious objectors, make for ineffective leaders and decision-

makers?
What value are Quaker ideals if they cannot be realized in society at

large?

239. Growing old: A View from Within (by Norma Jacob; 1981)

What is it really like to Grow Old?

What have I done thus far with the gift given to me, for which I must

answer?

Where do I go from here? What spiritual and material resources are

available to me?

How can we bring to men the same kind of freedom in careers which

women are now beginning to enjoy?

What if there is a wheelchair in my future?

How long does stuff I need to replace need to last?

What do I keep, throw away, sell, or pass along?

When should I give up driving the car?

What is a way of making as sure as possible that the burden of caring

for me doesn't fall on my children, who have their own children to

care for, which must take precedence?
What comes next?

240. 2 Moral Essays: Draft for a Statement of Human Obligations; Human
Personality (by Simone Weil; 1981)
What is the nature of faith [in a reality outside the world] and what are

its logical consequences?

241. Quakers and the Use of Power (by Paul A. Lacey; 1982)
What are we to say when our government sets out to reduce govern-

ment interference in citizens’ lives by destroying the Clean Air Act or

Voting Rights Act?

How do Quakers deal with issues of authority and power?
What do you gain in clarity by speaking of the administration, instead

of talking about X and Y?
How did the director actually dominate Pendle Hill in the recent past?
How do leadings bring greater harmony & justice into the life of the

community or institution?
How do leadings address issues clearly, accurately & sensitively?

242. The Journal and the Journey (by Mary Chase Morrison; 1982)
How, where am I going to find the resources to make good on all the

promises I made to life, & to myself?

An important part of me felt imprisoned. In submission to what?
What do your dreams say to you?
Who was I now? How was I to function effectively as this new me?
What was happening to me in my Inner Country that snakes should

begin to move into it?
What was I supposed to do about my internal snakes? What is he in

the interior zoo?
Where is the crack in my image-structure?

Satan standing alone, made a choice. What was it? Is the solipse part

wrong in itself?
How can I change [the judgmental life I live]?
How can I live lightly, like a child playing?

243. Joel Litu, Pioneer African Quaker (by Rose Adede; 1982)

244. Reflections on Simplicity (by Elaine M. Prevalet; 1982)
What do we want more than anything in the world?
How much of what we say do we mean?
How much of what we mean do we say?
How much does what we say really mean?
Would it be possible to discipline our word?
Just what is our part in securing the hundredfold blessing that we now

enjoy?
How can we even begin to sort it all out?
What do we really need? Where is my excess and why do I do it,

anxiety, greed, carelessness, forgetfulness?

245. Alternative Christianity (by John Punshon;1982)
How is the Friends’ interpretation of the mind of Christ and the New Tes-

tament as valid as that of the major branches of the Christian religion?
How does the Bible, after being critically examined, contain history, pro-

phecy, & doctrine that we are under an obligation to accept because

it is in the Bible?
What does God have to say about current issues?

246. Quest there is (by Elizabeth Gray Vining; 1982)
When shall we learn to pray not to “what I think Thou art but what thou

knowest Thyself to be?”

247. The Study of War as a Contribution to Peace (by Wolf Mendl; 1983)
How can we use our knowledge and understanding of war to promote

a more peaceful world?

248. The Candle of the Lord (by Elfrida Vipont Foulds; 1983)
“How are we gathered?”
How have we evolved a working pattern which will cope with such a

challenge?
How are we ready to live as if the Kingdom of God had come?
How are we ready to believe that the Spirit of Man is the Candle of the

Lord?

249 Speaking as one Friend to Another: On the Mystical Way Forward (by

John R. Yungblut; 1983)
“How have I any religious experience & immediate relation to God that

               will keep me from dissolving in the crowd?
How will the work [of spiritual evolution] be undertaken?

250. Jesus, Jefferson, and the Task of Friends (by Newton Garver; 1983)
  How does one distinguish between politics and religion?
How is suffering something divine?
What can hope be based on?
How can we be in the world & not of it?
Upon what basis are we to act; what is it that we are called to do?
How is the action a testimony to the presence and glory of God?

251. Nurturing Contemplation (by Carol R. Murphy; 1983)
  What is the nature of the contemplative vocation?
What kind of person are we talking about?
What environment is required [for this way of looking]?
What response is required to the often incompatible demands of the

world?
“How is the cloistered life a mere cult of ordered serenity, or is it com-

plete self-forgetfulness in obedience to God?

252. Holistic Economics and Social Protest (by John P. Powelson; 1983)
How should we be concerned about why they are starving?
Must we only conscientiously object?
How are we consuming too much?
How are we oppressing people in less developed countries?
How is our own greed the cause for war?
Instead of devoting so much of their land to strawberries for rich folk,

how could Mexicans switch to producing corn for their own poor?
How shall we persuade other American workers to risk lower wages

and pay higher taxes?
How do we see the conflict between concern for inhuman conditions

and environmental concern on the one hand, and protecting the

standards of living and jobs of our own workers?
What can we do to transfer some of our surplus goods to these poor

people?
Why don’t we give these possessions directly to those who need them?
How much can we produce with what we have?
When the pie comes out of the oven, how is it to be cut?
How are the ills of competition forced on us by “the system”?
How can we compete lovingly?
How will we determine how a fair amount of milk at a fair price will be

delivered?
What is everything that will happen if ____________?
Where will the suffering surface?

What will be the effect on the liberation movements
within?
How will we seek positive ways to approach evil?
How will we approach evil by perhaps destroying the lives & livelihood

of others?
How should we support the 3rd World calling for protection of export

prices in a New International Economic Order (NIEO)?
Who owns the source of primary products & the exporting companies

and where does the money go?
Will the current demand hold up with higher prices?
If MNCs pay much more in wages than local companies, what hap-

pens to the economy, & workers not employed by MNCs?
Since Coke has no nutritive value, is it not immoral for the Coca-Cola

company to introduce it to already undernourished people in the 3rd

World?
Who is the judge?

253. Tempted by Happiness: Kazantzakis Post-Christian Christ (by Peter

Bien; 1984)
Why did Kazantzakis write it the way he did, when he did?
How can we accept a Jesus who wishes to employ evil in order to

destroy evil?

254. To Martin Luther King, with love: a southern Quaker’s tribute (by David W. Pitre; 1984)

255. Tending the Light (by Mary E. B. Feagins; 1984)

How has the changing psychic life of the human race’s history altered
appreciably the reality of the Light as perceived in varying moods

and seasons?
How is the inner Light to be considered “continuous with our natural

powers … of a piece with our normal intelligence, taste & feeling?”
What is there in the human condition that impels our search for the

Inner Light?
What is the place for humor in our attempts to tend and share the Light

through the Word?

256. The Prophetic Stream (by William Taber; 1984)

Where is your loyalty; where is your rock-solid unshakable trust?
How has the salt lost its savor so that it is therefore unfocused,

useless?
What are your graven images; career; acceptance; fear?
[How am I] present where and when I am?
How am I really understanding and meaning what I say?
How do I take time periodically for calm receptive focusing inward?
What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness,

and to walk humbly (hatsenay leket) with your God?
How can I justify my existence in a world where so many are miserable?
What is the right-sharing of my resources in this wealthy and privileged

land?
How do we prepare for prophecy?
How do we devote ourselves to a daily spiritual discipline appropriate

to our stage of the spiritual journey?
How do we cultivate a personal or group worship which can open us to

the prophetic stream?
Why dost thou look on faithless men, and art silent when the wicked

swallows the man more righteous than he?
What then is faith, as the Quakers have understood it?

257. Artist on the witness stand (by Fritz Eichenberg; 1984)
Where are the artists eulogizing the grandeur and harmonies of nature,

its checks and balances which give meaning to our lives?
How should our great artists and writers try to bring the awareness of

our problems closer to us, their contemporaries?

258. When Silence Becomes Singing: a study in perception and parable

(by Helen Kylin; 1984)

259. Stewardship of Wealth (by Kingdon W Swayne; 1985)
How big a personally controlled “safety net” is big enough?
How do we believe in Jesus’ eye-of-the-needle metaphor about the rich?
How are we willing to accept its implications for Friends’ institutions?
How can I develop my own unique capacities and interests, & use the

wealth and power which has been entrusted to me by society so as

to benefit others and create a more just and compassionate world?
GUIDE TO SELF-ASSESSMENT QUERIES
What considerations guide your choices with respect to purchasing

the following: living quarters; household furnishings; food and

drink; clothing; transportation; recreation [i.e. arts and craft,

vacations, entertainment]; electric & electronic devices; educa- tion; personal services?

   What is your annual income?
   What career choices have you made that limited family income?
   How can you distinguish between your economic and religious

motivations in the area of energy conservation?

How have you a cutoff level below which you can comfortably lay

                   out money without stopping to think about it?
   What is your family’s budgetary process?
   How are conflicts between family needs and the larger society

resolved?
How does your will resolve the above conflict?

260. The Way of the Cross: The Gospel Record (by Mary C. Morrison;

1985)

What if you can’t live your Christian Faith with the confidence of Jesus

in John’s Gospel?
How can we follow him?
What does it tell us about Jesus that he came to John [as part of a

crowd] and was dipped by him into the River Jordan?

261. Interconnections (by Elaine M. Prevallet; 1985)

How is there ever any profit that isn't registered as a debit somewhere?
How does God exercise dominion and what does that tell us about our

dominion over the earth?
What was Jesus’ way of dominion?

262. Bearing Witness: Quaker Process and a Culture of Peace (by Gray

Cox; 1985)
“How do you live in the virtue of that life and power that takes away the occasion of all wars?” John Woolman
How can each citizen reconcile the orders of the temporal with the path

of Christ?

How do you use techniques for quieting impulses?
How do you center in meeting?
How do you experience the Light in Meeting?
How have you reached clearness, either with a group or in yourself?
How have you felt a tension between believing in a peaceful process

and yet wanting to achieve a particular goal effectively?
How do you find conflict operating in your life or your meeting’s life?
How is conflict necessary or optional?
How have you had any experience trying to change an institution so it

would view people, communities and values as emerging & growing?
What have Meeting for Worship and Meeting for Business meant for

you in your path to understanding peace and non-violence?
How do you balance the feeling that pacifism is continually reinvented

& rediscovered against the view of traditional pacifism in the Chris-

tian church?

263. Replacing the Warrior: Cultural Ideals and Militarism (by William A.

Myers; 1985)
How do the military virtues fit the culture & time we live in?
What is our warrant, our authority, for maintaining a different moral

               position from that of our community?

264. Leading and Being Led (by Paul A. Lacey; 1985)
  What are hallmarks and consequences of being led?
How can we tell when a leading is genuine?

Where do we look for leadings?
How is this the right action, for this time and place?
Is this person rightly prepared to undertake the action?
What are appropriate expressions of the simplicity testimony today?
How can we be led when testimonies seem to be in tension?
How can a pacifist condone the taking of life in an abortion?
How can we be open to a leading on abortion?

265. Thoughts are Free: A Quaker Youth Group in Nazi Germany (by Anna

Sabine Halle; 1985)
How does it happen that anyone with a “humanistic” and academic

education, were so easily seduced by an inhumane ideology?
What are we able to accomplish today that is positive?

Who was going to help those the wider Jewish community or those who

have left the churches?

Who abroad is going to take them into their families & into their schools,

to provide jobs parents and money for “affidavits?”
How can sick & old persons for whom no one is responsible be saved?
What contributed to our psychological survival?
‘ How do you know, my friend, which pleases God more, your lessons or

your suffering?’
“Why did the beautiful hours have to end, before we knew what they

meant to us?

Why did fate take away all our loved ones, before we recognized their

true value & thanked them?”

Why does an omnipotent God permit so much injustice, lying, violence,

& suffering to exist in the world?

266. Mending the World: Quaker Insights on the Social Order (by Kenneth

Ewart Boulding; 1986)
What is in need of mending now?

What sort of region of time are we in?
What processes are we in the middle or end of?
[How could there be an] application of the ethic and method of the

scholarly community [to the process of guiding] the human situation

from bad to better rather than from bad to worse?
How could this lead into development of projects, institutions, and

political and legal structures which would increase the probability of

human betterment?
How are our “future” images formed & how are they valued [in decision-

making]?

267. Encounters with Transcendence: Confessions of a Religious Philoso-

pher (by Scott Crom; 1986)
Where was I during that experience when I disappeared?
What alternative [to the scientific] way is there to approach our issues of

selfhood, reality, and transcendence?
What is the most distinctive feature of an energy whirlwind which makes

it a self or a person rather than a tree or a stone?
How do I find “transcendence” a useful category?
How do I view the world through a transcendence-colored lens?

What meaning can we attach to “an experience of the transcendence,”

which is different from “a transcendent experience” which exceeds

previous attempts]?

268. In God We Live (by Warren Ostrom; 1986)
How am I sick because I believe the boundaries between [all substance,

energy, consciousness, and emptiness] are more illusion than real?

269. THE SEED AND THE TREE: A Reflection on Non-violence (by Daniel

A. Seeger; 1986)

What does it mean to be committed to the way of nonviolence?
How does loving everyone mean assenting to everything they say?
How does it relativize our search for Truth?
How do we develop our capacity for seeking and expressing Truth?
How does relinquishing [the requirement] of effectiveness [in a non-

violent plan] make you feel?
How do you experience needing a black & white answer while knowing

it does violence to the complexity of the truth?
How does pursuing social change through changing our major social

institution fit your way of pursuing peace?
How does a personal commitment to non-violence fit your way of

pursuing peace?
[How does using a role model] fit your way of pursuing peace?
How is your pursuit of peace a combination of social change, personal

commitment, and role models?

270. The Sanctuary Church (by Jim Corbett; 1986)

What can we do [as a community to offer sanctuary]?
How radically unassimilated from the rule of violence must the church

become to go free from its [“service to empire”]?
How is the practice of sanctuary by Covenant communities “political?”
How are we to work with those whose dedication to winning the good

war entails using us as medics in their crusade?

271. Practicing Compassion for the Stranger (by Nancy C. Alexander;

1987)

Who is my neighbor? Who do I consider a stranger?
How can we transcend our habit of thinking in “we/they” terms?
How are we using a we/they view of reality, or are we using the view of

a family with I/Thou relationships?

How do we define our world community or the community of Friends in

an inclusive way?
Within our meeting-community do we allow differing ideas to divide us?
“What has shaped your choice of profession?
When and how has your political philosophy undergone change?
How does the Pentagon’s mission fit with Jesus’ message?
What is the most effective way you think we can work together for

peace?
What are your professional objectives?

272. Going Back: A poet who was once a Marine returns to Vietnam (by

W.D. Ehrhart; 1987)
How long will it be before my government sends my children to wage

war against the children of another Nguyen Thi Na?

Why have I put myself deeply into debt and traveled halfway around the

world just to confront a reality more terrible than imagination?

How many Viet Cong did our blundering ignorance produce?

273. Abraham Lincoln and the Quakers (by Daniel Bassuk; 1987)

274. Nonviolence on Trial (by Robert W. Hillegass; 1987)
What is the problem or evil we are addressing?
How Is the trident submarine, nuclear weapons, or something even

deeper and more pervasive the evil we are facing?
Why [call me to witness] rather than someone more gifted?
Since I enjoy American privileges & advantages, how am I personally

responsible for what my nation does?
How do I have a civil & a religious duty to resist the policy by all

nonviolent means possible?
How can I presume to speak for God to my fellows?

275. The Needle’s Eye: (by Carol Reilley Urner ; 1987)
How could we insure that the voices of tribal people would be heard

above those of others like ourselves who too often sought to speak

for them?

Why should [violent young Maoists] heed my cries to “love also the

oppressor” when I myself seemed too much a beneficiary of

oppression?
What moral challenge did corporate official see in my life, when I risked

little and already possessed the affluence for which they strove?

276. Meditations on a D Major scale (by Bertha May Nicholson; 1987)
How is there a relationship between music and the spiritual life?
How do you acknowledge a golden moment, & then move beyond it?
What is the truth that is like a scale, that could help us learn more about God?
Where do we look for direction in the spiritual life?
Where are our guides, our teachers?

277. What is Quakerism: A Primer (by George T. Peck; 1988)

How do we cherish our Quaker Varieties?
What canst thou say? Art thou a child of Light?
How are you ready to join in the worship and life of the Society of Friends?
How did you first come to the Society of Friends?
How have you felt the living action of God within yourself [i.e “been reached”]?
How have you experienced a gathered meeting?
What teaching do you use to prepare for worship?
How do you center down in meeting for worship?
How do you accept & offer vocal ministry?
How do you set aside daily periods of reading & prayer?
How are you surprised by wonder & worship outside of formal structures?
How do you find Jesus of Nazareth to be a role model?
What does the testimony of simplicity mean to you?
How do you participate in Quaker outreach?
What does the peace testimony mean to you?
How do the Quaker ideals of compassion and service find any expression in your life?
[What is your attitude toward monthly meeting for business]?
What role do you take in larger Quaker bodies, such as quarterly and yearly
meetings, AFSC, Friends General Conference?

278. Education and the Inward Teacher (by Paul A. Lacey; 1988)
What can we know about the nature of the Teacher? The Teaching?
What is the content & method of the Teaching?
How can we take the reality of the Inward Teacher seriously, in how we teach &
learn?
What relevance does the Inward Teacher metaphor have for all forms of education, the disciplines and basic skills which are needed to live effectively in the world?
[How can the individual/group be ready to put self-will aside?
How is the leading consistent with other past leadings of the spirit, which “is not
changeable”?
How will the proposed action deepen the fruits of the spirit?
Where are there other kinds of learning where it is necessary to assert the work of an   Inward Teacher to explain how the learning happened?
How can we best prepare ourselves to hear and respond to the inner voice which may be available to each of us?
How good a society does human nature permit? [Abraham Maslow]
How good a human nature does society permit? [Abraham Maslow]
What can we do to open our classrooms, our schools, ourselves, to the possibility of such      an encounter?
How is the Inward Teacher known?

279. The Apocalyptic Witness: A Radical Calling for our own Times (by William R. Durland; 1988)

How can the apocalyptic vision be recovered?
“How is your meeting a loving community of which Christ is the center?”
What is the form of this witness today?

280. An Attender at the Altar: A Sacramental Christian Responds to Silence (by Jay C. Rochelle; 1988)
How shall we live when we know in our hearts that the time in which we live is eternal because God meets us in it?
How shall we live when we know in our hearts that Christ meets us in the faces and hands of our community?

What makes this sacrament for me?

[How have Friends lost their roots in deep faith, so that our ethics have become short- lived & trendy?

How have sacramental Christians lost sight of the vision of God as the goal of our liturgy?
How have we split off spirituality from secular life and compartmentalize our selves into neat categories?
How have we given up the struggle to find a Christian way in tension with the cultures in which we live]?
How shall we live when we know in our hearts that the place where we stand is holy
ground because God meets us here?

281. A Quaker Theology of Pastoral Care: The Art of the Everyday (by Zoe White; 1988)

How did I absorb their panic?

How am I seeing my own panic reflected in them? How do I cope?

How have my experiences with death &/ or illness informed my thinking about my

theology & pastoral care?

282. Batter My Heart (by Gracia Fay Ellwood; 1988)

How can we continue to use male images for God in the old manner without
implicitly supporting patriarchy?

How can we use any hierarchal images for God or any images of submission for humanity, without in some way fostering oppression?
What becomes of those persons who have derived their identity as Christians or Jews from a commitment to the Bible as sacred Scripture, yet are courageous enough to acknowledge this death-dealing theme that pervades it?

283. Sink Down to The Seed (by Charlotte Fardelmann; 1989)

284. Thomas Kelly as I Remember Him (by T. Canby Jones; 1988)

How do you really want to live every moment of your lives in God’s Presence?

How does every breath you draw breathe a prayer, a praise to God?

How do you sing and dance within yourself to be God’s and only God’s, walking

every moment in holy obedience?

How is love steadfastly directed toward God, in our minds, all day long?

How do we intersperse our work with gentle prayers and praises to God?

How do we live in the steady peace of God, a peace down at the very depths of

our souls, already a victor of the world and our weaknesses?

How are you a miracle of radiant eternity lived in the midst of time?

How am I such a miracle?

How are we people whose lives can only be explained by saying, the Eternal Life

and Love are breaking through into time, at these points?

How do we hunger for the same sort of miracle in our lives which transformed

that of Thomas Kelly?

How are we people whose lives can only be explained by saying, the Eternal Life

and Love are breaking through into time, at these points?

How do we hunger for the same sort of miracle in our lives which transformed

that of Thomas Kelly?

285. Letter to a Universalist (by John Punshon; 1989)
Why is it so hard to talk about Christ?

[How is current secular orthodoxy preferable to traditional religious orthodoxy?]

286. War Taxes: Experiences of Philadelphia YM Quakers through the
American Revolution (by Elaine J. Crauderueff; 1989)
What are the consequences to other Friends, to non-Friends, and to oneself when

taxes are paid for war?
How would individual Friends respond to war taxes and formal Advice?
What would result in taking a radical position on the war tax issue?
At what point should a Friend refuse to support what in peacetime would clearly be
acceptable, but in war might actually or implicitly support the war effort?
What should this Meeting do about those Friends who have a “religious scruple” that
forbids paying taxes to defray the war debt, [and who have] suffered Distraint of
their Goods, when “the greater part of the Society pay the same Taxes?
How should these accounts be forwarded as Suffering to the Meeting for Sufferings?
Why should there be pain and separation when “love and union might be preserved?”
What does Peace Testimony mean to individuals and the Society of Friends as a
body today?
How is it that there is nothing that we now believe to always be true?
What obligation do Friends have “to beware lest by our example we lead others
wrong?”
How do you respect the feelings of others on issues, even when you differ with them?
What are the ways you Meeting responds to the war tax issue?
How is your Meeting open to war tax resisters and war tax payers?
How are you challenged by the diversity of opinion and action of Friends through the
American Revolution?
How are there Quaker beliefs or practices for which you would be willing to lose
property or be jailed?
How does the Spirit of Christ help you to discern what is right for you on this and other
issues of conscience?

287. Milestone 70 (by Carol R. Murphy; 1989)

How does one want to adopt the “my fulfillment 1st” attitude of today?
How can we devise a way of compensating people for taking a day away from work?
How is our yuppie culture too frenetic for religious endeavor to survive?
How is the country a mere abstraction or is it all of us protecting our social cohesion?
What is the relationship between reticence and truthfulness?
How true are these myths, these pictures of nationhood, & are they necessary?
How have we lost that sense the earlier Friends had of being spoken through that gave them the authority to speak to someone’s condition in a “religious opportunity?
Where is the next generation of dynamic Quakers coming from?

288. Improvisation & Spiritual Disciplines: Continuing the Divine-Human Duet (by Carol Conti-Etin; 1989)

What is there in the concept of sabbath which might be worth preserving?

Why not offer your duet partner [the Spirit] a daily time together and a much long,

minimally distracted “jam session” once a week?

How can one read the Scriptures, if one finds them irrelevant or hurtful?

How should anyone who finds the Bible uninviting begin or resume a program of Bible reading?

How did I in fact own any or all of my income?

But what would surrendering my self-will entail?

What expressed thoughts hinder our spiritual growth, and how may we cultivate only forms of prayer which help us mature?

289. To Meet at the Source: Hindus & Quakers (by Martha Dart; 1989)
How is our God too small?

290. Quaker Money (by S. Francis Nicholson; 1990)
  Where does Quaker Money come from and Where does it Go?
How will adequate funds be available in an inflationary age or a recession?
How should trust funds for “poor” children be applied?
How should a program be dependent on subsidies & scholarships?
How can an environment of Quaker values be maintained?
What is the Meaning of Money?
What is the Motivation for Quaker Gifts and Bequests?
How is paying taxes a voluntary act, or a transfer of money that does not really belong to the taxpayer?
Since taxes have to be paid, what reason is there for not being gracious in the way the
obligation is recognized?
What are the Fiduciary or Trust Aspects of Quaker Gift & Bequests?
What Understanding Should a Quaker Investor or Trustee have about Business   Principles and the General Economy?
What Ethical Principles are Important with Regard to Money Investments, and Business?
How is the business growth I seek an ethical goal?
How do I value and seek economic stability enough?

291. Prayer in the Contemporary World (by Douglas V. Steere; 1990)
  What is being attacked in the charges against prayer [as being superstitious,
autosuggestion,& pietistic]?
How are they being leveled against high prayer or on low forms of prayer that
masquerade [as prayer]?
How is it conceivable that Jesus saw that the way to touch any society was at its Achilles' heel, by serving the group whom it wanted to hide from its sight?
How can we discover a mutual ministry to one another when this bloodstream of our
common humanity is restored?
[How will we be like disciples and be] “absurdly happy, entirely fearless, and always in trouble?”
What was the church really meant for?
What is the hidden God saying to me through the witness of those who deny him?

292. On Hallowing One’s Diminishments (by John R. Yungblut; 1990)
How might I have prevented this tragedy? What was I blind to?
Why did I fail to see the warnings?
How can such a diminishment [as suicide be hallowed]?
How can one hallow the diminishment from the loss of a loved one?

293. The Ministry of Presence: Without Agenda in South Africa (by Avis Crowe; Dyckman Vermilye; 1990)
What greater ministry can be practiced than one which reflects that presence?

294. Women of Power and Presence: The Spiritual Formation of 4 Quaker Women Ministers (by Maureen Graham; 1990)
  What is it about the religious experience of these women that allowed them to
overcome social attitudes & practices which encouraged passivity & subordination?
  What can their lives say to those of us who stand in their tradition & seek to be faithful ministers in our time?
Lord, what wilt thou have me do to be saved?
  [How can we] overcome inner separation of self & God?

295. Inward Light and the New Creation: A Theological meditation upon the Center and Circumference of Quakerism (by R. Melvin Keiser; 1991)

296. The Testimony of Integrity in the Religious Society of Friends (by Wilmer A. Cooper; 1991)

What is a Quaker? What is Quakerism?

How is Truth prospering in thy parts?

Where is our moral conscience when violent behavior touches us where it hurts the most, in our personal and family relationships?

How is it true that we are in about as much danger of being destroyed by our own

moral sickness and culpability, as a society, as we are in danger of annihilation by a nuclear explosion?

297. Gospel Order: A Quaker Understanding of Faithful Church Community by
Sandra Lee Cronk; 1991)

How can we manifest faithfully our new commitment to God?

How is the thing, or things which thou hast against him, fully so, as thou apprehendest?

How hast thou seen evil in him, or to break forth from him?

How hast thou pitied him, mourned over him, cried to the Lord for him, and in tender love and meekness of spirit, laid the thing before him?

How hast thou any hardness of spirit or hard reasonings against him?

What does it mean today to be a committed people in covenantal relationship with Christ?

What does it mean to practice mutual accountability that keeps this relationship alive?

How do our lives with each other in our meetings and homes reflect fidelity, love, and

trust?

How can we participate corporately in God’s new order so that our love speaks to a

world dying from environmental destruction, violence, hatred, & systems of

economic exploitation & injustice?

298. The Psalms Speak (by George Terhune Peck; 1991)

How can we still hear them?
  How does the psalmist of #139, & how do we respond to such closeness?
How is it that we & the psalmist, find again & again & everywhere, God presence?
  How do we accept the universal life force behind all creation?
How can we understand the psalm passages of hate?
  How do I really believe in God’s promises of protection?
  How will future generations look back on us and our treatment of the
environment with repugnance?
How does or should Adam rule all nature? How is Eve an afterthought?
How can we Christian be less respectful & less humble in creative
evolution’s presence [than these early worshipers of God]?

299. Vistas from Inner Stillness (by Richard L. Walker; 1991)

How are sensations of the soul, feelings, & sensed paradoxes the way in which reality is revealed to us?

300. Therefore Choose Life: The Spiritual Challenge of the Nuclear Age (by

John Tallmadge; 1991)

What therapy shall we undertake to strengthen our individual and collective will to survive?

301. Spiritual Linkage with Russians: The Story of a Leading (By Anthony

Manousos; 1992)

How can the world’s problems be solved just by listening?

302. A Zen Buddhist Encounters Quakerism (By Teruyasu Tamura; 1992)
  How does the church exist to provide spiritual inspiration or to change the social system?

303. WORDS, WORDLESSNESS AND THE WORD: Silence Reconsidered from a            Literary Point (by Peter Bien; 1992)
  What precisely did John mean by the term logos?
How is the Word to be connected chiefly with the Doing aspect of God head or with the Being aspect?

304. Mind What Stirs in your Heart (by Teresina R. Havens; 1992)
  How do we walk differently when we walk in the light?
How do you walk when the Light is blocked from shining into your soul?
How would it change our economic justice efforts to focus on the psychic costs of
our competitive economic system?
Where are Woolman’s observations about hurry most relevant today?

Is your meeting graced with a waiting spiritual worship?

How would your posture change as you progressed through the process?

How do we know when we “are moved?”
How do we distinguish our own will from a true “leading?”

305. Spiritual Discernment: The Context and Goal of Clearness Committee (by
Patricia Loring; 1992)

Who is to appoint the members of the clearness committee?
How are records of the proceedings to be kept?
[If so, what, and how?]
How would discernment work if the entire matter was left as unrecorded as a meeting for worship, in confidence that the process will work in its own way & that what is forgotten is not required for the right discernment?

306. Four Doors to Meeting for Worship (by William P. Taber; 1992)
When does the meeting actually begin?

How can the small number of modern ministering Friends, or anyone who speaks,
be sure that we are not speaking too often, too long, or from our own ideas?

What new insight, what new understanding has this meeting time with God given me to take into my daily life?

[What change have we promised to bring into our daily life]?

307. Beyond Consensus: Salvaging Sense of the Meeting (by Barry Morley;
1993)
What is the difference between consensus and sense of the meeting?
How do I dwell consistently in the virtue of Life & Power so that occasions for war may dwindle?

308. Marriage: A Spiritual Leading for Lesbian, Gay and Straight Couples (by Leslie Hill; 1993)

What is the meaning & purpose of marriage?

How does Quaker marriage relate to [LGBT] & straight couples?

What does marriage under the care of the meeting mean for any couple?

What are the responsibilities of the meeting and the couple?

How do we nurture all commitments among ourselves?

How are you seeking a spiritual union, a legal union, or both?

What steps have you taken that were necessary to compensate for any lack of
state recognition or legal provision for committed lesbian and gay
relationships.

What are your expectations of marriage?

What are your thoughts on a spiritual Quaker marriage?

What do you think about the traditional masculine and feminine roles?

How can you be ready to compromise your plans or wishes out of respect for
one another?

How do you deal with conflicts between you?

How will finances be handled in your marriage?

What have you discussed about health problems?

How do you feel about your new extended family?

How are you willing to give the time, patience, and openness to a good sexual

relationship?

How are you willing to recommit yourself, day by day, year by year, to try again in spite of difficulties, to recognize, accept, love and delight in each
other’s individuality?

309. Universalism and Spirituality (by Ralph Hetherington; 1993)
How have you ever been aware of or influenced by, a presence or power, whether you call it God or not, which is different from your everyday self?
How can God be Known? What name shall we use?
How are there any defining mark which might be applicable to all YM's worldwide?

310. Findings: Poets and the Crisis of Faith (by John Lampen; 1993)

How was the loss of familiar reassurances a necessary step toward new awareness?
How does the Society of Friends provide a home for someone who wants to believe, but finds the traditional language of religion too devalued by formality, dogmatism, familiarity, and even dishonesty?

What kind of Jesus is presented when travelers come to a Christ-centered Quaker
meeting?
How do they encounter a "Christ" that is relevant & poetically complex, in a
gathered, Christ-centered Quaker meeting?

311. Without Nightfall Upon the Spirit (by Mary Chase Morrison; 1993)
Where does the necessary gallantry come from? How do we find it within?
What will old age demand of us?
Where is the dignity to be found in it?
What inner tools do we need for this inner work?
What has life been? What will death be? Who & what are we?
How are we going to respond to the inevitable, growing diminishment that is coming upon us?
How do we detach ourselves and make a new life?
How do we still consider ourselves part of the family whole?
Where is the life that late we lived? What is it now time for us to do or be?
When and how did you experience a transition into aging?
How much need do you feel for solitude as you grow older?
[How important is it] to evaluate, sort, and come to a sense of where you were, where you are, and how you got here?
What is your relationship to younger people as part of the oldest generation in their lives?
How does increasing age affect your attitude toward death?
How much anger do you feel as you experience the diminishments of age?
What do you most fear about the latter stages of the aging process?
How do you deal with your fears?

312. Motion of Love: Woolman as Mystic and Activist (by Sterling Olmsted; 1993)

What does Woolman's language tell us about his state of mind?

How does the INNER MOTIONS column content compare with that in INNER REFLECTIONS?

How does Woolman's observations of his world affect his INNER MOTIONS?

How close is the connection between his INNER MOTIONS and action?

What does Woolman do and how does he do it?

When and why does he stop short of action?

When and for what does Woolman turn to other Friends?

When he makes explicit appeals and requests to God, what does he ask for?

313. Friends and Alcohol: Recovering a Forgotten testimony (by Robert Levering; 1994)

How does "moderate drinking" reflect living a life of the Spirit or living from a Divine Center?
How does using a substance that lessens our ability to be worshipful and to seek God's will fit with a spiritual life?
How does the Quaker testimony of a single standard of truth apply to the reasons given for drinking?
How have we lost something important about our singularity, [our "in but not of society" status]; if so, how do we regain it?
How much [will] we give up to regain our spirit-led singularity?
If you were accused of being a Quaker, would there be enough evidence to convict you?
If we are not willing to deny ourselves "neutral enjoyments" for the sake of others, what are we willing to do for our faith?

314. Spiritual Hospitality: A Quaker’s Understanding of Outreach (by Harvey
Gillman; 1994)
How welcoming and open are we?
How far are we answering the eternal in each other?
How far we allowing people to find their real selves, where their light shines most brightly?
How are we liberated in the Spirit or clear channels of the Spirit?
How are we Christs to one another?
How do we walk as fragile, vulnerable, anointed human beings who were sent to do the Spirit's work?
How much of the universal light do we show in our own understanding of the Spirit?
HOW ARE WE THE GOOD NEWS?
[How are we seeking the role of host or always wanting to be guest?
How can meeting provide an opportunity to meet someone or something beyond all those present?]
How able and willing are we to show the guests around [our own inner, spiritual] house?

315. Answering that of God in Children (by Harriet Heath; 1994)

  As a Quaker, To what [of God] do I answer, that is in every person?
At what age does the Light appear in children?
How does its Presence in my children affect my task of guiding them?
How can we see the Inner Light when they are [“being difficult”]?
How is the child inherently good and can do no wrong?
What is my child trying to accomplish? What does my child understand?
What does he/she need to know?
How much can she understand now? What is my child able to do?
What does she need to learn?
What do I want my child to learn?
How do you see that of God in people of any age?
How could young children’s exploration of their environment encourage them to question and help them to develop the skills to search for answers to spiritual questions?
How do you view children?
How does your view of children define your role as  a parent?
How do your Quaker beliefs influence how you live with and nurture your children?
How has your parental role changed as your children have grown older?
How have your Quaker beliefs and understanding changed as you have parented and as your children have grown older?

316 For that Solitary Individual: An Octogenarian’s Counsel on Living & Dying by John R. Yungblut; 1994)
How does one cultivate awareness of the transparency of the divine?
What is evolution saying to us about a new authoritative sex ethic? What has deep psychology to offer to a new sex ethic?
How can any consciousness survive the disintegration and decay of the body?
How do we make a good end? What shall be my approach to encountering death?

317. The Kingdom and the Way: Meditations on the Kingdom (by Carol R. Urner; 1994)
Why must there be so much division of belief among Friends?
How are more liberal, intellectual, and "modern" Friends in danger of losing touch with the holy ground on which early Friends once stood?
How is there a Christ Jesus that's a window to God, and a tie that binds us, and draws us into the eternal Spirit of truth?
What is this Kingdom which we Seek? How did you first find the kingdom?
Where is this kingdom that we seek?
What is this God, whose Kingdom we Seek?
How can Christ Jesus become a bridge between us, in spite of our difference experiences   of [Jesus Christ or] Christ Jesus?
What is God's Righteousness?
What counts [toward us expressing] God's righteousness [in our lives]?
Who will Enter this Kingdom we Seek?
Who can Help Bring this Kingdom to Birth Among Us?
What are the Requirements of the Way?
How are love of God and love of neighbor opening ways to one another?
What is the Way to the Kingdom?
How do we love those who are actively doing evil?
How are those who seek [the various kinds of] truth also seeking what we call God?
How does every day truth, scientific truth, our personally experienced truth, or sacred truth lead step upon step to the truth which God?
[How do I live in purity in the midst of all of life's distractions & temptations?]
How do Friends listen to, & answer each other across the widening gulf [formed by
differing views on sexual love & faithfulness] that divides us?
How do we give enough support now for those couples who find themselves separated by imprisonment, ministry, or illness?
How am I called to live as a bridge between rich & poor? Or am I a failed disciple?
How do we bring Jesus to others as a bridge of love, an opening door?

318. Silence: Our Eye on Eternity (by Daniel A. Seeger; 1994)
   How do we take a vacation, get a rest from the sounds we carry around in our heads, & thus gain refreshment & new perspective?

319 Stories from Kenya (by Tom and Liz Gates; 1995)

320. Leadership Among Friends (by Ron McDonald; 1995)
Where and what is our Quaker vision?
How can we discern an emerging vision from growing concerns about 1st-day School and the yearning for spiritual depth that convinced Friends have brought with them in joining the Meeting?
What happens to us in meeting for worship?
How do we look intentionally at new ways of expressing ourselves?
What are we to be? What are we to do?
What vision do you have regarding Quakerism?
How will you share your vision?
[How will you deal with the consequences of shattering treasured idols]?

321. No Royal Road to Reconciliation (by Gene Knudsen-Hoffman; 1995)

   What shall I do if the other doesn't want to be reconciled with me?
If there were no impermanence, how could we grow up?
How can we awaken Americans without another war catastrophe?
What happened to Israel between the '60's and the 80's to cause the nation and people to become so fearful & aggressive?
How do I put torturers on the same level as the tortured?
What does psychological and spiritual "health" mean?
What attributes make for a healthy person?
How do we help a society become healthy?
How can we help other individuals move toward health?
How do we become healthy ourselves?
What do we do after we begin creating this healthier self?
What is needed to make the world safe for people so our nation's killing madness
can stop?
How do we resolve conflict in healthy ways?
How do we bring separated people together?
How often do we stay with the painfully familiar instead of daring the unfamiliar?
How do we soften the heart of our opposition by protest and resistance?
What gifts might we bring today to the Koreans, [Trump, terrorists foreign and domestic, drug cartels, genocidal militarists], to show them the humanity we wish they would   show others?
How can we make a place for an organization, trusted by both sides, that could find the human face of the "enemy" and carry that message to the other side?
[What if we made pilgrimages to directly express our sorrow & make amends to the long list of ethic groups & nations we have harmed through racism, nuclear weapons, & militarism]?

322 Nonviolence and Community: Reflections on the Alternatives to Violence
Project (By Newton Garver & Eric Reitan; 1995)
How does violence ever really work?
What kind of commitment to community is required?
[What need is there for an ethic] requiring this sort of commitment?

323. An Experiment in Faith: Quaker Women Transcending Differences (by
Margery Post Abbott; 1995)
  Evangelical Queries
  How can you know someone is worshipping if they aren't singing and praising God?
How can you expect people to stay awake for an hour of silence?
How do you mean you don't believe in Christ?
How do you learn of God if you don't read the Bible [and talk about your belief in God]?
Liberal Queries
   How can you listen for the word of God, if someone is always talking?
How can you find what God wants for you if someone's telling you what to believe?
How do you mean you actually believe in "Hell?"
How does "worshipping in spirit & in truth" link [the variety of] Friends together today?
How can Liberal meetings call themselves Quakers without accepting the basic beliefs
of early Friends?
[How can Evangelical Friends call themselves Quakers while they have "steeplehouses," "hireling ministers," prepared music, and prepared "empty rituals?]"
[How does one speak concerns for others and the world in a worshipful, "waiting-on-the- Lord" way?
What is the Lord calling on you to say?
How can we approach one another without expectations, waiting patiently on the Holy
Spirit?
How can we accept the limitless, surprising ways God can work in the world?
How can we speak our own experience with integrity & honor authenticity in another's
experience?
How can we be present to one another despite differing beliefs, language, or culture?
How can we be open as long as it takes for the group to find its own God-center?
How can we listen with open heart and be vulnerable to being changed as we change
others?

324. Traveling In (by Douglas V. Steere; 1995)
Why are you not aware of [God's giving]?
How centered & flexible are the spirits of people involved in the concern?
Are you seeking over Jordan, seeing how the chariot swings low?
How does a losing of your senses let you sink down into another element deeper down than words.

325. The Unconscious (by Robert C. Murphy; 1996)
  What can forgetting a suitcase mean?
What emergency have you had where your unconscious took over, partially or totally?
How is it possible for physicians not to see that body health & spiritual health can't be separated?

326. L iberation Theology for Quakers (by Alice and Staughton Lynd; 1996)

What is it you hope for?

327. Depression and Spiritual Growth (by Dimitri Mihalas; 1996):

Why do people want to die?
"Whose life is it, anyway?"
Why me?
How much longer can this go on before I break [into suicide]?
What would happen if she suddenly disappeared? How could I stand it or survive?
Just whose life is it, anyway?
Why is it given to us to have to travel through terrible darkness?

328. The Servant Church (by Ricardo Elford & Jim Corbett; 1996)
How does our civilization serve either death & degradation or life & creativity?
How can we not live by subjugating & managing each other & the earth?
How does humankind own or not own the earth? How should men own & rule [or work & live beside] women?
What to me is ... your sacrifices? ...
How do we know true torah, especially when some human beings claim to be ordained by God to exercise magisterial authority?
[How can peaceful, covenant people, more interested in gaining peace-loving souls than territory, still be a nation or people]?
"Who will go ... bring the word to us, that we may hear & do it?"
How can torah be fulfilled, brought to earth, as an actual practice that hallows every
aspect of daily life?
"What is the fast I choose?
How does one deal with a moral quandary?
What would it mean if Law's sword were made into stewardship's plowshare?

329. There is a Fountain: A Quaker Life in Process (by Helen Steere Horn; 1996)

When will she grow up and learn to be a helper?
Why can't I feel clear that there's someone there when I pray?
Why can't I feel God's support?
Why does God want us to worship God?
Why did God let Jews burn & people in Hiroshima if He's so powerful & loving?
How do you break off a relationship gently & honestly?
How can suffering & waste of life be explained if God is all-powerful & all-loving?
How are we responsible for tackling these problems?
What are my self-expectations now that I see global injustice & waste of life?
When must an individual risk challenging authority?
What moves people into committing crimes?
How is racism oppressive to all?
What are the pros & cons of having power?
What bears fruit besides the trees?
How am I too aware of pain, too sensitive to pitch in & make a go of this challenge?
How can I best channel my love in the world, with my skills, or by parenting a 2nd child?
How much financial security do we deserve?
How would you react to Hitler or Communists who don't believe in God & seek to take over the world?
How would you address the fact that the National Council of Churches are totally out of touch with the grass roots?
[How would you honor men who were drafted & shed their blood to protect freedom of worship]?
What is each clergyman's personal [story]?
Have I given out, bucked current, fought upstream, leapt falls, released my roe, and now gone slack in some back water near the source?
Is that the way I'll go, frayed fins and faded glow, pale ragged tail that barely wavers, body slowing drifting, bumping roots and rocks, awash?

330. Searching for the Real Jesus (by Roland Leslie Warren; 1997)

How could Jesus's special divinity be a spurious addition to the itinerant preacher/

teacher & Kingdom of God story?
How were the gospel narratives either history or fiction?
How can one remain a Christian, testifying to Jesus Christ as Lord & Savior, if Jesus is a myth [without] roots?

  Where do you see God: in Caesar or Jesus?
  How can supernatural events be treated impartially?
  How did a simple speaker of proverbs and parables ever alienate the Jewish and   Roman authorities of his day to such an extent that he was executed in so

gruesome a fashion?

If Jesus' corpse was still there, how could his disciples maintain that he had risen?
Why would Jewish authorities acknowledge the empty tomb by claiming that Jesus'

followers had stolen his body?
  Why didn't Jesus' follow the custom of venerating the graves of their dead leaders?
  Why would Mark's "fictional account" have the empty tomb discovered by women, when a better "story" would be its discovery by Peter or another disciple?
  How would Paul be convinced of "false" eye witness testimony; why would he stake his preaching & life on it?
  Why were there no other rumors & alleged stories, no competing traditions of the burial & empty tomb?
  How could disciples go on proclaiming that Jesus had risen with Jesus' [corpse present as a damning contradiction]?
  Why would Jesus' disciples use the "incredible" story of a dead man’s physical

resurrection when they could instead declare the presence of the Holy Spirit of Jesus with them and energizing their lives?

How would the Christian movement, based on the Risen Lord, have an amazing

rise without a verifiable resurrection?

[How can you have a Christian based on a naturalistic belief that the resurrection

couldn't have happen]?
Is Jesus remarkable human or Godhead?

331. Communion for a Quaker (by Nancy Bieber (1997)

Why [do I seem to need something] more than "direct communion with God"?

How can a Quaker deal with the paradox of wanting meeting for worship & Communion?
What is Communion's attraction?
On what occasions did I experience: deeply united community; a commitment to

compassionate service; A strong, real experience of God's presence?
Where is the Quaker's sacrament of communion?
If life is ablaze with sacramental potential, why do we experience communion so

infrequently?
How can I take the time to live sacramentally?
How would you adapt a part of old familiar ritual so that it is a rich aid to spiritual

deepening in your daily life?
Which strand of communion [i.e. community; commitment to service; presence of God] is most central to [the ritual's] & the group's purpose?

What kind of rituals could be created for the workplace, for the playing place?
What kind of meaningful acts could be created for times of sorrow or times of joy?

332 The Burning One-ness Binding Everything: A Spiritual Journey (by Bruce
Birchard;1997)

How do I know that this experience of the Spirit is real?

  How could God stand by and permit such suffering, or the long history of suffering?
  Of the 3 who had cancer the same time I did, why did only 1 other survive?
  How could you do this to me, a righteous man?
  How does our suffering serve God or serve the devil, the cause of becoming alive or of being morally paralyzed?
  Where does my suffering lead?
  What might "loving things in particular, [in order to] love the world" have to do with

today's understanding of the world as interdependent?
Where does the potential for transformation leave me on my journey?

333 Walk With Me: Nonviolent Accompaniment in Guatemala (By Peg Morton;
1997)

[Bishop Samuel Ruiz's (Mexico) Queries (1994)]—How can we join in an encounter with ethnic groups so we can walk together on new paths of mutual & just relations?

How can we wash away discrimination & substantially reduce the economic &

social disparities that separated us for generations?
  How can we generate new attitudes, throw off our egoism?
  How can we create economies that don't pauperize & kill?
  Quaker Queries: How will Congressional monitors hold the CIA accountable and ensure they send different signals to Guatemala's lawless military commanders?
  Will I come too, on the path of these refugees? Will I join their struggles? What does it mean for me?
  How can we be strong bridges between 2 worlds?
  [How do we communicate that we "have the same moon" in common with the new
settlers]?
  How will we continue to walk with the people, to step outside of our lives and move with others?
  What kind of symbol can we be to the new settlers and to the people back home?
  How the community take shape? How will I take shape?
  How can we bring about real change?
  How can we open the eyes of our families & friends, as we live our lives & let these
things happen?
  How can we avoid inaction, or anything less than full support and solidarity with the
refugees after they return home?
  How can I work effectively?

334. The Bosnian Student Project: A Response to Genocide By Douglas Hostetter (1997)
Who is my neighbor?
How could a Christian school or congregation welcome Muslim or mixed-family students into their midst and still accept the student as they were?
Did you know that Baptists and Muslims pray to the same God?

335. Come Aside and Rest Awhile (by Frances I. Taber; 1997)
How is "taking retreat" beyond the weekly meeting for worship necessary and part of
Quaker practice, in a sect best known for social action?

How does the urge toward retreat [fit in] with a call to social witness?

How would withdrawal from community for personal retreats affect the community's
power to heal?
How do we bring forward God's sustaining & healing presence into outward action?
"[How] Can I by willing, running, ever sink—
Desiring God within my heart to know
By application of the gift to think—
Down to the soil in which the Seed will grow?"
How would I go into unstructured silent retreat?
How is a supportive community important in doing solitary work?
What is Prayer?

336 God’s Spirit in Nature (by Judith Brown; 1998)
How am I living ecologically; how am I not?
What can I do to steward the piece of land I inherited?
How can I turn to some form of reverence?
Where is the ocean of Light, the force that can lift us up, spill us out of this darkness?
How can the physical world augment and call up the Spiritual World?
How does a particular person survive?
How is it "all the live, little things," including cancer cells, have their place in the scheme of
things?
How do we choose our life-battles?

How is it good to interfere with nature, or to let nature take its course?
How do we find the places where our compassion would be most effective?
How do we understand God's body being affirmed when earthquakes and floods destroy
a bio- region or when gale winds blow harshly?
How can a force humans think of as Divine create so much chaos along with beauty and
order in the universe?
What purpose could God have had in giving human beings uncontrollable feelings?

337. There is a Spirit: The Nayler Sonnets (by Kenneth Boulding; 1998)

[How can I be sure I am performing a "virtuous" act for the "crown of bliss that Heaven affords," rather than "approving friends,/ tongues to praise, hands

to applaud, and honors?

How "is love the end & law of life, when lush, grimacing hates quickly sprout?"

How can we endure, when all around us nations, gracious cities, homes & men die?

How do we endure darkness ... evil's eclipse ... without being hard, stiff, pitiless

as stone... oak... steel?

What can endure? Who worships proud imperious Caesar now?

How and where do we find the patience to trust in love's slow ways?

If God be All in All, where does good end and evil begin?

How are there contraries at the heart of all things?]

How & Where can I find "a river to clean the stable of my thought?

How often do I betray thee, with word or sneer/ of silence?

How do I invite God "to clean this House I have defiled?"

How do all our virtues "cast a mimic shade of subtle vice that often usurps" the

place of actual virtue?

How do we access "senses, deeper laid than sight, to receive guidance from

Love made pure?

How do we "love for Love alone, & not for God's gifts."

How can Hell be taken with thin wisps of light, without using invincible force?

How have I laid Thy Kingdom in me open to betrayal & a slow unseen decay?

How do I first rejoice in God alone, so that I truly enjoy & rejoice in God's gifts?

How are friends "built around me like a wall, so we stand together in a stockade

around the cheerful fire our faith has made?

How do we access joy that "springs rash from beds of pain?

How can the chain of golden love sus-tain the weight of woe?

How do we access light that is the product of our suffering?

How may we see the paradox & mystery of our suffering & God suffering with

us?

How can grief & "vital-tearing ago-nies be Divine Love's gift, & be used to reach

the joy "on the far side of woe?

How do we "find securer worth in heaven's grief," & resist the temptations of

earth's lesser joys?

How can I have fellowship with them that are poorly fed & housed, if I live in

comfort?

How can we see with the Kingdom's eyes, while we still have worldly vision?

How do we access the eternal Kingdom before reaching the gate of death?

Why are you people just sitting there?
Why aren't you doing something?
  What Wilt thou do in the End?
  What can a person do in a world that needs so much help so much healing, so much
  rebuilding?

338 Touched by God (by Kenneth Carroll; 1998)
Why are you people just sitting there? Why aren't you doing something?
What Wilt thou do in the End?
What can a person do in a world that needs so much help so much healing, so much

rebuilding?

339. Prayer: Beginning Again (by Sheila Keane; 1998)

What is prayer?
Why do we pray?
How Do we Learn to Pray?
Who would you trust with the secret of who you really are?
By what criteria do I decide that prayer is working?
           What am I supposed to do? What is God calling forth in me, in us?
          How can we know what we are called to do?
          If your life were nearly ended, what would you choose to do now?
          Do my actions make use of my talents & abilities?
          Are my choices compatible with my life constraints?

How do you express your prayers using your body, senses, emotions, thoughts, or

actions?
How do you listen for God's responses?
How necessary is piety in prayer?
How do you prepare for prayer?
What problems have you encountered in your prayer life and how did you cope with them?

340. A Song of Death, our Spiritual Birth: A Quaker Way of Dying (by Lucy
Screechfield McIver; 1998)
How could birth and death be the same experience?

How can Death be a time of living more completely?
How have Quakers lost the belief that giving self-will over to God is the way to receive God's loving arms in passing from temporal to eternal life?
How do we balance the intellectual, physical, and spiritual sides of ourselves?
[ How is the autumn leaf's falling in all its color as important as my life, my surrender of life]?
[How is] the shedding of the unneeded skins of time and earthly understandings the final fruits of life, and a journey into union with God?
How did the faith of early Friends guide them in the experience of living into death?
What do I know about the Quaker way of dying?
How will embracing death openly through dying labor [weave] a circle of faith as we live into that common experience?
"[What is] the Quaker way of dying?"

341. Sickness, Suffering, and Healing: More Stories from another Place (by Tom Gates; 1998)
  How was believing God would heal one of HIV & restore one's life, great faith or denial?
How did the dying person achieve "acceptance," or was one stuck in "denial?"
How can we account for the [African] paradox of joy within suffering; where does the patience come from?

342. Beyond the Bars: A Quaker Primer for Prison Visitors (by Keith R. Maddock; 1999)
   How will you try to not forget me?
How does one have a right to judge a person any differently after discovering a side to their history darker than expected?
What About the Sexual Offender?
How are sexual offenders redeemable or unredeemable?
When have you ever been to jail?

343. Quakerism and Science (by Calvin Schwabe; 1999)
How could underlying principles explain a [Creative] Force's properties?
How do observed qualities within biological systems reflect influences of some transcendent,  purposeful, principle or force?
How may subjective awareness [of unusual connections] be derived or fostered within science?
How does a prepared mind imply a personal experiential background receptive to a particular revelation?

344. Dancing with God through the Storm: Mysticism and Mental Illness (by
Jennifer Elam; 1999)
  How do you create a safe container [for the more volatile, difficult memories of life]? What needs to be held, for how long, in what circumstances?
What is the effect on a person's soul of declaring God experiences "inauthentic," "false," or "delusional?"
How does it feel to have to choose between denying ones [spiritual] center [in deference to] society's demands, & getting stuck with the label "crazy?"
How do we respond to the conflict between society's demands & our own [spiritual] experiences?
At what cost?
What are the common overlapping experiences [of those labeled mystical & those labeled psychotic]?
How are we to give the pain to God and trust, when God seems to have abandoned us, [when  there is no sense of God's presence]?
How are we to jump into nothingness with faith without evidence that it makes sense to do so?

345. More than Equals: Spiritual Friendships (by Trish Roberts; 1999)

Why can't I meet & talk with someone more regularly?
What is Spiritual Friendship?
Why are Quakers engaging in Spiritual Friendships?
How does life have any meaning? How is God responsible?
If God is responsible for the good things that happen, who/what is responsible for things?
How can I survive this time?
If I don't know who God is, then who am I praying to?
Why is there any point in praying?
How am I qualified/suitable to be a spiritual friend?
How is spiritual friendship something that might be a helpful aspect of my faith life?
How often am I willing to meet with a friend? [What is the best form of meeting]?
[What spiritual concern is on your mind]?   What image do you have of God?
What speaks to you in meeting for worship? How do you center?
How is God present & active in your life? What are some of your "holy moments"?
What devotional readings are helpful to you right now?
What do you want? What hurts? What are you thankful for? Where is your
sorrow?

346. Treasure in Clay Jars (by Elizabeth Ostrander Sutton; 1999)
How do I live my life based on meeting the Inward Christ?

347. Tall Poppies: Supporting Gifts of Ministry & Eldering in the Monthly Meeting (by Martha Paxson Grundy; 1999)
  Why does it matter that we have lost the corporate dimension of ministry?
What might Friends do to reclaim our heritage?
What qualities or gifts might Friends expect to see in someone blessed with gifts of
eldering or ministry by the Holy Spirit?
Whom do Friends turn to instinctively for counsel, mentoring, for spiritual direction?
Who is drawn to help our children see God in the teachable moments of opportunity?
How do we accept the gifts of those we would prefer to exclude?
Is the "problem" with an individual's gift from the individual's arrogance or another's discomfort or resentment]?
How does your spiritual journey intersect with or exemplify the Quaker tradition?
What are your spiritual gifts and How have they been offered to and received by the
Friends in our meeting?
In what ways have these gifts changed you?
What temptations are there in using your gifts?
How do you or would you utilize a mentor or elder?
How do you react to different kinds of criticism from different people?
What are your disciplines and prayer life like?
How have we experienced this person's ministry within our meeting?
[What part of this person's humanness have we observed during their ministry; and how have they moved back into right relationship with God?
How has the person reconciled strained, unhealed relationships; what is the meeting's role in this reconciliation?
How will we perceive this person's ministry done outside the meeting in the
meeting's name?
How have the expectations for outside ministry been made clear to both individual and meeting?
How do we discern that God is leading us to a clear sense of right action?
How is this person rightly prepared and clear regarding the economic and family
constraints on this ministry?
How can a meeting support an enthusiastic Friend's favorite ministry project?

348. Journey to Bosnia, Return to Self (by Suzanne Hubbard O'Hatnick; 2000)
  Why go so far away; what connection can 'those people' and 'their war' possibly have                      with us?
Why do we sometimes choose isolation and alienation over exchange and relationship?
"What have we human done with our wars?
"Why don't we invite local folks to join us in prayers for peace during the elections?
Why don't we ask our email list friends to pray with us?
Why were some of my [Muslim] neighbors afraid to walk to town during the day in Bosnia?
What do France, England, Germany, America want?
How can we touch something and make it beautiful, or perhaps see more clearly the
beauty that is there?
How is this dark ugliness waiting for a transformation of which we are a part?
What filled them with [persistence and] hope?
Why, when one feels so strongly led by God to venture forth, to take some action, is it
so terribly difficult?

349. The Radiance and Risks of Mythmaking (by Gilbert H. Kilpack; 2000)
  Where does one direct fear of the enemy and anger?
Who is the enemy—me or them?

How do you prove with legal satisfaction that John Doe has 1^st failed honestly, wisely to love himself?
How are people brought back from the brink of starvation without injury?

350. I have always wanted to be Jewish: and now, thanks to the Religious Society of Friends, I am (by Claire Gorfinkel; 2000)

Why would anyone want to embrace more traditional Judaism?
What need is there for religion, in the presence of activism & long-standing concern for justice?
Why would someone believe that faith in the world-to-come would substitute for conscientious work in the world-as-we-know it?
How would anyone [or I] know I was Jewish [or Quaker]?
What does it mean to me, to be Jewish [or Quaker]?

351. Jacob Boehme: Insights into the Challenge of Evil (by Ann Liem; Reprint of 1977 pamphlet)
How was Jacob Boehme and George Fox linked somehow by the revelation of truth, and the converting of a people to follow it?

352. Navigating the Living Waters of the Gospel of John: On Wading with Children and Swimming with Elephants (by Paul Anderson; 2000)
What is it that renders John's gospel so reader friendly on one hand, and so theologically puzzling on the other?
How could John be so different from the Synoptics if it were written by an eyewitness?
Why do readers become attached to it for personal reasons of faith?
How do we wade with the children while reading meaningfully John's Gospel?
How do we find ways to navigate the "living waters" of John's provocative text?
What are John's 5 unique signs and how are they constructed to evoke belief?
What does it mean to believe? What does it mean to receive life in his name?
How have my infirmities become more desired than God's transformative workings?
How do I want to be whole?

353. Letting That Go, Keeping This: The Spiritual Pilgrimage of Fritz Eichenberg (by Philip Harnden; 2001)
What forms might a guardian angel take?
Where is the art in Fritz Eichenberg's work? Is it in what is there—or in what is not there; in what is kept or what is let go; the inked or the uninked?

354. Live the Questions: Write into the Answers (By Mary C. Morrison & Barbara E. Parsons; 2001)

What restrictions will we find on our "free-flowing" thoughts?
How do we use our writing to explore ways in which we connect to the world?
How do we let the metaphors we find lead us to a greater understanding of self and place in the world?
What is summer [but a] time for a turtle's eggs to hatch?"
How do we leave time for sunrise, sunset, leaves growing in spring, a fine piece of music, a poem, scripture, a family member or friend?
What is happening to you in this moment? What are you experiencing?
What interests you and moves you? What is your mind doing?

What does your life mean on this day?
What if all those years of encrusted layers of debris were essential to keeping the

structure above from crumbling and collapsing?

What if we dug too deep?
How would it be destructive to dig down through our own inner layers of the past and

remove what could be binding the life above us together?
How do we know when to stop digging?
What did you do? Who with? Did you want to do it or not?
How did you have something happen on another level or trigger memories during the experience?

How did you collect some special thing as a child (e.g. ceramic or wooden dogs)?
What collections do we carry into adulthood?
What and why do you collect what you do? What does it mean to you?
What does it add to your life?
What episodes have you found in your remembrances that have a confusing mix of good & bad in them?
How much & what kind of good & bad?
What has a life-changing experience taught you? What has it given you?
Who is God or I? What is God's will for my life?

What is my relationship to divine order;
Where do I go from here? When will I find my direction?
Why am I here & suffering? How do I know the Truth?
How are we going to respond to the inevitable & growing diminishment that is coming upon us?

Where do you stand in relation to this mixed-up situation in your life?
What if most spiritual experiences are small—perhaps microscopically so—hardly

noticeable, needing our attention to magnify them to the point of awareness?

355. In Beauty: A Quaker Approach to End-of-Life Care (by Kirsten Backstrom; 2001)

  Where do these life paths come together?
How does a person "walk in beauty" throughout life and up to death?
How do I know that my work is important?
How are our actions consistent with our ideals?
How are we attentive to "that of God" in ourselves & others?
How are we open to new Light in unlikely places?
How do we know what is truly meaningful in our lives & give our time & emotional resources to it?

356. Testimony: John Woolman on Today's Global Economy (by David Morse; 2001)
  How would John Woolman respond to today's globalized economy?
How would we respond to the issue of slavery in Woolman's 18th century world?
How could I have the courage and the moral imagination to make choices [similar to Woolman's]?
How do I recognize my complicity [in substandard work and living conditions worldwide], and make my actions consonant with my beliefs?
How does the process of globalization bring at least some small improvement to desperately poor people in less developed countries?
[How do we reconcile the need for technological development with the needs for environment preservation, economic & social justice]?
[How do we react to positive changes in the wages of the Asian poor, resulting from a   flood of cheap Asian goods, and resulting in lower hourly wages for western    factory workers & a necessary adjustment toward global equity?
What effect will globalization have on international competition and on building a structure for peace?
How is some structure like the World Trade Organization (WTO) necessary or not necessary to govern globalization?
How should the earth's scarce resources be allocated?
How do we as a species decide these issues?
[How should a truly representative international organization codify] the protection of local economies and the biosphere, and promotion of global peace based on economic justice?
[How do we be aware of the exploitation of distant workers scarcely older than the   children they make toys for, and avoid it]?
How can we restore our field of moral choice?
How can we know how workers and the environment is being treated in the production of a particular commodity?
How would John Woolman respond to the ferocity of the attack on the efforts of ordinary people to live ethically?
What are the obstacles to our responding with the same clarity of spirit that informed Woolman and his cohorts?
How do we draw strength from those who inspire us?
How do I dare to aspire to MLK's depth of conviction? How do I overcome my   assumptions of being less capable than MLK & settling for lesser goals &
  passion?
How do I bring change within my own heart?
How can our faith keep up with the velocity of change?
How can we as individuals keep up with change?

357. A Plea for the Poor by John Woolman (by PH publications committee; 2001)
  How am I influenced with true charity in fixing all my demands?
How do I have a desire to support myself in the same expensive customs as my
  neighbors?
Before I increase labor, rents, or interest, how could I name and dispense with some costly articles of mine that are not useful, and lessen my expenses and their burden?
How can we remember the Prince of Peace, that we are his humble, plain disciples, &
remember to have no fellowship with those inventions which men in the fallen
wisdom have sought out?
How can we behold the prevalance of idolatry in the selfishness of this age, & be jealous over ourselves lest we unwarily join in it?
How do we look upon our treasures, the furniture of our houses & our garments ... & try
whether the seeds of war have nourishment in our possession?
How much of our household economy goes towards unnecessary things?
Amidst those expenses which the pure Truth doesn't require, how do we employ teachers not  influenced by the spirit of Truth?
How can we humbly wait on the Lord for wisdom to direct us in their education?

358. Reflections from a Prayer Vigil for Peace (by John Andrew Gallery; 2001)
   How does the parable of the sower tell us anything about living in God's Kingdom?
What was it that led Jesus to enter the spiritual stream?
How am I prepared to be a fool for God?
How are only 1 or 2 people effective on a vigil?
Who is to know whether it you or I or a person we meet, who makes a commitment and becomes that one final person needed to break the branch of war and violence in the world?

359. The Existential Theology of Nikos Kazantzakis (by Howard F. Dosser 2001)
  How did I come to be here? What is the world?
Who lured me here & left me there?
Why was I not consulted, & made acquainted with its manners & customs?
Why was I brought as though by a kidnapper, a dealer in souls?
If I am compelled to take part in it, where is the Director?
What am I supposed to be doing now that I find myself in the world?

360. Quaker Social Testimony in Our Personal and Corporate Life (by Jonathan Dale; 2002)
What is the state of Quaker testimony in seasoned & politically active Friends?
What do our daily lives and choices say about our testimony?
How can we bring God more and more into our daily decision-making process?
How can we cope with all the daily spiritual questions more creatively?
How can we assess contemporary Friends' engagement with life-style and politics in our corporate life?
How would a stranger know what our testimonies are just from how we run our own
affairs?
How do our investments express God's loving purpose?
How do our furnishing and decoration express our testimony on simplicity?
What impact for good or ill does our part in the tourist trade have on the country
concerned?
How should we offer our financial support to an acceptable regime?
How can we sense every area of our lives to be one where our spiritual discernment is exercised?

361. Journey through Skepticism (by Roland I. Warren; 2002)
How seriously do we take the Bible? How does our choice affect our faith?
What is the "beyond" we seek?
How could presumably mindless atoms & void of billions of years ago produce philosophy, or even any consciousness?
Where is awareness located?
From whence come these noble achievements of faith, & what do they imply for me, a person hungry to participate in the evolution [of the spiritual realm]?

362. Bringing God Home: Exploring Family Spirituality (by Mary Kay Rehard;
2002)
  How do we allow children to experiment, gain mastery & put their mark on the world, especially in prayer?
How do we bring together family life & spirituality, parenting and prayer?
What are contemporary Quaker parents to do?
How do we make room in our busy family lives to devote regular time and attention to God?
What do I have to pass on to my children and the generations that follow?
What kind of home environment am I creating for my children?
Why did you entrust these children to me, God? How am I good enough?
How do we include our children in these prayers, keeping God at the center: guiding, healing, and strengthening our family life?
When do we invite children to participate in prayer and worship?
How do we approach our children's religious education in confidence that they have a rich inner life and contributions to make to our spirituality?
What was it about Jesus, what is it about Christ that made the fishermen trust enough to leave their livelihood & become "fishers of men"?
[How much room to we make in our lives for God's plans?]
How much room do we make in our lives for our children's plans?
How do we recognize our children as bearers of Christ's presence,[each as a Christ- child]?
How can we know that in spite of our contradictions, we are already "children of
God?"
  How do you want to be a “human doing” or a “human being”?
How do we ever [as a family] engage in activity that is not goal-oriented or focused on an outcome or product?
How do we lead children to a quiet place & teach them attentiveness to the inward life?
How is God working in our lives? What is God calling us to do?
What does it mean to follow Christ here & now?

363. Profession and Practice: Quaker Perspectives on Healing as Ministry (by
Maureen Flannery; 2002)
What does the early Quaker professionalism critique mean for contemporary
Friends?
How can Friends support & challenge professionalism?
How can professional Friends be full participants in this beloved community?
How should Friends be asked to fill roles in meeting that utilize their professional
training?
How should Friends be offered opportunities to develop gifts not acknowledged in their life in the world?
How are there approaches to professionalism that value authority, service, & empathy while addressing Friends concerns about power, detachment &
specialization?
How much self-disclosure [by the healer] is appropriate in a professional encounter?
What boundaries are healthy?
How does one find time for solitude and "retirement" in the face of overwhelming need?
Where does one draw the line between being of service and being taken advantage of?
How is it more important to use the status of one's occupation to benefit others than to reject it on principle?
How is it time to give up our "romanticized egalitarianism" and to accept the value of
advanced training and credentialing?
How can Friends best be of use in a society in which the trappings of professionalism are to a valued and sometimes required?
How can we open ourselves to a different manner of working and sharing what we know, new way of practicing professionalism?
How can we reclaim the Quaker tradition's wisdom and affirm the valuable parts of
professionalism?
How can we and our meetings encourage, support and challenge professionals in their midst to integrate their work and their spirituality?
How can we ask ourselves, our colleagues, and our companions, "What canst thou say" [about professionalism]?
How do you consider your work connected with your life as a Quaker?
How do you handle accepting members & attenders of your meeting as clients/
patients?
How do you handle relationships with former clients/patients who have become involved in your meeting?
How does your profession affect your participation or speaking in the meeting?
How does your work either provide gifts for nurturing activities, or exclude you from
involvement?
How are you comfortable seeking guidance from your meeting about professional
concerns?
How do you use professional titles?
How does your profession allow you time for individual spiritual disciplines or for participation in meeting life?
How have your Quaker values been in conflict with the ethics of etiquette of your
profession?
How have you dealt with inappropriate Friendly requests of professional services or advice?
How could you be better supported in your work by Friends?

364. Gift of Days: Report on an Illness (by Mary Chase Morrison; 2003)

What happens when all the settled truths of a person used to counting on life seem , fragile irrelevant & perhaps unfounded?
How is meditation an attempt to correct our wrong relationship with time?
What if it wasn't the great moments but the little ones that held the secret of joy?
How can I hang onto an inner change to living in the present as old habits of human life focused on past & future return?

365. The Authority of our Meeting is the Power of God (by Paul A. Lacey; 2003)
What are the ultimate sources of power for religious faith & practice?
How have divinely-inspired, human institutions been created to serve & express God's will?
How consistently does an individual keep faith with their leadings?
What is the difference between Gospel Order and Quaker Process?

366. Invitation to a Deeper Communion (by Marcelle Martin; 2003)
What was it about the worship, beliefs, and lives of the first Quakers that made their
religion so powerful and had such a transforming effect on the world in which they lived?

"How should they be able to bear being told that any should grow up [into] ... the stature of the fullness of Christ, when they can't bear to hear that any should come, whilst upon earth, into the same power & Spirit that the prophets & apostles were in?"

Is the Kingdom of God come to be with men?"

What are we willing to risk for our faith?
What might monthly meetings glean from extended worship experiences to help deepen the weekly meetings for worship?
What fruit might be born of a profound renewal of [extended] worship "in spirit and in truth?"

367. Quaker in Vietnam: Rick Thompson (by Beth Taylor; 2003)

Who would dare call a shifting of emphasis and power a "peace" settlement?

368. On Retiring to Kendal—and Beyond (by Peter Bien; 2003)
How is death an unmitigated calamity?
Why have Quakers been so active in creating retirement communities?
Why is it for Quakers a natural, desirable alternative to remaining in individual homes?
How is all our worldly accomplishment futile if it ends in oblivion?
How would life be better if greatly prolonged, or if death did not exist?
How would it be advantageous to live forever, avoiding sickness & debility?
[Why would Odysseus turn down Calypso's offer of immortality,] & deliberately choose mortality?
How is life good in spite of [or because of] death?
How does death actually enhance life, make it better?
How do we understand the inconsistency of first opposing non-being as an ultimate evil and later on embrace that evil as an ultimate good?

369. Meditation on the Prayer of St. Francis (by Ann Curo; 2003)
How do we plant hope where none exists? Why does faith fail?
How did Jesus come to the profound certainties he brought back, taught & lived?
If we can't remove the other person's pain, what can we do about it?
How is my "motherly" love different from "fatherly" love?

370. Quaker in the Zendo (by Steve Smith; 2004)
How can I have the extraordinary commitment, faith & willingness to risk all [in order to enter a rich spiritual life]?
How do you choose to worship by gathering only bodily & walk in the "Light of your own fire, & in the sparks you have kindled?
How do you sit down in True Silence, resting from your own Will and Workings, and
waiting upon the Lord, until Christ has enlightened you, and the Lord breathes life into you?

371. Members One of Another: Dynamics of Membership in Quaker Meeting (by   Thomas Gates; 2004)
  "What is the underlying spiritual movement by which individuals find their identity in the meeting community?
  How do they find a full sense of belonging?
How do we come to be "members one of another?
How are you maturing into the fullness of membership in this spiritual community?
How is our meeting a community which nurtures the spiritual growth and transformation    of its members?
How are there ways I can help guide the world away from violence and toward peace?
How can I change my life to be less complicit with violent and oppressive systems?
What would simplicity look like today?
How is it that we experience God's love in our lives?
What is the goal of this [spiritual] transformation?
If we do not provide a vision of "the fullness of membership," then how will any grow into that fullness?
What are the implications of this process of belonging, acceptance, transformation, and obedience for the formal process of membership?

372. Living the Peace Testimony: The Legacy of Howard & Anna Brinton (by
Anthony Manousos; 2004)
How can a better social order be attained without violence?

          "Why are Quakers Pacifists?"

373. Group Spiritual Nurture (GSN): The Wisdom of Spiritual Listening (by Daphne Clement; 2004)
How is it my moment today, to speak of the prayers, images, or events living within me?
How do we seek awareness of God's presence so that all things take their rightful place?

374. The Practice of the Love of God (by Kenneth Boulding; 2004 [original lecture given in 1942])
How do we Love God? [How can we express our love for God?]
What can we do for God?
How can we love our neighbor if our neighbor is not lovable, or even our enemy?
How can we love those who [by war have] made of Europe [and Asia] a hell of hatred, hunger, and bitterness that generations will hardly fill up?
How does he/ she love God?
How have we tried to shut God up in a meetinghouse?
How will notions of God, Christ, theories, theologies lead us into contention and bitterness in the absence of God's love?
How will this affect everybody?

375. Quaker Views on Mysticism (by Margery Post Abbott; 2004)
What is a Friend?
What are Friends' expectations about communal practice of mysticism & how individuals speak of or act in response to mystical experiences?
How do we know when it is really God as the Inward Teacher & not [an old family   message about proper behavior]?
When is it our desire for glory or another voice distracting us from a right path?
What difference do the mystical experiences make in my work, behavior & relationships?
[What would the world be like if Biblical characters & George Fox had responded to their "voices" & visions as unacceptable or even dangerous hallucinations]?
How do you recognize a true mystical experience?

376. Henry Cadbury: Scholar, Activist, Disciple (by Margaret Hope Bacon; 2005) “Why spend your whole life studying the seed catalog?
Why not plant one’s garden and see what comes up?

377. Creed and Quakers: What’s Belief got to do with it? (by Robert Griswold; 2005)
What do you know from your own personal spiritual experience?
What was the condition Fox was in, that needed to be addressed in a way that
would shake him out of it?

378. Living in Virtue, Declaring Against War: Spiritual Roots of Peace Testimony (by Steve Smith; 2005)
How should I “make peace in myself” before I make peace in the world?

379. Living Truth: a Spiritual Portrait of Pierre Ceresole—1879-1945 (by Keith
Maddock; 2005)

380. A very good week behind bars (by Janeal Ravndal; 2005)
When will the dear children of one group stop obeying orders to denounce and kill the dear folk of another group?
What threat were they recognizing in trying to control us [with prison]?
What could the government have done instead to save itself the cost and trouble of housing me there?

381. Fire of the Heart: Norman Morrison’s Legacy in Viet Nam & at home (by Ann Morrison Welsh; 2005)

Within the Great Mystery, how are we to act?

382. Holding one another in the Light (by Marcelle R. Martin; 2006)
What Happens in Intercessory Prayer?

383. Answering the Call to Heal the World (by Patience A. Schenck; 2006) When were we last reviled for our vocal ministry?
Why don't we shake the country for 10 miles round?
"But who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the Israelites out of
Egypt?
How do we gain clarity about our own gifts?
What part of the activity did you especially enjoy?
What gifts were you exhibiting?
Where [specifically] do we apply our gifts?
Where is my heart? What do I care about most deeply?
What issues brought you to tears, energized you, made you determined to act?
What vision touched your heart and motivated you?
What grieves you so deeply that you want to defeat it?
What does a leading feel like?
How do we test whether our perceived leadings are genuine?
When have you felt called to some action? What was it like?
How was it different from just thinking that some action would be a good idea?
How was it different from following your conscience?
How should I use my life & gifts?
When should we consider a job change, making our calling our profession?
How will we be called to bold public action or to quiet private faithfulness?
Who told you to be quiet? Why be Faithful to Our Call?
When did you want too much for people to like you?

384. The Mystery of Quaker Light (by Peter Bien; 2006)

Though we must not confuse the theological Light with natural light, how can we subtract the sun, moon, and stars?

385. In God we Die (by Warren Ostrom; 2006)
How should my treasure & my heart be in health insurance?
Why do we need more years to live full lives, and to carry out God’s intentions for our lives, than all those who came before us?
How do I decide fight, or to accept my death this time?
How Do We Know What God Wants For Us?
How do we know when the soul is still there, and how can we tell when it’s gone?
What is it to die?
What do I know and believe about Death
How is God all-powerful? How can we thwart God’s will with our own decisions?

386. The Mindful Quaker (by Valerie Brown; 2006)

387. Turnaround: Growing a 21st Century Religious Society of Friends (by Benjamin Lloyd; 2006)
How will we draw others if they don’t know where we are?
What can your meeting do for the world?
What housing can you provide for recovery groups, civic meetings, or parent gatherings?
Why are attenders not members of the meetings where they worship?
How have they considered the consequences to your community of not joining?
[What] fears have been invented which keep them from joining?
What are the meeting’s requirements for membership?
What must the meeting know about a person before we know that we are clear to ask him or her to join officially in membership?
Who wants to become part of a group that does not clearly articulate and celebrate the
qualities that make it unique?
How often does you meeting community do things together just to have fun?
How is a nurturing and attentive meeting community accomplished?
How can we help you organize as young Quakers without forcing models onto your worship that seem outmoded to you?
What kinds of spaces do our young Friends need for their gatherings, concerts, or coffee
houses?

388. Expectant Listening: Finding God’s Thread of Guidance (by Michael Wajda; 2007)
How have you ever been moved by an inbreaking of the Light—awakened by the inflowing love of God?
What was this core of strength that I was discovering deep down, keeping me close to the crisis, yet letting me know that love and forgiveness were part of the mystery and miracle of life as well?
“With God at my side, what becomes clear?”
“How are you ready to welcome me into the center of your life again?”

How do I know if what I hear is a message from God?
How does expectant listening increase our faithfulness as Friends?
What is God? Has God ever spoken to me?
Have I ever experienced the Inward Light?

How do I really believe in God? How do I know if it is God who is speaking?

How do the other people in this room really believe in God?

How can I be convinced that God really is present and is gathering us all into a place where “all creation has a new smell”?
"When in this place of communion, what is it you would have me do?”
What are you doing to stay in touch with the Living Source?

389. From West Point to Quakerism (by Mike Heller; 2007)
How did I feel that admitting regret would make it harder for me to forgive myself or to forgive others?
What should one do for one’s family, community, nation, and world?
“How many deaths of other people’s children by bombing or starvation are we willing to accept in order that we may be free, affluent and (supposedly) at peace?

390. Special Education as Spiritual Journey (by Michael Resman; 2007)
  Did I give back in equal measure?
  What would the world be like if no one were in need?]
  Where is the justice for those who live in great need?
  "Had I really forgiven her, & was the anger truly gone?"
  How has my work influenced my spiritual journey?
  How do I see God playing a role in bringing me difficulties or in resolving them?
  How have children or receivers of care been teachers to me?
  How can "appropriate expectations be useful in my life or my meeting's life?
  Why is there so much suffering by innocent children?
  How would I describe my religious experience?
How do I understand heaven?
  How do I respond [to the idea that some are called to] have great needs and those who have much are called to give to those who have little?
  How does the statement "There is only justice in the next world" trouble me?
  How has God moved me here or there in order to make use of me?
  How have I struggled to forgive someone who has harmed me?
  What experiences have I had of deep spiritual joy, and what have I understood its source to be?

391. Getting Rooted: Living in the Cross; a Path to Joy & Liberation (by Brian
Dayton; 2007)
What Does it Mean for us to “Find our Quaker Roots?
How art thou in the Darkness?
How do you make space in daily life for a time of retirement, in which you wait until you are no longer contemplating yourself but come to where you can reach beyond   yourself to the living Other?

392. Spirit-led Eldering (by Margery Mears Larrabee; 2007)
What is Spirit-led eldering?
How does the authority of the Spirit break through our social conventions for its own
purposes in ways we haven’t yet understood?
How are we open & receptive to such possibilities?
What could possibly be done that would likely have the desired effect?
To what extent are we willing to give priority to creating and maintaining right relationship with the Spirit and with each other?
How are we open to inspiration leading to unfamiliar and extraordinary acts?
How can we go beyond what seems fair and right in an ordinary way?
How do we look 1st to changing ourselves with restoration and healing?
How are we being challenged?
[In the face of unaware and repetitive comments in opposition to the sense of the   meeting], how is a forceful “Sit down” an appropriate interruption and helpful
to  the meeting?
How was there a missed opportunity for nurturing & discernment prior to the actual
   business session to relate to the disagreeing Friend?
As we meet in an appropriate time and space, how do we have in mind 1st to listen, to   understand, and to accept the other person’s present situation?
How are we prepared for an outcome of either mutual agreement or mutual
  disagreement?
How are we mindful of and turned to the Spirit throughout our exchange?
How can we give priority to finding the energy and time for an extended eldering process when it seems called for?
How are we nurturing our capacity for plain speaking that emerges from the clear,   centered, and caring place in which we are empowered to do this kind of eldering?
How are we ready to trust the Spirit and give up expectations about outcomes?
How are we willing to provide a rigorous membership process that brings applicants       to their own understanding of Friends’ faith and practice, and provides a solid   beginning to their experience in the meeting?
How may each of us seek to do the inner work needed to become more prepared, ready   to respond to others in the service of the Spirit in our community?
How are we paying attention, blessing, calling forth, & nurturing our own & each other’s gifts as we support the work of the nominating committee?
Where is the Spirit in this matter?
How am I coming from a centered place?
How am I open to continual discernment and guidance?
How am I prepared [to love, to affirm as well as confront], to embrace both the substance and shadow within the person and relate to that totality, not just to the particular concern?
How is my desire to be right or to make the situation right?
How am I clear that eldering is for supporting one another in keeping with the Spirit out of which good order comes, not to bring change?
How am I sufficiently receptive & attentive to the Spirit that I am ready to be used as an instrument, in whatever unusual way opens?
How are there times when I know to wait until a problem behavior by repetition clearly
becomes a fault?
“How is the thing or things which thou hast against him fully as thou apprehendest?
How hast thou seen evil in him, or to break forth from him?
How hast thou … in tender love and meekness of spirit, laid the thing before him?
How hast thou tenderly mentioned to others, and desired them to go with thee to him,   that what is evil and offensive in him might be more weightily and advantageously   laid before him for his humbling and recovery?

393. Rebecca Janney Timbres Clark: Turned in the Hand of God (by Lyndon S.   Back; 2007)
What drew her to leave comfort & safety for the unknown?
What nourished [& sustained] her spirit?

How do I love him enough?
How is he going to prove big enough, strong enough to carry us both?
What were the factors that contributed to your development?
What role have close personal relationships played in the formation of your character?
What sense of call or leading has drawn you to the present role you play in the world?

394. God’s Healing Grace: Reflections on a Journey with Mental & Spiritual Illness (by Mariellen Gilpin; 2008)
What was your own sexually abusive experience to which this memory attached itself?” How can I help but feel at peace in a world filled with a loving & redeeming God’s presence?

How could we bring wholeness to our broken & bleeding planet if we all practiced spiritual nonviolence, & prayed for positive & negative spirits in the universe & for all of us in the world?
How can you at least be agnostic about the source of my issues?

395. Walt Whitman’s Spiritual Epic (by Michael Robertson; 2008)

What is the nature of the religion outlined in Leaves Of Grass?
How do poets or other artists serve as priests or prophets in your own spiritual

experience?
How do you experience the tension between "spiritual individualism," & "corporate
discipline" in the Society of Friends, & their respective benefits, costs & risks?"
How does the poem speak to you in terms of a religious message, the natural world, the physical body, & [the world community's democracy & diversity]?
Which passages are particularly compelling or inspiring to you & why?

Which passages disturb or repulse you & why?
How does "Song of Myself" speak to "that of God of in everyone.

Whitman Queries
What has America to do with all this mummery of prayer and rituals & the rant of

exhorters & priests ... their dramatic scenery of religion?
"Why should I wish to see God better than this day, this hour, this moment?
"How could I answer the [child's] What is the grass?"
What blurt is this about virtue and about vice [good and evil]?
How proud have you felt to get at the meaning of poems?
How shall I postpone my acceptation and realization [of Knowledge and Truth], and

scream at my eyes, that they turn from gazing after and down the road?
How do I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own?
How do I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own?
How do I know that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my

sisters and lovers?
How do I know that a kelson [sure guide] of the creation is love?
How can one suppose it lucky to be born [and to die]?
How is it that battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won?
How does the daylight astonish?
How does the early redstart twittering through the woods astonish?
How do I astonish more than they?
Why should I pray? Why should I venerate and be ceremonious?
How did you guess the celestial laws are yet to be work’d over and rectified?
If you contain enough, why don’t you let it out then?
What is less or more than a touch?
Where do animals get those tokens of myself, that they reveal as being plainly in their

possession?
  How did I negligently drop tokens of myself huge times ago?
  Who is the friendly and flowing savage, and where is he from?
  Is he waiting for civilization, or past it and mastering it?
  What does the Earth want from my hand?
  How can I teach straying from me and yet follow you with my words until you

understand them?
How do you see and describe the Unnamed thing that contains form, union, plan, eternal

life and Happiness?
  What knowledge do I have to share with others? Who shall I share it with?

396. God Raising us: Parenting as a Spiritual Practice (by Eileen Flanagan; 2008) If I could lose my [nonviolent] principles in a rage, what would I be capable of in war?
How have you grown spiritually through your interactions with children?
How have dreams helped you discern God’s guidance for your life?
How did an experience of losing control over your life change you?
How have you experienced God through other people?
What are the risks of becoming part of a “We”?
How has experiencing your own capacity for violence in your life affected you?
How has the presence or absence of children affected the character of your worship community?
How have Friends meetings been supportive of families with young children?

397. Quaker Witness as Sacrament (by Daniel O. Snyder; 2008)
How will the next step I take be of use to that person?
“How can you help me find God?”
How am I supposed to worship you when you send your own children to death?
Who do you think gave you that anger?
Who gave you your compassion?
How could I take the work and insights of therapy more deeply into the lives of
activists?
Where are we going and how do we get there?
What sustains us on the journey?
What do we do once we arrive?
How is this message just for me or for others?
How is it truly grounded in the light?
How am I running ahead or behind the Guide?

398. The Messenger that Goes Before: Reading Margaret Fell for Spiritual Nurture (by Michael Birkel; 2008)
How did early Friends offer guidance to one another in the life of the Spirit?
What is it that hinders finding the Light in our inward lives?
How is pure peace different from an impure and contaminated peace?
What have spiritual nurturers helped you to discover?
How have you attempted the practice of being “low and watchful”?
How have you experienced an increase in your “measure” as a result of faithfulness?
How has the Light “ripped you up and laid you open”?
What is meant by “reading Scripture within”?
How would you put into your own words Margaret Fell’s advice concerning spiritual discernment?

399. Matthew 18: Wisdom for Living in Community (by Martha P. Grundy Connie M. Green; 2008)
If I react to the provocation of the outward behavior rather than listening carefully for the little child within, do I unwittingly create stumbling blocks that make it more difficult for that person to be as a “little child?”
If someone holds to a position out of unity with the sense of the meeting, what does the group do?
Is Jesus asking us to maintain bonds of friendship with a person with whom the meeting must minute disunity with?
[In always forgiving others], are we supposed to be doormats?
How could my brother suddenly be gone?
Why do genocide and abuse and disease keep happening in God’s creation?
How can anyone possibly forgive?
How has the way that you relate to other people been guided by passages from the Bible?
What are the healthy traits of a child and how can we show them in a health way in healing our relationships?
What “stumbling blocks” have you seen in Friends meeting that may hinder a person’s spiritual growth and vitality?
Have you ever prayed for someone you were angry at?
What have you done to prepare yourself for speaking with someone who has upset you?
What role can a Friends meeting play when 2 members have been unable to reconcile   their differences?
What does forgiveness mean to you?

400. Finding the Taproot of Simplicity: A Movement Between Inner Knowledge and Outer Action (by Frances Irene Taber; 2009)
What in my own experience reveals the way in which spiritual insight gains firmness and grows through putting into practice what I already?
How does my understanding and use of the Quaker idea of concern simplify or complicate the direction of my energies?
What could a sense of uneasiness be telling me about a conflict between my values and   the way I live, or about a work I am called to?
What is hindering me from responding?
How could we as members of a meeting community support each other in our efforts toward   simplicity?
What circumstances might need to be changed to facilitate mutual support?
What difficulties sometimes arise for children when their parents make changes to simplify   their lifestyle?

401. Three Ravens & 2 Widows: A Perspective on Controversy among Friends
(by Richard Macy Kelly; 2009)
What about continuing revelation or Inner Light, long held Quaker concepts?
[What about Darwin and Scriptures]?
What about modern biblical criticism?
How should outreach be service rather than proselytizing?
How does history limit our vision, control us, and distort our understanding of the present?
How does it inform and guide us to new understandings?
How would Fox respond to my belief that the birth and death of Jesus is not essential to salvation?

402. Christianity and the Inner Life (by Margery Post Abbott; 2009)
  "How are the thing or things, which thou has against him, fully so, as thou apprehendist?
What evil have you seen in him or break forth from him?
How has thou ... dealt with him, mourned over him, [appealed] to the Lord, and [tenderly, lovingly, meekly] laid the thing before him?
How can we do Quaker practice if we don't listen for a spiritual Guide? How is it essential or not essential to accept Christianity to be a Friend? How can people answer to that of God in every person & yet disavow God?
Why are unprogrammed Friends so often embarassed by our heritage and reluctant to claim that our faith is an outgrowth of a particular understanding of Christianity?
How do my reactions to religious terms affect my spiritual life in positive or negative ways?
How do I believe/know in the depths of my soul?
How do I name and experience the Source of Love and Truth?
How do I know who Jesus is?
What does it feel like to speak about my faith?
How do I respond to others' expression of faith that seems very different from my own?
How do emotions, attitudes, reactions, and not listening deeply enough interfere with the motion of the Spirit within me?

403. Integrity, Ecology, and Community: The Motion of Love (by Jennie M. Ratcliffe; 2009

What are the spiritual roots of our ecological predicament?

How can a deeper understanding of integrity inform our communal response to

this crisis?

What were the sources of our predicament?

When I say "I love the flower," is this a feeling, or a knowing that it is part of me?

[What is my "love" made up of]?

What is the best response in confronting the world's evil?

What will help us heal our sense of separation from each other and the earth,

and help us see the reality of the divinity and unity in everything we

encounter?

What is the power of nonviolence?

What kinds of communities can we create today that are expressions of integrity

with the earth?

What factors in your life help or hinder connectedness?

How do you take action on environmental concerns?

How do you understand "integrity" & "reciprocity" in relation to creation's

wholeness?

What connections do you see between reconciliation, simplicity, nonviolence

paths, & self-care & the wider earth?

How do you experienced these paths?

What would nonviolent: economy; justice; farming; diet; look like?

What has experience opened to you about sacredness; how has it affected your

life?

404. Kindling a Life of Concern: Spirit-led Quaker Action (by Jack Kirk; 2009)
If God seems distant or hard to find, who has wandered?
How do I embrace the concern or follow the leading to enhance my reputation or put
myself in the spotlight?
Where is my ego in all this? How am I willing to take risks to see the concern go
forward?
How do I rejoice when others take up the [same] work & give it leadership?
How are we willing just to see God’s purposes advance?
How does it bring a deep sense of inward peace, a sense of assurance that you
are in harmony with the guiding force of the universe?
How do our social involvements spring from an inward imperative, or are we
merely picking up on things that are given popular emphasis by our society and
culture?
How are we as a people of God willing to be reshaped by the power of the Spirit
working within us?
What barriers were erected keep us from becoming close with other Friends
groups?
How do we carry prejudices toward other Quaker groups?
How are we willing to dialog [openly] with other Friends about what it means to be a
Quaker?
How do Convergent Quakers hold promise for the Quaker future?
What is essential for a local meeting to be a seedbed of concern?
How is there a comfortable and hospitable place in your meeting for the testing of
concerns?
How can we “have an easy mind in the presence of desperately real needs?”
How has your meeting fallen victim to a shallow age?
How are you a driven or a called person?
What is a company of “called persons?”

405. Envisioning a Moral Economy (by Thomas Head; 2010)
1. What do we think is the morally right thing to do in economics? 2. How might we
describe the best possible economy [& how would it work]? 3. Is it right, sane
or moral, that most people on this planet are poor? 4. [What is the goal of an
economy & how does it work? 5. How big is too big? 6. How should a fair
be governed? 7. How ought the human economy function as part of Earth's
life system? 8. [How do we act as stewards rather than owners]? 9. What
would Jesus advise if he were an economic advisor? 10. [What would a Jesus
who cares about income distribution say about justice & generosity?

11. What was Jesus up to [economically] in his public acts & statements? 12. What
did he have in mind [economically] for us human beings & our relationships with
each other? 13. What did Jesus think he was doing? 14. When making
moral judgments, are we perceiving external truths or expressing internal
attitudes? 15. Where & how do social inventions [e.g. free market & central
planning] work best & serve our needs best? 16. Why am I prospering?
17. Why are others not prospering? 18. How is it all connected?

19. How many violent deaths are attributable to underlying economic causes?
20. What might I do to be a peacemaker, healer, reconciler, & caregiver to to
life in this economy? 21. What is the economic equivalent of being a
conscientious objector? 22. How do I say no to global poverty & yes to
sufficiency for all of God's children? 23. How do I say no to environmental
degradation & yes to a right relationship with this living planet? 24. How do I
say no to murderous economic imbalances and distortions? 25. How does one
apply for a discharge from this distorted and violent economy? 26. How does
any economic system speak to the need for every human being to have enough?
27. Is sacrificing some members of the human family [to achieve a“workable
economy”] ever a morally sound approach to the economy?

How did you come to your present financial situation? Do you feel wealthy & privileged,
or do you feel economically disadvantaged? How do you apply the Quaker
testimonies of integrity, simplicity, peace, and equality to envisioning a moral
economy? What is “enough” for you? What are ways that a concerned individual
can join with others to envision and seek to realize a “moral economy”?

406. The Mind of Christ: Bill Taber on Meeting for Business (by Michael 
            Birkel; 2010)
        Does our fear of a new idea come from true discernment or from an unconverted, 
                     unfaithful part of ourselves? 
        What is the Clerk's role in business meetings?
             What is Participant's role in business meetings?
             What is being "surrounded by a matrix of Worship," and why is it important to 
                     Quaker business sessions? 
             What is having a "dedicated intention that seems necessary for Quaker group 
                     discernment" like? 
             What difference does it make for a Quaker meeting for business understand 
                     themselves to be "the body of Christ?"
             What is the "waiting" that George Fox and Bill Taber are talking about? 
             How can all speaking in Quaker business meetings be ministry?" 
             How have you experienced joy in being together and with God, [blessed] 
                     assurance, trust, and excitement in meeting for business? 
              How is one "in the Mind of Christ?" 
             What is preparing a minute like?

407. Living from the Center: Mindfulness Meditation and Center for Friends (by Valerie Brown; 2010)
How do we make the transition from busy secular lives and wandering thoughts, to      the sacred work of God?
How do we embody the Living Silence, centered in body and mind? How can   mindfulness meditation help?
How do you center in meeting for worship?
What role can the desire for communion with God play in centering in meeting for
worship?
[How will you accept the bittersweet taste of self-doubt as you center for worship]?
How might centering prayer and mindfulness be useful for centering in meeting for
worship?
What other activities of the hands or body have helped you learn about centering?

408. An Art of Small Resurrections: Surviving the Texas Death Chamber (by Walter Long; 2010)
How can those from the Christian tradition primarily think of our faith as a strategy for compassionate living?
What if our fears cause us to fail to show up [for our own life]?
If we remain fully aware, & feel overwhelmed], how do we pass beyond the same despair that Jesus expressed when he cried out?
What if God isn’t retributive?
What does it mean to you to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you?”
Who is the true “neighbor?”
What impact can acceptance of atonement theories have on a person’s response to   suffering and sense of responsibility for violence in the world?
What relation do you think Christian belief in afterlife has to tolerance of the death
penalty?
What does “dignity” mean to you?
How would you describe “an art of small resurrections?”
How do you feel about being “either with the victim or the executioner?
What are the differences between “the pack” and “community” for humans?

409. Who Do You Say I Am? (by Lloyd Wilson; 2010)
[Jesus]: Who do you say I am? Who do others say that I am?
[Jesus]: Anointed to do What?
  What work does Jesus do here in Creation that uniquely advances God's plans &
yearnings?
How can reconciliation of Creation to Creator be accomplished through Jesus?
  How do we refrain from violence if God cannot?
  Why should we restrain ourselves from violent acts, & believe them against God's will, when God finds violent acts necessary?
  What authority should the Christian give to Jesus' teaching & example during his earthly ministry?
  If Jesus was only human, how can Jesus' suffering & death be the key to atonement & reconciliation with God?
  How or when did divinity settle in or upon Jesus?
  How can God have been in Jesus uniquely, differently from how God is present in all of Creation?
  Who am I, as a Disciple of Jesus?
  What does it mean to be Jesus' disciple?
  What sort of human being should I therefore strive to be?
  What have I done today to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit sick and imprisoned?

410. Confident Quakerism (by Ben Pink Dandelion; 2010)
  How can we work with the insights of early Friends?
What questions does early Quaker spirituality ask us today in our aspirations to be faithful   & authentic?
What does [Quaker] faith look like and how does it still relate to 17th Quaker insights?
Why does it take a crisis to surrender, “give back over” to God?
To what extent are Friends now open to being changed by spirit?
Does our ministry depend on our strength or on God’s strength coming through us?
Where are we united in the consequences of our spirituality in everyday life now?
What kind of hope for the future do we have and in whose time is it?
What is our role in how tomorrow looks? How are we to lend our hands to God?
How is community realized?
How do we take the experience of a “gathered” meeting into everyday life?
How do we transcend the individualism of modern society?
How do we create community in our meetings?
Who am I not to go to business meeting because I don’t want to?
What is our corporate calling?
What is our good news?
[If Quaker theologies and methods are changeable], what is the Quaker glue and good news]?
How could your piety be your confidence & your integrity be your hope?
How is our vision too small?
How many committees do we really need?
If I am too modest or worried about what people may think if I talk of intimacy with God how are others to be helped?
What key justice issues do I pass over?
How have you had the experience of being lifted up and cradled by God?
What does it mean to live “an accompanied life?”
How have you sought to deal with “terrible mistakes” you have made in your life?
What are the consequences of “keeping God out of the shadow parts of our lives?
To what extent are Friends today open to being changed by Spirit?
What are the consequences of [asserting that there will be some uncertainty in every important theological question]?

411. Plow up the Fallow Ground: A Meditation in the Company of Early Friends (by Lu Harper; 2011)
How is their mountain of sin brought down, & laid low in them, & their rough & crooked ways made smooth & straight in them?
What or where is worship of God? How do we enter into it?
When have I experienced the Spirit bubbling up within?
What does the worship [space] of God feel like inwardly?
When have I or my community trusted God in a deeply counter-intuitive, or counter-
cultural way?
Whose land is the spiritual field in which I work?
What have I been ignoring that I need to pay attention to, in order to reclaim [“the
wilderness within”]?
What needs to be done to restore fertility, keep it in balance, in connection to Spirit?
What is my desert, my wilderness? What is my garden or vine-yard?
How have I experienced transformation from desert to garden; garden to desert?
What was that like? How have I been unjust; unmerciful?
How has my heart been hardened, become full of thorns & briers?
What is it that keeps us from hearing and attending to Spirit, that encourages us to ignore the Spirit’s promptings in our hearts, to be deaf to the inner voice?
What sort of ground is in my heart?
Where is the good soil, the stony places, the briery places?
How have I experienced growth through the work of Spirit within?
What happens when that fallow field in heart is plowed up?
What in me burdens the Seed? What is my hardened ground?
What does my inward garden look like? How are there hedges protecting it?
How are they fluid and permeable, a porous hedge of spiritual power?
How is there anything I am holding as a barrier that could be let go into Spirit?
What is the condition of my inward garden?
What is my work among any dry, hungry bramble-choked seeds?
How have I experienced seeds of the kingdom growing within?
How will I nourish the Seed?
[Of the multiple seeds growing in my inward garden], which ones nourish my life and   which ones burden it?
How are we really capable of c hanging our negative behaviors through our own power?
How do we understand transgression? How have we been in darkness enough?
What is our work in the garden? How do we nurture one another’s spiritual growth?
How do we support each other & hold one another accountable?
How do we trust in the light’s power to bring transformation & reconciliation?
How am I wrestling with the angel? How am I waiting for the light?
How do I know the day’s energizing power springing up?
What is my experience of being given ministry of speech or action?
How have I received my heavenly penny?
How am I still holding onto something that quenches the spirit, & thereby not purchasing the field?
Where do you see yourself in the work of the garden image?
Where do you see your meeting in the garden image?
Where is Spirit quenched & the Seed oppressed?
Where are growing places? Where is the life & power?

412. Answering the Violence: Encounters with Perpetrators (by John Lampen;
2011)

How are you in favor of dialogue with [groups some consider evil]?
How can concern for the oppressed be expressed without sacrificing this impartiality [of the mediator] and without estranging the oppressor?
How will the work minister to the needs of the suffering civil population?
How do some of the people living in the situation have a fairly clear view of our capabilities and limitations and still want us to come?
How accurate is the workers’ understanding of the conflict?

413. James Nayler Speaking (by Brian Drayton; 2011)

When we say we are spirit-led, what spirit is leading us?
How do we realize in our times the demands and promises of Christ’s covenant?
How is our inward struggle toward faithfulness and unity connected to the outward work of reconciliation?
How shall I know the Spirit’s voice, as different from my own? Which spirit should I hear?

How do I distinguish between conflicting spirits?
How can I possibly give Christ-life welcome, being what I am?

How can the pure and holy take up residence in such a habitation?
What agreement can there be, or what peace, while you are married to the world?
“How is your Christ the same that was from everlasting to everlasting, or is he
changed according to the times?

How dost your leader lead you out to war against the world and all the pride and
glory, fashions and customs?

How dost your leader beget in your hearts a new nature contrary to the world’s nature in all things?
Why is it so hard to live up to the Light I think I have been given, and how shall I deal with failure of my good intentions?

What are the differences between experiencing Christ as a “meaning” and the “true Word” or “voice of Christ”?

How do you see Friends engaged in the “Lamb’s War” today?

414. Seeking Inner Peace; Presence, Pain and Wholeness (by Elizabeth De Sa; 2011)

415. Living our Testimony on Equality: A White Friend’s Experience (by Patience A. Schenck; 2011)
Why are we Still Talking About Race?
How do we live our testimony on equality?
What did people say at the dinner table about a different race and how did others respond?
When friends of another race were invited to dinner, what was that like?
How was your family hurt or benefited by race?
How did someone not get into a 1st choice college or job “because of affirmative action?
Why are white perceptions and black perceptions of interracial interactions so different?
When did you feel afraid to speak up about a racial situation?
When did you speak up and later regret it? What was that like? What did you learn?
What is essential to our form of Quakerism & what is a matter of style?
How are institutional racism and cultural racism different from individual prejudice?
What are the benefits of being white?
Why is it a “deeply spiritual experience” to take racism seriously?
What messages of racism did you absorb as you were growing up?
What can white Quakers do to welcome visitors of color into Friends meetings?
How have you sought to counter racist comments or actions?
What resources do Friends have for living our testimony on equality?

416. Grief, Forgiveness, Redemption as a Way of Transformation (by Elaine Pryce; 2011)
           If I was loved unconditionally, how could I not love myself?
          Had she ever forgiven herself? What shall I do?
          How can I forgive this person for leaving me with such pain and distress?
          How can I seek this person’s forgiveness now that he or she is gone?

           How can I know that I am forgiven?
          How has your life been shaped by grief, loss, and guilt?
          What does it mean to take up your cross, and follow me?
          What experience of forgiving and/or being forgiven have you had?
          Why is it so hard to forgive yourself or another person?
          How have experiences of “waiting, silence, and stillness helped you heal and grow closer

              to God?
          What is the difference between [the pairs] of “triumph and victory,” and “courage and                 integrity?”

417. John Yungblut: Passing the Mystical Torch (by Charles C. Finn; 2012)
How does one cling to the literal teaching of the faith that has grounded and sustained
their entire religious journey despite [their intellect’s growing objections]?
How does one abandon what they can no longer intellectually assent to?
What Then of Atonement and Salvation?
Who do you say that I am?
How have I any religious experience and immediate relation to God, and hence that
certainty which will keep me, as an individual, from dissolving in the crowd?
How do you respond to seeing Jesus as the flowering of the Christ seed
present from the beginning?
What do you think Yungblut meant by “profoundly gentled”?
How has forgiveness been important in your life?

418. Some thoughts on Becoming 85 (by William Z. Shetter; 2012)
How does knowing myself meaning knowing all beings as my siblings?
How have I learned to hear the inner voice of my own lived experience growing beyond   reliance on outward confirmation?
How can allow myself to be transparent to the Light, mine and that of others?
How do I have acceptance, embracing all my contradictions and those of others?
How do I respond flexibly, patiently and harmoniously to the world?
How can I live the Wisdom of the moment, no matter how ordinary and humble that
may seem?
How have I grown into the capacity for true conscious relationships?
How am I able to let go of my physical existence for my part in universal whole?
How do I realize at a deep enough level that I do not know?
How am I willing to share what I know and what I do not know?
What do you associate with being old?
How do you respond to the loss of control in your own life?
What does corporate worship offer that isn't available to individuals?
How do you recognize wisdom? Who is an elder to you? How do you play?

419. Nurturing Children's Spiritual Well-Being (by Margaret Compton)
How are children spiritually equal?
How does the simplicity testimony inform faith & practice with regard to
children's spiritual well-being?

420. Waging Peace: Disicpline and Practice (by Pamela Haines; 2012)
What if we we applied the same kind of intention, practice, and hard work as boot camp       into learning the skills needed to wage war?
What listening opportunities do I pass up? When do I withhold my attention and why?
What would I have to give up in myself to listen respectfully to the person who is hardest for me?

Where does separation operate in our lives?
What are the values that give our lives meaning?
What do we believe in deeply enough to sacrifice for?
What is at the heart of what is right about this country?
What responsibility do we have for our neighbor?
What is precious about the environment?
How might we develop a discipline to challenge separation?
What if we thought of mending as a critical activity of the nonviolent warrior in our quest for a truly viable world?
What if we were to listen more carefully and more often for what rings true [in our daily lives and work]? What clutters our minds?
If we are armed to the teeth internally, how can we demand that others lay down their   arms?
What does it mean to practice, to develop a discipline of disarmament?
If I felt braver, what would I do?
How do you engage powers and principalities nonviolently?
How do you see your role in "an army of nonviolence warriors?"
How do you practice hope?
What do you want to change about our present economic system and what would you   want to retain?
How can conflict be a positive opportunity for growth?"
How can you practice internal disarmament?
What would your personal nonviolent training workout include?
How can you practice nonviolence skills?
Where can you find the strength and perseverance for waging peace?

421. Heartfulness: Renewing Heart, Mind and Spirit on Retreat and Beyond (by Valerie Brown; 2013)
How do I keep this [retreat] feeling in daily life?
What can I do when I return home?
How does Friends' experience of expectant waiting influence the retreat process, & how do retreats influence expectant waiting?
How does continuing revelation play a role for Friends in the retreat experience?
How does Quaker silence express itself in group retreats?
What is a Retreat?.
What has meaning and purposes in my life? What is missing?
What am I avoiding? What brings me most alive?
How do I want to be with wilderness all around me?
Why this retreat, why now? What is my hope, longing, or intention?
What do I want to feel, learn, or experience more deeply?
What conditions do I want to create to travel safely and enjoyably?
What do I take with me and what do I leave behind?
Do I need to bring along spiritual or inspiration reading, or will it be a distraction from contemplation?
What is your "growing edge?" What does it mean to look well to it?
Where do you find "hope in moments of despair?
How am I letting my strengths fall into disuse?
Am I depleting my emotional & physical energy?
What sustains me, & what drains me?
What is my emotional & physical state right now?

422. Reclaiming the Transcendent: God in Process (by Thomas Gates; 2013) What wonder is it that you do not understand?
Might there be a more adequate way of thinking about God [than supernatural theism]?
Why something rather than nothing?
Why order instead of chaos?
Why novelty instead of repetition?
Why is it important to have coherent ways to think and speak about God?
How is God immanent (near to, dwelling in) you?
How is God transcendent (beyond) you?
How do you respond to panentheism, God being in and acting from inside you?
How do you react to the statement "there was a sense that no matter what I chose, God would work with me, offer new possibilities, and nudge me towards a more worthy life?"
How would you describe God you do or could believe in?

423. Queries as Prayers (by Ron B. Rembert; 2013)
How do I live in thankful awareness of God's constant presence in my life?
How is it I am aware? How and when did I first receive awareness?
How aware can I be?
How is there a difference between writing a poem and a prayer?
How is answering a query as prayer as much about oneself as about God?
How do I work toward creative, life-affirming ways of resolving conflict & avoiding violence & destruction?
How do we recognize & face disagreement & other situations of conflict in our meetings &   strive for reconciliation?
How do I & my students understand the differences between outward & inward strife; between outward & inward weapons?
How do I understand how inward strife in my own daily life generates outward strife with others?
How do I use inward, spiritual weapons like forgiveness of myself and others to
avoid adding to outward strife?
What do I notice about myself from God's perspective?
When I am observing, am I observing the me I want to see or the me I may not wish to see?
Why record prayers in written form rather than experiencing them in silence?
Knowing that we are all ministers, how am I open and obedient to God's promptings to
speak?
How do I know I am a minister?...
How do we really use the Queries today?
How important are they in the lives of Friends?
How does self-examination increase insight into one's relation to God?
What do you want me to see about this day?
How were there inclinations and thoughts this day that were not of God?
How was I able to discern and resist them?
How did I use my freedom in accord with God's loving desire for me?
How am I open to new Light and Truth from wherever it may come?
How can I will myself to be open, O God? Or Must I only rely on you, the Opener?
How do I have a clear vision of what living in the "manner of Friends" means in our world today?
How is this where the "manner of Friends" begins?
How do these testimonies still resonate today?
How do I fear standing apart, or fear not being a part accepted, approved by giving up these standards giving into the mocking?
How well am I doing, O God?
What role have queries played in supporting your spiritual life and daily living?
What is prayer and how do you pray?
What kind of helpful or unhelpful structures for prayer or contemplation have you tried?
After trying this approach, what did you find spiritually valuable about this approach?

424. Nonviolent Direct Action as a Spiritual Path (by Richard K. Taylor; 2013) How will further reflection on such experiences be an important source of courage, guidance, and power as we seek to be faithful and in service to our crippled world?
  How is my pacifism a deep conviction against killing other human beings or a lack of
courage to face combat?
What attitudes of mind and spirit might we keep in mind if we want to draw on our spirituality while engaging in nonviolent action?
How do I agree with the action's goals?
What will be my choice's impact on family, friends & associates?
How will I maintain an attitude of goodwill toward opponents I may meet, especially hostile or aggressive ones?
How does one decision make you feel closer to God than the other?
What account of this decision would you want to tell to God?
What in your spiritual practices do you find most meaningful?
What has your non-violent direct action experience been like?
How has prayer ever given you strength & courage in a situation?
Who are the people in life that have modeled courage?
If I am unwilling to face violent battle, must I then be willing to take similar risks to live out my own convictions?
How do you make difficult decisions in your life?

425. The Light Within: Then and Now (by Rex Ambler; 2013)
How do we make sense of our faith [using the Light Within as a fundamental concept]?
How do we communicate our faith [using the Light Within as a fundamental concept]?
What exactly does the Light refer to then?
How does what early Quakers were saying about the Light speak to our condition? Is it still relevant & important?
How do we need to recover the early Quaker's immediate sense of reality?
How do we speak to people of our faith without seeming to impose our opinion on them?
How would you define the Light?
Why are reason and conscience not adequate to the task of enabling us really to see ourselves?
What does it mean to be "judged with the light?"
How does the Light connect people at a profound level with each other?

426. But Who do you say that I Am: Quakers and Christ Today (by Doug Gwyn;
2014)
[Jesus]: Who do people say that I am? Who do you say that I am?
What is the crisis of our time? What world is ending?
Who do you say Christ is in this situation? Where is the creation unfolding?
Who do you say Christ is?
How do you find his personality revealed in good Quaker process?
What is the heart that beats in the midst of a truly gathered meeting for worship?
What is the mind that guides the meeting for business at its best?
Who do you say that Christ is to your Christian sisters and brothers?
How do you tell the story of your faith as you serve the poor and witness for peace and justice alongside more doctrinally and liturgically minded Christians?
Who do you say Christ is, to those who have suffered violence and exclusion by so- called Western Christians?
Who do you say Christ is to the people who gave birth to and nurtured Jesus?
Who do you say Christ is to the followers of Mohammed, who recognized Jesus as a
great prophet and reached out to Jews and Christians, seeking unity?
Who do you say Christ is, in contrast to the western, imperialistic Christ?
What has this Christ to say to Krishna and the Buddha?
Who is the Christ you have outgrown or find incredible?
How are you judging Christ according to caricatures of Christians?
How have you really encountered this Christ in the gospels or your heart?
What canst thou say [of your experience of Christ]?

427. Radical Hospitality (by Lloyd Lee Wilson; 2014)
How can I be saved?
How can I achieve happiness and security in such a dangerous world?
How are we to live in God's creation, broken and troubled as it is?
How are we to live in the world in which God has placed us?
What sort of person is at home in God's Kingdom & would help that Kingdom get
established & flourish?
What is the minimum amount of love of neighbor required of me?

428. Spiritual Accompaniment: An Experience of Two Friends Traveling in the
Ministry (by Cathy Walling & Elaine Emily; 2014)
Where are the elders?
Where is God in all of this?
How is God/Spirit moving in your life?
What are the differences and common features between elders, minsters, and overseers?
Where does pastoral care fit into this framework?
Where is the balance between speaking truth & keeping quiet, trusting to the sense of the meeting?
How could [elderwork] be done "unofficially?"
What sort of resistance is there to eldering and how should it be handled?
How does an elder get eldered?
How can the Quaker practice of traveling ministry strengthen the meetings involved as well as the individual who is traveling under a sense of leading?
Why is a [companion-elder] important to a traveling minister?
What are the different roles of minister and elder?
How do elders provide support? What is your experience with prayer?
What does it mean to be faithful? How does the elder get eldered?
Why is keeping a journal valuable to you?

429. What We Stand On (by Paul Christiansen; 2014)
  Why would anyone choose war?
  What will Quakers do about being recipients of the plunder?
  How are we not called to be patterns and examples? To live lives that speak?
  To seek the truth and then speak it to power?
  How can we live lives that speak if our acts are small, everyday deeds?
How can we be patterns and examples of a better world if we don't break the
normal pattern?
How can we be radically faithful to the way of the Spirit while also preserving our riches?
If those who receive our generosity do a little better but still remain poor, and if
injustices continue, how is that good enough?
How shall we not stay on this side of the gap, and risk the leap [of radical faith and "sell all we own"]?
  How will we not lie again?
How can we still speak Truth to power when we are the power?
Why are we rich?
How have you chosen truth?
What is your experience of war? How is fear an influence on your life?
How have you sought release from those fears?
How uncomfortable are you with choosing between your treasures and peace?
How do you lie to others, to those who need your help, to yourself?
In what ways do you think you may be too comfortable?
How do you respond to the idea of "by standing on the impossible for all the world to see, we can reveal that whatever seems impossible [about ending war] is entirely real"?
If you were to make a significant change to your life, what would it be?
How are you inclined to dismiss the message of a young adult, [uninvolved with children or infirm parents or significant vulnerability]?

430. The Door in (by Renee Crauder; 2014)
How do I begin to know myself? How do I know I'm on the right road?
How are others called to action & I to contemplate & help others to God?
How does the expectation to be more active in the world arise from deep inside or is it a form of self-imposed peer pressure from news of active Friends?
   How do I have to meet others' expectations of a "spiritual person" to keep faith with you, God?
How do you pray?
How do You, God, want me to think about someone sitting at my feet?
Where is the part of me that was in the cloud?
What implications does having only "now" have for the spiritual life and for life in general?
If you have strived to know yourself in a "totally honest and "excruciatingly painful" way, what has been your experience?
How has the Bible been helpful in your own spiritual life?
Where is your support in spiritual growth?
What did you do with spiritual "dryness?" How do you see Jesus?
How have you had experiences where God is "much more real than the physical reality of anything else"?
How has your spirituality affected your relationships with people?

431. Revelation and Revolution: Answering the Call to Radical Faithfulness (by
Steve Chase; 2014)
"What is God calling us to do & be now?"
How is this how Jesus showed us to live?"
How will we answer the call to faithfully embody God's divine love & power in our personal, professional, & public lives?
Will we stay lost in denial, despair, & distraction?
What does "creative maladjustment" mean to you?
What are some situation today to which Quakers should not be "adjusted"?
How can Quakers support each other in faithful activism?
What does it mean to renew your mind as opposed to conforming to this world?
Why is this transformation important for discerning God's will?
How do you agree that we must achieve inward peace before we can work effectively for outward peace?
Why or why not?
How do you seek to be a faithful activist?
How does your meeting express and promote the "beloved community"?

432. A Death Chosen, a Life Given (by Hannah Russell; 2015)
What is the connection between the reality of violence in our lives and a redeeming love, which can embrace the suffering and transform it?
How could I sit beside him & discuss ways of ending life?
How did I betray him by not pleading with him to wait?
How was the difference between Judas' betrayal and the other betrayals one of degree or motivation?
How was Judas the scapegoat for the disciples' guilt for their betrayals?
How does one respond to another person surrendering life partly out of a belief that it will enhance the one you must go on living?
What about Jesus' offering of love and life in the violence of the cross?
How can we bring ourselves to talk about our deepest fears, our wishes and desires about our own dying?
How do we support our partners and friends through this time?
How do we deal honestly with the medicalization of dying, or the choices of physician assisted dying, or of "suicide" at the end of life?
How can we support those dealing with loss through suicide?
How are there occasions when dying a lingering and painful death, having lost all sense of meaning and dignity, is the true evil?
How are there motivations which take it from the realm of suicide and into self-sacrifice?
When should a person be stopped from dying by his or her own hand?
How does our faith inform our choices?
How is death the gateway to transcendent life whether or not we choose another way of   dying other than the natural progression of a terminal disease?
Why is self-starvation, & the refusal to take medication, "acceptable" ways to "commit suicide," but a gunshot or overdose not?
Where do we fail the dying in medical & professional systems?
[Where is the "proper" place for a person to die, hospital or home?
Where do we fail the dying in religious & societal attitudes, which resists discussion of alternatives?
How can we better help surviving family members?
How can such a diminishment [as suicide be hallowed]?
If you have lived through an experience which shook your being's foundation, how do you find meaning & strength?
How do you perceive violence as a violent act?
How can Quaker meetings support those living through agonizing experiences?
What are the questions before you now?
How do you understand the paradox of life taken violently so as to respect the dignity of one's life & to reduce the suffering in another's?
How do you believe simplicity, equality, & stewardship testimonies should affect decisions regarding medical care?
How have you sought forgiveness or forgiven when profound betrayal has occurred?
How have you sought to honor a loved one whose death profoundly affected you?
What are your fears, wishes, & desires concerning your dying?
What is "redemption" to you?
What has led to healing & wholeness in your life?

433. Recovering Sacred Presence in a Disenchanted World (by Mary Conrow
Coelho; 2015)
  How is my inner life integral to the ongoing unfolding evolutionary story?
What links together mathematics with the structures of the physical world?
How could images of a "vast, boiling ocean," "burning oneness binding everything," &
"perpetual flame" be a manner of "knowing" the infinite energy of the "emptiness" or plenum that physicists have encountered?
How should we not embrace new variations in the meaning of the word God, rather than discard the word?
How does interconnected, mutual influence in nature at a distance help to explain the Quaker experience of a gathered meeting, an awareness of Presence?
  How are we to find hope in the face of the pervasive misuse of power & dishonesty?
If God is not omnipotent, where is the basis for hope?
What is my purpose?
How are we to speak about God's presence in the very fabric of the universe?

434. A Quietness Within: The Quiet Way as Faith and Spirituality (By Elaine
Pryce; 2015)
[How does one] tell how life experiences mold themselves into the shape of our later
psyches?
How do things remembered and not remembered determine who we are?
Have you experienced deep inner peacefulness in quietness?
What is your experience with knowing God?
How is George Fox's "deeply & inwardly spiritual man" connected to his "fire-brand preacher?
What is the difference between "first-moment" experience of spirit & "second-moment" expression of spirit?
What do you believe about the source of personal & communal transformation?

435. You Are My Witnesses: Witness and Testimony in the Biblical and Quaker
Traditions (By Thomas Gates; 2015)
How is Your God Big Enough?
How is your God close enough?
How is our God real enough?
If I were on trial for being a Quaker, would there be enough evidence to convict me?
What might it mean to witness to the Truth in today's culture?
How might there even be ways in which we will be asked to suffer for the Truth?
Testimony as Stories of Witness—What are the Quaker testimonies?
What were the Quaker testimonies early on?
What are you doing now to be socially active?
How do we cultivate the ability to listen to promptings of love & truth in our hearts? What is love asking?
How are the promptings of love & truth leading us to be "doers of the word"?
Where do we fit in the story of empire and exile, assimilation and despair?
What is our testimony?
How are we called to be God's witnesses in our time? What testimony do we have for this troubled & hopeless world?

436. Spreading the Fire: Challenging and Encouraging Friends through Travel in the Ministry (By Debbie Humphries; 2015)
Who am I? How should I be living?
What is my relationship to God & earth?   What does God's safety look like?
What is the kingdom of heaven here & now?
What is the tree of knowledge of good & evil in Genesis?
How could I listen to the Spirit? What were people expecting?
What if I didn't have anything to share?
How have you been challenged in your spiritual journey?
Where have you found encouragement?   How have you met those challenges?
What openings have you experienced? What ministry are you led to?
How do you listen to the Divine and embody the Divine in your life?
How does the meeting encourage and nurture individual gifts of ministry?
How are there individuals in your meeting in whom you see gifts of ministry growing?
How had I been faithful?
What is the value of traveling ministry to a meeting and its members?
How do you have a call or leading in your own life that you perceive as a ministry?
What is an oversight committee? A support committee?
What has your experience been with meeting decisions that are different from your personal hopes?
What are the pros and cons of the often long time-frame of the Quaker decision-making process?
What are the question you walk with and wrestle with today?
How do you experience God?
How much is your desire to do good works thwarted by your desire for comfort?

437. Metaphors of Meaning (by Linda Wilson; 2016).
How does who you are and where your people are from shape you or influence your spirituality?
Which places have been important in your spiritual experiences?
How has place contributed to your spirituality?
How is the "spiritual journey" metaphor useful for you?
What do you like or dislike about it?
What other metaphors resonate for you?
Who or what connects you spiritually, internally, externally, & to the world?
What spiritual experiences have been important in your life?
How did they involve just you, other people, or the natural world?
What do you know experimentally that may help others find & appreciate that of god in themselves or others?
What do you invest in, spiritually, in times of plenty, so it will be there in leaner times?
What appeals or doesn't appeal to you about tending one's spiritual home as a metaphor?
How do you understand either your liking it, or your resistance to it?
What is special about your home?   What do you do there that you do nowhere else?
What is the nature of spiritual homelessness and what are we called to do to address it?
How can we tend our spiritual home?   How do you tend your spiritual home?
How are there other ways in which you might tend your spiritual home?
What metaphors come to mind right now?
What metaphors might work for you in sustaining and maintaining your spirituality across time and place and the ebbs and flows of life?
How might you identify, explore, and share metaphors and weave them into your life?

438. A Seal upon the Heart: Quaker Readings in the Song of Songs (by Michael
Birkel; 2016)
Why should a biblical collection of love poems be of interest to anyone today?
How did the Song of Songs make its way into the Bible?
What kind of language is capable of pointing beyond its own limits and of encouraging the mind to be transformed by wonder?
How do you experience the Song of Songs: as a "celebration of the holiness of human love" read it allegorically; or something different?
Why is or why isn't the Song of Songs an integral part of the Bible?
How good is human love at being a metaphor for intense spiritual experience of divine presence?
What metaphor would you use?
How is your description of your worship experience compare with those of early Quakers?
How does spiritual love & longing similar to &different from the love between persons?
How would you describe the relationship between love & Quaker witness for peace?
Why is it significant that the "tender hint at a loving reunion" is a collective experience
rather than a private one?

439. Marking the Quaker Path: Seven Key Words Plus One (by Robert Griswold; 2016)

How do Friends become aware of the Quaker path & the need to keep growing?
How do we let new seekers know they are starting a spiritual journey?
How do we guide them?
[How do we find & correct mistaken assumptions new seekers bring with them?
How do we know we are making personal & community progress?
Where do we find the meaning of life?
How are we connected to the Eternal?
How do we avoid falling back into the illusions our egos provide?
How do I do good without feeling excessively proud of my work?
[How is something that doesn't lend itself to a narrow range of expression automatically non-existent]?
What did early Friends mean by their use of "being convince," & "convincement?"
How we retire daily into silence and quiet the turmoil of our minds?
How do we study the words of Early Friends, their trial and their gains?
How do we know in our hearts what the Gospels have to tell us when opened by the Spirit?
How do we encourage other Friends to question us about our inner life and the trajectory our life is taking?
How do I listen so as to get all the messages from the whole person?
How long do I wait for all the message to register before I reply?
How can we be clear that authority is working?
How have you prepared your self to follow this journey wherever it may lead?
How can Friends seek to avoid a "notional" faith?
How would you describe your present "condition?"
How do you imagine or how was your actual "experience of Divine Reality?"
What does a "sacred covenant with the Divine Reality" mean to you?
Why is being willing to take on committee work important?
What are the problems of trying to discern the way forward by one's self?
How does group discernment work?
What does "proper use of our true authority" look like?
What does your beloved community look like?
Why is "submission" critical to the Quaker spiritual journey?

440. Enlarging Our Circle of Love (by Margaret Fisher; 2016)

How does our food connect us to the rest of the living world? How can we live in unity with that world?

What can we do to keep everyone healthy?

How are we inflicting moral injury on others when we ask them to slaughter animals for our consumption?

Why is destroying the bottom of the ocean accepted just because it happens under
water where we can't see it?

What keeps us from translating principles into action?

Why is it so important to see things clearly? How far are we from living with intention in the moment?

When may it be necessary to inflict "unnecessary" death or suffering on another being?

Where is the justification in repeating the experiment simply for demonstration purposes?

What do students take away from gruesome lessons involving wild frog deaths in the 1,000s?

[How much of other life on this planet can we justify sacrificing to ensure the continuation of "priceless" human life]?

What can I say to those among us who may have to choose between bankruptcy and killing?

What role does the meeting community have in changing its members' hearts?

What further revelations could await us as a community? Let us truly come, with John Woolman, "to love God is all God's manifestations in the visible world."

What are some reasons that meals provide lasting memories, & eating plays a

significant role in our lives?

What is a very meaningful pet memory for you & explain why?

How & why have you altered your habits to benefit other living beings?

What is your reaction to the pamphlet's argu-ment? Why adopt a vegan diet?

How do actual contemporary farming practices differ from comfortable, popular images given to us?

How has your meeting dealt with a difficult issue?

What attitudes & approaches have been most helpful in moving a concern forward?

How is there a relationship between your diet and your spiritual life?

How do we move beyond simple awareness of truth to action?

441. Making a Portrait of Jesus (by John Lampen; 2016)

Why was Jesus' revolutionary, unpolitical message considered then and still now
considered] dangerous?
Why did Jesus not save himself from crucifixion?
[How is picturing Jesus & ourselves radically as suffering servants in God's Community/ Kingdom different from the First Day (Sunday) school picture we were given]?
What happened in the 40 years between when Jesus died and when the earliest of the surviving gospels were written?
How are we to assess the complicated mixture [of different sources,
contradictions, selective quotes placed in unoriginal contexts, and different timelines, church agendas, preaching and concerns which sometimes pass as "sayings of Jesus?"
If Matthew adapted his account to fulfill prophecies and create parallels, how & where did he do it?
[What did the energy, experiences, & stories of Christianity's first years achieve in the long term]?
Has it ever been tried at those levels?
How is the Jesus you learn about as a child like or different from Jesus as you think
about him today?
How did the changes happen?
[Why] does Jesus believe these "chains of pain and death" can be ended and the
"kingdom of God ...enlarged"?
What does a "personal God" mean to you?
What are the implications of making the bringing of God's kingdom into being our life's task?
What is the difference between faith as "trust" and faith as "belief"?
How does the diversity of sources, with their apparent contradictions affect your interest, respect and faith? Why?
[How does your judgment of what makes an authentic Jesus-saying or portrait of Jesus compare with the author's]?

442. Meeting at the Center: Living Love and Reconciling One with Another (by
Bruce Birchard; 2016)
Why does it matter that the truth of the situation be known and accepted as true by those involved?
Why is love for each other important, as difficult as that may be?
What does "God is a verb" mean to you?
[Why is it] that the Society of Friends, a peace church, has so much conflict, so

many painful divisions in its history?
What should be our response to the [basic] differences [between the different branches of Friends]?
What would reconciliation look in our YM?"
How can we forgive; and forgive again without losing our center?
How does fear stir violence, and how can it be overcome?
How does a feeling a superiority support divisions between people?
What does [true] forgiveness mean to you?
[What is the source of liberal Friends sounding self-righteous in talking about peace

testimony and nonviolence]?
What happens in workshops that aim at healing a victim's trauma and result in

reconciliation?
What does reconciliation mean to you?
Have you experienced profound reconciliation?
What does reconciliation's "power beyond our own making" and "profound evidence of God happening mean to you?

443. Individual Spiritual Discernment: Receiving, Testing, and Implementing
Leadings from a Higher Power (by Jerry Knutson; 2017)
When does something defying logic truly lack value, spiritual or otherwise?
When is it illogical but still has spiritual value]?
What is this ever-present guidance's source?
When is Discernment Used? Why Use Discernment?
How is Guidance Received?
How do I look for Agape within?
How does guidance feel right in your relation to Agape?
How will I feel diminished if I don't follow this leading?
How am I living up to my true, authentic self?
How does it feel like a burden has been lifted after you follow a leading?
How are your peaceful protests done in Agape rather than anger?
How is guidance in accordance with the Golden Rule?
How is guidance a fruit of the Spirit?
How persistent is guidance? How does guidance feel in your body?
How are you mostly helping or hurting others?
How are you integrating mind, heart, spirit, & experience?
How are you uniting or dividing people?
How can you wait for clarity more patiently?
What is the collective wisdom of your clearness committee?
How is the guidance your passion? How is the guidance a cross to the will?
What do dreams have to say?
How do external events confirm or deny discernment of your leading?
How is guidance logical?
How does guidance seem right to others? How is guidance ethical?
How is what you decide to speak or do: kind; true; necessary?
How does it improve silence?
What is the best spiritual practice for you?
Why is individual spiritual discernment important?
How is discernment both a skill and a gift? What is the source of discernment?
Why is corporate discernment important?
How do I discern the way forward in my own life?

444. The Gathered Meeting (by Steven Davison; 2017)

Why have our meetings for worship become increasingly bereft of "gathered meetings?"

How many Friends spend Sunday morning preparing [their self] for worship?

What happens in being gathered?

How do we recognize the gathered meeting?

What do we hold in trust together?

How do we know that it is Holy Spirit gathering us & not another spirit, perhaps even an unholy, deceiving one?

Has it deepened your faith or brought you together?

Has it raised up love in your hearts for each other?

How do we bring our meetings to a level of spiritual fullness in which a gathered meeting isn't an uncommon experience?

How will what I say draw us down & inward, deeper into the Well & closer to the Source?

What aspects of your meeting foster or hinder a gathered meeting?

What happened at an especially valuable meeting and how was it important to you?

What does "gathered meeting" mean to you?

What was a gathered meeting like for you?

How does an individual or a meeting prepare for a gathered meeting?

How do you nurture your spiritual life or prepare for meeting for silent worship and worship with attention to business?

445. Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions? A Quaker Zionist Rethinks
Palestinian Rights (by Steve Chase; 2017)

Who should I stand with now—my old Quaker activist hero or my Palestinian Quaker

activist friend?
[How can countries with imperfect, questionable records on racism, oppression, &

injustice, effectively criticize another country's treatment of minorities]?
How has heartfelt "support for Israel" become reduced to "uncritical endorsement of

repressive measures used to enforce occupation of the West Bank & Gaza Strip?"
What is the US's part in enabling oppression in Palestine?
'What do I need to do?"
How do you see Friends being faithful to the call "to help establish God's Kingdom

on earth?"
How do past injustices as experienced by a person, a community, or a people

perpetuate themselves?
What is the religious basis for nonviolent Palestinian struggle as you understand it?
What nonviolent movement for social change have you participated in [describe it]?
What is your response to nonviolent use of boycott, divestment, and sanctions; if

discomfort, why?
How can caring people from the US and other countries nonviolently bring about

positive change?

446. Coming to Light: Cultivating Spiritual Discernment through the Quaker

Clearness Committee (by Valerie Brown; 2017)

How is this of God, or not of God?

How is an [inner experience a] leading, prompting, nudging from God or my own contributions of thought & imagination?

How do you [find &] take the way offering the fullest opportunity for using your gifts in God- & community-service?

What am I here to do; am I in the right place to accomplish my vocation, & follow my calling?

What do you plan to do with your wild & precious life?

What is its meaning & purpose? What needs forgiveness & healing in your life?

When you imagine the end of your life being near, how do you imagine spending the time left to you?

What is enough? Where do you place self-care in relation to doing good for others?

[When am I being self-indulgent]?

What are daily disciplines & practices that help you be attentive to the "still,
small voice" within?

447. Living in Dark Times (By Rex Ambler; 2017)
What are we to do when people stop listening and politicians turn their attention to gaining and keeping power?
How do we live in a world we no longer understand?
How can we as Quakers make sense of what is happening?
What new responses do we need to come up with?
Who understands why people do evil?
Why is it so hard for us to accept reality?
Why do so many people have to suffer?
Who can square God's love as we experience it in our self & our Friends with what
happens in the world or our life?
How can we accept the suffering of thousands or millions of people in war or oppression or famine?
How would you describe the present world situation?
What is William Penn's advice for seeing the world in a different way & being able to
change it?
Why do we need to know our self before we can understand what is happening in the world?
How do our own needs for "security & belonging" obscure our view of what is happening?
What has been your experience of facing and acknowledging faults in your self?
How is "the real struggle" we face "a spiritual one, not a political one?"
Why is it important to experience and accept suffering, and how can this acceptance be positive?
448.The Inner Guide vs. the Inner Critic: Journey from Judgment to Love (by
Christine Wolff; 2017)
How do we find courage to step out of consensual reality in order to follow an unseen inner guide?
What is the Inner Critic?
What thoughts come up about your appearance? What are things you feel you need the critic for?
If I just experienced Divine Love and am now picking fights with people, how is the
Divine Love experience real?
Why are there doubts about my Divine Presence experience's validity?
What values of my parents might I be challenging? How is this the critic or the Guide
speaking to me?

449. The Ecology of Quaker Meeting (by James W. Hood; 2018)
How am I speaking on my own behalf or am I compelled to deliver this message by
a leading?
How am I speaking to a shared need or am I simply speaking out of my singular desire or need?
What role does nature play in your spiritual life?
How are there places you relate to as sacred space?
How is meeting for worship different from individual worship?
How do you feel spiritually distanced from the living world?
How are you aware of the experience of "unselfing" in response to beauty or in other
ways?
What is the difference between the moment of consciousness and experience and the analysis of the experience?
What is the value of each?

450. Money and Soul (by Pamela Haines; 2018)
  To what do I conscientiously object and why?
What is the soil in which I grew, [the money habits of the people around me]?
[How would I handle my "entitlement to possessions" when they] put me on the wrong side of a struggle about equality and right sharing?
How has our economic system strayed from its divine vocation?
What do we want to call it back to? What is true wealth?
How can what we value be increased?
What needs to be equal and who decides? Where should control be located?
How do you track wellbeing?
How could we challenge this ["gambling"] economic system with integrity and
effectiveness?
How can individuals and communities make money decisions with integrity when we are entangled in a system that fundamentally lacks it?
How do we have a right to interest income that we haven't earned through our own effort?
How does having resources mean we are entitled to them?
[What is an equitable way for people with no assets to get some?
How should young people's need for resources be handled before they start working?]
When does having a debt become having a life of indebtedness?
What if my gain in economic security is someone else's loss?
What really brings security?
How do we best manage our money and best navigate the larger economic environment in which we swim?
What rings true?
What messages have we taken in throughout our lives that muffle the bell's truth?
What keeps us from discerning our institutions' true divine vocations?
[How does privilege & inequality interfere with possible friendships]?
When has a moment rung true to me; what made it right?
How can we bring an experience of integrity to the economic sphere?
What values do you claim in this area of money and economics?
  To what do you conscientiously object?
When we have easy access to more than we need, how can we tell what is enough?
How do we, with all our differences in economic means and money assumptions,
while remaining in the spirit of simplicity and equality, do money together?
How much war is fueled by inequality & the demands of a growth economy in a world of increasing scarcity?
How much war is fueled by a desire to gain greater control over wealth or productive
assets or water?
How could our Quaker faith and testimonies incorporate economics fully enough to be that theory of life?
  How might Friends approach healing a system that we are all entangled in?
  What would we have to give up?
What has accumulated around our social institutions that keeps us from discerning their true divine vocation?
How can we bring an experience of integrity to the economic sphere?
What can Friends do to create a healthy, sustainable, "generative" economy?

Quaker?Quick!Read

Friday, July 1, 2016

Pamphlet Queries II (226-450)

395. Walt Whitman’s Spiritual Epic (by Michael Robertson; 2008)

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