I go into prison several times a year to offer nonviolent strategies. The Alternative to Violence program (AVP) is a successful program with a simple concept. If you practice self-respect and treat others as if you expect their best behaviors, you can live without...
The trees are candle flames flickering in the wind. The wind doesn't howl, but it's brisk, sharp. The leaves dive, pause and with a sudden updraft a bouquet of color is tossed upward. It's Halloween. A hallowed time. A time suspended. Oct 31 is a sacred day on the...
Trees are so green. Still. I love the lingering days mid-October, the temperature drops one degree lower each day. Slowly, so slowly the dahlias and sunflowers descend into a frosted land. Summer grips us tighter this year. Its talons hold on fiercely even as its fire...
Eyanna Flonory was loved by many people. She was just 21, learning to be an adult. She had gone to Bunker Hill CC. She had a bent to study criminal justice. Her bright-eyed, son Amanihoteph Smith , was a gregarious 2 year old. Simba Martin (21) was Eyanna's new...
Every day I run by the Charles River in Boston. Every week I pick up my knitting. I love both the speed of running and the patience of knitting. My endorphins ramp up with running. Actually some call my carriage jogging, but jog is a sodden word. It does nothing for...
Hello sister citizens and hell-raisers. I'm mad. For a 54 year old happy mother and neighbor, I still feel fury. I can live with chaos. But I can't live with disgust. I am boorishly fed-up with our leaders' incompetence. I'm angry because last week in the Senate, the...
Why am I not elated? A pallor descends on my face. Why does my heart come to a standstill? The President pulled out the last fighting troops in Iraq, but I'm not jumping for joy. I wish I could celebrate. I admit that removing combat troops is a step in the right...
So Quakers in 2010 are living on the edge. Like a song that plays over and over the human race is in continual flux. But with red oil hemorrhaging in the Mexican Gulf, and the US throwing money into the war machine and foreclosures and miners dying in West Virginia...
Sarah and Abraham traveled from Ur to an unknown destination to find a better life. Later Abraham's children settled in Egypt due to a terrible famine throughout the land and were guests of the Egyptians. In Bosnia hundreds of families emigrated to the US, during the...
It's now 2 months since my Dad took his own life. He was 86 years old. I think of myself as a daughter who misses her parent. I don't think of myself as a survivor like one who's survived a suicide. Many see suicide as wrong, shrouded in dank and silent screams. But...