Write to think, think to write

I know I still have things to say.

More important, I have things to think and I must say or write before I know I think them.

I only know this because I wrote that in my journal the other day!

10th Anniversary of San Francisco Meeting Vigil for Peace

Well, I left San Francisco Friends Meeting, but it hasn't left me -- thanks to the magic of meeting email lists. This report came through and its author, Markley Morris, agreed that I could post this here.

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10th Anniversary of San Francisco Meeting Vigil for Peace

Last Thursday was the 10th anniversary of our vigil. The first vigil was held on October 11, 2001, the same week U.S. bombing of Afghanistan began.

There was a wonderful turnout. At 12:30 Supervisor John Avalos arrived and presented the attached proclamation to the vigil. Note that it is signed by all eleven San Francisco Supervisors. After this, Episcopal Bishop Marc Andrus gave a blessing and we resumed our vigil.

For photos by Sean McConnell see http://www.flickr.com/photos/diocal/sets/72157627839290668/

The vigil continues. Please join us whenever you can from noon to 1:00 every Thursday (except federal holidays) at the old federal building at the corner of Larkin Street and Golden Gate Avenue, San Francisco.

In peace, Markley

Last Day during My Sabbatical

As mentioned in my last post, I've been blessed to be able to take the summer off of paid work. Well, I had a lot of unpaid work to do, so it's not like I didn't keep busy. I did get to eat a few bonbons -- actually, ice cream and donuts more than bonbons. But I didn't blog as much as I had hoped. So be it.

Today, 9/25/11, was my last day before I go back to full-time work. It was a full day.

I went to Bible study at Green Street Friends Meeting. It was led by Walter Hjelt Sullivan. (It was thanks to Walter that Robin and I found a place to rent in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, close enough to walk to Green Street Meeting. He and his wife Traci live a block away, and he heard about the house where we moved. We knew them from when they were co-directors at Ben Lomond Quaker Center near Santa Cruz, Calif.)

Walter chose Ephesians 6:10-17, about the armor of God. It was offputting to some Friends, but I thought it was a great reminder that God gives us the strength and the tools -- spiritual weapons, even -- to meet challenges and, yes, even evil. "Stand firm," the text says; it sounds just like George Fox. I was reminded of something another parent told me this week at a school soccer game, when he was picking up plastic shopping bags blowing by: "Be an upstander, not a bystander!"

Then meeting for worship, where I was mulling over the armor of God, breastplate of righteousness, and so on in a contemporary context. Perhaps this: Put on the bicycle helmet of carbon footprint reduction, the bulletproof vest of faith, the organic cotton t-shirts and shorts of righteousness, and the sweatshop-free sneakers of peace. (I'm not sure what the sword of the Spirit would be.) This train of thought did not quite rise to the occasion of standing and delivering it as vocal ministry.

Afterwards, Robin & I had a nice chat with a fellow parent of an 8th grader at our sons' school. Then we headed home, where after lunch I helped Robin get to the SEPTA train to connect with Amtrak to a conference on fundraising for Quaker organizations (she tweeted this from the Amtrak train).

At home, Younger Son wanted to watch "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town" on DVD (we don't have TV but we have a computer, and we only own a couple of DVDs, so...). Then we went outside to do yard work while Older Son did homework.

Here's what Younger Son found in the grass:

And here are the non-motorized, carbon-footprint-reducing tools we used on the lawn and edges:

And here is Younger Son, still smiling after working:

Scrambled eggs for dinner, followed by washing two nights' worth of dishes, a blog post, and hustling the boys to showers and to bed. A truly satisfying day to end a truly blessed time. I am grateful to my sons, my wife, our new and old friends, and the Spirit for allowing these many blessings to flow.

Last Weekday in My Sabbatical

I've had the blessing of being able to not work for three months during our move from San Francisco to Philadelphia so Robin could be executive secretary at Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) Section of the Americas.

That changes on Monday, 9/26/11, as I start a new job in Center City doing fund development for the Community Design Collaborative, a community design center that provides pro bono predevelopment design services to nonprofit organizations, offers unique volunteer opportunities for design professionals, and raises awareness about the importance of design in community revitalization.

I am still hoping to post about the cross-country drive I took with our boys this summer. Meanwhile, I have been baking quite a bit, as well as making family dinners. Here is what I did today to mark the end of my free time.

Step 1 doesn't look too great on first glance:

But then, oh then, order appears from chaos:

Cookies in the oven, gonna watch 'em rise! Cookies in the oven, gonna watch 'em rise!

They turned out to be quite tasty, though quite soft. My suspicion is that the oven runs a little cooler than indicated. Robin thinks the extremely high humidity today is responsible.

In any event, I am truly blessed to have had this summer off from paid work. Thank you, God, from whom all blessings flow. Of course, I still had plenty of work to do, it just wasn't paid for with cash. And I certainly had the opportunity to touch "that which is eternal" at times in the process.

Board Binder

Among the transitions I've made this summer, in moving from San Francisco to Philadelphia, I also took on a new volunteer role: clerk of the Board of Trustees of Friends Publishing Corporation, the publisher of Friends Journal magazine.

I know it's un-Quakerly to say it this way, but here's my new favorite status symbol, which came in the mail today:

I'm excited and honored to be a part of the organization. With Gabe Ehri as the new Executive Director and Martin Kelley as new Editor, the organization is ramping up its online presence.

I hope you already subscribe. If not, click here. Or, choose the new digital subscription and save paper & reduce mailing costs. Also, letters will be going out to Friends meetings about student subscriptions shortly. If you know a student who could benefit, please consider this.

Be sure to look at the recently published list of focus topics for 2012 and 2013.

Finally, there will be an event at the Arch Street Meetinghouse in Philadelphia on October 1, 2011, to celebrate and appreciate Susan Corson-Finnerty and Bob Dockhorn, who are both retiring this year after many years of service to the Journal. (Email celebration -at- friendsjournal.org to learn more; replace "-at-" with "@".)

I look forward to serving alongside my fellow Board members and the staff to continue this ministry of Quaker communications and outreach.

Sound of Way Moving, though Stuttering a Bit

In spare moments, I reflect on many small aspects of our family's move this summer from South San Francisco, Calif., to Philadelphia, Penna.

The first part of the summer was magical. Getting everything packed was a challenge. The boys finished school June 8, we had packed a lot but certainly not everything when we left June 10 for Santa Barbara, where there was a family sendoff. Then Robin flew to Philadelphia to start her job with Friends World Committee for Consultation Section of the Americas (FWCC), while I left the boys at Camp Avocado (aka Camp Grandma & Grandpa -- they have an avocado orchard) and headed back to South San Francisco to finish packing.

Then I went back to Santa Barbara to pick up the boys, and we headed east, stopping first in Las Vegas to see our good Friend Jennifer C. and family. I've posted some photos to Facebook, and that's about as far as I've gotten in processing the trip for myself, let alone others.

It went really well, and was a special and memorable time. I didn't manage to blog as we went, so I've been hoping to summarize it at least for myself now that we've been here a while.

Yet I haven't had the bandwidth -- psychologically or, until recently, technologically -- to take time to compose any kind of coherent reflections, even for myself let alone for my blog. For one thing, there's been all the tasks that go with moving house across country and establishing one's legal identity, finding services, etc., while also making sure 13 Year Old and 9 Year Old have at least their minimum daily requirements met.

Our 8-year-old laptop -- our one and only home computer -- perished on the last day of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, July 31. After a while, I bought a replacement, a much better machine at half the price of what we paid for the old one.

So, the last few days I've been taking time to set things back up on the new machine. Today I got back an external hard drive from the repair shop, where they were at least able to save the data. Yes, we had backups, but they were incomplete and on different media (CDs, online storage), none of which was ample enough to hold it all. So better to get the external drive and use that consistently.

Ironically, when I was in the middle of writing the paragraph about the laptop crashing, our home Internet connection dropped out. So, even now bandwidth is a precious commodity not to be taken for granted. (Especially this week, when Verizon workers are striking to preserve some of their benefits, at a time when, I understand, top execs are very high earners and profits are high.)

Somehow, this is how my life has seemed since we got to Philadelphia -- fragmentary, disjointed, full of (summer) light and heat, few clumsy moments and dropped connections, along with fun trips, cicadas, big trees, historic buildings, and some especially hot weather... Yet it has felt right and good to be here, in support of Robin's post as Quaker diplomat with FWCC Section of the Americas.

And even though I may not notice it as much as I could or should, God has been smoothing the way for us all summer, so far, laying low the hills and filling the valleys that have inevitably arisen. Perhaps it's all the people who have been praying for Robin and also our whole family. Thanks, everyone.