Just as Margaret Chase Smith’s speech to the Senate didn’t initially take down McCarthy, it appeared that our marches and signs, postcard writing, calls, and getting out the vote would have no effect on MAGA. Then, it did. The recent election showed us it did.
Cozy
Pasto Quakers Worship Group attends a gathering for peace in Pasto, Colombia
What am I Putting out into the world?
I believe we are all connected — our actions (intentions, thoughts), however small, affect others. My vitriol, repulsion, or hatred befoul my mood, my relationships, and my community. In the same way, kindness, forbearance, generosity and forgiveness bring down the temperature in a world that is heating up.
The Inner Teacher
Fox discovered that this Inner Teacher was more easily accessed when people gather in community. While we gather in community, we are free to think our own thoughts, receive our own insights and sometimes, share insights from our Inner Teacher as vocal ministry with those gathered. How do we know when a message is from this Inner Teacher and not simply our thoughts, or ego wanting to be heard?
Buffalo Quakers and the Network of Religious Communities
What forms do intentional/religious communities take? What is the intention to the gathering? Do we gather for community or for service? These kinds of questions have and will be continually asked and acted upon. A look at four of the intentional/religious communities that gather at 1272 Delaware can perhaps shine a light upon some of these questions.
ELAINE CHAMBERLAIN (1939-2025)
Buffalo Quakers and Reparations
The moral imperative to begin to correct some of the sins of slavery, by means of reparations, has been accepted by Buffalo Quakers. What does reparations mean? A fundamental understanding of this is in the protest songs of African Americans calling y’all to “take back what they stole from us!” What has been stolen? Hundreds of years of life and labor and wealth.
End of life decision making workshop
Avis Wanda McClinton 339 Manumissions and Beyond presentation
Buffalo Friends sign a petition to enforce the HALT Solitary law
In Meeting for Business on March 23, 2025, Friends approved the Meeting signing the the HALT Act petition shared by the Inside-Outside Collective of New York Yearly Meeting. Friends are also encouraged to read the full petition and sign individually.
Learning to Create Antiracist Organizational Culture
For three Wednesday evenings in January 2025, seven members of Buffalo Quaker Meeting attended via videoconference a training called Creating Anti-Racist Organizations, which was presented by the Center for the Study of White American Culture (CSWAC) and sponsored by New York Yearly Meeting. Over 140 members of New York Yearly Meeting attended the training.
Game plan for health and wellness
Buffalo Friend Patrick Finn 1935-2025
It took a while for Quakerism to grow on Patrick. His family were staunchly Catholic in a staunchly Catholic neighborhood on the Southside of Chicago. His parents required all nine of their children to attend Mass and sent them to the local parish schools. Patrick felt holiness and charity in some of the priests and nuns of his youth, but as a teen he began to grow disillusioned with the corruption, hypocrisy, and racism he saw imbedded in the Church.
Buffalo Friends sign the Apartheid-Free Community Pledge
In Meeting for Business on February 16, 2025, the Friends approved the Meeting signing the Apartheid-Free Community Pledge from American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).
Is the Collective Greater than the Individual in Quakerism?
I have learned that I cannot fully practice Quakerism by myself. It’s not just that Community is one of the central Quaker testimonies, along with Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Equality, and Stewardship. I have to practice Quakerism with a community of others, because we seek to experience Spirit collectively, a sense of unity in Spirit, and invite each other to share how Spirit is changing us and illuminating our way.