Sandwiches

The Meeting I visited yesterday has a project where young Friends make sandwiches once a month for a shelter.

Inner Lightning, or Inner Lightening

This is silly, but it occurred to me to think about these names for the blog. "Lightning" sounds sort of scary and dramatic; probably most people wouldn't want the sort of epiphany Inner Lightning suggests, at least not more than a few times in their life. Inner Lightening though seems like something I need all the time.

Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary

I think I've mentioned this on this site before. The web site Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary
has wonderful (somewhat academic sounding, but still wonderful) meditations on the Bible, non-violence, and theology based on the thinking of Rene Girard.

This morning a passage on imitating Christ struck me. As long as we imitate our neighbors, we will be mired in conflict.

I am thinking about how internet addiction, which I have fairly badly, is a stumbling block for me. Is internet browsing a search for rumor, fashion, the latest human models to imitate?

What about Hitler?

I'm reading a book, "What about Hitler?", which tries to answer the question pacifists often get. I'm a little worried that the answer amounts to "we have to be nonviolent but be open to the fact that it might not work", but I'll see. It's odd to me though that people assume that a violent response to tyranny/oppression etc. is guaranteed to work better than nonviolence. We *can* lose wars. Anyway, more thoughts later.

Florida Avenue Meeting

My older son and I traveled the Metro to Dupont Circle to visit the Florida Avenue Friends Meeting in DC. It took us a while to find it, as I somehow thought it was visible from Connecticut Avenue, and didn't take the hint of the name that it is, in fact, on Florida Avenue. We couldn't stay for Meeting, but had a nice chat with the fellow in the office. My son was impressed with the building - he told me expected it to "be in an old house or something"!

Joys and Concerns

Yesterday one of the young Friends spoke up during the "joys and concerns" part of the announcements, to say that the start of school (today, here in North Carolina) was both a Joy and a Concern. Perhaps the concern part is more on my mind today.

We were watching "Rocky and Bullwinkle" last night, and Rocky says, "How are we going to get to Mt. Flatten?"

Bullwinkle answers, "Let me worry about that."

"You mean, getting to Mt. Flatten?"

"No, worrying about it."

I think I'm doing the "worrying about" part of most things around here, just not the "doing" part.

Korea in First Day School

I'm teaching First Day School today, and I am going to talk about Korea, especially AFSC's work in North Korea. I am going to try to tie in how the US considers North Korea our enemy, but we should love our enemies and do them good. I'm not having much luck finding visuals to interest the kids, but there is at least the story of Ham Sok Hon, a famous Korean Quaker. Also, we are going to take pictures of our Meetinghouse to send to other First Day Schools.