I must admit that, were it not for the One who could speak to my condition when I was the same age as George Fox was, I would have gladly been schooled in natural theology for my religious education. For I, like another Delco Quaker, love botany and words, such as "epinasty", that give me perspective on contemporary Friends' "uppity situation".

Disillusionment with mainline religions while discovering an egalitarian alternative in Quakerism, more and more new growth could subject us…

No one knows better than a person of German ancestry the shame at disgust. Whether idleness when there is work to be done or laziness when things need to be cleaned and put away, the disgust of waste shames those who do not suffer inactivity well. But from whence has Quakerism's penchant for activism arisen? 

Is it derived from a puritanical ancestry and its ethic of work? Is it a natural balance to what seems like inactivity in our worship? Or, is it shame at our disgust of…

Because I have dared to name the danger facing our society in general and Quakerism in particular, I offer a definition of same. "Solipsism" is the theory that the self can be aware of nothing but its own experiences and states.

For society, this translates as David Byrne's "Once In A Lifetime" with people mourning their own situations in light of unrealistic expectations. For Quakerism, founded upon honoring personal experience as a means of continued revelation, the deck is stacked…