A wet morning in Forest Park. #PNW

Fellow Advent observers: Christ is coming! Not at the end of time or in our nostalgia, but in every person seeking food, drink, refuge, warmth, care, and inclusion.

A nice piece on Quakers. Arch Street Friends Meeting is unprogrammed (Camas Friends is “semi-programmed”) but this article captures the spirit of our community.

This morning on the Oneonta Gorge Trail. #PNW

How about “No *Shame* November”? A daily practice of rejecting any religion-informed messaging that tells us or others that we’re bad, impure, illegal, inadequate, unacceptable, or undeserving. A daily opportunity to undo any harm we’ve caused others by sustaining ministries built on toxic shame.

“When we’re hungry, love will keep us alive.” ~The Eagles, correctly

Love is creating a world where it’s easy to get food, care, and connection and difficult to go hungry, not get the care you need, or be excluded.

Self-love is not selfishness. It’s not a personal flaw to need something. It’s not naughty to want something. Impulses can be trustworthy. Desires can be holy. Fears can be clarifying. Tears can be healing. Doubts can spark needed change.

Seeing lots of people voicing their needs and/or offering support to others, in this fraught time. This is community. This is what it’s all about.

The seeds of Love are planted within every person. How can we nurture these seeds, in one another? How can we create more fertile conditions so that the Love in each can grow and thrive?

Returning to a favorite this morning: the Salmon River Trail. #PNW

My favorite place to run in Camas—the Heritage Trail (Lacamas Lake). #PNW

The way we’ll survive this is Love: crowd-feeding, foot-washing, table-flipping, truth-telling, nap-taking, stranger-welcoming, wound-tending, community-building, laugh-inducing, risk-taking Love.

Peaceful protest with Quakers at the Portland ICE facility this morning. As my Friends’ signs say: stop the inhumanity. Love your neighbor.

This morning on the east side of Sahalee Tyee (Indian Heaven Wilderness). Fall meets winter. #PNW

Speaking of frogs and unicorns let me tell you about a time Jesus used whimsy to oppose fascism, it all started with a donkey and a few palm branches…

White nostalgia and stubbornness won’t save us. A more reverent connection to the land and to each other might. Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

There are many ways to be violent and to be complicit in violence. It’s a good day to ask whether the theology that soothes you is actually making you more violent.

My autistic friends and family do not need to be fixed! What needs to be fixed are hearts, communities, practices, and structures that make it needlessly difficult for autistic folks to fully participate and be cherished as their beautiful, authentic selves.

Reverence for every person and the Love within them is the beginning of wisdom.

Happy World Quaker Day! Where are my fellow Friends? Or, where are those listening deeply, speaking truth to power, nurturing the love within yourself and others, resisting authoritarianism, responding to needs of vulnerable neighbors, and remembering to breathe? That’s the Quaker way at its best.

”Love your neighbor” is not just something that happens in your heart but something tangible we do, together.

Finding Love on the trail. Looking up from the inside of a burned, hollowed tree, near East Zigzag Mountain, Aug ‘23. #PNW

“Faith without works is dead.” Christianity without compassion and liberation is deadly.

It’s going to be wild when Bible publishers are told to remove all the calls for peace and justice and liberation made by Jesus and the prophets because they make our president feel picked on, and when many Christians are fine with that.

It is special when people work together to address a real, urgent need. That’s an exciting kind of unity! Not the unity of “hey look, we’ve stopped criticizing each other” but the unity that arises when people bring their resources to the table to do good and create positive change, with others.

Remembering an early August hike around Timothy Lake (and nearby Little Crater Lake). #PNW

If you’re in or near SW Washington tomorrow, come say hello to Camas Friends Church at the Vancouver Peace & Justice Fair from 9am-3pm at Esther Short Park. I’ll be at the Camas Friends booth from 11am-1pm.

Today at Steigerwald Wildlife Refuge. #PNW

I will look for the Light in others. I will do my part to help that Light shine. I won’t ignore the bushel of bigotry and cruelty under which that Light is hidden or nearly extinguished. Every person is sacred. Not every person deserves applause.

Guns aren’t worth it.

Being progressive is not about having arrived, it’s about movement. Progressives are right to resist idolizing the past and to recognize that life is dynamic. But tendencies born of privilege and power take time to unlearn.

Pasqueflowers, one of my favorite summer finds at higher elevations. From Paradise Park (mid-August) and McNeil Point (early July). #PNW

The Seattle Mariners season may have been saved by an Etsy witch, and the fan who hired them to intervene on the Mariners’ behalf, who is now utilizing the attention to raise funds for the Trevor Project. This week could not be starting off any better.

Nice catch, spider! 🍁 (Fallen Leaf Park in Camas)

My spirituality changed dramatically when I came to see my faith not as something to impose on others but a tradition that can awaken and guide the Love within me, a Love present in every person.

“In heavenly armor we'll enter the land The battle belongs to [Lord Trump] No weapon that's fashioned against us Shall stand The battle belongs to [Lord Trump] We sing glory, honor Power and strength to [Lord Trump]”

Asters at Paradise Park (mid-August). #PNW

Empathy is under attack. Meanwhile, the Department of Defense may become the Department of War and ICE arrested nearly 500 workers at an EV factory in Georgia. Losing empathy makes it easier to destroy lives, families, communities. This is a really, really bad thing. We can’t lose empathy.

That humans have thought we were put here to rule the Earth is so us.

Listen in the silence Listen through the noise Listen in the tension Holding every voice Listen to the discord To the harmony Open your heart to the mystery and beauty of it all

Doubt your faith, your pastor, the Bible. Doubt God. But never doubt the potluck.

A summer highlight: family road trip in late July to the Redwoods and up the southern and central Oregon coast. #PNW

Find a spiritual community that nurtures Love, not self-loathing.

“I am fearfully (reverently) and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). A crucial self-affirmation in light of religious teaching that trains many to be excessively suspicious and disparaging of their wants, needs, impulses, wisdom, desires, hopes—teaching that tells people to not be self-affirming.

Hello! I am a Quaker pastor and Christian spirituality scholar in the PNW who writes Love-centered congregational music and hikes as often as possible. My website has my hiking recommendations, songs you can use, info about my writing and teaching, and a primer on what being Quaker means, to me…

Yesterday’s hike to Soda Peaks Lake (Trapper Creek Wilderness).

Last week on the way up to Paradise Park. #PNW

What even is God? The power to change hearts, minds, and policy so that children are safe from violence? Or an offramp, a way to avoid the difficult path and collaborative work of actually making things better?

Christian nationalism is what happens when Christians fail to resist the temptation to dominance that Jesus resisted in the wilderness. Christian nationalism is what happens when Christians stay Christian but stop following Jesus.