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Growing into Wholeness: Spiritual Practice for the Journey
Pendle Hill 2008 Winter Term Lecture Series
These lectures are available as mp3 files.
January 15 – Elisabeth Dearborn
Sinking Down to the Seed:
One Quaker woman’s 30 years of spiritual practice in and for the body
Following early life with trauma in her family of origin, Elisabeth Dearborn’s journey into wholeness has included 46 years of worshiping with Friends, certification in Rosen Method Transpersonal bodywork, and lay ordination in 2006 by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hahn in the International Order of Interbeing. A mother and partner, she finds a spiritual anchor in singing and in the wilderness.
January 22 – Becky Birtha
Postcards from the Path:
Finding something on the spiritual journey worth writing home about
Becky Birtha is an African American Quaker lesbian adoptive parent, poet, children’s book author, and folk dancer. She serves on the staff at Pendle Hill, one stop on her spiritual journey. She and her partner Nancy Kehoe are the parents of Justin, a young adult, and Tasha, a college student.
January 29 – Isabella Bates
The Dance of Music, Silence, and Embodiment
A Quaker for 30 years, Isabella Bates seeks to understand life through the lenses of music, meditation, and explorations into the life of the Spirit in a body. As a wife, mother, voice and piano teacher, spiritual director, leader of chant, and meditation teacher at the Center of Integrative Medicine, she looks for ways to open more fully to the vast power of love. This exploration has led her to study unitive consciousness as the way to heal our world.
February 5 – Kody Hersh
The Tie that Binds:
Covenant community and the heart of faithfulness
Kody Gabriel Hersh is a member of Miami Monthly Meeting in Southeastern Yearly Meeting. A lifelong Friend, he began in high school to encounter God in ways that drew him into convincement, deepened life in the Spirit, and called him to prophetic ministry to bring Friends as a body into a deeper, more faithful life of Truth. He has been involved with Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Concerns, and serves on the Youth Ministries Committee of Friends General Conference. A musician and songwriter, he often experiences God in singing. He will speak, as led, from worship.
No recording is available for this presentation.
February 12 – Patricia McKernon Runkle
Points on the Compass of Grief:
Spiritual lessons learned in the wilderness
Come to an evening of poetry shared in a spirit of hope and companionship. Patricia McKernon Runkle has been writing songs for 25 years and lately is writing poetry. She greatly admires Emily Dickinson's stunning and timeless poems, especially those on grief and loss.
February 19 – Dave Miller
The Unfolding Spiritual Practice of Meeting Membership
Invited by a Friend in the late 1960s to help clean her meeting house at Plymouth Meeting (PA), David found a faith community that has sheltered, nurtured, and loved him through the many venues of his life. He has come to value as an essential discipline of spiritual life remaining in community one with another, both through the sweet times of nurture and through difficult times. David has participated in his meeting community as clerk and as a member of the committees for care and concern and worship and ministry. He was part of the first Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Quaker Studies Program and participated in the School of the Spirit as a student, board member, and koinonia group leader.
February 26 – Ron Looking Elk (Isleta and Taos Pueblo)
Creating Community through the Wisdom of our Ancestors:
Finding inspiration in our life’s work
Ron M. Looking Elk is an international community specialist for Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO). Ron is also a traditional Pueblo potter and international award-winning artist. He is a facilitator of the Indigenous Leaders Interactive System (ILIS), a program that selects approximately 16 applicants age 25–35 from tribal communities nationwide each year and works to reaffirm cultural values and identity, helping emerging community leaders incorporate these values into solutions that build sustainable communities.
March 4 – Rubye Braye
Sublime Spiritual Practice:
Daily acknowledgement of the Light in ourselves and others
Rubye Howard Braye has attended and served Quaker meetings and organizations for more than 25 years. Her coast-to-coast service has included schools as well as monthly and yearly meetings, Pendle Hill, the American Friends Service Committee, Friends General Conference, Friends World Committee for Consultation, and the Alternatives to Violence Project. She works with others to shift public attention and resources away from punishment and prisons towards long-term investment in individuals and communities. She is a member of Wilmington Friends Meeting, North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative).
2004–2005 Forum Series
DECISIONS FOR AMERICA :Critical Choices/Differing Voices
These lectures are all streaming audio files. You will need RealPlayer to listen to the audio file. If you don’t have it you can download it free here.
October 7, 2004 The Role of the United States Abroad
With Andrew J. Bacevich, Jack DuVall and Phyllis E. Oakley
November 4, 2004 Homeland Security and Civil Liberties
With Kim Lane Scheppele, Jan Ting, Brian W. Lynch and Marwan Kreidie
December 2, 2004 Peace in the Streets
With Keith Reeves, Elizabeth Ellis, Wendell Butler and Robb Carter
January 20, 2005 Immigration: Who Gets to Come?
With Jorge Aguilar, Vernon S. Briggs, Jr., Margaret (Peg) Linvill, Camilo Perez-Bustillo
February 3, 2005 Doing Historical Justice: Reparations and other Remedies
With Aura Kanegis, Raymond Winbush, and others
With Dr. James Gilligan
Annual Spring Conference
If We All Want Peace and Justice . . . Why Is It So Hard?
April 8–10, 2005
April 8, 2005, A Call to Spiritual Activism.
with Rabbi Michael Lerner
April 9, 2005 panel discussion of the source and trajectory of the peace and justice testimonies underlying these faith traditions.
with Imam Abdul Rashied Omar, Ann K. Riggs, Larry Ward, and Rabbi Arthur Waskow
April 9, 2005 , "Effective Action for Peace."
with Dr Andrea Bartolli
Text transcripts
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2003-2004 Forum Lecture Series
Walking the Way of Peace, Peacebuilding in a Violent World
November 20, 2003 Nonviolence and the Dynamics of Transformation
People and institutions can change under enough external pressure, but what are the dynamics of transformation? When reduced to a mere political strategy, nonviolence loses its link to its spiritual and psychological roots. Reconnecting the political, the psychological and the spiritual, we will explore a model of nonviolent engagement, the aim of which is to create contexts for transformation.
Dan Snyder has taught Nonviolence in Personal and Political Life, Prayer and Peacemaking, and Forgiveness and Reconciliation in the resident curriculum at Pendle Hill. Dan is offering weeklong courses on these topics at Pendle Hill this year. Before joining the faculty, Dan was a pastoral counselor in private practice. As a therapist, he worked with a wide range of individuals and groups, including domestic violence offenders.
January 29, 2004 The Quest for Justice and Peace: The Development-Peacebuilding Nexus
Kevin Clements draws on his experience as an international peace activist, advisor to governments, and scholar to illuminate the nexus between development and successful peacebuilding, examining the interrelationships of the security sector and conflict sensitive development with the wider societal issues of structural and direct violence. After five years as secretary-general of International Alert, one of world’s largest nongovernmental organizations dealing with conflict transformation, Kevin recently became the first director of the new Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Queensland.
April 22, 2004 The Way of Compassion
Ajaan Sulak Sivaraksa, Nobel Peace Prize nominee and recipient of the “alternative Nobel” Right Livelihood Award, Sulak has worked tirelessly for social justice at the grassroots in his native Siam. Activist, intellectual and spiritual leader, Sulak shows how to work for peaceful, sustainable social change using the principles and practices of Buddhism. His life and work demonstrate how the interior life of spiritual contemplation and the exterior life of political action illuminate, inform and nurture each other and that inner transformation is critical for creating positive social change.
April 23 2004 Reconciliation: A Path of Courage, Commitment and Compassion
Paula Green, Reconciliation entails willingly planting a seed of intention in the heart. It is a commitment to restore harmony where suffering has set us apart. In the hierarchy of difficulty in peacemaking, inter-communal reconciliation may be the most demanding. The surrender of hatreds passed on through the generations, the releasing of chosen narratives, the willingness to re-establish normal relations, the capacity to relinquish fantasies of vengeance, these are excruciatingly difficult.
April 24, 2004 Restorative Justice: The Promise and the Pitfalls
Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz How we, as community members, can begin to sew the pieces together to form a definition of justice that is meaningful for victims, for offenders, for the community as we look to mend the brokenness within our communities.
2002-2003 Forum Lecture Series
Racial Justice: Speak Truth To Power
October 7, 2002 Racism & Justice in a Violent Tradition
What is the link between racism and the European-American history of violence? How does the history of racialized violence in America affect efforts to create racial justice today?
George E. "Tink" Tinker, professor of Native American religions at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, is the author of Missionary Conquest: The Gospel and Native American Cultural Genocide and co-author of A Native American Theology. An ordained Lutheran minister, Dr. Tinker is director of the Four Winds American Indian Survival Project and an honorary advisor to the International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism.
October 21, 2002 Racial Justice: How Do Friends Get There From Here?
What can Quakers learn from their history of involvement in issues of race relations, and how can we build on these lessons as we seek a true racial justice today?
Emma Lapsansky is curator of Quaker and Special Collections and professor of history at Haveford College. She has served on Friends School committees and teaches a Quakerism course at Pendle Hill. Dr. Lapsansky has published on various topics relating to the intersection of faith and social reform. She is a member of Lansdowne Meeting.
December 2, 2002 Race in America Beyond Black & White
People too often speak of "American" as if it means "white," and "minority" as if it means "black." But we must look beyond the black-white dichotomy if we are to achieve a lasting racial justice.
Frank H. Wu is professor of law at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and a visiting professor at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White, published in January 2002 and already in a second printing. He has co-authored a textbook on Race, Rights and Reparation, and written more than 200 articles for journals such as the Chronical of Higher Education, National Law Journal, and Progressive magazine. He is a member of the D.C. Human Rights Commission.
February 24, 2003 Quakers & African-Americans: A New Look at an Old History
Quakers are justly proud of their historical efforts for racial equality. Yet the story of Quaker involvement is more complex than we often realize. While advocating social change, we sometimes resisted internal change. These lessons from our past can help us as we seek greater racial justice today.
Vanessa Julye and Donna McDaniel are at work on a new book chronicling the tie between Quakers and African-Americans, plus a resource guide for Quaker Meetings working on racism. Donna is a freelance writer and editor, and a member of Framingham, Massachusetts, Monthly Meeting. She has a long history of community involvement and public service, rooted in a deep commitment to equality and racial justice. Vanessa is former clerk of the Fellowship of Friends of African Descent. A member of Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, she has a traveling minute supporting her ministry of making the Religious Society of Friends more welcoming for people of color.
March 3, 2003 Why Racial Justice Matters for White Folks
White privilege is not only a matter of social inequality. It creates a fragmented self, even for those in privileged positions, and ultimately prevents full participation in our culture.
Nancy Richardson, associate dean for ministry at Harvard Divinity School, has a background in campus ministry, community organizing, and urban ministry. She has written and lectured widely on anti-racism education and organizing and on feminist perspectives on theological education.
April 7, 2003 Economic Justice & Gender: A Borderlands Perspective
The US/Mexico border has been described as an "open wound." The harsh realities of poverty, infant mortality, economic exploitation and ecological contamination keep this wound open and bleeding. For women, these realities are more severe since women make-up more than 80% of the over one-million workers employed by the maquiladora industry that controls the economic reality of borderlands life. We will explore the implications of borderlands existence as it relates to the Christian concern for racial and economic justice.
Daisy L. Machado was born in Cuba and raised in New York City. In 1981 she became the first ordained Latina minister in the Christian Church (Disciples). She has served Latino congregations in Connecticut, Spanish Harlem, Brooklyn, and Houston. She is professor of history of Christianity and Hispanic church studies at the Brite School of Theology of Texas Christian University and has written extensively on Latin-American women and on issues of immigration and poverty.
May 3, 2003 Reparations for Slavery Economic, Legal and Moral Issues
Jerry Leaphart
2001-2002 Forum Lecture Series
Discernment In The Aftermath Of September 11 th
October 1, 2001 Materialism and Violence
Is it possible today to be “in the world but not of it”? What is the relation of materialism and violence? Does materialism create in our culture, and in our hearts, a tendency toward domination rather than cooperation?
We live simultaneously in two worlds, the world of our material culture and the world of our religious faith. Both worlds make spiritual claims upon us, compelling a profound question for us: What does it mean today to say that “no one can serve two masters; you cannot serve God and wealth”?
Paul Rasor, Director of the Pendle Hill Religion and Social Issues Forum, is a Unitarian Universalist minister and an award-winning teacher. He received his M.Div. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard and has taught at Harvard Divinity School and Andover Theological School
October 8, 2001 Nonviolence in Personal and Political Life
Our culture traditionally defines peace as a condition where no conflict exists, but this view arises from a model where conflict is suppressed rather than resolved and violence is ingrained in our personal and political structures. This lecture, which offers a broad introduction to Pendle Hill’s Thursday night courses on nonviolence (beginning October 11), will provide a simple, graphic model for waging overt conflict resolution, on personal and political levels, without violence.
Dan Snyder holds Masters degrees in Religious Studies from Earlham School of Religion and Boston University School of Theology, and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. Prior to coming to Pendle Hill, he worked in private practice as a pastoral counselor to individuals, couples, and men's groups focusing on domestic violence.
November 5, 2001 Terrorism and the Quaker Peace Testimony
What is the Quaker Peace Testimony? What does it mean to embody this testimony in the wake of September 11th?
Thomas Jeavons holds an M.A. in Theology and a Ph.D. in Organizational Theory and Behavior. In addition to serving as chief administrator for Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, he is a visiting fellow at Yale University Divinity School and Program on Nonprofit Organizations.
Spring 2001 Monday Night Lecture Series
Patterns and Examples: The Influence of some Friends on American Quakerism
April 2, 2001 – Visualizing a World of Innocence: Quaker Leaders and Their Lives
Lacking a central authoritative figure in which to place its hope and center its prayers, Quakerism expanded from its Christ-centered roots to draw inspiration from others–mere mortals–whose lives modeled a road toward spiritual "perfection." What are the circumstances that make such lives possible? How do such individuals gather inner strength and shed Light on the world around them? How has America–with its new and malleable traditions–offered a fertile ground for Friends' ideals to grow and to shape a culture?
Emma Lapsansky is Curator of the Quaker Collection and Professor of History at HaverfordCollege.
April 9, 2001 – Rachel Hicks: “To tell unto others what Thou hast done for my soul”
Rachel Hicks was a Hicksite Quaker from Long Island whose years as a traditional Quietist traveling minister extended from shortly after the Hicksite-Orthodox split through the Civil War until her death in 1878. Her life and sometimes unwelcome style of ministry reflected a conviction that her salvation required that she speak to members of the Religious Society of Friends no more and no less than the words given her by the Divine Spirit.
Rachel West, OSF, is a Franciscan Sister from Oldenburg (IN) who is currently spending a sabbatical year as a resident student at Pendle Hill.
April 16, 2001 – Walter and Emma Malone: Friends of the Poor
John Walter and Emma Brown Malone of Cleveland (OH) were key shapers of evangelical Quakerism, “soul winners” and nonviolent social activists. Historian Thomas Hamm notes that their views on "race, poverty, economics, and imperialism were more progressive than those of many more theologically liberal Friends," at least in the period before 1900.
John W. Oliver, Emeritus Professor, Malone College, clerked the 1998 and 2000 Conference of Quaker Historians and Archivists and is co-editor with Marge Abbott, Mary Ellen Chijioke and Ben Pink Dandelion of a forthcoming Historical Dictionary of Quakerism.
April 30, 2001 – Listening to Wisdom in Douglas Steere
What are the leading ideas of this Quaker philosopher and spiritual guide and how do they speak to our condition today?
Glenn Hinson is the author of Love at the Heart of Things: A Biography of Douglas V. Steere (Pendle Hill Publications, 1998). He taught for thirty years at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville (KY), and subsequently at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond (VA). He is currently Visiting Professor of Church History at CandlerSchool of Theology, EmoryUniversity, Atlanta (GA).
May 14, 2001 – Abby Hopper Gibbons and Prison Reform
Margaret Hope Bacon , the author of many books of Quaker biography and history, will speak on the subject of her latest biography, Abby Hopper Gibbons. Abby was a leader among the many Quaker women who pioneered in United States prison reform in the 19th century. She founded the first halfway house for discharged women prisoners in the world. An expert lobbyist, she led the campaign for matrons in police stations and prisons, and for establishment of a model women's reformatory. She was also an abolitionist and a Civil War nurse. A devoted mother and grandmother, she was a role model to 19th century women.
May 21, 2001 – Richard Nixon, Exemplary 20th Century Quaker
Richard Milhous Nixon, undoubtedly the Quaker who exercised more raw power than any other Friend, also exemplified the direction of 20th century Quakerism. He was controversial among many eastern Friends because he embodied things we reject – a dishonest and duplicitous character, a willingness to use violence for national ends, and a cynical manipulative approach. Grappling with him, we face the logical extension of our own religious approach.
Larry Ingle is Professor Emeritus of History, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and the author of Quakers in Conflict (1986) and First Among Friends (1994).
Winter 2001 Monday Night Lecture Series
Nonprofit Organizations and Local Communities
January 22, Building Social Capital and Growing Civil Society, Jon Van Til
January 29, Giving and Getting: Charitable Tax Exempt Status at the Local Level
Autumn 2000 Monday Night Lecture Series
The Bible: Current Scholarship and Quaker Response
October 9 - Growing Up Quaker with the Bible
November 20 – Taking the Bible Seriously and Suspiciously
Spring 2000 Monday Night Lecture Series
Science and Religion
April 10 – An Anthropologist’s Perspective on Aging, by Jennie Keith
April 24 – This I Know Experimentally, by Anne Thomas
May 1 – Science, Religion and Frogs, by Mac Given
May 8 – Questioning Technology and Continuing Revelation, by Max and Lissa Carter
May 22 – Quakers and Nature: John Bartram to Friends Committee on Unity with Nature, by Louise Meschter Tritton
May 29 - God and Evolution in Recent Thought, by Ian Barbour
Fall 1999 Monday Night Lecture Series
A Faith that Overcomes the World?
Friends Face Vexing Issues
October 4 - Quakerism in the USA: Chalenges and Opportunities, by Douglas Bennett
October 11 - Engaging Race: One Friend's Experience, by Chinezi M. Chijioke
October 18 - Dost Thou Mind the Pink Triangle?, by Grant Thompson
October 25 - Friends' Schools Face Consumerism and Violence, by Stephanie D. Judson
November 22 - Meeting Membership: Stumbling Block to Community?, by Arlene Kelly
Spring 1999 Monday Night Lecture Series
What Canst Thou Say
April 12 ~ Growing Up Quaker and Choosing It, Too, by Ingrid Lakey
April 26 ~ Lo, I am With You Always by Ann Davidson
May 10 ~ Growing into Life and Power by Esther Darlington
May 17 ~ From Calvinist Dissident to Quaker Mediator, by Hendrik W. van der Merwe
May 24 ~ Gathered for Greatness? by Dan Seeger
Fall 1998 Monday Night Lecture Series
Challenging Some Quaker Assumptions
October 12 ~ Discerning Ministry and Gifts: the Meetings Responsibility by Marty Grundy
October 19 ~ Seeking Deeper Unity: What Can We Proclaim As One?, by Jonathon Vogel-Borne
November 2 ~ Quaker Recreations Reconsidered by Mark Cary
November 9 ~ Quaker Culture vs. Quaker Faith by Sam Caldwell
November 16 – Holy Dialectics: Healthy Tensions in Quaker Faith and Practice by Mary Ellen Chijioke
Spring 1998 Monday Night Lecture Series
Ask Me How I Know
April 27 ~ Chel Avery on Madeline L'Engle
May 4 ~ Michael Birkel on the Early Desert Mothers and Fathers
Fall 1997 Stages of Life: Faithful Responses
Oct. 27 ~Mary Moehlman ,Mid-Life & Counting: Where Work, Play and Spirit Meld
Spring 1997
The Queries and Modern Quakerism
"An Overview: The Queries as Corporate Self-Discipline" by Marty Grundy
"Meeting for Worship" by Arthur Larrabee
"The Integrity of German Friends During the Twelve Years of Nazi Rule"
by Brenda Bailey
Fall 1996
Ministry Among Friends Today
"Vocal Ministry and Other Obstacles to the Spirit'' by Patrick Nugent
"May The Road Rise Up To Meet You'' by Allen Oliver
"Modern Ministry Among Friends" by Kara Newell
"By Whose Authority? The Grounds for Ministry and Leadership Among Friends" by Thomas Jeavons
"Vocal Ministry: The Inward Motion and the Razor's Edge" by William P. Taber, Jr.
"Being a Recorded Minister" by Brian Drayton
Spring 1996 The Bible and Contemporary Quaker Faith
"The Bible: "Do You Still Read That Old Thing?"'' by Lloyd Lee Wilson
"The Bible: Linking First World, Third World, and Early Friends'' by Thomas Gates
"Finding Life in the Face of Death: The Bible and Pastoral Care'' by Patty Levering
"Tell Me a Story of Faith and Practice'' by Georgia E. Fuller
"The Bible as Friend, Foe and Elder'' by Judith Applegate
