Stories from a Place That Feels Like Home

Master storyteller Philip Gulley envelops readers in an almost forgotten world of plainspoken and honest small-town values, evoking a simpler time when people knew each other by name, folks looked out for their neighbors, and people were willing to do what was right--no matter the cost.

When Philip Gulley began writing newsletter essays for the twelve members of his Quaker meeting in Indiana, he had no idea one of them would find its way to radio commentator Paul Harvey Jr. and be read on the air to 24 million people. Fourteen books later, with more than a million books in print, Gulley still entertains as well as inspires from his small-town front porch.

The Friends Way is a grand walk that starts in Barley, Lancashire, passing over the summit of Pendle Hill to and through some of the finest parts of the Yorkshire Dales to end at Sedbergh. It combines glorious scenery with superb wildlife and striking geology, and it also visits many places that were crucial in George Fox's journey of 1652. He preferred to deliver his sermons outdoors, dismissing churches as 'steeple-houses'. His long walk and discussions with Seekers and other dissidents were the catalyst for the creation of the Society of Friends, first known as Quakers. From Pendle Hill, where Fox had his vision, to Fox's Pulpit, where he gave his 'Sermon on the Fell' to a crowd of over 1000, the route is steeped in Fox's personal journey. This 62-mile Way ends at Sedbergh, a town rich in Quaker heritage, to be followed by two day-walks, one a circuit that takes in Fox's Pulpit. The whole route can be completed comfortably inside one week. It will appeal not only to all Quakers who enjoy walking, but also to those walkers who don't yet know the remarkable story of Fox's 1652 journey and life. The guidebook is richly visual, with mapping at 1:35,000 on 17 of its pages and nearly 140 colour photos. It is robustly bound and printed on rainproof paper.

This is the story of Mary Dyer whose indomitable efforts to seek and find freedom to worship lead eventually to her death. Her quest began when she and her husband sailed from old to new England in 1635. Landing in Boston, they were soon disillusioned by the intolerant practices and beliefs of the Puritans, who considered that all truth could be found in the Old Testament and only there. Variations, from Puritan interpretations of the Ten Commandments, were punished by cruel torture and/or death. Banished from Boston for protesting such rigidity in belief and in practice, Mary was among the group who founded Rhode Island, where freedom in belief and in practice of worship was established. Mary Dyer did not cease from exploring every available form of worship until she discovered the one which spoke the truth to her. On a trip back to England, Mary met George Fox, who gave her the confidence that women had special intellectual and spiritual gifts. Fox encouraged her to become a Quaker and a missionary. She was alarmed by Boston Puritan laws designed to repress and eliminate Quakers. Undaunted, Mary challenged the Puritan intolerance. "My life not availaeth me in comparison with the liberty of the truth."

Filled with a cast of lovable, quirky characters, punctuated with simple wonders, the everyday truths found in this book offer much needed clarity to our own befuddled world. No matter where you live, no matter what your season, come along for the journey.

When Philip Gulley began writing newsletter essays for the twelve members of his Quaker meeting in Indiana, he had no idea one of them would find its way to radio commentator Paul Harvey Jr. and be read on the air to 24 million people. Fourteen books later, with more than a million books in print, Gulley still entertains as well as inspires from his small-town front porch.

Prophet against Slavery is an action-packed chronicle of a remarkable and radical individual. It is based on the award-winning biography by Marcus Rediker, which prompted the Quaker community that once disowned Lay to embrace him again after 280 years. Graphic novelist David Lester brings the full scope of Lay's activism and ideas to life. Born in 1682 to a humble Quaker family in Essex, England, Lay was a forceful and prescient visionary. Understanding the fundamental evil that slavery represented, he employed guerrilla theatre tactics and direct action to shame slave owners and traders. The prejudice Lay suffered as a dwarf and a hunchback, as well as his devout faith, informed his passion for human and animal liberation. Exhibiting stamina, fortitude, and integrity in the face of the cruelties practiced against his 'fellow creatures', he was frequently a solitary voice speaking truth to power. Lester's beautiful imagery and storytelling, accompanied by afterwords from Rediker and Paul Buhle, capture the radicalism, the humour, and the humanity of this uncannily modern figure. A testament to the impact each of us can make, Prophet against Slavery brings Lay'' prophetic vision to a new generation of young activists who today echo his call of 300 years ago: 'No justice, no peace!'

First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In this book Grace Jantzen constructs a Quaker spirituality of beauty as a theological-philosophical response to a world preoccupied with death and violence. Having mapped the foundations of western cultural violence in the Greco-Roman period and the Judea-Christian tradition in Foundations of Violence and Violence to Eternity, she now offers her alternative vision. This vision is an original and creative feminist reading of the Quaker tradition, considering George Fox and the writings of Quaker women, exploring the themes of inner light and beauty as alternatives to violence and the obstacles to building such an alternative world. After showing how seventeenth-century Quakers offered a different option for modernity, she maps the philosophical and ethical implications of engaging with the world through beauty and its transforming power. Written for everyone interested in contemporary spirtuality, it explains how Quaker ideas can provide a way to transform our violent world into one that celebrates life rather than death, peace rather than violence. This work is the second of two posthumous publications to complete Grace M. Jantzen's Death and the Displacement of Beauty collection, which began with Foundations of Violence (Routledge, 2004).

'What is Quakerism?' can be a difficult question to answer, especially when Quakers today struggle to find a shared religious language. In this book, Mark Russ answers this question from a personal perspective, telling his story of trying to make sense of Jesus within the Quaker community. Through this theological wrestling emerges a 'Quaker Shaped Christianity' that is contemporary, open and rooted in tradition. In reflecting on how to approach the Bible, the challenges of Universalism, and the key events of the Jesus story, this book offers a creative, inspiring and readable theology for everyone who has wondered how Christianity and Quakerism fit together.

Intensely persecuted during the English Interregnum, early Quakers left a detailed record of the suffering they endured for their faith. Margaret Fell, Letters, and the Making of Quakerism is the first book to connect the suffering experience with the communication network that drew the faithful together to create a new religious community. This study explores the ways in which early Quaker leaders, particularly Margaret Fell, helped shape a stable organization that allowed for the transition from movement to church to occur. Fell's role was essential to this process because she developed and maintained the epistolary exchange that was the basis of the early religious community. Her efforts allowed for others to travel and spread the faith while she served as nucleus of the community's communication network by determining how and where to share news. Memory of the early years of Quakerism were based on the letters Fell preserved. Marjon Ames analyzes not only how Fell's efforts shaped the inchoate faith, but also how subsequent generations memorialized their founding members.

'A Convergent Model of Renewal' addresses a perceived crisis for faith traditions. How do we continue to value tradition while allowing for innovative and contextual expressions of faith to emerge? How do we foster deeper participation and decentralisation of power rather than entrenched institutionalism? Drawing on insights from contemporary philosophy, contextual theology, and participatory culture, C. Wess Daniels calls for a revitalisation of faith traditions. Here he proposes a model that holds together both tradition and innovation in ways that foster participatory change. This convergent model of renewal is then applied to two case studies based in the Quaker tradition: one from the early part of the tradition and the second from an innovative community today. The model, however, is capable of being implemented and adapted by communities with various faith backgrounds.

Simplicity in forms of worship, opposition to violence, and the importance of compassionate living and thoughtful listening are hallmarks of the spirituality of the Quakers. From their beginnings in seventeenth-century England to today, the Friends have attempted to live out their belief in the presence of God's spirit within their hearts. This book features the writings of some of the most influential and inspirational Quaker thinkers -- George Fox, John Woolman, Caroline Stephen, Thomas Kelly, and others -- providing a vivid portrait of the beautiful, simple spirituality of the Quakers.

First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Intensely persecuted during the English Interregnum, early Quakers left a detailed record of the suffering they endured for their faith. Margaret Fell, Letters, and the Making of Quakerism is the first book to connect the suffering experience with the communication network that drew the faithful together to create a new religious community. This study explores the ways in which early Quaker leaders, particularly Margaret Fell, helped shape a stable organization that allowed for the transition from movement to church to occur. Fell's role was essential to this process because she developed and maintained the epistolary exchange that was the basis of the early religious community. Her efforts allowed for others to travel and spread the faith while she served as nucleus of the community's communication network by determining how and where to share news. Memory of the early years of Quakerism were based on the letters Fell preserved. Marjon Ames analyzes not only how Fell's efforts shaped the inchoate faith, but also how subsequent generations memorialized their founding members.

Covering three hundred years of history, G.B. Burnet uncovers the beginnings and downfall of the Scottish Quaker movement, which, during its period of 1650-1850, had an estimated 1500 adherents. The story of Quakerism can be divided into four main periods: its rise during the few years of Cromwell's rule; the 'epic' period during the latter Stuart dynasty, during which it reached a height and simultaneously underwent its cruellest persecutions in Aberdeen; its gradual decline with occasional surges of social activity; and its dwindling activities in the nineteenth century. Burnet writes with clarity and depth on the four main periods, taking the reader along the movement's history from Edinburgh to Aberdeen, Angus, the Borders, the Highlands and beyond. As the study approaches the end of the nineteenth century, Burnet addresses the ultimate question of why Quakerism failed in Scotland. An Epilogue, written by William H. Marwick, Clerk to the Friends' General Meeting for Scotland, expands still further on the progress of Quakerism from 1850-1950. 'The pioneer Quakers were nothing if not strong in zeal to win converts, and the Movement had hardly obtained a footing in England before the 'dark carnal people' of Scotland were marked down for missionary enterprise.' Extract from Chapter 1.

The Swarthmore Lectureship was established by the Woodbrooke Extension Committee, at a meeting held December 7th 1907: the minutes of the Committee provided for "an annual lecture on some subject relating to the message and work of the Society of Friends". The Lectureship has a two-fold purpose: first, to interpret further to the members of the Society of Friends their Message and Mission; and, secondly, to bring before the public the spirit, the aims and the fundamental principles of the Friends. The Lectures have been delivered on the evening preceding the assembly of the Friends' Yearly Meeting in each year. The present Lecture was delivered at Friends House, London, on the evening preceding the Yearly Meeting, 1930.

The Swarthmore Lectureship was established by the Woodbrooke Extension Committee, at a meeting held December 7th 1907: the minutes of the Committee provided for "an annual lecture on some subject relating to the message and work of the Society of Friends". The Lectureship has a two-fold purpose: first, to interpret further to the members of the Society of Friends their Message and Mission; and, secondly, to bring before the public the spirit, the aims and the fundamental principles of the Friends. The Lectures have been delivered on the evening preceding the assembly of the Friends' Yearly Meeting in each year. The present Lecture was delivered at Friends House, London, on the evening preceding the Yearly Meeting, 1930.

Among the radical sects which flourished during the English revolution, the early Qakers were particularly aware of the power of the written word to promote their prophetic visions and unorthodox beliefs. During the first years of their movement, as they spread aggressively throughout England, they produced hundreds of tracts which fiercely denounced temporal authorities, attacked orthodox Puritanism, rejected social hierarchies and set forms of worship, promoted the idealogy of the Lamb's War and proclaimed the power of the light within.

The Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU) was created shortly after the outbreak of war. The idea of the units founder, Philip J Baker, was that it would provide young Friends (Quakers) with the opportunity to serve their country without sacrificing their pacifist principles. The first volunteers went to Belgium on 31 October 1914, under the auspices of the Joint War Committee of the British Red Cross Society and the Order of St John of Jerusalem. The FAU made a sustained contribution to the military medical services of the Allied nations, establishing military hospitals, running ambulance convoys, and staffing hospital ships and ambulance trains, treating and transporting wounded men. Determined to bring succour to all those in need, the FAU also assisted civilians trapped in the war zone and living in desperate circumstances. Nowhere was this more acute than in the besieged and battered town of Ypres where thousands sheltered in the underground passage-ways of the towns ancient fortifications -- a subterranean population, hopeless, often lightless, wrote Geoffrey Young, the Units young field commander, living on what they might and breeding disease. The Unit provided hospitals for the treatment of civilians, and worked intensively in the containment and treatment of the typhoid epidemic that swept the region, locating sufferers, providing them with medical care, and inoculating people against the disease. It played a major role in the purification of the towns contaminated drinking water, distributed milk for infants and food and clothing to the sick and needy. It helped found orphanages, made provision for schooling and organised gainful employment for refugees until, finally, it became responsible for the definitive evacuations of the civilian population.

Wisdom and Humor from the Front Porch

Master storyteller Philip Gulley shares tender and hilarious real-life moments that capture the important truths of everyday life.

When Philip Gulley began writing newsletter essays for the twelve members of his Quaker meeting in Indiana, he had no idea one of them would find its way to radio commentator Paul Harvey Jr. and be read on the air to 24 million people. Fourteen books later, with more than a million books in print, Gulley still entertains as well as inspires from his small-town front porch.

"...an important ecumenical series." Methodist Recorder Quaker Spirituality: Selected Writings edited and introduced by Douglas V. Steere preface by Elizabeth Gray Vining "...as I was thus humbled and disciplined under the cross, my understanding became more strengthened to distinguish the language of the pure Spirit which inwardly moves upon the heart..." John Woolman (1720-1772) Simplicity in forms of worship, opposition to violence, concern for social injustice, and, above all, a faith in the personal and corporate guidance of the Holy Spirit are characteristics of the spirituality of the people called Quakers. From their beginnings in the seventeenth-century England until today, the Quakers have attempted to radically live out their belief in the presence of God's spirit within their hearts. In this book, Douglas V. Steere, the distinguished T. Wistar Brown Professor Emeritus from Haverford College, has assembled a comprehensive collection of Quaker writings. Included are selections from the journals of George Fox and John Woolman, Thomas Kelly's Testament of Devotion, and the works of Caroline Stephen and Rufus Jones.

The Liturgies of Quakerism explores the nature of liturgy within a form of worship based in silence. Tracing the original seventeenth century Quakers' understanding of the 'liturgy of silence', and what for them replaced the outward forms used in other parts of Christianity, this book explains how early Quaker understandings of 'time', 'history', and 'apocalyptic' led to an inward liturgical form. The practices and understanding of twenty-first century Liberal Quakers are explored, showing that these contemporary Quakers maintain the same kind of liturgical form as their ancestors and yet understand it in a very different way. Breaking new ground in the study of Quaker liturgy, this book contrasts the two periods and looks at some of the consequences for the study of liturgy in general, and Quakerism in particular. It also explores evangelical Quaker understandings of liturgy.

The last forty years has witnessed a 'golden age' of Quaker Studies scholarship, with the bulk of this work into the history and sociology of Quakerism being undertaken by scholars who are also Quakers. For the scholars involved, their Quakerism has both prompted their research interests and affected their lives as Quakers. This book presents a unique study into Quakerism: it draws together the key theories of Quaker origins, subsequent history, and contemporary sociology, into a single volume; and it allows each of the contributors the opportunity to reflect on what led to the initial choice of research topic, and how their findings have in turn affected their Quaker lives. The result is a unique contribution to Quaker theory as well to the discussion on insider/outsider research. This book is invaluable to anyone interested in Quakerism, research into religion, notions of outsider objectivity within academia, and areas of theology, religious history and sociology in general.

The 'death of tragedy' in the modern era has been proposed and debated in recent years, largely in terms of literature and western culture in general. Today, any catastrophe or misadventure is likely to be labeled a 'tragedy', without any inference of a larger, transcendent horizon or providential design that the word once conveyed. This book offers new perspectives on the idea of the 'death of tragedy', taking England and the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in particular as a case study. Chapters focus on the origins of tragedy in ancient Greece, gospel and tragedy, the beginnings of the Quaker movement in seventeenth-century England, apocalyptic versus secularized experiences of time, Edwardian Quaker triumphalism, the search for English identity in postcolonial Britain, liberal Quakerism at the end of the twentieth century, and the promise and dilemma of postmodernity. The different disciplinary perspectives of the contributing authors bring literature, history, theology and sociology into a creative and revealing conversation. A Foreword by Richard Fenn introduces the book with an original and provocative meditation on tragedy and time.