Author Archives: maggiemax15

A Prayer in Time of Trouble Psalm 6

A part of us clings to the naïve notion that God’s love for us is tied to our behavior: good behavior earns God’s love and acceptance; bad behavior means divine rejection. That’s a diabolical lie and the psalmist knows it! Finally, with eyes wide open, David readily admits his sin and begs God’s mercy anyway. Sin darkens human vision and alienates the soul from God, from self, and from others. Sin’s greatest danger is its ability to make us doubt God’s love and willingness to forgive. Continue reading

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What a Quaker Might Give Up For Lent…

  Thinking about Ash Wednesday  Yes, we are dust, but we are earthly dust, springing from a divine creative adventure. Dust is good.  It is the place of fecundity, of moist dark soil. We are frail, but we are also … Continue reading

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Free Love From Its Hallmark Captivity!

Paul’s discussion about love isn’t sentimental.  But what he says about love sounds a bit lofty, elevated, almost perfect.  And that’s odd because he’s talking to a congregation that was arguing about food, about worship, about, well, everything.  He stops … Continue reading

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Hometown Boy Does Good

I know. Christmas seems to have been a really long time ago.  We’ve long since returned what we didn’t like, exchanged what didn’t fit, put away most of our decorations, discarded the wrapping paper and have gotten on with life.  … Continue reading

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Water into Wine

Some have come to question God’s response to human suffering and have concluded all sorts of things about God’s character or even that there is no God at all. But this quiet miracle challenges that conclusion by suggesting that sometimes … Continue reading

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Leann Williams and Amber Joplin’s Messages

For the Sundays on each side of Christmas this year Leann Williams and Amber Joplin agreed to prepare messages to be shared in meetings for worship at Spokane Friends.

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Shepherds Quaker

Shepherds Quake Just prior to our recent national election Mark Danner, writing from Ramallah for the New York Review of Books, concluded his article saying: “Across eleven years of the war on terror, and two presidents, the politics of fear have … Continue reading

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Shepherds Quake

Shepherds Quake Luke 2:8-20 Fear is a distressing, unpleasant emotion evoked by the dread of or threat of imminent harm. Its source is our anticipating a loss of some kind.  Friday the worst fear of the parents of twenty elementary … Continue reading

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Prepare the way of the Lord

Our advent isn’t about Jesus coming to us – it is about Jesus accompanying us on our journey of faith.  It is the advent of our salvation.  Its ultimate manifestation, which entered the world with Jesus’ birth, is when Christ … Continue reading

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Jesus is Coming – Advent I

George Fox then began, in the middle of the puritan revolution, to  preach that “Christ has come to teach his people himself.” His conviction was a new immediacy of revelation. The Light, the Holy Spirit, would lead a person to … Continue reading

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