Category: Resources

Letting Your Life Speak: Quaker Earthcare Begins at Home!

Anthony Manousos and Jill Shook In 2014 we decided to adopt some major new green initiatives in our home that would inspire our friends and neighbors to do likewise. In doing so, we followed the injunction of George Fox: Be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations wherever…

Praise Be!

By Rachel Findley and Shelley Tanenbaum In this Encyclical, I would like to enter into dialogue with all people about our common home. [3] 1 Laudato Si’, the letter Pope Francis wrote to us all, surprises us with its overarching emphasis on how “everything is connected,” including justice in human societies,…

Rising to the Challenge: The Transition Movement and People of Faith

Transitioning Times: An Interview with Ruah Swennerfelt Ruah Swennerfelt, QEW’s former General Secretary, has just published a new book with Quaker Institute for the Future, entitled, Rising to the Challenge: The Transition Movement and People of Faith (QIF Focus Books, 2016). As part of the research for her…

What Is Your Elevator Pitch?

Shelley Tanenbaum, QEW General Secretary Suppose that you are sitting next to your second cousin at a family function or you bump into your neighbor from down the street in a coffee line, and they ask, “What’s up?” How do you convey (in two minutes or less!) all…

Many Thanks to Long-Time Supporters!

Some of you have been supporting Quaker Earthcare Witness for many, many years—possibly starting when we were called Friends Committee on Unity with Nature (FCUN). I marvel when I receive a donation to QEW and see a long history of support, both in financial donations…

QEW Spring 2015 Steering Committee Meeting

Where: Ann Arbor Friends Meeting 1420 Hill Street Ann Arbor, MI 48104 www.annarborfriends.org When: Thursday, April 23, 2015 1:00 pm to Sunday, April 26, 2015 1:00 pm Registration is now open for our April 23-26, 2015 Steering Committee sessions in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Courage for Creation

By Minga Claggett-Borne The Bolder and Deeper Action Group formed at Friends Meeting at Cambridge partly to discern strategic action and partly to act as an affinity group as more Friends were considering breaking the law, so as to follow God’s law. BDAG consists of 15…

IPBES: A Rosetta Stone for Nature’s Benefits to People

Mary Gilbert, QEW Representative to the UN The UN is like the city on a hill with its ideals gleaming in the sunlight. But up close, you can see that the city’s silhouette is defined by acres of canvas draped over the whole thing. If you lift the…

Young Friend Asks Quaker School to Take Climate Seriously

Young Friend Asks Quaker School to Take Climate Seriously On February 13 and 14, Friends in many parts of the world participated in Global Divestment Day. Creative actions took place in some 60 countries ranging from concerts, rallies, marches, artistic projects, teach-ins, and more. (For photos and videos,…

4 Asks: Recommendations for All Friends

4 Asks: Recommendations for All Friends By Sophie Quest and Paula Kline If you’ve been fortunate enough to attend Pendle Hill in Pennsylvania, you’ll remember all of the amazing trees planted there over many years. Caring for these acres as people studied Quaker testimony together was a strong…

Fasting for the Climate: Two Reflections

Jim Kessler & Judy Lumb In November 2013, Typhoon Haiyan devastated the Philippines, killing more than 6,000 people and destroying homes and livelihoods all across the country. Climate commissioner Yeb Saño was at the UN climate talks in Warsaw when the typhoon struck, and his own family was…

Congratulations and Many Thanks for Direct Action

In March, PNC bank announced that they will limit their funding for mountain-top removal coal mining. This is a particularly egregious form of coal mining—laying waste to large areas and contaminating local water supplies. Earth Quaker Action Team (eqat.org), Rainforest Action Network (Ran.org), and the Ohio Valley Environmental…

Letters to Share, March-April 2015

Dear Editor, Carbon sequestration with regenerative organic agriculture (including well-managed grassing of grass-fed ruminants) could sequester all of the excess carbon dioxide now in the air. Soil not oil, Cook Organic, not the Planet. This can be done at low-tech levels worldwide by the two billion…

In Sight of Sustainable Hope

By Ruah Swennerfelt Can we have hope in the face of the human-caused climate disruption that is threatening the very home where we live? Although many now believe that the trajectory of increasingly chaotic climate isn’t likely to be stopped through any likely combination of technological solutions or political programs,…

A Good Way to Start the Year

Shelley Tanenbaum, General Secretary Amazingly, there is quite a bit of good news to start the year, among all the doom and gloom (not that these aren’t also part of our reality). Here are a few things that are making me hopeful and giving me ideas for how…

Review: Symphony of the Soil

Review: Symphony of the Soil Reviewed by Adrian Ayres Fisher 2015 is the UN Year of the Soils. Anyone who would like to understand why living soil is so vitally important would do well to watch “Symphony of the Soil,” directed by Deborah Koons Garcia. This beautiful, poetic…

Family’s Plan for Cultivating Soil, Skills, and Spirit

One beautiful morning last summer, my granddaughter Ruby and I stood side-by-side in the garden, picking first green beans and then blueberries. She had her favorite blue basket and I’d grabbed a colander, and as we picked, we talked about vegetables and things like soil, butterflies, and frogs. Suddenly she…

Q&A with Douglas Gwyn

Doug Gwyn, the author of A Sustainable Life: Quaker Faith and Practice in the Renewal of Creation, generously agreed to be interviewed for this issue of BeFriending Creation. Thanks, Doug! 1. You explain how your thought and interests developed through several books, always including the thread of your concern…

Review: A Sustainable Life: Quaker Faith and Practice in the Renewal of Creation

Reviewed by Katherine Murray In 2014, we saw many hopeful and encouraging signs that the world is beginning to “get it” about climate change. We also saw heartbreaking events, species slipping closer toward extinction, major disruptive weather events, and the ever-pervasive challenges of power and money at work…

Review: Climate, Food, and Violence: Understanding the Connections, Exploring Responses

Review: Climate, Food, and Violence: Understanding the Connections, Exploring Responses Reviewed by Keith Helmuth The nexus of climate disruption and food insecurity leading to societal breakdown and violence is one of the most fraught scenarios of our time. This is not a new story. Both the 14th and…

Review: Quaker and Naturalist Too

Mary Gilbert There I was, at the age of almost 13, away at camp for the first time. This camp ran a 24-hour recruitment program for being born again and baptized in the lake. There was a lot of pressure, so that none of us would leave at…

Review: Coming Back to Life: The Updated Workbook to the Work that Reconnects

By Judy Lumb Coming Back to Life by Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown is expanded and updated from their book of the same name published in 1998 (New Society Publishers, 2014, Gabriola Island, BC). The Deep Ecology work of Joanna Macy, also called the “Work that Reconnects,” dates…

Quaker Earthcare Witness Mini-Grants

QEW has grants available for Quaker projects that have the primary purpose of benefiting the environment and/or promoting environmental awareness and education among Friends and the larger spirit-led world. All ideas that support QEW values will be considered, but we especially encourage projects that directly address climate change and those…

Quaker Statement on Climate Change

QEW, FCNL, QUNO “It would go a long way to caution and direct people in their use of the world, that they were better studied and knowing in the Creation of it. For how could [they] find the confidence to abuse it, while they should see the great…

An Experience in Lima: The UN Climate Change Conference

Lindsey Fielder-Cook, QUNO Climate Change Representative This December, Jonathan Woolley, the Director of Quaker UN Office (QUNO) Geneva, and I travelled to Lima to attend the latest round of international negotiations held under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). These talks are working toward December 2015, when negotiators…

Climate Change and Racial Justice

By Shelley Tanenbaum, General Secretary I experienced a great shot of inspiration and hope from the September People’s Climate March in New York —not just from the sheer size of the turnout (400,000!), but also from the diversity of the organizers and the participants. Marchers were like the city of…

For Peace on Earth and Unity with Creation: Recommendations for All Friends

From the QEW Sustainability: Faith and Action Working Group. Recognizing the urgency of reducing our carbon footprint and living sustainably on the earth, QEW’s Sustainability: Faith and Action working group will be reaching out to all monthly and yearly meetings this year with resources and encouragement to take…

Dreaming of a Green Christmas

By Katherine Murray Many of us look forward to the holidays as a time of family togetherness and much-loved traditions. In addition to the deep spiritual significance, we enjoy cookies, eggnog, caroling—what’s not to love? But the holidays are also often a time when we may throw caution…

Can We Get Off Carbon?

By William Beale Several years ago, my wife and I decided that it was time to act on the ever-rising threat of climate change. Climate scientists had repeatedly warned us that we must stop putting carbon into the atmosphere or face the high likelihood of a near-term global…

COP 20: Preparing for the Road to Paris

COP 20 opened on December 1 and will continue until December 12, 2014 as organizations, individuals, government representatives, and participants from UN bodies and agencies gather in Lima, Peru, to work toward developing a global agreement to help pave the way for success at the COP21 world summit…

Reflections on the People’s Climate March: Prelude to the Mother of All Movements?

Reflections on the People’s Climate March: Prelude to the Mother of All Movements? by Bob McGahey Geeta and I joined the amazing People’s Climate March in New York in September 2014. We marched with Quakers amongst the faith communities, a cohort with a pre-march estimate of 10,000, rivaling…

Considering the Consequences of Unchecked Population Growth

Considering the Consequences of Unchecked Population Growth By Roger Plenty I am a Quaker living in Stroud, UK, and I have been a Friend for about 50 years. My interest in population started at a precise point in 1958. During an economics course, the lecturer told us about…

Letters to Share, Nov-Dec 2014

Dear Editor, I appreciated the recent article about indigenous peoples. This is an area where environmental justice and social justice meet, as these are the cultures who have a better sense of how to live in harmony with the land. I want to draw…

Eco-Witness Roots and Shoots, Seeds and Trees

Shelley Tanenbaum Greetings, Friends! We hope as 2014 draws to a close you are feeling a sense of gratitude and hopefulness about the changes we’re seeing—and making—in the world around us. Quaker Earthcare Witness coordinates a network of Quakers working on Earthcare, in part by sharing our stories…

You Can’t Have Your Kay(a)k and (H)eat it, Too!

Shelley Tanenbaum, General Secretary Alaska Friends have a deep connection to their land, as I learned on a recent visit when I facilitated a daylong workshop on earthcare, climate change, and witness in the world. The title of this article was the theme for their annual gathering. For…

A Report from UNFCCC Negotiations

A Report from UNFCCC Negotiations Lindsey Fielder Cook. QUNO Representative On June 4-15, 2014, international climate change negotiations were held in Bonn, Germany under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). These “inter-sessional” negotiations were preparation for the annual UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP). The next…

Four Snapshots from the March

Mary Gilbert Snapshot 1: Patti Muldoon and I are kneeling on the floor working on a blue cloth rectangle, painting in the letters on the banner we designed: “QUAKER WITNESS.” It should be useful for many events, not just the People’s Climate March. The paint is…

Melting the Ice in Our Hearts

Shelley Tanenbaum The ice is melting in the north. The only way to change our ways is to melt the ice in our hearts. This is a slightly paraphrased statement from Angaangaq Angakkorsuaq, an indigenous leader from Greenland, one of the many inspiring speakers at the…

Letters to Share

Dear Friends, A carbon tax—widely thought to be the most rational and effective means to reduce fossil fuel and other carbon usage—is not on our government’s current agenda. We can, however, voluntarily tax ourselves and devote the taxes we raise to organizations or projects working to…

When Does a march become a March?

Roy Taylor, QEW Clerk When does a march become a March? Was it six months ago, when the idea for the People’s Climate March was hatched and the first hundred groups coalesced to bring it forward to the world? That was when QEW got on board as a sponsoring organization.

What’s Up With QEW – Mid-Year Report

By Shelley Tanenbaum. General Secretary Our world is heating up, quite literally—and QEW is ramping up our activities and enlarging our network to address this challenge. More than ever, our network of Friends carrying concerns for Earthcare is needed to share information and stories, provide support, encourage spiritual…

The Concerns of Global Indigenous Peoples Today By Mary Gilbert, QEW Representative to the UN The bottom line for the indigenous peoples of the world is their sovereignty and the recognition of that sovereignty. Despite, as one man put it, “choosing or being forced to live” within the borders of…

You’re Invited! Join Us at the QEW Annual Gathering

We hope you’ll consider joining us this fall and help form the goals and projects that are ahead for QEW. What do you feel are the key issues for us to be engaged in, and how can we best witness in the world during 2015 and beyond? We…

Greetings from Friendly Mystics

Greetings from Friendly Mystics Greetings to Friends everywhere from the participants in “Naming Our Spiritual Condition: The Second Annual Gathering of Friendly Mystics,” organized by What Canst Thou Say (WCTS) which is a Quaker journal, a meeting for worship in print. During our first annual gathering…

Kicking Over the Traces and Restoring Connections

By Ruth Small While reading The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture, Daphne Miller, M.D. began underlining more and more passages from a chapter titled, “The Body and the Earth,” riddling its pages with a surfeit of pencil marks and notations (Miller, xii). With Miller’s medical training…

Join the People’s March for Climate Change!

Join the People’s March for Climate Change! Come join us September 21, 2014 as we participate in what is being billed as the largest climate rally ever. It is time to stand up and be counted. Quaker Earthcare Witness is one of the many sponsors of this event.

Grab a Shovel, Find Some Dirt, & Join the Good Food Revolution

By Justin Mog, Louisville Friends Meeting Like my fellow Kentuckian, Wendell Berry, and my fellow Ohio native, Gene Logsdon, I consider myself a bit of a contrary farmer. I reject the notion that agriculture can occur only in the wide-open countryside on farms stretching for hundreds of acres.

A Meditation on Seed and Seedtime

By Tom Small Virtually all of us, expelled from the garden that was our heritage and birthright, seek to recover, somehow, a seed that will germinate and flower, nourish and sustain us. In that seed is the genesis of contemplative action, its harbinger and its sign. Scott Chaskey, like Wendell…

Young Adult Friends Conference on Community, June 6-11, 2014

There are still five remaining spots in the Continuing Revolution 2014 YAF Conference at Pendle Hill this June 6-11. QEW’s support for this conference has taken many invaluable forms thus far: financial support, programmatic expertise, workshop/interest group lead­ership, elder accompaniment, and participant recruit­ment. Today we need your help with finding…

Brief Update from Downunder

 By Robert Howell THE AUSTRALIAN RELIGIOUS RESPONSE to Cli­mate Change was established in 2008 (http://www. arrcc.org.au/). It is an initiative focused on multifaith environmental action, linking with like-minded groups such as 350.org, Go Fossil Free Australia, the Austra­lian Student Environmental Network, The Vital Few, and Market Forces. The latter two…

Out of the Silos, Into the Mix

By Mary Gilbert, QEW Representative to the UN TIMETABLE FOR THE SDGS In March the Open Working Group (OWG) on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) completed 12 months of stock-taking in 37 areas of human interac­tion with our natural environment. As of April, the OWG was left with only 20 days…

Epiphany

By Angela Manno Out of the depths I cry unto you, Oh Presence, Maker of this perfect world Out of this silence but for my own breath Out of the darkness and weightlessness The black infinite night Encrusted with countless stars, cool, distant, white. I turn…

Earth Literacy?

Brad Stocker, Ed. D. WHEN I SAY THAT I FACILITATE Earth Literacy—as I recently did at the Palm Beach Friends Meeting—the question often comes: What is Earth Literacy? In this article, I’d like to introduce QEW friends and readers to the concept and invite you to engage the question. Let’s…

Letters to Share, May – June 2014

“What canst thou say” about spirit-led efforts on behalf of Earth, about your own stirrings toward care for the planet, in relation to the vision and thoughtful action of Quaker Earthcare Witness as a whole? We’d like to hear from you. Send your letters to Katherine at katherine@quakerearthcare. org, and share…

FCNL & the Moral Call to Conscience on Climate

by Emily Wirzba, FCNL I OFTEN BECOME OVERWHELMED knowing that climate disruption is causing global temperatures to increase, sea levels to rise, and ecosystems to be irreversibly damaged. At times I become so frustrated at the seeming inability of the U.S. to take meaning­ful action, despite the immense scale of…

Peaceful, Joyful, Random Thoughts During a Blizzard

By Jim Kessler Notes of Gratitude On Synthetic Biology See You in Colorado This Summer Peaceful, Joyful, Random Thoughts During a Blizzard Catching Up with Barbara Williamson Inviting Your Support Quaker Institute for the Future…

A View of the UN Open Working Group

By Patricia Chernoff, QEW Representative to the UN At the beginning of each day’s meetings of Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals, several keynote speakers make an effort to educate the diplomats from various countries on the theme of the day. On the day I am reporting,…

Update on the Sustainable Development Goals

By Mary Gilbert, QEW Representative to the UN On February 5, 2014, the UN Open Working Group (OWG), assembled to form the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), finished taking stock of 37 vast and interconnected world topics such as water, agriculture, oceans, forests, human rights, and 32 more. Between…

An Invitation to Right Sharing

By Lynne Sootheran, Right Sharing of World Resources Greetings, Friends. My purpose here is to introduce members of Quaker Earthcare Witness and others interested in healing the Earth to Donor-Designated Projects available through Right Sharing of World Resources (RSWR). Since 1967, RSWR, a Quaker organization, has worked…

Massachusetts Quakers Host Carbon Tax Forum

By Maureen Lanan and Mary Gilbert As Friends deeply concerned about climate disruption and seeking ways to reduce the fossil fuel pollution spewing into the air, the Cambridge Quaker Earthcare Witness committee of Friends Meeting at Cambridge (FMC) was excited to learn that a carbon tax bill has…

Apply for a QEW 2014 Mini-Grant!

Have you been thinking about doing an Earthcare project this spring but don’t know where to start? Take advantage of a funding opportunity QEW offers through QEW Mini-Grants. Put together a group of like-minded Friends and fill out our application, and your project could be awarded up…

Letters to Share March-April 2014

Dear BeFriending Creation, Thank you so very much for publishing both of our articles in the latest edition (BFC, January-February 2014)…it was quite exciting to see us in print like that. We meant to include our Meeting affiliation—Mohawk Valley MM, New York Yearly Meeting—and share that…

Seeking Consistency in Word and Deed

Roy Taylor, QEW Clerk Are we doing a good job at doing what we say we are supposed to be doing? Years ago we developed a variety of ways to describe ourselves. The FCUN working group is now reviewing the words we use to see if…

Envisioning 2014

By Shelley Tanenbaum, QEW General Secretary What is in store for QEW in the coming year? As I begin my new job as your General Secretary, I’ve been thinking about new directions, areas that need shoring up and existing strong programs that we want to maintain and grow.

The Negotiation Landscape: Countries

By Mary Gilbert, QEW Representative to the UN Years ago at a morning briefing for NGOs, a naïve newcomer asked, “Why don’t you just take the UN position?” Experienced people stared. The week before, the Secretary General had made a sensible statement and she wondered why we didn’t…

2014 QEW Mini-Grant Applications Now Being Accepted

Do you have a great idea for an Earthcare project you want to do with your Monthly Meeting or other Friends group? Submit an application for a QEW Mini-Grant! We match funding up to $350 for projects that meet our application criteria. We welcome your project…

Letters to Share

submitted by QEW Readers “What canst thou say” about spirit-led efforts on behalf of Earth, about your own stirrings toward care for the planet, in relation to the vision and thoughtful action of Quaker Earthcare Witness as a whole? We’d like to hear from you. Send your letters…

Eco-Resources from Friends

QEW Friends We like to begin each new year with an offering of Earth-friendly resources—in print, video, and web content—shared by QEW members and supporters. This year we have a good mix of inspiring and informative sources to recommend. Thanks to all who participated!   THE PERMACULTURE HANDBOOK:…

Reporting from the WCC in Busan

By Anne Mitchell In late October, Anne Mitchell travelled to participate in the World Council of Churches (WCC) 10th International Assembly in Busan, Republic of Korea. Here is a brief summary of her trip. You can read Anne’s full report, including recommendations relevant for QEW specifically, on our…

A View from COP 19

By Lindsey Fielder Cook, QUNO Climate Change Representative In November, more than 8,000 people gathered in Warsaw to attend the UN Conference on Climate Change. The conference was known as COP 19, including the 19th Conference of Parties and the 9th Meeting of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol…

Two Row Journey: July 27–August 11, 2013

by Liseli Haines with Buffy Curtis I hadn’t used the inkle loom ever before. Now I threaded it with white and purple. White and purple are the colors of the quahog shells, the colors of the beads made by Native Americans, and the colors of the original wampum…

Traveling with the Two Row Wampum Renewal

by Buffy Curtis with Liseli Haines In 1613, two sets of peoples made an agreement to travel down the “river of life, side by side, each in their own boats–as long as the sun rises in the East, the grass is green and the river flows downhill.” It…

Letters from Our Readers

September 29, 2013 Dear BeFriending Creation, Like most Quakers, I take stewardship of the environment seriously. I try to keep my carbon footprint small at home and in my workplace. I recycle, and I call my congressperson when there’s an important vote. Then I…

Business Takeover at the UN

Mary “the non-prophet” Gilbert, QEW Representative to the UN When you come into a complex phenomenon like the UN it takes time to get a fix on what’s happening. Your perceptions keep changing. It can be hard to tease apart your own new learning from any changes going…

Thanks, Anne!

Roy Taylor and the Publications Committee When we were all together in Chicago in October, we had a chance to thank Anne Mitchell, our General Secretary, for her time with us. Anne joined us three years ago at a time of transition for this organization. She was able…

Friends Fiduciary Creates a Fossil Free Investment Option

Great news for Quaker investors! Friends Fiduciary Corporation (FFC) has announced a new Fossil Free Fund. Friends are called to be patterns and examples. Many Friends experience a moral incongruity owning companies that knowingly continue to cause global warming for profit. In a recent…

British Quakers Call for Divestment

Quakers in Britain took steps on October 8, 2013 to disinvest from companies engaged in extracting fossil fuels. The decision was taken by their Investment Committee, under responsibilities devolved by the Trustees. Quakers say that investing in companies which are engaged in fossil fuel extraction is…

Active Neutrals

Young Adult Quaker Justin Wright has co-founded an Alternative Dispute Resolution non-profit organization called Active Neutrals, which has now run multiple negotiation trainings for an energized, mobilized, and fast-growing group of fossil fuel divestment activists: college students across the US. Active Neutrals is a group of…

SosteNica: the Sustainable Development Fund of Nicaragua

The Divest from Fossil Fuel movement is only one part of a larger divestment movement that each of us can join. There are many ways Friends can begin to divest from the old economy: We can develop a “divestment strategy,”work on expanding our “divestment portfolios,” begin to calculate…

Fossil Fuel Divestment and Quaker Witness

Brian Drayton Fossil fuel divestment is an important new strand in the movement to combat climate change and move our society to a more sustainable and reverent way of life. Whoever is drawn to it should get into it, as soon as they can. Having said that, one…

Minute to Friends Fiduciary Corporation

Friends Meeting at Cambridge Following is the divestiture minute the Friends Meeting at Cambridge passed in early October of 2013. The minute is to Friends Fiduciary Corporation in Philadelphia where we have meeting funds; at the time of the writing of this minute, FFC had more than 6…

REInvestment at Earlham College

The Responsible Energy Investment (REInvestment) campaign at Earlham College, in Richmond, Indiana, has been working with Earlham’s Socially Responsible Investments Advisory Committee (SRIAC) to develop a screening process for Earlham’s current investments in Coal. We are part of a coalition of over 250 colleges/universities working on fossil fuel…

Speaking Out about Divestment

The following is a copy of the divestment letter Dover Friends Meeting sent to Vanguard after realizing that a portion of funds invested with the company were being used in support of fossil fuel companies. It is our hope that our letter may serve as an inspiration for…

Dover Friends Meeting Epistle on Divestment

Dover Friends Meeting Many are the Vanities and Luxuries of the present Age, and in labouring to support a Way of living conformable to the present World, the Departure from that Wisdom that is pure and peaceable, hath been great.  —John Woolman, from “On the Slave…

Green Micro Lending: An Alternative Way to Invest in Renewable Energy

On the occasion that a Friend questions the sensibility of divesting from fossil fuel investments, I’ve seen a few patterns forming. Some among those who question seem to think that those of us who advocate divestment must, in the alternative, expect that the newly divested funds would then…

A Friend’s-Eye View of Divestment

Tom Jackson In February 2013, Dover (NH) Friends Meeting divested of its one investment that had direct holdings in fossil fuels. After completing the divestment, we wrote a letter to the fund company telling them why we divested. We also wrote an epistle to Friends, telling them why…

A Call for Transformation

By Anne Mitchell, General Secretary Have you ever wondered about the World Council of Churches? The WCC is the broadest and most inclusive among the ecumenical movement, with members in more than 110 countries, representing more than 500 million members from 345 member churches.

Learning about Climate Change…in Vietnam

A Q&A interview with David Schaad, a 2013 Mini-Grant recipient In this and continuing issues of BeFriending Creation, we are sharing profiles of our most recent Mini-Grant recipients. We hope the stories inspire you to consider your own Mini-Grant application for a project your meeting would love to do!…

Report on Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

By Mary Gilbert, QEW Representative to the UN I was there in 2001 when Indigenous representatives at the UN first heard that the UN would host and support an annual Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (PFII). I saw grown people jumping in the halls, rejoicing. This May I…

QEW Shines at Southeastern Yearly Meeting

By Mary Jo Klingel Each year, Southeastern Yearly Meeting Friends come together for our annual meeting on the beautiful grounds of a Methodist camp in central Florida. This year our Gathering was titled “Becoming Whole in Mind, Body, Spirit and Planet.” The highlight of our week…

The Impact of Population on Climate Change: A Program Preview

By Roy Treadway At the QEW Steering Committee Meeting and Annual Gathering in Chicago (October 24-27, 2013), collaborators Ken Lawrence, Dick Grossman, Roy Treadway, and Stan Becker will be leading an informative and stirring program on the subject of population as it relates to climate change. Thanks to Roy…

Climate Change is the Issue of Our Times: I=PATE

By Shelley Tanenbaum, Clerk Most of us reading this know that climate change is the issue of our times. Knowing that so many of us are working on this together helps lighten this heavy burden. Climate change and what we can do about it is the theme for…

Letters to Share

By eric maya joy dear friends, the following quote jumped out from martin luther king’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” it drew out of me what i have come to feel are foundational aspects of right relationship with earth. “… In any nonviolent campaign there are…

Climate Change—Embracing Corporate Quaker Action

By Mt. Toby Friends Climate Witness Committee Over the past three years a group at Mt. Toby Friends Meeting in Leverett, Massachusetts has studied the issue of climate change. In that time, the meeting made a number of structural improvements to reduce carbon use in the meeting house.

Variations on “Summer Light”

Tom Small, Publications Clerk Quakers hold one another in the light. Summer Light holds us, enveloping and embracing us through long, quiet days. The very air is bright as the yellow flowers of July and August gather sunlight and offer, in return, an earthly reflection of celestial energy. My favorite…

A Letter to President Obama

Dear QEW Friends, Quaker Earthcare Witness encourages all Friends, monthly and yearly meetings to thank President Obama for his planned action on climate change. We see the need for a groundswell of support to counter expected strong opposition. These proposals are long overdue and represent a first step in what…

A Statement from QEW’s UN Working Group

Statement to the Post 2015 Consultations Submitted by Quaker Earthcare Witness, July 10 2013 For more information about QEW please contact Anne Mitchell, General Secretary. As Quakers, part of our tradition is to remain open to all sources of wisdom and recognize that we are all seekers and stewards of…

Big Changes @ the UN

Mary Gilbert, QEW Representative to the UN I have never seen the like, not at the UN! The countries are taking seriously the threats human activity has brought to Earth’s ability to host us and other species. They get it! Best of all, they get that it is really one…

QEW at the Gathering

Shelley Tanenbaum, Clerk In keeping with Friends General Conference’s theme of “Our Growing Edge,” we explored the query, What is your Monthly or Yearly Meeting’s growing edge on environmental concerns? The query and responses were one of the 14 sessions we hosted in this year’s Earthcare center. The Earthcare Center provided…

Thanks for a Productive Gathering!

Anne Mitchell, General Secretary QEW held its Steering Committee meeting, June 27 – 30 at Boulder, Colorado. We were warmly welcomed and hosted by Boulder Monthly Meeting. Boulder Friends provided housing, transport, and their beautiful Meeting House in a wonderful location with views of the mountains. Some of the highlights…