We are back from our week in St. Joseph, MN at the Friends (Quakers)
General Conference, held at St. Benedict's College. This women's
college is nicely designed, especially for walking around the campus.
Lynn and I both attended John Calvi's workshop Abandon All Weariness,
physical touch, energy work and massage applied to the body for
creating mental peace and fighting stress and any trauma. The man has
years of experience helping people who have been tortured or raped or
beaten. He showed us a very loving and supportive atmosphere where
the right touch with the right pressure and purpose can help such
people and anyone who wants to live joyfully and participate in
vigorous and demanding activities.
We heard from Rex Ambler, a British Quaker and theology lecturer who
has found his own daily mental life deeply enriched by carefully
studying and reconstructing the lives and ideas and practices of the
founding Quakers such as George Fox and William Penn. We heard from
Nekima Levy-Pounds, a black woman professor of law, born in Jackson,
Mississippi and now a professor of law in Minneapolis. She is an
activist in civil rights. We heard from Peggy Seeger Morrison, a
woman Quaker preacher and founder of a church in Oregon. Her book Le
Flambeau Driving School is about her adventures as a thinker, leader
of Christians, and lone motorcyclist traveling around the West.
More about all of this and, of course, other things in the coming days.
