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Soul Trees By Randall Mullins On the last day of SeptemberI walk a half blockto visit eight trees I have gotten to know.They are left from a larger forest,still cared for by a third-generation owner.He took these trees into his heartand it shows. I saw them first five years agofrom our fourth-floor window,just after we moved herenine trees then, all evergreens,reaching for the sky,towering above everything around them.I walk from tree to tree,lean against each one,put by hands on its bark,and touch the...

Visiting a Spanish-Language Church by Blake Recently I attended a church service very different from our Quaker meeting. I sat in the back and understood only parts of the service, which was in Spanish. I was there to support my goddaughter Maria who had been asked to lead a "Know Your Rights" training after the service. Around me mothers swayed as they held their sleeping children, and older people smiled and nodded to everyone. Young children ran in quiet circles. The...

Marking MLK Day   Five Friends helped plant the 20 trees we donated to the Frayser Food Forest while five helped out with Food not Bombs at Court Square, both on January 18th. On the 20th, Susan and Blake marched in the MLK Day parade, and at least three Friends participated in two MLK interfaith events that revolved around having the inauguration coincide with MLK Day.

Rescuing a Butterly by William (Carol's grandson) The entire first half of last September was dominated for me by something I had never done before. I tried to rebuild the damaged wing of a monarch butterfly I found in my backyard one afternoon with her left forewing torn in half. She was flailing about in the grass, trying very hard to fly, unable to comprehend why she was going utterly nowhere. It was heartbreaking. After a few hours of introduction between us...

Ghosts of Christmas Past by Carol Is there anything that can tie us so tightly to our childhoods as Christmas? Childhood memories are especially powerful even though they are often amorphous. The smells, the sounds, the seasonal triggers of memory form a kind of dream world that has little to do with the current Christmas or even with any one of those Christmases now past; it is the accumulation of Yuletide after Yuletide. In fact, the  dreamworld never actually arrives; it...

Miracles, Simplicity, & Peace From James As a lover of fairy tales and cartoons, I have wanted to believe in miracles since I was a child. The notion that extraordinary things could happen—the deus ex machina, the lightning that appears out of thin air and makes everything all right—it felt to me that the extraordinary was right around the corner. And as I reflect, maybe it is true that miraculous things are happening, but maybe they’re so commonplace that we overlook them....

Blue River Quarterly Meeting From Shahin Adrian, Juli, and I traveled to DuBois, Illinois September 20-22 for the Blue River Quarterly (BRQ) gathering that is part of Illinois Yearly Meeting. Friends welcomed us warmly, curious about how we discovered them and how things fared with Memphis Friends Meeting and our own yearly meeting. Many of us had similar stories about attendance before, during, and after the pandemic and about hybrid worship. We arrived late Friday for registration and found our cabin...

Sharing Treesby Robin The Black Seeds Urban Garden in Uptown Memphis and the Frayser Community Urban Garden sit in food deserts where they are committed to improving the availability of fresh foods in their respective neighborhoods. Back in 2023, several Friends in our Meeting met these gardeners during the Experience Memphis Garden Tour that summer. When the Frayser Garden held their Annual Greens Cookoff Fundraiser last fall our meeting made a contribution and Adrian and I attended the event.In our early...

When Way OpensBy MalloryBefore a global pandemic, before a continued journey of infertility, before a baby entered our lives, before I knew anything about pastoral care or chaplaincy, when my now spouse and I were dating, Katelyn and I were traveling one weekend. I was driving and the topic of seminary came up. I was hesitant because the only seminaries I knew where I would be welcome were residential only and not in the South or were otherwise unaffordable. She...

Rediscovering Friendsby Mary JaneMy first encounter with Quaker meeting was in London. I remember the stillness, the plain woodenbenches and the plain glass windows looking out into Covent Gardens. Having been raised in an Evangelical tradition, I was surprised how well the quiet suited me but when I got home, I resumed worship with my family church. During my first marriage, I raised my children in an Episcopal Church. While I appreciated the community, I questioned the amount of money...