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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…

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…

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…

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…

Sharing Trees by 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…