Matt Boswell

Trail through forest bending left

Orange mushrooms

Trail through forest bending right

Puddle between tree roots

A wet morning in Forest Park. #PNW

Fellow Advent observers: Christ is coming! Not at the end of time or in our nostalgia, but in every person seeking food, drink, refuge, warmth, care, and inclusion.

Young adults turn to Quakers' silent worship to offset — and cope with — a noisy world There’s been an unprecedented surge in the numbers of attendees at Sunday worship at the Quaker Arch Street Meeting House in Old City Philadelphia.

A nice piece on Quakers. Arch Street Friends Meeting is unprogrammed (Camas Friends is “semi-programmed”) but this article captures the spirit of our community.

Triple Falls

Looking past yellow leaves into the gorge

Looking over red and yellows down to the creek

Close-up of a yellow leaf

This morning on the Oneonta Gorge Trail. #PNW

How about “No *Shame* November”? A daily practice of rejecting any religion-informed messaging that tells us or others that we’re bad, impure, illegal, inadequate, unacceptable, or undeserving. A daily opportunity to undo any harm we’ve caused others by sustaining ministries built on toxic shame.

“When we’re hungry, love will keep us alive.”
~The Eagles, correctly

Love is creating a world where it’s easy to get food, care, and connection and difficult to go hungry, not get the care you need, or be excluded.

Self-love is not selfishness. It’s not a personal flaw to need something. It’s not naughty to want something. Impulses can be trustworthy. Desires can be holy. Fears can be clarifying. Tears can be healing. Doubts can spark needed change.

Seeing lots of people voicing their needs and/or offering support to others, in this fraught time. This is community. This is what it’s all about.

The seeds of Love are planted within every person. How can we nurture these seeds, in one another? How can we create more fertile conditions so that the Love in each can grow and thrive?

Fall colors on the river

Light brown mushrooms

Looking through red-orange leaves

Purple mushrooms

Returning to a favorite this morning: the Salmon River Trail. #PNW

Fall colors on a forested, lakeside trail

My favorite place to run in Camas—the Heritage Trail (Lacamas Lake). #PNW

The way we’ll survive this is Love: crowd-feeding, foot-washing, table-flipping, truth-telling, nap-taking, stranger-welcoming, wound-tending, community-building, laugh-inducing, risk-taking Love.

Two people with signs that say “love your neighbor” and “stop the inhumanity” and one waving frog (me)

Peaceful protest with Quakers at the Portland ICE facility this morning. As my Friends’ signs say: stop the inhumanity. Love your neighbor.

Fall colors on the ground

Fall colors along the trial

Snowy footbridge

Path through the snow

This morning on the east side of Sahalee Tyee (Indian Heaven Wilderness). Fall meets winter. #PNW

Speaking of frogs and unicorns let me tell you about a time Jesus used whimsy to oppose fascism, it all started with a donkey and a few palm branches…

White nostalgia and stubbornness won’t save us. A more reverent connection to the land and to each other might. Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

There are many ways to be violent and to be complicit in violence. It’s a good day to ask whether the theology that soothes you is actually making you more violent.

My autistic friends and family do not need to be fixed! What needs to be fixed are hearts, communities, practices, and structures that make it needlessly difficult for autistic folks to fully participate and be cherished as their beautiful, authentic selves.

Reverence for every person and the Love within them is the beginning of wisdom.

Happy World Quaker Day! Where are my fellow Friends? Or, where are those listening deeply, speaking truth to power, nurturing the love within yourself and others, resisting authoritarianism, responding to needs of vulnerable neighbors, and remembering to breathe? That’s the Quaker way at its best.

”Love your neighbor” is not just something that happens in your heart but something tangible we do, together.

Looking up from inside a burned, hollowed tree to a heart-shaped opening at the top.

Finding Love on the trail.

Looking up from the inside of a burned, hollowed tree, near East Zigzag Mountain, Aug ‘23.

#PNW

“Faith without works is dead.” Christianity without compassion and liberation is deadly.

It’s going to be wild when Bible publishers are told to remove all the calls for peace and justice and liberation made by Jesus and the prophets because they make our president feel picked on, and when many Christians are fine with that.

It is special when people work together to address a real, urgent need. That’s an exciting kind of unity! Not the unity of “hey look, we’ve stopped criticizing each other” but the unity that arises when people bring their resources to the table to do good and create positive change, with others.

Morning sun shining on lake

Mountain peak beyond lake

Rocks and stump under the surface of the lake

Blues and greens and light at Little Crater Lake

Remembering an early August hike around Timothy Lake (and nearby Little Crater Lake). #PNW

If you’re in or near SW Washington tomorrow, come say hello to Camas Friends Church at the Vancouver Peace & Justice Fair from 9am-3pm at Esther Short Park. I’ll be at the Camas Friends booth from 11am-1pm.

Looking at wetlands through trees

Yellow flowers (goldenrod) next to river

Yellow flower in brown field

Bright green wetland among trees and gray sky

Today at Steigerwald Wildlife Refuge. #PNW

I will look for the Light in others. I will do my part to help that Light shine. I won’t ignore the bushel of bigotry and cruelty under which that Light is hidden or nearly extinguished. Every person is sacred. Not every person deserves applause.