Persistence and Focus

There is said to be a Chinese proverb that acts as a curse: May you live in interesting times. Like most pithy phrases, its authenticity is doubtful (it seems to have been coined by Neville Chamberlain’s father, of all people). Our pop culture is full of dubious things never said. Yes, I’m sorry but Gandhi never told us to be the change we want to see in the world, Washington never copped to cutting down a cherry tree, and Fox never told Penn to keep wearing his sword.

But there is nonetheless a stress that comes from a news cycle that never lets up. It’s easy to go down a rabbit hole of they did what? and they said what? Friends have often lived in tumultuous and dangerous times, and we find ourselves once again in an era in which those in power are challenging norms and perpetrating injustices. Maybe the real truth is that these are always our times. The wars we see breaking out across the world are complicated ones that don’t always have clear good and bad actors or easy pacifist solutions. We must be willing to stand with the victims of all sides and risk being denounced by everyone. We will be called naïve. Sometimes we will be dismissed as foolish children of the Light.

My favorite foolish article this month might be Robert Stephen Dicken’s. Facing a terminal illness, Steve, as he was known, discovered a guardian angel who would talk to him. Acknowledging that this might be an effect of “chemo brain,” he nonetheless felt a kind of comfort in the presence. Steve has written for us a few times, but this is the last, as he died shortly after writing this piece. I’d like to think we are all looked after, both individually and as a community trying to follow God’s will.

We usually have our “Quaker Works” round-up of the activities of Friends in the April issue. We’ve been running this column twice a year for ten years now and are taking a break this time to survey participating organizations and see how we might better serve them and our readers. The column will return in October.

Many issues of Friends Journal are like the one in your hand: collections of the most interesting articles we’ve gotten over the last few months. The originality of topics is always a surprise. We love putting them together and often notice how articles complement one another in unexpected ways. But about half of our issues are themed. This allows us to be proactive: we can try to identify topics we think Friends should be talking about. We don’t decide this by ourselves alone. We send out emails and post on social media asking for suggestions. We’ve recently distilled all of these ideas into a list of themed issues for 2026 and 2027. It’s a pretty exciting line-up. We’ll be asking about Indigenous Friends, looking at the peace testimony today, asking about eco-spirituality and much more. Check out our new list at Friendsjournal.org/submissions.

I’m grateful for all the readers who contacted us with ideas. This magazine is really a community project: our readers suggest ideas, and Friends write in with fascinating articles that communicate their Quaker experience. I’m grateful for all the hard work that makes curating these issues so enjoyable!