Episode Summary

Pendle Hill has just released its very first audiobook for our pamphlet series! Listen to the audiobook of Pendle Hill Pamphlet #371, Members One of Another: The Dynamics of Membership in Quaker Meeting by Tom Gates, here. In this episode, we first hear Tom share a little bit of the background to his pamphlet before listening to a sneak preview of the new audiobook.

Episode Resources

• Listen to the audiobook for Pendle Hill Pamphlet #371 Members One of Another: The Dynamics of Membership in Quaker Meeting by Tom Gates.
• Visit Tom Gates’ blog to read excerpts from his forthcoming book, Turning Toward the Victim: The Bible, Sacred Violence, and the End of Scapegoating in Quaker Perspective.
• Purchase a physical copy of Members One of Another from the Pendle Hill bookstore, or purchase an e-book from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Guest Bio

Thomas Gates is a member of Lancaster Monthly Meeting, student of Quakerism, and now-retired family physician.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @pendlehillseed on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released. To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast.

Online Quaker Worship with Dwight: Dwight will attend the Pendle Hill online Quaker worship on the last Friday of the month from 8:30 to 9:10 AM (Eastern Time). Visit Pendle Hill Online Worship for details.

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

 Episode Summary

This episode features a condensed version of the recent First Monday Lecture, “The Exponential Impact of Historical and Ongoing Injustice: A Call To Action for Quakers,” that Dr. Harold Weaver delivered alongside Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge at Pendle Hill on February 3rd.

Hal’s message is a call for reckoning and retrospective justice around Quakers’ historical participation in slavery. He urges us to re-examine our past in order to take tangible steps towards a more just future.

Episode Resources

• Watch Dr. Hal Weaver and Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge’s First Monday Lecture
• Read the Pendle Hill Pamphlet that Hal references, Hypocrisy, Racism, and Self-Interest on the Path to Reparations: Quaker Complicity with Slavery (1657–1776) and White Supremacy by Mary Watkins.
• Read Dr. Hal Weaver’s Pendle Hill Pamphlet, Race, Systemic Violence, and Retrospective Justice: An African American Quaker Scholar-Activist Challenges Conventional Narratives.
• Read Dr. Hal Weaver’s anthology, Black Fire: African American Quakers on Spirituality and Human Rights.
• Learn more about the BlackQuaker Project.

Guest Bio

Dr. Harold D. (Hal) Weaver, Jr. is the Founder and Director of the BlackQuaker Project (BQP), a ministry celebrating the lives and contributions of Quakers of Color worldwide and documenting and addressing their concerns. It is an outreach and in-reach ministry of his Wellesley Friends Meeting. Hal has spent his life confronting the cancer of white supremacy throughout the world, drawing upon the Quaker testimonies of Truth, Peace, Equality, Community, and Justice.

Hal is currently an Associate at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. Hal lives in Newton, Mass., and Oaxaca, Mexico, with his life partner, Anne Steere Nash, and attends Wellesley Friends Meeting and the Oaxaca Quaker Worship Group.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @pendlehillseed on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released. To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast.

Online Quaker Worship with Dwight: Dwight will attend the Pendle Hill online Quaker worship on the last Friday of the month from 8:30 to 9:10 AM (Eastern Time). Visit Pendle Hill Online Worship for details.

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

This episode features a condensed version of the recent First Monday Lecture, “Towards a Just Democracy: Spiritual Grounding and Principled Action,” that Alicia McBride delivered alongside José Santos Moreno at Pendle Hill on November 4th, the eve of the presidential election. Alicia’s powerful message about how we can transform ourselves and our political system by acting with love continues to resonate as the new president now takes office.

Throughout the episode, Alicia offers several queries that call us to reflect on our participation in our country’s democracy. They are:

• What story are you telling yourself about this moment and about your role in it?
• What would a just democracy centered in love for all our neighbors look like?
• What part will you play in bringing it about?

Guest Bio

Alicia McBride (she/her) serves as the senior director for Quaker leadership at the Friends Committee On National Legislation (FCNL), where she focuses on connecting Quaker faith, practice, and community to policy advocacy in Washington, DC. Her various roles and more than 20 years of work at FCNL are united by a concern for how to act with integrity at the place where faith and the world meet. She is a member of Sandy Spring Friends Meeting (Baltimore Yearly Meeting), assistant clerk of the Earlham School of Religion Board of Advisors, a parent to two teenagers with her husband Sam Garman, and a yoga teacher.

Learn about FCNL’s work at https://www.fcnl.org/. 

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @pendlehillseed on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released. To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast.

Online Quaker Worship with Dwight: Dwight will attend the Pendle Hill online Quaker worship on the last Friday of the month from 8:30 to 9:10 AM (Eastern Time). Visit Pendle Hill Online Worship for details.

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

Dwight Dunston speaks with Alexx Temeña, a somatic minister, ceremonial artist, and experiential educator, about the transformative power of rest and embodied practices in world-building. Alexx shares insights from her work with the School of Embodied Praxis and her interactive public sculpture, House of Kapwa, which honors Rest, ecological grief, and Filipino indigenous wisdom. Alexx explores how creating rituals and new frameworks can disrupt grind culture and cultivate a sense of safety, connection, and liberation.

Later, Quaker poet and activist Zenaida Peterson offers three evocative poems that imagine liberated futures. Zenaida reflects on the power of imagination and creativity to envision new systems rooted in justice, equity, and community. Their work reminds us that dreaming is essential to building the world we long for. Zenaida has competed and coached at national slam poetry competitions, including the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational and the National Poetry Slam, often placing in the top 10. ​Zinaida ​founded ​the ​feminine ​empowerment ​movement ​Slam, ​also ​known ​as ​Femmes. They have ​been ​published ​by ​Pizza ​Pie ​Press ​and ​Button ​Poetry, ​with ​their ​first ​full-length ​collection ​forthcoming ​from ​Game ​Over ​Books.

Resources & Links:

• Learn more about Alexx Temeña: www.alexxtemena.com
• Follow Alexx: Instagram @alexxtemena
• Follow Zenaida: Instagram & TikTok @puppet_mcfly
• Learn about the Quaker Voluntary Service: https://quakervoluntaryservice.org
• Read more about Tricia Hersey and The Nap Ministry: https://thenapministry.com
• Connect with Bayo Akomolafe’s work: https://www.bayoakomolafe.net

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @pendlehillseed on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released. To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast.

Online Quaker Worship with Dwight: Dwight will attend the Pendle Hill online Quaker worship on the last Friday of the month from 8:30 to 9:10 AM (Eastern Time). Visit Pendle Hill Online Worship for details.

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

For this episode, we’re sharing a clip from the Quakers Today podcast featuring our recent guest, Keil Trois, who also uses the pseudonym Jeff Walburn. Hear Keil describe the creative campaign he organized with The Yes Men collective against the Mattel corporation.

In the summer of 2023, Keil and The Yes Men pulled an elaborate hoax on the media and the Mattel corporation, timed to coincide with the release of the popular Barbie movie. Together with environmental activist Daryl Hannah, they faked a widely published announcement that "Mattel intends to go 100 percent plastic-free by 2030 in all their toys. Mattel was forced to publicly clarify that this statement was false, inadvertently drawing attention to the environmental crisis wrought by plastic waste.

Through their artistic interventions, Keil and The Yes Men demonstrate how humor and disruption can drive conversations that inspire real-world change. Keil's work pushes boundaries to offer hope.

Guest Bio

Keil is a filmmaker and a core member of The Yes Men, an art-activism collective known for using creative interventions to tackle issues like climate change and corporate greed. He has collaborated with activist groups worldwide, blending creativity with direct action to inspire social change.

Dig Deeper

• Listen to the full Quakers Today episode featuring Keil, “Quakers and Barbie: How Lies Exposed the Truth About Plastic Pollution.”
• Read Friends Journal’s article on this story, “Speaking Lies to Power.”
• Explore the rest of The Yes Men’s hijinks.
• Learn more about this and other campaigns against Mattel conducted by the Barbie Liberation Organization.
• Find Keil Troisi on Instagram and Daryl Hannah on X.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @pendlehillseed on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released. To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast.

Online Quaker Worship with Dwight: Dwight will attend the Pendle Hill online Quaker worship on the last Friday of the month from 8:30 to 9:10 AM (Eastern Time). Visit Pendle Hill Online Worship for details.

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

Dwight Dunston speaks with filmmaker and activist Keil Troisi about the transformative power of art and culture in world-building and social change. Keil shares his experiences with The Yes Men, an art-activism group that creatively disrupts corporate power to inspire long-term hope. They explore how humor, trickery, and creativity can drive real-world impact, especially in environmental and social justice movements.

Favianna Rodriguez, an artist and cultural strategist, reads from her essay Harnessing Cultural Power to Heal the Planet and Ourselves, which appears in the anthology All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis. Her work calls for a cultural revolution in the climate movement, emphasizing the role of art in reshaping narratives.

Listen to Favianna on The BTS Center’s podcast Climate Changed:
Favianna appears in Season Three, Episode One of Climate Changed, titled The Power of Ritual and Story, alongside Brian McLaren. Listen to the episode here: https://thebtscenter.org/climate-changed/podcast-season-three-episode-1/.

Resources & Links:
Learn more about Keil Troisi and The Yes Men: https://theyesmen.org/

• Follow The Yes Men: X: @theyesmen, Facebook: theyesmenfix
• Explore Favianna Rodriguez's work: https://favianna.com/

Follow Favianna: Instagram: @favianna1

• Get the All We Can Save anthology: https://www.allwecansave.earth/anthology

Philly-based - Vanguard SOS collabs:

• Climate Adaptation Toolkit in Impact Alpha or USA Today
• Vanguardians of the Galaxy
• Eco-doom carnival

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @pendlehillseed on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released. To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast.

Online Quaker Worship with Dwight: Dwight will attend the Pendle Hill online Quaker worship on the last Friday of the month from 8:30 to 9:10 AM (Eastern Time). Visit Pendle Hill Online Worship for details.

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

In this episode, Dwight Dunston and eppchez yo-sí yes delve into the transformative potential of art. Drawing from experiences in reparations work and Quaker business settings, eppchez’s art seeks to disentangle integrity from perfection, instead calling for transmutation processes. This excerpt comes from The Seed Season Two Episode Three, “Integrity & Transmutation: Moving Beyond Cultures of Domination with eppchez yo-sí yes” 

With “Guided Transmutations,” an interactive audio experiment, eppchez invites us to address this transformation inwardly: What would it look like to move beyond cultures and cycles of domination? How can we use noticing practices in our communities better to align our actions, words, and values?

Guest Bio

eppchez yo-sí yes is a Quaker playwright, inventor, and spiritual companion living in Philadelphia. Eir work uses historical research combined with channeled wisdom to remember what our culture of domination has tried to erase. eppchez is one of many Friends working to implement a cultural shift toward active anti-racism among Quakers. Ey are called to earnestly and imperfectly model strategies to do reparations and build systems that make integrity and care more possible. 

To experience more of eppchez's work, visit www.almasengine.com. 

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @pendlehillseed on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released. To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast.

Online Quaker Worship with Dwight: Dwight will attend the Pendle Hill online Quaker worship on the last Friday of the month from 8:30 to 9:10 AM (Eastern Time). Visit Pendle Hill Online Worship for details.

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

Dwight Dunston brings listeners into a reflective discussion with two Irish writers, Manchán Magan and Shirley Anne McMillan, as they explore Ireland's divided history, cultural resilience, and visions for a more harmonious future.

As Manchán and Shirley explore their different experiences growing up in Ireland, they find common ground in their hopes for a peaceful future that honors Ireland's cultural roots and builds a more connected, ecologically balanced society. Their conversations with Dwight reflect visions of Ireland where historical wounds are acknowledged, and diverse identities and histories are woven into a shared, harmonious future.

Guest Introductions:

• Manchán Magan
  • Irish author, documentarian, and host of The Almanac of Ireland podcast, Manchán is known for books like Thirty-Two Words for Field and Listen to the Land Speak, which celebrate Ireland's heritage and linguistic legacy. Social media: @manchanmagan.
• Shirley Anne McMillan
  • Northern Irish author and Children’s Writing Fellow at Queen’s University, Belfast, Shirley writes young adult novels exploring activism, identity, and social justice themes. Her latest book, Grapefruit Moon, addresses classism and patriarchy through the lens of art and activism. Follow Shirley on X: @smcmillanwriter.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @pendlehillseed on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released. To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast.

Online Quaker Worship with Dwight: Dwight will attend the Pendle Hill online Quaker worship on the last Friday of the month from 8:30 to 9:10 AM (Eastern Time). Visit Pendle Hill Online Worship for details.

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

In this mini-episode, Francisco shares the inspiring journey of the Pendle Hill online worship community, which emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide a spiritual connection and inclusion space. Beginning as a simple idea born out of necessity, Pendle Hill’s virtual daily worship grew into a thriving, radically inclusive online community.

Reflecting on nearly 94 years of daily worship at Pendle Hill, Francisco discusses the challenges and triumphs of transforming Pendle Hill’s worship into a global spiritual community through technology, the unique aspects of online worship, and its lasting impact on participants.

Whether physically or virtually, Friends gather during this worship in a meeting room rich in spirit and history, one that has been host to A.J. Muste, Bayard Rustin, Wendell Berry, and Martin Buber, among many, many others.

Visit Pendle Hill Online Worship and experience this community yourself! You can also join Dwight, host of The Seed, who will attend this worship on the last Friday of the month from 8:30 AM to 9:10 AM (Eastern Time).

Read more about this online worship community in Friends Journal.

Guest Bio

Francisco Burgos is the Executive Director at Pendle Hill. From 2012 to 2015, Francisco was the head of school at Monteverde Friends in Costa Rica. He has also served with the Organization of American States in Washington, DC, and the American Friends Service Committee in Baltimore, Maryland.

Francisco has a BS in Clinical Psychology from the National University Pedro Henríquez Ureña in the Dominican Republic, an MA in Sustainable Development from the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont, and a Doctor of Education from Universidad De La Salle in Costa Rica.

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @pendlehillseed on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released. To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast.

Online Quaker Worship with Dwight: Dwight will attend the Pendle Hill online Quaker worship on the last Friday of the month from 8:30 to 9:10 AM (Eastern Time). Visit Pendle Hill Online Worship for details.

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.

Dr. Riyam Kafri AbuLaban, a former principal at Ramallah Friends School and a writer from Palestine, shares her insights on world-building amidst conflict and the complexities of raising children under occupation. 

Joining Dwight is Steve Tamari, a Palestinian-American Quaker and historian who offers reflections on the ongoing genocide in Palestine as part of a larger history of colonialism. Steve challenges listeners to understand the power of conscience and integrity in facing the brokenness of our world.

Key Highlights:

• Primary Guest:
  Dr. Riyam Kafri Abu Laban writes personal essays, poetry, short stories, and articles on Palestine, motherhood, and education. Riyam sees writing as "the tangible outcome of thinking" and believes the first sentence requires the most courage. She describes writing as an incredible gift, a way to bring ideas to life—whether technical, creative, or fictional.

Riyam lives in Ramallah, West Bank, Palestine. Follow her on Instagram and LinkedIn.

• Second Guest Offering:
  Steve Tamari is a Palestinian-American Quaker and historian. Steve reflects on the ongoing genocide in Palestine, framing it within the history of colonialism. He calls on Quakers and people of conscience to take action against systemic violence. He shared these remarks during his presentation, "Light Within and Light Without," at the 2024 Stephen G. Cary Memorial Lecture.

He poses a thought-provoking question: "How do you strive to close the gap between the light within and the world outside so that our lives may be genuinely integrated and made whole?"

Special Music

In this episode, you will hear the song Babylon Breeze by the Sada Trio. Ahmad Al Khatib, Pedram Shahlai, and Feras Sharestan are virtuoso musicians from three parts of the Middle East who now live in Sweden. Ahmad Al Khatib was born in 1974 in a Palestinian refugee camp in Irbid, Jordan. He started his musical journey at an early age. In the Sada Trio, the three musicians keep the Middle East

The transcript for this episode is available on https://pendlehillseed.buzzsprout.com/
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The Seed is a project of Pendle Hill, a Quaker center open to all for Spirit-led learning, retreat, and community. We’re located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people.

Help us to grow The Seed!
Share your thoughts with us through our listener survey.

Follow us @pendlehillseed on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to The Seed wherever you get your podcasts to get episodes in your library as they're released. To learn more, visit pendlehill.org/podcast.

Online Quaker Worship with Dwight: Dwight will attend the Pendle Hill online Quaker worship on the last Friday of the month from 8:30 to 9:10 AM (Eastern Time). Visit Pendle Hill Online Worship for details.

This project is made possible by the generous support of the Thomas H. & Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund.