Middletown Friends Meeting at Langhorne

06/14/2026

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Quakerism allows us to remove ourselves from the cycle of quicker work: making more work for the sake of more work, with productivity as king. What I've learned working in a Quaker environment is the real power of reflection, of silence, of taking time to discern. I feel like when I do so, decisions are more thought-through, more grounded in reality, and more inclusive of the voices of others.

Citation: Adena Dershowitz, 2026
Director of the Fourth Century Center at Abington Friends School

06/13/2026

06/10/2026

Many of us have a love-hate relationship with the phones in our pockets. Used with intention, technology can facilitate spiritual experiences. But there is also the danger that if we are never bored, never silent, we might miss hearing the voice of God.

This month our daily devotional email, the Daily Quaker Message, has a quote a day about the Quaker approach to technology (and no, we don’t use a printing press!). We’re exploring how Friends decide what technology to use, how it can further our witness, the pros and cons of online worship, and how to take back control when our attention is for sale.

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06/06/2026

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Although data can transform how we live, work and think, its usage doesn’t happen in a vacuum — it relies on a model. In one sense, that model is a statistical approach. But in a deeper sense, it is a mental model: a way of looking at the world. So using one “frame,” a rainforest is worth more when it’s cut for timber than when it’s acting as the lungs of the planet.

How we look at the world is essential, to apply AI in useful ways…. We can do things machines cannot because of our capacity for the transcendent…. AI uses information: humans, at our best, find answers in the still, small voice within.

Citation: Kenneth Cukier, 2024
Quaker journalist

06/05/2026

How many degrees is Kevin Bacon from Quakers?

Kevin Bacon can trace his ancestry on his father’s side back to the first generation of Quakers convinced in England during the time of George Fox. His 12x great-grandfather, Henry Comly, immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1682 to escape persecution of Quakers in his native Bristol. He bought 300 acres in Bucks County and 200 acres in Philadelphia from his fellow Quaker, William Penn. Bacon’s ancestors passed their Quaker faith down to their children for hundreds of years.

Kevin Bacon’s father, Edmund Bacon, was raised Quaker in Philadelphia. Edmund attended Friends schools, and his worldview and values were shaped by his Quaker upbringing. He was a world-renowned city planner whose vision transformed Philadelphia after WWII. He strived to create a humane, inclusive, and walkable city after the original vision of William Penn, building greenways and public plazas (like Love Park) through a community discernment process. As an adult he did not consider himself Quaker, though upon his death, he had a memorial meeting held at Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting. Kevin Bacon’s mother was Catholic, and raised him and his siblings in that faith tradition.

Today, Kevin Bacon says he is an atheist. So how many degrees would you say that is?

06/03/2026

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Just as early Quakers adapted their faith to meet changing conditions, today’s Quakers will also…. As all of us rely on our traditional practices of seeking unity among ourselves, we can rely on our more technologically comfortable Friends to help the rest of us find ways to participate in this new environment.

As we navigate the current liminal period – between the “technology stage” and “artificial intelligence stage,” Quakers can expect additional challenges. Even so, I am confident that our process of discernment and our seeking of spiritual unity will continue to provide us with the answers we need to meet the challenges we face.

Citation: Bob Barnard, 2024
Quaker writer

05/31/2026

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Children have an inherent capacity for spiritual insight and experience, which is sometimes extraordinarily vivid and powerful. Many adults can recall powerful experiences of deep spiritual perception in early childhood, which sometimes leave a life-long impression. This is not primarily a matter of children's 'beliefs', but of their capacity for spiritual experience that can be either nourished or neglected.

If we recognise children's capacity and need for spirituality, it is part of our responsibility as parents and as Quaker communities to nourish our children's spiritual lives, just as much as we are responsible for feeding, clothing and educating them. Just as children need healthy food, they also need opportunities to experience the inward place of gathered, prayerful stillness, and to encounter people whose lives express forgiveness, integrity and compassion.

Citation: Craig Barnett, 2013
Local development worker for Britain Yearly Meeting

05/30/2026

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Our children are given to us for a time to cherish, to protect, to nurture, and then to salute as they go their separate ways. They too have the light of God within, and a family should be a learning community in which children not only learn skills and values from parents, but in which adults learn new ways of experiencing things and seeing things through young eyes. From their birth on, let us cultivate the habit of dialogue and receptive listening. We should respect their right to grow into their own wholeness, not just the wholeness we may wish for them.

Citation: Elizabeth Watson, 1980
Quaker feminist theologian

05/29/2026

A little Quaker humor!

It all started with a fox. No, an actual fox. One got loose in a steeplehouse during a service, cleared everybody out, and the vicar called in a fox catcher. When the fox catcher noticed how peaceful it was in the silent church, she had an idea....

Put your own cockamamie Quaker origin story in the comments!