PlainSpeech Messages | Find YOUR way to GRACE.
I recently read a message I’d given in 1984 and felt a mixture of embarrassment and surprise. Embarrassed because it seems inadequate now, and surprised by how much my worldview has changed. Twenty-five years from now, I might read these messages and have a similar reaction. I offer no guarantee that my work or words will endure the eroding effects of time. I can only assure you these thoughts have been helpful to me, and perhaps a few others, today. With that qualification, I offer them to you.
~ Philip
NEW!
Who I Want to Be
I ran into an old friend last week who I hadn’t seen in a while, so we were updating one another on our lives, showing each other pictures of our grandchildren, discussing our medical ailments, the usual conversation of anyone over 65. I have added bursitis to my...
Why War Is Not the Answer (7)
A family friend is getting married this week, and I’m officiating. When I met with he and his fiancée to discuss the wedding, I asked where they were going on their honeymoon. “The beach,” they said. Then he asked where we had gone on ours. I told him we had driven to...
Why War Is Not the Answer (6)
Joan and I were down at the farm last Saturday and a van pulled up to the house and a well-dressed young man carrying a large Bible emerged. Joan said under her breath, “Uh, oh, this is going to be about religion.” That’s like red meat to me, like throwing a dog a...
Why War Is Not the Answer (5)
Listen to the song Homeward Bound, written by Marta Keen Thompson, and sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Here’s the LINK Our granddaughter Madeline has a smart phone that can play any song in the world anytime she wants to hear it. Kids today have it so easy. Why,...
Why War Is Not the Answer (4)
I was in an antique store recently and came across a book called The Best of Life. It was a book of photography, published in 1973, containing the most significant pictures of the 20th century, even though the century still had 27 years left in it. The book was free...
Why War Is Not the Answer (3)
I drove down to the farm last Monday to mow and had to stop at Walmart to buy groceries. There was a woman in there with a little boy who looked to be about three-years-old, not quite ready for pre-school. The boy, like most children of that age, was active, but the...
Why War Is Not the Answer (2)
Many years ago, a husband and wife came to me for marital counseling. Before you consider doing that, I should tell you it’s not my strong suit. Should you need a marital counselor, we have one right down the hall. She’s there every Monday and Tuesday and I advise you...
How Quakers Decide Things
If you’re a Quaker, you know our way of conducting the business of the meeting can be maddening. I grew up Roman Catholic, so the business of our congregation was decided by a priest, who reported to a bishop, who answered to the Pope, an old, white man who lived in...
Why War Is Not the Answer (1)
When I was nine years old, we moved to a house with fields and woods and a creek. Several of our neighbors were Quakers, but this didn’t stop me from fantasizing about war. This illusion was helped along by a neighbor boy named Kevin who told me the hole in the glass...
Does God Talk to Us?
I met a man recently who believes God speaks to him. Not in the way we have customarily believed God communicates with us, through the historic tenets of the Church, or through the Bible, or the witness of Jesus. He believes God speaks to him in a voice he can hear...