by Stacey Denny | Sep 23, 2024 | GraceTalk Messages
When I was in the fourth grade, one of my best friends was a boy named Joe Bryant, whose family rented a farmhouse southwest of Danville on Mackey Road. He moved to our town at the start of the school year, and we became friends the first week of school. His family...
by Stacey Denny | Sep 23, 2024 | GraceTalk Messages
My phone rang not long ago. It was a Quaker calling from out-of-state, whom I had met several years ago at a conference. He called because their Quaker meeting was in decline, and he wanted to know if I had any suggestions that might revive their meeting. He said,...
by Stacey Denny | Aug 26, 2024 | GraceTalk Messages
Joan and I went on vacation this past week, meeting up with our son Sam and his family in Grand Lake, Colorado just outside the Rocky Mountain National Park, where I was subjected to daily death marches up and down the mountainsides. It wasn’t even pretty, because in...
by Stacey Denny | Aug 12, 2024 | GraceTalk Messages
I was down in southern Indiana a while back, riding motorcycles with my friend Dave, the newest member of the Quaker Oatlaws Motorcycle Club. We stopped for lunch in New Boston, then decided to head further south to ride on the Ohio River Scenic Byway, a curvy,...
by Stacey Denny | Aug 6, 2024 | GraceTalk Messages
Earlier this summer, Joan had gone with Madeline to the store, so I was lying on the couch, praying, when I heard a knock at our back door. No one we know ever knocks, they just walk in, or call out. We’re not long on formalities. So when they knocked, I knew it...
by Stacey Denny | Jul 24, 2024 | GraceTalk Messages
When I first came to Fairfield, I had a bad case of the big head. I’d had several books published, still had hair, was married to a striking, intelligent woman, and was under the impression I was God’s gift to Quakerism. I rolled into here thinking how lucky you all...
by Stacey Denny | Jul 8, 2024 | GraceTalk Messages
Several years ago, a man I know was told he was dying, which of course we all are, but his death was sooner than he had anticipated. Though well-off, he’d always been miserly, to the frustration of his wife who wanted them to travel and see things and visit their...
by Stacey Denny | Jun 24, 2024 | GraceTalk Messages
This happened maybe 30 years ago, when I attended a conference for Quaker pastors down in Orlando. Someone had the bright idea to get all the Quaker pastors in America together and somehow the Evangelical Friends were put in charge, which meant all the speakers were...
by Stacey Denny | Jun 20, 2024 | GraceTalk Messages
When our children were born, Joan bought a camera and started taking pictures. Pictures of everything—vacations, hikes, family gatherings, birthday parties, first haircuts, first days of school, holidays, thousands of pictures. Just when I thought I couldn’t take it...
by Stacey Denny | Jun 10, 2024 | GraceTalk Messages
I got the notice this week that my high school graduating class is planning our 45th year reunion, which I was looking forward to, but now am not, due to the confirmed presence of a narcissistic man who spent our twelve years together bullying our most vulnerable...
