Irish Quakers have always punched far above their weight, leaning on deep spirituality and radical hospitality to bring relief during the Great Famine and build quiet trust throughout the Northern Ireland peace process. Last month, podcast producer Zack Jackson traveled to Ireland Yearly Meeting to learn, firsthand, how this diverse community has managed to have such an outsized impact on the island. Tune in to hear what this small but mighty community can teach the rest of us.

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Quaker author, speaker, and teacher Parker Palmer joins us to explore the tension between the world's demands for success, and our soul’s need for integrity. By sharing his personal journey through darkness and renewal, he offers a deeply moving invitation to let go of forced outcomes and instead live with simple faithfulness to our unique gifts.

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Want an experience that lives at the intersection of transformational spirituality and activism? Quaker Voluntary Service (QVS) is an 11-month experiment in intentional living.

Through the program, young adults work full-time at community-based organizations while living in a cooperative house and receiving mentorship from local Quakers. Fellows are provided with housing, food, a personal stipend, wellness supports, and a deeply engaged community dedicated to supporting young adults in discerning and living into their gifts and callings.

You can support this prophetic work by applying for the fellowship, volunteering locally, or donating directly to support the Fellows. Learn more and get involved today: 

https://quakervoluntaryservice.org/

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When corporations destroy the environment and ignore human rights, the loudest protests usually come from the streets. But while activists are calling for change from the outside, another movement is quietly working to steer these massive organizations from within. Discover how Friends Fiduciary is taking a seat at the shareholders’ table, using Quaker values to persuade global brands to put humanity over quick profits.

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Friends Fiduciary Is the Preferred Investment Manager for Quaker Meetings

Guided by Quaker principles, values and testimonies, Friends Fiduciary Corporation provides prudent, cost-effective management of financial assets for Friends organizations.

Overseeing assets exceeding $800 million and serving as trustees for more than 100 trusts, Friends Fiduciary is a preferred investment manager for Yearly, Quarterly, and Monthly Meetings of Friends.

Friends Fiduciary employs a company screening process and is committed to active ownership, ensuring corporate accountability, and environmental sustainability.

Discover more at www.FriendsFiduciary.org.

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As the climate crisis accelerates, humanity faces an unprecedented spiritual test. Quaker minister and scientist Brian Drayton joins us to explore how we can engage in the deep spiritual formation required to respond faithfully to the challenges ahead.

Order "The Gospel in the Anthropocene: Letters from a Quaker Naturalist" by Brian Drayton here: https://qkrs.org/drayton

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As a professor at Earlham College, Michael Birkel was known for his dynamic and thoughtful teaching style. As an author, he is known for capturing Quaker theology and practice in an accessible way. 

Today, we’ve got this thoughtful Quaker scholar on the show to share his thoughts on mysticism, spiritual reading, and giving the next generation of Quakers room to express their faith.

This episode originally aired on July 17, 2024.

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In the Quaker tradition, waiting worship is never an empty silence; it is a profound, shared, expectant stillness. In this experimental episode, we gathered together for worship at Green St. Meeting in Philadelphia, placed field microphones around the worship space, and created an immersive, stereo audio documentary of communal waiting. You will hear the physical reality of people gathering together, complete with passing cars, the creaking of benches, and the distant coo of a happy infant. We invite you to grab your headphones and use this immersive hour to center down into a deep, worshipful silence wherever and whenever you are.

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Elizabeth Hooton was the fierce and determined matriarch of the early Quaker movement who outmaneuvered magistrates and kings to spread the Gospel of Love. 

From her illegal farmhouse congregation in England to the royal courts of an empire, Hooton’s journey reveals a pioneer who refused to remain quiet when the Spirit asked her to speak. She proved that a tender heart can still possess a sharp prophetic edge, and left a blueprint for resistance in our times.

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After fleeing for their lives from Russia to the United States, an asylum-seeking family was met not with sanctuary, but with chains and a rusty detention cell. Just as the faceless deportation machine threatened to swallow them completely, the American Friends Service Committee offered a lifeline. This episode tells the story of what happens when grassroots Quaker love combines with institutional advocacy to bring justice and dignity to the US Immigration system. 

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Chatbots are becoming integrated into everything, AI images and videos are impossible to discern, and the line between real and artificial is starting to blur. What wisdom does Quakerism have to lend to the usage and development of AI? Should Quakers use AI at all? Is there that of God in the algorithm?

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Quaker peace activist George Lakey has been singing freedom songs in the streets since the civil rights movement. Today, George says, as our democracy faces an existential threat, it is important that we look to other countries whose people have resisted autocrats and won. On this week’s podcast episode we talk with George about those cases, and the nonviolent database he has helped to assemble which shows 39 recent cases of countries whose people nonviolently overthrew a dictator.

This episode originally aired on March 14, 2025.

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We follow two emerging Quaker communities from different traditions to witness the messy, faithful reality of starting a Quaker meeting. There are no formulas here, only the collective wisdom of people who are discerning a call together. It’s an invitation to explore what happens when we stop trying to control the outcome and simply agree to join the work the Spirit is already doing.

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