I just got to wondering whether it’s repentance that lets God make the necessary changes in us – and when the problem is with us collectively, maybe that means our repentance has to be collective? How to acknowledge our brokenness without getting hooked into focusing on sin as Fox warned against? I guess by keeping the emphasis on God’s graceful power to redeem us.

I also wonder about allowing ourselves to be stigmatized by repentant lives – e.g. committing to a ‘one planet’ carbon lifestyle makes a pretty obvious effect so a person starts to stick out from ‘normal’ western excessive living. I really get the feeling earlier Friends had that sense of living as a repentant fellowship under Jesus’s transformative leadership – can Friends today hear a call us away from conformity with those norms in our society which are based on greed and injustice?

Bruce Bishop suggested I contact you regarding the Quaker Youth Book Project of Quakers Uniting in Publications (http://www.quakeryouth.org/quipbook), for which we are building a theologically and geographically diverse editorial board. We are still accepting applications from evangelical and Latin American Friends for the editorial board, and I’d like to send you application materials.

Please forgive this comment on your blog — I haven’t been able to find an e-mail address. My e-mail is angelinac@fgcquaker.org. I hope we can connect.

Thanks for your time.
Sincerely,
Angelina