Nan­cy has an arti­cle in the cur­rent issue of Friends Jour­nal called “A Love Let­ter to My Meet­ing.” With a title like that, it could be over­ly sap­py but I found it ten­der and deep, a reflec­tion on her chang­ing roles and relationships.

In the video inter­view we talk about nav­i­gat­ing con­tro­ver­sies—a fight over car­pets in the past and strug­gling with wild­ly diver­gent atti­tudes around COVID poli­cies more recent­ly. I was most inter­est­ed in how she’s changed over the years. How do you go from a new­com­er still try­ing to under­stand Quak­er lin­go to a pil­lar of the meet­ing, the kind of per­son who steps in when some­thing needs to be han­dled (the short answer is that this hap­pens over time).

A Love Let­ter to My Meet­ing: Nan­cy Bieber Author Chat 

A Quak­er author chat. Nan­cy L. Bieber’s “A Love Let­ter to My Meet­ing” appears in the Sep­tem­ber 2024…

YouTube 

As an edi­tor I often trim away bullet-point “lis­ti­cles” in arti­cle. They often feel like they’re a rem­nant of the out­line the author used to con­struct the sto­ry. Noth­ing is lost if I select them a delete. But Nan­cy’s list at the end real­ly felt like the mes­sage I think many of us could take to heart when tem­pers run high:

1. Stick around. It gets bet­ter, and you help make it happen.
2. Love any­way, and for­give. It’s the only way.
3. Nur­ture each oth­er ten­der­ly, and lis­ten to each oth­er. We are all car­ri­ers of Truth.
4. Know that the Spir­it is present and will trans­form us as we are open.