Judith Favor

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Claremont Authors Event on 9/30/2023

September 10, 2023 By Judith Favor

Judith Wright Favor author portrait photo

Judith Wright Favor

Saturday, September 30, 2023

10:00AM to 12:00NOON

Claremont Helen Renwick Library
Meeting Room

Sponsored by
Friends of the Claremont Library

 

Judith Favor has published six books in three genres. Her writings draw upon work experience as a babysitter, berry-picker, library page, mail clerk, typist, commercial hot air balloonist, college counselor, teacher, pastor, retreat leader and spiritual companion. Judith composed her newest book, Friending Rosie: Respect on Death Row, in close collaboration with an incarcerated Latina woman.

She likes to write creative nonfiction, family memoir, book reviews, feminist faith-based fiction, and occasional poems. In the third of her forthcoming Beacons trilogy, The Beacons Ablaze, readers will meet Red, a teen girl who sets the sanctuary afire, while also renewing connection with six female church leaders who deal with the mess.

A native Oregonian educated in Washington and California, Favor earned degrees in sociology, divinity and psychology. She skied on Mount Lassen, backpacked in the Sierras, Cascades and Trinity Alps, swam in high mountain lakes and sailed on Lake Tahoe. She earned a private pilot’s license, and flew Serendipity, her hot air balloon, throughout Northern California. After she challenged Richard Bach to include females in an early edition of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, he named one for her.

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Filed Under: Announcements, Book Readings, Books Tagged With: Author Event, Claremont Public Library, Readings, Speaking

BOOK REVIEW: What We Owe the Future

August 24, 2023 By Judith Favor

What We Owe the Future bookcover image

Reviewed by Judith Wright Favor

in Friends Journal — August 2023 Issue

What We Owe the Future introduced me to “longtermism”: “the idea that positively influencing the longterm future is a key moral priority of our time.” And each of us has a part to play. In his concluding message, as he does throughout the book, author William MacAskill addresses the reader directly in reflecting on the previous ten chapters:

We’ve met some people who’ve made a difference in this book: abolitionists, feminists, and environmentalists; writers, politicians, and scientists. Looking back on them as figures from “history,” they can seem different from you and me. But they weren’t different: they were everyday people, with their own problems and limitations, who nevertheless decided to try to shape the history they were a part of, and who sometimes succeeded. You can do this, too.”

Friends drawn to longtermism—“a movement of morally motivated people, concerned about the whole scope of the future”—will appreciate MacAskill’s views. This mind-bending young activist challenges all of us to practice radical collaboration in shaping a more sustainable future.

Queries throughout What We Owe the Future sparked my imagination in thinking about “which values will guide the future.” MacAskill points to the favorable answer when he suggests, “Those values could be narrow-minded, parochial, and unreflective. Or they could be open-minded, ecumenical, and morally exploratory.” The author’s lifestyle earned my respect. MacAskill, who was only 28 when he joined the faculty of Oxford University, becoming the youngest associate professor of philosophy in the world, lives communally, eats minimally, and donates generously to progressive nonprofit organizations. I like knowing that he is an activist and social entrepreneur; he also cofounded the nonprofits Giving What We Can, the Centre for Effective Altruism, and 80,000 Hours, which together have moved over $200 million to effective charities, according to his website.

“We are now living through the global equivalent of the Hundred Schools of Thought,” he writes, referring to the golden age of Chinese philosophy in the sixth century when many great thinkers “were developing their ideas and trying to persuade the political elite of their theories.” MacAskill observes that likewise today “[d]ifferent moral worldviews are competing, and no single worldview has yet won out.” He gives hope for present-day actions setting humankind on the right track:

If we can improve the values that guide the behaviour of generations to come, we can be pretty confident that they will take better actions, even if they’re living in a world very different from our own, the nature of which we cannot predict.”

What We Owe the Future masterfully traces the grand sweep of history while outlining key values for designing a livable future. I commend MacAskill’s solid research and illuminating prose. His teachings about value lock-in and artificial general intelligence broadened my perspective and made me smarter. His perspective equips me to write a fuller version of my ethical will in progress, an ABC of legacy letters conveying my core values to the next generation.

MacAskill’s accessible language brings future people into the conversation while highlighting past strategies employed by controversial Friends like abolitionist Benjamin Lay. He reminds readers about the long arc to abolish slavery; he references the first public denouncement, which came from Quakers in 1688 with the Germantown petition. Success took hundreds of years. “Abolition freed millions of people from lives of utter misery,” though some countries did not abolish slavery until after 1960. In this same vein, MacAskill writes:

We may not see longtermism’s biggest impacts in our lifetimes. But by advocating for longtermism, we can pass the baton to those who will succeed us—those who might run faster, see farther, and achieve more than we ever could.”

The book ends with six pages of acknowledgements that credit hundreds of people, and a useful website: whatweowethefuture.com.

Let us see what forethought can do.


Judith Wright Favor is an elder member of Claremont Monthly, Southern California Quarterly, and Pacific Yearly Meetings. She recently led a workshop on the elements of writing an ethical will at the Friends General Conference Gathering.

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Essays Tagged With: Climate Change, Ecology, Friends Journal, Longtermism, Quakers

BOOK REVIEW: The School That Escaped the Nazis: The True Story of the Schoolteacher Who Defied Hitler
by Deborah Cadbury

February 2, 2023 By Judith Favor

Reviewed by Judith Favor

Bookcover image of The School That Escaped the Nazis-The True Story of the Schoolteacher Who Defied Hitler

by Deborah Cadbury | Public Affairs, 2022 | 464 pages | $30/hardcover | $17.99/eBook

The School That Escaped the Nazis: The True Story of the Schoolteacher Who Defied Hitler shows what love can do in wartime. Deborah Cadbury takes readers on an emotional journey with head teacher Anna Essinger, who smuggled 70 students out of Nazi Germany—“a feat that no other teacher managed to pull off”—and settled in a rundown manor house in England. Some pages read like a novel; most read like accounts from a worship-sharing group of former students gathered to recall common experiences.

Essinger (1879–1960) grew up in a large Jewish German family. At college in Wisconsin, she was drawn to Quaker humanitarian and compassionate values. After WWI, she joined U.S. Quakers in Quäkerspeisung, an ambitious post-war relief plan to feed schoolchildren in Germany. Full of hope to make a difference at home, Essinger returned to “devastating deprivation.” As a liaison for the Quaker feeding program, she visited hundreds of schools throughout Germany where she was appalled by teaching methods of dominance that instilled fear and conformity in children.

In 1926, Essinger and family opened a progressive school in Germany, a musical oasis with studies grounded in kindness where students could learn at their own pace. By 1933, Nazi persecution led her to decide: “I could no longer raise children in honesty and freedom [here].” That’s when she hatched the daring plan to take her pupils to Kent. There Essinger created “a home-school,” a sanctuary where they could “not only recover but . . . aspire to the very highest levels. . . . And she would make their lives count.”

Throughout WWII, the residential school took in traumatized Jewish children who arrived on Kindertransport. Most never saw their parents again. Behind the scenes, Essinger worked with the Red Cross and relief committees to get answers. Staff “carefully managed how they broke any news of parents.”

Pupils who survived the Holocaust offer moving firsthand testimony in these pages. “It took a great deal of love and determination to help us,” wrote one of the survivors looking back on that time. Another pupil, named Sidney Finkel, had, by age 14, “endured the killing of his family in Poland, the ‘liquidation’ of his ghetto, slave labour camps, concentration camps and typhus. He had lost all concept of normal living.” Essigner sat “with him during mealtimes and taught him how to eat and to stop bolting his food.”

She was “‘not in the least bit religious,’” observed one of Essinger’s first pupils, Susanne Trachsler. “‘Not even Jewish.’” Cadbury further explains:

Anna came from an assimilated Jewish family and did not place great emphasis on religions beliefs and practices, although she did adopt one custom she had observed in Quaker circles: before dinner, each child held hands with the pupils standing either side of them for a moment of silent reflection, the entire school briefly linked as one. It was instilled in the children that they must help each other.

Essinger “managed to establish ‘a kind of honour code,’ continued Susanne. ‘I don’t know how she did it. The worst thing you could do was lie and cheat.’” The children who did behave badly were hardly disciplined by the staff because, as Susanne Trachsler recalled, “The other pupils themselves treated them with such contempt that they stopped immediately. . . . We sort of educated each other.”

In reflecting on the shared courage of these individuals, I’m reminded of a quote from Quaker mystic and social activist Rufus M. Jones in The Luminous Trail: “Nobody knows how the kindling flame of life and power leaps from one life to another. What is the magic quality in a person which instantly awakens faith?”

Quaker educators will value this historic account of Anna Essinger and colleagues who met the crisis during a dark moment in history, and kept the lights on. The School That Escaped the Nazis illumines how a prepared group of adults transformed the hearts and minds of traumatized children. I suggest a more Friendly subtitle: The True Story of a Luminous Trail of Teachers Who Transcended Hitler.

Buy from QuakerBooks


Judith Favor, an author from the Claremont Meeting in California,
appreciates Deborah Cadbury’s keen research and muscular writing.

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Quakers Tagged With: Deborah Cadbury, Friends Journal, Quakers

Meet the Author: Jan 14th/4pm at The Claremont Forum

January 9, 2023 By Judith Favor

CLAREMONT FORUM BOOKSHOP | PRISON LIBRARY PROJECT

MEET THE AUTHOR

Judith Wright Favor portrait photo
Who are the people in prison or on death row? Those of us who are “free” don’t often think of those who are incarcerated but friendship and communication have the power to heal and enrich lives on both sides of the prison bars.
Friending Rosie by Judith Favor (book mockup cover image)This special event sheds insight on those who are incarcerated and on death row – exploring themes of friendship, compassion, and understanding the realities of a life behind bars. Proceeds from book sales and donations will support the Prison Library Project.

January 14 at 4pm
586 W. 1st St., Claremont
Claremont Packing House

C L A R E M O N T F O R U M . O R G

Filed Under: Announcements, Book Readings, Books, Interviews, News Tagged With: Claremont Forum, Meet the Author, Prison Library Project, prisons, writing

The Spirituality of Waiting
— An Advent Retreat led by Stillpoint

November 15, 2022 By Judith Favor

December 3, 2022

9:30am – 2:30pm PT

This retreat will be held online.
All sessions will be recorded
for later viewing.

When the external light lessens, creation takes its deep breath and enters a season of waiting. In her darkest hours creation waits, restoring herself and preparing for a new season of life and growth. But we are not good at waiting, we prefer to keep getting things done. The good news of Advent is that – like creation, we do not wait alone. We wait in community with others.

You are invited to an on-line guided contemplative retreat to pause and wait in the company of others to give attention to what needs restoring and what is waiting in you. Noticing how you are waiting for God, and how God is waiting for you.


RETREAT SCHEDULE

9:00am – 12:00pm PT
Morning Session


Lunch/Screen Break: 12:00pm – 1:00pm PT

Centering Prayer: 12:00pm – 12:20pm


1:00pm – 2:30pm PT
Afternoon Session

COST

$70 registration

Stillpoint desires to keep our retreat registration cost low in order to be accessible to everyone. There are a limited number of “no cost” options available.

REGISTER NOW

email banner image for The Spirituality of Waiting online Retreat at Stillpoint

Filed Under: Announcements, Ghost Ranch, News, Retreats, StillPoint Tagged With: Ghost Ranch, online, seminars, silent meditation, Spirituality & Practice, Stillpoint, workshops

Book Review: “Living Fellowship Needs Fresh Forms”
by Daphne Clement

October 12, 2022 By Judith Favor

During the pandemic, Daphne Clement, retired hospice chaplain and coordinator of spiritual care, began each day in worship on Zoom. For 19 months, waiting worship transformed COVID-19 lockdown into a life-sustaining spiritual retreat for Friends who gathered in collective connectedness.

“We are witness to the formation of an amazing technological society that has risen to meet the need for communion among Friends during the past year and a half of the pandemic,” Clement writes. “And we morning worshipers are so grateful for the innovation.”

She wonders about the future, inviting Friends to reflect on their own circumstances: “So, will our everyday Zoom worship endure?” Clement asks. “Is digital worship the new way of life?”

Living Fellowship Needs Fresh Forms

Filed Under: Book Reviews, News, Quakers Tagged With: Friends Journal, published, Spirituality & Practice, testimonial

“I’m Gonna Be a Part of It, New York, New York!”

October 11, 2022 By Judith Favor

Judith and Daughter Penelope in New York on the local news at a Foodie Exhibit
Judith and Daughter Penelope in New York
on the local news at a Foodie Exhibit.

Filed Under: Announcements, News, Travel Tagged With: cbs-news-new-york, Foodie Stuff, Penelope

Walk With Me — Book Review

August 3, 2022 By Judith Favor

Composite Image of Friends Journal August 22 Cover and Page 35 "Walk With Me Book Review" by Judith Favor
Judith Wright Favor portrait photoReviewer Judith Wright Favor is an elder member of Claremont Monthly, Southern California Quarterly, and Pacific Yearly Meetings. Her latest publication is the Pendle Hill pamphlet: Friending Rosie on Death Row.

You can read this Book Review online by following this link:

Walk with Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Essays, Quakers Tagged With: biography, Democracy, Friends Journal, Quakers, testimonial, writing

Review of Friending Rosie Pamphlet in Friends Journal

August 3, 2022 By Judith Favor

Image of the Book Review title and text in Friends Journal for the book review of the Friending Rosie Pamphlet
Judith Wright Favor portrait photo
READ MORE:

Friending Rosie on Death Row

FULL TEXT:

The Pendle Hill pamphlet Friending Rosie on Death Row documents a 20-year friendship between a non-incarcerated Quaker and a formerly Catholic woman who was condemned to die for murder. (There is also a longer book with a similar name, Friending Rosie: Respect on Death Row, available from Page Publishing. It includes more of Rosie’s first-person views and is targeted to a general audience.) Author Judith Favor draws on her own memories as well as letters Maria del Rosio Alfaro (Rosie) wrote to her from death row in Central California Women’s Facility. Alfaro permitted Favor to publish certain pieces of correspondence while requesting others be kept private.

Favor explains that she and Alfaro want to encourage others to commit to friendships that transcend barriers of privilege, race, class, and criminal justice system involvement.

Stories like ours help us answer some of life’s big hows and whys: What makes people commit impulsive acts of violence? How can one awful choice disrupt so many lives? How can we mend past mistakes? Where is love in all this?

Favor recounts a conversation in which Alfaro, convicted of fatally stabbing nine-year-old Autumn Wallace while drug impaired and sentenced to die in a gas chamber, weeps as she recalls the day of the crime. Favor explains that discussing the details of the murder is not the purpose of her writing. Rather she intends to demonstrate how loving connections can transcend any issues resulting from a dark past.

Reading about Elizabeth Fry, a Quaker prisoner advocate in nineteenth-century Britain, inspired Favor to correspond with an incarcerated woman. Raised Protestant, Favor discovered Quaker advices and queries while unemployed and avoiding homelessness by staying with a Friend who worshiped at Palo Alto Meeting in California. Quaker testimonies inspired her to affirm the spiritual worth of every person by befriending someone behind bars. Favor re-envisioned the prophet Micah’s age-old question “What does the Lord require of you?” to read “What does Love require of you?” The answer given in the book of Micah is “to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (6:8 NASB). Cultivating a friendship with Alfaro enabled Favor to practice justice, kindness, and humility.

The women confide in each other in letters and during visits. Alfaro tells Favor about a fight she engaged in as well as the prevalence of drug abuse in the prison. She describes her daily activities and remarks on the ceaseless, deafening noise. Favor tells Alfaro about her divorce, and Alfaro responds with compassion:

I’m very sorry to hear about your divorce. I don’t even know what to say, my heart goes out to you and him. Tell me, friend, how are you handling this? I don’t know what made you both do what you’re doing, but all I can say is that I’m here for you. I know that at times it feels good to talk to someone about our problems, and vent to let it out. So if ever you feel that, please know I’m here for you.

The pamphlet challenges readers to ask what we can do to step outside of comfortable social circles and engage with incarcerated people who we might not initially think of as potential friends. It invites us to explore how we can acknowledge that of God in everyone.

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Quakers Tagged With: Friending Rosie, Friends Journal, Quakers, writing

RESTING IN LOVE —
The Healing Balm of Silence: (in-person) Silent Retreat

July 8, 2022 By Judith Favor

September 30 – October 2, 2022

Experience a weekend of quiet in the beauty of the Redwoods. Silence can soothe our bodies and minds in order to better attend to the longings of our souls. To nurture the silence, optional activities will be offered including meditative writing, soul collage, walking meditation in nature, and healing meditation. There will also be opening and closing worship sharing and Meetings for Worship. This retreat is for first timers as well as those who have participated in many silent retreats.


A woman sits quietly in meditation at the Quaker Center

“Sacred places have constancy in them…because we, who worship in them, imbue them with our lives, our hopes, and our concerns. ..Many of us have favorite places where we sit, where friendship with God and each other is brought to mind and heart….where our souls are remembered into presence and service.”
(4–5) Gunilla Norris, Cultivating Sanctuary, PHP 466


About our PROGRAM LEADERS:

Judith Wright Favor portrait photoJudith Wright Favor is a member of Claremont Friends Meeting who also serves Southern California Quarterly and Pacific Yearly Meeting.  She taught at Claremont School of Theology and facilitated AVP workshops in California prisons. Judith’s ministry includes writing for publication, soul companionship and retreat leadership.

 

Judy Leshefka portrait photoJudy Leshefka is a member of La Jolla Friends Meeting.  She helped start the Annual Friends’ Silent Retreat which has been offered in Southern California every Labor Day weekend for the last 25 years.  Silence has been her primary spiritual practice since her teenage years.

for REGISTRATION INFORMATION
watch this space and/ or our website: www.QuakerCenter.org

Map Pinned Location of the Quaker Center near Santa Cruz

Location of the Quaker Center near Santa Cruz, CA

Filed Under: Announcements, Quaker Center, Quakers, Retreats Tagged With: Bay Area, co-presenters, silent meditation, weekends

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    Recent Posts

    • Claremont Authors Event on 9/30/2023 September 10, 2023
    • BOOK REVIEW: What We Owe the Future August 24, 2023
    • BOOK REVIEW: The School That Escaped the Nazis: The True Story of the Schoolteacher Who Defied Hitler
      by Deborah Cadbury
      February 2, 2023
    • Meet the Author: Jan 14th/4pm at The Claremont Forum January 9, 2023
    • The Spirituality of Waiting
      — An Advent Retreat led by Stillpoint
      November 15, 2022
    • Book Review: “Living Fellowship Needs Fresh Forms”
      by Daphne Clement
      October 12, 2022
    • “I’m Gonna Be a Part of It, New York, New York!” October 11, 2022
    • Walk With Me — Book Review August 3, 2022
    • Review of Friending Rosie Pamphlet in Friends Journal August 3, 2022
    • RESTING IN LOVE —
      The Healing Balm of Silence: (in-person) Silent Retreat
      July 8, 2022
    • Rosie Review by Judy Lumb in What Canst Thou Say? July 1, 2022
    • Writing Your Ethical Will June 29, 2022
    • Interfaithfully Speaking: Connecting Interfaithfully with People in Prison (Claremont Courier Article) March 6, 2022
    • Friending Rosie Book Review by Jon M. Sweeney February 17, 2022
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    • Friending Rosie: Page Publishing October 21, 2021
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    • Epiphany Writing Retreat August 21, 2021
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    • Sabbath Economics published on November 11, 2020 November 10, 2020
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      December 10, 2018
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