Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations.  Members of these movements ("the Friends") are generally united by a belief in each human's ability to experience the light within or "answering that of God in every one".  Some profess a priesthood of all believers inspired by the First Epistle of Peter.  They include those with evangelical, holiness, liberal, and traditional Quaker understandings of Christianity.  There are also Nontheist Quakers, whose spiritual practice does not rely on the existence of God.  In 2017, there were an estimated 377,557 adult Quakers, 49% of them in Africa.  Some 89% of Quakers worldwide belong to evangelical and programmed branches that hold services with singing and a prepared Bible message coordinated by a pastor.  Some 11% practice waiting worship or unprogrammed worship (commonly Meeting for Worship) where the unplanned order of service is mainly silent and may include unprepared vocal ministry from those present.  Some meetings of both types have Recorded Ministers present, Friends recognised for their gift of vocal ministry.  The proto-evangelical Christian movement dubbed Quakerism arose in mid-17th-century England from the Legatine-Arians and other dissenting Protestant groups breaking with the established Church of England.  The Quakers, especially the Valiant Sixty, sought to convert others by travelling through Britain and overseas preaching the Gospel.  Some early Quaker ministers were women.  They based their message on a belief that "Christ has come to teach his people himself," stressing direct relations with God through Jesus Christ and direct belief in the universal priesthood of all believers.  This personal religious experience of Christ was acquired by direct experience and by reading and studying the Bible. Quakers focused their private lives on behaviour and speech reflecting emotional purity and the light of God, with a goal of Christian perfection.   Past Quakers were known to use thee as an ordinary pronoun, refuse to participate in war, wear plain dress, refuse to swear oaths, oppose slavery, and practice teetotalism.   Some Quakers founded banks and financial institutions, including Barclays, Lloyds, and Friends Provident; manufacturers including the footwear firm of C. & J. Clark and the big three British confectionery makers Cadbury, Rowntree and Fry; and philanthropic efforts, including abolition of slavery, prison reform, and social justice.  In 1947, in recognition of their dedication to peace and the common good, Quakers represented by the British Friends Service Council and the American Friends Service Committee were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quakers  

Edward Hoagland (born December 21, 1932) is an American author best known for his nature and travel writing.  Hoagland was born in New York, New York and attended Harvard University.  He joined the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in the summers of 1951 and 1952.  He helped to tend the big cats and later sold a novel about this experience, Cat Man (1955), before graduating from Harvard in 1954.  After serving two years in the Army, he published The Circle Home (1960), a novel about boxing, before going on the first of nine trips to Alaska and British Columbia.  During the 1970s, he made the first two of his five trips to Africa.  After receiving two Guggenheim Fellowships, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1982.  He has taught at The New School, Rutgers, Sarah Lawrence, CUNY, the University of Iowa, U.C. Davis, Columbia University, Beloit College, and Brown University.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Hoagland  

Novelist and essayist Edward Hoagland has written a memoir titled Compass Point, How I Lived in the form of eleven loosely interconnected autobiographical essays.  In his opening salvo, "In the Country of the Blind," explores his experience with a years-long descent into almost total blindness from which he was eventually saved by surgery.  

greige (not comparable)  adjective (textiles)  Of clothing, textiles, etc.: neither bleached nor dyed, nor otherwise fully processed; unfinished.  Of a colour like that of unbleached or undyed fabric, between grey and beige.  greige (countable and uncountable, plural greiges) noun  A colour like that of unbleached or undyed fabric between grey and beige, closely akin to taupe.  https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/greige#English  

Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh opened on Broadway October 9, 1946.  The New York Times published its first “Books” section on October 10, 1896.  Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was published on October 12, 1979. Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? opened in New York City on October 13, 1962.  Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature October 13, 2016.  Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth was published on October 14, 1905.  Winnie-the-Pooh was published on October 14, 1926.  Literary Hub  October 8, 2023 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2729  October 9, 2023