Dear friends, This morning’s visit with Jacob featured laughter, pathos, irony, and lots of talk about horticulture. Jacob demonstrated his trademark equanimity, offering a range of pithy insights which I quote below. He also looked a little bit drained, which initially caused me some concern. However, it turns out that his energy level was low for a good reason, which I will explain. Before doing that, I want to acknowledge the end of the road for the Philadelphia Philli

On this, the first Saturday of autumn, Beth and I awoke before sunrise to prepare for our weekly trip to Sheridan, Oregon, to spend time with Jacob in the prison camp visiting area. I walked outside in the darkness to see the full moon – fittingly called the “harvest moon” – setting in the western sky. Our drive was bathed in the glow of early morning, taking us out of the Portland metro area and into the vegetable fields, fruit orchards, and vineyards of the central Willamet

On this morning’s weekly pilgrimage to Sheridan Prison Camp (our third), Beth and I reminded ourselves that this is precisely why we came here to Portland, Oregon: so that we could see, hear, and touch our beloved son Jacob on a regular basis. We had a vision, an ambiguous plan, a lot of faith, and oodles of love and Light and support from our extended community. Thank you, dear reader, for being a crucial part of that community. Thanks to you, we are able to be living into o

The Thee Quaker Podcast interview of Jacob (and me) has just been posted. I invite you to set aside 37 minutes sometime soon to hear Jacob's gentle baritone voice. I am deeply grateful to Zack Jackson and Jon Watts for their work in creating the Thee Quaker Project platform, and this piece of work in particular. In the hours since this podcast was released, there has been a steady drumbeat of subscriptions to the 900DaysofLight blog posts. Please share this with your network,

We got to visit with Jacob again this morning! (Henceforth, this will now be our regular Saturday morning routine, until he walks free.) Beth and I woke up in Portland before sunrise, hopped in our car at 6:45, and pointed it southwest. One hour and 20 minutes later, we found ourselves in the parking lot of the Sheridan Prison Camp. Along the way we had passed numerous tree farms and fields of grapes, pumpkins, kale, apples, lettuce, hops, and more. The early morning sun bath

We got to visit Jacob in person today! I am relieved and grateful to be able to report that he is doing well, given the givens. (Exhale) Beth and I arrived promptly at 8 AM at Sheridan Prison Camp, prepared for a whole host of scenarios, not knowing what to expect, on multiple levels. We had dressed in compliance with the written regulations, and had prepared a bag containing food and photographs, imagining we might be waiting for hours. We did not know whether we would be su

This article about Jacob in the Portland Mercury just dropped. I believe it is not only accurate and reflective of the larger context, it is deeply humanizing. The author has successfully painted a picture that invites people into the story at multiple levels: as parents, as children, as friends, as citizens, as people of faith, and also as dog-owners. This is a high-quality piece of journalism, in my humble and thoroughly-biased opinion. I plan to send an update after our

On Day 38 of his journey, Jacob appears to be making lemonade out of the lemons he has been served. One person who heard from Jacob wrote: “I love the way he’s not only making the best of this experience; he seems to be turning it into something positive that he couldn't have created for himself if he’d wanted to before.” Jacob wrote to me: “I said to someone here recently that one of the things I've been keeping most centrally in mind is that I have something in common wit

Today is Day 31 of Jacob’s incarceration. One month. Using the metaphor of a marathon, we are approaching the end of Mile 1. We got this. Below are some themes and highlights from the past week: · Jacob has confirmed that our visitation paperwork has been received. Hooray! Now we wait. (That is, we keep waiting.) We look forward to getting to see him in person soon. · We have spoken with Jacob on the phone almost daily for the past 3 weeks, which has been a life

Dear friends, · You may now sign up to get notified when a Jacob update gets posted. Huzzah! · Thanks to the technical assistance of one of Jacob’s friends from his graduate program at PSU, I have added to the website a “blog” section, where I intend to post updates about Jacob on a regular basis, along with the subscription functionality. · Enter your email address and click “Subscribe” in order to receive notifications when a new entry is posted. Go ther

Jacob's father reports: "On Day 17, I am pleased to share that Jacob is doing well, all things considered. His resilient spirit, relentless positivity, and deep integrity are serving him well. He LOVES receiving letters! He has highly-restricted access to outgoing phone calls and email to a short list of approved recipients (text only; no attachments; no internet access). Jacob is on a top bunk of a bunkbed in a room with 19 other men. He is allowed to take private showers. H