Quakers and Nature

“One morning as I was sitting by the fire, a great cloud came over me, and a temptation beset me; but I sat still. It was said, ‘All things come by nature’; and the elements and stars came over me, so that I was in a manner quite clouded with it. …And as I sat still under it, and let it alone, a living hope arose in me, and a true voice which said, ‘There is a living God who made all things.’”

“Creation is not only about pristine perfection; it is about the messy compromise of politics, the beauty and ambiguity of art, the violence of war and the belligerence of free moral agents, the raw edges of literature and music, the tragic. It is about pastures and fields, yes, but also about planted fields and the genetic modification of the seed in those fields. In short, a doctrine of creation places us in conversation with ourselves about humanity and about human effort.”

“I was early convinced in my mind that true religion consisted in an inward life wherein the heart doth love and reverence God the Creator and learns to exercise true justice and goodness not only toward all men but also toward the brute creation.”

“Underlying all truths is the universal truth of a Divine present in all… This reflects the emphasis in Ubuntu theology, of the radical communal unity of humanity through the interdependent interpenetration of the Divine within all of creation, including human beings; through their intimate relationship with the Divine as created beings, each person is free to fully express the truth of their individuality while also acknowledging that such individuality can only exist as each individual is united with the rest of creation through the Divine.”

“To listen for the heartbeat of God is to listen both within the vastness of the universe and within the intimacy of our own hearts. And it is to know these distinct ways of listening as essentially one, as two aspects of the same posture of consciousness.” 

“Of course inanimate nature, that part of nature most easily thought of as made of atoms, cannot be totally unlike ourselves. According to the doctrine of evolution, inanimate nature is merely an early stage of ourselves. The only sound way to hold to the particulate, mechanistic doctrine is to insist that we also are mere particles in motion, a machine which is part of a larger machine.”

“One of our biggest difficulties, I think, is that we live so much in language and so much in a mediated world of electronic media and print media, all of which tends to distance us from our connection to the natural world. Getting into that sense beyond language is not only healthy for personal spiritual renewal, but it’s also crucial to reconnecting with the natural world, which is a nonverbal world.”

“To learn why you feel compelled to remake and consume the world, live alone in the wilderness for at least a week. Take no books or other distractions. Take simple, adequate food that requires little or no preparation. Don’t plan things to do when the week is over. Don’t do yoga or meditation that you think will result in self-improvement. Simply do nothing.”

“It is not only the scriptures of truth, but the sun and moon in their orbits, and the stars in their courses, will all testify of the mercy, goodness, and power of God. Neither shall we be induced to worship these, notwithstanding their brilliancy. We shall neither bow our knees, nor lift up our hands to any created object, because this would be denying that God who is above us all. Not only these, the most brilliant objects of his creative wisdom with which we are acquainted, but all the works of his hands proclaim themselves the workmanship of deity.”

“All species and the Earth itself have interdependent roles within Creation. Humankind is not the species, to whom all others are subservient, but one among many. All parts, all issues, are inextricably intertwined. Indeed the web of creation could be described as of three-ply thread: wherever we touch it we affect justice and peace and the health of all everywhere.”

“It has hatched and is desperate / to mate and die. Now, at 2 a.m. / in its middle age, the luna moth rests cockeyed / on my window ledge, lurching again at light…”

“Religions typically give prime importance to a reality greater than the individual self, a reality to which awe and respect, and sometimes even love or fear, is due. Guidance is sought and expected from this greater reality, which may or may not be conceived of as God, and which may encompass all of life, and even all that exists.”

“I considered that life was sweet in all living creatures, and the taking it away became a very tender point with me. The creatures […] were lent us to be governed in the Great Creator’s fear: and I feel free to refer my readers to his order and allowance in early times, while all the Lord’s works were in harmony, and pronounced by him to be very good…”

“Once upon a time, all humans knew their lives, their food, their survival, their sense of meaning and kinship with God or the gods was connected with all their relations: the hawks and soil and ferns and mosquitoes. Like all the other wild creatures, they belong to the land, and they knew it. They were untamed and self-willed and listened to their own intrinsic authority. They were part of a grand conversation, a relationship of reciprocity and respect, connecting them with all the other beings and elements of life.”

“I thought of myself as a former Peace Corps volunteer who had loved living in a mud hut, and now I had more bathrooms than I could keep clean. I thought of myself as a person who used canvas shopping bags twenty years before it was mainstream, but now with two cars and two electronics-addicted teenagers, I’d developed a low-level despair about my inability to protect the planet they would inherit. I’d been reading about how global warming was withering maize crops in Botswana, the southern African country where I had taught decades earlier – the place that had originally taught me about social responsibility. Our new house was so big, no one heard me when I cried…”

“It would go a great way to caution and direct people in their use of the world, that they were better studied and known in the creation of it.  For how could man find the confidence to abuse it, while they should see the great creator stare them in the face, in all in every part thereof?”

“At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled / after a night of rain. / I dip my cupped hands. I drink / a long time. It tastes / like stone, leaves, fire.”

“In my studies of the world’s various religions, I have noticed that miracles are important in all of them, miracles meaning events that go beyond any natural explanation and are believed to confirm the power and truth of each tradition.” 

“In the sun, the coming together of two hydrogen atoms at intense temperatures and pressures to form an atom of helium results in the release of an energy which is essential to our planet.  This energy has warmed the earth, set the stage for creation, and provided the supporting energy for all life on earth. The dance of the ever-moving atomic particles in the center of the sun could well be described as ‘ascending leaps of unpremeditated joy.'”

“We are building towards the climax of crisis. The spiritual crisis is folding into the ecological crisis and the ecological crisis is folding into the economic crisis. As Christians, it seems to me, we are now required to critically assess the capital driven market economy and identify it as a false religion, a fabulously productive but ultimately destructive system bringing closure on God’s goodness in creation and bringing a creeping atheism to the soul. To look this system straight in the eye and call it to account is a critical test of Biblical faith.”

“We are called to see what love can do: to love our neighbor as ourselves, to aid the widow and orphan, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, to appeal to consciences and bind the wounds.”  

“This is a marvelous world, full of beauty and splendour; it is also an unrelenting and savage world, and we are not the only living things prone to dominate if given the chance. In our fumbling, chaotic way, we do also make gardens, irrigate the desert, fly to the moon and compose symphonies. Some of us are trying to save species other than ourselves…”

When despair for the world grows in me / and I wake in the night at the least sound / in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, / I go and lie down where the wood drake / rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

“Our [Quaker] testimonies against war and inequality have been aimed at persuading people, and reminding ourselves, as to where their wealth lies: in the discovery of a common identity and a common cause with other human beings.”

“So then, there is the sweet communion…. the sweet joy and refreshment in the Lord our righteousness, who causeth righteousness to drop down from heaven, and truth to spring up out of the earth. And so our Father is felt blessing us, blessing our land, blessing our habitations, delighting in us and over us to do us good; and our land yields its increase to the Lord of Life, who hath redeemed it and planted the precious plants and seeds of life in it.”

“Our planet is seriously ill and we can feel the pain. We have been reminded of the many ways in which the future health of the earth is under threat as a result of our selfishness, ignorance and greed.  Our Earth needs attention, respect, love, care and prayer. In comfortable Britain we are largely insulated from the effects of the environmental crisis. It is the poor of the world who suffer first.”

“Whatever situation we face, we can choose our response. When facing overwhelming challenges, we might feel that our actions don’t count for much. Yet the kind of responses we make, and the degree to which we believe they count, are shaped by the way we think and feel about hope.”

“I realized that being in nature does give me spiritual nurture, even if I don’t seek it out all the time. Seeing myself as a tiny part of a whole earth community keeps me humble and gives me perspective. The outdoors has a quiet that’s different from silence, which invites me to regulate the rhythm of my body. And the immediacy of nature encourages me to set my urgent life aside and be present, if just for a moment.”