The way to world peace

Reader Responses

What is a spiritual lesson that has shaped your life? How did you learn it?

Surrender results. I also had a yoga teacher who said she had a five-step method for each class: Prepare, Prepare, Prepare, Pray, and Do.

When I was a paid accountable minister in a large liberal denomination I was asked by the Ministry and Personnel Committee to submit my goals for the year. They were not happy when I submitted only one: to be faithful to Jesus Christ in my every thought, word, and action and then made vague reference to different aspects of my work. And when I tried to explain my answer, all I could see was blank faces. They did not get it.

Eventually we agreed that I would create a list of prayerful intentions. And although I was pre-Quaker at the time, this led to a broader turn of the importance of nonconformity. In this case using military and corporate concepts and language to do work led by faith. It is one of the reasons I felt comfortable as soon as I put myself among Friends.

Glenn M., Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

It’s one I feel I am learning now and have been going through for many months: the lesson that I need to let go, to trust that everything will be as it should, even if that feels contrary to what I think. I am experiencing this daily.

Natasha B., UK

The spiritual lesson that has shaped my life is that we-as-a-species need healthy competition with each other.

Modern representative democracy is my "true religion". No animal, totem, idea, ideal, tradition or scientific "discovery" can hold an unchallenged eternal truth. Ergo, all truths that we currently hold, self-evidently or otherwise, must by necessity be constantly and continuously tested through peaceful and healthy competition in order for the thing in question to remain legitimate and "true".

All political debate comes down in the end to two options: one side saying with validity that "we need to do more" vs another side saying with validity "we have done enough". Let us therefore strive against each other peacefully. 

I am enlightened by the aphorism "We never argue, we're not that close", and MLK's sermons on liking vs. loving our enemies. The ability to agree to disagree agreeably is the height of civilisation, and it is this I think of when I read Matthew 18:18-19: "Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. 19 Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven."

I am a committed Quaker and love our business practices for discernment of ways forward. However, I am also aware that Friends are a voluntary society, and thus I'm also convinced of the legitimacy of parliamentary procedures for legislation, with the knowledge that all laws can be overturned, peacefully.

David T., Bassendean, Western Australia, Australia