Food is an Open Hand of Friendship

Food is an Open Hand of Friendship

“The revival of Christian hospitality in which the members of the meeting partake of food with one another is essential. Visitors to the meeting and new members are especially grateful for this open hand of friendship. The increasingly elaborate meals which many consider it necessary to set before guests have made this hospitality difficult for persons in moderate circumstances, but a return to simplicity would help in bringing about the revival of this precious sacrament.”

In Turbulent Times, Be Quaker

In Turbulent Times, Be Quaker

“I am always cagey around Quaker history. I have no Quaker roots in my family that I know of, I have not even experienced children’s meetings or young Quaker gatherings.

There are few better ways to feel second class in a Quaker community than when reminded by another Friend of how rich and important their Quaker ancestry is.

It is perhaps no surprise really that I connect more with the early Friends – theirs was a time where everyone came in as an enquirer, a seeker.”

A Gathered Community

A Gathered Community

We do not want to discount the experience of Friends who live at too great a distance from their meeting to participate regularly, nor to deny that each of us must come individually to a sense of what is right and true and essential in spiritual matters. But time and experience have proven the value of a close, responsive community in fostering individual spiritual growth, in testing and tempering individual leadings and individual understanding, and in supporting individuals as they are called to act or to suffer for religious principle.

The Spiritual Gifts of Others

The Spiritual Gifts of Others

One of the universal responsibilities, especially of elders, but also of all members, is to be sensitive to the latent, but awakening spiritual gifts of others, and to offer encouragement for their increased service to the meeting. A kindly word of appreciation, counsel, or guidance may render a welcome service to one who is very much aware of a strange stirring within, yet somewhat bewildered by it.

Build Afresh the Fires of Inspiration

Build Afresh the Fires of Inspiration

We are a busy people (engaged in arduous occupations, in the work of the world, sometimes losing sight of the higher interests of life). And so we have been getting together every two years among other things to catch fresh inspiration from the look into each other’s faces, to learn from each other what can be done, what is being done, in the various fields of right and elevated effort, and to renew our zeal to build afresh the fires of inspiration.

As Individuals, We See Only Partially

As Individuals, We See Only Partially

Although God calls each of us personally, as individuals we see only partially. Individual perception, reasoning, and understanding are always limited. Even a person who feels absolutely certain that a specific revelation comes from God may be mistaken as to how it is to be applied. Because God often reveals part of the picture to one person and another part to another person, it is prudent to consult one another to discern God’s counsel, guidance, and direction, even if there is no apparent reason to do so.

Our Highest and Holiest Ideals

Our Highest and Holiest Ideals

We’re not a seminary where beliefs must be memorized and affirmed. We are a community, a collection of people who believe if you create a rich and meaningful and compassionate community, then those who participate in that community will soak up those virtues, will marinate in those virtues, and will become who we ought to be through osmosis, through the gradual assimilation of the highest ideals we can imagine.

Brothering the Souls of Others

Brothering the Souls of Others

Quakers enter the service of silent waiting not alone or in a series of separate reveries but in a company of worshipers; they know something of the needs of their fellow worshipers; they know something of the sufferings and needs of the world. Often they are conscious of a whole redemptive company of faithful departed ones who are engaged in this all-embracing struggle as well.

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