The Most Joyous and Wondrous Thing We Can Do

The Most Joyous and Wondrous Thing We Can Do

“Finding and being found by that of God within me releases me from the dilemma of ‘Should I? Is it worth it? What good can I do?’ The answers to these questions are no longer important. What matters is that I must act, and that the task will be given to me. In my school motto was my answer — Servite in caritate — service with love.”

Every Human Being is Precious

Every Human Being is Precious

“Given the climate disaster that we are facing and the divisions that are happening politically, we have such an important role to play in highlighting that every human being is precious.”

Love Was the First Motion

Love Was the First Motion

“Love was the first motion, and thence a concern arose to spend some time with the Indians, that I might feel and understand their life and the Spirit they live in, if haply I might receive some instruction from them, or they be in any degree helped forward by my following the leadings of Truth amongst them.”

We Must Have Faith in Compassionate Motives

We Must Have Faith in Compassionate Motives

“The effects of our actions are largely beyond our control. Any happening they may influence has multiple causes that can never be unravelled; the contribution of what we did is as hard to assess as that of a single strand in a rope. We must have faith that if we purify our hearts, making our motives more compassionate, what we do will strengthen unimaginably the great forces that can save humanity.”

A Commitment to Moral Equality

A Commitment to Moral Equality

“Most of us would like to believe that we have no outsized biases in favor of kith and kin, but research findings from neuroscience make that pretty unlikely. My commitment to moral equality is thus a commitment to be as sensitive as I can to areas where my biases might lead me to make unwarranted assessments. We are challenged, first, to notice unfair practices — and then to speak out against them.”

Exciting Our Endeavors to Mend the World

Exciting Our Endeavors to Mend the World

“True godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it, and excites their endeavours to mend it; not to hide their candle under a bushel, but to set it upon a table in a candlestick.”

We Were All Made Differently

We Were All Made Differently

“Those of us known as ‘activists’ have sometimes been hurt by the written or spoken implication that we must be spending too little time on our spiritual contemplative lives. I do know many atheists who are active to improve the lot of humankind. But, for those of us who are Friends, our attendance at meeting for worship and our silent prayerful times are what make our outer activity viable and effective – if it is effective.”

A Gift is a Summons to Service

A Gift is a Summons to Service

“The man who can teach men has no right to raise turnips. Then, too, we all have special gifts and aptitudes which peculiarly fit us for some tasks rather than for other tasks. The very possession of a marked aptitude or gift is in itself a divine call and carries with it a summons to service – a noblesse oblige.”

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