March 3-9, 2025: This week’s messages are guest edited by Right Sharing of World Resources (RSWR), a Quaker organization that works for equity and a life of dignity for all. RSWR programs promote partnerships with women in India, Guatemala, Kenya, and Sierra Leone and encourage those with diverse resources to embrace our shared responsibility for one another’s well being.
“Deep within us, amid our differentiations as individuals and nations and species, is the desire for oneness. This holy longing is found not only in the human soul but in the soul of the universe, at the heart of everything that has being. We are not an exception to the universe. We are an expression of the universe. Our longings are a unique manifestation of the universe’s longings. In listening to the depths of life, within our lives and within every life, we will hear the longings of the One that are deeper than the fears that divide us…”
“As an artist, I find that art helps both inspire and captivate one’s attention. I thoroughly enjoyed sharing a piece of my art in each of the messages this week. Some may be familiar as they have appeared in publications such as Friends Journal and Quaker Life. Others have been used to promote AFSC events, while still others have never been shared. I hope they have helped you focus your attention on our Friends and their words.”
“The first step of peace is to stand still in the light (which discovers things contrary to it) for power and strength to stand against that nature which the light discovers: here grace grows, here is God alone glorified and exalted.”
“There is no question that faith communities will continue to provide sanctuary whenever refugees need protection from government officials, that many of these communities consider sanctuary to be an essential part of what it means for the church to be the church…”
“We attend meetings to escape the agonies of an unjust society and to find personal refuge among like-minded Friends. Because our hearts are not stirred or our minds made sensitive to the injustices of the communities in which we live, we accommodate ourselves to a whole system of personal and group relationships in our neighborhoods and places of business—a system that has served to reinforce the assumption of white superiority. This way of life denies that there is that of God in every man, the vital message of Quakerism that provides the basis for the “blessed community” in which everyone can achieve freedom from want and fear and can realize his full potential as a human being.”
“Those that speak against the Power of the Lord, and the Spirit of the Lord speaking in a woman, simply, by reason of her Sex, or because she is a Woman, not regarding the Seed, and Spirit, and Power that speaks in her; such speak against Christ, and his Church, and are of the Seed of the Serpent, wherein lodgeth the enmity.”
“…We are not for Names, nor Men, nor Titles of Government, nor are we for this Party, nor against the other, because of its Name and Pretense; but we are for Justice and Mercy, and Truth and Peace, and true Freedom, that these may be exalted in our Nation; and that Goodness, Righteousness, Meekness, Temperance, Peace and Unity with God, and one with another, that these things may abound…such a Government are we seeking and waiting for, wherein Truth and Righteousness, Mercy and Justice, Unity and Love, and all the Fruits of Holiness may abound; and the contrary be removed, cast out, and limited.”
“What have we left to protect if in the process of defending our freedom we give up both democracy and principle? How can we love God, whom we have not seen, if we cannot, in times of crisis, find the way to love our brothers whom we have seen?”
“We had no idea we were supposed to get a lobster boat, until we ended up with a lobster boat, and then that became the symbol: this little white lobster boat in front of this big, hulking black ship of coal. We opened ourselves to a place of love and humility, knowing that we were supposed to be there but not having any sense of anger or opposition.”
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