Summer Break
July-August 2025: These messages are from the summer break, when the Daily Quaker Message delivered one powerful message each week.
-
-
Let Your Life Breathe
“Our lives are busy and chaotic and full, but our goals can be simple: make time for the work Spirit has given us and make time for each other. For me, and I suspect for many of you, those are often the same thing. If I don’t let my life breathe, how can I expect to let it speak?”
-
The Closest Thing on Earth to Eternity
“Simplicity begins with a leap of faith – faith in oneself and, for many, faith in their creator. Simplicity will enable you to leap lightly. Increasingly you will find yourself living in a state of grace, finding […] the sacred in the ordinary, the mystical in the mundane. Shedding regret for the past and concern for the future, you will begin to live fully in the present moment, which is the closest thing on earth to eternity.”
-
How to Grow in Holy Truth
“If any should think, that we placed religion barely in outward conformity and plainness, such are greatly mistaken; so far from it, that if we should outwardly conform in every thing, in which the Holy Scriptures direct us unto, or that godly elders are moved of the Lord to advise; yet, if our hearts are not right in His sight, and we do not witness a growth in His holy Truth, all the external conformity and plainness in the world, though good in itself, will avail us nothing as to Divine acceptance.”
-
The False Promise of Advertising
“Advertising often offers us a material product, technique or device to achieve a limited, outward expression of the very desire for human solidarity, intimacy, closeness and love that we are called into in our most profound spiritual experiences. The right clothing, cosmetics, beverages, accoutrements are portrayed as necessary to our entering into a warm, happy life with others that holds no grief, anger or fear.”
-
Outwardly More Simple, Inwardly More Rich
“Voluntary Simplicity is a manner of living that is outwardly more simple and inwardly more rich, a way of being in which our most authentic and alive self is brought into direct and conscious contact with living. This way of life is not a static condition to be achieved, but an ever-changing balance that must be continuously and consciously made real.”
-
Simplicity as a Way to Avoid War Tax
“Living on a reduced income is related to our refusal [to pay war taxes] only as a progression of awareness, that our entire economic life is tied into violence. It seemed logical that the less we participated, the less we’d be giving to that system.”
-
The Secret of Contentment
“I know the experience of being in need and of having more than enough; I have learned the secret to being content in any and every circumstance, whether full or hungry or whether having plenty or being poor. I can endure all these things through the power of the one who gives me strength.”
-
The Interruptions Are as Integral as the Plan
“When I imagine my own life simple and uncomplicated, I picture my room and desk tidy, everything in its place. I myself am moving gracefully and graciously from one task to the next with precision, on schedule but with no strain or pressure. The schedule and the tasks are perfectly synchronized. It could all be so simple, I say to myself, if everything were only in its place.”
-
Our Senses Are Given to Us to Enjoy
“All our senses are given to us to enjoy, and to praise God. The smell of the sea, of the blossom borne on the wind, of the soft flesh of a little baby; the taste of a ripe plum or bread fresh from the oven, the feel of warm cat’s fur, or the body of a lover – these are all forms of thanksgiving prayer.”
End of content
End of content