How to Bring Your Spiritual Self to Politics

How to Bring Your Spiritual Self to Politics

“Despite the irritation you may feel about political candidates who pander to fear and despite the frustration you may have for the media/entertainment industry that fuels the rhetoric of fear, I encourage you to bring your spiritual selves to politics. Bring the certain knowledge that God’s love is abundant. Bring your hope that is fostered through the dedicated worship we share, the time of contemplation when we make ourselves open to continuing revelation, to discerning God’s call for us in this broken, yet beautiful world.”

What it Means to Be Incarnation People

What it Means to Be Incarnation People

“No matter what else we may imagine the life of Jesus to be, it is certainly understood to be a revelation of God’s love through a human life, and what that means, among other things, is that humans and God are not so far apart as we may be led to believe, that God’s love would be revealed to us through a human life. That sort of ups the ante in terms of what it means to be incarnation people, because if God’s love can be revealed through a human life, then God’s love can be revealed through my life.”

Activism Is a Species of Worship

Activism Is a Species of Worship

“[Though the legacy of John Woolman,] we are invited to see our activism as a species of worship. For activists, this is an invitation to root our activism more fully in the transforming power of meeting for worship and the love of God we encounter there. For those who are more of a contemplative than an activist orientation, it challenges us to broaden our understanding of the boundaries of the meetinghouse, and the boundaries of worship itself.”

“Love” can be the toughest or the fluffiest word in the language

“Love” can be the toughest or the fluffiest word in the language

“The sense of being answerable to the testimonies* may sound like a burden. Indeed, many people who are attracted by Quaker life find it daunting, demanding unsustainable standards of them. Others may reject it, as many reject the peace testimony, as unrealistically idealistic, divorced from everyday life. They may even shrug it off as hypocrisy.”

Dare to speak out

Dare to speak out

“Granted that Quakers have a tradition in civil liberties, what are they doing now? We ought to be hesitant to glory in past acts and quick to recognize that too often Quakers live today on the legacies of respect left by the rebels of yesteryear rather than to dare to speak out on modern equivalents of problems which landed their ancestors in prison.” 

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.”

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