“As a nontheist Quaker, I’ve taken to phrasing this as “that of the light in everyone” for my own spiritual comfort. For me, this speaks to our interconnectedness and responsibility to steward our actions toward true equality and dignity for all [….] This also speaks to potential.”
“Our human nature is unmistakably double. There is something in us that the Divine Spirit can make its appeal to, something that draws us upward and onward, something that makes our moral and spiritual life possible. I think that this divine spark in us…is the most significant thing about us.”
“We think seeing that of God in everyone is the core of Quakerism, but really it’s the core of the whole Christian message and task, to learn to love as God loves. Seeing or answering that of God in others isn’t a mindset. I can’t just decide that’s what I’m going to do, and by sheer force of willpower begin to love as God loves. Only with God’s help, grace, and guidance can I truly recognize that of God in another, to love not as a simple intellectual exercise, but with my very heart and soul.”
“That which is known about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness, because God has shown it to them.”
“‘That of God in every man’ is not a human means of knowing like reason, intelligence, feeling, intuition, natural conscience or moral law within. It is a means of knowing that can be described as seeking counsel of the Creator. The Creator imparts his wisdom to man. This is not human wisdom, but the voice and wisdom of the Creator. We cannot produce the equivalent of this voice and this wisdom from our human resources. It must be heard and received.”
“Be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations wherever you come; that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of people, and to them; then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone; whereby in them you may be a blessing, and make the witness of God in them to bless you.”
October 2025: One of the fundamental beliefs of Quakerism is that there is “that of God in everyone,” which is taken from a quote by George Fox, the cofounder of the Religious Society of Friends. These messages strive to interpret that quote and explore ways to love our neighbors and ourselves.
In a time of increasing division and concern over the direction of our country and the world, it might feel superfluous or insufficient to spend our time sitting in silent worship. But this is exactly the moment to apply our nearly-400-year-old practice of waiting on the spirit to guide us.
“Besides its symbolic connection to the practice of silence in Quaker circles, even a short moment of silence is a useful practice that can be used throughout the day to stay physically grounded and awake to your own surroundings.“
“I read that I was supposed to make ‘a place for inward retirement and waiting upon God’ in my daily life, as the Queries in those days expressed it. At last I began to realise, first that I needed some kind of inner peace, and then that these apparently stuffy old Friends were really talking sense.
If I studied what they were trying to tell me, I might possibly find that the ‘place of inward retirement’ was not a place I had to go to, it was there all the time.”
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