“[I] once sat on a clearness committee for a couple [where the husband had had an affair]. They had been married many many years, and are still happily married. What it took for them to get through this was commitment and courage. They both wanted to save their marriage; they both were willing to be radically honest and to listen to the other one speak…”
“The purpose of meeting for worship is to listen to each other, to listen to God, and to deepen our relationship with God by deepening our love for each other.
The purpose of a Quaker committee is to serve the needs of our meeting and to practice worship.
The purpose of a committee is not necessarily to solve a problem quickly.”
“God speaks, touches, and reveals in God’s own way and in God’s own time. Still, the presence of certain conditions, such as trust, prayer, and patience, makes discernment of God’s call more likely. Having or meeting these conditions does not mean that we will discern God’s call, only that discernment becomes more likely…”
“Our commitment to Quaker process isn’t primarily a commitment to efficiency. It’s a commitment to being the body of Christ, with all the discomfort that life in the body entails. When we fail in our process, we fail in our life as the body, because failure of the process inevitably means that one part of the body has been judged to mean less to the body than another part of the body.”
“The variable that marks some periods as barren and some as rich in prophetic vision is in the interest, the level of seeking, the responsiveness of the hearers. The variable is NOT in the presence or absence, or the relative quality and force, of the prophetic voices. Prophets grow in stature as people respond to their message. If their early attempts are ignored or spurned their talent may wither away.”
“I want to put this in such a way that you get a little scared about your responsibility. Because you should be. Not so scared you’re paralyzed and not able to do it, but aware that we are suspending the normal rules of social discourse in a very profound way and inviting you into a parallel universe and alternate reality.”
“One day while plowing I heard a voice, whether inside me or outside of me I knew not, but I was awake. It said, ‘Go thou and see the president.’ I answered, ‘Yea, Lord, thy servant heareth.’ And unhitching my plow, I went at once to the house and said to mother, ‘Wilt thou go with me to Washington to see the president?’ ‘Who sends thee?’ she asked. ‘The Lord,’ I answered.”
“When God taps a person on the shoulder and says, ‘Do this,’ a natural response – and perhaps the only appropriate response – seems to be, ‘Who, me? I am not adequate.’
In contrast to the fishermen who left their nets when Jesus said, ‘Follow me,’ many are the stories of prophets who need to hear the words ‘Fear not, for I am with you.'”
“It hath been an objection in the minds of many, and several times hath been objected by the clergy, or ministers and others, against women’s speaking in the church; and so consequently may be taken, that they are condemned for meddling in the things of God.”
“I am a man who has been ‘kicked’ by God, just as a boy kicks a ball in the direction he wants it to go. I have been driven and led by Him.”
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