“Quakers are good at respecting the rights of the individual, knowing they are human beings at all ages – not acting as if they become so at some point in their lives. Whilst, as older, supposedly wiser, people, we have suggested, refused or insisted – we always explain; even if, in desperation, that’s been ‘Because I’m the parent – trust me!’ There are boundaries and rules set from a mutual expectation of trust and reasonableness.”
“Something of God comes into our world with every child that is born. There is here with the newborn child a divine spark, a light within.”
“When many of us hear the word ‘prophecy’, we imagine fortune tellers and future predictions, but true prophetic witness is not about predicting what will happen tomorrow. It’s about an absolute inability to tolerate what is happening today.”
“I am called into this moment, and I don’t know what I’m called to do, but the notion that there is a great need and the world is depending on us is something I feel in my bones.”
“I know that a lot of Friends feel uncomfortable with conflict, so it’s a question of being willing to take the risk. And one of the great things about taking the risk is that you will inspire others to take a risk, and they, in turn, will inspire others to take a risk.”
“I choose to believe God is calling us to intimacy these days, to be intimate and provocative. In a way, we are reaching for the soil of each other’s souls. And when we reach for that soil, how are we tilling the field of the soul in order to awaken the seeds of […] a better world than the one we’re living in? But [we must] also be able to hold the pain and the sorrow and the sadness and the grief that we’re not there yet. We’re not there yet.”
“Hope has nothing to do with what you think is going to happen, and everything to do with where you point your life, sometimes in spite of the odds, rather than because of them.”
“Quaker anger, that’s discomforting for a lot of people. We are a religion that believes in continuing revelation… that the messages are there if you simply listen. And sometimes, when you listen to the messages, they’re telling you very uncomfortable things. They’re telling you to get off your ass and do something. They’re telling you to not just sit there and pontificate or feel stricken…. I feel stricken a lot, but I don’t want to sit. I want to do something, and that doing something usually means writing or speaking to people. And if you simply sit back in your pew and feel stricken, it’s not good enough. It really isn’t.”
“Prophetic witness means… that there’s another possibility that is equally real and perhaps more real, and we’re choosing to live in allegiance to that. That becomes an opposition to all that is contrary to human flourishing and to justice and to wholeness and to healing.
So my hope and my prayer is that each of us will be faithful to what we’re given, and to trust that there is a greater love at work, even in these dark times, and especially, in fact, in these times.”
April 20-26, 2026: This week’s messages are guest edited by Zack Jackson, a podcaster, pastor, and professor. He lifts up stories of spiritual courage as the producer and co-host of Thee Quaker Podcast. Along with his wife Nichole, he is the co-founder of Open Table United Church of Christ in Pottstown, PA.
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