“The pacifist is literally a peace-maker. He is not a passive or negative person who proposes to lie back and do nothing in the face of injustice, unrighteousness and rampant evil. He stands for ‘the fiery positive.’ Pacifism is not a theory; it is a way of life. It is something you are and do.”
“There are three aspects of the Quaker understanding of life in the early days of the Society. […] The first is that religion must be experimental and experiential. […] The second is the sense that true religion has implications for the whole of one’s life. […] The final starting point is the dedication to certain means as the most valuable and truest approaches to God. […] There is the basis for true unity, and that is the determination to testify honestly and fully to whatever is most deeply meaningful to each of us and to engage in dialogue with all others who are equally willing to be known by what matters most in life to them.”
“In the time of great trouble there may be life stirring underneath, and a true and tender sense, and pure desires, in which there may be a drawing nigh and breathing of heart to the Lord; but, in the time of trouble and great darkness, may not a man easily desire amiss, and pray amiss, if he have not his guide. A little praying from God’s Spirit, and in that which is true and pure, is better than thousands of vehement desires in one’s own will, and after the flesh.”
“Breathe in the quiet purpose of this place; / Through outward stillness, seek a calm within. / Here we can find forgiveness and forgive; / Here feel the healing miracle begin.”
“[Minor ecstasies are] bits of star dust which are for all of us, however limited our opportunities. […] Something seen, something heard, something felt, flashes upon one with a bright freshness, and the heart, tired and sick or sad or merely indifferent, stirs and lifts in answer. Exercising our faculty for minor ecstasies may actually increase the number of them we feel.”
“My experience is that there is a single root of our faith and life as a religious society — a taproot much older and runs much deeper than Quakerism. The taproot of a tree runs straight down from the trunk into the deepest soil, anchoring the tree against storms and providing nurture from the very deepest of sources. There may be hundreds of secondary roots, but only the taproot is necessary for the tree to survive and thrive. The Big Story — the Cosmic Story — is the story of creation’s eternally repeated encounters with its taproot.”
“I remember when I first encountered Elise Boulding’s idea that joy can be rooted in something deeper than happiness – it was a revelation that set me free to be at peace with my range of emotions and not to try and suppress or control them, but to appreciate each as it comes, grounded in joy. Monday’s message from Boulding set us on a path this week of inward exploration, further punctuated by Margaret Fell’s description of the Light on Tuesday.”
“There is a profundity and subtlety in such pictures that we never should have missed. Such painting carries the universe in its bosom. It sets forth the Infinite, the Everlasting Background and Source of all things, and shows us the infinite particulars as out-jutting revelations of Itself. Out from It they came, back into It they retire. There is no disconnection; the finite is a fragmentary disclosure of the Infinite, a rhythm-filled continuation of that unspeakably full Life which gives it birth.”
“I give myself this advice: Do not fear truth, let it be ever so contrary to inclination and feeling. Never give up the search after it; and let me take courage, and try from the bottom of my heart to do that which I believe truth dictates.”
“When George Fox was initially on his spiritual quest to understand the true nature of faith and Christianity, he was living in the midst of full-on Christendom, that is state-sponsored Christianity or Christianity twisted to become comfortable acting as ‘the religion of empire.’”
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