“[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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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, 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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“True godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it, and excites their endeavours to mend it; not to hide their candle under a bushel, but to set it upon a table in a candlestick.”
“Those of us known as ‘activists’ have sometimes been hurt by the written or spoken implication that we must be spending too little time on our spiritual contemplative lives. I do know many atheists who are active to improve the lot of humankind. But, for those of us who are Friends, our attendance at meeting for worship and our silent prayerful times are what make our outer activity viable and effective – if it is effective.”
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