We Are a Gentle, Angry People
“We are a gentle, angry people /
And we are singing, singing for our lives /
We are a land of many colors /
And we are singing, singing for our lives”
Coming into Citizenship in a Heavenly Kingdom
“What we try to mend depends a good deal on what we perceive to be torn. The search for religious experience often originates in a sense of being alienated, separated, torn from the divine, the truth, the great community of the universe to which we yearn to belong. The religious experience itself often begins with a conversion (literally a ‘turning towards’), an experience of what might be called ‘disalienation,’ a coming into citizenship in a heavenly kingdom, an acceptance of membership in a divine community.”
Spirituality Is a Rehearsal
“For a musician, actor, or athlete, practice and rehearsal are simply steps toward the ultimate goal, the performance — the concert, the play, or the ball game. For a spiritually led person the same is true. The purpose of spiritual practice and rehearsal is to enable each of us to be spiritually led in the performance of our daily lives.”
The Soul Displayed in Ordinary Occupations
“For some it is right to give their whole lives explicitly to concrete forms of service, but for most their service will lie ‘in the sheer quality of the soul displayed in ordinary occupations.’ Such ordinary occupations are sometimes an essential contribution to the liberation of another person for wider service, and in any case, the inspiration of a dedicated life lived in simple surroundings, though often untraceable, may be profound in its reach.”
We Owe Much to Spiritual Rebels and Revolutionaries
“In contrast with debilitating conformism prevailing in our capitalist-communist world, there is the positive response to the irrepressible voice of the Eternal speaking to man deep within. It was response to this Voice which produced a compassionate Buddha, a pioneering Abraham, a stirring Isaiah, an appealing Zoroaster. Irrepressible Voice! Woe comes to the prophet who does not speak out. For he has failed the Eternal at a moment of crisis. The Eternal will raise another who will not fail to speak out. For His words which are Spirit and Light must be spoken through man in order to reach the conscience of men.”
How to Bring Your Spiritual Self to Politics
“Despite the irritation you may feel about political candidates who pander to fear and despite the frustration you may have for the media/entertainment industry that fuels the rhetoric of fear, I encourage you to bring your spiritual selves to politics. Bring the certain knowledge that God’s love is abundant. Bring your hope that is fostered through the dedicated worship we share, the time of contemplation when we make ourselves open to continuing revelation, to discerning God’s call for us in this broken, yet beautiful world.”
What it Means to Be Incarnation People
“No matter what else we may imagine the life of Jesus to be, it is certainly understood to be a revelation of God’s love through a human life, and what that means, among other things, is that humans and God are not so far apart as we may be led to believe, that God’s love would be revealed to us through a human life. That sort of ups the ante in terms of what it means to be incarnation people, because if God’s love can be revealed through a human life, then God’s love can be revealed through my life.”
Activism Is a Species of Worship
“[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.”
“Love” can be the toughest or the fluffiest word in the language
“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.”
Dare to speak out
“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.”
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