January 2025: This month we examine how our relationship with nature can inspire our spirituality. We will read about Friends who have experienced divine ecstasy or received messages in the wilderness, consider our responsibility as stewards of the earth, and be invited to participate in exercises that strengthen our connection to creation.
“I was early convinced in my mind that true religion consisted in an inward life wherein the heart doth love and reverence God the Creator and learns to exercise true justice and goodness not only toward all men but also toward the brute creation.”
“Creation is not only about pristine perfection; it is about the messy compromise of politics, the beauty and ambiguity of art, the violence of war and the belligerence of free moral agents, the raw edges of literature and music, the tragic. It is about pastures and fields, yes, but also about planted fields and the genetic modification of the seed in those fields. In short, a doctrine of creation places us in conversation with ourselves about humanity and about human effort.”
“One morning as I was sitting by the fire, a great cloud came over me, and a temptation beset me; but I sat still. It was said, ‘All things come by nature’; and the elements and stars came over me, so that I was in a manner quite clouded with it. …And as I sat still under it, and let it alone, a living hope arose in me, and a true voice which said, ‘There is a living God who made all things.’”
“A few years ago I joined a spiritual friendship group at my meeting because I was curious about others’ spiritual lives and looking for inspiration for my own. What I heard were personal accounts of mysticism, from the miraculous (“I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard a voice shouting at me!”) to the prosaic (“Way opened, and I followed.”). Frankly, I was jealous; I was sure that Spirit had never spoken to me.”
“In 1948, there were 750,000 refugees on the Gaza strip; the new state of Israel had just been established. The UN asked [American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)] to take responsibility for feeding, housing, etc. At the meeting of the AFSC Board of Directors, all speakers said the work needed doing, but all agreed it was just too big for the Service Committee. They counseled that we should say no, with regrets. Then the chairman called for a period of silence, prayer, meditation. Ten or fifteen minutes went by in which no one spoke. The chairman opened the discussion once again. The view around the table was completely changed: ‘Of course, we have to do it.’ There was complete unity.”
“[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.”
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