“If there is an identifiable Quaker approach to service, we could hope that it is embodied in this: that as in worship we follow the leadings of the Spirit and the Light faithfully, we are prepared to be led where it takes us — to let go of comfortable certainties and be taken into new knowledge, and also into painful and difficult experiences.”
“Tim Buckley is the CEO of Vanguard, one of the world’s largest investment management firms. Vanguard holds about $300 billion invested in fossil fuels, with about $101 billion invested in coal. As such, he has incredible power and sway in the world of fossil fuel investment. We’re walking to his house today to hold Quaker-style Meeting for Worship. It is simultaneously a spiritual gathering for worship and a campaign action organized by Earth Quaker Action Team.”
“As a faith practice, sanctuary brings back into focus our community’s covenant to serve the Peaceable Kingdom. First, sanctuary cannot be reduced to or dismissed as a matter of individual conscience. An individual may provide refuge to the violated and may even prophesy, but only a congregation can gather as a church and enter into the communion that is sanctuary. Second, the practice of sanctuary fuses the concerns that are separate and even competing issues when relegated to the faith practice of individuals.”
“Young William Penn, a gentleman of high social status, had heard Quakers preach and had experienced an opening of the Spirit in his own life. After a few months he had the opportunity of meeting George Fox, the inspiring leader of the Religious Society of Friends. Penn was obviously troubled in his conscience about following the custom of his class of wearing a sword. So he asked Fox, ‘How long should I wear my sword?’ Fox replied in the Quaker language of that day, ‘Wear thy sword as long as thou canst.'”
“In prayer, the seeds of concern have a way of appearing. Often enough a concern begins in a feeling of being liable, personally responsible for someone or some event. With it may come an intimation that one should do some little thing: speak to some person, make an inquiry into a certain situation, write a letter, send some money, send a book. Or it may be a stop in our minds about some pending decision, or a clear directive that now is not the time to rest, or an urge to stay home when we had been meaning to be away.”
“My cosmic love, or the Divine Lover loving within me, cannot accomplish its full intent, which is universal saviourhood, within the limits of three score years and ten.* But the Loving Presence does not burden us equally with all things, but considerately puts upon each of us just a few central tasks as emphatic responsibilities. For each of us these special undertakings are our share in the joyous burdens of love.”
“About thirteen miles north of Nashville, I heard the racket of approaching police cars. In a few seconds the bus came to a sudden stop. A police car and two motorcycles drew up to us. Four police came thundering into the bus. They consulted shortly with the driver and then came back to me.”
“When compared with bodily action, what could seem more inactive than waiting upon God? The modern world asks, ‘Where will that get you?’ Young people say, ‘We want action.’ Yet, as we have seen, it was precisely through this and other apparently inactive means that the early Friends came into a power of whole action that surpasses anything that we experience today.”
“I have thought this morning, whether we, as a Society, do not suffer more than we need, by expecting too much of ourselves; whether our hope and reliance is sufficiently on Him whom we desire to become our all in all; experience has taught me, that Christ in me, or His saying and anointing power in me, is indeed my only hope of glory. I look not to myself, but to that within me, that has to my admiration proved to be my present help, and enabled me to do what I believe myself I could not have done.”
“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”
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