“Over the margins of life comes a whisper, a faint call, a premonition of richer living which we know we are passing by. Strained by the very mad pace of our daily outer burdens, we are further strained by an inward uneasiness, because we have hints that there is a way of life vastly richer and deeper than all this hurried existence, a life of unhurried serenity and peace and power.”
“Over-busyness is one of the diseases that has infected Quakerism, not only here, but throughout the Society of Friends… Too many of us too often find ourselves caught in a merry-go-round of activities and responsibilities, and we do not take adequate time to get centered or sufficient time to nurture ourselves… The world of the spirit is real, and our journey into wholeness has to include time for us to be consciously aware of the life of our spirits.”
“Why with all our labor-saving devices and fast transport, are we so short of time? Is it because we are greedy of experience for its own sake? — to see more, go farther, earn more, learn more, than is feasible in one short lifetime? The human soul needs time, needs to take time, unless experience is to become mere accumulation, bearing bad fruit, like any other kind of ambition.”
“You are worthy of rest. We don’t have to earn rest. Rest is not a luxury, a privilege, or a bonus we must wait for once we are burned out. I hear so many repeat the myth of rest being a privilege and I understand this concept and still deeply disagree with it. Rest is not a privilege because our bodies are still our own, no matter what the current systems teach us. The more we think of rest as a luxury, the more we buy into the systemic lies of grind culture.”
“Stayed awake some time last night, and much enjoyed the stillness around me; it was a lovely night, the stars looked very beautiful, and reminded me of the 19th Psalm [‘The heavens declare the glory of God; / the skies proclaim the work of his hands.’]; it was a time I shall long remember, for I was favoured to enjoy much peace.”
“There is, it sometimes seems, an excess of religious and social busyness these days, a round of committees and conferences and journeyings, of which the cost in ‘peaceable wisdom’ is not sufficiently counted. Sometimes we appear overmuch to count as merit our participation in these things… At least we ought to make sure that we sacrifice our leisure for something worthy.”
“[Jesus said,] ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.'”
December 2025: Each of us deserves rest, not because we’ve “earned” it, or because we are preparing ourselves for productivity, but because we have divine light within us, inherent value. These messages explore the relationship between rest and spirituality, the idea that we can be outwardly busy but inwardly resting and prayerful, and the Quaker concept of retirement, routinely setting aside time for a devotional practice.
“For those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope you had a happy one! The Daily Quaker Message spent the last month exploring the theme of Gratitude. In early Quaker texts, this sentiment was more often communicated as “awe” before God, and we read excerpts from journals where a feeling that began as reverence for the Divine moved Friends to feel thankful for life’s blessings.
Though gratitude isn’t one of the Quaker Testimonies, engaging in gratitude necessarily means engaging more deeply with Quaker values, and is a tool some Friends use to help them enter into worship. Paired with humility, a gratitude practice can be a transformational force of compassion and set the practitioner up to choose happiness, even in times of suffering.”
“When I consider the short extent of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the small space that I fill or even see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces unknown to me and which know me not, I am terrified and astounded to find myself here and not there.”
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