EDITORS PICKS

Highlights from last week's QuakerQuaker Editor Picks. All accessible from our Tumblr at http://daily.quakerquaker.org

Young adults in leadership…

More on Discipline

 In Part 3 I compared Quaker Discipline as found during the period of Quietism to other religious disciplines such as those used in monasticism and among the Amish.  But there are other contexts where people follow a Discipline, or Rule.  And I thought it might be fruitful to see how disciplines function in these other areas; perhaps that will shed light on the meaning of Discipline in a Quaker Quietist context.

 Games are a simple example of Discipline, in…

I can't say I'm a blogger, although I do like to share thoughts and it helps me to look back at myself and see where I am. It's been a long journey and sometimes difficult, but at the same time beautiful. I won't digress over the past as this has gone and there is a need to be looking forward, taking good experience from what has gone before.

Yesterday I went to my first meeting, at last! I say first as I did go a few years ago when I was back in England, although I don't count that…

When it comes to love, Quakers are reluctant to face the stark reality that we are always the bridesmaid. Truth, unlike in politics, forbids us from claiming tough love, on the one hand, or the liberal bleeding heart, on the other. Nomenclators of history remind us that a rose by any other name, as "compassionate conservatism", is both thorny to handle and false to itself.

Like the beloved disciple, we should honestly admit being loved rather than loving. Truly, for us, love is…

Chapter 18 of Minding the Light: Our Collective Journal is now available online and attached as a PDF file, below. For this chapter, we invited Friends to respond to the query, "When did an experience of the Light help you discover something about yourself?" There are 9 stories and an image in response to this query.…

There is a difference between what Keith offered in his last comment on this post and what you, Jim, have referred to as "formless styles of contemplation." The practice of the latter is an approach, a context or setting, an empty space that is prepared within, with the hope and faith that Christ will come to teach us himself. On the other hand, what Keith was ministering in his last comment was the spirit of Christ, the Substance, the One for whom the setting or context of emptiness is…

Let love be your highest goal! But you should also desire the special abilities the Spirit gives--especially the ability to prophesy. For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit. But one who prophesies strengthens others, encourages them, and comforts them.- 1st Corinthians 14: 1-3

________

I admit that I wasn’t sure what to…

It is my hope that most Americans will one day agree on the following three items:

The need to scale back

  - the size and scope of our military intervention

  - the war on drugs and the resultant mass incarceration 

  - domestic and international…

Interpreting Our Past – Part 3

 The Logic of Withdrawal

 The period of Quietism is marked by a sense of withdrawal from the social sphere.  This should not be exaggerated as Quakers did continue to be involved in various political causes and concerns, notably the abolition of slavery.  Still, relatively speaking, Quakers in the period of Quietism became more inward, more contemplative, and less engaged with the specifically political. 

 I’m not a very learned Quaker…

Centering: As inspires the Court of Quaker Opinion, attention is given to that which is found within ourselves.

Re-centering: You mean below the surface of facile and trite approaches to encountering that of God?

Centering: That of God at the center of every human being.

Re-centering: That would be the ego, or "I", and not the Other, or "Thou".

Centering: God, as Other, is found within each person, if looked for there.

Re-centering: Sounds convenient if the…

The author of a piece entitled "Why Quakerism is not a soft option" writes:

These days, through living in a multi-cultural world we are much more aware that an experience of God cannot be confined to one particular religion.

This sentiment is expressed in various contexts and in various ways throughout the Quaker realm and…

~August Dawn~ 

Do you have a sacred sound? A sound that you recognize as coming from the Spirit? A sound that touches your soul in a meaningful way? I sat next to a six year old in Meeting for Worship today. An hour more or less of silence. Of course Meeting for Worship is never silent. Each Meeting has it’s rhythms of exterior and…

I had the honour to represent Swiss Friends at the Sweden Yearly Meeting in Svartbäckgarden. Here are some of my personal reflections on that gathering:

Complacent lives and radical thoughts

Interpreting Our Past – Part 2

Discipline

 One of the characteristics of the period of Quietism is that the Quaker community was governed by a code of Discipline, which is to say a code of conduct.  Williams sums up some of the code on page 126 with items that include prohibitions on alcohol, tobacco, cursing, failure to read scripture regularly, and others.  I have read a number of Disciplines from this period in a book called ‘The Old Discipline’ and I think Williams’s…

Hi everyone! This is a process dissection of how to put together the cape dress from Friends Patterns. Thin plum coloured cotton is used.

Photo #1 - Neck pleats on bodice back. Just baste these like so.…

I became a Quaker in the mid-1970s, joining Germantown Friends Meeting. Hardly a week has gone by since that I haven’t wondered why I was a Friend. I wonder what that means to me, and I wonder how that may (or may not) come across to others.

It’s odd being a Quaker; people view you as odd if you are one. For myself, I’ve never particularly wanted either the weirdness that some attach to Quakers nor the honorific that others attach. For more than a decade before joining I struggled…

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was not the words of homo-sapiens. The Word was God, but languages the simulacrum. As imitation can be a form of flattery, humanity is a nice reflection(we resemble God's re-mark?) of the Word. Made in the image and likeness of Love and Truth, however, is a big bill to pay.

As it was much easier to look to the natural world for the measure of human worth, the picture of perfection was painted over. The Master-piece, as hidden, became…