Gather to consider the following query:
How might we promote PEACE in a climate of fear and division?
NCFM is taking Seeking Quakers on the road, so to speak. This month, we’ll meet in Conference room 2 at Northside Branch Library at 1423 North High St.
If you’d like to join via Zoom, please email Brian and he will work with you. edmiston.1@osu.edu
Interested in learning more about Quakers? Interested in deepening your sense of Truth and the Inner Light with Friends? Join us at 6:00pm on the 1st Wednesday of the month to explore a query (that’s Quakerspeak for an open-ended question) and related readings.
The query and readings will be posted on this event page and sent out via the NCFM email list.
It is open to anyone regardless of their relationship to Quakerism, level of experience, or relationship with any branch of Quakerism. All are welcome. No registration or RSVP required. Please join as led, it’s ok to arrive late. Companionable listeners are welcome.
This month is:
How might we promote PEACE in a climate of fear and division?
Resources
From Wikipedia (always open to revision!):
Quakers bear witness or testify to their religious beliefs in their spiritual lives, [92] drawing on
the James advice that faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead
From quakerInfor.com
That Friends are pacifists does not mean Friends are passive. Drawing from Revelation, Friends believed in the concept of the “Lamb’s War” a war fought with spiritual weapons
not carnal ones. The peace testimony is not just about negatives. It requires us to live as peacemakers – with families, colleagues and neighbors as well as internationally. Over the centuries, Friends have been involved in a variety of efforts such as relief for war victims, seeking to foster understanding among diplomats of hostile nations, mediation, and training people in how to respond nonviolently in conflict situations.
From Wikipedia:
In a declaration to King Charles II of England in 1660 by George Fox and 11 others: All bloody principles and practices we do utterly deny, with all outward wars, and strife, and fightings with outward weapons, for any end, or under any pretence whatsoever, and this is our testimony to the whole world.
Not all Quakers embrace this testimony as an absolute; for example, there were Friends that fought in World War I and World War II.
From Britain Yearly Meeting:
Peace testimony
Quakers’ original refusal to bear arms has been broadened to embrace protests and demonstrations in opposition to government policies of war and confrontations with others who bear arms, whatever the reason, in the support of peace and active nonviolence.
Quakers have coupled their refusal to fight with work to provide relief and rehabilitation to the victims of war, on both sides
Whether they are part of peacebuilding or non-formal diplomacy, quiet off the record meetings provide opportunities to discuss issues, weaken stereotypes, listen to experts and be listened to. The Quaker stance is ‘balanced partiality’. Participants know they will not take sides but will seek to help everyone equally out of the impasse and the violence Quakers have played a significant role in the creation and support of peace organisations not run by Quakers. Examples include Oxfam, Amnesty International, and of course the UN and the League of Nations.
In 1947 Friends as a worldwide religious group were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which was accepted by the American Friends Service Committee and the then London Yearly Meeting’s Friends Service Committee
Some quotes about peace:
“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.”
― Gautama Buddha
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate:
only love can do that.” Martin Luther King Jr.
“The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
“Peace is more than the absence of war. Peace is accord. Harmony.”
― Laini Taylor
“Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find
peace.”
― Albert Schweitzer
“Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day:
– I shall not fear anyone on Earth.
– I shall fear only God.
– I shall not bear ill will toward anyone.
– I shall not submit to injustice from anyone.
– I shall conquer untruth by truth. And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
“If there is to be peace in the world,
There must be peace in the nations.
If there is to be peace in the nations,
There must be peace in the cities.
If there is to be peace in the cities,
There must be peace between neighbors.
If there is to be peace between neighbors,
There must be peace in the home.
If there is to be peace in the home,
There must be peace in the heart.”
― Lao Tsu
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
― Wendell Berry,
Contact Info
If you have questions or would like to discuss accessibility or transportation needs, please contact Brian at outreachinreach@gmail.com
Wednesday, October 4, 2023 – 6:00pm to 7:30pm
Northside Library, conference room 2
1423 North High St Columbus, OH 43201
North Columbus Friends Meeting (Quakers) 