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Light Up Your Winter: Living the Testimonies

Quakerism has no rigid creed, trusting instead in the continuous of truth amoung Friends. Still the testimonies- simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality-- have emerged as corporate leadings that have been tested repeatedly in the experience of Friends over time.

The following readings and links (following the readings) provide some background and a range of perspectives on the testimonies. In some of the readings, the word "testimony'' is not explicitly used although the idea of inner experience of the Light and its outward expression in action is there. We have also not tied readings to particular sessions, focusing instead on providing a variety of perspectives on the idea of a testimony. Also the boundaries between the testimonies are not distinct.

We are providing the readings and links here so that interested Friends can read them before they attend the Living the Testimonies sessions. This will allow the facilitators to spend their one-hour sessions sharing their own understanding, experience, practice and struggles with the testimonies and providing ample opportunity for participants to reflect upon their own experience and share and discuss with others.

Below are some notes on the five excerpts following:

# 1. From Parker Palmer's Let Your Life Speak (2000): Palmer is a Quaker who has communicated principles of Quakerism to a broad, general audience. Here he speaks of the struggle of getting in touch with the true self and its expression in authentic vocation.

#2. From Faith and Practice: Book of Discipline of the North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative) of the Religious Society of Friends (1983 Revision): The excerpt describes how the yearly meeting to which our monthly meeting belongs interprets the idea of t-estimony.

#3. From 's Voluntary Simplicity (1983) in the Northwest Earth Institute Discussion Course on Voluntary Simplicity: Reading this excerpt more than 10 years ago provided my (Virginia Lee) first nudge towards Quakerism.

#4. From John Woolman (1720-1772}'sjournal in Quaker Spirituality: Selected Writings: In this single entry, we can see several testimonies coming into play and Woolman's struggles with them.

#5. From Sandra Cronk's Peace Be with You: A Study of the Spiritual Basis of the Friends Peace Testimony (no date): Cronk writes from a distinctively Christocentric perspective. This passage speaks to the origins of the peace testimony and provides interesting historical perspective through her discussion of the Lamb's War, a powerful image for early Friends from the Book of .

Friends may also find the following links of interest: •

A short introduction to the testimonies at the Earlham School of website: htt : esr.earlham.edu su

A booklet on the Testimonies at the American Friends Service website:

Booklet. df r hour or two at the base of a tree, the creature we are waiting .~ for may well emerge, and out of the corner of an eye we will ~ CHAPTER II catch a glimpse of the precious wildness we seek. That is why the poem at the head of this chapter ends in silence-and why I find it a bit embarrassing that as this chap­ Now I BecomeMyself ter ends, I am drawing the reader not toward silence but toward speech, page after page of speech! I hope that my speech is faithful to what I have heard, in the silence, from my soul. And I hope that the reader who sits with this book can hear the silence that always surrounds us in the writing and reading of words. It is a silence that forever invites us to fathom A VISION OF VOCATION the meaning of our lives-and forever reminds us of depths of meaning that words will never touch. With twenty-one words, carefully chosen and artfully woven, May Sarton evokes the quest for vocation-at least, my quest for vocation-with candor and precision:

Now I become myself. It's taken time, many years and places. I have been dissolved and shaken, Worn other people's faces .... 1

What a long time it can take to become the person one has always been! How often in the process we mask ourselves in faces that are not our own. How much dissolving and • shaking of ego we must endure before we discover our deep identity-the true self within every human being that is the seed of authentic vocation.

8 LET YouR LIFE SPEAK 9 •

I first learned about vocation growing up in the church. become someone else! I have sometimes responded to that I value much about the religious tradition in which I was demand by ignoring the gift, or hiding it, or fleeing from it, or raised: its humility about its own convictions, its respect for squandering it-and I think I am not alone. There is a Hasidic the world's diversity, its concern for justice. But the idea of tale that reveals, with amazing brevity, both the universal ten­ "vocation" I picked up in those circles created distortion until dency to want to be someone else and the ultimate impor­ I grew strong enough to discard it. I mean the idea that voca­ tance of becoming one's self: Rabbi Zusya, when he was an tion, or calling, comes from a voice external to ourselves, a old man, said, "In the coming world, they will not ask me: voice of moral demand that asks us to become someone we are 'Why were you not Moses?' They will ask me: 'Why were you not yet-someone different, someone better, someone just not Zusya?' "2 beyond our reach. If you doubt that we all arrive in this world with gifts and That concept of vocation is rooted in a deep distrust of as a gift, pay attention to an infant or a very young child. A few selfhood, in the belief that the sinful self will always be "self­ years ago, my daughter and her newborn baby came to live ish" unless corrected by external forces of virtue. It is a notion with me for a while. Watching my granddaughter from her that made me feel inadequate to the task ofliving my own life, earliest days on earth, I was able, in my early fifties, to see creating guilt about the distance between who I was and who something that had eluded me as a twenty-something parent: I was supposed to be, leaving me exhausted as I labored to my granddaughter arrived in the world as this kind of person close the gap. rather than that, or that, or that. Today I understand vocation quite differently-not as a She did not show up as raw material to be shaped into goal to be achieved but as a gift to be received. Discovering whatever image the world might want her to take. She arrived vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just with her own gifted form, with the shape of her own sacred beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I soul. Biblical faith calls it the image of in which we are already possess. Vocation does not come from a voice "out all created. Merton calls it true self. call it there" calling me to become something I am not. It comes the inner light, or "that of God" in every person. The human­ from a voice "in here" calling me to be the person I was born ist tradition calls it identity and integrity. No matter what you to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God. call it, it is a pearl of great price. It is a strange gift, this birthright gift of self. Accepting it In those early days of my granddaughter's life, I began turns out to be even more demanding than attempting to observing the inclinations and proclivities that were planted in

10 LET YouR LIFE SPEAK Now I Become Myself II •

her at birth. I noticed, and I still notice, what she likes and dis­ When we lose track of true self, how can we pick up the likes, what she is drawn toward and repelled by, how she trail? One way is to seek clues in stories from our younger moves, what she does, what she says. years, years when we lived closer to our birthright gifts. A few I am gathering my observations in a letter. When my grand­ years ago, I found some clues to myself in a time machine of daughter reaches her late teens or early twenties, I will make sorts. A friend sent me a tattered copy of my high school news­ sure that my letter finds its way to her, with a preface something paper from May 1957 in which I had been interviewed about like this: "Here is a sketch of who you were from your earliest what I intended to do with my life. With the certainty to be days in this world. It is not a definitive picture-only you can expected of a high school senior, I told the interviewer that I draw that. But it was sketched by a person who loves you very would become a naval aviator and then take up a career in much. Perhaps these notes will help you do sooner something advertising. your grandfather did only later: remember who you were when I was indeed "wearing other people's faces," and I can tell you first arrived and reclaim the gift of true self." you exactly whose they were. My father worked with a man We arrive in this world with birthright gifts-then we who had once been a navy pilot. He was Irish, charismatic, spend the first half of our lives abandoning them or letting oth­ romantic, full of the wild blue yonder and a fair share of the ers disabuse us of them. As young people, we are surrounded blarney, and I wanted to be like him. The father of one of my by expectations that may have little to do with who we really boyhood friends was in advertising, and though I did not yearn are, expectations held by people who are not trying to discern to take on his persona, which was too buttoned-down for my our selfhood but to fit us into slots. In families, schools, work­ taste, I did yearn for the fast car and other large toys that places, and religious communities, we are trained away from seemed to be the accessories of his selfhood! true self toward images of acceptability; under social pressures These self-prophecies, now over forty years old, seem like racism and sexism our original shape is deformed beyond wildly misguided for a person who eventually became a recognition; and we ourselves, driven by fear, too often betray Quaker, a would-be pacifist, a writer, and an activist. Taken lit­ true self to gain the approval of others. erally, they illustrate how early in life we can lose track of who We are disabused of original giftedness in the first half of we are. But inspected through the lens of paradox, my desire ~;~ our lives. Then- if we are awake, aware, and able to admit our to become an aviator and an advertiser contain clues to the loss- we spend the second half trying to recover and reclaim core of true self that would take many years to emerge: clues, the gift we once possessed. by definition, are coded and must be deciphered.

12 LET YOUR LIFE SPEAK Now I Become Myself' 13 •

Hidden in my desire to become an "ad man" was a life­ I had always thought that the meaning of this paperwork long fascination with language and its power to persuade, the was obvious: fascinated with flight, I wanted to be a pilot, or same fascination that has kept me writing incessantly for at least an aeronautical engineer. But recently, when I found decades. Hidden in my desire to become a naval aviator was a couple of these literary artifacts in an old cardboard box, I something more complex: a personal engagement with the suddenly saw the truth, and it was more obvious than I had problem of violence that expressed itself at first in military fan­ imagined. I didn't want to be a pilot or an aeronautical engi­ tasies and then, over a period of many years, resolved itself in neer or anything else related to aviation. I wanted to be an the pacifism I aspire to today. When I flip the coin of identity author, to make books-a task I have been attempting from I held to so tightly in high school, I find the paradoxical the third grade to this very moment! "opposite" that emerged as the years went by. From the beginning, our lives lay down clues to selfhoocl If I go farther back, to an earlier stage of my life, the clues and vocation, though the clues may be hard to decode. But need less deciphering to yield insight into my birthright gifts trying to interpret them is profoundly worthwhile-especially and callings. In grade school, I became fascinated with the when we are in our twenties or thirties or forties, feeling pro­ mysteries of flight. As many boys did in those days, I spent end­ foundly lost, having wandered, or been dragged, far away from less hours, after school and on weekends, designing, crafting, our birthright gifts. , .. flying, and (usually) crashing model airplanes made of fragile Those clues are helpful in counteracting the conven­ balsa wood. tional concept of vocation, which insists that our lives must be Unlike most boys, however, I also spent long hours creat­ driven by "oughts." As noble as that may sound, we do not find ing eight- and twelve-page books about aviation. I would turn our callings by conforming ourselves to some abstract moral a sheet of paper sideways; draw a vertical line down the mid­ code. We find our callings by claiming authentic selfhoocl, by dle; make diagrams of, say, the cross-section of a wing; roll the being who we are, by dwelling in the world as Zusya rather sheet into a typewriter; and peck out a caption explaining how than straining to be Moses. The deepest vocational question is air moving across an airfoil creates a vacuum that lifts the not "What ought I to do with my life?" It is the more elemen- plane. Then I would fold that sheet in half along with several tal and demanding "Who am I? What is my nature?" ~ others I had made, staple the collection together clown the Everything in the universe has a nature, which means spine, and painstakingly illustrate the cover. limits as well as potentials, a truth well known by people who

14 LET YouR LIFE SPEAK Now I Become Mysel( 15 •

work daily with the things of the world. Making pottery, for thing), but in the nature of the human self, in what brings the example, involves more than telling the clay what to become. self joy, the deep joy of knowing that we are here on earth to The clay presses back on the potter's hands, telling her what it be the gifts that God created. can and cannot do-and if she fails to listen, the outcome will Contrary to the conventions of our thinly moralistic cul­ be both frail and ungainly. Engineering involves more than ture, this emphasis on gladness and selfhood is not selfish. The telling materials what they must do. If the engineer does not Quaker teacher Douglas Steere was fond of saying that honor the nature of the steel or the wood or the stone, his fail­ the ancient human question "Who am I?" leads inevitably ure will go well beyond aesthetics: the bridge or the building to the equally important question "Whose am I?" -for there will collapse and put human life in peril. is no selfhood outside of relationship. We must ask the ques- 1 The human self also has a nature, limits as well as poten­ tion of selfhood and answer it as honestly as we can, no mat­ tials. If you seek vocation without understanding the material ter where it takes us. Only as we do so can we discover the you are working with, what you build with your life will be community of our lives. ungainly and may well put lives in peril, your own and some As I learn more about the seed of true self that was of those around you. "raking it" in the service of high values planted when I was born, I also learn more about the ecosys­ is no virtue and has nothing to do with vocation. It is an igno­ tem in which I was planted-the network of communal rela­ rant, sometimes arrogant, attempt to override one's nature, tions in which I am called to live responsively, accountably, and it will always fail. and joyfully with beings of every sort. Only when I know both Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic self­ seed and system, self and community, can I embody the great hood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we commandment to love both my neighbor and myself. ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks-we will also find our path of authentic service in the world. True vocation joins self and service, as Frederick Buechner asserts when he defines vocation as "the JOURNEY INTO DARKNESS v place where your deep gladness meets the world's deep need."3 Buechner's definition starts with the self and moves Most of us arrive at a sense of self and vocation only after a toward the needs of the world: it begins, wisely, where voca­ long journey through alien lands. But this journey bears no tion begins-not in what the world needs (which is every- resemblance to the trouble-free "travel packages" sold by the

16 LET YOUR LIH SPEAK Now I Become Myself 17 ;#t-- Because Friends see all individuals to be graced with such good gifts, we also see that God demands a great deal from them. From the begin­ ning of our Society, we have heard a call to perfection and have believed DOCTRINES AND TESTIMONIES that this perfection in freedom from actual sin is possible in this world. Perfection means living up to the measure of Light that is given. If we are • A religious movement which recognizes that Revelation of Truth is con­ faithful in a little, we shall be given more. This is not an infinite process, tinuous and that any person may be a channel for it, cannot be governed but rather the attainable goal of maturing inner capacities. by a rigid creed. A wide variety of beliefs and practices will be found Despite our emphasis on the inwardness of true religion, Friends do among its members, but underlying these will be certain distinctive doc­ not deny the reality of objective religious and moral authority. We depend trines. The following statement of the testimony of Friends is an attempt on enlightened conscience and reason in the individual and group. The to point out certain ideas which traditionally have been used in describing pragmatic tests of practical experience, and the witness of the Scriptures the faith and practice of the Society. also act as checks upon one's interpretation of the Light. I. The Inner Light Friends are well aware of the need to maintain watchfully the humility The experience of the "Inner Light," or the "Light of Christ," is the cen­ necessary to receive respectfully the insights of the meeting and the trad­ ter of the life of Friends and the ultimate source of all our testimonies. itional wisdom of others, being always mindful, however, that the ultimate The Inner Light is what Friends call "that of God" in every person which, requirement of conviction is one's commitment to the Inner Light. Friends believe, can be known directly without another's interpretation. Therefore, we hold no outward authority as final and believe in a con­ The Inner Light gives illumination and clarity to conscience, generating tinuing revelation. "The Canon of Scripture may be closed, but the inspi­ an inward compulsion to follow the leadings of its Spirit. This Spirit is the ration of the Holy Spirit has not ceased." If this Spirit gives one a clear love of God, implanted in all/overcoming the ambivalence of conscience·, leading, it must be followed as the supreme guide to perceive religious and leading us to a powerful conviction of God's will for our lives. and moral truth. The Inner Light is our experience of and connection with God. Accord­ II. Simplicity ing to Friends this experience involves"a body of convictions about God's nature and His requirements concerning our dealings with all persons: The heart of Quaker ethics is summed up in the word "Simplicity." Sim­ When this body of convictions has consolidated itself in one's inner life plicity is forgetfulness_ of self and rem~ml:>r~nc;eofour humble status as and style of outward conduct, it is called "Truth." This Truth is a way of waiting servants of God. Outwardly~·simplicity is shunning supe.riluitielsoT following the spirit and not the letter of the law. dress, speech, behavior, and possessions, which tend to obscure our vi­ sion of reality. Inwardly, simplicity is spiritual from the things All persons are capable of perceiving, recognizing, and responding to of this world as part of the effort to fulfill the first commandment: to love God - to His Truth, His love, and His will - as it is given to us in the Light. God with all of the heart and mind and strength. As George Fox expressed it: The testimony of outward simplicity began as a protest against the ex­ This is the Word of the Lord God to you all and a charge travagance and snobbery which marked English society in the 1600's. In to you all in the presence of the Living God; be patterns, whatever forms this protest is maintained today, it must still be seen as a be examples to all countries, places, islands, nations, testimony against involvement with things which tend to dilute our ener- t ' wherever you come; that your carriage and life may gies and scatter our thoughts, reducing us to lives of triviality and preach among all sorts of people, and to them; then you mediocrity. will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every one. Simplicity does not mean drabness or narrowness but is essentially positive, being the capacity for selectivity in one who holds attention on From this it can be seen that Friends believe in the universality of the goal. Thus simplicity is an appreciation of all that is helpful toward liv­ Grace. To Friends, God reaches out to all people everywhere through the ing as children of the Living God. Light, communicating His will, helping them to direct their affairs, and em­ powering them to fulfill this will and direction. The deeper meaning of simplicity can be seen in the stand of Friends against the taking of oaths. Friends believe that their word should be ac-

6 7 cepted at any time among all persons and thus abjure the right to stand simply on their own word rather than swearing by God to a purity of pur­ pose in which God alone is certain. Friends, therefore, "affirm" rather than use oaths requiring them to swear on the Bible or before God, a wit­ ness which has gained universal recognition in modern legal practice . •

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::(f-3 I-3 VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY AND THE made real. Simplicity in this sense is not simple. To maintain a skillful balance between the inner and outer aspects of our lives is NEW GLOBAL CHALLENGE an enormously challenging and continuously changing process. From Voluntary Simplicity by Duane Elgin, 1993 The objective is not dogmatically to live with less, but is a more­ demanding intention of living with balance in order to find a life At the heart of the simple life is an emphasis on harmonious of greater purpose, fulfillment, and satisfaction. and purposeful living. Richard Gregg was a student of Gandhi's teaching and, in 1936, he wrote the following about a life .of "voluntary simplidty": Voluntary Simplidty involves both inner and outer condition. It means singleness of purpose, sincerity and honesty within, as well as avoidance of exterior dutter, of many possessions irrelevant to the chief purpose of life. It means an ordering and guiding of our energy and our desires, a partial restraint in some directions in order to secure greater abundance of life in other directions. It involves a deliberate organization of life for a purpose. Of course, as different people have berately, different purposes in life, what is relevant to the purpose of one person :an you might not be relevant to the purpose of another... The degree of mdings, simplification is a matter for each individual to settle for himself. s in the There is no spedal virtue to the phrase voluntary simplidty­ it is merely a label, and a somewhat awkward label at that. Still, it does acknowledge explidtly that simpler living integrates both inner and outer aspects of life into an organic and purposeful whole. To live more voluntarily is to live more deliberately, inten=-7 tionally, and purposefully-in short, it is to live more consdously. yY_e carmot be deliberate w~en we are distracted frmn.life. We can­ not be intentional when we are not paying attention. We cannot be purposeful when we are not being present. Therefore, to act in a voluntary manner is to be aware of ourselves as we move 1pter 6 is through life. This requires that we not only pay attention to the d outer actions we take in the outer world, but also that we pay attention to ourselves acting-our inner world. To the extent that we do not mual for notice both inner and outer aspetts of our passage through life, ::>luntary then our capadty for voluntary, deliberate, a{\d purposeful action . I :ises for IS commensurately diminished. - To live more simply is to live more purposefully and with a lins one minimum of needless distraction. The particular expression of . nourish simplidty is a personal matter. We each know where our lives are affirma- unnecessarily complicated. We are all painfully aware of the clutter and pretense that weigh upon us and make our passage through the ~more cumbersome and awkward. To live more simply is to unburden ourselves-to live more lightly, cleanly, aerodynamically. It is to establis~ more direct, unpretentious, and unencumbered relationship with all aspects of our lives~the things that we consume, the work that we do, our relation"S"'hips With others, our connections with nature and the cosmos, and more. Simplidty of living means meeting life face-to-face. It means confronting life dearly, without unnecessary distractions. It means being direct and honest in relationships of all kinds. It means taking life as it is-straight and unadulterated. When we combine these two ideas for integrating the inner anct outer aspects of our lives, we can describe voluntary simplidty as a manner of living that is outwardly more simple and inwardly more richfa way of being in which our most authentic and alive self is brought into direct and consdous contact with livini]This Way of life is not a static condition to be achieved, but an ever­ changing balance that must be continuously and consdously

NoRTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE -=ff:Lf JOHN WOOLMAN

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# # ! After a while my former acquaintance gave over expecting me as one of their company, and I began to be known to some whose conversation was helpful to me. And now, as I had experienced the love of God through Jesus Christ to redeem me from many pollutions and to be a succour to me through a sea of conflicts, with which no person was fully acquainted, and as my heart was often enlarged in this heavenly principle, I felt a tender compassion for the youth who remained entangled in snares like those which had entangled me. From one month to another this love and tenderness increased, and my mind was more strongly engaged for the good of my fellow creatures. I went to meetings in an awful frame of mind and endeavoured to be inwardly acquainted with the language of the True Shepherd. And one day being under a strong exercise of spirit, I stood up and said some words in a meetin but not kee in close to the diVine opening, sa1 more ~was required

167 QUAKER SPIRITUALITY JOHN WOOLMAN

which inwardly moves upon the heart and taught [me] to wait m thing was sudden, and though the thoughts of writing an instrument silence sometimes many weeks together, until I felt that rise which of slavery for one of my fellow creatures felt uneasy, yet I remem­ prepares the creature to stand like a trumpet through which the Lord bered I was hired by the year, that it was my master who directed me speaks to his flock. to do it, and that it was an elderly man, a member of our Society, who In the management of my outward affairs I may say with thank­ bought her; so through weakness I gave way and wrote it, but at the • fulness I found Truth to be my support, and I was respected in my executing it, I was so afflicted in my mind that I said before my master's family, who came to live in Mount Holly within two years master and the Friend that I believed slavekeeping to be a practice after my going there. inconsistent wi'th the Christian religion. This in some degree abated About the twenty-third year of my age, I had many fresh and my uneasiness, yet as often as I reflected seriously upon it I thought I heavenly openings in respect to the care and providence, of the should have been clearer if I had desired to be excused from it as a Almighty over his creatures in general, and over man as the most thing against my conscience, for such it was. And some time after this noble amongst those which are visible. And being clearly convinced a young man of our Society spake to me to write an instrument of in my judgment that to place my whole trust in God was best for me, slavery, he having lately taken a Negro into his house. I told him I I felt renewed engagements that in all things I mighf act on an was not easy to write it, for though many kept slaves in our Society, inward principle of virtue and pursue worldly business no further as in others, I still believed the practice was not right, and desired to than as Truth opened my way therein. be excused from writing [it]. I spoke to him in good will, and he told About the time called Christmas I observed many people from me that keeping slaves was not altogether agreeable to his mind, but the country and dwellers in town who, resorting to the public houses, that the slave being a gift made to his wife, he had accepted of spent their time in drinking and vain sports, tending to corrupt one her. [30-33] another, on which account I was much troubled. At one house in particular there was much disorder, and I believed it was a duty laid on me to go and speak to the master of that house. I considered I was young and that several elderly Friends in town had opportunity to see these things, and though I would gladly have been excused, yet I could not feel my mind clear. The exercise was heavy, and as I was reading what the Almighty said to Ezekiel respecting his duty as a watchman, the matter was set home more clearly; and then with prayer and tears I besought the Lord for his assistance, who in loving-kindness gave me a resigned heart. Then at a suitable opportunity I went to the public house, and seeing the man amongst a company, I went to him and told him I wanted to speak with him; so we went aside, and there in the fear and dread of the Almighty I expressed to him what rested on my mind, which he took kindly, and afterward showed more regard to me than before. In a few years after, he died middle-aged, and I often thought that had I neglected my duty in that case it would have given me great trouble, and I was humbly thankful to my gracious Father, who had supported me herein. ,.-· My employer, having a Negro woman, sold her and directed me to write a bill of sale, the man being waiting who bought her. The

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~s- Peacemaking: The Call to Faithful Action Adherence to the peace testimony grows out of our experience of God's transforming love. It grows out of our ongoing life of prayer and worship which nurtures our rela­ tionship with Christ. But it also grows out of our obedience to the prophetic call of Christ to follow his will in faithful living in the world. Peace is a gift, but it does not come magically through our passivity. Only in our faithful response to God's call do 15 we receive God's peace. Simon and Matthew, Jesus' two word and deed to speak a challenge to those who follow the disciples who were political enemies, were called to enter path of violence and hatred. We may become witnesses of the same band of disciples and learn to live with each other the love and power of God to bring new life. We may find day in and day out. After Jesus entered his house, Zacchaeus I concrete ways to help individuals and even nations to walk made radical changes in the way he acted with his money in the path of peace. and possessions. The man in the tombs, once he was healed, \ Such witness requires knowledge of the specific causes of • followed Jesus' request to return home and proclaim the injustice and war in our contemporary society. We need to be informed about the workings of the social, economic, and power of God to all. Our peacemaking cannot wait until we feel completely political structures which govern so much of our lives. Dis­ loving. Feelings are notoriously unreliable guides. We are dpleship is informed obedience, not naive or ignorant action. called to obedient love even though we may not be feeling Faithful response to Christ's call on both levels, personal very loving. Often it is through the performance of loving obedience and witness to others, is not easy. It involves acts that loving feelings can be built up in us. We may start struggle because we often resist the surrender of our selfish with small, perhaps very tiny, steps. It is only as we begin will. We can think of a thousand reasons why we would to allow Christ's love to act in and through us that it can rather continue in the old ways. But through our failures we are always brought back to the realization that it is not become a part of us. Action requires discernment of God's will. Discernment by our own strength that we walk the ways of peace. "I have requires that attention be focused on our Inward Guide who been crucified with Christ; I no longer live as I myself, but speaks to us through prayer, Scripture, the discipline of our Christ lives within me" (Gal. 2:20 RSV). Meeting, and the voices of our brothers and sisters in the church-community. From Christ we learn where our lives The Lamb's War need healing and where they need re-ordering. We discover what we are called to lay down and what we must take up. The Lamb's War was an image used by the first genera­ We shall probably find that many of the accepted patterns tion of Friends to illumine many levels of insight about the of life in our society are inconsistent with those of God's call to become a peacemaker and follower of Christ. kingdom. The image of the Lamb's War comes from the book of Becoming a peacemaker may require changes in our Revelation, and describes the great cosmic struggle going on everyday way of life (e.g., the way we earn a living, our between Christ (the Lamb) and the forces of evil and unquestioned payment of war taxes, the wasteful manner in destruction. Christ is at work throughout creation, challeng­ which we secure and use possessions). While we are all led ing and overcoming that which turns away from God. toward peace, we are led by many different paths. Some Early Friends recognized that this struggle is taking witnesses may be required of us all. Other witnesses may be place within each individual as each is called to surrender for those with calls to special ministry. Jesus asked one to God's will. We all can feel what Friends understood by person to join his band of disciples and another to proclaim this image as we think of the interior struggle we undergo God's power at home. We must discern what is asked of us. to become and remain centered in God rather than our job, Christ's call involves not only discipleship in our per­ our search for money, our desire for reputation and power. sonal lives. It is also a call to witness to the world about us: In this struggle we are called to choose whom we shall serve: family, friends, community, and nation. We may be led by God or Mammon. 16 17 However, this struggle has ramifications beyond our own personal faithfulness. By our choice, we contribute to the Lamb's War which is going on in the larger social order. As the eighteenth-century Quaker John Woolman said: • May we look upon our treasures, the furniture of our houses, and the garments in which we array ourselves, and try whether the seeds of war have any nourishment in these our posses­ sions or not. Holding treasures in the self­ pleasing spirit is ·a strong plant, the fruit whereof ripens fast. A day of outward distress is coming and divine love calls to prepare against it." Woolman recognized, as did the earliest Friends, that the Lamb's War does not just take place within individuals. Christ is struggling with unrighteous social, political, and economic orders. Societies also are called to obedience to God's will. The Lamb continues his struggles as long as the earth bears people who must cry out for the basic necessities of life: food, water, and clothing, while a few spend their resources buying diet soft drinks, designer jeans, and whipped lipstick. In the Lamb's War we are all called to obedience in both aspects of the struggle: personal and cor­

porate faithfulness. Both levels of faithfulness inteq~enetrate one another. It is not possible to change social structures without changing personal lifestyles or vice versa. Our personal obedience to the Lamb may become a sign of challenge to the forces of evil. The first generation of Friends entered the Lamb's vVar by refusing to doff their hats, by wearing simple garb, by charging set prices instead of haggling for the most advantageous price, and by refus­ ing to pay forced tithes to the state church. These actions were not only attempts to be faithful to the Lamb in their own personal lives. They were also ways of challenging the unrighteous structures and attitudes of the society around f ( them. · the st~~ of the Thes rien~articipate La ecogn~that the s~rgfht~rrome~ 18