Quaker Advices and Queries

Within Christianity, some traditions emphasize a more mystical and spiritual approach than others. One tradition I’ve been particularly intrigued by is Quaker spirituality.

Part of Quaker spiritual practice is to identify, share, and meditate on specific advices and queries. Some of these can be traced back to George Fox in the mid-1600s. In some ways, these advices and queries translate Quaker experiences and insights about the Gospels into modern life.

Communities might lead a service with reference to an advice or query, and individuals might meditate on one for an hour, a day, a week, or a year.

I’ve been studying Quaker advices and queries shared by meetings across the world for several years. Below I’ll share some of my favorites, which mostly come from the London, New York, and New England yearly meetings.

Apponegansett Meeting House, Jean Schnell

Advices:

Take heed to the promptings of love and truth in your heart.

Bring the whole of your life under the ordering of the spirit of Christ.

Seek to know an inward stillness, even amid the activities of daily life.

While respecting the experiences and opinions of others, do not be afraid to say what you have found and what you value.

Try to find a spiritual wholeness which encompasses suffering as well as thankfulness and joy.

Each of us has a particular experience of God and each must find the way to be true to it.

Listen patiently and seek the truth which other people’s opinions may contain for you.

Avoid hurtful criticism and provocative language.

Think it possible that you may be mistaken.

Try to make your home a place of loving friendship and enjoyment, where all who live or visit may find the peace and refreshment of God’s presence.

Let your life speak.

Responding to divine guidance, try to discern the right time to undertake or relinquish responsibilities without undue pride or guilt.

Search out whatever in your own way of life may contain the seeds of war.

Do not let the desire to be sociable, or the fear of seeming peculiar, determine your decisions.

Try to live simply.

Stand still, wait for divine guidance, then act.

Be grateful for the gifts you have. Neither be too proud of them nor value them too little. Do not waste time coveting the gifts of others.

Attend to what love requires of you.

Beacon Hill Meeting Room, Jean Schnell

Queries:

Are you open to the healing power of God’s love?

How does Jesus speak to you today? Are you following Jesus’ example of love in action? Are you learning from his life the reality and cost of obedience to God?

Do you respect that of God in everyone though it may be expressed in unfamiliar ways or be difficult to discern?

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Contentment Whatever the Circumstances

No matter how people feel about Christianity, I imagine most would aspire to the place St. Paul arrived at when he declared:

“I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” (Philippians 4:11)

I don’t know about you, but I was hoping for a better 2021 than 2020. If anything, for me personally, 2021 brought more problems, not fewer. Family troubles intensified. Work conflict increased. And, though we have vaccines to mitigate the worst outcomes from COVID-19, the pandemic has not faded.

I wonder what Paul meant when he said he was content whatever the circumstances. Based on other things he wrote, I don’t believe he avoided or ignored the awful parts of life. After all, Paul was in prison at the time he wrote these words. In general, avoiding or ignoring difficult circumstances seems like a recipe for only increasing one’s problems in life long-term. So, the question I’m left with is: how can we honestly face life’s struggles and still be content?  

Part of my prayer practice is to actively listen for God. Inspired by the Quakers, I set aside time regularly to be silent and see if any wisdom “bubbles up” or “reveals itself.” I also “listen for God” in other ways, such as in conversations I have with friends. Sometimes, if I can listen carefully enough (a big “if”), something does indeed “bubble up.” Sometimes, some of that “received wisdom” has stood the test of time.  

I don’t know if any of this does a good job of answering my question – and I surely have a long way to go before I get to the place Paul was at – but when I consider how to honestly face life’s struggles and still be content, I find myself continually returning to four points of inspiration.

1. “Accept and expect irresolution.”

This is something my friend, the author and peace activist, John Noltner, likes to say. I clearly remember many years ago attending a small workshop with John when I first heard him emphasize this point. Years later, in silence, these words came back to me and they have stuck with me since.

I think part of what makes it so difficult to find contentment is we often look for final and complete resolution of our problems. Then, and only then, we believe, can we really reclaim our contentment.

Advent, 2020

In the Christian calander, Advent refers to the four Sundays and weeks leading up to the celebration of Christmas. In Latin, Advent means “coming,” and this season provides a window in time for Christians to intentionally dwell in a spirit of longing, hope, and patient waiting and anticipation. In a year of public health crisis, financial and work uncertainty, racial unrest, and political strife, this emphasis strikes a new resonance in our life experience and has the potential to impact us more powerfully than in the past.

As I seek to understand and live out my faith, I find I become consumed, from time to time, with different perspectives and voices. As I look on my bookshelves, for example, I am fondly reminded of times where I have been enamored by the insights of Frederick Buechner, Shane Claiborne, Kathleen Norris, Parker Palmer, Barbara Brown Taylor, and, of course, C. S. Lewis, among others. Recently, I have acquired a new hero: Kate Bowler.

Kate Bowler

Kate has put out a free Advent devotional, and I find I am profoundly drawn in by her thoughts, as she so beautifully and compellingly connects traditional Christian faith with the suffering of this year and this moment. Part of this ability surely stems from her own experience and struggle with as someone who suffers as a stage IV cancer patient, (which she discusses in her amazing TED talk). For example, in the “liturgy” she shared today, Kate invites us to pray:

“blessed are we with eyes open to see
the suffering from pandemic danger, sickness and loneliness,
the injustice of racial oppression,
the unimpeded greed and misuse of power, violence, intimidation,
and use of dominance for its own sake,
the mockery of truth, and disdain for weakness or vulnerability,
and worse,
the seeming powerlessness of anyone trying to stop it.

blessed are we who despair for our democracy,
and ask: what can we do to protect it?

blessed are we who ask: where are you God?
and where are Your people
the smart, sane, and sensible ones who fight for good?”

***

As I meditate on these words, I am stunned by the realization of how much pain this year I have consciously or unconsciously tried to suppress. I feel my perspective broadened and made more whole by inviting and welcoming “eyes to see” those who are sick, lonely, and oppressed. I recognize, afresh, the extent to which truth, weakness, and vulnerability are being mocked, and how that makes all the problems we’re facing worse. I appreciate the despairing concern for our democracy and world. And, I agonize over why “God’s people” so often are part of these problems, and why they are not more often involved in the fight for good.

This prayer validates my experience and urges me to have more empathy for those who are struggling right now and do what I can to help. As Kate concludes her “liturgy,” it builds a conviction to “take hold of hope, as protest.”

As we look toward Christmas this year, we do so with a realization that God doesn’t shy away from awfulness (like I tend to do). In fact, God enters in vulnerably – rejected, in the midst of a genocide, and in the humble form of a baby. Emmanuel remains with us, in suffering, and God calls us to be present, in suffering, as well.

Armistice Day

A few weeks ago, I attender a Quaker memorial service for a friend named Gary. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to know Gary as well as I would have liked before his unexpected death, but that made the service all the more thought-provoking.

One thing I learned about Gary was that he was serious about following the Quaker Christian testimony of peace. Key to this testimony is Jesus’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9). Gary wanted to serve his country so, when he was young, he enlisted in the Coast Guard, the branch of the American military known to be least violent and most about peacemaking. After his time of service, he joined an organization called Veterans for Peace, a group I had sadly never heard about.

Veterans for Peace sent a representative to Gary’s memorial service and made two major points, neither of which I had ever considered. First, rather than offering a typical 21-gun salute – which they believed glorified violence – this representative rang a bell, signifying the hope for peace (and moving most of those in attendance to tears). Second, the representative for Veterans for Peace noted the shift in our country from celebrating Armistice Day to celebrating Veteran’s Day, something others apparently have discussed often – sometimes with considerable frustration – but which I had been completely ignorant about.

Without going into great detail, Armistice Day was created to celebrate and commit to ongoing peace after the end of World War I. After the Korean War, the day was changed to celebrate all Veterans – and not just those veterans who served in World War I or World War II – which obviously makes sense. However, in doing so, as some have argued, the shift became more about the glorification of war; the celebration of peace was lost.

Today, with so many others, I celebrate all Veterans, including those in my family such as my dad who put himself in harm’s way to combat evil. I am thankful for this service, just as I am also grateful for the service of many others who serve our country in often unrecognized ways (such as public school teachers, just to name one example).

At the same time, I remember the original intent of Armistice Day. I pray for a day when war is no longer necessary, when men and women in the prime of their lives do not have to be deployed and put in harm’s way. I pray for those who have been hurt physically, emotionally, and spiritually because of violence. I reflect on which of my actions plant the seeds for further war. And what habits I might nurture in myself and others to plant seeds for peace instead.