Who are the Quakers?

 (We had a slight email snafu, get caught up here)

Who are the Quakers? Paulette continues her teaching…

”In 17th-century England, at a time of civil unrest and great religious ferment, the first Quakers found a collective way, through silent waiting, into the radical transformation of consciousness that Jesus invited his followers into. There were a lot of people who were unhappy at the time with the existing denominations, especially the Anglican Church, which collected taxes to pay professional clergy who did not necessarily have a real calling to the spiritual life. There was a hunger for more meaningful spiritual experience, and one such seeker, a mystic named George Fox, had visions that moved him to gather all these seekers together and to teach them that what they were seeking was within them. It was like “a Pentecostal moment in time,“ because as hundreds of people gathered together in centered stillness, they had deep transformational experiences based on their experience of what they called “the Light of Christ within.” This Light opened them to see the truth of their own lives, to see their own ego-based behaviors, and to see how the society they were living in was not in alignment with the ultimate truth of Love. This new seeing, as painful as it could be, ultimately filled them with deep peace and joy—the peace, as Jesus said, that “passes all understanding.” “

Here is what I love love love about this description of the early Quakers (and I so hope it is accurate). “This Light opened them to see the truth of their own lives, to see their own ego-based behaviors, and to see how the society they were living in was not in alignment with the ultimate truth of Love.”

This really speaks to the same kind of things Scott talked about in his Sunday message at Northstar Community on July 12th (posted online somewhere). Their silence, stillness and collective watching for God woke them to their own personal vulnerabilities and limitations. It inspired them to see their part in the disruption of a society that could have been in alignment with love but was, alas, not. This is so helpful. It is the antithesis of cherry picking bible verses to justify our behaviors as holy. How can we support this same quest in our world today?