from alt.culture.oregon

 There are many people in the world who are Quakers and don't even know
 it.

>Could you explain what you mean by Quakers in this context?


The Quaker Testimonies (which at first blush seem to be what many
people call "core values") are simplicity, integrity, community,
equality and harmony.  

These are values that a great many people aspire to, or would like to
aspire to.  These are the values we see reflected (often but not
always, of course) in the environmental movement and in the movement
of people toward organic food and away from highly processed foods,
products and relationships.  These were the values that underlay the
"back to the land" movement of a couple of decades ago, and despite
the impracticalities that were, in the end, the downfall of so many
who aspired to that lifestyle, the draw of these values is still
strong.  (how many products promise us simplicity while requiring us
to live very complicated lives in order to be able to afford them?)

Many people understand the shortcomings of the lives we are living,
and that in many ways the lives we are living are killing us.  It is
very attractive; removing the complications from our lives, walking
our talk, no longer striving to prove we are better than others (or
kowtowing to those who we perceive are better than us), having a group
that supports and encourages us as we contend with human condition and
living in a way that complements the lives of others and is consistent
within the context of a higher purpose

Our Western Culture is so often referred to as the "vast wasteland"
and the phrase "living lives of quiet desperation"  strikes a chord in
so many of us, at one time or another.  These phrases have survived in
our culture for decades after their sources are forgotten because they
are true--and we know it without reading TS Eliot or even remembering
which team he played for.

I think that is because our lives are distorted and fractured by the
imperatives of the system we have built.  We are required, seeking the
rewards offered by our system, to live very complicated lives, which
require us to often compromise what we have been taught is good, where
we are often alone even among others we know well, feeling
alternatively better and worse about ourselves compared to everyone we
meet, and in conflict with ourselves and the people we encounter.  

The additional piece of this is that Quakers share with many people a
faith in the inward light, faith that the voice of God is mixed in
with all those other voices that we hear every day, and that the
guidance of this Spirit/God/Transcendent Reality can be discerned from
all those other impulses that arise in us from other sources.  

When I say there are people in the world who are Quakers and do not
even know it I mean that they have these values, these aspirations, in
common with Quakerism (regardless of the extent to which they--or
we--are currently able to actually live them), and this faith that the
Spirit is here to guide us if we will be cultivate the ability to
discern its leadings (even if we are not, yet, as good at discerning
it as we will become as the result of our spiritual practice).

The ability to live these values, of course, is based on the ability
to discern to leadings of the Spirit.


5:00:09 AM