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Some Quaker Thoughts

Here are some classic Quaker thoughts for you to ponder upon. They have been chosen by our members. By putting just a few on our site, we are trying to make it easier for you to concentrate and reflect on what we think is important. If you want to read the classic Quaker text from which they were taken in full, go to the bottom of this page, where you will find a link.

One of these thoughts appears on our Welcome page. We try to keep it very brief and change it from time to time.

From 'Advices and queries'

Dearly beloved Friends, these things we do not lay upon you as a rule or form to walk by, but that all, with the measure of light which is pure and holy, may be guided; and so in the light walking and abiding, these may be fulfilled in the Spirit, not from the letter, for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.

(Postscript to an epistle to 'the brethren in the north' issued by a meeting of elders at Balby, 1656)

Advices and Queries

1. Take heed, dear Friends, to the promptings of love and truth in your hearts. Trust them as the leadings of God whose Light shows us our darkness and brings us to new life.

2. Bring the whole of your life under the ordering of the spirit of Christ. Are you open to the healing power of God's love? Cherish that of God within you, so that this love may grow in you and guide you. Let your worship and your daily life enrich each other. Treasure your experience of God, however it comes to you. Remember that Christianity is not a notion but a way.

3. Do you try to set aside times of quiet for openness to the Holy Spirit? All of us need to find a way into silence which allows us to deepen our awareness of the divine and to find the inward source of our strength. Seek to know an inward stillness, even amid the activities of daily life. Do you encourage in yourself and in others a habit of dependence on God's guidance for each day? Hold yourself and others in the Light, knowing that all are cherished by God.

8. Worship is our response to an awareness of God. We can worship alone, but when we join with others in expectant waiting we may discover a deeper sense of God's presence. We seek a gathered stillness in our meetings for worship so that all may feel the power of God's love drawing us together and leading us.

9. In worship we enter with reverence into communion with God and respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Come to meeting for worship with heart and mind prepared. Yield yourself and all your outward concerns to God's guidance so that you may find 'the evil weakening in you and the good raised up'.

The complete text of 'Advices and Queries' (title of the most famous Quaker book), can be found at the following site:

http://www.digitalbristol.org/members/quakers/AdvicesQueries.html