Quakerism

“Friends (Quakers) offer a distinctive opportunity for spontaneity of worship, fellowship in mysticism, and proving mystical insight in labor for a suffering world.”

--Richard T. Vann

As Quakers, we spend our lives actively searching for truth. We do not think that anyone or any group knows the whole truth.

We do not expect to know it ourselves! The Bible is one of our sources for finding truth, as are the sacred books of, and seekers from all religious traditions in the world. Other sources in which we search for truth are science and nature, our human history, meditation, and gathering in worship in the sphere of silence.

The core Quaker belief is that there is that of the Divine in everyone, universally (we call it the Inner Light). We hold that all people are Children of Light and have the potential and the capacity to live with others and to heed the Divine within. Out of this core belief grows our testimonies (formulations that guide us) of community, equality, integrity, peace, and simplicity.

Community – caring, connecting, and sharing with one another;
Equality – being equally respectful to all. Affirming that each is uniquely precious in the eye of the Divine;
Integrity – being whole and consistent in following our beliefs and values;
Peace – living in a way that “takes away the occasion for war,” seeking justice and healing, not mastery;
Simplicity – valuing the truths and essentials, eschewing pretense, wastefulness, greed, and vanity.

Over 350 years Quakers were guided by these testimonies in our daily lives. Our gathered worship, when we open ourselves to be led by the Inner Light, facilitates us to discover truth, enables us to heal, and bind us with the world in love.

From the writing of Sally Rickerman