Embracing the Silence

Open worship is one of those traditions Friends embrace, but often we do so without much thought as to how to use the time meaningfully. The tendency is to be uncomfortable with too much silence and to fill the empty space with words. After all, silence is a strange and foreign commodity within today\u27s noisy society. Turning on the television or stereo becomes a semiautomatic reflex when we are faced with the shock of a quiet room. Seldom do we find ourselves able to pray for more than three or four minutes because of acute spiritual attention deficit:\u27 We crave entertainment, while at the same time our lives are devoid of substance

A Concern for a World Gathering of Young Friends

The Spirit of God moves within the chapters of time, uniting the inward seasons of the soul with the outward measures of calendar time. After much prayer and deliberation, it is the feeling of many that the time is right for a world gathering of young Friends. A world gathering of any sort is a gigantic undertaking! The expenses in terms of travel, time, and coordinative efforts are immense. However, in light of the values of such a gathering, the expenses seem minimal. The following are but a few values that could result from such a gathering

On Gems and Ashes

The quality of a person\u27s life is determined less by the circumstances at hand than by the way one responds to those circumstances. Following Christ does not mean that one\u27s lot in life will be more pleasant or opportune. It does mean that within the course of following Christ events take on a different perspective. We are able to respond to them in light of God\u27s presence and purpose behind and beyond those events

Confessions Within a Guilt-Denying Society

We live in a guilt-denying society. No-fault auto insurance limits the cost of an accident to the paying of bills rather than the assessing of blame. A disillusioned spouse bends the ear of a sympathetic listener as to the problems that the other partner causes within the marriage. The habitually late student explains to his teacher, But it wasn\u27t my fault! We live in a society that seems to demand success over failure and rightness over wrongness. Therefore, the tendency is to deny anything that would make us look wrong or in any way inadequate

Probing Questions for a Forward-Looking People

At the risk of oversimplifying recent Quaker developments in America, we could consider the 1950s a decade of rediscovery and redefinition among Friends. The 1952 World Gathering at Oxford, England, produced a renewed interest in rediscovering the historical roots of Quakerism, and in 1956 the Association of Evangelical Friends adopted a constitution. This was also a time in which several young Quaker scholars began to make contributions that would continue over several decades