Queries and Advices - 10th through 12th Month (Oct through Dec)
Fourth Section: How do Friends meet our responsibilities to the community and the world?
Fourth Section: How do Friends meet our responsibilities to the community and the world?
Tenth Month: Social and Economic Justice
QUERIES
QUERIES
- Do we seek to transform the world with our loving spirit?
- Do we take an active interest in the social and economic conditions of our community?
- Have we objectively considered the causes of discrimination, and are we ready to abandon old prejudices and think anew?
- Do we as individuals and as a meeting do all in our power to end governmental, social, economic, and educational injustices in our community and to create equal opportunity for all?
- How do we as individuals and as a meeting promote the welfare of those in need and work to secure a just distribution of the world’s resources?
- What are we doing as individuals and as a meeting to understand and remove the causes of war and violence and to develop the conditions and institutions of peace?
- Seek to understand the causes of social ills, and work toward their removal.
- Be not content to accept things as they are, but keep an alert, sensitive, and questioning mind.
- Understand and maintain Friends’ witness for truth, simplicity, and nonviolence, holding up your personal life to these testimonies.
- Encourage inclusiveness, and discourage discrimination.
- Friends’ belief in that of God in everyone should lead to reverence for all life and to personal integrity.
- Encourage all efforts to overcome prejudices and antagonisms.
- Cherish diversity.
- Aid and comfort those afflicted or in prison that they may rebuild their lives.
- Work for the abolition of the death penalty.
- Let the way that we live contribute to the realization of a peaceable kingdom on earth.
Eleventh Month: Care of the Natural World
QUERIES
QUERIES
- Do we live in harmony with nature? Do we live in keeping with the spirit of the unity, sacredness, and integrity of all creation?
- Do we seek to minimize our consumption of the earth’s resources? Do we encourage equitable and sustainable use of those resources?
- Do we walk gently over the earth, seeing that of God in all of nature?
- Do we seek to educate ourselves, our children, our meeting, and our community about how our lives can be more in harmony with the earth?
- Does the meeting strive to bring all its practices in harmony with the natural world?
- Maintain in ourselves and encourage in others a sense of responsibility for the environment, both for the present and for future generations.
- Avoid amusements that stimulate destructive emotions, are detrimental to the health or tranquility of others, or are damaging to the natural environment.
- Show a loving consideration for all creatures, cherishing the beauty and wonder of all God’s creation.
- Share our sense of reverence and stewardship for the earth.
Twelfth Month: Peace Testimony and Nonviolence
QUERIES
QUERIES
- Do we work for peace in the world? Do we nurture peace within ourselves?
- Do we “live in the virtue of that life and power which takes away the occasion of all wars”?
- Do we seek consistently to carry out this testimony for peace in all our relationships, including family, community, and work life?
- Do we as individuals and as members of a meeting seek to take part in the ministry of reconciliation between individuals, groups, and nations?
- Do we faithfully maintain our peace testimony?
- Do we reject military training, preparation for war, and participation in war as inconsistent with the spirit of Christ’s teachings?
- Do we as a meeting take a stand and do all we can to remove the causes of war and violence?
- War is contrary to the life and teaching of Jesus. Seek through God’s power and grace to overcome in our hearts the emotions that lie at the root of conflict.
- Strive for nonviolent approaches to conflicts in all aspects of our lives.
- Every human being is a beloved child of God and has that divine spark which claims our reverence. War is a denial of this truth.
- Friends’ peace testimony is the positive exercise of good will calling us to lend our influence to all that strengthens the growth of international friendships and understanding.
- Cultivate an active spirit of love and peace.
- The first step to peace is to stand still in the Light… .George Fox, 1653