Participants’ personal statements on being a Quaker

From Larry Scott Butler (Fort Myers):

This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you. There is no greater commandment than this, that a man should lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do what I command you. I call you servants no longer; a servant does not know what his master is about. I have called you friends, because I have disclosed to you everything that I heard from the Father.

—John 15:12-16

There is a spirit which I feel delights to do no evil, nor revenge any wrong, but delights to endure all things in hope to enjoy its own in the end.

—James Naylor, Quaker, 1616-1660

From Wandson DeOliveira (Fort Myers):

By their fruits you shall know them

When reflecting on this biblical statement, I, who grew up frequenting different religious denominations, realized that Quakers were composed of people who actually were too busy living the truth and had no time for preaching it.

From Samuel DeOliveira (age 8):

When I sit in Quaker meeting for worship I hold people in the Light. Holding someone in the Light helps them be healthy and get better.

From Priscilla DeOliveira (age 9):

During meeting for worship I sit and think about people that don't do the right things and I pray for them to not do the bad things. I pray for the people that I love so that they don't get colds or get sick. For myself and my brother I pray that we don't get sick, get into fights, or that I become selfish or nasty.

From Nancy Fennell:

I have traveled with many different kinds of passports, but none commanded more respect than the single word Quaker. It is a word which carries its own currency throughout the world. In Australia, in Italy, the word has won long and lasting respect...

This has naturally caused me some concern, for obviously I am not the man to whom the word—in its world-wide connotation—applies. There is some over-Quaker who is referred to in the world's mind when the word is used. He is peaceful, honest, quiet, sincere, trustworthy, helpful, generous and progressive...In religious matters he is unassuming, cooperative and uncontentious...He is reported to spend more than the usual portion of his income on the education of his own and others' children. In politics he is sane, liberal, trustworthy, and hard working. In his daily life he is a friend to all men.

Now this picture of Quakerism was so often thrust upon me that I cast among all my memories of all my Quaker friends and found no one who lived up to the pattern...

I therefore decided that Quakerism must be a symbol whose living reality is fed by many men, and the religion is indeed fortunate that it is the best of our best that is remembered with affection and it is from this best that we all take our color...The word Friend is bolstered up by the good deeds of all, so that wherever one goes he takes with him a little more than he acutally is. He borrows upon the deposits made by others. In a very real sense I feel that I have been fairly exclusively a borrower from the joint account, and I am glad to take this opportunity to pay my deepest respects to those Friends who have been making the contributions.

James Michener, 1947

source: Linda Hill Renfer, ed., Daily Readings from Quaker Writings Ancient & Modern, Vol. II, (Serenity Press, 1995), p. 305.

From Erica Lynne (Naples):

The questions that stumped my childhood Sunday School teachers have been answered by Quakers. In meetings I find inner peace and connection with my God that flows out into all my life. In Quakers, I have found people who walk the walk, who do rather than talk, who share with me their commitments to equality, truth, simplicity, justice, loving care of all humans. These people, these Quakers, support and foster the Light in all of us.

From Hank Fay (Naples):

Jesus made clear that He, not written law, is the final authority. Quakers take Him at His Word, and work together to hear what God has to say to us.

From Marilyn Webber:

I Believe
That God is within every human being.
We are all beloved children of God.
Because God is within me I can have direct communication with God when I listen carefully.
Because God is within you, God speaks to me through you if I listen carefully.
All good things done by people are really done by God working through us. That when I hurt another human being I am also hurting God.
God is everywhere, all the time, always has been and always will be. God is the creator.
God works through people, and obeys his own laws of cause and effect. God gave us free will and a conscience.
When misfortune happens it is because of cause and effect, not “Gods will.”
God can be a great comfort to us if we use the misfortune to help someone else.
If we pray for guidance, God will give us strength and what ever quality we need.

From Ken Masters (Fort Myers):

...true religion consists in an inward life, wherein the heart doth love and reverence God the Creator, and learn to exercise true justice and goodness, not only toward all men, but also toward the brute creatures; that as the mind was moved by an inward principle to love God as an invisible, incomprehensible Being, so, by the same principle, it was moved to love him in all his manifestations in the visible world...

The Journal of John Woolman

The theory of the Quaker ministry is simple. As the worshipers sit together in silence to wait upon the Lord, anyone among them may find arising in his consciousness a message which he feels is intended for more than himself alone.

Howard Brinton, Friends for 300 Years, 84

From Jack Berry:

Warfare is inconsistent with the teachings of Christ.