by André Rossinger
It all depends on our vision about the inherent potential of the Quaker message in the second half of the twentieth century, and on our efforts in translating this vision into reality in personal, social and international relationships.
The Meeting House of brick and mortar has a meaning for us, only if its activities make it a potential powerhouse in helping each of us and everyone else in every dimension of life:
- in our silent and in our articulate search for God-in-man and man-in-God;
- in realizing God as the Law and Love of Life;
- in the endless maturing process of accepting God’s love and sharing it with our fellow men;
- in realizing that peace is more than the absence of war: it is a continuous transformation of the individual and society, in order to bring out the divine potential in man;
- in constructive, critical evaluation of every aspect of contemporary life, which may promote or retard such a transformation;
- in harmonizing our duties and obligations deriving from the fact that we are simultaneously citizens of our country and of the world, but that foremost we are citizens of God’s Universe;
- in developing spiritual, moral and intellectual integrity in our daily life, in the midst of a missile powered jungle which has been developed by perversion of our civilization and heritage;
- in recalling the best of this heritage, and continuously adding to it in order to build a peaceful transition to the next stage of history.
A Quaker Center which embodies a wide spectrum of concerns and willingness for hard work, cannot stagnate or die, but can only flourish. Every Meeting House or Quaker Center which seeks to re-interpret George Fox’s seventeenth century message for mid-twentieth century conditions without watering it down—can only blossom because it will speak to the condition of our time.
In this spirit, projects can be implemented under very favourable conditions:
- Meeting for Worship, the heart and radiating centre for all other activities, can take place in an improved physical setting and atmosphere.
- Child Development Programs in operation with the parents, for stimulating the budding of a healthy, balanced and whole personality for varying age groups. This is a real challenge in this day and age of conditioned fear, anxiety and insecurity. Facilities should be available for the spiritual, moral and cultural development of the children of members and attenders during the weekends and, if necessary, during the week as well. Having a Centre provides wide scope for experimentation in finding up-to-date solutions for blending religious-spiritual education with all round development of the child with the help of art, handicrafts, drama, dance, literature, documentary films, physical and musical anthropology, under the guidance of experts. Such an evolving Child Development Program should give new meaning and extended horizons to the conventional Sunday School or First-Day School. It should not compete with the home, school or playground, but should create a feed-back in all three areas; it should make the children better sons and daughters at home, better pupils at school, and better playmates on any field of play. It should generate first that quality of sensitiveness for beauty, truth and loving kindness which really enables them to understand the Biblical heritage.
- Quaker Study Groups and Retreats for the nourishing of our religious-spiritual growth, and for strengthening our faith, which is the most important intangible base and “energy-source” for all our tangible concerns and activities.
- Service Projects. It can build up an extensive Quaker Library, including a Peace Education Reference Library in conjunction with a Reading Room and Lending Services; can develop International Student Programs and be openminded about other suitable concerns.
- “Quaker Forum”. From early fall to late spring, from year to year, a carefully planned lecture series should investigate every problem which directly or indirectly has a bearing on the contemporary fermentation process at home and in the World. Every political, economic, social, cultural, national and international question which actually or potentially contributes to man’s crisis of growth or decline requires
… scrutiny in order to derive positive lessons from it for the benefit of every one concerned.
With the “Quaker Forum” the “Quaker Center” could fulfill the additional role of a Community Centre. It could provide adult education in the best sense of the word: by searching for a statesmanlike approach to the burning questions of our times; by drawing from the vast reservoir of enlightened resource people in every field; by offering to the potential audience of truth-hungry seekers a mature forum, for listening and participation.
However, no matter how many outside resource people are invited to help us in our search and sharing, the overall character of planning should carry a Quaker purpose and sense of identity. What is this Quaker sense of identity? What is the perennial Christian legacy of George Fox who went back to the original basic teaching of Jesus Christ?
We are religiously motivated pacifists. This means not only being against wars, but also being for long and short range preventive statesmanship, which by using foresight and determination eliminates the causes of war.
We are religiously motivated social reformers, firmly believing that the spiritual law of life should be translated into the historic law of peaceful progress. Courageous, sincere and profound reforms realized and implemented, in due time, would end our still adolescent stage of history in which progress, until now, has followed a tragically zig-zag course of reactionary efforts to block progress, of revolution and counter-revolution, of the half-measures of an exhausted society due to hot wars, cold wars and civil wars, of reform under duress and reform used as a bribe to deepen the split in society.
We believe that the ultimate meaning of human life is to bring out all the divine potentials which God has planted in each of us: the potential to love and respect man in God, and to love and respect God in man; to develop the inherent creative intelligence of man, to gain knowledge and wisdom, in order to cooperate with the law of life, and so that the law of life may cooperate with him; to create such a continuously evolving and improving personal, social and international climate, which will, instead of choking, help the seed of God in man to blossom. This means man’s really growing up and behaving as a child of God, worthy of that name.
We believe in the tremendous value of scientific and technological achievement, as the result of man’s growing understanding of, and cooperation with God’s Universe and its Law.
… However, it serves progress only if it is not used as a means of man’s inhumanity against man, only if man is master and not slave of it.
We believe in man’s profound need to realize, in contrast to the lopsided, fragmented, frustrated driftwood existence, the wholeness and sanctity of life and world, and within it, his own need to develop a sense of wholeness.
We believe it is the most sacred duty of every parent and every adult to help the younger generation to become more mature citizens of God’s Universe, and of this world than the present and past generations have been.
We believe that religion well understood is a dynamic lever of inner growth, transformation and maturing, and a constant guiding light in closing the gap between faith and practice, between high spiritual and moral principles and a man-made split society and world. Meeting for Worship is the most important aspect of the Society of Friends, but it is basically only a preparation. The real test comes when we leave the Meeting House: What are we doing with our religion during the rest of the week, day after day, year after year?
We are worthy of the name Quaker only if we are seekers, for only seekers become also never-ending finders. Having and developing this, or other related visions, and working for their implementation in our Quaker Centre means not only planting seeds by us gardeners, but also growing. In reality, everyone of us is simultaneously seed and gardener. Every Quaker Meeting House, Centre, or Home is potentially a pilot project for the City of God.
Part 2: Friends in the Eastern Townships