QuakerQuaker

Primitive Christianity Revived, Again

Merge, Don't Blend

When I got my driver's license, someone gave me this piece of advice: Remember that you're handling something that is as much a weapon as it is a convenience. At the time, I considered it an inconvenient truth. Yet, nowhere have I valued that advice more than getting on or off a highway. Unlike some drivers, I offer a signal of my intention, slow or speed up to accomodate the flow of traffic, and, most significantly, merge, not blend, with the other cars.

As Quakers on our way to uniting with "that of God in everyone", a piece of advice: first, embrace our calling to travel the high-way, though as a weighty force for truth; secondly, signal your intention and/or apprehension about uniting with others; thirdly, go with the flow moving forward, not stopping; and lastly, merge, don't blend in and risk a crash.

When I ask that we don't blend in, I'm not thinking of going back to distinctive dress and language, but going forward with our counter-cultural testimonies. For on the highway of life, Quakers can be "the bomb" without putting ourselves and others in danger of confusion, if not outright spiritual peril.

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Comment by Clem Gerdelmann on 1st mo. 18, 2013 at 6:18am: Are we going back to horse-and-buggy too - pictures please!!!

Comment by Clem Gerdelmann on 2nd mo. 3, 2013 at 7:04am: Far be it for any man to show a concern about a woman's weight, age, or style of clothing; therefor, I'll let the Quaker matriarch, Margaret Fell, speak to the danger of going in reverse: "It's a dangerous thing to lead young Friends much into the observation of outward things, which easily be done for they can soon get into an outward garb to be all alike outwardly, but this will not make them true Christians."(Works, p. 535)

May I simply add that there's no coquetry like the age-old coot(no fool like an old one).

Comment by Clem Gerdelmann on 4th mo. 17, 2013 at 5:30am: Disclaimer: My "the bomb" reference is my way of showing my age/irrelevance for modern-day real uses/abuses of same. But, of course, Quakers would only lease, never own, a vehicle that is "the bomb" anyway, right?

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