The Bread-Eaters - Ralph Hetherington

"There was once a miller who ground the most beautiful flour and every baker in the land came to his mill to buy his flour. Each baker had his own way of baking bread. Some added salt, sugar and yeast and water and made a dough which the turned into simple loaves. Other bakers added seeds or nuts or currants or malt and many other things. Sometimes when the baking became too elaborate people demanded a return to plain bread. Many people however liked the rich loaves and thrived on them. In the early days there was not much contact between the various villages and people were brought up to like the loaves their own bakers sold. Sometimes a new baker would try out a new kind of loaf which sold well for a bit but by and large people tended to go on with the loaves they were used to.

However as the years went by there was more coming and going between the villages, and travellers returned to their own homes with tales of the extraordinary bread that was eaten in other places. Then some of the bakers began to feel sorry for the people in other villages, thinking how much better off they would be if they ate bread baked in the proper way. So they mounted expeditions to other places and offered their loaves for sale to the people there. Sometimes their loaves were enjoyed but often they were rejected because the people were not used to them.

Some bakers now began to think that they were the only ones who baked bread with the miller’s flour and suspected that other bakers were growing their own corn and milling their own flour. So they tried to stop other bakers selling bread and tried to make everyone eat the loaves they baked. This led to quarrels and even to persecution, torture and wars. It was a long time before the bakers began to realise that they all got their flour from the same source. Then they thought it might be a good idea if they got together and agreed on a common recipe for bread which they could all use and so get out of the difficulty of competition. However when they did this the loaves they produced were so dull and tasteless that no one would buy them. So it was not long before they returned to baking their own traditional loaves and even to trying out some new recipes.

However there was a little group of bread-eaters who found that they did not like much of the bread that the bakers supplied. They decided to go to the miller themselves and buy their own flour, although this was something that the bakers had always discouraged. They made a habit of meeting once a week and going to the mill together. They were thus able to bake the sort of loaves that suited them best, constantly trying to improve their recipes. They would often have discussions about bread-making and would try out each other’s loaves. But what they specially liked was the weekly visit to the miller."

More at     http://www.universalistfriends.org/quf-rh.html

We are Rresponsible ~ Amiya Chakravarty

"Nothing that happens, happens totally outside of us, that is to say, outside of the sphere of our direct or indirect participation. When we see evil outside we cannot brush it aside as not belonging to our responsibility; we are responsible for all that affects humanity. Much less can we dismiss the suffering of fellow-beings, as not involving our own suffering and service."

More at  http://pamphlets.quaker.org/wpl1950a.html

Experience the Universe - Scotty McLennan

"Religion grows from the heart as much as the head, and it cries out to fuse body and mind. Faith is an orientation of the whole personality, a total response. It's not just a belief-the holding of certain ideas--which is a function of the mind alone. Beliefs can be expressed in propositional form to which adjectives true and false may be attached. Faith, by contrast, is the opposite of nihilism and despair. It may or may not include beliefs, but it is much larger; it is the ability to experience the universe as meaningful. Having faith means that our lives hold together and make sense at a deeper level. Rather than seeming absurd. Therefore your religion is something you not only think about but also sing, dance, eat, paint, and sculpt. To find your religion you must engage all of your senses. You should feel it as well as explain it, hear it as well as see it. Taste it as well as smell it."

More at       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotty_McLennan

Coolness - William Penn

“Nothing does reason more right, than the coolness of those that offer it: For Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders, than from the arguments of its opposers"

More at    http://www.quaker.org/wmpenn.html

John Wesley and the Quakers

"John Wesley discovered from his itinerant preaching that Quakers gave him a mixed reception - in much the same way that members of the Church of England did. There were some Quakers who listened to his preaching, believed the gospel and professed Christ for salvation. Wesley’s Journal has records of these happenings. At the same time there were other Quakers who strongly opposed Wesley’s ministry. Wesley had made a close study of the writings of Robert Barclay (1648-1690), the Scottish Quaker theologian and friend of George Fox. He charged Barclay with making sanctification the ground of our justification - the same error that’s found in Roman Catholic teaching - and that, as a consequence, Barclay was teaching justification by works and not by faith. But he also found sound doctrine in Barclay and adapted and used his work, An Apology for the true Christian Divinity when Wesley was refuting the doctrine of unconditional predestination. Wesley first published his edited version of Barclay’s anti-predestinarian arguments in 1741 under the title, Serious Considerations on Absolute Predestination: Extracted from a late Author."

More at  http://www.wesley-fellowship.org.uk/WesBulletin21_1.html

Those of Faith and Hope and Love ~ Lucretia Mott

"Our principles lead us to reject and to intreat the oppressed to reject all carnal weapons, relying solely on those which are might through God to the pulling down of strongholds." We did not countenance force, and it did not become those--Friends and others--who go to the polls to elect a commander-in-chief of the army and navy, whose business it would be to use that army and navy, if needed, to keep the slaves of the South in their chains, and secure to the masters the undisturbed enjoyment of their system--it did not become such to find fault with us because we praise John Brown for his heroism. For it is not John Brown the soldier that we praise; it is John Brown the moral hero; John Brown the noble confessor and martyr whom we honor, and whom we think it proper to honor in this day when men are carried away by the corrupt and pro-slavery clamor against him. Our weapons were drawn only from the armory of Truth; they were those of faith and hope and love."


More at   http://www.quaker.org/mott/no-passivist.html

How Despicable and Ignoble War is- Albert Einstein

"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."

More at  http://www.ppu.org.uk/learn/infodocs/people/pp-einstein.htm