February 2013
1 post
January 2013
7 posts
“Of what significance is one’s existence, one is basically unaware. What does a fish know about the water in which he swims all his life?”
—Albert Einstein
Power of Truth ~ John Woolman →
hayquaker1.blogspot.com
“My mind, through the power of Truth, was in a good degree weaned from the desire of outward greatness, and I was learning to be content with real conveniences that were not costly; so that a way of life free from much entanglements appeared best for me, though the income was small… I saw that a humble man with the blessing of the Lord, might live on a little; and that where the heart was set on greatness success in business did not satisfy the craving; but that commonly with an increase of wealth, the desire for wealth increased.”
~ John Woolman
December 2012
1 post
A Nineteenth Century Quaker Benediction
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the Kings and Princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flocks
The real work of Christmas begins.
To find the lost
To heal the broken
To feed the hungry
To release the prisoners
To rebuild the nations
To bring peace among brothers
To make music in the heart.
May 2012
1 post
April 2012
3 posts
“For a Quaker, religion is not an external activity, concerning a special ‘holy’ part of the self. It is an openness to the world in the here and now with the whole of the self. If this is not simply a pious commonplace, it must take into account the whole of our humanity: our attitudes to other human beings in our most intimate as well as social and political relationships. It must also take account of our life in the world around us, the way we live, the way we treat animals and the environment. In short, to put it in traditional language, there is no part of ourselves and of our relationships where God is not present.”
—Harvey Gillman, 1988 (Quaker Faith & Practice 20:20)
March 2012
4 posts
“A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality.”
—Karl Marx On the Sanctity of Work
“
But the war which is preparing, has altered the very temper and genius of this island. The price of every necessary of life increases every day, and the generosity of the people of course decreases. Indeed how can it be otherwise? People that are so often fleeced, must retrench in the liberality of their bounty…
Add to this, that as the whole island may be said, from the circumstances of its being surrounded by the sea, to be a place of confinement, so we are likely to be shut up more closely by the wars. I see great commotions arising: wither they will tend, or how they will terminate, it is impossible to say. I only wish, God in His mercy would vouchsafe to still the raging sea which is agitating all Christendom.
” —
Erasmus Roterodamus to Anthony a Bergis
London, 1513
February 2012
3 posts
“There has always been racism. But it developed as a leading principle of thought and perception in the context of colonialism. That’s understandable. When you have your boot on someone’s neck, you have to justify it. The justification has to be their depravity. It’s very striking to see this in the case of people who aren’t very different from one another. Take a look at the British conquest of Ireland, the earliest of the Western colonial conquests. It was described in the same terms as the conquest of Africa. The Irish were a different race. They weren’t human. They weren’t like us. We had to crush and destroy them. No. It has to do with conquest, with oppression. If you’re robbing somebody, oppressing them, dictating their lives, it’s a very rare person who can say: “Look, I’m a monster. I’m doing this for my own good.” Even Himmler didn’t say that. A standard technique of belief formation goes along with oppression, whether it’s throwing them in gas chambers or charging them too much at a corner store, or anything in between. The standard reaction is to say: ‘It’s their depravity. That’s why I’m doing it. Maybe I’m even doing them good.’ If it’s their depravity, there’s got to be something about them that makes them different from me. What’s different about them will be whatever you can find.”
—Noam Chomsky
“Still, in the universities or in any other institution, you can often find some dissidents hanging around in the woodwork—and they can survive in one fashion or another, particularly if they get community support. But if they become too disruptive or too obstreperous—or you know, too effective—they’re likely to be kicked out. The standard thing, though, is that they won’t make it within the institutions in the first place, particularly if they were that way when they were young—they’ll simply be weeded out somewhere along the line. So in most cases, the people who make it through the institutions and are able to remain in them have already internalized the right kinds of beliefs: it’s not a problem for them to be obedient, they already are obedient, that’s how they got there. And that’s pretty much how the ideological control system perpetuates itself in the schools—that’s the basic story of how it operates, I think.”
—Noam Chomsky
