Our life is love, and peace, and tenderness; and bearing one with another, and forgiving one another, and not laying accusations one against another; but praying one for another another, and helping one another up with a tender hand.

-- Isaac Penington, Letters, 1667

Meetings do well to exercise a tender concern for those facing personal difficulties. A clearness committee can enable persons to meet in a spirit of worship with other Friends to seek guidance and support in times of need.

We value visitation with other Friends, including visits beyond monthly and yearly meetings. This practice furthers our experience of an extended family. Some Friends are led to travel in the ministry among Friends with a particular concern, and this experience enriches the travelling Friend as well as those visited.

Through worship the community seeks to find the spark for action. Continually discovering the will of God helps us to discern creative solutions to disagreements and new ways for meeting human need that sometimes transcend rational decision making. Community offers us

the promise that God will continually move among us and within us, bringing fresh vitalities and new possibilities to life... if we have eyes to see and ears to hear, if we are capable of receiving the stranger.

-- Parker Palmer, The Company of Strangers, 1981

COVENANT RELATIONSHIPS

But this is the covenant that I shall make with the house of Israel after these days, says the Lord; I shall put my law within them, and I shall write it on their hearts; and I shall be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach one another or say to each other, "Know the Lord," for they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I shall forgive their ini-quity and remember their sin no more.

-- Jeremiah 31:33-4 (NRSV)

The Biblical witness to a covenant with God is also our witness to the precious presence of the living Spirit in us and among us. God is present in our relationships with one other, animating our interactions with extended families, meeting members, friends, and neighbors. All of these relationships are part of God's covenant with us, written in our hearts.