Peace Queries

by Anne Pomeroy
New Paltz Meeting

This issue of Spark is devoted to our understanding of the peace testimony. We might ask ourselves what does a peace church look like today? 

The following queries about living in accordance with the peace testimony may provide places for reflection about how we manifest peace in all we do. The queries are varied in the hope that some will speak to you. 

For Individual Reflection

How do you tend your inner peace? How is this guided by the ‘still small voice’? How do you tend your inner life, your relationship with Spirit, so you hear the guidance toward peace? 

What supports you to manifest this inner peace in the upsets a day may hold, in your relationships with others?

How is an inner stance of peace reflected in how you navigate difference with another person or persons? 

Do you, or might you, examine the impact of your power and privilege on the peace of others?

Do you, or might you, reflect on your patterns of communication, on your expression of needs/wants/feelings, and on your manifestation of patterns of oppression as a reflection of the peace testimony? 

When do you listen for the still small voice in others? How does the quality of your listening impact your ability to hear how Spirit is moving in others? 

For Reflection as a Community

How do we embody peace within our faith community? How do we live into the peace testimony in the life of our meeting and in Meeting for Business? 

How we trust Spirit, our community, and others impacts our sense of peace and acting peacefully. How does deepening our connection to Spirit help us be faithful and let go of an attachment to outcome?

Do our business and or worship practices further peace or do they unintentionally foster separation or marginalization?

How does the meeting tend the spiritual life of the entire community such that it promotes a sense of belonging and peace? When an individual’s behavior is creating challenges in the meeting, how is the meeting led to lovingly set boundaries for the health of the meeting community? 

As we listen for Spirit’s guidance, how are we addressing injustice in our meeting communities to deepen the peace? 

What are the attributes of a culture of peace? How does our meeting community embody aspects of the culture of peace? 

Peace in the Wider World

Quakers are considered a historic peace church. Do our actions merit this designation today? How do we live our collective life as a historic peace church? What does a peace church look like today?

Does your meeting have a visible peace witness? Is this witness under the care of the Meeting? 

How does our collective voice impact peace around us? How does our collective silence make us a complicit with injustice? 

How might our meeting be called to manifest a culture of peace? 

What queries are on your heart? What do we need to tend to live in to being a peace church today? How are we being called?