A new Pendle Hill pamphlet, Robert Griswold’s Marking the Quaker Path: Seven Key Words Plus One, has sparked some fresh thinking on my end.
I’ve previously posted on the ongoing series from the press at the Quaker retreat and study center in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, and often advise newcomers to Meeting to peruse its display rack in our library for titles that might best touch their interests, whether theological, historical, peace and social justice action, or simple daily living.
What I like about Griswold’s volume is the way he identifies some basic terms that are also found in other religious traditions while noting ways we Friends have come to apply our own unique understandings.
I’m sensing that each of his eight words (OK, one is a phrase) would be a fertile topic for group discussion, and not just among Friends.
His list:
- Condition
- Experience
- Covenant
- Discipline
- Discernment
- Authority
- The Beloved Community
- Submission
~*~
I won’t try to define them here, but each one can be stimulating, even controversial, as we look at the fullness of their implications in contemporary life. It’s also instructive to think of words he hasn’t focused on, starting with Belief, Worship, Prayer, and the like.
To learn more about his pamphlet and more, visit the Pendle Hill website.
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