Common Ground

My grandmother became a Quaker fairly late in life. She was the daughter of Scottish Presbyterian missionaries, the wife of an active Episcopalian, and a life-long skeptic who could never quite bring herself to profess a belief in God, but who remained steadfast in her life-long study of religion. Once I asked my grandmother what she truly believed in. She paused for a minute and said, "world peace."

When I was a teenager, she gave me a slim little volume called The Faith & Practice of the Quakers by Rufus M. Jones. She thought that if I wanted her to learn about my family's religion, I should learn about hers. Like most teenagers would, I thanked her and then tucked the book away somewhere without looking at it. Today, more than 30 years later, I pulled it out and started reading it.

I can see why my grandmother was drawn to the Society of Friends, who were committed to reviving New Testament Christianity, the essence of which they believed had gotten lost over the years in a sea of creed, ritual, and dogma. Quakers focus on peacemaking, alleviating human suffering, light, truth, life, love, redemption. The Reformation wasn't enough for them. They felt it "failed to restore the original spirit, power and authority of the apostolic church."

I wish I'd read that slim little volume before my grandmother died. I think we'd have found a lot of common ground to talk about.