Quaker Query: How Do We Honor the Opinions of Others?

Quakers have a long tradition of formulating queries to deepen our responses to life, faith, community, parenting and more.  A query isn’t an essay question for an exam or question with a predetermined answer.

I did a fair amount of memorizing in my earlier life for Sunday school, communicants’ class and confirmation.  When I first saw Quaker queries, they seemed to have a specific answer, one that I could never measure up to.

Now I understand that I looking for a measuring stick to see how Quakerly I had become. Was I doing it right? And that is pretty silly among Quakers.

Quakers are seekers of the truth. We seek. Good queries guide our searches and direct our thinking; they don’t have rote answers.  That would be too easy!

So here is a query for  you from Intermountain Yearly Meeting’s Faith and Practice, p. 134.

When those among us disclose opinions that differ greatly from our own, are we able to listen to them without judgment or derision? Are we able to support tenderly those who views differ from our own, knowing that the Light shines in them also?

Something to think about if we hope to be peacemakers.