Dear Friends,

We are weakened, and the Seed suffers, because we are so reluctant to welcome and encourage spiritual gifts that are emerging among us. Life is rising fresh, in young and old, and we say we want to encourage it, but we talk and judge it down. So we are lukewarm, and our growth is stunted. If gifts are not welcomed, they cannot be nurtured. If they are not nurtured, they will not be exercised. If there is no exercise, there can be little learning by individual or by meetings. So we are always starting over, and we gain no wisdom.

Our meetings’ descriptions of our spiritual condition each year speak clearly of our longing for nourishment, for learning, for power to live in the way the Spirit of Christ (however named) calls and leads us. Yet when gifts start to move in someone, and Friends take notice, our caution is so great as to wound and discourage the little, tender openings. Those who are timid and need cultivation in the work are often not even noticed, and we teach each other timidity and fear, when Paul urged us to desire earnestly the best gifts, for the community of the Spirit to thrive.

How many teachers we need! How many counselors and comforters, experienced in prayer and the care of souls! How many writers, how many inspired gifted stewards of our means and business! How many messengers from the witnessing Spirit, speaking to that in others! How many witnesses in love, for naming the power of evil, in our own beloved society, and beyond, and for the healing of its wounds! How many peacemakers and mourners, watchers in prayer, and gifted rejoicers! All these to be well-grown in the truth, which takes time and practice, and incubation by loving insight.

We are full of fear, Friends, fear of each other, and of the power of God. We are afraid to say that that one has a gift that I do not — because we do not trust that “each hath a gift and is serviceable.” We do not feel how each part of the mystical Body is needed in its difference, and has holy value if exercised as the Light and Wisdom guides it to. Jesus asked, If salt loses its savor, how can it be made salty again? In the same way: The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, but if the hand never reaches to work, to point or caress, (while the eye looks out and does its part), then it does not serve, but only stays a dead weight.

When a gift arises in someone who wants to be faithful, they feel fear — that they are mistaken, that they have nothing to offer, that they will do wrong. It is for us to seek to the Witness in ourselves, and feel what answers, and we must seek in honesty. Is there life coming there? We know that the Spirit pours out gifts for our needs, in each community: What else should we do but be on the lookout for them, and welcome them in their first appearance?

The Witness yearns for abundant life, and can give power to live it. How is this power seen? It is seen when love is felt, when hindrances made up of fear or habit or wounds are weakened or taken away. With the ability to see one’s chains, comes guidance towards freedom, and with each step that way comes a taste of joy and courage.

The Witness leads peace-wards, it is the root of every spiritual gift and occasion to enact it. If Love is witnessed in our Friend, or in ourselves. then there is life in the gift, and the gift is for us all, so the life coming through it will be for all. Make sure, make sure, that the first word said to a gift-birth is “Love!” Then guidance, practice, form, and balance can be developed,and methods and techniques have their place. The experienced travelers who have walked that path and know that kind of service and its costs should come forward to share the stories of their journey in the work, offering gifts of joy, as well as warning. Growth and learning come in the forming and doing of service — this we know experimentally!

If we listen to the love in the voice of the Witness, fear is taken off, and reasoning and judgment can become tools seasoned with wisdom. Remember, remember, that the greatest in the kingdom of heaven is the servant of all. We say to the world (often with self-congratulation) that “we are all ministers,” but we are fearful of making that truly happen, of dedicating the time, patience, and effort to help each other know what our service is, and how to build it up, how to cultivate our talents like good craftspeople, through apprenticeship to mastery, each of us working to assemble and sharpen our tools and our fitness for the work, making our true service our delight and daily concern.

Friends, there is no time but this present, and our meetings and our world, in their weakness and turmoil, require generosity of spirit, not penny-pinching. So much the more, if we wish to be a prophetic people, and a school of prophets, must we cling to love, let it season our judgement, and draw us to make real the dear fellowship of the common life of the Spirit, which the first Friends knew as Christ come again in the bodies of his friends, Immanuel who appeared, and appears, as a little, helpless thing unadorned and unlooked-for, but promising much.

In Christian love your friend,

Brian Drayton