Here is a letter to all Friends, sent out by North Seattle Friends Church, and dated July 20, 2024:
Dear friends!
Sunday, before worship, an attender wondered if all the Quakers across the country could pray at a designated time for political peace and election violence prevention. She could see the spiritual power that would flow from a gathered, focused channel of Divine Presence across our country. And as she wondered aloud, she was sure that if her friends of other denominations and faiths knew that Quakers were praying, they would also want to join in.
As this vision was shared, it was suggested that we begin immediately. Every noon we, at North Seattle Friends, will pray to interrupt the spirit/energy of violence with whatever mode of Spirit is natural to us — prayer, imagery, meditation, silence, etc. We will seek to replace the energy of violence with the energy of Love, Goodness, and Holy Illumination. Our focused time will be as short or long as we are Led and have space for, whether it is a moment between chores or the spaciousness of a dedicated time. We will know that these are not just our singular prayers, but the kindling of a greater, gathered community.
And so it is our joy to invite you and your Meeting/Church to join us in prayer at noon each day. We encourage you to send on this invitation to anyone and everyone, across denominations and faiths. We are not alone in our yearning for peace and hope you and many others will join us. We invite you to take up the challenge not with fear for the future, but with joyous expectation and hope!
With visions of compassion and peace dancing in our hearts, we look forward to hearing from you!
Jan Wood, Worship Coordinator
Acacia Cadorette, Clerk of North Seattle Friends Church
office@northseattlefriends.org
Related link: Emily Provance brought her concern and perspectives on election violence prevention to Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting of Friends at our last annual gathering. Here is a link to her Web page on this concern.
As the letter from North Seattle Friends has been circulating, I've been reading Erik Larson's The Demon of Unrest. Larson's book is a vivid and detailed account of the five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln as president of the USA and the start of the slaughter that we know as the U.S. Civil War.
As the author himself relates in his opening pages, he was already hard at work researching this period of history when the events of January 6, 2021, happened. (He writes, "As I watched the Capitol assault unfold on camera I had the eerie feeling that present and past had merged.") The absolutist rhetoric of many on both sides of the impending Civil War reminds me of similar polarizations in our current situation.
(I'm not claiming that the actual arguments on both sides, then and now, were equally just.)
I'm very aware that Emily Provance began circulating her concern about election violence prevention long before the recent attack on candidate Donald Trump. I'm grateful for her work, for North Seattle Friends' prayer initiative, and for the illumination provided by Erik Larson's reconstruction of an earlier period of rhetorical violence that exploded into actual war.
A statement from Christians Against Christian Nationalism.
Richard Beck remembers Daniel Berrigan. (Related: The hammer.)
The International Court of Justice on Israel, Palestine, and international law. (Also see Ellen Cantarow, "A Cancer on the West Bank.")
Sue Foley, "The Ice Queen."
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