Letters - 17 May 2024

From Embrace ‘should’ to Quaker Peace Testimony

Embrace ‘should’

After Zoe Prosser’s article of 10 May, I wanted to write in praise of ‘should’. I have the stubbornness to keep battering at the thing I cannot change, the defeatism to give up when I maybe could change something, and it takes such work to know the difference. 

‘Should’ helps. I would love the flow of the Tao, wei wu wei, do without doing. Action would flow without effort from situation, making the change which is obviously necessary. Instead, I am unsure. I say the elders ‘should’ do something, as I notice discomfort and grope towards improvement. I say I ‘should’ do more, expressing my discomfort that I never have enough energy, or my desire to change direction. As long as we are kind to each other and to ourselves, ‘should’ is a guide.

Embrace ‘should’. Before being the change I want to see in the world, I have to glimpse it.

Abigail Maxwell

Mindfulness

At a conference that I attended recently it was suggested that young people were being put off by the word ‘worship’ in the phrase ‘Meeting for Worship’.

Could we use the phrase ‘Meeting for spiritual mindfulness’ instead?

Barrie Rowson