7th
Divergent Friends
To open the way, a cultural breakthrough need not involve masses of people but must be done decisively by someone.
— from Goatwalking: A Guide to Wildland Living, a Quest for the Peaceable Kingdom by Jim Corbett
Social conscience is often wrong, among Friends as elsewhere.
Persons refusing to comply with social conscience are like researchers who refuse to conform their data to established theories. These divergent Friends advance our exposure to Truth, to the extent that we are willing to engage their testimony.
The community offers grounding, clearness, history, and legacy — but divergent Friends test the community’s social conscience. They challenge the community by refusing to abandon experiential revelation to suit established social norms or religious customs.
The task of faithful community is to integrate revelation into a heritable legacy that can be endowed to future generations. The task of the divergent Friend is prophetic: voyaging out into undomesticated Sabbath domains uncharted by religion, and recovering sabbatical wisdom for the community.
The vitality of faithful community depends on prophets who explore out beyond the slave morality of established religion. Someone must begin the exodus, again and again. Someone must take the initiative to do what is right when most of us are too cowardly or comfortable.
Comments
On 12 Feb 2009 at 13:43 James Riemermann wrote:
In all its brevity, I can’t remember the last time I saw such nuance, subtlety, and willingness to accept ambiguity in the whole mess of contemporary Quaker writing on the web. Much more appealing to me than what I’ve seen of “Convergent Friends.” I plan to keep an eye on your writing. Thanks for putting it out there.
