Holy Obedience?

Recently in a lesson on Quakerism, Friends in my Meeting reacted with surprise to the fact that in 1660 Charles the II released some 700 Quakers from prison and in 1661 4,000 were arrested as the 5th Monarchy uprising was suppressed.  My guess is if we knew the total population of England and the total number of Quakers at the time this indeed would be a significant proportion of both populations.  We know early Friends were imprisoned for refusing to doff their hats and for simply practicing their religion, but it is hard to comprehend how deeply a part of early Quaker experience this was!

Certainly over the centuries Quakers have also gone to jail/prison for the suffragette movement (some being force fed), for refusing conscription in any number of wars, and for various individual acts of non-violence.  But basically at this point in our history it is fairly rare; in fact most Meetings no longer have funds for suffering: the funds Meetings traditionally set aside to help provide for the individual and their family who were suffering for conscience sake, who were carrying forth the Quaker witness.

It is not that there are not things happening that contradict our basic testimonies: 50-60% of our taxes going to war and preparations for war (not to mention interest on war), the refusal to marry Gays & Lesbians in most states violates our testimony on equality, the basic American lifestyle violates our testimony on simplicity, all kinds of human rights violations take place inside American corporations everyday, and many would say we have a new testimony on the environment which every one of us lives in violation of every day.  So how do we square our love of Friendly heroes like John Woolman who traveled the country appealing to Friends to release their slaves with those of us who burn carbon to do our work for us at the cost of  a livable planet for our children?  How do we square our love of Lucrettia Mott's work in prisons and behalf of the poor, with the current blight of racism that fills our prisons with the new workings of Jim Crow disenfranchising and imprisoning more black men than there were slaves in the South?

Our testimonies are testimonies and not creeds because we say that truth is known experimentally, that these are testimonies to what we know to be true so far.  Are we still listening?  Some would say that we are not doing more because of a lack of creativity to create effect campaigns on these issues.  Others would say it is a result of a graying Quaker populations (but what comes first the chicken or the egg?  Are youth attracted to a group that does not lead the way?),  Some would say we have sat in American luxury too long and become complacent and lost our courage.   I would say "Are we still listening to the still small voice within on these issues?

Recently, I went to the opening night of the "Do the Math" tour by Bill McKibben and 350.org.  This organization that has sounded the alarm on climate change for over a decade is now calling people nationally to divest from all fossil fuel companies, and to commit civil disobedience as needed at their stockholder meetings.  We have already experience 1 degree of warming and are on our way quickly to 2 degrees.  The horrors of two degrees are were we get sea rise from the melting of Greenland, and droughts and crop failure and species extinction.  The fossil fuel companies have 5x the amount of fuel still under the earth than can be burned and not take us to 2 degree warming and beyond.  The idea is to put pressure on them to change their business plan to alternative energies or risk loosing their profits. 

This will require thousands and thousands to take a stand with their pensions and their investments and thousands more to be arrested.  In the dark theater Bill McKibben asked people who had already been arrested opposing the Exel pipeline to stand, and then he asked who would be willing to "consider" being arrested in Texas in the Spring at the Texaco stockholder meeting, and who would be willing to consider being arrested in the spring in San Francisco at the Chevron meeting, and slowly more and more people stood until at last he said who would be willing to read his email about the campaign and 2400 people were standing.   You could not be there and avoid the internal question:  "What are you willing to do to stop the madness?"  This is a question that I think all Quakers need to be sitting with in the silence and asking themselves?  What does The Creator require of us at this critical moment in the history of Creation?  Are we still listening to that "life and power" that can move us at great personal cost into the path of righteousness?