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Faith and Practice

Pacific Yearly Meeting

of the

Religious Society of Friends

a guide to quaker discipline in the experience of pacific yearly meeting of the religious society of friends.
published 2001

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Contents page

iii: testimony and experience of friends

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Corporate Search and Practice
preface
pym in context
quaker faith & spiritual practice
testimony & experience of friends
organization of the society
procedures
activities & organization of the YM
glossary
bibligraphy
appendices
sources of quotations
index of sources
subject index

We gratefully acknowledge the generosity of Friends who have permitted us to use material for this Faith and Practice.

 

marriage

149 Friends, our life is love and peace and tenderness.We are called to bear one another’s burdens, forgive one another, and never judge or accuse one another. Instead, we must pray for one another, helping one another up with a tender hand if there has been any slip or fall. O! wait to feel this spirit. Wait to be guided and to walk in this spirit that you may enjoy the Lord in sweetness and walk meekly, tenderly, peaceably, and lovingly with one another.

isaac penington

150 For the right joining in marriage is the work of the Lord only, and not the priests’ or magistrates’, for it is God’s ordinance and not man’s; and therefore Friends cannot consent that they should join them together; for we marry none; it is the Lord’s work and we are but witnesses.

george fox, 1669

151 … while at home running the farm and nursing a critically sick daughter, Ruth wrote to her husband Eli, who was away on one of the numerous Quaker trips, “I go into the parlor and take a good look at thy picture once in a while, and that helps me some. I can spare thee as long as the Lord has employment for thee, and NO LONGER.”

ruth fisher harvey, 1862

152 That so deeply enriching and spiritually fulfilling an experience as love between two individuals should be limited to those of different sex we find inconsistent with the Quaker principle of the universality of love in the light.

new england yearly meeting, 1982

153 It is our belief that the equality of all people is a fundamental Quaker testimony. And we also believe that the meeting gains its greatest strengths in honoring, celebrating, and supporting committed loving relationships. …We respect the rights of couples regardless of gender to marry under the care of the meeting. The marriage procedure outlined in Faith & Practice will serve as a guide for all unions.

redwood forest friends meeting, 1996