Our very name, the Religious Society of Friends, indicates we are a group endeavor. Our Quaker form of worship and corporate decision making require us to be in community. Friends have found over the centuries that in community we are enabled more fully to experience the presence of God. Our meetings can be the "laboratories"1 where Friends are provided with (often unsought) opportunities to learn how to live with others and to see what nurtures love, what blocks it, what needs to be changed, and how to put into practice what each of us may be learning inwardly from God. Joined in community we are able to offer a more powerful witness to the world. Perhaps through our interactions with others – within the faith community and in the larger society – we may demonstrate an alternative way of living. "Let our lives speak," as Friends are fond of saying.
But being with other humans does not always run smoothly. Friends may disagree over what color to paint the walls, how to discipline children, the appropriateness of a given message in meeting for worship, what names to call the Divine, or any of a host of large and small things. Over time, interactions with others expose personal foibles as well as gifts. Like other Friends, the two of us have been both blessed and tried in community.
