Neither Liberal nor Conservative. I'm Quaker.

People think Im a liberal; and if I share my Quaker beliefs Im often lumped into the liberal camp. Think, social justice, human rights, the universality of the Light, my current refusal to declare the Light as supernatural or natural, the acceptance that all things supernatural could be psychology or misunderstood natural phenomena. I could go on. I don’t believe in overarching control of people by large entities be they church or state governments or corporations. I question slogans and one size fits all approaches to social ills. There I could be a conservative.

Either way, I abhor the you’re in you’re out mentality found in our culture today, one that pervades even corners of liberal and Evangelical religion.

The more I practice bending to the Light, surrendering to it, trying to be obedient to it, I realize these “creaturely” movements I mentioned are divisive and can cause as much or more harm than good.

Liberal or conservative there remains for us Quakers at least a way that transcends politics, whether secular or sectarian, that provides us with a way to discern whether to act or to sit, to test things. We have a history of not acting when we should have, acting when we shouldn’t have, so our way isn’t infallible. We have opposed what the majority supports throughout history paying for it in social standing, wealth, and flesh.

But it’s better than the bandwagon, than submitting to coercion, than going with the flow, all the while questioning our integrity.

“If it is not of me it bears no fruit.”. Jesus supposedly said. It’s what we have to go by. I trust in this. When my Quaker meeting goes in a direction I don’t think is wise, logical, or spirit-led, but rather based on passion, emotion, or pressure I wait to allow for the sign that Im wrong and they’re right, or else I sit knowing that with no fruit, they will fail. And I’ll be there if and when they realize the error of their ways. Loving them like they’ve loved me as I’ve gone astray so many times in my life.

So in the world’s eye I wont fit neatly into any political movement or party. Im somewhat liberal here and somewhat conservative there. What I am is a member of the Religious Society of Friends first. All else is second. Let them question my credentials left or right. My aim isn't to please the world.

I'm free. And I'm a Friend. I'm your friend. The rest doesn’t matter.