Luray Friends Meeting

02/03/2026

01/28/2026

"As the soul is more emptied of the strength and riches it received from God, so it is more prepared to enter into, and live in, the Pure Being itself. For nothing can live there which veils. In the life God was, and is, and is to be all in all forever. Therefore, that which enters there, and lives and abides there, must be poor, empty, naked, nothing, and remain nothing forever. But as it gathers anything from the fullness, and becomes anything in itself, it is thereby shut out."

"Seek not ease in the flesh, no, not in the least; but take up the cross every day, in everything, till the earthly be slain; until the wisdom and strength of the flesh be wholly subdued, and then the wisdom and power of God will become natural."

-Friend Isaac Penington

01/27/2026

There will be no meeting tonight, Tuesday, January 27th, due to potentially dangerous icy conditions. Have a safe week!

01/27/2026

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

01/25/2026

“Our work is not to lay down or prescribe rules of our own, or to walk by the rules which others have prescribed, but singly and nakedly to wait for the teachings of God’s Spirit, and to walk therein… For the Spirit puts life into what it teaches, and leads into the living, powerful exercise of what it teaches.”

“Religion is not a notion, but a thing. The true religion is not a traditional form of words, but a living principle of life received from God, and living in God.”

- Friend Isaac Penington

01/25/2026

“Ye have heard that it hath been said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’

But I say unto you that ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also...

Ye have heard that it hath been said, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy.’

But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your Father who is in Heaven. For He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

For if ye love them that love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same?

And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not even the publicans so?

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father who is in Heaven is perfect."

01/24/2026

"Even in the apostles’ days Christians were too apt to strive after a wrong unity and uniformity in outward practices and observations, and to judge one another unrighteously in those things; and mark, it is not the different practice from one another that breaks the peace and unity, but the judging of one another because of different practices…"

"This was the apostle's rule: that everyone perform singly unto the Lord what he did, and not for one to meddle with the light of conscience of another (undervaluing his brother, or judging him because his light and practices differed from his....) Everyone was to keep close to their own measure of light, even to that proportion of faith and knowledge which God in his mercy had bestowed on them. And here is the true unity in the Spirit, in the inward life, and not in an outward uniformity. Such an outward conformity was not necessary in the apostles' days, nor is it necessary now, and the eye that seeks it overlooks the one thing which is necessary."

- Friend Isaac Penington

01/22/2026

"The central theme of Universalism is that spiritual enlightenment may be achieved by everyone everywhere. It may be experienced in the teachings of all the great religious systems or in the personal and private experiences of the individual seeker who may have no religion at all.
Quakerism testifies to the reality of the Inward Light which is available to everyone, be they 'heathen, Turk or Jew'. It is not surprising, therefore, that Quaker literature from its very beginnings has reflected the theme of the universality of revelation."

-Friend Ralph Hetherington

01/21/2026

"You will say, ‘Christ saith this, and the apostles say this;’ but what canst thou say? Art thou a child of the Light, and hast thou walked in the Light, and what thou speakest, is it inwardly from God?"
-Friend George Fox

01/20/2026

"George Fox laid down no rules for his followers. He formulated no prohibitions. He was easy and lenient toward those who were in the army or the navy and who nevertheless wanted to become ‘Children of the Light.’ He always left them free to ‘follow their own light.’"

"The social mission is, and must always be, a great feature of real Christianity, only it must not take the place of the primary function which is revealing God."

-Friend Rufus Jones