We return to Benjamin Lay for an illustration of passionate persistence—the courage to endure in the face of apparently impossible odds. The paradox of Lay’s prophetic witness? While insisting on the immediate end to repressive hierarchies, Lay wasn’t confined to short-term or even lifetime goals.
Prophetic witness often points to an ethical promised land we won’t live to see. Almost all major Quaker concerns share this character: racial justice, LGBTQI+ advocacy, economic justice, nonviolence, support for migrants, and ecojustice. Benjamin Lay valued an eternal principle, which says the time to speak out for a fairer future is now.
Our dual crises of biodiversity and climate shine an intense spotlight on the fierce urgency of now.
Comfort-zone challenges have to happen now. Sustainability ethics scholar Don Brown urges:
If action isn’t taken now, much like the death of a neglected parent or friend, time will run out, and no matter how loud the cry, it will be too late to express the love we always said we felt but rarely displayed and were not prepared to sacrifice anything for.
Most of our neighbors hope to avoid urgency and sacrifice by pinning their hopes on technology. Buy an electric car, and life will go on, uninterrupted. Invest in the “green economy” for retirement portfolio success. This approach depends on the same sector that leads us into the consumption cycle, the sector that would pave the whole of Earth.
Granted, we can’t fix the evolution we’ve broken. We can’t restore cultures that have already been lost in the throes of global heating. But we can interrupt the continued pattern of dominion, hierarchy, inequality, land-grabbing, and exploitation that gave rise to these crises. We can chart new pathways to a spiritual and cultural transformation. And as the struggle continues, continuing revelation guides our spiritual EMERGEnce.
What if we could turn climate crisis into a true opportunity—to support socially just, community-oriented transit? To seek real joy in the simplicity testimony? To feel the excitement of riding a bus to the theatre and back home for the very first time? Through the lens of evolving values, the sacrifices called for may be understood as profound gifts.
Yet all the while, real progress means going the distance. It depends upon deep work, advocacy, and dialogue that plumbs our values, causing an evolution of consciousness that transforms the way we perceive our world and our role in it. This is a lifelong task.
We might not wish for it to be our life’s work. We might feel like it’s someone else’s job, or it’s just not worth doing anything about. How, after all, could we possibly deal with such immense challenges? Here again, we turn to our testimonies. The EMERGE values speak when we are not able to, or when we feel like letting it go.
PHOTO: Tree swallow, Windsor CT, by Michael Zager