|
The Queries are used by Friends as a way to help each of us to examine our relationship with the Inner Light. They have been created by, and are periodically revised by, Yearly Meeting, and it is recommended that they be read frequently in private devotion as well as in monthly and quarterly meetings. Each group of queries provides a focus for individual meditation to help us engage in our own ongoing process of exploring our lives as they manifest and express our deepest held beliefs. The Queries are offered for self examination and guidance, not for judgment. While language may, at times, fall short of perfect expression, the spirit from which these words are born, is accepting of all persons in the human family. Balby Friends remind us in their letter, written in 1656: "these things we do not lay upon you as a rule or form to walk by, but that all, with the measure of light which is pure and holy, may be guided: and so in the light walking and abiding, these may be fulfilled in the Spirit, not in the letter, for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life." |