Weighty Friends

One evening earlier this week I had the opportunity to sit with some weighty Friends. This is the term we Quakers use for those among us who, over the span of decades, have come to be known for their wisdom, discernment, spiritual maturity, service and depth of character. As a result, when they speak it carries weight. Just sitting around in a living room the other night and talking with these weighty Friends was encouraging, instructive, edifying and affirming. One of them told a powerful story of how she first encountered the living Christ and continues to hear his voice and receive his guidance. As the evening progressed it became less and less relevant to me that these weighty Friends were lesbians--such distinctions were blurred by the image of Christ I saw in them. It is that awareness of Christ in the other which erases any boundaries or categories of disqualification or marginalization. I understand now better than I ever have what Paul meant when he said "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28)