In place of a process which trusts technology and mistrusts humanity, we must learn and live out a process that builds trust between people and their institutions… From the earliest days of Friends, we have known that safety cannot be defended in our own strength, but only in God’s… And we don’t have to do it with tools of our own fashioning, ever more elaborate technological juggling acts, ever more devastatingly destructive bombs… [We can] learn to lay down carnal weapons, practising with weapons of the spirit: love, truthsaying, nonviolence, the good news of God’s birth and rebirth among us, imagination, vision, and laughter.

No one ever said it would be easy, no one promised it wouldn’t hurt. This way of life, this trusting one another and trusting God, is no impermeable shield, guaranteed to protect us by cutting us off, building barriers, keeping the bad things and the bad people out. It’s messy, muddly and sometimes painful – but the other way, the search for some kind of mechanical invulnerability, for some kind of scientific guarantee against physical death, that way I am sure lies the death of the Spirit. We know the choice – we’ve known it all along – and we make it every day… ‘I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live (Deut 30:19).’

Mary Lou Leavitt, 1987