This week’s Friends Journal feature is a piece by Lauren Brownlee, who’s written many book reviews for us, but only one feature before this (“One Drop in the Wave of Liberation” about the new African American history museum in D.C.). This time she talks about one of the more contentious issues of our day, the political situation in Israel and Palestine, but does it very much in a Quaker context.
What make it Quaker? Well, she shares her personal story of weighing the sides on the issue, going from one viewpoint to another until she finds one that she can own. The process of discernment is careful and not linear. It listens to partisans without itself becoming partisan. As I write in my opening column, “Her answer may not be your answer, but we hope her model of discernment is useful to readers.” She writes:
My greatest fear is hurting people, and my new friend had made it clear that the worst consequence of BDS is not inefficacy; it is causing more pain to a people who have already greatly suffered. I did have the opportunity early in the gathering to voice these obstacles to fully embracing the BDS Movement, and in fact, we all shared concerns that we had heard about advocating for the movement