Walking in the Light does not mean doing things the way we always have. The Christian Church has sailed into the future like a majestic Galleon - backwards. There is a tension involved with walking in the Light between our often unexamined habits and our being led by the Spirit.
Walking in the Light steadies us like an old family heirloom and at the same time, calls us to venture forth into ways of being and behaving that are new and possibly prophetic. Meaning drenched by the Divine Concern.
The prophet Isaiah calls us to the Spirit doing a new thing in us. Jesus calls us to God's Commonwealth, the world turned upside down. Spiritually there is for us a transformation from within and without. There is a prayer rising in each of us that if we don't resist will slowly change our lives from within. We will be made new.
Creation is grounded in newness. Look at the gradual emergence of democracy out of our totalitarian past. Still new and in need of more work. War was taken for granted a century or two ago. Now most of us question the worth of war as a way of resolving human conflict.
Newness.
The possibiliity of medical services for every human being. Basic housing for all. A life free from domination and oppression for all. This is what the universal love can do. When William Penn asked Quakers a long time ago to try what love will do, this is what he meant.
We are called to create a world without violence, a world without domination, a world without greed. A wolrd where kindness counts.
Newness. Quakers believe in ongoing revelation and walking in the Light confronts us with the paradox of preserving the wisdom of the past and surrendering to the newness of the Spirit.