Quaker Quotes (Not Quaker Oats)

*July 22, 2016*
 Campus is quiet right now. The groups of boisterous teenagers (or maybe young adults...I'm getting too old; they all look like kids to me now) are gone, the other teachers who are attending this literacy conference are at their hotels or in their dorm rooms. Insects buzzing, birds chirping, occasional cars passing create the soundtrack to my quiet reading time.

Reading. I haven't been this into a book in...a while. I mean, I loved Reading in the Wild by my teaching idol (I use that term playfully) Donalyn Miller. But I haven't drowned myself happily in a novel in months now, I don't think.

I'm halfway through The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd and loving every minute of it. Set in South Carolina in the early to mid 1800s, The Invention of Wings follows two girls, Sarah and Handful or "Hetty," from childhood to adulthood. While close in age and proximity, they are worlds apart: Sarah is Hetty's owner, and Hetty is Sarah's family's slave. Sarah struggles with her feelings about slavery, rebelling against the idea of oppression and owning human beings but not quite sure what to do about it.

I came across this phrase a few minutes ago and haven't been able to keep reading since. It has lodged itself in my brain, like a splinter: "To remain silent in the face of evil is itself a form of evil."

Along with my obsessions with cats, coffee, books, Benedict Cumberbatch, and The Office, I'm quite intruiged by personality tests. If you know anything about Myers Briggs personality tests, it will mean something to you when I say I am an INFJ, also called "The Advocate." If those four letters mean nothing to you, here's a description of my personality type from 16personalities.com:

1. "INFJs indeed share a very unique combination of traits: though soft-spoken, they have very strong opinions and will fight tirelessly for an idea they believe in." Um, chya. Very strong.

2. "They are decisive and strong-willed, but will rarely use that energy for personal gain – INFJs will act with creativity, imagination, conviction and sensitivity not to create advantage, but to create balance." Although I recognize it's not always possible, I have to admit that deep down, I desire nothing more than for life to be fair. If it's not fair, I feel impelled to create fairness to the best of my ability.

3. "The passion of their convictions is perfectly capable of carrying them past their breaking point and if their zeal gets out of hand, they can find themselves exhausted, unhealthy and stressed. This becomes especially apparent when INFJs find themselves up against conflict and criticism – their sensitivity forces them to do everything they can to evade these seemingly personal attacks, but when the circumstances are unavoidable, they can fight back in highly irrational, unhelpful ways."
This explains why I get so defensive if someone disagrees with me about certain issues. Those beliefs are so integral to who I am that for you to attack the belief is for you to attack me. So I fight back. Because although I have thick skin about some things, I don't about others.

4. "To INFJs, the world is a place full of inequity – but it doesn’t have to be. No other personality type is better suited to create a movement to right a wrong, no matter how big or small." Ah, yes. The I can save the world mentality is indeed strong with this one.


So imagine me, a person with all these personality traits, reading this sentence: "To remain silent in the face of evil is itself a form of evil." A Quaker delivers this line to Sarah and, like me, the line (and the rest of the Quaker beliefs) cements itself into Sarah's brain, sparking further self-exploration.

I realize that, in many ways, I am Sarah. I am in a society that has innate injustice, and I benefit from it, most of the time. And sometimes, it's unpopular to speak out or to take action.

But as the Quaker says to Sarah, "God's way is narrow and the cost is great...do not fear to lose what needs to be lost."

So
...if me saying that black lives matter on social media loses me friends and followers, so be it.
...if me saying that women should be treated as complete equals in every aspect of life, including marriage and ministry, loses me respect or credibility, so be it.
...if me saying that abortion is wrong alienates me from you, so be it.
...if me saying that spanking is wrong causes you to roll your eyes and accuse me of not believing in "discipline," so be it.


Because those are things that I believe. And I won't apologize for them. I won't back down from defending them. My INFJ-ness won't let me. Because in each of those cases, I see myself as fighting against injustice and standing up for those who are being discriminated against, abused, and mistreated. And in those cases, I simply cannot be silent. It literally goes against the core of my being.

So yes. Sometimes my mouth gets me in trouble. But I sleep better at night erring on the side of speaking up and defending what I believe is just and good and true instead of remaining silent.