What has been described in this booklet could easily be dismissed as a
new fad that will gain limited attention for a short time and then be
forgotten, but it may instead be the discovery of vast untapped
resources that can raise primary human relationships to new and higher
levels of richness and creativity. If this should be the case the loss
of this great opportunity would be tragic.
The need of men and women today, as in all ages, is to learn to live
together in love and peace--to build up rather than to tear down, to
cooperate rather than to compete, to find meaning in life through open
sharing with others rather than through narrow self-seeking.
Religion has always striven to further these goals, because they
represent the spiritual development of man. But again and again the
simple truths spoken by great religious leaders have been lost in the
complexity of elaborate institutions and the lust for power.
Friends have been distinctive in their stubborn resistance to these
diversions and distortions of the simple truth that we must learn to
love God and man, and that there is no other path to redemption. In each
new age, Quakers have found ways to witness to the way of love and the
way of peace.
May it be that a central calling for Friends today is to respond to the
disintegration of marriages and the alienation of the generations by
finding in their own marriages, and in their family relationships, a new
quality of creativeness based on a deep and honest sharing of life? Can
love be spread abroad in the earth, if it cannot be nurtured in the
close and intimate relationship between man and woman, the nuclear
relationship where love begins and where life begins? Can one proclaim
peace among the nations if unable to contrive to live in harmony with
those under one's own roof?
The mood of our age is compounded of hope and despair. We have achieved
so much, in terms of technological skill and power; and we have achieved
so little, in terms of harmonious human relationships. We have created
the power to make this world, compared with what it has been, a paradise
for man to enjoy, but we have failed to make it possible for man to
enjoy what has been achieved. With the threat of an atomic holocaust
hanging like the sword of Damocles over our heads, we know beyond doubt
that we must learn the art of living together in love and peace or lose
all we have.
In such an hour, what can we do?
We can make a beginning. We can begin at home--with ourselves, and those
nearest and dearest to us. We can strive to learn the great art of
living in the school that has been provided for us. We can build
relationship-in-depth at the foundations of human society: for in the
last resort the quality of relationships in any community cannot rise to
any higher levels than the quality of relationships in the families that
make up the community; and the quality of relationships in any family
cannot rise any higher than the quality of relationships in the marriage
that has brought it into being.
Yes, there _is_ something we can do to witness to the power of love and
peace. We can make a beginning. Marriage enrichment is such a beginning.