To refuse to engage with those who disagree is to refuse to influence history.
Emily Provance, a Quaker minister
who has been traveling the world
compiling a collection of wisdom
from Quaker communities
“One of the people that I have gotten to know as a wonderful mentor and a teacher is Emily Provance, a traveling Quaker minister. She has been compiling a collection of wisdom from Quaker communities all over the world. In one of those compilations, she wrote: ‘To refuse to engage with those who disagree is to refuse to influence history.’ ’That sums up something powerful for me. I think there are lots of stories we can tell ourselves that staying in our bubbles, silos,and ego chambers is the way to fight for what’s right is the way to be a good person, and to be embraced by the right people. Crossing any divides into other groups is the way to be judged, a way to dilute our own convictions, and drop our values. I don’t think any of those narratives are actually true. I think what Emily says, which, by the way, is not her words, it is the kind of marriage of Quaker wisdom from around the world. To refuse to engage with those who disagree is to refuse to influence history.”
Mónica Guzmán is Senior Fellow for Public Practice at Braver Angels
and author of I Never Thought Of It That Way:
How To Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations
In Dangerously Divided Times
