by Michael Birkel

I'd like to invite you to begin a journey through John Woolman's Journal. If this is your first time reading John Woolman, you are in for a treat. I hope some words of introduction will whet your appetite for your exploration of John Woolman—the abolitionist, the mystic, the gentle yet radical social reformer.

Why read John Woolman?

Reasons to read John Woolman abound, and I wish you a joyful discovery of your own. Here are some of mine:

First, his life was centered in love: love for God, love for neighbor, love for all of creation. As you read John Woolman you'll see his reflections on the nature of love and the stages of love, as we learn to extend our love to embrace all.

Next, his life integrated the inward and outward dimensions of the spiritual life. John Woolman is attractive both to contemplatives and activists, and he offers inspiration to both camps. “Camps” is, sad to say, an appropriate way to describe the two groups, since religious communities often part along this divide and do a kind of polite battle with one another. Each group claims its approach is closer to the truth and wishes the other side would simply smarten-up and see that they are right. But John Woolman does not take sides on this issue; he saw no separation between the two. His own life wove the two together seamlessly. His example calls both sides to a deeper commitment without asking them to abandon either path.

Another reason to read John Woolman's Journal is the striking degree of self-honesty and depth of reflection it offers. The Journal is much more than an account of his outward activities. John Woolman reflects on the way the world is and the way it could be, on human nature and its shortcomings and potential. By example, his honest self-examination gently invites readers into reflection on their own lives.

Some possible obstacles to the newcomer

Long sentences — If you are new to writings by earlier Friends, it may take you a bit of time to grow accustomed to the length of eighteenth-century sentences. Take a deep breath. You may even try reading them aloud. They can take some getting used to, but the rewards are worth the effort.

Unusual behavior — John Woolman engaged in some odd behavior, such as wearing only undyed clothing and refusing to drink from silver vessels (since silver was mined by slaves). To some readers this looks like an overzealous scrupulosity, but I believe that Woolman took his inspiration from the symbolic actions of the biblical prophets. Jeremiah, for example, walked the streets of Jerusalem with a yoke around his neck to represent the burden that conquest by the Babylonian empire would bring. Similarly, Woolman dramatized the suffering of the oppressed by walking great distances on foot to meet with slave owners, riding in steerage while sailing to England, refusing to pay war taxes, and paying slaves for their services when he was a guest in a slaveholder's house. Although these practices might look like mere protest to some readers today, they were meant to bring others to a change of heart. Through such behavior John Woolman hoped to reach the witness of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of the oppressors. This “pure witness” would then persuade them of the injustice of their actions, and they would then cease their oppressive behavior. In many cases, it worked!

Some things you might look forward to finding in John Woolman's writings

Again, you will find your own favorites, but here are some of mine as well as passages that have been dear to readers with whom I have read and discussed Woolman for some twenty years:

• The courageous ethical stands he took as an advocate for justice for the poor, for the enslaved, for the mistreated native peoples of North America
• His gentle way of working with others to persuade them to change
• The profound religious experiences he records, especially the vision he shares near the end of the Journal
• The way he finds connections among the historic Quaker testimonies of equality, peace, honesty, and simplicity. Since they flow from the same divine source, work for peace inevitably entails work for human equality. A life centered in greed, rather than in simplicity, inescapably results in injustice rather than equality, and sows the seed for war.
• How the Bible is his mother tongue, and how he uses Scripture as the language of the inner landscape
• How he describes his experiences of worship
• His theology of labor: John Woolman believed that God intended moderate labor for all—including domesticated animals who did much of the work in preindustrial societies such as his own. When people fail to trust in God's providential care, they are tempted to seek security in an abundance of possessions. Because they do not want to work so hard themselves to obtain these goods, they force others to do the work for them. Herein lie the seeds of oppression. John Woolman urges his readers to ponder the model of Christ who, as divine, was the possessor of all but chose to live a plain and simple life in service to the afflicted.

The context of John Woolman's life and work

John Woolman was born in 1720, two years after the death of William Penn, who founded the colony of Pennsylvania. There he began the “Holy Experiment,” an effort to live out an ideal society characterized by religious freedom, social justice, and fair dealings with Native Americans. Even though the utopian vision of William Penn never became fully realized, a distinctive society did develop that offered considerable religious toleration and that coexisted peacefully with Pennsylvania's indigenous inhabitants. John Woolman lived through the final years of the Holy Experiment, which finally collapsed in a crisis in the 1750s when the Quakers resigned from the Pennsylvania legislature over the issue of participation in the war that the English and French monarchs exported to North American soil.

The war between the English and French in the 1750s tested Friends' commitment to their peace testimony. But this was not the first test that colonial Friends had faced. The peaceful conditions in the colonies before the 1750s meant that trade flourished, and numerous Friends became quite wealthy. Such prosperity tested their commitment to the testimony of simplicity, and many failed. John Woolman tells us that success in the pursuit of riches does not quench the thirst for wealth but rather increases it and opens the way to oppression of others in order to acquire more wealth. In the eighteenth century, some rich Quakers demonstrated this by their participation in the institution of slavery. John Woolman is most famous for his antislavery work, a cause to which he gave decades of his life. In response to the temptations that wealth can bring, he drastically simplified his own life as an example of how a person can, with divine blessing, live on a little. Although John Woolman had the potential for becoming successful in business and was offered work in commerce, he chose instead the humble lot of a tailor. Such work helped him resist the common human urge toward greed and allowed him more freedom to follow his vocation to travel in ministry.

In his era, recorded ministers traveled among Friends, offering spiritual nurture to the communities they visited and preserving bonds of unity among the larger Society of Friends by weaving a web of connections as they traveled. Ministers were at times led to travel under the weight of a particular concern, such as the maintenance of the traditional testimonies. John Woolman was drawn, for example, to travel to witness against the evils of slavery and to promote fidelity to the peace testimony. Ministers might feel led to travel briefly among Friends meetings close to their home, or they might travel the ocean and be away for years at a time. When John Woolman left for England in 1772, he did not know how long he might stay, since it was important to wait for divine guidance as to when one's work was finished. Sadly, he was never to return home: He contracted smallpox and died in England after only five months in that land. Friends back home ultimately united against slavery in 1776, four years after John Woolman's death. The abolition movement of the nineteenth century rightly looked to him as a forerunner.

“A near sympathy”

In summary, John Woolman's Journal is much more than an autobiography: It is an invitation to spiritual transformation. John Woolman's writings invite his readers to come as he did to “a near sympathy” with and a deeper understanding of the sufferings of the oppressed. His writings reveal his own process of inward change, and they seek to inspire a similar change in us as his readers. Witnessing the suffering of the oppressed appeals to the pure witness of the Holy Spirit in human hearts. This opens the way to interior purification, and divine love then restrains our desires for wealth and prestige. Then the mind can discern the nature of God's righteousness, which in turn leads to overflowing love for one's neighbor and the commitment to work to bring an end to oppression. This is the inward journey to which John Woolman beckons us.