Mission with Prophetic Power: The Journal of John Woolman (SRSC 12)

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Mission with Prophetic Power: The Journal of John Woolman

conscious attention Woolman gave to his many difficult conversations. I have a feeling that these two practices could be beneficial for our life and ministry today. Journal-Keeping as Spiritual Practice John Woolman begins his Journal by informing us, his readers, that he has often felt an inclination (a “motion”*) to “leave some hints in writing of my experience of the goodness of God.” On the one hand, his “hints in writing” indicate that from the beginning Woolman had a public readership in mind when he took pen to hand. By the time he began the manuscript of his Journal (1756, though he likely employed notes kept earlier), he had already published the first part of “Considerations” (1754) and written an important letter defending a pacifist approach to conflicts of the state (1755). Autobiographies giving glory to God were a common form of devotional reading in Quaker circles and it would be natural for Woolman to consider offering his own contribution in a similar style. I think Woolman recognized his prophetic calling fairly early. Yet when one reads the Journal , one can see that it is not simply a declaration of Woolman’s “experience of the goodness of God.” The Journal —indeed, the act of writing and reviewing it—was for Woolman part of his own devotional life, a means of paying attention to God and perhaps even being with God. Journal-keeping, or “journaling,” may be defined as a written record of selected pieces of one’s life. 1 By writing down the events, thoughts, or feelings of our lives, we see them from a unique perspective and can return to

1 See for example Helen Cepero, Journaling as a Spiritual Practice: Encountering God Through Attentive Writing (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2008).