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

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Mission with Prophetic Power: The Journal of John Woolman

waiting before the Lord. When he sensed a movement of the Spirit, Woolman took great effort to weed out any mix of self-interest as he sought to follow the Spirit’s lead. When God brought a conviction to his heart, Woolman would sacrificially change his lifestyle in order to conform to the conviction of the Spirit. He refused to hire a stagecoach and would walk from place to place, because he felt that the horses and drivers were habitually overworked. Woolman lived in solidarity with the sufferings of others, taking time to meditate on the plight of slaves or natives and deeply sharing their pain. He was keenly aware of the complex web of forces contributing to the plight of others: the decrease of whales, the weather conditions, and the desire for luxuries, all of which influenced the life of the community at Nantucket Island; the working environment of laborers in the colonies, the demand for rum, and the shipping trade, all of which contributed to the suffering of slaves in the West Indies. Woolman reflects on these matters again and again in his Journal . He understood “consumer ethics” long before the term was invented. His “political strategy” was the simple act of speaking plainly in meetings and sharing sincerely one-on-one with slave owners and others: a strategy—and a successful one at that—which required the utmost humility and skill. Prophets speaking in the Lord’s power are enabled to see things, and Woolman saw—and felt: the Journal frequently expresses his tears— much more than many who surrounded him at that time. And he adjusted his lifestyle, his communication methods, and his devotional practices to conform to what he saw. “In the year that King Uzziah died,” the prophet Isaiah writes, “I saw the Lord” (Isa 6:1–13). He was on a throne, and he gave Isaiah a commission to speak. Isaiah