Dare to love God! Dare to practice that love everywhere in God’s family, seeing the divine likeness in everyone, mixture of earth and heaven though we be! This challenge was raised by Quaker economist and peace activist Kenneth Boulding some fifty years ago and is no less alive and provocative today. The prolific writer and poet tells us that we are born to love, that we are living parts of a living whole, and that there are no boundaries in God’s whole Kingdom. To Kenneth Boulding, it was “a strange heresy” to treat the realm of emotion as secondary to the intellectual. Rather, he urges us to explore love unlimited by time or place, love in out families, with our neighbors, and in our meetings and churches, all possible through our love for God. The author concludes with his vision for the world and his assurance that there is no room for despair, that God is always redeeming the world, that from the depths of misery there will be “a reawakening of divine love, a new springtime to the weary earth.”

Dare to love God! Dare to practice that love everywhere in God’s family, seeing the divine likeness in everyone. The author raises this challenge and tells us that we are born to love, that we are living parts of a living whole, and that there are no boundaries in God’s whole Kingdom. It was “a strange heresy” to treat the realm of emotion as secondary to the intellect. He urges us to explore love unlimited by time or place, love in our families, with our neighbors, and in our meetings and churches, all possible through our love for God. In his vision for the world and his assurance that there is no room for despair, God is always redeeming the world. From the depths of misery there will be “a reawakening of divine love, a new springtime to the weary earth.”

This was the 1942 William Penn Lecture to Friends in Philadelphia. The style has an old-fashioned indirect formality that is sometimes graceful but often crosses over into high-flown. His observations are occasionally insightful, sometimes worthy but commonplace, and occasionally, I would say, fine-sounding but misleading. His message is that we should practice the love of God in all aspects of our lives. While Boulding's point is clearly worthy, this is a tedious read. ( )

A direct and forceful encouragement to step forward and "practice what we preach." An encouragement to live a sincere and positive life, to be open and sharing regarding our spiritual understanding, and to endeavor in all our ways to love the Spirit. Slightly out-of-date in some of its cultural references and unanalytical in its references to "God." ( )

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