A Conversation with Jay Marshall: Faith, Friendship, and the Joy of a Well Lived Life
- windycooler
- 1 minute ago
- 5 min read
There are a few people in this world who can make you laugh while they are quietly rearranging the furniture in your spiritual life. Jay Marshall is one of them.
I first met Jay years ago when he was dean at the Earlham School of Religion, and I was a student who thought I had a lot to prove. I was a little afraid of him back then. He had that dry wit that made you wonder if he was joking or teaching you something you would not realize until three days later. Over the years, though, the fear softened into friendship. I came to see how much of his humor was kindness in disguise, a way of helping people loosen their grip and listen a little better.
Now, years later, I am delighted to welcome him to the Friends Incubator for Public Ministry for a special event about his book, Spice Up Your Life: Reflections on the Testimonies.
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Date: Thursday, November 6, 2025
Time: 7:00 PM to 8:30 PM Eastern
Where: Zoom!
Perk: Register and receive a code from Barclay Press for 25 percent off the book!
We are also grateful to be partnering with Barclay Press, whose longtime commitment to nurturing thoughtful Quaker writing has made this evening possible. Thank you to Eric Muhr for his generous spirit and friendship.
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What Jay offers to those of us in public ministry
When I first read Spice Up Your Life, I thought of every minister, elder, and meeting I have ever known that was trying to follow a leading without losing its balance. Jay’s recent book is not about public ministry directly, but it speaks to many of the problems we live with every day: exhaustion, uncertainty, and the longing to be faithful when everything feels too complicated.
Jay’s reflections, framed by the Quaker testimonies of Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality, and Stewardship (SPICES), offer a kind of spiritual tool kit for that reality. He takes these old Quaker words and gives them back to us in stories we can see and touch. What follows are some examples...
The struggle with overextension
Anyone who has ever tried to live into a call knows the feeling of being stretched thin. There are always more people to visit, more needs to meet, and more good work waiting just over the horizon. Jay tells a story about the year he and his wife, Judi, moved from two households into one and discovered they had enough lamps to open a store. He calls that moment a “spiritual aha.”
“Accumulation without reflection or critique,” he writes, “is an easy habit to develop.”
That sentence lands differently for anyone who has tried to keep too many ministries running at once. Jay’s reflection on Simplicity, what he calls “The Freedom of an Uncluttered Life,” is not about tidying your house; it is about clearing space in your soul. “Rather than ‘What is easiest,’ Simplicity asks, ‘What is most important in life.’”
For those of us called into public ministry, that question saves us. It gives permission to rest, to say no, to trust that what is truly important will have its own staying power.
The challenge of conflict and misunderstanding
Every meeting that hosts a public minister knows the weight of misunderstanding.
Tensions rise over authority, over money, over whether someone’s call feels too strange or too bold. Jay’s reflections on peace are made for these moments.
“At its best,” he writes, “peace is less about eliminating threats and conquering discord and more about disarming the distress caused by our differences.”
It is the kind of wisdom that invites you to exhale. His stories remind us that peace is not about control; it is about learning to stand in the middle of difference without pouring gasoline on the fire. He jokes that sometimes peace begins by learning to take our own perceptions a little less rigidly. I have tested that theory more than once, and he is right.
The test of integrity
Public ministry depends on trust between ministers and meetings, between individuals and the Spirit itself.
Jay calls integrity “less of a thing we do and more a way of being.”
He tells stories that make that idea real. Integrity, he writes, is “caring less about being perfect and more about being true to what matters.” For meetings, this means learning to walk beside a minister in truth, even when it gets uncomfortable. For ministers, it means practicing the same transparency we hope to find in others.
Integrity does not protect us from mistakes, but it does make it easier to begin again.
The ache of loneliness
Ministry can be lonely work. You are often the one who leaves home, travels far, and returns to a meeting that may not understand exactly what you have been through.
Jay’s reflection on community feels like a balm for that.
“With togetherness, who knows what to expect?” he writes. “But when hospitality and respect abound, good things are always possible.”
That is the heart of eldership and accompaniment. It is not about supervision or correction but about the kind of friendship that keeps a minister’s heart from drying out. Jay’s gentle humor and his deep sense of companionship show us what that can look like.
The trouble with scarcity and comparison
Ministers and meetings both worry about not having enough—enough people, enough money, enough recognition. Jay’s reflections on stewardship cut right through that fear.
“Stewardship encourages the judicious use of our gifts and resources as though we have none to waste,” he writes, “while generously sharing with others as though our abundance is unlimited.”
He adds, “Perhaps I am to be a conduit, not the final destination.”
That single sentence could be the motto for every faithful meeting that has ever tried to support a ministry on a shoestring. It shifts the question from “Do we have enough?” to “How might we let what we have flow outward?”
Why this night will be special
Hosting Jay for this conversation is to host an old friend. He has walked with ministers and meetings for decades, and his wisdom is the kind that makes you smile before you realize how deep it goes.
He writes, “Kindness is not the least I can do; it ranks among the best that I can do for another.”
That spirit runs through his work and through the heart of this event. We are gathering to remember that the testimonies are not dusty ideals; they are ways of living that can heal tired ministers and strengthen the communities that love them.
So come join us. Come curious, come weary, come hopeful. Bring your questions and your laughter.
Register at FriendsIncubator.org and receive a 25 percent discount from Barclay Press when you sign up!
Jay Marshall is a life-long Friend with a variety of ministry gifts and experiences. Recorded in North Carolina Yearly Meeting (FUM), he served in pastoral ministry for several years and is dean emeritus of Earlham School of Religion. Jay is author of several books, including Vitality Among Friends, Thanking and Blessing: A Spirituality of Gratefulness, When the Spirit Calls and now Spice Up Your Life: Reflections on the Testimonies . He blogs occasionally at jaymarshallonline.com.
We have many events on our busy calendar! Also in November, we are hosting Lynette Davis in a conversation on Grief and Creativity in Public Ministry! Grief is one of the most universal human experiences, yet it often feels hidden in our religious communities. In this tender conversation, public minister Lynette Davis and Friends Incubator convener Windy Cooler will explore how grief shows up in ministry—both as a burden and as a source of unexpected strength and creativity. Come as you are—whether your grief feels close at hand or long carried, there is space for you here.