Discerning a Vision for Our Work

Realizing that eradicating racism in the Religious Society of Friends is a daunting task, the committee agreed that we needed to ground our work in the leadings of the Spirit. Meeting a few months after the committee was established, members first shared how the Spirit was working within each of us individually, and then discerned a shared vision for our work. We were moved by the image of a flower, with Divine Love at the center and the petals representing different facets of our work and of this Love. With this foundation, we developed the following vision for our work to transform racist behaviors and to enhance racial and ethnic diversity among Friends:

1. We see FGC's work against racism as ministry, ministry to Friends and meetings. Our work will include preparing individually and corporately for this ministry, as well as carrying it out.
2. At the center of our vision is divine love.
3. We see our work, and the work of FGC, as healing and transforming in the deepest spiritual sense.
4. FGC's work in this area should be characterized most by empowerment, not guilt. When we raise our awareness of the realities and sufferings of racism and our own responsibilities for these, we cannot help but feel anguish and remorse. But the ultimate goal of this work is to empower Friends to transform themselves, their meetings and their institutions. To remain focused on guilt runs counter to this goal. We can choose whether to be agents of suffering or agents of divine love.
5. Our work to increase racial diversity arises out of a sense of continuing revelation. We seek to ground this work in a clear commitment to Quaker forms of worship and corporate decision making.
6. Our work should incorporate an understanding that racism, like all evils, hurts both the oppressed and the oppressor, and that the dominant groups carry a privilege whether intentional or not.