State of the Society:
FGConnections Spring 2005
To Friends Everywhere
Compiled by Barbara Hirshkowitz
In thinking about the state of the Religious Society of Friends associated with Friends General Conference, it seems natural to turn to the epistles written by yearly meetings in 2004. While this selection is incomplete and filtered, it reflects concerns about diversity, community, peace building and the environment held across many of the 14 yearly meetings affiliated with FGC.
What follows are quotes from the yearly meeting epistles, selected to highlight commonalties.
Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting Children’s Epistle, 2004
“We want others to know that we think peace is easier to deal with than violence. It is easier to keep people alive than to kill them. We think you should always believe in God. God can help you find what you lose.”
Baltimore Yearly Meeting, 2004
“Spirit-led ministry throughout our sessions reminded us of the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, whose message of radical inclusion led him to minister among the poor, the outcast, and the voiceless of his time. We asked ourselves how have we excluded others in our past and what must we do to remedy the injustices we see today in our world.”
Southeastern Yearly Meeting, 2004
“Our focus on peace building was deepened each morning by opportunities for worship by the lake and for communion with the glory of nature. Worship sharing each day provided us with powerful quotations and queries to guide us to new insights about our role in creating a more peaceful world. A rich variety of workshops and interest groups enabled us to explore the interconnections between spirituality, our witness in the world and the work of our hands.”
Southeastern Yearly Meeting Middle School and High Schools Friends, 2004
“In our racism worship, we used a multitude of captivating scenarios to explore our true feelings about race. In the evening we discussed gender and sexuality, asking ourselves such questions as: How does gender affect our lives? How many genders are there? And why is gender an important part of diversity? Sometimes we used metaphors inspired by Finding Nemo to help answer these questions and we also developed a ‘gender quotient.’
On Saturday morning we contemplated programmed and unprogrammed meetings, trying to set aside our stereotypes and look at each type with open minds. We came to the conclusion that both offer different ways for people to worship. Also, we realized that diversity within a religion is just as important as diversity in race and gender and sexuality.”
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 2004
“Bryan Hehir, president of Catholic Charities and a Roman Catholic priest, addressed our evening session. He spoke to us on ‘Spiritual Grounding in Times of Turmoil.’ He opened with a statement from Augustine, ‘Many that God has, the Church does not have; and many that the Church has, God does not have.’ He asked what does it mean to be a bearer of the Spirit? He suggested three essential sources where we might locate the Spirit: in faith, in reason and in holiness. The Spirit is inherently social; we are not given the Spirit only for ourselves. God enters the human condition to transform it. With this presentation by Bryan Hehir, we embrace the possibility of our role in ecumenical witness.”
New York Yearly Meeting, 2004
“Daniel Snyder, our keynote speaker, introduced the theme of our sessions ‘Transforming Hopelessness into Centered Peacemaking,’ reminding us of the hidden springs of love that fill our lives with grace. It is from deep within ourselves that we are called to respond to the world’s challenges. He urged us to respond to the nagging cynic inside us with confidence that true nonviolence is the greatest power on earth. To that end we must learn to absorb pain. Citing Simone Weil’s remark that false gods turn suffering into violence, while the true God turns violence into redemptive suffering, he reminded us that the real enemy of love is indifference, the refusal to suffer.”
Lake Erie Yearly Meeting, 2004
“This year, as we appeared to be reaching the end of such a process [reaching clearness on a query] in our committee, one Friend spoke and offered a complete alternative. As a young tree takes root and thrives in carefully prepared ground, so the rightness of this query grew in our hearts and minds. How long, oh God, how long must we remain complacent in our spiritual and physical relationships with earth and sun which sustain us? How may we alter these relationships in a restorative way?”
Illinois Yearly Meeting, 2004
“Peace begins with imagining a dream. A just peace is not passivity, but a dynamic form of life in which people flourish in community. Peace is recognizing the ‘life cycle’ of violence and intervening early in the tension stage, such as in Kenya today. Peace is seeing that disagreements can provide a wellspring of creative energy, if they are addressed with expertise, love, recognition of all gifts and mutual respect. The foundation of a community of peace is the love of God. Are we willing to accept God’s love, to be directed by the living God, and to find our deepest fulfillment in growing toward God?”
—
“Dearest Friends, we rejoice to tell you that in worship following a divinely inspired message, God blessed our community with a convincement. We had been made tender by our days sharing Spirit together, and had been reminded to surrender self-will to an innocent trust of God. Twice we were invited to end our worship session and twice we were unable to rise. Our message from this experience is that ‘Communities of Peace,’ the communion of Spirit, begin to grow only when we can share our pain and hear our neighbor’s pain with an open heart. The pain of our own racism is guilt, fear and shame. Asking for help from the meeting and from God, we can hear, validate and then begin to heal the wounds in our humanity. We all must ask for repentance.”
Canadian Yearly Meeting Young Friends, 2004
“There was much anticipation and excitement about the upcoming World Gathering of Young Friends in England next summer. Excitement about supporting Young Friends from less affluent countries to attend the gathering grew among us. Through our bubbling over brainstorming sessions we realized that this fundraising can be an incredible opportunity for us to strengthen our connections and grow as a community outside of Quaker gatherings. This is relevant now because many of us have felt disconnected from the Young Friends community after leaving gatherings. We experienced a shared enthusiasm made extra special by our great diversity in our ways of thinking, in how we were interested in living and in where we were choosing to go spiritually.”
Canadian Yearly Meeting, 2004
“As usual there was an atmosphere of joy and celebration as we renewed our ties and looked forward to the challenges ahead. The themes of both diversity and continued unity in the Spirit frame our vision for the future.”
South Central Yearly Meeting, 2004
[Paul Stucky and Carol Byler, who live and work in Bogota, Colombia were the keynote speakers] “Paul’s talk convinced us of the importance of keeping our traditions alive to ground our faith communities in the present and the urgency of re-imagining the meaning of those communities as we project our faith into the future. Their insights about the nature and needs of spiritual community led Friends into intimate conversations seeking concrete ways to increase the vitality of monthly meetings.”
We reaffirm the SCYM 1999 minute:
South Central Yearly Meeting endorses the marriages of individuals under the care of Monthly Meetings without regard to gender.
Believing that there is that of God in everyone, monthly meetings within SCYM have been taking the marriages of same-gender couples under their care for many years. We find that gift of spiritual union is as strong and valuable to our community in same- sex couples as it is in opposite-sex couples.
Based upon our testimony of equality, we affirm the right of all married couples to the same legal privileges and rights. By not recognizing these rights, the state places a burden on the affected couples and their families and on our community as a whole as we support them.
We are led by the Spirit to call upon the state to extend the right of civil marriage with all its attendant legal rights and privileges to all adult couples regardless of gender.
We encourage Friends to work toward this end by witnessing to other Friends, to people of other denominations and faith traditions, and to our legislators.
Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting, 2004
“There is risk in sharing stories of faith. In doing so, some among us have had the courage to strip themselves of all pretense. Their words testify to ongoing, divine revelation. Through careful listening, we have come to better understand the diverse ways in which we experience God. Our spirits are quickened by these bold words.”
—
“The wider society of which we are a part also challenges us. We cannot pretend that we are a people apart. As citizens of the United States, we share responsibility for the violence done in our name. Adopting minutes does not relieve us of that responsibility. We are called to live out new stories of faith, witnessing to our beliefs and modeling a society that does justice, loves mercy and walks humbly with our God.”
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