Alaska Friends Conference
Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)

September 2014

Greetings to Friends Everywhere,

Alaska Friends Conference (Yearly Meeting of unprogrammed Friends Meetings in Alaska) gathered for our Annual Session at the Dickerson Friends Center near Wasilla, Alaska in early August. This year, we wished to further explore climate disruption and how Alaska Friends may be called to respond. Friends’ testimony on right relations with the natural world particularly stirred us as John Dickerson welcomed more than forty Alaska Friends and visitors to the meeting house and family homestead.

Thursday evening and all day Friday, we laid the groundwork for deep worship and continued discernment of our collective calling to care of the Earth with invited guests: Michael Wajda from Friends General Committee and his wife Alison Levy; Sonja Tuma of American Friends Service Committee; and Shelly Tannebaum from Quaker Earthcare Witness and her husband Charles Blanchard.  We shared stories of personal experiences of the “gathered condition in community.” We were inspired by examples of group discernment, empowerment and action from the work of AFSC. We heard again, the powerful and timeless ministry of Carl Magruder, delivered at Spring Quarterly 2007 in Fairbanks on a concern for Earth Justice and stewardship. We were reminded of past clarity on this topic recorded within the yearly meeting.

We recalled the ALtAS project (1999-2002) and AFC Friends' use of compassionate listening to promote greater clarity and understanding of the values shared across political divides on the highly charged topic of subsistence within our state. We experienced anew the power and potential of this model in taking us quickly to a place of gathered community in response to Earthcare and wondered if such a model may be rightly called into service in response to climate disruption.

Our guest, Shelley Tannebaum, described the evolving action of her Strawberry Creek meeting. Beginning years ago with the "Dime a Gallon" voluntary carbon tax as an awareness builder, the meeting moved toward increasing broad strategic and public witness to address systemic drivers of climate disruption. In a session on moving from “Earthcare Despair to Repair” we dreamed of what our successful collective actions would look like in 2035. Working in small groups, we imagined innovations such as super-insulated housing and restoring our ecology to strengthen local food systems. One group proposed a radical transformation of options in education. Community governance, we proposed, would be re-centered on citizen dialogue and consensus. The society we envisioned would be nourished by the deep mutuality of gathered community that we experience through Quaker practice, but which is by no means limited to Friends.

In worship sharing, we welcomed the observations of our visitors about the way in which the Alaska setting brings such a powerful, direct interdependence with the natural world. Perhaps Alaska Friends see the effects of climate disruption in a particularly immediate fashion, and our leading toward witness may be of special interest to the larger Friends’ community.

In the past year, a small oil tank leak and a rising water table challenged us to love this place all over again. We were led to walk our talk and to act on first principles, without always knowing the consequences. An especially steadfast Friend among us stepped forward to ensure that we fully assess and mitigate the spill rather than looking away and hoping it didn't contaminate the water table. We found an outpouring of support to rebuild the foundation and stabilize our beloved beam and post building to serve for decades to come.

In a meeting for remembrance, we were inspired again by deceased Friend Niilo Koponen in the fullness, faithfulness, cheerfulness, and grounding of his life. Throughout the weekend, we experienced the power and richness of our own gathered community, and found renewed joy in our ability to give ongoing life to the vision of Mahala Dickerson, one of the founding elders of the Alaska Friends Conference. This is a special place and we cherish it. It is also a source of inspiration to go out into the world to lift up the Quaker message of deep respect among all peoples, and right relations with the earth and our living communities.   

At the close of the weekend, a collective, voiced, current kept us standing in a circle well after the rise of meeting, culminating in the expression that we feel called to do more than issue statements of concern--we feel called to corporate action in response to climate disruption. We were bereft at the possibility of waiting until our next Annual Session to act. In faithfulness to the sense of meeting, we decided to hold Fall Quarterly this year for the first time in many years, in order to discern the direction of our action and to plan our first steps. Chena Ridge Meeting, in Fairbanks, offered to host. We named an ad hoc working committee and asked that committee to explore and flesh out various options for corporate action, and to bring these to the meeting in Fairbanks.

In closing, we cherish the solidarity of Friends worldwide and thank you for the inspiration of your spirit-led gatherings so tenderly articulated in the Epistles. 

(signed) David Bantz

Clerk, Alaska Friends Conference