2024 Young Friends Epistle

Epistle from Young Friends at NEYM Sessions 2024

Wednesday, 7th August, 2024

Dear Friends everywhere,

Fourteen Young Friends gathered at the annual sessions of New England Yearly Meeting in Castleton, VT from August 2–7, 2024, with the sessions theme, “Let us faithfully tend the seed.”

Young Friends had a busy week! We spent much of our time together joyfully and playfully building community. We braved a drizzle and played games during our annual lake trip with Junior High Yearly Meeting. Young Friends occupy a central role in the NEYM community as the tallest people on the Capture-the-Flag field, a responsibility we take very seriously. When many of us could not go to program on time because of lightning and high wind speeds, we found a silver lining in filling the remainder of our time with group singing. We rounded out the week with a YF-YAF dance party in our program room, which was accompanied by a rambunctious game of tag.

Young Friends deeply appreciated the ministry of Genna Ulrich through their Bible half-hours and YF-specific program. Genna shared about their spiritual journey and how they came to find spiritual meaning in the Bible despite hesitation about Biblical language and witnessing ways the Bible had been used to justify harm around the world. As Genna discussed with YFs, when Quakers try to deliver messages they receive from the Spirit, “the water tastes like the pipes,” and a central task of Quakerism is discerning how our own cultural context and existing beliefs might inform and misinform our ministry. Genna also encouraged us to think outside the box and to follow the Spirit in joyful exploration, rejecting binaries, categories, and traditions that do not make us whole. As Young Friends engaged in conversations about how to create a welcoming community and how to follow the Spirit in our own individual decision-making, we found ourselves returning to Genna’s ministry with deep gratitude.

Young Friends spent much of the week considering how to let the Spirit move us in small ways. We learned about individual discernment and how to practice receiving guidance on things that might not feel like they matter. Young Friends also found the Spirit moving them in Monday night’s workshops. Many of us attended a workshop on Quaker nontheism open to Friends from the broader Yearly Meeting, which we found deeply moving. As young people, we sometimes feel a disconnect between the language we use to describe our experiences with the Quaker faith and the more Christian language often used in the wider Quaker community. This workshop allowed us to realize that there are many Friends outside of YFs age who use similar language to us, and that we as young people who often do not consider ourselves Christian or resonate with the Bible are still welcome in and deserving of Quaker spaces. During this time, the rest of us found our bodies and Spirits profoundly moved by the musical ministry of Toussaint Liberator, who led a drum circle and shared some history of drumming with NEYM Friends.

On Tuesday morning, Young Friends attended Meeting for Business to learn about NEYM’s consideration of the future of our annual sessions. Many Young Friends found that our own difficult questions had parallels at the Yearly Meeting level. How do we want to shape our community for the future? How can we best welcome newcomers and encourage new participants? How should we tend to our spiritual growth? As many Young Friends walked across campus to engage in joyful song with Friends aged 6 months through Junior High, we reflected on the importance of how we steward the YF program. Within ten years, some of our Friends in the childcare program will be the newest Young Friends. As Young Friends now, how can we build the kind of community that will nurture and tend their spiritual growth? How do we navigate this time of transition in the Young Friends program to sustain a community that has the depth, joy, and vitality we seek?

In the Light,
Young Friends of the New England Yearly Meeting