Annual Sessions minutes | August 11, 2011

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Saturday Evening, August 6

1.  The New England Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends gathered on Saturday evening, August 6, 2011 for its 351st Annual Sessions at Bryant University in Smithfield, RI, singing as we entered. Out of gathered worship, the clerk, Linda Jenkins (NSan), welcomed all to this, our celebration at the ending of our 350th year.

2.  Members of the clerks’ table were introduced: Linda Jenkins, presiding clerk; Rebecca Leuchak (Prov) and Brian Drayton (Weare), recording clerks; Frances Brokaw (Han), and Will Jennings (BHill), reading clerks.

3.  In her welcome, the clerk reminded us that this week together our theme is 350 Years of New England Friends: Called to Heal a Broken Earth. We recognize the number 350 is shorthand for our crisis condition: human behavior has taken us past the point of no return. It will take a miracle to recover the condition of the earth that our human conduct has brought. She said that this is our cross: 350 represents the parts per million of carbon dioxide in the air that allows the earth to be as most of us knew it as children.

Three hundred fifty is also the number of years we have been a faith community in New England. That is our joy. And both bring us to the spirit.

Two hundred fifty of us began our celebration of 350 years of New England Friends on Friday, with singing and waiting worship at the Great Meetinghouse in Newport. Our community is part of our heritage. One form of corporate witness we need to recognize is that of the people who give their lives, or big chunks of them, for and with our community. This week we celebrate who we are.

4.  We began that celebration by introducing the monthly meetings by quarters.

5.  The clerk then acknowledged and welcomed children born in the last three years, who were held high and warmly welcomed.

6.  The clerk took a census of modes of transport to Sessions, asking how many Friends came to the gathering by foot, by horse, by bicycle, by public transportation including ferry, and in cars by number of passengers.

7.  Year-round staff, our helping hands and souls, were introduced and recognized with appreciation: Frederick Martin (Mon), accounts manager; Jodi Goodman, archivist; Beth Collea (Well), Christian Education coordinator; Jeffrey Hipp (Camb), communications director and office manager; Kevin Lee (Wport), pastoral counselor; NiaDwynwen Thomas (Law), Young Friends and Young Adult Friends coordinator; Kevin Lee (Wport), Junior Yearly Meeting retreat coordinator; Gretchen Baker-Smith (Wport), Junior High Yearly Meeting retreat coordinator; Jonathan Vogel-Borne (Camb), Yearly Meeting secretary; Nathaniel Shed (Vass), Friends Camp director (on sabbatical), and Jeff Adelberg (acting Friends Camp director). The clerk thanked outgoing staff for their years of faithful service: former accounts manager Allison Hersey (Mon) and archivist Marnie Miller-Gutsell (Smith).

The clerk noted that NEYM has 29 standing committees, many with working groups, made up of very hard-working people, too many to mention but much appreciated.

9. Visitors and representatives of organizations stood and introduced themselves: Stephen Angell, (Oxford MM, Ohio Valley YM), professor of Quaker Studies at Earlham School of Religion; Adela Gonzalez-Longoria, clerk of Gibara MM (Cuba YM) and Dikson Santiesteban, pastor Puerto Padre MM (Cuba YM) representing Puente de Amigos; Eden Grace (BHill), Friends United Meeting field staff; Kody Hersh (Miami MM, Southeast YM) elder for presiding clerk; Traci Hjelt Sullivan (Green Street MM, Philadelphia YM) Friends General Conference Gathering coordinator; Judy Lumb (Atlanta MM, Southern Appalachian YM and Association); Robin Mohr (San Francisco MM, Pacific YM) Friends World Committee for Consultation, executive secretary, Section of the Americas; Newell Pledger-Shinn (Clear Creek MM, Ohio Valley YM); Diane Randall (Hart), Friends Committee on National Legislation executive secretary; John Sheldon (Central England Area Meeting, Britain YM) choral director, The Fire and the Hammer; Marian Sheldon (Central England Area Meeting, Britain YM); Susan Stark (Clear Creek MM, Ohio Valley YM); Liz Yeats (Friends Meeting of Austin, South Central YM) YM News editor.

10.  The clerk expressed her gratitude for our heritage at this, her last sessions in this role, by reading the names of the presiding clerks who have served since our reunification in 1945: Arthur Jones, Winslow Osborne, George Bliss, Thomas R. Bodine, Ruth F. Osborne, Gordon M. Browne, Jr., Caleb Smith, Sylvia Perry, Janet Hoffman, William Kriebel, Elizabeth Cazden, Margaret Wentworth, Elizabeth Muench, Anne Kriebel, Deana Chase, and Christopher McCandless. Those previous clerks who were present stood and, on behalf of the Yearly Meeting, a prayer of thanks was offered for their service.

11.  The clerk gave her message:

This week is about worship, how we worship with our bodies, our voices, and our stillness. This week we will experiment with inviting the spirit to  be present with us in different ways. The cornerstone of our faith is our belief that each of us has direct access to the divine, and out of that flow all of our testimonies. Our business practice is grounded in the practice of seeking and obeying the guidance that comes from this direct individual and corporate connection with the divine.

All branches of present day Quakerism embrace this teaching, though  not all individual Quakers do. To be alive, Quakerism changes and must continue to change. I believe that as a community, we all must come to grips with this teaching and practice, being gentle while we take risks of being honest about our conduct and beliefs: no specific words are required or prohibited. It is not easy to be a faithful Quaker. That’s why I love this community and am so grateful for each and every one of us: because we keep showing up and engaging with the big questions and how to live them in everyday life.

And now a word about language. It is always an attempt to point to something ultimately unnameable. While we may not all agree with the choice of any individual’s words, deeper meaning may unite us. It is part   of our love for each other, for those present in the flesh and those pres-   ent in spirit, that we always try to look for the spirit behind and through our words. On occasion, we will fail to speak out of spirit and to listen in spirit. Then our work is to help each other bear together, in love and good humor and direct words, the delights and infuriating multiplicities of our failures. I look forward to embracing these delights and infuriations with you this week.

This week promises exciting events. For our business sessions we will again use the unity agenda, we will again have meetings for extended worship to hear God’s call, and Anchor groups will meet daily throughout the week.

12.  Jean McCandless (Bur), clerk of the Sessions Committee, gave an overview of the week, including daily meetings of Anchor Groups and Bible Half-Hours with Maggie Edmondson. Last year was our 350th annual meeting. This year we celebrate this birthday again, as we end the 350th year with our 351st yearly meeting. Two hundred fifty of us joined in celebration at the Great Meetinghouse on Friday and we will be having a birthday party with cake on Sunday evening.

13.  We appointed the following adult visitors to the youth yearly meetings: Childcare, Nancy Marstaller (Dur), Holly Baldwin (FPon); Junior Yearly Meeting (JYM) K–2, Tom Libby (Well) and Patsy Shotwell (Well); JYM 3–4, Bill Walkauskas (NHav) and Trish Hogan (Cam); Junior High Yearly Meeting, Phil Veatch (FPon) and Frederick Martin (Mon); Young Friends, Charlotte Fardelmann (Dov) and Martha McManamy (Ames); Young Adult Friends, Judy Hyde (Storrs) and Eric Edwards (Sand).

14.  Betty Ann Lee (Wport), Coordinator of JYM, introduced the youth programs coordinators, who in turn introduced their staff: Kimberly Walker-Gonçalves (Nham), Childcare; Aliza Correia (Wport), K–2; Margy Carpenter (BHill), 3rd & 4th; Carol Baker (West), 5th & 6th; Gretchen Baker-Smith (Wport), Junior High YM; and NiaDwynwen Thomas, Young Friends and Katherine Fisher, Young Adult Friends.

15.  Nancy Haines (Well) spoke for the NEYM Development Committee, reminding us that for 350 years New England Friends have come together at yearly Sessions. She urged us to ask ourselves what the Yearly Meeting means to each one of us and to take this question back to our monthly meetings, to seek for ways to support the wider community.

16.  We adjourned to Anchor Groups.

Sunday Evening, August 7

17.  During this morning’s worship, Dikson Santiesteban, pastor of Puerto Padre meeting in Cuba Yearly Meeting, renewed the call we heard from Heredio Santos  at NEYM Sessions in 1991, to share in building a bridge of love: Puente de Amor, Puente de Amigos. Dikson brought this concern for strengthening relations within the Quaker community, which is heir to many different traditions, cultures, and languages, and with our wider communities. When asked how Cuban Friends endured the Cuban crisis of the last many years, he replied, “Solidarity.” Cuban Friends have maintained solidarity in both spiritual and material ways, preserving their community, and enabling it to be revitalized. To illustrate this, he told a story of how Quakers and non-Quakers in his town took shelter under one roof when Hurricane Ike struck the area. The Puente de Amor, the bridge of love, has come to have great meaning. Together, Friends from New England and Cuba have shared a great deal of happiness and sadness, and we have learned much.

But “from those to whom much is given, much is expected” (Luke 12:48). Dikson told of how he has been moved to call our young people to pay less attention to  our internal differences, and turn to the work that awaits us outside. As Fox found, we are all one family, though we wear different masks. To some degree we are all responsible for our brother, and every thing we do, large or small, has consequence. Everything depends on how responsibly you act when you answer God’s call. Dikson closed with the hope “that Christ our guide will lead us through this vale of shadows, through pressures, and crises, and onto the path of life and hope.”

18.  During today’s afternoon plenary, Steve Chase (Put) addressed the challenge of envisioning a community that is freed from dependence upon fossil fuels, is more just and ecologically sustainable, and is also spiritually satisfying. Friends have a unique vantage point from which to engage with the many challenges of climate change, and some of us are already alert and at work. These leaders, among whom our young adults are in the fore, have grappled with how to cope with the twin dangers of denial of the existence of the problem, and despair at its scope. He recommended that, once we accept the scientific evidence, we can avoid the paralysis of discouragement by

• being animated about what you can do within your sphere of influence, rather than waiting for a single common action
• being prepared, when led and as appropriate, to undertake nonviolent direct action to prevent harm and raise awareness—Jesus said to love your enemies, not to deny that you have any​​​​
• finally, taking guidance from Gandhi, couple protest and education with a constructive program—working to develop imaginative but realistic elements of the future we need to help bring about

19.  The clerk introduced other members of the clerks’ table: Beth Bussiere-Nichols (Port), reading clerk, and Ben Guaraldi (BHill), clerk of Young Adult Friends, and thanked Frances Brokaw (Han) for her interim service as reading clerk on Saturday evening.

We welcomed the following visitors and representatives: Terri Johns, New London MM (Western YM), Friends United Meeting; Christine Greenland, Plymouth MM (PYM), Tract Association of Friends; Louis Cox (Bur), Quaker Earthcare Witness.

20.  We heard the memorial minute for Harriette Reeves-Forsythe.

21.  The clerk out of concern asked us to spend some time in reflecting upon how we worship at Sessions, with the following statement:

Some months ago, it became clear to the clerk that there would need to be a time at one of our business sessions to name and pray about the quality of worship at sessions. This has seemed to the clerk to be a kind of elephant in the room that has not been named and addressed by the body. The concern has arisen in smaller groups and committees. It has also been prominent on the post-sessions evaluations each of the past two years. In fact, there have been many strong expressions of disappointment and frustration. People have said that there is often a kind of competition for the air-time at worship that seems to result in speakers rising to speak before fully testing their impulses to speak. Some of the descriptions have been that messages were too long; too personal; too political. In other words, they have not been grounded. Many comments have stated that the same small number of people speak multiple times each year in these ungrounded ways. Names have been named and there have been requests for “someone” to speak with these people. Ministry & Counsel has spent a portion of practically every meeting looking at these concerns and continues this work.

Because worship is the foundation of the discernment practice we use for our business, this is a deep concern of your clerk and others. When the clerk recognized the apparent need to address this with you, she followed her usual practice, which is to test and season such understandings by praying about and sharing them and inviting people who may have  some interest or concern with the subject to participate in considering it and perhaps carrying it forward instead of or with her. This was tried in several different ways and each one ended with the clerk and the two acts required: naming at least some aspects of this phenomena and inviting the body to pray about them.

There are three teachings to share.

The first is Matthew 18:15–23, in which Jesus tells his disciples that when they have a grievance with a brother or sister, to go directly to that person with it. If that person does not hear, take one or two others to talk about   it. If that still doesn’t work, take the matter to the whole community.

The second teaching is from Minute 05-23 of our YM in 2005, that I would like to read to you:

The last teaching is from John Woolman:

“One day being in a strong exercise of spirit, I stood up and said some words in a meeting, but not keeping close to the divine opening, I said more than was required of me; and being soon sensible   of my error, I was afflicted in mind some weeks without any light    or comfort, even to that degree that I could take satisfaction in nothing.” —John Woolman, 1741

Finally, since we cause as much suffering by taking offense as giving offense, it is important to look at our own behavior, mental and emotional, in receiving ministry. The clerk offers these queries:

• What am I yearning for in worship?
• Am I angry, impatient, judgmental when I hear a message or person?
• What do my thoughts and feelings say about me?

At the clerk’s request we entered into a time of open worship.

22.  Janet Hoffman, clerk of the Faith and Practice Revision Committee, accompanied by members of the committee, presented the draft of Chapter 3: Corporate Discerment in Meetings for Business, for preliminary approval. Jan reminded us of the process by which we are reviewing and approving the materials for our discipline. Working papers for a given chapter are distributed for review and comment on the basis of which a revision of the chapter is then brought to Yearly Meeting for preliminary approval. All chapters will then be brought to a future Yearly Meeting for the necessary final approval. To this point, we have given preliminary approval to the Preface (2008), Chapter 10: Revisions to this Faith and Practice (2006), Chapter 2: Worship (2007), and Chapter 9: A Brief History of Friends in New England (2008). Committee members then read parts of the chapter aloud. This was followed by a period of worship, out of which Friends offered responses, noted by the committee. Friends were then asked to read and respond to the material this week, communicating with members of the committee in person or in writing. The Yearly Meeting clerk, in consultation with the Revision Committee clerk, will bring the chapter forward for decision at some time in the future, perhaps during this sitting of the Yearly Meeting.

23.  Friends then considered the unity agenda, and acted as follows, with gratitude for the work of all the staff and committee members reflected here. We:

• accepted all staff reports
• accepted all committee reports
• approved Committee Purposes and Procedures (except the Christian Education Committee, see minute 37)
• approved nominations by Permanent Board for presiding clerk, recording clerks, and reading clerks for 2011–12
• approved the recommendations from Permanent Board to re-hire Nathaniel Shed as director for Friends Camp, and Jonathan Vogel-Borne as YM secretary.

We will return to the report and recommendation of the Call to Witness/Day of Discernment Planning Group, as well as the clerk’s Minute on Theological Inclusivity, at a later time.

24.  We approved the Bank Resolutions as part of the unity agenda, adding the acting Friends Camp director as a signatory.

Monday Morning, August 8

25.  The clerk introduced the morning’s program focused on the way we are in community with each other here in New England and how that bears on our relationship with Friends United Meeting (FUM). This program, this exploration, is the result of the leading of one of our Young Adult Friends, Hannah Zwirner (BHill), serving on the Yearly Meeting’s FUM committee. Hannah has been a life-long member of NEYM and will facilitate the program this morning.

The occasion for this exploration of how we live with each other is preparation for the action item on the agenda: that the financial procedure that we temporarily approved in 2009 (See Minute 09-54) be continued for two more years. That process allows monthly meetings to withhold the portion of their contribution to NEYM that would go to FUM. That is just the occasion for this presentation, which is really aimed at the larger concerns of how we live in community here in NEYM.

Part of the vision for this leading is that there will be silent worship after the presenters, to provide an opportunity for deep contemplation and the possibility of listening and hearing in new ways how we might be called. This is part of this week’s experiment with worship. It might be seen as a complement to the loud worship we shared yesterday. There will be an opportunity to comfortably leave if you do not feel called to this form of worship. In the process we will use during worship, there will be no microphones available. If someone rises to speak, the clerk will ask you to sit back down.

Hannah introduced the panel participants: Eden Grace (BHill), Brian Drayton (Wear), Anne-Marie Witzburg (Well), and Lisa Graustein (BHill), and then invited us to listen deeply to presenters without responding. After a time of silent worship and contemplation, she introduced the session:

This program came out of my frustration with the way the Yearly Meeting collectively has talked in the last few years about our relationship with FUM. Prior meetings about FUM on the YM floor have left me very uncentered, and I don’t think there has been enough deep listening to each others’ experiences. Instead I think our meetings have involved many quick reactions to others’ statements without first holding those messages in our hearts. It is my perception that many people feel that the wider community has not fully or properly received their stories and the truths that they live.

I think that there are a lot of people who simply feel unready to act until they feel heard.

The intention of this program is to give a few Friends a chance to share a longer version of their experiences while asking the meeting to sit deeply with them, without responding. The panelists are Brian Drayton, Eden Grace, Lisa Graustein and Anne-Marie Witzburg. They were chosen because they are solid, honest and compelling members of our community.

Queries:

With regards to FUM:

• Where and how might I be stuck and hurt?
• What do I need from my community?
• What do I have to offer my community?
• How do you think we can be more open and honest with each other?
• Do you think we can do that while striving to be a loving community? How?

Panelists, asked to share their emotional and spiritual journey with FUM, responded to their charge from different points of view. Friends found the presentations and the silent worship that followed very powerful.

Monday Evening, August 8

26.  The afternoon’s community plenary was presented by Friends from the Racial, Social, & Economic Justice and Peace & Social Concerns Committees. It opened with a dramatic presentation addressing the challenging environmental problems we  are facing in the 21st century and the ways that we might begin to heal our broken earth. They explored the complex ways that systems of oppression and inequality are the fundamental origins of our violation of the natural world. Friends shared vivid testimony of their experiences of discrimination and exclusion both within and beyond our NEYM community and challenged us all to rise up and remind others of the urgent need for racial, social, and economic justice.

Greg Williams (NBed) presented a plenary address: Movement into our future: NEYM Beyond 2011, opening with a reading from Gabrielle N. Lane Clarke’s “Ode  to a Black Child (AKA Mr. America).” He explored the challenges facing all of us and urged us to nourish our spirits so that we might take up our responsibility and engage in issues of the environment, immigration justice and racial equality. He shared with us the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “One of the Great Liabilities of life is that all too many find themselves living amid a great period of social change, and yet they fail to develop the new attitudes, the new mental responses that the new situation desires. They end up sleeping through the revolution.”

Urging us to wake up, Greg focused on the crises of urban violence and racism of which many, who benefit from privilege, remain unaware or ignore. Greg concluded with the question: Are you ready to break down the walls of oppression? If, yes, then let us go forth! And he assured us that each time a man or woman stands up for an ideal or tries to improve the lot of others or speaks out against injustice, they send out a tiny ripple of hope.

• Do you reflect on your role of perpetuating a system of oppression?
• Does your meeting work on solutions to effect sustainability in your community?
• How will the actions of your meeting appear from the perspective of seven generations from today?
• What is your vision of a healed earth?

27.  We welcomed Steve Angell, Oxford MM (Ohio Valley YM), Earlham School of Religion and Earlham College, and Newton Garver, Buffalo MM (NYYM), Bolivia Education Fund. Betsy Atcheson, Allen’s Neck MM, brought greetings from Sarasota, FL, MM.

28.  We heard memorial Minutes for Francis Helfrick (Hart) and Archie Meshenuk (Hart).

29.  Edward Baker, clerk of Permanent Board, reported on its decision to cease operation of the assisted living facility at the New England Friends Home in Hingham, Massachusetts, which has been in operation there for about half a century. The economies of scale have worked against the 18-bed facility in an increasingly regulated environment; it became increasingly difficult to constitute a committee comprising the expertise needed to oversee such a facility. Moreover, over the years the Home’s work had evolved far from its original mission. Therefore, the Friends Home Committee came to the realization that the operation was no longer sustainable. As of July 9, the Permanent Board took the decision to close the home as soon as possible. Under the temporary management of members of the Friends Home Committee, the difficult and delicate process of finding new homes for the 15 current residents, and reducing staff has been proceeding, an occasion of pain and sadness. It is expected that the Home will be closed completely by Oct. 23. (See PB Minute 11-54.)

Despite our regret at the need to lay down the YM’s service to aged Friends and others, but judging that the Home no longer serves our leading to this service, Permanent Board (PB Minute 11-55) recommends that the property be sold or leased; Friends approved.

30.  Edward Baker then outlined a process for the sale or lease of the property to take place, under the care of an ad hoc Friends Home Property Committee to plan and supervise this transition under the oversight of Permanent Board. Friends approved the creation of the ad hoc committee.

Volunteers are needed to serve on the Property Committee and those interested are invited to speak to any member of the Permanent Board. It is expected that the Yearly Meeting treasurer and Yearly Meeting secretary will serve on it ex officio, and that three to five additional members will be needed. This committee would create a request for proposals for the property, distribute the Request for Proposals to companies managing retirement homes or communities and other interested parties, supervise at least one showing of the property, receive proposals, and share the proposals with their recommendation for the most advantageous course of action with the Permanent Board.

31.  We authorize the Permanent Board to select the most appropriate proposal for sale or lease of the Friends Home property and to take all necessary actions to transfer the property to a new owner, or lessee, as the case may be, and to report to Sessions next year on the matter. We authorize the Permanent Board to determine the “best use” for the property, and not necessarily be bound to take the highest offer, in their discernment.

32.  In due time, if the Friends Home property is sold, Permanent Board is asked to bring recommendations, subject to legal advice and to consultation within the Yearly Meeting, about possible appropriate use of the proceeds.

Friends expressed the hope that the search for such uses be imaginative as well as careful. We thank the Friends Home Committee, the staff, and the residents themselves for their contributions to the life of the home, and their participation in this difficult but necessary decision.

Tuesday Morning, August 9

33.  We welcomed visiting Friend, Charlotte Wood Harrington, North Side Friends Meeting, Chicago (Illinois YM).

34.  We heard, with gratitude for their lives, the memorial minutes for Bruce Martin (Hart) and for Charles Perry (West).

35.  Edward Mair (Ames), YM treasurer, prefaced the YM treasurer’s report by alerting us to the graying of our community and issued an invitation for younger Friends to contribute, including service on the Finance Committee. He noted that the NEYM staff has done an excellent job in keeping expenses under control, youth retreats have contributed this year to the revenue of the Yearly Meeting, and monthly meetings’ contributions are up. While the financial markets and the nation’s economy may affect us and we have seen a drop in individual Friends’ contributions, overall our financial health is good. Friends accepted the treasurer’s report.

Travis Belcher (Mon), co-clerk of Finance Committee, presented the YM budget for Fiscal Year 2012. This year’s budget is running strong thanks to the increase in monthly meetings’ contributions. Friends approved the YM budget for 2012 with notable ease.

36.  Rachel Walker Cogbill (Plain), clerk of the Christian Education Committee, reported the committee has for the past three years been asking how it might best address the variety of needs within our community. They request that their new purposes and procedures be approved and that their name be changed from Christian Education Committee to Quaker Youth Education Committee to better reflect the expansion of their range of activities in recent years. As Friends spoke to this item of business, they gladly affirmed that we represent a spectrum of faith expressions and that there are ardent Christians among us. This proposed change continues to honor the Christian origins and heritage of Quakerism and the continued importance of Christian education as an essential part of our mission today. Grateful appreciation was spoken for the way in which this committee has responsibly articulated the range of their work in their revision of purposes and procedures. Friends approved the revision of the committee’s purposes and procedures and the change of name to Quaker Youth Education Committee.

38.  Edward Baker, clerk of Permanent Board, presented the committee’s work in progress, examining the NEYM governance structure and inviting broader discussion around the questions: Is there something about the NEYM structure that prevents fuller participation within our community? What would make for fuller involvement of monthly meetings in the Yearly Meeting? A listening committee has been visiting monthly meetings and gathering insights on the workability of our NEYM structure. Edward announced an afternoon interest group on this topic and that the Permanent Board will continue to receive feedback on it over the year.

39.  The Development Committee presented out of the silence, in skit style, “The Blues Sisters” from the Development Committee who are “on a mission from God.” Individual financial contributions are needed to the tune of $117,000 — it is reality check time and time to write those reality checks. Accepting any and all denominations, we spontaneously passed the hats used in the skit. And at the same time, we were soberly reminded that there is a wide range of economic conditions among us, and that we too easily make assumptions on the basis of middle-class means. Some Friends are not at these sessions because they cannot afford to take the time or pay the costs. There are Friends who do not feel welcome in our meetings because of unexamined class attitudes among us. The issues of class need more prayerful and thoughtful attention.

Wednesday Morning, August 10

40.  We welcomed Maggie Fogarty (Dov), representing AFSC-NH and Caleb Smith (Con) and Isaiah Grace (BHill), visiting from our Young Friends YM.

41.  We heard with gratitude the memorial minutes for Virginia Townsend (Camb) and Herman Patt (Hart).

42.  We heard the Epistle of Cuba Yearly Meeting, read in English by the reading clerk, and in Spanish by Adela Gonzalez-Longoria of Gibara MM, Cuba YM.

43.  Edward Baker, clerk of Permanent Board, presented a recommendation on  the process by which financial contributions are made from New England Yearly Meeting to Friends United Meeting.

In 2009, the yearly meeting adopted Minute 09-54, on Finance to FUM, in response to conscientious concerns among some members about the sexual ethics portion of FUM’s personnel policy which we believe is discriminatory. This policy reads in part:

This was done as an interim measure, to allow the Yearly Meeting time to seek enough clarity about its relationship within FUM to establish a regular practice on our financial contributions to FUM. The Yearly Meeting extended this practice for one year in 2010 (minute 10-12). Roughly 10 meetings have used this process.

Meetings and individuals across the Yearly Meeting have continued to labor  with the issues raised by the FUM personnel policy. The process outlined in Minute 09-54 has provided the means to do good spiritual work within monthly meetings. The Permanent Board recommends that this process continue for two more years, until Sept 30, 2013, and thus it would be brought to sessions for further disposition in 2013.

We are aware that this minute has been helpful in our wrestling. The work continues locally, but that is not enough. We are also gratefully aware of the work going on widely within FUM, which has resulted in some more openness to re-examining the personnel policy, and a recognition that unity does not exist within the association. We have come to understand that the most important spiritual work is not merely to witness to FUM, but to grapple with questions of diversity, homophobia, heterosexism and faithfulness in our own community. It is important that we hear how truth prospers in this matter across New England. Intervisitation and other communication within our YM and across Quakerdom is an essential task laid on us, and more is required of us.

We are mindful that continuing this policy for two more years might allow us to avoid the hard work we need to do to reach fuller clarity within our meetings, and across the Yearly Meeting. We have felt some motions of healing during this yearly,meeting session, and we seek to respond to the power of love we have felt. We realize that we are not yet fully clear on this matter, but in all humility we approve the Permanent Board’s recommendation to continue the process, confident that during this time, if we are faithful, more light will be given.

Wednesday Evening, August 10

44.  We welcomed Larry Jalowiec, Richland MM (PYM), Friends General Conference.

45.  We heard the first draft of the NEYM epistle.

46.  Patricia Higgins (Han) and Christopher McCandless (Bur) presented the revised Nominating Committee report. The Nominating Committee is not recommending new appointments to the Student Loan Committee, and has asked the two cur-   rent members to bring to Permanent Board a recommendation about whether the committee should continue, or be laid down. Friends accepted the Nominating Committee report and approved the nominations, with gratitude for the work of the committee, and to all Friends who have agreed to serve. There are more gifts to be called out, and more opportunities for Friends to serve!

Nominating Committee is setting aside some time during its meeting at Committee Day to reflect on how better to do the work of calling forth Friends’ gifts, and supporting their effective service.

47.  For the Call to Witness/Day of Discernment Planning Group, the clerk, Ian Harrington (Camb), spoke to the report (see p. 55–57). Out of their work this past year, the Planning group recommended that the Permanent Board form a Working Group on Contemplation and Action to encourage the integration of contemplation and Spirit-led action within monthly and quarterly meetings and Yearly Meeting, by encouraging and facilitating additional gatherings for discernment and witness to enable us to have time together to listen for what God asks us to do.

Friends voiced gratitude for the work that the planning group has done to date. There was, however, a sense that monthly meetings and existing committees have much work in hand, and often barely enough strength. There was concern that the proposed working group could possibly spread Friends even more thinly. Friends agreed with the need to better balance contemplation and action which the committee notes, but asserted that the central locus for this balance should be at the monthly meeting level. Friends voiced a need to better integrate the work that many Friends are doing with the life of their meetings and committees, so that our witness feeds the vitality of the worshipping group and that in turn the worshipping group can support Friends who are at work. With this need in mind, Friends were not clear that the proposed Working Group was a useful next step. Friends did not approve the recommendations.

48.  Janet Hoffman (MTob), the clerk of Faith and Practice Revision Committee, presented Friends some revisions to the draft of Chapter 3: Corporate Discernment in Meetings for Business, in response to comments received since the chapter was presented earlier this week. Friends then gave preliminary approval to this chapter. Then there was considerable discussion about when, if ever, it is appropriate to record the names of Friends standing aside from a meeting decision. Some felt that there might be historical value to such a recording of names, or that the availability of the names might forward discussion of the concerns at issue, but Friends were united that it is best to name the concern being borne by those standing aside without specific attribution. One Friend stood aside, under a concern that the issue of whether or not to record the names of Friends standing aside from a meeting decision had been insufficiently threshed.

Thursday Morning, August 11

49. Friends authorize the clerks to make edits and corrections to the minutes as appropriate in preparation for publication.

50.  We heard gratefully the memorial minute for Elise Boulding.