2021 Minutes of Annual Sessions

Clerk’s note: Because of the global COVID-19 pandemic, New England Yearly Meeting Annual Sessions in 2021 were again held online. Zoom video-conferencing software was used to enable connections from Friends’ households.

Minutes 2021-8 through 2021-23 were approved during Sessions; the remaining minutes were approved by Permanent Board at their September 2021 meeting.

Scroll to the bottom of the page for documents available for downloading.

Saturday, August 7, 2021

2021-1 Welcome and Introductions

Bruce Neumann (Fresh Pond), Presiding Clerk, opened with a prayer and then welcomed Friends to the 361st Annual Sessions.

The Clerk introduced the rest of the Clerks’ Table: Recording Clerks Peter Bishop (Northampton) and Kathy Malin (Smithfield) and Reading Clerks Adam Kohrman (Beacon Hill) and Gina Nortonsmith (Northampton), as well as the worship elders for today: Allison Randall (Keene), Fran Brokaw (Hanover), and Marian Baker (Weare). He also introduced the Pastoral Care Team: Sarah Bickel (Beacon Hill), Elizabeth Szatkowski (Portland), Laura Hoskins (Putney), and Carolyn Stone (Wellesley).

2021-2 Land Acknowledgment

Leslie Manning (Durham), clerk of Permanent Board, shared with us her reflections on the theme of this year’s Sessions, “A Time for Healing,” and offered an acknowledgement of the land:

We, the people of New England Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, acknowledge with humility that the land we occupy is and was the home of Indigenous people for thousands of years before our ancestors arrived; and that many remain, but not all, of the people, tribes, clans, bands, and nations whose names we will never know and whose sacred songs will never again be sung. Although their lands and children were stolen, their language and culture eradicated, cut to the roots, many survive despite this intentional erasure and extermination.

I say this as the great granddaughter of a Dubliner who emigrated here, enlisted in the U.S. Army and served decades in the Indian Wars of the later 1800s; another oppressed person who became the oppressor. May God have mercy on our souls.

We mourn the lives that were taken and honor the resilience of those who remain, resist and rematriate their lives and traditions. We are deeply grateful for their love and care for Turtle Island, which is home to us all and for their prophetic witness. We seek to become better neighbors and relations by rejecting our systems of domination and learning new ways of living together on this earth, our mother.

She closed with a prayer from H. Silver Fox Metté, of the Cherokee people:

Creator,
I speak to YOU from within my Soul and within my Body,
asking that I may be an instrument of peace.
May others join together to honor Earth Mother,
to keep the skies clean and clear,
that She may be nourished.

May all creatures of the earth benefit
from the water which is Her blood,
flowing through Her arteries and veins
on the surface and within Her body ...
May all creatures within the soil,
within the water, on the land, in the trees
and in the air prosper,
May They and We be of service to Her good health
for future generations.

Creator, shine through us as we join in Your Spirit.
Help us all remember, one by one, that we are created
of the Earth, and powered by Your Spirit.
In this remembering, the separation will end
and we will unite in Spirit to restore and care for
our Earth Mother, all Her life forms
and for ourselves.

2021-3 Junior High Yearly Meeting

Gretchen Baker-Smith (Westport), the Children & Family Ministries Coordinator, introduced Martin Eller Fitze (Portland), and Alice Peabody (Burlington), who read the Junior High Yearly Meeting State of Society report. The report is on page 102.

2021-4 Padlet

Honor Woodrow (Putney) introduced a software tool called “Padlet” which will be available to Friends all week to record and share their reflections on their condition and on our time together.

2021-5 Worship and Singing

We were led into worship with a recording of Choose Me, Lord performed by the Free Grace Undying Love Full Gospel Quaker Choir Sing and Be Saved (Sara Burke [Beacon Hill], John Fuller [Beacon Hill], Alana Parkes [Beacon Hill], Eden Grace [Beacon Hill], Judy Anne Williams [Hanover], Chuck McCorkle, Frederic Evans [deceased], and David Coletta [Three Rivers]).

We settled into worship, which was closed with Frederick Martin (Beacon Hill) and Katherine Fisher (Beacon Hill) singing the song, You Are an Acorn.

2021-6 Roll Call

The Reading Clerks read the names of each of New England’s monthly meetings, preparative meetings, and worship groups by quarter. Friends were invited to wave and say hello as well as to enter their names and affiliations into the “Chat” window.

Visitors, families with new members, and first-time attendees were welcomed.

2021-7 Reflections from the Sessions Clerk

Rebecca Leuchak, clerk of the Sessions Committee, shared her excitement about the week before us, encouraging us to engage as deeply as we are able.

Sunday, August 8, 2021

2021-8 Opening and Welcome

The Presiding Clerk, Bruce Neumann (Fresh Pond) opened the 2021 Business Sessions with prayer.

2021-9 Clerks’ Table

Bruce Neumann introduced the (virtual) Clerks’ Table: Recording Clerks Peter Bishop (Northampton) and Kathy Malin (Smithfield), Reading Clerks Gina Nortonsmith (Northampton) and Adam Kohrman (Beacon Hill).

2021-10 Noticing Patterns

Polly Attwood (Cambridge), clerk of the Noticing Patterns of Oppression and Faithfulness group, spoke about their work.

It is challenging to be called to work that will never be finished. Blessings on all of us and on this essential spiritual work.

Visitors

Visitors were invited to share their name and affiliation by sending them to any of the tech hosts, as Zoom’s “Chat” feature is broken. Visitors through the week included the following:

Pamela Williams, Germantown Friends Meeting, Philadelphia YM
Ruth Gaston, Warwick, Central England Quakers, Britain YM
Nils Klinkenberg (Beacon Hill), Beacon Hill Friends House
Buffy Curtis, Mohawk Valley Friends Meeting, New York YM
Karen Way (Middlebury), New York YM
Jen Higgins-Newman (Beacon Hill), Beacon Hill Friends House
Alex Wilson, Friends Committee on National Legislation
Sally Zelasko, Orchard Park Friends, New York YM
Joann Neuroth, Red Cedar Friends, Lake Erie YM
Jan Stansel, Nashville Friends, Southern Appalachian YM and Association
Sandi Meyeroff, Patapsco Friends Meeting, Baltimore YM
Margaret Cooley (Mt. Toby), Woolman Hill Conference Center
Terry Grant, Red Cedar Friends, Lake Erie YM
Lyle Miller, Everence
Keith Harvey, American Friends Service Committee
Jeffrey Barr, Fredonia Friends Meeting, New York YM
gkisedtanamoogk, Kairos Ecumenical Initiative (Toronto) and the Upstanders Project (Boston)
Nicole Santos, Friends Committee on National Legislation
Holly Baldwin (Fresh Pond), Albuquerque Friends Meeting, Intermountain YM
Corlette Moore McCoy, Needham, MA
Shelley Costa, Swarthmore Friends Meeting, Philadelphia YM
Sharon Pero, Middleborough, MA
Oscar Malande, Friends Theological College, Kaimosi, Kenya
Mike Shell (Worcester) Jacksonville Friends Meeting, Southeastern YM
Jesse Grace, West Richmond Friends Meeting, New Association of Friend
Katie Green (formerly Worcester), Clearwater Friends Meeting, Southeastern YM
Julie Peyton, West Hills Friends, Sierra Cascades YM of Friends
Jayant Singh, Bethpage Preparatory Meeting, New York YM
Rebecca Hecht, Friends Meeting at Cambridge
Steven Willett, Manchester & Warrington Area Meeting, Britain YM
Barbara LeSage, North Columbus Friends Meeting, Lake Erie YM
Jane Goldthwait (North Sandwich), Southern Appalachian YM and Association
Jacqueline Stillwell (Monadnock), Right Sharing of World Resources
Liz Oppenheimer, Bear Creek Meeting, Iowa YM Conservative
Sharon Gunther, Swarthmore Friends Meeting, Philadelphia YM
Anne Pomeroy, New Paltz Monthly Meeting, New York YM
James Underberg, New York YM
Lu Harper, Rochester Monthly Meeting, New York YM
Laura MacNorlin, Atlanta Friends Meeting, Southeast YM
Miledys Batista Sintes, Cuba YM
Odalys Hernandez Cruz, Cuba YM
Norge Alvarez Ramirez, Cuba YM
Kenya Casanova, Cuba YM
Anthony Stover, Quaker Life Council
Cynthia Mara, Harrisburg Meeting, Philadelphia YM

2021-12 Tech Team

David Coletta, tech host, introduced the rest of the tech team: Cornelia Parkes (Cambridge), Bre-anne Brown (E. Sandwich), Emily Neumann (Cambridge), Bob O’Connor (Vassalboro), Jennifer Swann (NEYM/NYYM), Becky Ray (Beacon Hill), Jen Higgins-Newman (Beacon Hill), and Jane Jackson (Cambridge).

David asked for the prayers of the body as the tech team does their important work, which needs not only their bodies and minds but also their connection with Spirit.

2021-13 Introduction to the Week’s Business

The Clerk explained way we are approaching business this year will be a bit different. Today we are considering a few structural items of business, and that will be done in the usual manner where proposals are presented, there is discernment, and then the proposal is approved or not.

Other items later in the week will be handled differently. The Letter of Apology, the proposal concerning No Way To Treat a Child, the Earthcare Ministry minute, and our relationship with Friends United Meeting all connect with Empire, and our challenge will be to consider them not as separate, small agenda items but as aspects of the domination of Empire in our world. During tomorrow’s business meetings we will hear the business but we won’t do discernment until the following day. This may be challenging, as people will naturally want to speak to these issues, but open discernment will be held over until meetings on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Sessions will not be recorded this year, but the Clerk asked permission to capture the closed captioning transcript just long enough for the Clerks to use in finalizing the minutes. No objection was raised.

2021-14 Elders

The Clerk then introduced the elders holding today’s business in prayer. Through the week, the following are serving as elders for one or more business sessions: Ann Dodd-Collins (Portland), Carl Williams (Plainfield), Kathy Olsen (East Sandwich), Allison Randall (Keene), Fran Brokaw (Hanover), Suzy Klein-Berndt (Northampton), Karen Sanchez-Eppler (Northampton), Joyce Gibson (Durham), Leslie Manning (Durham), and Margaret Marshall (Narramissic Valley).

2021-15 NEYM Annual Budget

Scott Drysdale (Hanover), clerk of Finance Committee, spoke about the budget. Last year the budget was approved by Permanent Board after Sessions because there hadn’t been time during Sessions for the body to approve it. This year the agenda is also packed, so the Presiding Clerk asked for permission to do the same this year. No objections were raised.

This will not be a permanent practice. Once we are meeting in person again, we will go back to approving the budget during Sessions.

Friends with questions about this year’s budget are invited to a listening session on August 28, or they may email [email protected]. Friends are also welcome to attend the Permanent Board meeting on September 25, when the budget will be deliberated on and (hopefully) approved.

2021-16 YM Secretary Sabbatical

Leslie Manning, clerk of Permanent Board, announced that Permanent Board has approved a sabbatical for Noah Merrill from October of this year through February 2022. Preliminary thoughts about a sabbatical in 2020 were tabled because of COVID, but Noah and the PB agree that at this point we can manage without him for a few months. We give great thanks for his service and care.

Sarah Gant (Beacon Hill), former clerk of Permanent Board; and Nia Thomas (Northampton), the Quaker Practice and Leadership Facilitator, have agreed to step into Noah’s role. Friends were asked for prayers and loving support of these Friends as they care for the community together. We are grateful that each has accepted and we look forward to working with them in the coming months.

2021-17 Clerk of Permanent Board

Leslie Manning has agreed to serve one additional year as clerk of Permanent Board. She expressed her joy in being able to serve the community that way.

Friends are all welcome to join Permanent Board at their meetings.

2021-18 Clerks’ Table Nominations

The Yearly Meeting’s financial year begins on October 1, but the operational year begins at the rise of Sessions. After discernment and prayer, Clerks’ Table Nominating presented the following slate of nominations:

Bruce Neumann (Fresh Pond), Presiding Clerk
Rebecca Leucheck (Providence), Rising Clerk
Kathy Malin (Smithfield), Recording Clerk
Peter Bishop (Northampton), Recording Clerk
Adam Kohrman (Beacon Hill), Reading Clerk

—leaving one vacancy for Reading Clerk.

Friends approved these names. It is hoped that a second name for Reading Clerk will rise this week, but if not, the second Recording Clerk will be approved later by Permanent Board.

2021-19 Proposed Changes to Nominating

Jackie Stillwell (Monadnock), clerk of Nominating, presented the proposed changes to the Yearly Meeting nominating committees outlined on pages 5 and 6 of the Advance Documents. The suggested changes would consolidate three separate nominating committees at the Yearly Meeting level (NEYM Nominating, Internal Nominating, and Clerks’ Table Nominating) and merge them into a single, integrated Nominating Committee. (See page 30.)

There are actually four proposals:

1. To approve the revised Purposes, Procedures, and Composition to create an integrated NEYM Nominating Committee.
2. To allow the creation of a Naming Committee whenever vacancies in the Nominating Committee need to be filled.
3. To integrate the Permanent Board Internal Nominating Committee and the Clerks’ Table Nominating Committee’s charges, and the Friends currently serving on those committees, into the integrated NEYM Nominating Committee.
4. To lay down the separate Permanent Board Internal Nominating Committee and Clerks’ Table Nominating Committees.

Friends asked many clarifying questions about the proposals:

Why create a new Naming Committee when the goal is to reduce the number of committees? Will the Nominating Committee still try to get representatives from every monthly meeting? Will the workload be too heavy for the reduced number of people?

Jackie Stillwell replied that in any healthy organization, individuals in positions of power should not be the only ones granting positions of power to others; that the total number of committee members will be reduced by about half, but it is hoped that monthly meetings will suggest names to the Naming Committee; and that she hopes the new system will be more efficient.

A Friend noted that it was very difficult for some to understand the Nominating Committee proposal without some sort of visual chart, and we were reminded that accessibility of information to Friends of different cognitive styles is important. There was an acknowledgement from Jackie that a chart would have been helpful.

Friends approved the four proposals.

Jackie Stillwell asked if Friends would be easy with allowing the Nominating Committee, in light of the questions asked, to edit the phrasing of the written proposals for clarity without changing the substance. No objection was raised.

2021-20 Unity Agenda

The Clerk clarified two points about the Unity Agenda presented on page 6 of the Advance Documents:

The revised Purposes, Procedures and Composition for the Archives Committee in the Advance Documents gives two different descriptions of how the clerk is chosen. The clerk will be appointed by the Nominating Committee. (See page 32.)

There is no mention in the revised Purposes, Procedures & Composition for the Finance Committee in the Advance Documents of how the clerk of the Finance Committee is to be nominated. Again, it is the new integrated Nominating Committee that does this in consultation with the Finance Committee. (See page 32.)

Friends approved the Unity Agenda.

2021-21 Noticing Patterns

The Noticing Patterns of Oppression and Faithfulness group asked us to consider how we can live more faithfully into what we have committed to doing. They noted that the competition between chronos and kairos is very real, but space still needs to be made. For instance, we approved Rebecca Leuchak as Rising Clerk but there was no opportunity to see her or learn anything about her, and we have a deep yearning to know of her gifts. Friends have been strongly urged to read the Advance Documents more closely, and while that is important to do, there remains the need to make time for people to ask questions.

2021-22 The Session closed with worship.

Monday Morning, August 9, 2021

2021-23 Epistle

We heard the epistle from New York Yearly Meeting.

We gathered this year during the pandemics of racism and the coronavirus from our homes, where COVID-19 keeps most of us sheltering in place. We have found that God covers our meetings here online too and allows us to enter into a profound space of Spiritual nourishment and transformation.

2021-24 Introduction

Bruce Neumann, Presiding Clerk, and Adam Kohrman and Gina Nortonsmith, Reading Clerks, introduced the day’s activities and reviewed procedures.

2021-25 Elders

The Clerk introduced the elders for today’s Sessions.

2021-26 Our Use of Time

This year’s agenda sets aside four business sessions for open discernment. While Friends like to engage with the business before them, we must recognize that time spent on specific structural items is taken away from our time devoted to the really weighty topics. The Clerk’s goal this year is to protect that time so that we can have a deep and open sense of discernment about the whole question of who we want to be as a people, not just the momentary issues at hand.

2021-27 Legacy Gift

Mary Link (Mt Toby) and Susan Rockwood (Midcoast), co-clerks of the Legacy Gift Committee, described the work of that committee. Since the Legacy Gift Fund was established in 2014 its support has reached Friends in 40 of 62 meetings, ranging from New Haven Meeting to Cobscook Meeting in Whiting, Maine, plus 25 related Quaker groups, with over 100 grants totaling over $580,000 to date. So far this year, a total of $66,959 has been awarded to 10 applicants and there is one more cycle coming up at the end of this month.

Legacy Gifts have helped Friends answer urgent calls to witness against oppression, discrimination, and pollution of the earth, or to attend conferences with our Time-Sensitive Grants. Sometimes supporting a small, simple step in faithfulness to an initial leading has led to bigger projects and further leadings. Other grants have enabled finite projects, such as helping meetings install solar panels, mini-splits, or more efficient windows to reduce their carbon footprints, or to repair a roof on a historic meetinghouse. Committee members often hear how NEYM’s Legacy support has encouraged Friends across New England beyond the financial support.

Over the course of the next few days, a few of the Legacy Gift grantees will speak about their leadings and experience of being supported by Legacy Funds. Andy Grant will speak of his leading toward right-relationship with Indigenous people, culture, and land, and Beth Collea will tell of Dover Meeting’s calling to offer sanctuary and the Legacy grant supporting meetinghouse renovations to make that corporate ministry possible. Orianna Reilly and Christopher McCandless were expected to speak as well, but time and circumstances did not permit.

Mary and Susan thanked Friends for creating this legacy of Spirit through the Legacy funds. Friends are reminded of the upcoming August 30th application deadline and asked to reach out to either of the co-clerks with any questions.

2021-28 Faith and Practice Revision

Phebe McCosker (Hanover) described the work of the Faith and Practice Revision Committee and presented a new chapter on “Personal Spiritual Practices.”

The process of writing a new Faith and Practice is about the engagement of the Yearly Meeting in naming where we are as a community in a way that encourages spiritual vitality and growth. The committee presents each new draft chapter, followed by listening sessions, input from the monthly meetings, a rewrite, and more input from Friends.

This week the committee is bringing the chapter “Personal Spiritual Practices” back for preliminary approval. Our faith community depends on the vitality of the personal spiritual lives of its members. This chapter asks Friends to examine how they keep their spiritual lives vibrant. It encourages Friends to explore the breadth of opportunity for spiritual depth that lies before them in their everyday lives. As usual, the chapter has a series of extracts following the text to bring into greater clarity the power of Friends’ practice.

Members of the committee read several extracts and queries.

Phebe informed the body of opportunities for listening sessions and an intention to bring a revised Personal Spiritual Practices chapter back to the body at the end of the week.

2021-29 Right Relationship Resource Group

Suzanna Schell (Beacon Hill) presented a report from the Right Relationship Resource Group, consisting of Suzanna, Andy Grant (Mt Toby), Don Campbell (Mt Toby), Sara Smith (Concord), Kim West (Cambridge), and Leslie Manning (Durham, clerk of Permanent Board).

This group was appointed by Permanent Board in September 2020 to support monthly meetings as they reflected on the draft Apology to Native Americans. While the group’s role was not to wordsmith the Apology, they have considered suggestions and questions they received and incorporated some but not all of them. A number of meetings have minuted their support for the Apology, while other meetings are just beginning or have not yet engaged. You can read all of the responses on the NEYM website (https://neym.org/right-relationship-indigenous-peoples-local-discernment-and-action).

Although the search for Truth is an arduous path, it opens the way for a restoration of balance and greater joy. Together we are on the journey of a lifetime, and this letter is one step.

Andy Grant (Mt Toby) then read the Apology to Native Americans. (See page 39.)

Friends received the Apology; discernment on approving it will happen later this week.

2021-30 No Way To Treat a Child

The Presiding Clerk urged Friends to listen to one another with open and tender hearts, recognizing that for some it is very important for the quarterly meeting minutes on the mistreatment of Palestinian children to be heard in full, while others will find the messages they carry very disturbing.

Carl Williams (Plainfield) read the Northwest Quarter minute regarding “No Way to Treat a Child.” Jim Matlack (Midcoast) read the Vassalboro Quarter minute on the mistreatment of Palestinian children.

Friends received these minutes. Discernment on approving them will happen later this week. There was a Pastoral Care breakout room at the end of this morning’s session for anyone who wanted help grounding after these intense messages.

2-21-31 NEYM Earthcare Ministry Committee

Kim Stoner (New Haven), Margaret Marshall (Narramissic Valley), and Reb MacKenzie (Quaker City Unity) read the 2021 Minute of Support for Survival of the Earth and Her Inhabitants. (See page page 40.)

Monday Afternoon, August 9, 2021

2021-32 Introductions

Bruce Neumann (Fresh Pond) again introduced the Clerks’ Table, the Noticing Patterns group, and the elders for this afternoon.

For decades, Quakers in New England and Cuba have sustained a “Bridge of Love”—also called the Puente de Amigos—through mutual support, prayer, and visitation. This year, despite the enormous hardship Cubans are experiencing, several Friends from Cuba, including Kenya Casanova Sales, Jorge Luis Peña Reyes (presiding clerk of Cuba Yearly Meeting), and Miledys Batista Sintes, are joining us at Sessions as they are able through the facilitation of a dedicated tech and interpretation team.

2021-33 Underlying Truth

The Clerk expressed that what we seek this week is to find some underlying Truth that we might miss in considering topics individually, but which might emerge as we look at them together. What we did this morning, hearing items of business but holding off on our discernment process, is part of that process.

2021-34 Noticing Patterns

The Noticing Patterns group reminded us that the work of owning and responding to the ways the culture of empire has harmed us can feel overwhelming.

Those of us who carry marginalized identities are particularly challenged to find a way to carry our responses to oppression while still carrying on with our daily lives. To hear and feel the weight of several ways this oppression has played can feel overwhelming, and without space to breathe and re-ground ourselves in the divine presence some of us are not able to find the balanced place of discernment. Our dominant culture does not teach us to take the space that would allow us to find God in these moments.

They asked that we take time in prayer throughout our business, observing that while it may seem that it would slow us down, “it is actually a way to reground ourselves in spaciousness and in the infinite.”

2021-35 NEYM’s History with Friends United Meeting

The Clerk called on Frederick Martin (Beacon Hill), one of our representatives to the FUM General Board, to introduce the issues surrounding the relationship between NEYM and FUM. The text of his remarks follows:

FUM is an international association of Quaker yearly meetings that represents one “branch” or “flavor” of the Quaker faith. The various branches of Friends all grew out of the core revolutionary Quaker movement that started in England in the 1650s, but in 19th-century England and America, religious changes swept through the whole culture—not just Quakers—and Quakers split into four or five different branches. One of these branches was more activist, more involved in abolitionist work and social reform, more Bible-oriented, and began holding programmed worship services and supporting pastors. New England Quakers were almost all part of this branch.

In 1902, this branch organized itself into what they called the Five Years Meeting, which later became Friends United Meeting. New England Yearly Meeting was a founding member. They were trying to strengthen a kind of mainline Protestant theology against the growing evangelical revivalist movements that were sweeping Quakerism along with the rest of the country.

New England Quakers, even in the early 20th century, were not part of the more liberal Friends General Conference. Only in the 1940s did some newly independent meetings in places like Cambridge, Providence, and Hartford start working with FGC.

Another element, separate from FUM, was a missionary effort of Quakers from the United States to East Africa. In 1902, NEYM sent two representatives to the Board that organized this effort separately from FUM. It was taken under the care of FUM a couple of decades later. Kenya now has the largest number of Quakers anywhere in the world, and they are members of FUM. The Board and staff have been working to decolonize the organizational structures of FUM for a number of years, but that’s another story.

Today, FUM is an association of 37 yearly meetings, 20 of them in Kenya. Four or five FUM-affiliated yearly meetings in the United States are also affiliated with Friends General Conference, including us. The umbrella of FUM’s organizational structure includes Friends Theological College in Kenya, several other programs in East Africa that support Friends, Ramallah Friends School in Palestine, and the Belize Friends School, programming for Friends in North America, and an international conference every three years called the Triennial.

Like any nonprofit organization, FUM has a personnel policy. Most of it is about ordinary things like staff benefits, but it includes what is called a Personal Ethics section, which says that staff are expected to lead lifestyles in accordance with Friends testimonies. Susan Furry, a New England Friend who wore a pink triangle to FUM gatherings in the 1970s, has described the “long-standing but unwritten and unspoken policy: no Gay Friends could work for FUM.” An incident in the 1980s caused a firestorm of protest when a gay Friend applied for a position and was rejected. This prompted the Board to adopt the current policy in 1988.

I know this is painful, because it’s the policy that New England is demanding change. I’m going to read the part that matters here:

Susan Furry points out that this policy “did have the advantage that (though discriminatory) it would actually be possible for a Gay or Bisexual Friend to serve in Friends United Meeting.” She goes on to say, “I did not feel the policy was the will of God. I strongly believed and still believe that it was and still is God’s will that the policy must ultimately change. But I knew clearly that this was the best that this particular group of Friends could do at that time.” She also asked us to bear in mind that in 1988 only six of the monthly meetings in NEYM had approved same sex marriage, most of them just year, one in 1987, and one in 1986. One other note: part of the intent of the policy was to promote gender equality in Africa by restricting patriarchal leadership by men with multiple wives.

New England representatives to FUM hoped this personnel policy would be the start of incremental change, but unfortunately it became frozen in time while our country has only grown more polarized.

Twenty-four years later, in 2012, the personnel policy had to be updated for legal reasons in the state of Indiana. When it came to the section on Personal Ethics, a number of representatives, including those from NEYM, were not in unity with it. Unfortunately, when there was no agreement on a new policy, the usual Quaker practice left the existing one in place. A note was included in the new personnel manual that the Board is not in unity with that section of the policy.

So from a factual standpoint, this is where we still are.

Because FUM is governed by a Board made up of yearly meeting representatives which worked by Quaker process, change can be held up even when the ground has been shifting for FUM’s member yearly meetings in North America.

Out of eleven FUM yearly meetings in the U.S. in 2009, only four were LBGTQ-affirming. Since then, two yearly meetings have split, with one side affirming and one side non-affirming in each case, and four more have either adopted affirming policies or been open to their monthly meetings doing so. This prompted many anti-affirming meetings to leave. So, the U.S. yearly meetings in FUM overall have become more affirming.

While concerns about the policy had been voiced earlier within New England Yearly Meeting, the issue came to the fore in Sessions 2009 when it was clear that some Friends felt we should disaffiliate, while others felt we should stay in relationship. A few of them felt that they could not allow any portion of their money to go to FUM—even through their donations to their monthly meetings, which in turn donated to NEYM, which donated to FUM.

The withholding mechanism was established as a sort of 11th-hour way to move forward. It let us stay in relationship while allowing those whose conscience would not let them donate to FUM remain in relationship with their monthly meeting and NEYM. Some members of Wellesley meeting resigned as they felt that even this measure was not enough.

Yet despite multiple commitments to engage with everyone and seek a better way forward and multiple renewals of the withholding plan, as a body of Friends we’ve mostly avoided deep engagement. Some Friends have engaged in intervisitation with yearly meetings and are convinced that, while slower than we could wish for, one-on-one relationships built over time are the way we change people’s hearts.

At Sessions in 2019 we considered the withholding policy again after a five-year hiatus, and the Clerk’s sense of the meeting was that we did not have unity to continue the withholding plan. It had been written with a sunset clause, so without unity to reaffirm it, the mechanism ceased to exist. It was allowed to extend to October 2020 to allow monthly meetings to take this into account in their budgets. Then the COVID pandemic came. The Clerks’ Table saw that we couldn’t discern this at our first Zoom Sessions, and Permanent Board authorized a further one-year extension to October 2021.

2021-36 Monthly Meeting minutes regarding Friends United Meeting

Over the past year we have received twelve minutes from monthly meetings regarding our relationship to Friends United Meeting. The Clerk asked that these minutes be read to the body. Brief summaries of each one follow. The full texts can be found beginning on page 41.

Partway through the reading of the monthly meeting minutes, a Friend stopped us and asked that Friends consider whether it is necessary to read aloud the excerpt from the FUM policy over and over again, as it is acutely painful to hear it. The Clerk recognized that this Session has been particularly difficult for the LGBTQIA+ Friends among us. He concluded with “I hope you will hear the love and affection that your meetings feel. You are us. We are glad you’re here. You are beloved.”

2021-37 Minute from Fresh Pond Monthly Meeting

While observing that the FUM personnel policy is “inconsistent with the divine community to which we aspire ... Fresh Pond Meeting has experienced and affirms the many ways Friends United Meeting effectively witnesses other Quaker beliefs and testimonies.” Fresh Pond Monthly Meeting accepts our membership in and financial support of FUM.

2021-38 Minute from Hartford Monthly Meeting

Hartford Monthly Meeting, recognizing “the complexity of this issue given that Friends United Meeting is an international body representing members from many cultures,” is committed to “the fullest inclusion in our ministry and expression of their humanity” of the LGBTQIA+ community and others. The minute states their intention to withhold FUM-related funds, and to reallocate those funds to LGBTQIA+ organizations.

2021-39 Minute from Midcoast Friends Meeting

Acknowledging the moral frailty of all of us, nonetheless we believe that [failing to excise the offensive language in FUM’s personnel policy] causes grievous harm, moral injury, and imminent danger to LBGTQ+ persons and their communities. Unless FUM changes its policy, we ask NEYM to withdraw from membership at its 2020 Annual Meeting. Our energy is best invested by partnering elsewhere, and working on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community.

2021-40 Minute from Middlebury Friend Meeting

LGBTQ+ persons have suffered too long being discriminated against or worse, imprisoned and killed. As Quakers … we should be at the forefront of those welcoming our LGBTQ+ family as truly and fully, our family.

When New England Yearly Meeting halts its contribution withholding practice, Middlebury Friends will allow its members to express their conscience on FUM’s hiring policy by designating a percent of their contributions destined to FUM as a contribution to another benevolence. Meeting will still pay its full dues to NEYM.

2021-41 Minute from New Haven Friends Meeting

New Haven Friends believe NEYM should remain engaged with FUM and continue exerting influence on our Friends at FUM with the hope of changing hearts and minds. “We want to support the good work FUM does around the world as they provide a form of outreach that NEYM meetings are not able to do. We also appreciate how FUM has worked to change the power dynamics within FUM away from white supremacy. Let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater!”

2021-42 Minute from Northeast Kingdom Quaker Meeting

We recognize that continuing to support this policy causes moral injury, not only to those who are excluded, but especially to those of us that participate in excluding them. We support individuals who can not in good conscience contribute monetarily to Friends United Meeting until this policy is changed. We recognize that FUM does important and valuable work and that we are all part of one Spiritual community. We also understand that individual acts of conscience can be the beginning point for creating awareness and challenging us to struggle together as a community to choose a just and moral way forward.

2021-43 Minute from Putney Friends Meeting

Putney’s minute asks that we “eliminate the funding mechanism which offsets withheld contributions to Friends United Meeting,” and “explore avenues for funds that would have gone to Friends United Meeting to be redirected to support for the needs of LGBTQ people everywhere.”

2021-44 Minute from South Starksboro Friends Meeting

We want to ensure that our monetary contributions do not go through NEYM to support organizations which discriminate against LGBTQ people, or those in a non-heterosexual or unmarried relationship. For example, while we continue to support communication and dialogue with Friends United Meeting (FUM) we do not wish that any monies we send as a meeting to NEYM be used in support of FUM as long as they continue discriminatory hiring practices.

2021-45 Minute from Weare/Henniker Monthly Meeting

Some Friends questioned why a discriminatory condition of employment such as this is in FUM’s policy at all. At the conclusion of our third session, some Friends felt that we do not know enough about the inner workings of FUM and the possible consequences of change to fully understand its perspective. While the frustration of Midcoast Friends Meeting speaks to some of us, there is no sense of the meeting at this time that our community is prepared to follow their path. In fact, we feel it is important to pay dues and remain members of NEYM and FUM if we want to have any say in changing policies.

2021-46 Minute from Wellesley Friends Meeting

The minute requests the reinstatement of the withholding policy, noting that it “provides a tangible way to recognize that Friends United Meeting’s personnel policy falls short of the Quaker revelation that there is that of God in every individual,” and observing that “It is not intended as financial leverage, but rather as a witness of faith and conscience.”

2021-47 Minute from Westport Monthly Meeting

Westport Monthly Meeting, observing that past discernment around FUM has been contentious and divisive, notes that “we are clear that the path to unity is through listening and being willing to change if that is what we are called to do.”

2021-48 Minute from Worcester Friends Meeting

Daron Barnard (Worcester) reading a minute from Worcester Monthly Meeting, shared that the meeting engages in “work to promote social justice in our home community [which] includes initiatives supporting LGBT people, some of whom are asylum seekers fleeing the pervasive and even legislated homophobia in their home countries.”

We propose, therefore, that NEYM consider reinstatement of a revised form of the withholding option, specifically an option for Meetings to redirect those funds which would be donated to FUM to an alternate organization working for the benefit of LGBT people in Africa.

Tuesday Morning, August 10, 2021

2021-49 Epistle

We heard the epistle from Intermountain Yearly Meeting:

Following our faith into action will present many challenges. If, as our faith tells us, there is that of God in everyone, how will we challenge racism in our midst? How will we do so as “a motion of love”? This kind of work can only be sustained if our faith and our meetings are strong. To that end, time spent at our yearly gathering offers opportunities for nurturing one another and building community. … Our community is maintained through faith and fellowship with each other as we wait in the Light for the unity that draws us together.

2021-50 Introductions

The Clerk introduced again the Clerks’ Table and today’s elders and expressed appreciation for the Friends from Noticing Patterns who meet daily with the Clerks’ Table.

The Clerk shared: “Yesterday was a heavy day, with a lot to listen to that was hard to hear. We feel that weight also. As I reflected this morning it came to me that the Sessions Planning Purpose and Procedure, which is on the agenda, is not the work that is before us today. We really want to begin open discernment.”

2021-51 Pastoral Care

In response to yesterday’s reading of the minutes from monthly meetings about the FUM personnel policy, the Pastoral Care Team set up an alternate Zoom room for those of us who are LGBTQIA+ who wanted to step away from business for support.

2021-52 Noticing Patterns

The Noticing Patterns working group (NPWG) reported that they are working together and with Spirit to hold all that is arising in business, across the Yearly Meeting, and through the Noticing Patterns email.

They’ve received several dozen emails, many of them very long and searching, and they thank you all for your heartfelt reflections and noticings. This is stretching them and suggests needs for connection and community that are beyond their scope and capabilities. They hope Friends can be gentle and patient with them! Please know they are praying over all that is arising, and knowing each of them and each of you sees or knows or feels the parts we do. NPWG does not have nor seek simple answers or noticings on this journey with Spirit and all.

Those on NPWG are also feeling and processing individually what is arising within them and in the body, as they sit together to hear what Spirit is asking of them as they seek to be faithful to their charge. There is much stirring. They are feeling stretched in spirit-held ways and, at moments, up to the limits of their capacity.

As they seek to listen for what they have to offer, they wonder about what is the Spirit-filled and Spirit-led container that all of us here gathered can co-create together, that can hold all at Sessions as we seek to feel, see, hear, know, and wonder what God is calling us toward?

As John Calvi shared last night, all can be healed, and yet not all will be healed in our time, in this time. Thus, part of what the Working Group wonders is what may need to be different about this Sessions container in relation to time? What allows us to recognize that clock time is at play while reaching and opening to God’s time, and to how Spirit is moving among us at this time?

In closing, they shared this prayer from Niyonu Spann of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, and the source of the Noticing Patterns of Oppression and Faithfulness framework.

May I meet you where you are,
May I never lose my center.
May I meet you where you are,
May we never lose our center.
Reaching back for truth,
Bringing forth the healing;
Healing for the future born of living from the heart right now.

2021-53 Legacy Gift Recipient: Beth Collea

Beth Collea (Dover) shared the journey of Dover Meeting becoming a sanctuary congregation. The project began in 2017, when some Indonesian neighbors were threatened with imminent deportation. Dover Meeting responded with lightning speed to say “Yes” to becoming a sanctuary congregation and then turned to other area houses of worship for partnership, forming the Seacoast Interfaith Sanctuary Coalition (SISC).

The spiritual affirmation of the Legacy Gift Committee helped them to receive and stand in God’s grace and guidance. And the generous funding made a monumental task seem a little less daunting.

At this point they have activated their building permit and are ready to begin stage one construction. The whole process has been bumpy with twists and turns, but as they look back, all those times of doubt and stuckness drew them together into deeper waters of prayer and patience together.

Beth shared with us five spiritual learnings that have come out of this work:

1. Respond to stuckness by standing in the Light and waiting. Make space and time for grace to work.
2. Frame the leading as a collective testimony, asking What is the truth we are called to share?
3. Utilize fully every opening. By leaning into openings as they appeared, they found the Holy One offered a fuller measure of grace. Opening kept inviting them to another opening and another.
4. Signal to others the experience of living into a leading. Other people of faith are eager to hear how we are changed by taking faithful action together.
5. Let this reveal itself over time. Dover Meeting and the SISC are working with other worship groups in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Any individual detained in those states is automatically sent to Immigration & Customs Enforcement in Dover, NH, which is only six miles from Dover Meeting. It has been providential that they can be a safe haven and the first jumping-off point for those released from detention.

2021-54 Clerks’ Table Nominations

Friends raised a concern that names were offered as nominations for Rising Clerk and Recording Clerk without the opportunity to hear anything about the nominees. In response, Judy Goldberger (Beacon Hill) from Clerks’ Table Nominating, Bruce Neumann, and Honor Woodrow each spoke about their experiences working with the nominees and their sense of the gifts they bring to these positions.

2021-55 Proposal from the FUM Committee

Kristina Keefe-Perry (Fresh Pond) of the FUM Committee presented a report and proposal from the FUM Committee. The full proposal can be found in the appended documents.

The committee reaffirmed NEYM minute 2009-53, which reads, “Just as Friends have historically witnessed to the Light present among all races and genders, we witness that the Light is present among people of all sexual orientations and gender identities or gender expressions. We experience our sexuality and sexual identity as integral components of who we are as children of God”; and also reaffirmed minute 2019-58 that said “We unite unequivocally in our love and care for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer Friends, and hold a particular concern for their lives and ministries.”

The proposal included three new initiatives:

1. Collaboration and witness with other open and affirming yearly meetings
2. Establishing a fund (tentatively called the Bayard Rustin Fund) to support LGBTQIA+ organizations in East Africa, Central and South America, India, the Caribbean, and North America
3. Examining the ways that homophobia and transphobia lives in the broader culture, in our meetings, and in us, examining and changing our practices and gatherings to become more inclusive.

The full proposal is appended on page 48.

2021-56 Introduction to Open Discernment

The Clerk reminded us that at heart, every business meeting is a meeting for worship. We need to hold back from the urgency of naming the thing that is rising quickly and instead settle into worship and treat this as a meeting for worship.

We have seen minutes on No Way To Treat a Child, we have the Apology to Native Americans and minutes on FUM and Earthcare Ministry and a chapter from Faith and Practice. These are parts of the big picture but not the whole of it. We are looking for the underlying Truth that supports them all.

As we enter into worship with a concern for business, the Clerk offered these queries:

Who do we want to be? And what is God calling us to?

This is an experiment for all of us.

2021-57 Open Discernment

Through the rest of our Tuesday morning session, continuing Wednesday morning, and much of our Wednesday afternoon sessions, Friends engaged deeply with the concerns at hand and the queries proposed by the Clerk. Friends responded with messages expressing specific points of view about particular agenda items, with vocal ministry which reflected the underlying connections and concerns, and with prayer.

Friends expressed both frustration that we still belong to an organization (FUM) whose personnel policy discriminates against LGBTQIA+, and a deep desire to stay in relationship with that body. Friends expressed their sense that the Apology to Native Americans was an important step in acknowledging our participation in generations of wrongdoing and is an important step in building trust. We heard both deep reservations about AFSC’s No Way to Treat a Child campaign, as well as concern for the violence and injustice that happens to Palistinian children as well as children here in the U.S. and around the world. We heard concern for our planet.

Threaded through much of what we heard were themes of communication and engagement with those we disagree with, and humility, recognizing that we have made mistakes in the past.

While much of this open discernment is reflected in specific minutes on Thursday morning, for a more detailed summary of the views expressed and messages heard, see the “Clerks’ Table Summary of Open Discernment” on page 50.

Wednesday Morning, August 11, 2021

2021-58 Epistle

We heard the epistle from Aotearoa/New Zealand Yearly Meeting. This epistle was chosen to reflect their relationship with their Indigenous community, the tāngata whenua.

We rejoiced in the opportunity to be fully present “with each other” after 2020’s online-only meeting for worship. While giving thanks for the privileged position of Aotearoa/New Zealand, we were reminded of the perilous state of other nations, especially as we heard of the serious impact of Covid-19 in India.

The value of connection was strongly felt among Friends and we heard how the new use of technology had enabled the Quaker community, as never before, to extend its reach to remote and unwell Friends. ...

Like the tōroa [albatross], we now go back to our Quaker communities enriched by the aroha [love] that has embraced this Yearly Meeting, and its attendees, both present and remote.

2021-59 Introductions

The Clerk again introduced the Clerks’ Table and the elders.

2021-60 Legacy Gift Recipient: Andy Grant

Andy Grant (Mt Toby) spoke about his journey of learning about Native peoples and coming to a deep sympathy for their wisdom and their pain. He spoke of being a white settler descendant through and through. He is learning to love his ancestors, to stand with them in good and bad, and bringing their deeds to light is part of that process as he works to move from being an occupier to being a neighbor with legitimacy. His meeting met him in this leading and ministry, giving him a clearness process and an oversight committee. Through the grant he has been able to supplement his limited income to pursue this work.

Recently he was able to attend and provide supplies for a Pokumtuk homelands festival in Turner’s Falls, a place where an atrocity was committed that has now been restored as a place of peace and a gathering place of tribes from across the Northeast, helping to sow the seeds for a future work of deep listening and friendship over time. He shared with us his definition of faith: “I lift my foot, and the path is revealed.”

2021-61 The Work of Transformation

The Clerk acknowledged that all that we have heard has been a lot to take in. It is hard work, and part of why it is hard is because the Clerk has asked us to consider the whole rather than the parts.

The questions we have been asking are Who do we want to be? What does God want us to do? We have heard about our relationship with FUM, we’ve heard a proposal from the FUM committee, a couple of minutes about the No Way To Treat a Child campaign, the Apology to Native Americans, and a minute from the Earthcare Ministry Committee. These provide some shape and impetus to the work but the real work is the underlying transformation of hearts, to become a people more aligned with the way God wants us to be. We are being molded by the Divine.

This approach is challenging. And yet, time and again Friends have come together to discern, and we are eager to engage deeply in that process.

In our usual practice at business sessions, we get drawn into the details. Today we are asked to lift our vision and try to imagine a different way of being. The Clerk’s vision is that if we can begin to see this new way, the challenges that we feel around individual concerns can begin to fall away and through the day we will begin to see where we want to move as a body.

Friends returned to a period of worshipful open discernment.

2021-62 Open Discernment

Friends continued with open discernment. (The Clerks’ Table Summary can be found on page 50.)

Wednesday Afternoon, August 11, 2021

2021-63 Epistle

The Reading Clerks read the epistle from Baltimore Yearly Meeting out of the silence.

What is ours to do is grounded in our relationship with each other. Our work is not just making decisions, but the act of “being” a yearly meeting. Being in conflict in community takes on an aspect of holiness because we labor together, as if “together” is the only option. Community builds hope and, like courage, hope is contagious.

2021-64 Introductions

The Clerk opened the afternoon session with a prayer and a Cuban song and introduced this afternoon’s elders.

2021-65 Messages from Cuban Friends

Most Friends are aware that we have a long and vibrant relationship with Cuba Yearly Meeting. Because of the COVID pandemic, they have been unable to travel to be with us this week, but we have several Cuban Friends with us over Zoom. Our translation team shared with us a message from Kenya Casanova Sales, and Benigno Sanchez-Eppler translated the following message from Jorge Luis Peña. Friends were touched by the deep caring and concern that Cuban Friends show for one another.

2 Corinthians 4:7-10

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed—always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

Dear brothers and sisters, it is not easy to understand what Cuba is experiencing in the midst of what all humanity is living. I want to give you this message that the Lord inspired, I trust that you can understand and go deep in it.

Cuba had incomprehensible scarcities of basic necessities, but now that the world is turned upside down, it has become even more difficult for us to survive. In order to get by, we have learned to speak without words, to laugh and make fun of our own obstacles.

As Quakers we have built bridges and found ways around the hatred between our governments, because although the sea lies between us, we never believed in borders.

We need change, including a change in our own minds—a change that translates into a clear understanding of God. Although in these times we cannot feel free from threats of all kinds, we can still believe in the promises of the living God. We can smell the stench of death and still yearn for life. We can still feel walls and dream of bridges.

Jorge Luis
Presiding Clerk of Cuba Yearly Meeting
Early Morning of August 11, 2021

2021-66 The Puente de Amigos Committee

The Puente Committee is proposing a minute which is intended as a tool for our collective voice as New England Yearly Meeting to speak against the decades of cruel and coercive policies enacted by the United States government against Cuba, and to bear witness to the humanity of our beloved neighbors to the south.

The United States blockade against Cuba, as well as the recent executive actions of the previous administration, deny the Cuban people access to food, medical supplies and other essential resources and have exacerbated the humanitarian crises of poverty and pandemic. Our Quaker faith compels us to make an urgent appeal to our own government in hope that we can move forward with love and respect for all.

New England Yearly Meeting calls upon the Biden administration and the United States Congress to immediately end the blockade against Cuba, as well as immediately rescind the 240-plus executive actions held over from the previous administration, which are an affront to human rights and dignity. Furthermore, we urge the United States government to initiate a normalization of relations between our two countries.

Approval of this minute will be with the assumption that we will send it to the Biden Administration. We will also send it out widely to the monthly meetings and members of New England Yearly Meeting so that they, in turn, can forward it to their own Congress members.

Friends approved.

2021-67 Letter from the Presbyterian Church Office of Public Witness

The Clerk shared a letter that he and the Yearly Meeting Secretary recently received from the Presbyterian Church Office of Public Witness addressing concerns in Cuba. The Clerk and Secretary have signed it on behalf of New England Yearly Meeting, feeling it was fully in line with previous minutes and policies. The letter has also been signed by a range of faith-based organizations, including the Friends Committee on National Legislation and Friends United Meeting.

The text of the letter is appended on page 53.

2021-68 Open Discernment

The Clerk thanked Friends for a grounded meeting this morning. There was much to be heard and absorbed. He reminded us of the foundational question, Who are we called to be, and of some of the answers we have heard: we need healing; we are encouraged to be finely tuned listeners, strange, truthful, and annoying; if not here, where? If not now, when?

Friends continued with open discernment. (Summary on page 50.)

2021-69 Closing

Prayers were shared and Friends closed with worship.

Thursday, Morning August 12, 2021

2021-70 Epistle

We heard the epistle from South Central Yearly Meeting.

We are challenged to be bold and love fiercely as we sought guidance from the Spirit to address the crises of today that we, as people of a shared faith, must meet with integrity, unity, love, and peace.

God has richly blessed and ordained our work, we continue to be in community with you, each other, and friends all over the world as we work with that sacred time when peace may prevail on earth and in the hearts and minds of those who inhabit it. Sandra Cronk once wrote, Peace is a gift, but it does not come magically through our passivity. Only in our faithful response to God’s call, do we receive God’s peace.

2021-71 Introductions and Announcements

The Clerk apologized for what he recognized as his poor eldering the other day. Someone had been reading a prepared statement in a business meeting. In other circumstances he would have recognized that as calling for a one-on-one conversation, not a calling-out. Also, while we hope that Friends speak from their heart in worship and business, the line between preparation and spontaneous speaking is fuzzier than we might like to think.

He introduced this morning’s elders, expressed gratitude for the presence of our visitors (although, sadly, there wasn’t time to recognize them individually) and for the tech team, without whom we could not make these Zoom Sessions happen.

2021-72 Noticing Patterns

The Noticing Patterns working group reported on their work and some of what they had heard during Sessions. (See full text on page 54.) The working group expects to make a more thorough report sometime in the fall.

They expressed gratitude for the deep and faithful engagement of Friends in this work. Examples of faithfulness were legion during our Sessions. They also noted themes, drawn from many Friends’ emails, that reflect patterns that fall short of faithfulness. The themes identified were:

• NEYM Friends hold groups of people in prayer and in their hearts, yet a polarity between preferred groups and other groups is often noted.
• NEYM Friends notice language that impacts groups negatively.
• NEYM Friends are concerned about insensitivity to the needs of, or the poor accommodation of, neurodivergence.
• NEYM Friends are concerned about expectations and rules of engagement being unevenly applied by the Clerk in meeting for business.
• NEYM Friends are concerned about inappropriate uses to which beliefs, values, or practices of certain groups, traditions, or cultures are put.

The Working Group noted the challenge of trying to change the dominant culture in which we all are steeped. Noting the grief that we have experienced from old wounds, as well as the pain that comes from being complicit in a culture that uses wounding to control others, the Working Group invited us to consider sharing our grief with one another rather than denying or hiding it. They asked us, in the words of Ross Gay, “What if we joined our sorrow? What if that is joy?”

Finally, the group invited us to let go of our perfectionism and concern with appearances, to turn to one another instead in humility and love. They invited us to let go of our quarrels, given that we cannot yet clearly see our goal. They invited us to be guided by the inner teacher to do the next right thing; to enter a process of healing for our most teachable selves; to proceed in faith, one step at a time, in our journey toward reconciliation and Truth.

2021-73 Faith and Practice Revision Committee

The Faith and Practice Revision Committee brought back the chapter on Personal Spiritual Practices, with some revisions. Phrases were added about spiritual writings and wisdom from other traditions, and one extract was rewritten.

Several people sent the committee extracts, which they appreciated. There had been a suggestion to include extracts from very young children, but most of those will fit better in the chapter on Families and Children.

Friends approved the chapter. As with all of the chapters, this is preliminary approval. Friends are asked to use it in place of the 1985 Faith and Practice so that the committee can receive further feedback before they bring the chapter back for final approval when the whole book is ready.

2021-74 Sessions Committee Purposes, Procedures, and Composition

Recognizing that we have not had a chance to get back to the Sessions Committee proposal, the Clerk intends to ask Permanent Board to grant one-year approval so that the work of planning next year’s Sessions can happen. The proposal will come back to Sessions next year for approval by the body.

2021-75 Earthcare Ministry Committee

Friends approved forwarding the Earthcare Ministry Committee’s minute to monthly meetings for their consideration. The minute appears on page 40.

2021-76 FUM Personnel Policy

The Clerk observed that several of the monthly meeting minutes about FUM suggested they might correspond with the General Board, but he also noted his understanding that the Board does not consider minutes from monthly meetings, only yearly meetings. The Clerk named his willingness to write to the FUM Board, expressing our sense of dismay at the continued existence of the offensive portion of the personnel policy and our understanding of the Light in all.

Friends approved.

It was suggested that in addition to sending the letter, that it be hand-delivered by one or more of our Board representatives, allowing the possibility of conversation.

2021-77 FUM Committee Proposal: Bayard Rustin Fund

The Clerk brought our attention to the proposal from the FUM Committee suggesting the establishment of the Bayard Rustin Fund. This fund would be held by NEYM and would accept money from individuals and monthly meetings to be distributed to organizations working towards LGBTQIA+ wellbeing. He also noted that if Friends also approve a mechanism for directing contributions away from FUM, then those monies would go to this fund.

A Friend pointed out that FGC also has a fund called the Bayard Rustin Fund that is very different. Should this one have a different name? (The Clerk clarified that we’re approving the creation of the fund. If it’s determined by Permanent Board that it should have a different name, they can change it.)

The more direction Permanent Board can receive, the better they can carry out the work. The Clerk of Permanent Board asked the FUM Committee to meet regularly and report to them at least once.

Friends approved the proposal as it appeared in the Advance Documents:

The Bayard Rustin Fund for Support and Action:

• The Yearly Meeting will establish the NEYM Bayard Rustin Fund for Support and Action. Rustin (1912–1987) was a pillar of the Civil Rights movement in the United States. Raised a Quaker, Rustin studied nonviolence with Gandhian activists in India, organized the first Freedom Rides, co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (with Dr. King), and helped to plan the 1963 March on Washington. Rustin’s leadership was often behind the scenes because, as a gay man in the 1960s, he was often discredited for his sexuality. Rustin worked tirelessly for civil rights for all people until his death and is a fitting namesake for this fund.
• This project of the Yearly Meeting will be funded at an initial amount as determined by the Permanent Board in consultation with the Treasurer and the Finance Committee, and can receive additional monies from individual Friends and meetings. This proposal is for a “revolving” fund, where the full amount contributed in a given year is available for distribution as a grant or grants, rather than a permanently endowed fund.
• A working group of five people (including at least one Yearly Meeting (YM) FUM Board representative and four others with gifts and experience of encouragement, support, and prophetic witness) will direct the donations of this fund, while working carefully with the YM Treasurer, Finance Committee, and YM Staff.
• The donations will be used to support LGBTQIA+ organizations in East Africa, Central and South America, India, the Caribbean, and North America. The fund might assist monthly meetings in their witness as well as target support to initiatives that resist current anti-trans youth legislation by increasing the visibility of efforts and opportunities for collaboration across NEYM.
• Individuals and meetings can make gifts to this fund.

2021-78 Clerk’s Proposal Regarding FUM Funding

The Clerk summarized for us the context of this proposal. We have heard 12 minutes from monthly meetings, in all of which we heard the pain felt over the discriminatory aspect of the FUM personnel policy. We also heard that a number of these monthly meetings feel the need for a way to express their conscience and keep any part of their NEYM contributions from going to FUM. Division over this exists within many monthly meetings, not just between them.

Where the previous 2009 withholding mechanism was ambiguous as to its intention regarding withholding for conscience’ sake or as financial leverage, and where it withheld funds from FUM but did not specify the use of those funds, this minute is clear that the purpose is solely to allow a mechanism for those who cannot in good conscience support FUM, and directs funds to be used for the benefit of LGBTQIA+ Friends and others.

In a sense, this proposal is an act of pastoral care for those who are in pain and feel they cannot have any of their money go to FUM.

While a change of the FUM personnel policy would be welcome, a change that is based on financial leverage without the change of heart would be a hollow victory. The following proposed minute, if approved, would allow monthly meetings to redirect funds which would otherwise go to FUM. The minute names that this is for conscience’ sake. While the old withholding mechanism provided a separate fund to make up the difference, the Clerk’s best sense is that Friends do not feel the need for this now; any individual can give to FUM at any time.

The proposed minute follows:

Since at least 2009 NEYM has struggled to find unity regarding our membership and the nature of our relationship with Friends United Meeting (FUM). While there are multiple issues, the heart of our struggle is FUM’s personnel policy which does not allow LGBTQIA+ and other Friends in active relationships to be employees of FUM.

On several occasions we have minuted our love and respect for LGBTQIA+ Friends in our midst, and have celebrated their service to our own Yearly Meeting. Yet we remain deeply divided on continuing our membership in an organization with such a discriminatory policy. Some would prefer that we disaffiliate, while others observe that staying in relationship allows us to stay in conversation and work for change.

Lacking unity on this fundamental question, we seek a way to stay in relationship within NEYM, to honor our differences, and to express that our love for each other is greater than our disagreement. Out of concern for individuals and monthly meetings who, as a matter of conscience, cannot contribute to the financial support of FUM, NEYM will allow monthly meetings to direct that some portion of their contribution to the Yearly Meeting that would otherwise have gone to FUM, go instead to a new fund, provisionally named the Bayard Rustin Fund. As further expressed in minute 2021-77, these funds will be distributed annually to organizations working for the well-being of LGBTQIA+ people, including Friends. The accounts manager will subtract from NEYM’s annual remission to FUM the total amount diverted to the Bayard Rustin Fund.

On remittance of contributions to NEYM, the monthly meeting treasurer should include a letter to the Yearly Meeting Treasurer expressing the desire for this, and naming the amount to be directed to the fund, which should not exceed the percentage that NEYM’s budgeted contribution to FUM is, of the line named “Total expenses” in a given fiscal year’s budget.

This mechanism for directing funds will remain in effect until the personnel policy changes, or until Friends find a new way forward.

We ask our FUM Board representatives to continue to work towards changing this policy, remembering that it is Spirit that changes hearts, not our own efforts. We also recognize the need for Friends in New England to continue to examine what faithfulness and integrity require of us.

There is strength in our diversity, and deep love and integrity in our shared will to honor our differences.

Many Friends were happy with the proposed minute. One described it as “a balm to my soul” that would allow her to continue to give money to the Yearly Meeting and her monthly meeting without contributing to what she considers a homophobic organization. Others felt that the issue is our association with a group that discriminates, and nothing we do with money addresses that. Some Friends felt that we’re doing what Empire has taught us when we use money as a tool of persuasion. A Friend challenged us, asking if those of us exercised enough to witness by withholding funds would also witness through visitation and listening, as John Woolman did when he visited slave owners. Friends expressed at the end that they had felt us beginning to move from a place of rigidly held beliefs toward a place of humble self-reflection.

Seeing hands still raised, the Clerk reminded us that this proposal is imperfect. It does not commit us to doing any other work, externally or internally, but it is his sense that this is what we need right now. This work is not done. Approving this minute allows monthly meetings to breathe. It allows Friends to stay in relationship with FUM. It allows us to move forward and continue to consider what it is that we are led to do.

Friends approved the minute with a few Friends standing aside. Further discussion clarified some points of the minute but did not change the Clerk’s sense that the minute had been approved.

Reasons given for standing aside included the sense that approval of the minute had been a little rushed, frustration that the mechanism does not include a second fund for making up the difference, and a continued concern over using money as a tool of empire.

2021-79 FUM Committee Proposal: Collaboration with Other Yearly Meetings

The Clerk brought to our attention a second proposal from the FUM Committee which encourages collaboration and witness with other open and affirming yearly meetings. Several Friends voiced the opinion that collaboration with open and affirming yearly meetings is not enough, but we also need to be reaching out more widely. The Clerk noted that there is not time for further refinement of the minute. He asked if we can approve it as it stands.

Friends approved the proposal as it appeared in the Advance Documents:

Collaboration and Witness with Other Yearly Meetings: The four united yearly meetings—Baltimore YM, New York YM, Canadian YM, and New England YM (those affiliated with both FGC and FUM)—have expressed support for LGBTQIA+ Friends, families, and their gifts. In the last decade, new groupings have emerged in North America and joined FUM with the explicit stance of affirming the sacred worth of all: The New Association of Friends in the Midwest and North Carolina Friends Fellowship. In addition three older FUM-affiliated groupings: Wilmington YM, Great Plains YM, and Western Association of the Religious Society of Friends, have Open and Affirming stances. These meetings and associations are all affiliated with Friends United Meeting and share an interest in coordinating and collaborating in their efforts. This proposal directs our FUM Board Reps to convene a meeting of representatives of these Yearly Meetings and Associations for the purpose of mutual encouragement, support, strategy building, and development of a plan for wider intervisitation.

2021-80 Apology to Native Americans

Andy Grant (Mt Toby) of the Right Relationship Resource Group (RRRG) read the Apology to Native Americans, which includes revisions suggested during open discernment. The full Apology can be found on page 39.

Andy was clear that the work of the RRRG continues. The letter is not an endpoint; it is a commitment to a permanent change in our attitudes and our behavior. Exploring how to move forward will be an ongoing process, without which the Apology would be meaningless.

We were reminded that not all Quakers share European ancestry and Friends with varying racial and ethnic identities will have different standpoints in relation to the Apology.

Friends approved the Apology with one Friend standing aside. The Clerk will consult with the Right Relationship Resource Group about next steps and then communicate with monthly meetings about how to move forward.

2021-81 FUM Committee Proposal 3—Transforming Internalized Homophobia within New England Yearly Meeting

We were invited to examine the ways that homophobia and transphobia live in the broader culture, in our meetings, and in us. The faithful call of our time is to continue to learn how gender justice, sexuality justice, racial justice, and climate justice are interconnected and how we can interrupt patterns of separation, exclusion, and oppression to work for equity.

We were not able to fully engage with this concern during our time together. The Clerk expects to explore with Coordinating & Advisory and perhaps Permanent Board whether there’s work that we want to engage in.

2021-82 No Way To Treat a Child

Regarding the two quarterly meeting minutes on No Way to Treat a Child, the Clerk sensed a concern for children, not only in Palestine but in the U.S. and abroad, but did not sense any unity about the two quarterly meeting minutes or any other work the body might be led to right now.

There is a newly established working group under Permanent Board, the Israel-Palestine Working Group (IPWG), charged with helping Friends in New England live into the minutes in 2017 and 2019 about the Middle East. While we have not approved these quarterly meeting minutes, the concern and need for engagement is not going away and Friends can expect to hear more from the IPWG.

2021-83 Clerk’s Closing Remarks

We came together with grief in our hearts. From a year-and-a-half pandemic and the multitude of ways that has influenced us, we sat together and heard a lot of difficult minutes and we have done some really good work together. Thank you, Friends, for showing up. Thank you for listening. Thank you, God, for the way that you speak to the body through individuals. I think our work for 2021 is finished.

We closed with a moment of silent worship and a prayer.

Holy Spirit you have engaged with us deeply this week, We felt your work among us. Thank you for your presence in the faces, and the voices, and the smiles of those who are here.

Thursday Afternoon, August 12, 2021

Closing Celebration

2021-84 Clerk’s Welcome and Introduction

The Clerk welcomed us all to the closing celebration for the 2021 Sessions of New England Yearly Meeting. He introduced the elders for this afternoon.

2021-85 Songs

The Wayfare Singers (Jennifer Hogue, Susan Davies, Debbie Colgan, and Sandy Sweetnam [all from Cambridge]) shared several songs with us.

2021-86 Worship

Friends settled in for about twenty minutes of silent waiting worship.

2021-87 Reports

Sarah Sprogell, who filled the new position of Worship Coordinator, shared her reflections on this role, the experience of working with the planning team, and the joy of bringing together Friends to anchor our times of worship.

Fran Brokaw, who along with Holly Baldwin served as Home Group facilitator, shared her impressions of how Home Groups served the Friends who joined them.

Emma Turcotte, filling another new position, Coordinator of BIPOC opportunities, spoke of how meaningful these several opportunities were for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in attendance at Sessions.

Elizabeth Hacala, Events Coordinator, shared some numbers and her impressions from behind the scenes of Sessions planning.

2021-88 Junior Yearly Meeting Epistle

Willard Peabody, Abbie Haineswood, and River Bachand-Price read the Junior Yearly Meeting Epistle, written during the pre-sessions JYM retreat. (See page 103.)

2021-89 Friends Camp Report

Given the unreliability of internet service at Friends Camp, Anna Hopkins submitted a video report, with many images of kids having a great time.

2021-90 Reflection on the Week

Honor Woodrow shared some reflections based on the Padlet exercise she had introduced in our opening celebration, and read some further reflections posted in Zoom chat.

2021-91 Gratitude

David Coletta, Gretchen Baker-Smith, Gina Nortonsmith, and Elizabeth Hacala shared their appreciation of the near-countless people who played a role in helping Sessions to happen.

2021-92 Slide Show

We watched the slide show Nia Thomas had put together for the opening celebration, with some additional pictures.

2021-93 Song

Peter and Annie Blood-Patterson sang If Not Now by Carrie Newcomer.

2021-94 Closing

Out of a few minutes of grateful worship, Presiding Clerk Bruce Neumann closed our 361st Annual Sessions with the words “Purposing to meet again, August 6, 2022, Friends closed with worship. Go in peace, Friends.”