Opening Celebration, Saturday, August 5, 1:30–3:00 p.m.
2023-1 Welcome
Presiding Clerk Rebecca Leuchak (Providence) opened the 363rd annual New England Yearly Meeting Sessions, with the theme, “Be like a watered garden: open to grace, and loose the bonds of injustice,” drawing on Isaiah 58:11.
The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail
(New Revised Standard Version)
She welcomed Friends present at Castleton University and those present virtually, offering gratitude for Friends’ joining together in the midst of full lives, encouraging us by the grace of God to be fully in community with one another, quick to listen and quick to love. She invited Spirit to shine brightly through our stardust selves, that we might come into beloved community.
The Presiding Clerk introduced the rest of the Clerks’ Table, the tech team, and elders for the evening.
Recording Clerks: Susannah McCandless (Burlington/Middlebury) and Megan Jensen (Monadnock)
Reading Clerks: Adam Kohrman (Beacon Hill) and Michelle Wright (Putney)
Elders: Mary Chenaille (Worcester), Robert Dove McClellan (Fresh Pond), Suzanna Schell (Beacon Hill), and Willa Taber (Fresh Pond/Three Rivers)
Children of the recording clerks, Fox Jensen (Monadnock) and Lucretia McCandless Treleven (Middlebury), sometimes joined the Clerks’ Table throughout the week.
Rebecca reminded us to hold in the Light the many communities affected by historic flooding in the Northeast this summer.
2023-2 Land Acknowledgement
Reading Clerk Adam Kohrman (Beacon Hill) grounded our meeting with a land acknowledgement prepared by the Right Relationship Working Group for our gathering at the Castleton campus:
The people and the land are one, woven into a web of life—sky, tree, water, fish, mountain.
As we give thanks for this day and gather—remotely or in person—we respect the land and all our relations. We warmly acknowledge the Abenaki in every place, recognizing this as Ndakinna, homeland.
Our very name—New England Yearly Meeting—belies the reality that the Northeast was understood as Dawnland, a place for greeting each new day.
Indeed, wherever we find ourselves in North America we are on Native Land, understood by many as Turtle Island, whose peoples and places we recollect now.
We acknowledge and celebrate Indigenous presence and persistence in every place, and hold with sorrow the memory of past and ongoing violence.
Guided by Light and Love, may we truly be “open to grace, and loose the bonds of injustice,” may we center the expressed needs of Indigenous relations. Through land justice, language recovery, violence prevention, and other reparative actions, may all dwell on the land in peace, with mutual respect and understanding.
2023-3 Roll Call
The reading clerks called the names of each worshiping body of the Yearly Meeting. Friends were invited to stand with their quarters and to wave as their meetings or worship groups were named. We welcomed families’ new members and those who had passed through storms, literal and figurative, to be present among us. We celebrated Friends coming to Sessions for the first time, all the way up through those who had attended for a few or many years, some for half a century and more.
2023-4 Hybrid Practice
Tech Coordinator David Coletta (Fresh Pond/Three Rivers) offered suggestions for meeting worshipfully and well in the hybrid form. He encouraged Friends to share their name and affiliation each time they speak.
The Presiding Clerk shared her intention not to use individuals’ names when inviting Friends in the room to speak, to disrupt patterns of privilege deriving from familiarity. She noted that she would perforce use names provided on Zoom accounts to recognize Friends present virtually.
Tech Support Team members for these Sessions were:
Bob O’Connor (Vassalboro)
Bre-anne Brown (East Sandwich Preparative)
Cornelia Parkes (Cambridge)
David Coletta (Fresh Pond/Three Rivers)
Emily Neumann (Cambridge)
Jennifer Newman (Beacon Hill)
Jennifer Swann (South Berkshire)
Katy MacRae (New Haven)
2023-5 Sessions Orientation
Phillip Veatch (Fresh Pond), clerk of Sessions Committee, shared new elements of Sessions this year, including covid safety protocols and an encouragement for hand-washing. He oriented Friends to the general flow of the schedule in coming days, to key information and contacts shared on the back of name tags, and to other useful resources, such as the bookstore and medical assistance. “Whisper Buddies” are again available to help anyone to understand the context or peculiar vocabulary used in Friends’ business.
2023-6 Invitation to Noticing Patterns
Melissa Foster (Framingham) and Polly Attwood (Cambridge/Three Rivers) welcomed Friends in a spirit of reflection and excitement, to participate in the fifth year of the holy experiment of Noticing Patterns of Faithfulness and Oppression. They invited us to release the fear of misspeaking, to feel softened to our own and each others’ mistakes. Might we be open to new ways of being faithful, and open to deeper knowing, coming through body, mind, and spirit? The Working Group invited us to allot equal value to emotions, physical reactions, inner knowing, witnessing, listening, and curiosity about assumptions and messages being spoken. These practices offer a way forward in the hard work of undoing patterns of harm and oppression. The working group will be available in person for dialogue after each business session, and virtually after the close of Sessions.
Current members of the Noticing Patterns of Oppression and Faithfulness Working Group are: Polly Attwood (Cambridge), clerk; Melody Brazo (Fresh Pond), Melissa Foster (Framingham), Lisa Graustein (Three Rivers), Janet Hough (Cobscook), Becky Jones (Northampton), and Pamela Terrien (Westport).
Serving as elders for Noticing Patterns: Susan Davies (Vassalboro), Permanent Board; and Mey Hasbrook (Durham), elder for Permanent Board with attention to the Noticing Practice.
2023-7 Pastoral Care
In a prerecorded message, Carl Williams (Burlington) and Abby Matchette (Burlington), from New England Yearly Meeting Ministry and Counsel and Pastoral Care, respectively, advised Friends that pastoral care will be available throughout Annual Sessions. They shared Friends’ commitment to care for those showing up in person and virtually, through struggles and joys, and in the midst of frustration, grief, challenge, and distress.
Carl and Abby, who were both present on campus at Sessions, invited all to make use of all the tools for worship, self-care, wellness, and mindfulness we have available. They named meditation, rest, exercise, talk, prayer—and the possibility of reaching out to those present, or those not present, via phone. They reminded Friends to lean into relationships from their home meetings and know that the Sessions Pastoral Care Team would be available for support and spiritual renewal. Friends on Zoom were invited to call or email the Pastoral Care contact numbers and ask for support from the team.
2023-8 Worship Opportunities
We are coming together during a time of challenge, listening, and sifting. The coordinator of worship for Sessions, Kristina Keefe-Perry (Fresh Pond/Three Rivers) introduced a centering activity, inviting Friends to write a prayer or intention on a paper leaf, to be posted outside the auditorium to greet and inspire us as we gather, challenging and comforting us in the coming days.
She invited Friends to join Marian Baker (Weare), and Ruah Swennerfelt and Louis Cox (Middlebury), who are holding our early morning worship, and to join Youth Programs for vespers each evening at the open-air amphitheater. Vespers was led on successive days of Sessions by William Monroe (Providence), Peter Blood-Patterson (Mt Toby/Three Rivers), Jonathan Vogel-Borne (Cambridge), and Minga Claggett-Borne (Cambridge). Kristina announced a quiet alternative worship space available near the main meeting venue each day, for anyone who needed it.
2023-9 Youth Depart
The Presiding Clerk invited us to close our opening celebration in waiting worship. She emphasized that all we do can be worship, flowing in many forms, as we are all expressions of the Divine in every moment.
Mackenzie (“Kenzie”) Burpee (Wellesley), Sessions Junior Yearly Meeting Coordinator, came forward to introduce Youth Programs staff, and we held the children in worship as they left us to go to their own Sessions activities, nearly forgetting as we closed in song to release our Junior High and Young Friends, so fully present among us.
We sang How Could Anyone Ever Tell You (composed by Libby Roderick).
Friends Assembled Throughout the Week
2023-10 A Musical Plenary with Quaker Artist and Activist Anna Fritz
On Saturday evening, August 5th, classically trained cellist and folksinger Anna Fritz’s music and ministry challenged and inspired Friends with haunting and beautiful cello and song. She brought the human element of current events to our ears and hearts. We are grateful. Cynthia Ganung (Wellesley), Kristina Keefe-Perry (Fresh Pond/Three Rivers), Jay O’Hara (Portland), Susan Davies (Vassalboro), and Julie Peyton (Portland, OR; Sierra-Cascades YM) served as elders.
This plenary can be found on the New England Yearly Meeting website and YouTube channel.
2023-11 Joseph and Jesse Bruchac Plenary
On Sunday afternoon, August 6th, we welcomed in ceremony author and scholar Joseph Bruchac, enrolled citizen of the Nulhegan Abenaki Nation, and linguist, educator and musician Jesse Bruchac, a leading teacher of the Abenaki language, musician, and filmmaker. They shared ways that relationships to place, time, and other beings are held through Abenaki language, story, and song. Abenaki, though an endangered language, is living, changing, and growing, including through the Abenaki language school Jesse Bruchac leads at Middlebury College. Friends were invited to consider a word for clock, babizookwazik (Ba-bi-zook-wa-ZI(k)), “a thing that makes noise for no reason.”
The Bruchacs shared teaching and trickster stories, and stories of how things came to be the way they are, speaking through words, drum, and flute. Joseph brought forward the voices of the four-legged ones, the winged ones, and the standing ones in ways that had us retelling those stories to one another. Friends experienced wonder, delight, and recognition at the universal truths that had been refashioned and shared in ways that invited us to lean into ways of understanding ourselves and our human and non-human others in the context of relationship.
One story Joseph Bruchac shared during the plenary related to the origin of mosquitoes, who arose from the ashes of the lazy man. A Friend asked how to resolve Western theological and philosophical agonizing over why a beneficent God had created mosquitoes to torment humans. Their error, Joseph replied, arose in conceiving that humans are the center of the universe.
Jane Jackson (Cambridge) and Gail Melix, Herring Pond Wampanoag (Sandwich), both on Zoom; Kristina Keefe-Perry (Fresh Pond/Three Rivers), and Mary Zwirner (Beacon Hill) sat as elders. The Bruchacs also visited with two youth yearly meetings on the following day.
A video recording of this plenary can be found on the New England Yearly Meeting website and YouTube channel.
2023-12 Bible Half Hours
Emma Condori Mamani, of Santidad Amigos (Holiness Friends) Yearly Meeting, Bolivia, shared Spirit-infused examination of Old and New Testament stories as our Bible Half Hour speaker. A language teacher and Quaker author with a Master’s degree in Divinity from Earlham School of Religion, Emma travels widely in the ministry, and is a founder and current director of the Friends International Bilingual Center in La Paz. During the week she visited our youth sessions. Several of the stories she chose centered those who were outcast, or seemingly without power, who were compelled by Spirit to act. In accessible, engaging language, Emma related these stories to her own life and faith journey, and through them, invited us to consider our own spiritual relationships. Bringing us precious water of living faith from a place perilously dried by changing climate, she asked us to consider deeply, What is the Holy Spirit asking of us?
Each day, Friend Emma, who chose to deliver her messages in English, opened with a prayer. Next, she shared two English-language versions of her chosen Biblical text for the day, for the richness those multiple versions of story offer. Then, she led us from scripture, through elements of her own remarkable spiritual journey, to a pair of queries that insistently invite us to examine our own journeys in generative silent worship.
On Saturday, Emma spoke on 2 Timothy 3:15–17. She asked, How has God spoken to your condition through a Bible passage as you heard it or read it? How can we open ourselves so the power and love of God can work through us? An 8-year-old Friend was so engaged by Emma’s Saturday morning offering that he became determined to attend all the adult meeting sessions, hoping the dialogue would be as rich.
Sunday, after intergenerational worship, Emma read from Luke 19:1–10. She shared her experience of encountering God and the Light of Christ, and placing God at the center of her life, such that she carries “the transforming love of God still in my heart.” She brought two queries: When did you hear Christ calling or inviting you in order to visit you by saying, “come down,” just like Jesus did with Zaccheus? How has that direct experience of the Divine made you love mercy and practice justice? Emma’s message evoked deep sharing among Friends of encounters with the Divine.
We sat Monday with the story of Joseph’s coat of many colors, and his brothers’ envy, in Genesis 37:3–5 and 26–28. We wrestled with queries that bore very directly on the matters central to our laboring in our meetings for worship for business during these sessions. Where have you seen people being mistreated by others? How did you feel about that, and how did you respond to that? How as Friends can we bring the Light of Christ to the situations where there is no mercy?
Emma invited us to consider the witness of another outcast Tuesday, in Joshua 2:1–4 and 12–13. Bringing the story of Rahab, she asked, “How have you opened yourself to the grace of God to work through you? What helps you to open yourself to the grace of God to work through you?”
Closing an arc that invited us to be transformed, Emma Condori Mamani concluded her ministry with New England Friends on Wednesday, reading from Esther 7:3–6. She invited us into openhearted relationship with the Divine, asking us, “Are you willing to say, ‘Here I am, Lord, to be healed by your power and love?’ What would that require from you? Are you willing to say, ‘Here I am, Lord, to be your eyes and hands in this world?’ Where do you see needs around you?”
We are grateful to Emma for the fullness of her ministry, in our time together at these Sessions and in her broader witness. How are we called? How can we meet her in faithfulness, grace, mercy, and justice?
Emma’s elders accompanying her sharing throughout the week were Minga Claggett-Borne (Cambridge) and Beth Collea (Dover). Melissa Foster (Framingham), Mey Hasbrook (Durham), and Betsy Cazden (Providence) served as elders for the body.
Video recordings of these Bible Half Hours can be found on the New England Yearly Meeting website and YouTube channel.
Meeting for Business, Saturday 3:00–5:00 p.m.
2023-13 Opening
After a short recess, Presiding Clerk Rebecca Leuchak (Providence) reconvened Friends in worship for the conduct of the business of Sessions.
Reading Clerk Michelle Wright (Putney) read the land acknowledgement to invite us into right relationship in our deliberations: We acknowledge with humility and gratitude that we are meeting on Ndakinna (n-DAH-kee-NAH), homeland of the Abenaki peoples. By grace, may our discernment lead to greater peace and justice.
The meeting was held in prayerful care by elders LJ Boswell (Putney), Jane Jackson (Cambridge), Carole Rein (North Shore), and Jean Rosenberg (Middlebury).
2023-14 Recording for Faithfulness
Friends approved the recording clerks’ request for permission to digitally record sessions of worship for the purpose of the conduct of Friends’ business, via text transcript, to support clarity and faithfulness of the written minutes of our proceedings, with the transcript recordings to be retained only until such time as the 2023 Minutes of Annual Sessions are finalized, likely in late August 2023.
2023-15 Economy of Approving Minutes
Friends approved the following request from the recording clerks: In order to lighten the burden on Friends’ ears, and conserve time for our most worshipful work as a body, at these Sessions we will generally not hear back minor minutes of record or procedure. Instead, we will only take time to hear and approve minutes of decision or minutes that otherwise seem to demand a clarity of unity. This will leave some margin for judgment about which minutes call for shared approval. We welcome Friends to ask us to read back any you believe should be heard by the full body.
2023-16 Welcoming Visitors
The reading clerks welcomed visitors from other yearly meetings and those attending Sessions as a representative of an organization. A list of visitors we received throughout the week, in person and virtually, follows here.
Pamela Bergquist, (Cambridge; Stillwater, Ohio Yearly Meeting of Conservative Friends)
Jennifer Bing, American Friends Service Committee
Peter Blood-Patterson (Mt Toby/Three Rivers), Quaker Spring Planning Group; Woolman Hill
Lauren Brownlee (Bethesda, Baltimore Yearly Meeting), Friends Committee on National Legislation Associate General Secretary for Community and Culture
Hilary Burgin (Beacon Hill), executive director, Quaker Voluntary Service
Margaret Cooley (Mt Toby), Woolman Hill executive director
Buffy Curtis (Mohawk Valley, New York Yearly Meeting), Friends Peace Teams
Nancy Delle Femine (North Carolina Yearly Meeting)
Ashleigh Dodd (Orlando Monthly Meeting, Southeastern Yearly Meeting)
Maggie Fogarty (Dover), American Friends Service Committee–New Hampshire
Sara Gada, Friends Publishing Corporation
Stuart Green (Patapsco, Baltimore Yearly Meeting)
Lu Harper (Rochester, New York Yearly Meeting)
Johanna Jackson (Three Rivers), Friends General Conference
Karla Jay (Iglesia Amigos, Indiana Yearly Meeting, and the New Association of Friends), Global Ministries Coordinator, Friends United Meeting
Michael Jay, (Raysville Friends Church, Western [Indiana] Association of Friends)
Enrique Jovel (Junta Anual de El Salvador)
Margaret Lee (Friendship Friends, North Carolina Yearly Meeting Conservative)
Lianet Levya Gonzalez (Junta Anual de la Iglesia Los Amigos Cuáqueros en Cuba)
Lyle Miller, Goshen, Indiana; Everence
Judith Nandikove (Friends Church of Nairobi, Nairobi Yearly Meeting), Quaker Religious Education Collaborative
Jennifer Newman (Beacon Hill), executive director of Beacon Hill Friends House
Shawn Patrick (Tanzania Yearly Meeting)
Nikra Alex (Tanzania Yearly Meeting)
Ann Pomeroy (New Paltz, New York Yearly Meeting)
Nicole Santos, Friends Committee on National Legislation, major gifts officer
Lee Andrew Sayles (Ujima Friends Meeting)
Nathan Shroyer (Chester River, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, attending Dover)
Earl Smith (Stillwater, Ohio Yearly Meeting of Conservative Friends) Quaker journal What Canst Thou Say
Jackie Stillwell (Monadnock), executive director of Right Sharing of World Resources
Miriam Swartz (Mt Holly, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting)
Ruah Swennerfelt (Middlebury), Quaker Earthcare Witness
Marvea Thompson (Brooklyn, New York Yearly Meeting)
Margaret Veatch (North Carolina Yearly Meeting Conservative)
Steven Willett (Manchester & Warrington Area Meeting, Britain Yearly Meeting)
Pamela Williams (Germantown, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting; worshiping at Burlington), Fellowship of Quakers and the Arts
2023-17 Choosing Pentecost
New England Yearly Meeting Secretary Noah Merrill (Putney) offered a message to the body. He contrasted two old stories from our tradition, the tower of Babel and the transforming power that descended from the feast of Pentecost. He invited Friends to consider the ways these two communities responded to deep uncertainty, the longing for safety, the aspiration to create a new world of righteousness out of the recent memory of sorrow and fear.
We often find our own stories echoing these ancient stories. We, too, have a choice to make, in Sessions as in all our lives. We can seek security through control, trust in our own works, our own pride—or find abiding reassurance in the ways that we are connected, “held in an unshakable belovedness overshadowed by a boundless grace and unmerited forgiveness.” We heard a call to surrender to a deeper foundation of faithfulness, humility, and joy.
A time of silent worship followed, as the body let this message settle into our hearts and inflect our business together. The full text of Friend Merrill’s ministry can be found in the appendix to these minutes [see page 43].
2023-18 Spiritual Life Listening Group Report
Carl Williams (Burlington), clerk of New England Yearly Meeting Ministry and Counsel, and Leslie Manning (Durham/Three Rivers), outgoing clerk of Permanent Board, shared an update on the Spiritual Life Listening Group. Friends were encouraged to re-read the report distributed in the Sessions Advance Documents.
In reference to our return from covid-19 restrictions, these Friends reminded us that when patterns are disrupted it takes time to find a new way. Carl acknowledged the loss of loved ones and shared physical presence during the pandemic. It has knocked our outlines asunder and invited us into new ways of being. Let us stand together in love.
2023-19 An Appreciation of the Gifts and Service of Maggie Edmondson
The body then heard and accepted a minute, drafted by the Spiritual Life Listening Group, celebrating the gifts and service of retiring Friends’ Pastor Maggie Edmondson (Winthrop Center):
We wish to recognize and appreciate Pastor Maggie Edmondson of Winthrop Center Friends Church, who will be retiring at the end of this month after 27 years of service. Many of us, far outside the circle of her home church, have benefited from her ministry, her Bible Half Hours here at our Yearly Meeting and at the Friends General Conference Gathering, and her long service with our Faith and Practice Revision Committee.
Maggie’s gifts of faithfulness, presence, and wisdom are a blessing to us all. Her witness includes her work on Decolonizing Faith with Wabanaki REACH and as a founding member of Decolonizing Quakers. Maggie has long been engaged in interfaith work in her area, and her compassion, care of creation, and tireless work for justice are deeply appreciated by her many colleagues and friends.
Maggie, we wish you well and are so grateful that you have blessed our community with your faithful service. As you sing at the end of your meetings for worship:
“Go now in peace, go now in peace,
Let the love of God surround you,
Everywhere, everywhere,
You may go.”
2023-20 Treasurer’s Report
With gratitude for the joy he found in service and acknowledging that his right term of service is drawing to a close, Yearly Meeting Treasurer Robert Murray (Beacon Hill) invited Friends to consider whether they are now called to rise to serve New England Yearly Meeting as Treasurer.
Robert acknowledged that we are in a time of natural ebb in energy and dollars, and in need of changing the tide from ebb to flow, in order to sustain the good work of New England Yearly Meeting.
The Treasurer suggested that maintaining New England Yearly Meeting’s monetary reserves is part of a sacred obligation to make New England Yearly Meeting a safe and comfortable place to work for its staff. These reserves are attenuated, at just a third of our prudent limit of three months’ cushion, after multiple years running over budget.
Friends were encouraged to consider what gifts they have to offer to New England Yearly Meeting. The position of treasurer is one of oversight, a few delightful hours a month working with staff, serving on Coordinating and Advisory, and participating in the Permanent Board committee meetings. If you can read a financial report, you can be treasurer. Are you called?
2023-21 Budget Recommendation
Treasurer Robert Murray (Beacon Hill) and Scot Drysdale (Hanover), clerk of Finance Committee, brought to Permanent Board and to Sessions what they characterized as the painful but necessary recommendation to balance our budget by ceasing any donations to Quaker umbrella and other outside organizations for 2024.
Scot invited Friends to speak their concerns and questions, and welcomed alternate suggestions for balancing the budget with integrity.
Many keenly felt the importance of well-supporting our beloved youth programming and New England Yearly Meeting staff and would not consider these as a place for further budget relief.
Some Friends questioned why we have not turned to the Legacy Gift Fund, a potential source of approximately $1 million in the New England Yearly Meeting coffers. This Fund has been designated to nurture leading edge and grassroots ministries among Friends for nearly 10 years now. Many Friends would be loath to let that charge be set aside. Legacy Gift funds were initially designated by the body, so further discernment of their best use does remain in Sessions’ purview.
We heard that New England Yearly Meeting staff have been in dialogue with many of our sister organizations; a decision by New England Friends not to pledge contributions as usual will come as a disappointment but not a shock.
We hear our responsibility to deeply consider where we may have the ability to increase our fiscal and energetic contributions to New England Yearly Meeting, and/or what we are willing to lay down. A Friend exhorted us to be prophetic communicators in our monthly meetings, carrying this message of urgency. What are our priorities, and might we have untapped capacity?
A working group has been charged with discernment on New England Yearly Meeting’s contributions to external organizations before any decisions are made about that budget allocation.
Friends were encouraged to participate in a listening session later in the week.
2023-22 Closing
We closed in waiting worship, intending to reconvene Sunday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. A Friend recalled to us the Secretary’s invitation to take up the spirit of Pentecost as “a homecoming of amazement and joy,” as we live into our ministries and opportunities for giving to the Yearly Meeting. The Presiding Clerk led us out of worship with Maggie Edmondson’s favorite closing song, Go Now in Peace (Natalie Sleeth).
All-Ages Worship, Sunday 9:00–10:15 a.m.
2023-23
Christel Jorgenson, Amy Greene, Holly Lapp, and George Capaccio (all of Cambridge) and Rebecca Leuchak (Providence), with design support from Leo Bray and Yani Bray (Cambridge) and Kristina Keefe-Perry (Fresh Pond/Three Rivers), led us in a joy-filled, interactive intergenerational worship on Sunday morning. We were convened in song by Hazel and Oona Spottswood (Burlington) and Clara Gardner (Cambridge). Christel Jorgensen (Cambridge) and Rebecca Leuchak (Providence) embodied author Mo Willems’ characters Gerald and Piggy to act out Waiting is Not Easy, where impatience gives way to wonder.
People of all ages reflected on their experience of expectant waiting in worship: At times Friends found themselves accompanied in the stillness, and sometimes we were just waiting. In closing, we were knit together as we meditatively passed balls of Eden Grace’s yarn, linking Friend to Friend, weaving a web of connection between us.
All-ages worship was held in prayer by Betsy Roper (Cambridge) and LJ Boswell (Putney).
Meeting for Business, Sunday 3:00–5:00 p.m.
2023-24 Welcome and Opening
Presiding Clerk Rebecca Leuchak led us into worship with a song, Give Light (composed by Greg Artzner and Terry Leonino).
We heard announcements and welcomed visitors, and the Reading Clerks shared a daily land acknowledgement: We acknowledge with humility and gratitude that we are meeting on Ndakinna (n-DAH-kee-NAH), homeland of the Abenaki peoples. By grace, may our discernment lead to greater peace and justice.
Rebecca invited us into silence to hold awareness of the anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima on this date, and Nagasaki three days later, in the year 1945.
Elders for this session were Phebe McCosker (Hanover), Lynn Taber (Fresh Pond), Allison Randall (Keene), and Lucy Meadows (Beacon Hill).
2023-25 Volunteers to Visit Youth Programming
The Presiding Clerk extended an invitation to Friends to visit Youth Yearly Meeting Sessions and to offer the body a report on Wednesday morning of any insights and observations gathered from the experience. The following volunteers accepted:
Childcare: Ruah Swennerfelt (Middlebury)
Junior Yearly Meeting K–3: Patricia Crosby (Mt Toby)
Junior High Yearly Meeting: Patti Muldoon (Cambridge)
Young Friends: Polly Attwood (Cambridge)
2023-26 Epistle from Friends United Meeting
Reading Clerk Adam Kohrman (Beacon Hill) read out a richly detailed excerpt from the epistle from the 2023 Friends United Meeting Triennial.
2023-27 Friends United Meeting Report
We heard an appreciative report on the triennial of Friends United Meeting (FUM), United Society of Friends Women International (USFWI), and Quaker Men International (QMI) from delegates Kristina Keefe-Perry and Nahar Keefe-Perry (Fresh Pond/Three Rivers), Frederick Martin (Beacon Hill), Jennifer Smith (Concord), Sara Smith (Concord), Diane Weinholtz and Donn Weinholtz (Hartford), Stefan Walker (Fresh Pond), and Anna Lindo (Framingham).
In worship-sharing groups and plenaries, Friends were embraced in fellowship with more than 600 Quakers from more than 40 yearly meetings around the world. The experience was complex—in turns inspiring, challenging, humbling, and enriching. All delegates returned blessed with a new perspective on being Friends in the global context of Quakers, heartened to confirm that in our essence we are truly more alike than we are different.
Delegates also felt fortunate to have the chance to witness firsthand the gifts and ministry of Friend Marian Baker (Weare) in her commitment to abiding relationship with so many East African Friends.
And, too, Friends remembered Friend Eden Grace, yearning for her insight and companionship in this journey among places and Friends she knew from her long service with FUM ministries.
The traveling reports closed with a video epistle from Young Friends on their experience at the Njoro Precious Schools and the FUM triennial.
We settled into waiting worship, letting the epistle and Friends’ sharings settle on our hearts.
2023-28 No Way to Treat a Child Presentation
The Presiding Clerk invited forward Friends asking the body to endorse the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) No Way to Treat A Child campaign, cautioning that attendees sensitive to images of violence could participate from a dedicated separate space, in order to listen to the presentation without seeing possibly triggering visuals.
Scott Rhodewalt (Northeast Kingdom), a Yearly Meeting representative to the AFSC Corporation and former member of the Committee on Racial, Social, and Economic Justice, offered gratitude for his sense of accompaniment of the Ramallah Friends School in Palestine by Quakers in relationship with the school over the many years since its founding by Quakers Eli and Sybil Jones in 1869.
Friends heard powerful testimony about the Israeli State’s record of systematic human rights abuses of Palestinian children, as documented and denounced by AFSC’s No Way to Treat a Child Initiative. From the body, a Friend reminded us that, when exhorting Friends to address injustices, it is counterproductive to equate or compare harms.
Representatives from Northwest and Vassalboro Quarterly Meetings, and Burlington, Midcoast, and Northeast Kingdom Monthly Meetings, read minutes in support of the initiative. Friends were urged to support legislative efforts to pass HR 3103: Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families Act.
Howie Gentler (Northeast Kingdom), minute from Northwest Quarter
Diane Dicranian (Midcoast), minute from Midcoast
Joann Austen (Vassalboro), minute from Vassalboro Quarter
Linda Schneck (Northeast Kingdom), minute from Northeast Kingdom
Anita Rapone (Burlington), minute from Burlington
Susan Rhodewalt (Northeast Kingdom) spoke about the rights of children.
2023-29 Support for the No Way to Treat a Child Initiative and Congressional Bill to Defend the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families
Friends approved a request from the presenters that New England Yearly Meeting embrace AFSC’s No Way to Treat a Child initiative by asking all monthly meetings to engage actively, as led, to encourage their Congressional Representatives to cosponsor the current Representative Betty McCollum (D-MN) bill, H.R. 3103: Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families Act.
2023-30 Closing
Friends worshipfully closed the meeting, intending to reconvene at 7:00 p.m.
Meeting for Business, Sunday 7:00–9:00 p.m.
2023-31 Opening
The Presiding Clerk welcomed Friends back into worshipful business with a brief land acknowledgment: “We acknowledge with humility and gratitude that we are meeting on Ndakinna (n-DAH-kee-NAH), homeland of the Abenaki peoples. By grace, may our discernment lead to greater peace and justice.”
Recording Clerk Michelle Wright (Putney) read the 2023 epistle from Monteverde Friends Meeting in Monteverde, Costa Rica.
Our elders for this session were Madeleine Vaché (New London), Cynthia Ganung (Wellesley), Maille Wooten (Lawrence), Robert Dove McClellan (Fresh Pond) on Zoom, and Mary Chenaille (Worcester).
2023-32 Reflections on Leadings of Spirit in the Realm of Technology
David Coletta (Fresh Pond/Three Rivers), Legacy Gift recipient, spoke about his faith journey to connect his urge to respond to widespread experiences of empathy, grief, isolation, and hope during the covid-19 pandemic with a leading to seek a form of service through a career in technology.
Supported by a Legacy Gift grant and a committee of care, he has developed that leading into a ministry helping people to connect with each other and to Spirit in held virtual and hybrid spaces.
Traveling among Friends, he has heard burnout, joy, and creativity in caring for our worship at home. He reflected back our grief at the loss of physical presence and companionship, and for the loss of Friends. David heard frustration at the flaws in our tools, but also recorded transformation: he reminded us that technology is only technology until we use it without thinking about it.
He encouraged us to share in his vibrant vision of Friends using appropriate digital technologies to cultivate fellowship among distant Friends and diverse faith-seekers using hybrid meeting spaces, and young families brought to Quaker meetings by inclusive, accessible messaging online, seeking us out by websites, in social media, and more.
David welcomed invitations to visit monthly meetings and worship groups to assist with practical and spiritual insight about our use of technology in support of our ministries as Friends.
2023-33 Nominating Committee Report
Jackie Stillwell (Monadnock), clerk of Nominating Committee, before presenting the Nominating Committee report, took a moment to appreciate that every attendee to Sessions is in service to Friends in different capacities. Some roles are named and others arise in so many other ways. It takes all of us contributing our pieces of the puzzle to bring our collective vision to fruition.
The meeting approved nominations for several New England Yearly Meeting roles (as included in the Advance Documents), and Jackie encouraged Friends to communicate any concerns, joys, and recommendations to members of the Nominating Committee.
For reappointment to Permanent Board, until 2024: Eleanor Warnock (Northampton)
For reappointment to Permanent Board, until 2028: Martin Forsythe (Beacon Hill), Edward Mair (Amesbury), and Willa Taber (Fresh Pond)
For Permanent Board, until 2028: Allison Randall (Keene
For Archives & Historical Records, until 2028: Andy Grannell (Portland)
For Recording Clerk, until 2024: Susannah McCandless (Burlington/Middlebury)
For reappointment to Legacy Gift Committee, until 2024: Sarah Gant (Beacon Hill) and Susan Rockwood (Midcoast)
For reappointment to Legacy Gift Committee, until 2025: Mary Link (Mt Toby)
For Nominating Committee, until 2026: Christopher Gant (Beacon Hill), Kathy Malin (Smithfield), Beth Hansen (Westerly), Martha Schwope (Wellesley), Tim Lamb (Worcester) (Tim was not listed in the Advance Documents.)
For Youth Ministries, until 2026: Nancy Corindia (Hanover)
For American Friends Service Committee, until 2026: Hal Weaver (Wellesley)
2023-34 Earthcare Ministry Transition
Leslie Manning (Durham/Three Rivers), clerk of the Permanent Board, reminded us that Friends have said we need to be clear about what work we engage in, and why. Integrity requires us to follow through on our discernment, whether that is to pick up new work or to lay down what does not serve anymore.
Permanent Board has recommended that the New England Yearly Meeting Earthcare Ministry committee be laid down, given that the standing committee structure is not working well for this ministry; and to affirm and lift up the still-forming EarthQuaker Justice Team intended to coordinate, invigorate, and support the environmental witness work being done by Friends throughout New England Yearly Meeting.
Ruah Swennerfelt (Middlebury) read the proposed vision and mission:
Vision
Expressing our gratitude for the beauty of the sacred gift of life and acknowledging our utter spiritual and physical dependence on the health of our planet, we seek guidance of the Spirit to secure protection of the rights of all life to pure water, clean air, a stable and just climate, and a healthy ecosystem for current and future generations. We recognize the imperative for leaving space for wild nature and biodiversity.
Mission
As led by the Spirit, we will follow this mission by working towards systemic change through education, outreach, and advocacy; and rapidly reducing emissions of greenhouse gases; ending our use of fossil fuels, including products made from them like plastic and non-biodegradable chemicals; and supporting work on the passage of the Green Amendment in New England states. We will seek opportunities to challenge New England Yearly Meeting to join us in carrying out this vision, and we will offer information about our mission and worshipful connection to nature.
Friends noted that the exact nature and charge of this EarthQuaker team is still in discernment. It will not be a nominated committee, and the reporting expectations are not yet established. The Friends proposing the EarthQuaker team observed that the request may not be ready for approval at this time, because of some pertinent questions that arose and felt inadequately addressed. They committed to bringing the item back to a later business meeting.
2023-35 Update on Racial, Social, and Economic Justice and the Antiracism Working Group
The clerk of Permanent Board gave an update on the status of the Antiracism Working Group, which was established when the Challenging White Supremacy group was laid down.
New England Yearly Meeting is acting on the working group’s recommendation to hire an outside consultant with a more neutral perspective and fresh eyes, to observe and provide recommendations at every level of the New England Yearly Meeting organization for places needing care, improvement, and attention in racial justice and fair practices.
The Antiracism Working Group is not yet clear to put forward the name of a specific consultant, but the work is active and alive. The Permanent Board, in coordination with this consultant, expects to produce recommendations and reports informed by that work of accounting and discernment.
2023-36 Update on Active Ministries among New England Friends
Outgoing Permanent Board clerk Leslie Manning reported on one aspect of the Yearly Meeting’s nurture of ministry and spiritual life of Friends, reminding the body that there are Friends among us who are recorded in the ministry.
They are active and some have been following their calling for a considerable number of years. She shared that she has been in regular contact with those whose travel minutes had been endorsed by the Yearly Meeting and these recorded ministers are regularly reporting back to us through presentation to the Permanent Board.
Friends who are interested in learning of their work and getting updates may consult the minutes of the Permanent Board’s meetings, available on the New England Yearly Meeting’s website.
2023-37 Request to Hold Friends in the Light
Leslie raised up the names of two Friends whose absence is particularly noted today, and the Meeting was encouraged to send cards, messages, and prayers:
Ralph Greene (China) has held a long career as a Recorded Minister in Maine; this would have been his 63rd annual New England Yearly Meeting Sessions, but his doctor forbade his attendance this year. Many Friends carry appreciation and gratitude to Ralph for his long service and witness to a faithful life.
James Varner (Orono) lost his son to a heart attack on Mother’s Day. The funeral was delayed by international bureaucracy until the Tuesday of Sessions. We were asked to hold him and his family in the Light.
Leslie concluded with a prayer.
2023-38 Youth Ministries Committee Purposes and Procedures Revision
The meeting approved a revised version of the Purposes, Procedures, and Composition document for Youth Ministries as shared in the Advance Documents.
2023-39 Closing
Friends closed this meeting, intending to reconvene Monday at 9:15 a.m.
Meeting for Business, Monday 9:15–11:15 a.m.
2023-40 Opening
The Presiding Clerk opened our Monday morning meeting for worship for the purpose of business with the song Singing for Our Lives, written by Holly Near after the assassination of Harvey Milk. The first line is “We are a gentle, angry people.”
Elders holding the meeting during this session were Alison Randall (Keene), Mary Zwirner (Beacon Hill), Lynn Taber (Fresh Pond), and Wendy Sanford (Cambridge).
2023-41 Remembering Friends Absent from Us
Reading Clerk Michelle Wright (Putney) and Presiding Clerk Rebecca Leuchak (Providence) invited Friends to share the names of some of those not present, so that we could write to them and hold them in our hearts.
Friends shared the following names. We miss these Friends among us!
Ralph Greene (China), Annie Patterson (Mt Toby/Three Rivers), Betsy Muench (Durham), Mary Gilbert (Cambridge), Wendyl Ross (Wellesley), Pam Holt, Pamela Cole (New Bedford), Jerry Sazama (Storrs), Jane Jackson (present via Zoom) and David Bonner (Cambridge), Jan (present via Zoom) and Ken Hoffman (Mt Toby), Heidi and Gina Nortonsmith (Northampton), Julie de Sherbinin (Portland), Sara Sue Pennell (Cambridge; present virtually), Sue Reilly (Portland, present via Zoom), Fritz Weiss (Portland), Paula Rossvall (Portland), Kevin and Betty Ann Lee (Westport), and Carol Baker (Westerly).
2023-42 Cultivating Healthy Responses to Conflict in Our Yearly Meeting
Out of worshipful business on Sunday evening, several Friends rose up to name personal experiences and share the pain of conflict being allowed to linger, unaddressed, within the New England Yearly Meeting community.
Faithfulness demands that we lean in, rather than avoid the hardship of facing conflict. This is an opportunity for healing, learning, deepening, and transformation of relationships. But it demands structure, support, and tender care that is lacking within our body at this time.
We need to transform conflict at every level of our body. In particular, we hear that there is a call for a clear structure or path that supports a healthy response to conflicts when they arise outside the structure of the monthly meeting. Friends heard a clear request for this concern to be taken up. Many would like to have the opportunity to participate in a threshing session on the matter.
The Presiding Clerk is committed to holding this concern, and is in the process of carefully discerning a group of Friends, drawn from the New England Yearly Meeting body, plus the clerks of Ministry and Counsel Committee and Permanent Board, to gather and begin a process of listening and seeking response to this concern.
The individual members are not yet identified, but Friends are eager to hear the names of this intended group, in order to begin this process with the needed transparency. The Presiding Clerk will take that into consideration, if possible, within the time constraints of our sessions, and has heard a clear request that the discernment of the composition of that group be broadly held.
2023-43 FWCC and FGC Reports
We heard a report from Christel Jorgensen (Cambridge) and Julie Peyton (Portland, OR; Sierra-Cascades YM) on the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC). Chris traced how her worldview, coming from a small unprogrammed meeting, was blown apart at the 1985 World Gathering of Young Friends, by meeting Friends from around the world—their faith, their miracles, their struggles. She was convinced by the breadth of Friends that it could be worth investing her life in Quakerism.
Chris invited Friends to support FWCC’s Global Campaign, a response to the organization’s growing realization that affording attendance at transformative convenings should not be the limiting factor to Friends coming together. A travel and technology fund is working to create more equal access to participation. FWCC also focuses on interpretation and translation and is updating a multilingual glossary of Quaker terms. Chris particularly invited younger Friends to consider becoming New England Yearly Meeting representatives to FWCC, based on her own transformative experience.
Carolyn Hilles-Pilant (Beacon Hill), New England Yearly Meeting’s representative to Friends General Conference (FGC), shared FGC’s mission.
Johanna Jackson (Three Rivers), FGC Communications Associate, is visiting our Sessions with a special concern for intergenerational outreach. Many Friends have attended an FGC gathering, which Carolyn described as spiritual revitalizing for the entire family.
FGC shares information about Quakerism, resources, and connections, available on their website, including both spiritual and practical tools for meetings and individuals. FGC thus acts as a landing place for seekers. Quaker meetings can be a welcoming space: “inclusion and welcome seem to be a theme for us right now,” as Monteverde Friends shared in their epistle read earlier in these Sessions. FGC is encouraging seekers to find us and share in the Spirit of the Living God.
2023-44 Report from New England Yearly Meeting Representatives to Friends United Meeting
Friends received a report from the Friend’s United Meeting (FUM) Board Representatives Kristina Keefe-Perry (Fresh Pond/Three Rivers), Jennifer Smith (Concord/Three Rivers), and Frederick Martin (Beacon Hill). Reflecting on movements of the Spirit in their service, they noted that this Session’s stirrings around healing, deepening, and transforming ourselves and our relationships by humbly engaging conflict are alive in their experiences with FUM.
Each speaker shared about the palpable progress felt by Friends who are reaching out to nurture connections across differences. By their own experience, and affirmed by FUM peers and leaders, their witness and presence are making inroads of slow but perceptible changes in anti-LGBTQ+ attitudes and actions in the FUM body.
From Frederick Martin we heard how, at the jointly-held Quaker Men’s International (QMI) meeting in Nakuru, Kenya, an East African Quaker leader offered a brave and prophetic message in an environment where homophobia is widely powerful, culturally and politically.
The leader drew a marked, emotional reaction from his listeners when he compared Jesus’ ministry to the outcasts with the “dehumanizing legislation and deadly homophobia” of present-day Uganda. His ministry closed with the exhortation, “Nowhere, nowhere in the Gospels can I find a place where Jesus excluded anyone.”
Though individually courageous, this Friend made clear that he did not stand alone in his convictions but had been influenced by others in leadership positions among African Quakers and FUM more broadly.
We were challenged by Jennifer Smith to consider an advice once shared with her by beloved, departed Friend Eden Grace from a pamphlet: What if the true meaning of mission is to find out what God is doing and join in?
We heard how building and continuing relationships with Friends in their own place, in their own culture, meeting them where they are, can awaken change over time.
2023-45 Closing
Friends closed with a brief settling worship, intending to reconvene at 3:00 pm.
Memorial Meeting, Monday 1:15–2:30 p.m.
2023-46 Memorial Minutes
In solemn worship, Friends heard excerpts from the memorial minutes of Hugh Barbour, Richard Bullock Jr., Clarence Burley, Ian Chase, Emily Chasse, Jan Church, Steven John Correia, Frances Crowe, Paul Diamond, Anne “Kiki” Eglinton, Penelope “Penny” Jackim, Allen David McNab, Margaret “Teddy” Milne, and Kenneth Perkins. The full memorial minutes are appended to these minutes. We bore witness to the gifts of these Friends. They are our guides, our beloved friends and wise counselors, our elders, the tenders of our faith and of our meeting communities. Their many forms of witness both challenged and comforted us and stand as reminders to listen to those who bring challenges to us now. They are become our spiritual ancestors, and we will do well to keep them present in our hearts.
The Memorial Meeting was held by elders Melissa Foster (Framingham), Allison Randall (Keene), Wendy Sandford (Cambridge), and Mary Zwirner (Beacon Hill). Carl Williams (Plainfield), clerk of Ministry and Worship, held care of meeting, with a sensitivity tempered by the loss of his own son to Covid.
Meeting for Business, Monday 3:00–5:00 p.m.
2023-47 Opening
Supported by elders Robert Dove McClellan (Fresh Pond), Carol Rein (North Shore), Lucy Meadows (Beacon Hill), Isaiah Grace (Beacon Hill), Allison Randall (Keene), and Kathryn Olsen (East Sandwich), the Presiding Clerk Rebecca Leuchak opened Monday afternoon meeting for worship for the purpose of business with the song, Joy is Like the Rain (Sister Miriam Therese Winter).
2023-48 Australia Yearly Meeting Epistle
Reading Clerk Adam Kohrman read out Australia Yearly Meeting’s epistle. It called for centering Indigenous knowing and tender attention to our radical roots, as we work to decolonize ourselves and our work: “Accept no boundary to sustaining and sharing the earth for the future.”
2023-49 Welcoming Visitors
Friends welcomed visitors to this session from other Yearly Meetings or representing Quaker organizations, asking them to rise and introduce themselves.
2023-50 Quaker Indigenous Boarding School Research Group Report
With gratitude and sorrow, the meeting heard a report from the Quaker Indigenous Boarding Schools Research Group—Betsy Cazden (Providence), Andrew Grant (Mt. Toby), Janet Hough (Cobscook), Gordon Bugbee (Beacon Hill), Evan McManamy (Providence), and Emily Neumann (Cambridge)—about learnings uncovered so far in their charge to research the extent and nature of New England Yearly Meeting’s historic involvement in the founding, funding, promotion, and operation of genocidal Indian Boarding Schools in the United States. The Working Group is trying to answer a question Indigenous people have been asking us for a long time: What did you do with our children?
Members of the working group shared their personal experience of delving into original documents in libraries and archival collections and the power of hearing those voices from the past.
In response to requests made by the working group, Friends approved two decisions:
The Yearly Meeting encourages individuals and meetings to learn about and support passage of Senate bill S.1723: The Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act.
New England Yearly Meeting, in its 363rd Annual Sessions, held August 5th through 9th, 2023, endorses the passage of Senate bill S.1723: The Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act. The Presiding Clerk and Secretary will send this endorsement, and New England Yearly Meeting staff will share it.
The working group expects to be able to draft a preliminary report of findings in response to requests from the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition and the Department of the Interior in the coming year. The body charged the Permanent Board to receive and approve this report, and the Yearly Meeting Secretary and Presiding Clerk to distribute it on behalf of the Yearly Meeting. Notice of such action would be shared with the Yearly Meeting by newsletter and reported at next year’s Sessions.
With deep gratitude, the body approved its support of this working group continuing for the coming year. We want to ensure that this matter and our learning about New England Friends’ part in it stays alive among us, so we ask that the group revisit their work with a report at the 2024 New England Yearly Meeting Sessions. The working group expects their research to be complete within this time frame, although it may be extended if need be.
2023-51 Reaction to Quaker Indigenous Boarding School Research Working Group Report
Many Friends present felt intensely compelled to speak to the bearing of this work on our identity as a faith community, and galvanized to engage the work that still lies ahead of us.
The previous minute records the progress of the working group in their charge to collect information, and our responses to their requests. We see that our further, separate work is to process that information, together.
Our learnings about New England Yearly Meeting’s participation in Quaker Indigenous Boarding Schools are not a history exercise. This matter is alive for us in the most fundamental ways now.
It raises profound—for some, even faith-shaking—questions about how today, just as for Friends of the past, what we might believe in the moment to be our best, most devout discernment can be tragically fallible, capable of producing disastrous consequences. We are still, as then, vulnerable to the patterns in which we are entrenched, and to the limits of who is welcomed to participate.
We need time and loving, faithful humility to consider this deeply.
2023-52 Legacy Gift Committee Report
Mary Link (Mt Toby) and Sue Rockwood (Midcoast), co-clerks of the Legacy Gift Committee, introduced the rest of the committee: Jennie Isbell-Shinn (Mt. Toby), Lori Martin (New Haven), Karen Reixach (Keene), Sarah Gant (Beacon Hill), Megan Christopher (Wellesley) (not present), and Leslie Manning (Durham/Three Rivers), ex officio as Permanent Board clerk.
The co-clerks reported that the Legacy Gift Fund continues to be a vital resource supporting ministries in New England Yearly Meeting. The committee seeks not just to distribute grant funding, but to provide “the channels through which the living waters can flow,” connecting means, expertise, care, and oversight to affirm and lift up ways in which the spirit is moving within New England Yearly Meeting.
In the past year, the Fund has nurtured ministries concerning earth care, economics education, racial justice, diversity training, technology, and more. It has provided funds affording traveling in ministry and fellowship, as well as meetinghouse capital improvements.
This year, New England Yearly Meeting also asked the committee to apply its expertise in funding oversight to the administration of the newly created Bodine-Rustin Fund, in honor of two Quakers whose lives stood in witness against discrimination towards LGBTQ individuals and communities.
Bayard Rustin was a civil rights activist and humanitarian leader who worked closely with Martin Luther King. As an openly gay black man, his witness was public; this came with the cost of legal and personal persecution, but also allowed him to live his truth with integrity and candor.
By contrast, Tom Bodine was a publicly closeted gay man who served as Presiding Clerk of New England Yearly Meeting and member of the Friends United Meeting board in the 1960s and 1970s. Tom’s witness was private; he made a conscious choice to live hiding a basic truth about himself. As he wrote, “I decided it was best to live out a lie. Not from cowardice, I like to think, but because my being out to gay friends and closeted to straight friends enabled me to be a go-between and help both sides grow in understanding.”
Inspired by these two Friends’ different forms of witness, the Bodine-Rustin Fund was created to identify, raise up and financially contribute toward organizations with LGBTQ+ supportive missions. Mary Link and Kristina Keefe-Perry (Fresh Pond/Three Rivers) reported that seven groups were proposed for funding this year: two in Africa, and five based in New England. This fund is intended to be fully distributed each year, so Friends were encouraged to consider contributing financially—as well as continuing to send suggestions of groups to support.
In closing, the Legacy Gift Committee encouraged individuals and meetings carrying ministry or spirit leadings (especially those with a carbon-reducing or other environmental focus) to apply this coming cycle, or to participate in an upcoming online workshop on financially supporting ministry.
2023-53 Legacy Gift Review Committee Report
Mary Link (Mt Toby) and Suzanna Schell (Beacon Hill) presented a report from the Legacy Gift Review Committee. When the Witness and Ministry Fund was established in 2014, Friends agreed to review the Fund after 10 years, so a committee has been set up to collect and compile data and reflections, and to make recommendations to the 2024 Sessions regarding the future use of the Legacy Gift monies.
This committee has been meeting faithfully over the past year. They have sent letters with questionnaires to all grantees, monthly meetings, and other New England Yearly Meeting contacts. Many New England Friends have been touched by a Legacy Grant, and the goal is to include reflections from as many people as possible in this review. They encouraged Friends to allow them to complete their charge as scheduled for next summer, to allow time for those voices to be heard and for recommendations to be earnestly discerned.
2023-54 Nominating Committee Report
Jackie Stillwell (Monadnock), clerk of Nominating Committee, began by reading the purpose statement of the Nominating Committee as an introduction to her report to the body:
“In order to help Friends answer God’s call, the Nominating Committee identifies, encourages, and nominates Friends with the gifts and skills needed to serve in a wide variety of volunteer roles on behalf of the Yearly Meeting. In this work, the Committee seeks to remove barriers to the full expression of the spiritual gifts and skills given through each Friend, for the building up and thriving of local Friends meetings.
This work includes, in its fullness, understanding the vision of the Yearly Meeting and what is needed to live into it; leadership development and capacity-building; nurturing a culture of healthy evaluation and feedback; and expressing gratitude and recognition for faithful service in its many forms.”
Members of Nominating Committee reported with gratitude their personal experience of discerning nominations for New England Yearly Meeting. While an often-challenging task, it delivered unexpectedly joyful opportunities to tap into the ways God is working in Friends’ hearts—to see, name, and nurture gifts among us.
2023-55 Unity Agenda
Friends approved the Unity Agenda as presented in the Advance Documents.
2023-56 Closing
Friends closed with worship, intending to reconvene Tuesday, August 8, at 9:15 am.
Meeting for Business, Tuesday 9:15–11:15 a.m.
2023-57 Opening
Presiding Clerk Rebecca Leuchak opened the meeting with the Pete Seeger song Step by Step, and a prayer guiding Friends to come together with a sense of welcoming love and grace in times of turmoil and great joy.
Our reading clerks offered announcements and Reading Clerk Adam Kohrman grounded the meeting with a brief land acknowledgement: We acknowledge with humility and gratitude that we are meeting on Ndakinna (n-DAH-kee-NAH), homeland of the Abenaki peoples. By grace, may our discernment lead to greater peace and justice.
This session was held in Spirit by elders Jane Jackson (Cambridge), Jean Rosenberg (Middlebury), Janet Hough (Cobscook), Evan McManamy (Providence), and Wendy Sanford (Cambridge).
2023-58 Gifts In Service to A Conflict Response Process Working Group
Presiding Clerk Rebecca Leuchak asked Friends to advise her on the gifts and qualities to seek out when identifying members for a working group tasked with developing a stronger, healthier conflict response practice in the New England Yearly Meeting body.
Drawing from our Sessions theme, and the context provided in the preceding verses of Isaiah 58, one Friend pointed out that we are instructed, “If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,” then will we feel the grace and “be like the well-watered garden,” suggesting that we must identify Friends who hunger and thirst for righteousness and also remember that grace comes with the work of our hands.
It seems essential to find and center some persons who (as did Rahab in our Bible Half Hour reading) inhabit liminal spaces, those whose identities place them on the margins, such that they can see dynamics that those of us in the center cannot.
The working group would be well-served by including Friends who have some professional or other relevant training and experience in holding spaces for mediation, restorative justice, etc. It was noted that New York Yearly Meeting has engaged a conflict resolution facilitator. Perhaps we could learn from their relevant experience.
We would welcome the involvement of Friends who have developed the gifts and practical skills of holding space for transformation, who are able to be present in a way that provides a level of safety and comfort in the midst of difficulty, and who have the grace to begin by listening, to honor and respect the pain, the words, the experiences of others.
We should seek out those who have done the work on themselves to be comfortable with situations of conflict, to have come to understand and manage their own trauma enough to be able to see others’ needs, who bring a degree of humility and are not tied to a particular outcome, with some willingness to be wrong, to yield to the spirit of God.
To get to the root of our conflicts, we need the insight of those who understand something about the dynamics of power and privilege and how fear manifests as controlling behaviors among us. And, too, the ability to understand how interpersonal conflict manifests our values, what we believe, our identities, systems and cultural patterns. The intersection informs how we move through conflict.
We hope the group will include people of prayer, willing to pray out loud among Friends. And we would like to see members invited into the group who are tuned into somatic awareness—ways of wisdom that are not just intellectual but tuned into the body’s way of knowing.
We were reminded that the goal is to restore meaning, to create a path for addressing conflict. Individual offenders or the specific conflict are not the target. The community as a whole has a concern for recognizing systemic issues that lie below the moment’s concerns.
And we were reminded that conflict among us that interferes with our ability to be faithful is not a new problem. We need the long view of Friends with an awareness of how conflict has affected our Society through its history, and with the willingness to crack open the fear to find the gift that has been given.
With appreciation, the Presiding Clerk assured the body that she is carrying this concern, and encouraged Friends to email any further advice about how to proceed or suggestions of specific working group member names.
2023-59 Staff Reports
Friends heard reports from New England Yearly Meeting staff, summarizing or expanding upon those found in the Advance Documents.
2023-60 Staff Report—Office Manager
With eagerness to speak only what was necessary, Sara Hubner (Gonic), Office Manager, simply extended her deep, enthusiastic appreciation for all her co-workers and volunteers, who are so wonderful to work with and make her job more pleasurable and productive.
2023-61 Staff Report—Accounts Manager
Frederick Martin (Beacon Hill), Accounts Manager, acknowledged though that his written reports focus more heavily on accuracy and clarity, for Truth must be the foundation, he also wanted to speak more broadly to the Spirit of love that is between us, and the role money can play in that. Often spending is a place where our heart and our spirit meet the physical world. Money isn’t needed to act, but money can be used to enact the Spirit, and Frederick celebrated the joy he feels when he can be a witness to that faithfulness in the New England Yearly Meeting.
2023-62 Staff Report—Program Director
Nia Thomas (Northampton), Program Director, offered an infographic [see next page] to visually review the annual cycle of New England Yearly Meeting programming, whose offerings touch on one or more of three primary intentions: adult faith formation, youth and multi-generational faith formation, and corporate discernment.
Some of the programming supported by New England Yearly Meeting includes:
Monthly meeting leader calls, connecting the formal and informal leadership of different local meetings with each other
Aging Resources, Consultation, and Help (ARCH), with coordinator Patti Muldoon (Cambridge)
Youth and young adult Friends retreats
Legacy Committee workshops on ministry and money
Different anchor programs for each season, such as Living Faith in spring, the Meeting for Listening in early summer (focusing on listening to the spiritual life of local meetings), Meeting Care Day in fall (offering in-person workshops on service to one’s meeting), and hopefully the return of an online-accessible winter seminar focusing on small-group reflection aimed at longtime Friends and curious seekers to Quaker faith
Nia noted that programming is not the purpose of Quaker faith, or the Yearly Meeting, but it is one way to attend to our faith and fulfill our purpose. The offerings from New England Yearly Meeting intentionally vary through the year, and from year to year. Programming decisions are guided by the Quaker theory of change, informed by ongoing discernment and learning. These are the practices that open us more fully to God’s guidance and courage.
There are items (noted with an asterisk on the infographic) that are carried as ideas, dreams, or hopes, and are still in discernment, such as:
Retreats for small meetings at Woolman Hill
Family camp and other opportunities for spiritual nourishment aimed at families with young children
Some kind of practical support for strengthening the bridge between the Spirit and faithful practice alive at Friends Camp and that of the rest of the wider yearly and monthly meetings
Nevertheless, we must continually remind ourselves that not everything we could do as an organization is something that we should do. Faithful, spirit-led programming requires careful discernment about what we are called to do as a body or as individuals, and what we have the capacity for, as well as assurance that the programming serves the Yearly Meeting’s core goals and purpose.
With gratitude for this faith community, and for signs of increasing capacity among us, Nia hoped to see Friends over the next 12 months—perhaps at a workshop, a monthly call, or maybe at Meeting Care Day, November 11th at Moses Brown School.
2023-63 Staff Report—Children and Family Ministries Coordinator
Kara Price (Storrs), Children and Family Ministries Coordinator, oversees Junior Yearly Meeting (JYM) and Junior High Yearly Meeting (JHYM) retreat programs for children in elementary and middle school. She also provides other programming and support for children and families throughout the year as needed.
Kara described this year as a mix of blessings and challenges. The greatest blessing is the children and families who show up and devote themselves to ongoing relationship with each other. To be able to do so in person again after the isolation of the pandemic has been a great joy.
Another blessing has been the long history of this program. Young staff have been able to draw on a cohort of experienced Friends for mentorship, guidance, and wisdom—and even to call some back into service as returning staff—to help maintain a continuity of spirit and programming with a wonderful mix of new and seasoned staff.
With some sadness, this year Kara has made the decision to reduce youth programming offerings, in consideration of real limits of energy and time available.
Hosting fewer retreats could free more of the coordinator’s working time to provide support in other ways to children and families throughout the year, such as supporting youth ministers in their local meetings.
Furthermore, the reality of Kara’s capacity as a single parent with physical health complications at this time required some hard choices to be made.
With gratitude for support from the Yearly Meeting and many experienced Friends, JYM and JHYM each have three enriching retreats planned in the coming year, one for each season (plus Annual Sessions in summer). She appreciates the efforts parents make to get our children together, and expects the coming year will bring more deepening, creative opportunities for Friends of all ages.
2023-64 Exhortations for Financial Generosity and Faithfulness
In response to the treasurer’s report and the Finance Committee’s austere budget recommendations, Friends Isaiah Grace (no current monthly meeting), Peter Blood-Patterson (Mt Toby/Three Rivers), Jay O’Hara (Portland), and Henry Wilhelm (Northampton) rose to address us. Reflecting on his family’s ministry, in which he was raised, with Friends United Meeting, Isaiah quaked as he spoke to the role that money plays in enabling the work of the Spirit, and invited us to close the budget gap through our donations while at Sessions.
I am compelled by the Holy Spirit to come and speak to you this morning. I did not choose this. I have felt deeply moved, and I want to share some of what the Spirit has led in me.
We have heard again and again of the amazing wonders that our community is capable of doing both here in New England, and across the world. And we have heard of the joyous things that are transpiring, thanks to our financial commitments.
I’m here in front of you to invite you to change the narrative and to enter into excited and joyful anticipation with me of the amazing things that we will achieve together through the Holy Spirit. My life and my existence is a testimony to 27 years of approved budgets. I would not exist, if it were not for your generosity. Henry and I are both standing here before you as living proof of your work, and of the work of God in all of us. [...]
And I want to invite you to revel in that excitement. And I want you to contemplate the terrifying budget which we have been asked to consider. And I would love to lift the burden of the Finance Committee. To make commitments to ourselves and to each other and to the world ... . To give freely and share in the joy and bounty of God’s creation, and to live faithfully as we continue to enact the work of the Holy Spirit. Which unfortunately requires money.
Peter offered several methods by which Friends might contribute.
2023-65 Closing
Friends closed, holding this passionate entreaty on their hearts. Henry Wilhelm (Northampton) gently reminded us to give funds according to our means, with reflection on what we can yet give, and without judgment if we have already given all we can.
Meeting for Business, Tuesday 3:00–5:00 p.m.
2023-66 Opening
The Presiding Clerk opened our business with a song, Little Bit of Light (Carol Johnson), and from the Reading Clerk we heard the land acknowledgement that grounds our work: We acknowledge with humility and gratitude that we are meeting on Ndakinna (n-DAH-kee-NAH), homeland of the Abenaki peoples. By grace, may our discernment lead to greater peace and justice.
The meeting was held in prayer by Jane Jackson (Cambridge), Madeleine Vaché (New Lond), Allison Randall (Keene), and Mary Link (Mt Toby).
2023-67 Budget Final Approval
Scot Drysdale (Hanover), Finance Committee clerk, presented some observations and suggestions informed by the very well-attended listening session held on the 2024 budget.
He reported that there were many expressions of unhappiness with the proposed canceling of expected contributions to outside and Quaker umbrella organizations. He celebrated that many voices shared great optimism that we have the capacity and the will to raise funds adequate to pay for what we are really called to do.
And he acknowledged that the resistance to this austerity budget seemed to need some accommodation in order to achieve unity. He suggested that Friends could consider a measure to pledge donations at the end of the fiscal year, if sufficient donations in excess of expected income were realized.
Though it is understood that we are in a condition of budget deficit, and need long-term, sustainable growth in our fundraising, Friends share a strong call to live into a sense of holy abundance, and, referring especially to the Legacy Gift Fund, to be sure all the resources we do have are well-used, not hoarded.
Friends who are present here among us at Sessions have vividly heard—some for the first time in earnest—the urgency of New England Yearly Meeting’s financial deficit, and the call to dig deep and donate as generously as possible, because there is very little in our budget we are willing to sacrifice to austerity cuts. The meeting has heard that it will be important to communicate this to Friends not here this week. We know we can fund-raise what is needed, but our record for the past few years is not giving assurance that we will. We can only with integrity approve a budget that we will fund in reality.
After much deliberation, and weighing of several possible solutions, Friends approved the 2024 New England Yearly Meeting budget as proposed by the Finance Committee.
The Meeting additionally approved an addendum that if New England Yearly Meeting reaches the end of the fiscal year (September 30, 2024) with a surplus, 75% of that surplus will be used to fund support for external/umbrella organizations, up to the budgeted $45,975 we have given annually for a number of years. The remaining 25% of that surplus would go into reserves.
One Friend stood aside, for the first time in his long service among us. This Friend was not alone in carrying a concern that when we have the abundance we need but hold our resources in artificial restriction, we may be giving over to a fear of scarcity in a way that is not truly faithful to Spirit.
Fully funding crucial programming, ministries, expected support of worthy organizations, and especially revitalization of our youth programming are all of great importance to us. We must each discern what steps we can take to contribute to financial recovery becoming an actuality.
2023-68 Cuba Yearly Meeting Epistle
We heard the 2023 epistle of Cuba Yearly Meeting, read by clerk Jorge Luis Peña over Zoom and in translation by Recording Clerk Susannah McCandless (Burlington/Middlebury). The epistle records the Clerk’s exhortation to “be the Quaker sowers of hope that the world needs,” “seeing hope as the horizon of our lives.” Friends received the epistle with warm expressions of gratitude for the fruits of long relationship through our Bridge of Love, and for the opportunity to connect during these Sessions, in the face of many practical obstacles.
2023-69 Faith and Practice Revisions for Ministry and Counsel Chapter.
Marion Athearn (Westport) presented some proposed revisions for sections of Faith and Practice, and received suggestions from the body about further refinements to the advices.
The preliminary draft of the 5th chapter of Faith and Practice, on Ministry and Counsel, was approved by the meeting. Friends are encouraged to begin using this draft in place of the 1985 edition. As we live into its advices over the coming year and more, Friends and meetings are invited to send feedback to the Faith and Practice committee, to inform an eventual final draft.
2023-70 Noticing Patterns
Members of the Noticing Patterns Working Group Polly Atwood (Cambridge) and Melissa Foster (Framingham) offered an activity for the meeting. They invited us to use the work of noticing as a tool for listening, with an encouragement to lay down fear or attachment to right and wrong, and to humbly listen to experiences across the body.
They asked Friends to settle in, listen to their own hearts and minds, and respond to the query, “What is a noticing of a pattern of oppression or faithfulness that has been rising for you in this meeting?” Voices rose to offer appreciation and gratitude for many forms of faithfulness, and some gentle suggestions of places we might need to shine light and loving curiosity on patterns that reinforce oppression.
One Friend acknowledged positive progress in giving consideration to neurodivergent learning styles and encouraged us to go further—to examine our inclination to admonish attendees who could not readily engage the “wall of text” Advance Documents in preparation for Sessions. The audio podcasts are a very helpful accommodation for many, but may not be accessible to all.
Friends were appreciative of the deep listening observed in Sessions, and appreciative for hearing youthful voices with enthusiasm for budget discernment and fundraising.
Earlier we heard a request to reconsider language referring to “disability.” A Friend asked us to sit with our discomfort with that word, and to think about why it arose.
The Presiding Clerk’s choice to call on Friends not by name nor by physical appearance was affirmed as an inclusive practice.
A Friend remembered with regret that at some moments the body’s discernment of the budget agenda item devolved into “a bit of an undisciplined rabble”—which appeared to do harm that may have been gendered.
A Friend appreciated the moment of faithfulness when voices fervently urging Friends to donate more generously to New England Yearly Meeting were tempered by reminders to welcome class and economic diversity among us, and not to create a culture of shame or pressure for those who lack financial access.
One Friend observed that, logistically, it is hard for clerks to simultaneously watch for raised hands in the auditorium and on Zoom. Perhaps there is a better solution for this.
The Noticing Patterns group thanked the body for its faithfulness! They noted, language we use for noticing does not need to take any particular form. We heard faithfulness in gratitude, and oppression in sadness.
2023-71 Epistle First Reading
Members of the Epistle Committee, Jay O’Hara (Portland), Beth Hansen (Westerly), William Monroe (Providence), and Emily Savin (Three Rivers, present on Zoom), presented a first draft of the 2023 New England Yearly Meeting Epistle for the body to consider, and welcomed suggestions as they edited a draft for final approval.
2023-72 Closing
Friends closed with waiting worship, intending next to convene Wednesday at 9:15 a.m.
Meeting for Business, Wednesday 9:15–10:15 a.m.
2023-73 Opening
The meeting opened with the song, We Shall Be Known, by Karisha Longaker, shared by Jay O’Hara (Portland) and Peter Blood-Patterson (Mt Toby/Three Rivers), and an acknowledgement and blessing of our presence and work here on Ndakinna: “We acknowledge with humility and gratitude that we are meeting on Ndakinna (n-DAH-kee-NAH), homeland of the Abenaki peoples. By grace, may our discernment lead to greater peace and justice.”
Our elders were Maggie Fogarty (Dover), Janet Hough (Cobscook), Allison Randall (Keene), and Kathryn Olsen (East Sandwich).
2023-74 Welcoming Visitors
We welcomed visitors, who rose and introduced themselves.
A Message from Havana Friends
Kirenia Criado Perez, clerk of Havana Monthly Meeting and Matanzas Theology Professor, offered a message of gratitude and invitation to New England Friends.
Other Cuban Friends leaders added their voices.
Thank you for the opportunity to be present among you—all are invited to come sojourn among us. It is easier for you to come here than for us to go to you, because of the complexity of visas. We pray that you come together, return safely home, and leave with your batteries charged to serve God. God bless you.
Reading Clerk Adam Kohrman (Beacon Hill) read a message from Havana Friends
To New England Yearly Meeting in Sessions from Havana Monthly Meeting.
Dear family,
We want to take advantage of this opportunity to send you greetings from Havana Monthly Meeting and to ask that the strength of the Spirit continue guiding you on that path of faith and community.
We want to thank you for the love that is manifested in the shape of the Puente de Amor and that nourishes us in a brotherhood that helps us walk hand in hand knowing we are accompanied and loved.
Today that bridge has faces, names, and histories that we treasure like pearls of great value in our lives.
Our meeting has felt the voice of God as one of the branches of world Quakerism and although we have the identity and color of our Cubanness we are very close to the branch that you live and bear witness through as New England Yearly Meeting.
Thank you for the love and care that for more than twenty years you have shown us. Thank you for bearing witness to the Light and for inviting us to continue showing the face of God as a Quaker Cuban church.
Dear brothers and sisters
Never tire of affirming hope
Don’t renounce your dreams
Continue searching for the key
That opens life
That releases joy
That provokes peace and
Justice.
Keep trusting
That with our clay God
Makes miracles and that love is the light that illuminates any darkness.
God bless you.
Havana Monthly Meeting
2023-75 A Report from the Worship Coordinator
Kristina Keefe-Perry (Fresh Pond/Three Rivers), Sessions Worship Coordinator, offered some closing reflections to send Friends out into their everyday lives carrying the worshipful learnings and nurture we garnered this week as a gathered body. She pointed out that all who entered this building today walked past the wall of paper leaves inscribed with prayers and intentions by members of New England Yearly Meeting present at Castleton this week. She invited all to take a leaf (or two) home with them—and the next time any of us are worshiping, maybe over Zoom, we can remember the way we held each other here.
Kristina also drew our attention to the Friends sitting in the front of the auditorium and also some accompanying us over Zoom—elders centering down and holding the seed, holding each of us, the worshipers, the speakers, the faithful discerners, in the light of God.
Eldering is a special practice among Quakers to support us in centering our gatherings on listening for the Divine guidance we need. To find out more about it and about how to bring this practice into more of our business and activities at home meetings, Kristina encouraged Friends to turn to resources such as Friends Janet Hough, Bruce Neumann, Elaine Emily, and Mary Kay Glazer’s An Invitation to Quaker Eldering.
In a closing prayer, Kristina entreated us: So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for God (Romans 12:1, The Message)
2023-76 Reports from Visitors to Youth Programming and Sessions
Ruah Swennerfelt (Middlebury) visited for a morning with the early childcare program. Her overarching impression was one of love—love shown by the young Friends who gently welcomed her to their song circle, love shared between children celebrating a birthday with books, and love in the engaging, smiling guidance of the staff who tended to them.
Patricia Crosby (Mount Toby) visited the K-through-3 Sessions in the Castleton Gym. She saw the children delight in time shared with Abenaki storytellers Joseph and Jesse Bruchac, and admired the gentle patience staff had for the happy disorder of young Friends making crafts, eating snacks, and rolling around like puppies! She observed that with 17 children in just that one group, New England Yearly Meeting is definitely doing something right to have drawn so many young families to Sessions this year.
Marion Baker (Weare) joined the K-through-3 Sessions, not as a visiting representative, but to share a Godly Play story activity with the children. She reported that children continued to approach her around campus and at the dining hall throughout the week and observed that helping with youth programming can be a wonderful way for non-parents to build up these relationships and connections with a younger generation of Friends.
Patti Muldoon (Cambridge) visited the 4-through-6 Sessions, rather than Junior High Yearly Meeting (JHYM), and brought a report of shared joy and story, and patient accompaniment by an adult for a child taking space from the group.
Polly Attwood (Cambridge) reported that she had not visited Young Friends (YFs). When she consulted with Young Friends Interim Coordinator Drew Chasse (Mt Toby), Polly learned that the group had been accompanied lovingly but unevenly. Neither the YFs nor JHYM’ers had consistent holding by the same adults/young adults, as understaffed resource people were coming and going as they split their time between the two groups. Drew expressed reservations at the prospect of another adult visitor.
2023-77 Concern for the Wellbeing of Children and Youth
We hold sorrow at the contrast between these joyful reports of the tender care of Quaker children and what we have been learning about New England Friends’ role in Indigenous reeducation camps separating children from families and culture.
Alive in the body at these Sessions was a concern for the children of now who are our future, and the children of the past who are asking us to keep holding them. This concern extends to the inherent importance of the wellbeing of all children with whom members of the body feel a connection. Friends lifted up Palestinian children in Ramallah and elsewhere, children in Bolivia whom Emma Condori Mamani serves, the many children our spiritual forebearers deeply harmed in Indigenous Boarding Schools, young initial recipients of Bodine-Rustin funds in North America and East Africa, and our yearly meeting youth programming.
What is the implication of the lack of staff support for our youth programs in light of our budget discussions. How might we be led in Spirit to use the Legacy Gift Fund monies as a resource to support programs for youth, as ministry work that builds our community? Given New England Friends’ ability to so rapidly replace a budget shortfall, what does faithfulness to our youth—to all these youth—look like?
2023-78 Report from Events Coordinator
Elizabeth Hacala, Events Coordinator, shared a brief report on her experience planning and coordinating Annual Sessions this year. Four hundred and two Friends attended.
This year was the fifth time Elizabeth served us as Event Coordinator. In allegory, she told the Story of the Orange: Two people have one orange. To be fair, they sliced it down the center and each took a half. Only afterwards did they realize that one wanted to eat the flesh, and one wanted to make candied peel. If they had spoken and listened more, they could both have had all of what they wanted.
Elizabeth tells us she understands her job as one of asking the necessary questions: why people want things and what they want to accomplish, so that we can best meet the real needs of Friends deep down.
Friends are grateful for the way she has brought care, creativity, and curiosity to her role in New England Yearly Meeting Sessions.
2023-79 Report on Reflection Groups
Fran Brokaw (Hanover) reported back on coordinating Reflection Groups during Sessions, with a wonderful abundance of eager and skilled facilitators working both in-person and on Zoom. Most in-person groups were small, with just 5 or 6 participants. She heard particular hunger and gratitude for the parenting group, which intends to keep meeting. The LGBTQIA+ group was self-organizing; the hybrid Spanish-language group had a dozen participants, enabling joyful sharing with Cuban and other remote Friends. Fran noted a need for better scheduling in a time-limited Sessions: reflection groups conflicted with other important program elements, precluding broad participation.
2023-80 Report and Feedback About the Experience of Zoom Virtual Attendees
Don Peabody (Middlebury) reflected on the experience of virtual attendance at these Sessions, the interaction between the ”3D on-label programming crew and 2D off-label [virtually present] crew.” His household appreciated the block party, a raucous, joyful experience addressing what they miss most, the ability to sit and talk and play and pray and connect with our beloveds.” The technical glitches experienced were not damaging to the spirit of connection: Spirit was abundantly available and evident. Praise God!
2023-81 Budget Announcement
Isaiah Grace (Beacon Hill) brought an update to the body, celebrating that after hearing reports of budget shortfall in the New England Yearly Meeting annual budget and pay-as-led admission to Sessions, with heartfelt exhortations for attendees to consider what more they could give, a number of Friends came forward with more than $24,000 of donations over just one day, as well as new pledged monthly contributions that will total more than $6,000 in the coming fiscal year. Hallelujah!
Closing Ceremony, Wednesday 10:15–11:15 a.m.
2023-82 Singing Our Children into Fellowship
The closing ceremony for the 2023 New England Yearly Meeting Sessions began with singing Dear Friends (a Plum Village round) to welcome our children’s groups as they joined the gathered body at the Castleton Fine Arts Center.
2023-83 New England Yearly Meeting Epistle
Friends approved the 2023 New England Yearly Meeting Epistle on a final reading from the Epistle Committee, Jay O’Hara (Portland), Beth Hansen (Westerly), William Monroe (Providence), and Emily Savin (Three Rivers).
Two Friends stood aside from the body’s approval, feeling clear that they could not with integrity accept the phrasing characterizing our Yearly Meeting as having no process for dealing with conflict.
2023-84 Youth Epistles
With gratitude, the body received blessed epistles from our youth Sessions. The full texts of these epistles are appended to these minutes:
Childcare Epistle, presented by Rainer Humphries (Hartford)
JYM K–3 Epistle, presented by Eowyn Hebert (Framingham), Greta Terrien (Westport Meeting)
JYM 4–6 Epistle, presented by Clara Greene (Cambridge), Abbie Haineswood (Putney), Paul MacRae (New Haven), Alex Poynter (New Haven)
Junior High Yearly Meeting Epistle, presented by Nahar Keefe-Perry (Fresh Pond/Three Rivers) and Alice Allen-Harvey (Durham)
Young Friends, presented by: Anion-Conifer Gilbert (Cambridge), Sage Paterson (Concord), Brennan Schifman (Providence), and Emily Edwards (West Falmouth), Resource Person
Young Adult Friends Epistle, presented by Lilly Campbell (Three Rivers), JHYM Sessions Coordinator; Drew Chasse (Mt. Toby), YF Sessions Coordinator; Rainer Humphries (Hartford), Childcare Sessions Coordinator; Celadry June Humphries (Northampton), and Sal Emi Link (Mt Toby)
2023-85 Reflections on the Role of Youth in Our Yearly Meeting
In epistles from Young Friends and Young Adult Friends, as well as in worshipful messages and informal conversations throughout our time at Sessions, we heard gratitude for the staff who plan programming and accompany our young Friends, gratitude for these young Friends who show up and share their Light with us all, and gratitude for the grounding experiences of loving presence, acceptance, and challenge available in New England Friends youth programming for our youngest through adulthood.
We also heard real concern that the wider Yearly Meeting is not valuing—or at least not adequately showing that it is valuing—the essential necessity and worth of the youth Yearly Meetings.
Young Adult Friends gave witness to powerful, nurturing experiences they had growing up supported by New England Yearly Meeting youth programming, and a pressing caution about their sense of the deterioration of Yearly Meeting support for that programming for the current generations of children and staff. Many Young Adult Friends are feeling isolated, keenly grieving the loss of community following their aging out of youth programming, and although they are continuing to find purpose in service as staff to youth programming, they feel overwhelmed by the challenge of carrying that understaffed and under-resourced ministry.
These gatherings of our children and younger Friends cannot merely be dismissed as childcare for the convenience of the Yearly Meeting. As we heard from the young adult Friends epistle, “We fear that the wider New England Yearly Meeting community sees our ministry and the youth programs as auxiliary to the Yearly Meeting, that the youth programs provide a service that allows the adult Yearly Meeting to do business, when the reverse is equally true. We feel that the youth programs are in large part the purpose and life of this Yearly Meeting.”
We heard the exhausting, depleting struggle to be truly seen, respected, included, and supported in their ministries and development as a community of Friends.
We heard the call to action found at more length and with greater eloquence in epistles from our Young Friends and young adult Friends.
2023-86 Closing
Mey Hasbrook (Durham) offered the Presiding Clerk a gift, a token crafted from local pine and cedar, bound in yarn from Eden Grace, inviting us to ground our worship for business as an ongoing faith community on what and who is our now and our future. May we center on the generations rising with wisdom of what the young can see and know, what we can see and know when we listen deeply and respond.
Holding expectant waiting for those voices, we heard lines from a Carrie Newcomer song: “It will take a change of heart for this to mend, but miracles do happen every shining now and then, if not now, if not now, tell me when.”
We closed intending, God willing, to meet again in August of 2024.