Annual Sessions minutes | August 8, 2013

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Saturday Evening, August 3

1. The New England Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends gathered on Saturday evening, August 3, 2013, for its 353rd Annual Sessions at Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island. “Live up to the Light thou hast … and more will be granted thee” is the call and promise of our theme, and we entered into it with waiting worship. The presiding clerk, Jacqueline Stillwell (Monadnock), welcomed us. She described this evening as a time of greeting and gathering. She spoke about how stepping into the unknown, letting the Spirit guide us, gives us life. In our time together at Sessions there will be challenges and difficult truths. It takes courage and love to step into the things that are difficult. We sang at first hesitantly and then with increasing exuberance, singing till the power of the Lord came down. We were not afraid.

2. The presiding clerk introduced the other members of the clerks table: Karen Sánchez-Eppler (Northampton) and Will Taber (Fresh Pond), recording clerks; Will Jennings-Hess (Beacon Hill) and Susan Davies (Vassalboro), reading clerks.

3. The reading clerks called the roll by quarter and Friends rose as their quarter was called and waved as their monthly meeting was named.

4. The clerk recognized those attending New England Yearly Meeting Sessions for the very first time. At the call for new babies, none were present this evening, but one young person told us of his baby sister.

5. The following welcome visitors are attending Sessions this year: James and Desmond Vargos (Lehigh Valley MM, Philadelphia YM), Thomas Swann (Earlham School of Religion), Lázaro Garcia (Velasco MM, Cuba YM), Marlene Aguilera (Gibara MM, Cuba YM), Ruben Maydana Torres (Golgotha Friends Church, National Evangelical Friends Church, Bolivia; and Friends World Committee for Consultation’s Quaker Youth Pilgrimage), Emma Condori Mamani, (Holiness Friends Church YM, Bolivia; and Bolivian Quaker Education Fund), Sharon Frame (Philadelphia YM, Friends General Conference), Anne Pomeroy (New Paltz MM, New York YM), Susan Stark (Crossville MM, Southern Appalachian YM & Association), Rebecca Sullivan (Atlanta MM, Southern Appalachian YM & Association, American Friends Service Committee and Quaker Voluntary Service), Barbara Monahan (New Haven MM, Friends Committee on National Legislation [FCNL]), Matt Southworth (FCNL), Judith Ngoya (Kenya YM, FUM); Anita Paul (Schenectady MM, New York YM, Aging Resources Consultation and Help [ARCH]), Rev. Laura Everett, (Executive Director of the Mass. Council of Churches), Donn Weinholz (Hartford MM, Friends Association for Higher Education), Ed Mair (Amesbury, Friends Mutual Health Group), Betsy Achinson (Sarasota MM, New York YM), Benigno Sánchez-Eppler (Northampton MM, FWCC), Deborah Dickinson (Butternuts MM, New York YM), Krystal Lavenne Stark-Bejnar (Morningside MM, New York YM), Jamie Bissonette Lewey (Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission) and Mother Bear (clan mother of the Wampanoag tribe).

6. Jean McCandless (Burlington), clerk of Sessions Committee, introduced Sessions staff and volunteers and thanked them for their work. The Session Committee has 37 members; many hands make this week happen.

7. Noah Baker Merrill (Putney), Yearly Meeting secretary, introduced us to the NEYM year-round staff present at this opening gathering: NiaDwynwen Thomas (Young Friends/Young Adult Friends coordinator, Lawrence), Frederick Martin (accounts manager, Monadnock), Beth Collea (religious education coordinator, Wellesley), Sara Hubner (information management assistant, Gonic), Kevin Lee (Junior YM coordinator, Westport), Gretchen Baker-Smith (Junior High YM coordinator, Westport) and Jeffrey Hipp (communications director/office manager, Amesbury). He then introduced Kathleen Wooten (Lawrence), the on-site Sessions coordinator. She and Noah are working together to ensure that our flight through Sessions goes smoothly. Health and safety information is now included on the back of Sessions name tags. Kathleen tested the community on the uses of these numbers — and we passed with flying colors. Noah explained that we would be sharing the dining hall with another group this year and asked for our friendly help.

8. Bryant University, where we have held our annual meeting for 13 of the last 15 years, informed us this June that they were planning significant dining hall and kitchen renovations for next summer and that this would prove incompatible with our holding Sessions here in August 2014. Sessions Committee had fortuitously already been reviewing alternative sites, focusing on Vermont, the only New England state that has not yet hosted our annual gathering. They had discerned that Castleton State College in western Vermont would provide an appropriate site for a future gathering. The Yearly Meeting secretary, members of Sessions Committee and Youth Programs staff visited Castleton State College and recommend that we do indeed hold our annual meeting there next year.

9. Kimberly Walker-Gonçalves (Northampton), Betty Ann Lee (Westport), Gretchen Baker-Smith and NiaDwynwen Thomas introduced the Youth Programs staff. Children under five left with their parents. Families with young children were encouraged to gather throughout the week in the family neighborhood. Youth staff led the Junior YM, Junior High YM and Young Friends to their evening programs. A movingly long and quiet line of young people circled our worshipping group as they departed.

10. Rather than taking time in this gathering to appoint adult visitors to the various parts of our larger body, the clerk described an experimental process in which adults are invited to sign up for such visitation work on a prepared sheet.

11. Friends received news of the passing on July 31, 2013, of Hal Burnham, beloved member of Portland Friends Meeting.

12. We concluded the evening with brief worship and adjourned to our anchor groups.

Sunday Afternoon Plenary, August 4

13. During Sunday afternoon’s plenary session, Bill Harley (Providence), singer and storyteller, reminded us to take nothing for granted: not the water coming out of the faucet, not the smell of dark roast nor the brewing, not the weather, not the callousness of those who teach lessons they have not learned nor our indignation. Do not assume inevitability, for at this moment things are still evitable and we do not know what there will be an outbreak of. So embrace surprise. Let us be masters of the obvious, masters of repeated appreciation. The sun came up today. The stars are coming out. This food tastes good. This system is unjust. Things will change. You are my friend.

Humans tell stories; it is one of the things that makes us human. Story is the ordering of events into a causal sequence to give meaning. Without story, without context, there is no meaning.

We choose how to tell our stories and how to hear them. It is a spiritual sickness to use the glass-is-half-empty school of storytelling. Quakers are particularly good at being disappointed with the world, but George Fox called us to walk cheerfully over the world. Are we trapped in our stories of hurt to justify our behavior?

Story lets us hear things we do not want to hear. The way to escape the trap of our stories is to listen carefully to other people’s stories. By listening to each other we will change the way we see the world. Listening to other people’s stories will make us uncertain and uncomfortable. True faith grows out of a willingness to face uncertainty. Paradox is at the heart of life. Witness opens us by allowing us to hold different, contradictory stories. We need as many stories as we can to find ourselves and each other.

What kind of future we can create depends on the stories we tell of the past. When we change our stories, we change the world.

Sunday evening, August 4, 2013

14. Out of waiting worship the reading clerk read an epistle from Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Concerns Midwinter Gathering of February 2013. They found that their theme of “a seat at the table” provided a strong image for thinking together about how experiences are shaped by exclusions and privileges. They recorded their hard-earned sense of the truth and trust that comes from bringing authentic selves to worship and business, openly acknowledging wounds, gifts and imperfections. They affirm that expressing our true selves strengthens our connections to the divine. The epistle offers a vision of radical inclusion where there is space at the table for every aspect of every person.

15. The clerk reminded us about our practices of worship and how we can strive together to embrace and learn from the diversity in our experiences, beliefs and the language we use to express them. She spoke of her hope that our business meetings will be both a safe space and a place where we speak our truths, hearing and respecting our differences. She explained how to use the microphones and reminded us of the importance of making space for silence between our messages.

16. The clerk introduced the Unity Agenda, available in the Advance Documents. These items are proposed for consideration later this week. Friends are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the Unity Agenda and to bring concerns or questions to the Friends named for each item. More general issues can be raised with the presiding clerk. Items on the Unity Agenda about which there are significant concerns will be removed from the Unity Agenda and brought to business meeting for corporate discernment.

17. We appointed representatives to visit the youth yearly meetings and the meeting of Young Adult Friends:

• Childcare: Martha Schwope and Scott Sargent
• Grades K–2: Sue Webb and Chris Andres
• Grades 3–4: Debbie Humphries and Ralph Greene
• Grades 5–6: Lynn Cadwallader
• Junior High YM: Mary Gilbert
• Young Friends: Laura Hoskins and Kathryn Cranford
• Young Adult Friends: Minga Claggett-Borne, Regina McCarthy and Carol Letson

18. We held the work of the Committee on Racial, Social & Economic Justice in prayer. Rachel Carey-Harper (Barnstable) spoke for the committee about the power of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery and the deep spiritual insights and true justice work that have permeated those segments of our community who have wrestled with this doctrine over the past year. James Varner (Orono) quoted U.S. Representative John Lewis’s statements on the nonviolent beliefs and practices of civil rights activism, calling us to follow this model in taking a stand against an unjust system with faith as our shield and the power of compassion as our defense. The committee described the process they are calling for as a journey of healing, of living up to the light of this concern by deeply listening to indigenous peoples whose traditional land we now occupy. Over the year the committee has been working with and learning from Native American leaders in designing and providing workshops throughout the Yearly Meeting on the implications of the Doctrine of Discovery. Friends who have learned about and wrestled with the Doctrine of Discovery since this process began last year were asked to stand. More than half of the Friends present rose.

The clerk called for clarifying questions and many questions were raised about claims of land ownership, the history of this doctrine and the role of Christianity in it and the relation of this call to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery to Friends history and testimonies. We will return to this agenda item on Wednesday after opportunities for threshing this issue together in more informal workshops and conversations.

19. We held the work of the Faith and Practice Revision Committee in prayer. Jan Hoffman (Mt. Toby), clerk of the committee, celebrated the work the committee has done. The preface and six chapters that have had preliminary approval (“Illustrative Experiences of Friends,” “Worship,” “Corporate Discernment in Meeting for Business,” “A Brief History of Friends in New England,” “Revisions to this Faith and Practice” and “General Advices and Queries”) are available on the Faith and Practice  website and in binders sent to all monthly meetings. The committee is considering whether the process would benefit from having a printed book containing these chapters available to Friends. They also ask us to consider whether the paper distributed in 2003, “A Peculiar People,” belongs in the revised Faith and Practice.

The committee hoped when it began that the process of revising Faith and Practice would be a stimulus to discussion and prayerful discernment across the Yearly Meeting, which would in turn inform their work, and this has indeed happened. They admit that they “have been asked repeatedly for a definitive list of Quaker testimonies,” but their sense remains that they cannot make such a list and that “attempting to do so involves the danger of ‘the testimonies’ being held up as a kind of Quaker doctrine or creed.” Believing that a separate chapter on testimonies does not serve their commitment made in 2002 “to explore those places where faith becomes practice and to make the link between them clear in the book,” they are clear not to write a separate chapter on testimonies. Instead they are asking the gathered meeting to join the committee in discerning how to write the remaining chapters in a way that does truly link our faith with our practice in our meetings, our personal lives, and in the wider world.  In exploring together, they hope we can create a Faith and Practice that conveys in its form as well as its contents, the grace of seeking, the feeling of being a vessel for unfolding Truth.

Friends spoke in pairs in response to two queries about our own living experience with hearing and understanding the Inward Guide:

One of the central discoveries of Friends is that all can directly hear and understand their Inward Guide. Whether we come to this Source first through inner exploration, or through the outer living of its principles, it remains the heart of our witness.

1) Describe your path to that Source. 

2) Describe how you respond to an inward call in your life and/or tell a story about a time you followed inward guidance. 

In response to a 2002 questionnaire on what monthly meetings wanted to see in Faith and Practice, Friends requested guidance on procedures including particular queries for clearness committees on membership and marriage, and materials on the recognitions of gifts and leadings. In 2011 the committee distributed an Appendices working paper addressing these topics. The committee reminded Friends to review and use these materials and to give them feedback.

Monday morning, August 5, 2013

20. Out of our opening worship we heard the epistle from Cuba Yearly Meeting, read in Spanish and in English. “In the midst of our diversity we are called to work hand in hand for the growth of the truth which frees, nourishes and strengthens our faith. It is founded in the fact of seeing the face of God portrayed in each human being we love.”

21. We held the members of the Puente de Amigos Committee and their work in prayer and appreciation. Alma Sánchez-Eppler (Northampton) spoke out of worship, giving witness to the visit of Young Adult Friends to Cuba immediately following our Sessions last year. There is a living and deep connection between our two yearly meetings. It was wonderful to be able to respond to the request from Cuban Young Adult Friends for a visit, and it was even more wonderful to feel the deepening and blessing of our Bridge of Love. It is clear that we need to continue this connection and find ways to continue to deepen and enlarge it.

22. The clerk spoke of business meeting as waiting worship from start to finish. It is a time to integrate our spiritual experience with our work in the world. The clerk reminded us that last night when we heard from the Racial, Social & Economic Justice Committee we were asked questions that challenge the foundations of our cultural and economic structures, even to the question of land ownership. Last night the Faith and Practice Revision Committee reported that it is being led to not write a chapter on testimonies but to look at how we integrate our testimonies into the whole of the book as a reflection of how our testimonies are integrated into our lives. These are foundational questions, and more foundational questions will be coming to us for discernment. The ad hoc Legacy Gift Discernment Committee will be asking us to find what new life is rising after we have laid down the work of the New England Friends Home. The ad hoc Structural Review Committee will be asking us what is our ministry, and how do we organize ourselves to do this work together. The presentations about our finances will be raising questions about our financial sustainability and the spiritual integrity of our financial practices. Asking such foundational questions is bound to create for us discomfort and unease. We entered into a half-hour of waiting worship to hold our condition in God’s grace.

23. We held in prayer and appreciation the members and work of the Permanent Board. We heard from its recording clerk, Bruce Neumann (Fresh Pond), about how the Spirit moves through the work of the board. In Permanent Board’s discussion of laying down the Student Loan Committee, Spirit rose for finding new ways to address the financial and educational needs of our community. He also spoke of the vital connections made during a special intervisitation opportunity when Permanent Board met at Putney Friends Meeting.

24. Holly Baldwin (Fresh Pond), clerk of Permanent Board, reported on their work. They are a large body but they could be larger, as there are vacancies. All Friends are welcome and encouraged to attend Permanent Board meetings.

The clerk of Permanent Board reported on the closing of the Friends Home. The only matter that remains unresolved is a claim from the Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Insurance with a potential liability in excess of $500,000. We have engaged legal representation to assist us in resolving this issue and we expect an equitable resolution.

The Archives Committee is exploring new options in regard to the ownership of our archives and how they are stored. We will be receiving a recommendation from them in the future.

25. The clerk of Permanent Board reminded us that last year we hired a new Yearly Meeting secretary. Permanent Board now recommends the creation of the position of “Supervisor to the Yearly Meeting Secretary.” Overall supervision will continue to be provided by Coordinating & Advisory Committee, while the committee has delegated day-to-day supervision of the YM Secretary to the Supervisor. The Supervisor will be appointed by Permanent Board through the internal nominating committee and will serve on the Personnel Committee and on the Coordinating & Advisory Committee. Friends approved this recommendation, acknowledging that what is needed now may change in the future and that Permanent Board is entrusted to make changes as needed.

26. Friends were reminded that Faith and Practice serves as our bylaws, and as such needs to be updated to reflect our current structure. There will be future updates to Faith and Practice to reflect bylaw changes as necessary.

27. A report of the work of the Long-Term Financial Planning Group, composed of members from the Finance, Personnel, Development and Coordinating & Advisory Committees, was given by Ben Guaraldi (Beacon Hill), assistant treasurer; Holly Baldwin (Fresh Pond), Permanent Board clerk; and Noah Baker Merrill (Putney), Yearly Meeting secretary. We watched a video, filmed Friday night, of Friends testifying to the importance of the Yearly Meeting to them and their monthly meetings.

The Yearly Meeting secretary expressed how he has been blessed with many opportunities to listen to Friends. There are at least five ways in which we are New England Yearly Meeting:

We are a people who share a story, the people of God called Friends in New England.

We are an association of local communities of transformative practice, our monthly and quarterly meetings.

We are an annual conference.

We are a structure of boards, committees and working groups.

We are an organization that provides staffing and support to all the ways in which we are New England Yearly Meeting.

Our assistant treasurer showed a graph of the last ten years of our income and expenses, which depicted the challenge of our current financial reality. We are seeing a persistent gap between our expenses and our income.

The clerk of Permanent Board presented the options before us.

We could keep cutting, which would require laying down some of our vital ministries or essential services and laying off the staff that supports them.

We could continue to have deficit spending and exhaust our reserves in five years and exhaust the legacy gift in another twelve.

We could do the hard work to create a capacity to increase our income in an urgent but achievable way. In other words we could work to make our Yearly Meeting financially sustainable.

The Long-Term Financial Planning Group proposes a plan to create capacity to increase our income to meet our expenses in, at most, five years. Over these five years reserves could be drawn down to as low as $90,000 in the process of giving us time to build this capacity. We anticipate that our income will exceed our expenses in five years, and that we will then begin to replenish our reserves, including replenishing the interest they would have accrued if we had not drawn upon them. We have already started the process of creating capacity to increase our income.

Through the formation of this long-term financial planning initiative we are beginning to talk about our finances over a longer term with the gathered Yearly Meeting and will continue to evaluate them in the coming years.

We have shifted the Yearly Meeting secretary’s work plan to spend more time on development.

In FY 2014 the budget recommendation gives the Development Committee a real budget to work with based on their estimate of the cost to raise the goal we have established.

We are taking concrete steps to improve the technological and administrative support to make development work — and all other work — more possible.

Permanent Board has committed to strengthening the relationship between monthly meetings and the Yearly Meeting.

There will be opportunities throughout the week to explore these financial issues in more detail.

Friends were asked to affirm that creating a capacity to increase our income is an important priority for our corporate life going forward. Friends approved.

Friends were also asked to commit to paying back money we borrow from reserves with interest. Friends were unable to unite at this time, needing more time and information to understand the financial challenges before us and how we are committing to meet them.

Monday Afternoon Plenary, August 5

28. Shan Cretin (Santa Monica MM, Pacific YM), general secretary of the American Friends Service Committee, spoke to us out of the silence on “Prisms and Lenses: Seeking the Light on Race and Privilege.” She spoke with humility and insight about her own path of growth and transformation. A childhood lived on military bases in Europe in the aftermath of World War II and an adolescence in segregated Alabama taught her about the devastations of war, racial hatred and oppression, but left her unclear about what role she could play in righting the injustices she keenly saw.

Later, doing public health work as a white woman in African-American communities she was shaken by the observation: “I know you mean well, but if you want to do something about the situations you see in this community you need to work in your community.” She has carried that admonishment into her university work and now her work for AFSC, and it is the challenge that rang through this plenary talk. Her example called us to be witnesses in our own community: our own, largely white, Yearly Meeting with its deep roots in 17th-century England. We need to acknowledge that we don’t yet know what it would really mean to embrace difference. We need to recognize white privilege, shed white guilt and replace both with warm welcome. Uprooting racism in the Society of Friends is work that we often leave to Friends of color, but if we are serious about being a whole-hearted, blessed and healed community we all need to do this work; we need to find out what we are doing to make barriers and to shore up our privileges, and we need to change our ways.

AFSC and FCNL have been collaborating on a new model of peace work based on a concept of “shared security.” What would it mean if our meetings made us all equally able to be safe? No one of us alone has the light to make the Society of Friends a truly inclusive people, our meetings as gloriously diverse as God’s creation; but together, learning from each other, we can become that people.

Monday Evening, August 5

29. During our opening worship we heard the epistle from the 2013 Sessions of Britain Yearly Meeting. They were challenged by the theme of the Young Friends program, “Trust Me, I’m a Quaker.” Discernment requires trust, humility and patience. Bringing our uncertainties into the presence of God is part of our search for truth. We need not be afraid of confronting issues where the way forward is not clear. We can trust that our Inward Teacher will guide us.

30. We held in prayer and appreciation the NEYM representatives to Friends Peace Teams, AFSC, FCNL, Quaker Earthcare Witness and William Penn House, and their work. Nancy Shippen (Fresh Pond) reflected on her service as the representative to Friends Peace Teams with the Alternatives to Violence Program and Friends Peace Teams. She feels that it is an incredible privilege to do this work. Friends Peace Teams have taken the Alternatives to Violence Program and applied the principles to community trauma resiliency and other work.

31. Holly Baldwin (Fresh Pond), clerk of Permanent Board, brought forward a recommendation from the Friends Camp Committee that we continue the employment of Nat Shed (Vassalboro) as director of Friends Camp and a recommendation from the Coordinating & Advisory Committee to continue the employment of Noah Baker Merrill (Putney) as New England Yearly Meeting secretary, both for the coming year. Friends approved these appointments.

32. The clerk of Permanent Board brought forth the recommendations for the Clerks Table for the coming year (2014): Jacqueline Stillwell (Monadnock), presiding clerk; Susan Davies (Vassalboro) and Andrew Grannell (Portland), reading clerks; and Will Taber (Fresh Pond) and Karen Sánchez-Eppler (Northampton), recording clerks. Friends approved these appointments.

33. Friends held in prayer and appreciation the work of the Board of Managers of Investments & Permanent Funds and the Finance Committee.

34. Treasurer Ed Mair (Amesbury) presented the Treasurer’s Report and suggested that if each adult active in the Yearly Meeting contributed an additional $52 this year, our financial problems could be resolved.

35. Finance Committee clerk, Maria Lamberto (New Haven), described the deficit budget that they are presenting for 2014. In 2013 the amount budgeted for travel was about 30 percent too low. Consequently, the committee recommends that there be an increase of $6,300 to the budget presented in the Advance Documents, bringing the 2014 budget for travel from $21,000 to $27,300. The proposed overall budget for 2014 is projected to draw $55,823 from our reserves.

Finance Committee recommends that for the 2014 fiscal year only, all interest income from the Legacy Gift be applied to operating expenses.

In 2013 the Yearly Meeting received contributions from 61 of our 71 monthly meetings.

Individual contributions to the Yearly Meeting have declined over the past several years. Finance Committee expressed their faith that the efforts of the Development Committee and our generosity will reduce this deficit.

NEYM is planning not to hold a Mid-Year Gathering this year while we determine a method of financing such a gathering, including the cost of staff time. We will seek other ways to gather together this year.

The budget will be brought for final approval on Wednesday night. Friends are encouraged to bring comments and questions to members of the Finance Committee. There will also be an interest group on Tuesday evening where people can bring their questions.

Friends were reminded that in discussing money we be mindful in our language to recognize the various life stages and financial situations of our members. We also need to recognize that our budget is an expression of the priorities we assign to our ministries and that our budget presentations need to reflect this.

36. Finance Committee recommended Ben Guaraldi (Beacon Hill) to serve as treasurer for next year. Friends approved this recommendation.

37. Members of the Friends United Meeting Committee were held in prayer and appreciation. Ann Dodd Collins (Winthrop Center) reflected on her experiences travelling within FUM. When she joined the committee, she knew nothing about FUM. This year she visited Indiana Yearly Meeting, Western Yearly Meeting and Winchester Friends Church, experiencing their hospitality and care for the community outside their own boundaries. At Winchester Friends Church they have a small garden, and every Sunday the produce from this garden is placed on a table for people to take and leave what payment they can afford, donating the proceeds to the Heifer Project. This is FUM.

38. Jeremiah Dickinson (Wellesley), a member of the Finance Committee, brought forward the committee’s recommendation that we extend Minute 2009-54, “Minute for Finance to FUM” for two more years, until September 30, 2015. Friends began discussions and we will continue consideration of this issue later in these Sessions.

39. Friends heard Memorial Minutes for Suzanne Spencer (Sandwich) and Harold Nomer (Westerly).

Tuesday morning, August 6, 2013

40. We heard the epistle from the Young Adult Friends of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. They told of a gathering filled with resplendent sorrow, healing, inspiration and play. They described conflicts within the yearly meeting community and the need to confront their fears in facing God’s call. They considered whether over-emphasizing Quaker process muddies our courage to simply love. In calls for mentorship and for the development of a more agile committee structure they modeled reaching for our best selves, heeding the call to radical relationship, collaboration, action and love.

41. Friends held in prayer and appreciation NEYM’s Ecumenical Relations Committee, comprising representatives to State Councils of Churches in New England. Leslie Manning (Durham), who presently serves as the president of the Maine Council of Churches, reflected on her experiences in this work of ecumenical relations. She spoke of the many ways the witness of the Maine Council of Churches has enabled and supported good policies across the state. The word ecumenical, which means universal, is rooted in the Greek word for house — in my Father’s house there are many rooms (John 14:2). She affirmed the joy of doing this work with other people of faith and conscience, amplifying our witness.

42. Holly Baldwin (Fresh Pond), clerk of Permanent Board, introduced the work of the two of largest ad hoc committees of Permanent Board, the Legacy Gift Discernment Committee and the Structural Review Committee.

The Legacy Gift Discernment Committee clerk, Suzanna Schell (Beacon Hill), reflected on the committee’s work over this past year; she asked the ten Friends who have served on this committee to stand. The charge of this committee is not to spend the proceeds from the sale of the Friends Home but to discern how to use this gift from the past to the future. How could this money help NEYM to answer God’s call? Thirty monthly meetings and 13 committees, Young Friends, Young Adult Friends and staff have responded to this question. All the responses are posted on the web (neym.org/legacy) and are available at Sessions in a display and a notebook. For the coming year the ad hoc committee will continue this process of discernment. These conversations have in themselves, as a letter to the committee from YAFs urged, enabled us to listen more deeply to the new life that is already rising up in our Yearly Meeting.

The Structural Review Committee clerk, Janet Hough (Cobscook), reported that the committee has 16 members from all across the Yearly Meeting, from meetings large and small and including Friends with many very different relationships to the Yearly Meeting. This committee first met in March of this year and is just beginning their work of discernment. They have put questions before us: “What is your vision for Quakers in New England? What gifts do you have to offer this vision? What supports you in offering these gifts? What hinders you in offering these gifts? What do you long for in NEYM?” They have been asking these questions here on T-shirts, in special sessions and in conversation. We are all invited, indeed urged, to join in this living discernment.

43. Yearly Meeting staff shared reflections and we recognized their ministry to us in their presentations. Needing to attend their programs, neither NiaDwynwen Thomas nor Gretchen Baker-Smith could be present at business meeting to share reflections. All staff reports are included in the Advance Documents.

• Kevin Lee (Westport), Junior YM coordinator and Sessions pastoral counselor, came to NEYM 26 years ago to share his leading to start a retreat program for young children, and the Yearly Meeting lifted up that work. He told a story about a child who climbed the tallest tree he could find and would not come down until Kevin left him to come down on his own. He believes that in our faith and trust we will “come round right” — in the need to raise money to support these ministries, but more to witness to the ministries as they rise in us, as this work has risen in him. This is a year of transition. Kevin Lee will be retiring as JYM coordinator and Gretchen Baker-Smith will be taking up this work. He expressed his gratitude for the good structures that will continue to carry NEYM’s ministry to our young people and families and for the joyful and moving celebration of his ministry held on Sunday afternoon.

• Nat Shed (Vassalboro), director of Friends Camp, came here leaving camp in session. He described some of the camp activities that create a loving community. They build community by hugging a lot, by working a lot and by worshiping together in mornings and at vespers. They see the light of God in each other, assuming good intentions. He described an activity in which the young people identify themselves in their places of difference and vulnerability. Activities open a space of being real with each other that comes out of play, goes to somewhere deep and hard and then out into joy. He wants to acknowledge too that, difficult as it is, he has also had to do the brave, hard thing of acknowledging that there are sometimes children who do not fit safely and comfortably into the Camp community. Doing the hard work of creating healthy boundaries allows the community to grow and deepen.

• Noah Baker Merrill, Yearly Meeting secretary, asked Clarabel Marstaller (Durham), who staffed the very first NEYM office out of the Maine Idyll Motor Lodge in Freeport, Maine, what he should do to pick up this work, and she said, “Visit…visit.” Noah described to us some of the visits he has made in his first months as NEYM secretary. He talked about a visit with Young Friends in the new Boston Area Youth Group in the days after the Boston Marathon bombing, how they made a circle of light on a dark bridge. It is the miracle work of the Yearly Meeting to find ways to connect our many circles of Light.

• Beth Collea (Wellesley), religious education coordinator, recalled the story of John Woolman’s coming to a low place and receiving new life. This feels to her like a time of new growth and new insight throughout the Yearly Meeting. She is witnessing renewal in monthly meetings, at the Yearly Meeting and in many new Quaker ventures, including such new undertakings as the Friends Camp initiative to provide support for children with incarcerated parents, and the burgeoning Friends Center for Children in New Haven.

• Jeff Hipp (Amesbury), communications director & office manager, told a story about gossip. The staff meets in Worcester on Wednesdays, gathering to ask what gives life to your work life at the Yearly Meeting, and one Wednesday, when the Yearly Meeting secretary was not there, they gossiped about him, confiding to each other how supported and challenged to do their best work they have been by his leadership and reveling in God’s felt presence in their work together.

• Frederick Martin (Monadnock), accounts manager, noted that the function of his job is to tell the truth, and sometimes that truth is against us, as the numbers in the budget often appeared to be this year. But when you turn to the Light, even if it is a painful truth, it transforms.

44. The Peace & Social Concerns Committee shared the banner that they will bring with them to the Providence Peace Vigil in memory of Hiroshima and invited us to travel with them.

45. The Development Committee clerk, Nancy Haines (Wellesley), shared the committee’s sense that the Spirit moving in this community is evidenced by the many acts of extraordinary generosity in response to the call to support the Yearly Meeting financially. They ask all of us attending Sessions to bring news of development initiatives back to our monthly meetings. Reminding us that building relationships and raising money is fun, they led us in singing “Climb every [fiscal] mountain: Let’s increase our giving/Till we fund our dream!”

46. We held Ministry & Counsel in prayer. Clerk of Ministry & Counsel, Margaret Cooley (Mt. Toby), compared the State of Society report to a physical. How is our pulse? What muscles are stiff and need more exercise? The written report of the Yearly Meeting has become a form without life. This year, as we did last year, we have asked four Friends to hold the Yearly Meeting in prayer, to read all of the submitted State of Society reports, hear the reflections of the NEYM Ministry & Counsel meeting when they considered the reports and to listen with their own ears and the ears of the Spirit in order to gauge the state of the Yearly Meeting. These Friends shared their reflections out of our worship:

• We come together in quarterly meetings and at Yearly Meeting. Some of us know Friends around the world. But we need to know one another better. Every year, State of Society Reports express isolation and disconnection. Intervisitation remains a concern. Processes and structures can help facilitate connection and we continue to wrestle to find forms that truly enable that work. We need Friends with a leading to go to a meeting other than their own on a Sunday and to share their Light there and to talk about these visits.

• We are about to enter into change—major change. The legacy gift, structural review and long-term financing are all initiatives that require change. This can feel challenging to those who have been active in NEYM for a long time and are comfortable in the ways that have carried us in the past, but do not be afraid. Do not ask what NEYM can do for you, but ask what gifts you have that can make our work lighter and more perfect.

• What is vital and living in New England? It is very simple: it is in our worship together, in entering together into Spirit, the fire of the living God descending. We ask how can we live up to the Light. How can we lean into the growing edges? We grow sick of committees. But if we are able to focus on the Light, if we can let go of our fears and trust the living Light, we already have what we need. “Dear Lord show me the way, teach me to pray, all that I needed you gave me.”

Lifting up three strands from these meditations, one is holy restlessness, a sense that things are not working well, but no certainty about what will work better. What the Yearly Meeting secretary in his report calls “spiritual mud season” is upon us — not wonderful or beautiful, but there we are and on the verge of spring growth. Another is agony about the condition of the world: racism, economic injustice, immigration injustice, climate change. Friends feel these wrongs and feel called and ready to be sent, but do not know how or where to begin. Structures that have worked in the past are not serving us well. Lastly, we do not have clarity on what would work better, but we are sure that the process should not be one of tinkering with the surface, but rather one of sinking down into our roots and identifying our gifts and leadings. There are shoots of green. Something is moving among us, but we can’t tell yet what will grow. And so we wait.

Tuesday Evening Concert, August 6

47. Susan Stark (Crossville MM, Southern Appalachian YM & Association) returned to NEYM, the yearly meeting where she had raised her daughters, bringing an evening of warm memories and Spirit-filled music, sharing her spiritual journey in song. Daughter Krystal Lavenne Stark-Bejnar danced as Susan led us in singing. We sang her song “Live up to the Light,” which was inspired by the lines in Caroline Fox’s journal, our Sessions theme this year.

Wednesday Morning, August 7

48. During our opening worship we heard the epistle from the 2013 Sessions of New York Yearly Meeting. They have been challenged by Truth to repair their relationship with the Haudenosaunee people, to respond to the Doctrine of Discovery as an ungodly and violent deception, to see spiritual renewal as beginning with opening ourselves to personal transformation, to stop speaking as if we were dying and to start speaking of the living passion that transforms the world. They witnessed a dramatic apology in the name of Jesus Christ to indigenous peoples everywhere.

49. Friends held the Committee on Aging and the United Society of Friends Women in prayer and in appreciation for their work. Marian Baker (Weare) shared reflections. When USFW found that they could not meet at Sessions, they met at Smith’s Neck on what turned out to be the weekend after the Boston Marathon bombings. As they met together they needed that time together to begin healing from the trauma they had experienced. They heard reports from the USFW triennial held in Indianapolis this year and blessed with attendance by Friends from Cuba, Mesquakie Tribe members from the Mesquakie Friends Center in Iowa and 61 women from Kenya. This brought a sense of joy, unity and the love of God.

50. Staff and trustees from the following Friends Schools and organizations stood as we held them in prayer for their service: Friends School of Portland, Moses Brown School, Lincoln School, Cambridge Friends School, Friends Center for Children in New Haven, Woolman Hill, Kendal at Hanover, West Falmouth Quaker House, Obadiah Brown Benevolent Fund, Lyman Fund and the Beacon Hill Friends House.

Sarah Cushman (Portland) shared reflections on her family’s first visit to Beacon Hill Friends House this spring in the immediate aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings. They were warmly welcomed and their experience on that Friday while they were in lockdown etched the house in their hearts because of the profound experience of community. The residents served as a sounding board on how they could explain the events to their six-year-old daughter. Beacon Hill residents set up a news-free zone in the library, a sacred space in the parlor and a news-friendly zone in the TV room. The Cushmans felt that, even as strangers, they were held in love, tenderness and community: “It was the best lockdown ever.”

51. Friends from the Committee for Nurturing Friends Education at Moses Brown School were held in prayer and appreciation.

52. Committee on Racial, Social & Economic Justice clerk Rachel Carey-Harper (Barnstable), expressed appreciation and gratitude for the wisdom and guidance of Jamie Bissonette Lewey, Mother Bear and other tribal people in New England who have invested much energy and love in their commitment to stay with us on this journey, sharing their experience of the Doctrine of Discovery. She read to us a revised version of the minute on the Doctrine of Discovery. The presiding clerk asked that friends speak out of worship about their learning and experience with the Doctrine of Discovery and many brought messages.

We know that to simply say “we repudiate this doctrine” does not do enough. We need to make amends, we need to learn more and we need to find out how to do more. What would it mean to truly live in a way that acknowledges and works to rectify this terrible injustice? We need to move from empire to beloved community, knowing the history of Papal Bulls to justify the claiming of land and how clearly this way of thinking underlies the charter granted to William Penn, as well as many other examples of the ways that this doctrine continues to inform so many aspects of how we live in the world now, our policies, practices and possessions. It is important to reflect on the local specificities of the history of the doctrine of discovery here in New England: from whence come the titles to our meetinghouses? A Friend from Bolivia, an Aymara woman who knows from deep personal experience what it means to live under the Doctrine of Discovery, has gradually come to see and feel the presence of this doctrine not only in Bolivia but here among Quakers in the United States. This is not just a historical question; it is a present question, it is a future question. At its heart is failing to see the Light in all people, failing to see that all people have needs, failing to see people at all. Every day we give ourselves permission to do things that rest upon our privileges and we can, daily, personally take responsibility for how we live with each other, recognizing that no one of us is any more precious than anyone else. We cannot change the past, but we can change how we record history and the stories we tell, so that the truth of our actions is openly explored. We need to recognize that there is much work to do in our own Quaker communities, in our souls. We share this world.

After this period of worship Friends approved the following minute:

53. We heard memorial minutes for Eleanor Wilson (Vassalboro) and Audrey Snyder (Cobscook).

54. The Correspondence Committee gave the first reading of this year’s epistle. Friends are encouraged to provide comments to them in writing.

55. Finance Committee clerk, Maria Lamberto (New Haven), presented the budget for the 2014 fiscal year for final approval. Friends approved.

One Friend stood aside from the approval, expressing concern that we will not sufficiently feel the weight of the concern to increase our individual and meeting contributions to meet the assumptions of this budget.

56. Friends approved the following bank resolutions:

• That Ben Guaraldi be appointed as New England Yearly Meeting Treasurer for the ensuing year or until a successor is appointed and qualified.
• That Elizabeth Muench be appointed Friends Camp Treasurer for the ensuing year or until a successor is appointed and qualified. The Friends Camp treasurer will work under the oversight of the NEYM treasurer and the Friends Camp director.
• That the NEYM treasurer be authorized to open and close bank accounts in the name of New England Yearly Meeting as needed.
• That the Camp treasurer be authorized to open and close bank accounts in the name of Friends Camp as needed.
• That the treasurer, immediate past treasurer, assistant treasurer and the Yearly Meeting secretary be designated as alternate signers, individually, of all bank accounts of NEYM of the Religious Society of Friends, except those checks for greater than $5,000, which shall require the signatures of two signers from the list above.
• That the Friends Camp director, the Friends Camp treasurer and a designated member of the Friends Camp Committee be authorized, individually, as signers of the Friends Camp bank accounts, except those checks for greater than $5,000, which shall require the signatures of two signers from the list above.

57. Friends extend our thanks and gratitude to Ed Mair (Amesbury) for his work as treasurer. He has been flexible and responsive to the questions and requests of the Finance Committee.

Wednesday evening, August 8, 2013

58. Out of our opening worship we heard memorial minutes for Glenice Hutchins (Durham) and Bernice Douglas (Durham).

59. Margaret Hawthorn (Monadnock), whose daughter Molly, a beloved member of our Yearly Meeting, was murdered three years ago, spoke of how this tragedy has fueled her ministry. Connie Kincaid-Brown (Quaker City-Unity), clerk of Northwest Quarter, and Marian Baker (Weare), clerk of Dover quarter, brought the request from both of these quarterly meetings that NEYM become a member of the New Hampshire Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NHCADP). New Hampshire is the only New England state that still has the death penalty on the books. Four of our New Hampshire meetings, Northwest Quarter, Dover Quarter and the New Hampshire American Friends Service Committee are already members of this coalition; the roots of Friends’ witness against the death penalty runs long and deep. Joining this coalition is an opportunity for Friends to unite with others in this commonly held testimony.

Friends approved NEYM joining the New Hampshire Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

60. We held in the Light the work of the Peace & Social Concerns Committee. Steve McKnight (Wellesley) reflected on standing in a Good Friday peace vigil in Boston, where a passerby called out “Peace Vigil, you can stand here all year, there ain’t going to be no peace.” This kind of hopelessness is easy to understand as we see what is happening all around us. God does not call us to be successful, as Mother Teresa reminded us; He calls us to be faithful. Because we have been touched by love we continue to act, for God has no other hands on earth but ours.

61. We held in prayer Earth Care Ministry. Rebecca Mackenzie (Quaker City-Unity) expressed her gratitude for the blessings of this committee and the fruitful joy of collaborating with the work of the YAF Climate Working Group and the Committee on Racial, Social & Economic Justice. Earth Care Ministry is inspired by the environmental stewardship being undertaken by individual Friends and by many of our monthly meetings. The committee is striving to make connections between these many efforts, weaving a web that lets our lives speak.

62. We held the work of the Quaker Youth Education Committee, of the Archives & Historical Records Committee and of the Publications & Communications Committee in prayer and appreciation.

63. We held in prayer the work of the Friends General Conference Committee of NEYM. Its clerk, Penelope Wright (Hanover), described finding in this work many mentors and many challenges that have been a great source of spiritual growth. Now serving on FGC Nominating Committee, she has come to learn about the meaning of eldering and the rich task of calling out gifts.

64. We held the work of the Friends World Committee for Consultation Committee of NEYM in prayer. Mary Hopkins (Fresh Pond) spoke about her work with the FWCC Section of the Americas, beginning her presentation in Spanish. One of the pleasures of this meeting is the increasing bilingualism of this gathering. The most recent meeting of the Section of the Americas often began in Spanish, making the English speakers wait in the “sound” before getting the “sense.” More and more of the leaders, including Young Adult Friends, are now able to lead sessions bilingually, and we can imagine sessions in Quechua and Aymara soon.

Ruben Maydana (Golgotha MM, National Evangelical Friends Church, Bolivia) rose to speak as well, noting that his presence here is part of the fruit of the work of the World Committee. FWCC’s work in Bolivia has done much to overcome the difficulties of communication. He told us the story of his first learning of FWCC just a few years ago, through a pamphlet given to him by a Peruvian Friend — a pamphlet from the 1960s! The obstacles are large, but we are reaching across them. He asks for particular prayers for the work of the Quaker Youth Pilgrimage, which will come for the first time to Peru and Bolivia next summer. He has been very impressed with what he has seen of our work with Young Friends and with the incorporation of young people in the leadership of our community. His presence with us in this gathering is itself a rich harvest and there is more fruit yet to gather.

65. We approved the Unity Agenda: accepted staff reports, accepted board committee and representative reports, approved the nominating committee recommendations and approved the clerks’ authorization to make edits and corrections.

66. Nominating Committee clerk Christopher McCandless (Burlington) reminded us that the work of nominating is that of calling forth gifts, rather than the work of filling slots, and that we need to change our practices and our structures to make this consistently true. The committee shared slides that displayed the membership of all NEYM committees, noting that there are still some blank lines indicating opportunities for service. He explained too that one Young Friend, who is not yet a member of the Religious Society of Friends, has been asked and has agreed to serve on Permanent Board. We will not take any additional nominations before this body, but additional nominations can be approved by Permanent Board at a later date. The final list of committee membership will be published with the minutes.

Friends approved these nominations for this faithful service and held the work of the Nominating Committee in prayer.

67. We heard memorial minutes for Proctor Houghton (Cambridge) and Tim Nicholson (Cambridge).

68. We returned to the consideration of the continuation of Minute 2009-54:

Since Monday evening, Ministry & Counsel has held two listening sessions that have demonstrated both the enormous pain and the love in our community. We recognize that there is insufficient time at these sessions to do the deep work we need to do and not enough information about either the situations in our own meetings or the changes that have occurred in FUM and amongst ourselves. Are we in that place of love and tenderness where we can hold ourselves spiritually accountable for another year as our meetings continue to wrestle with this issue? Ministry & Counsel has agreed to shepherd this process of information-sharing and discernment through the coming year, bringing a report back to Sessions in 2014. Friends approved continuing minute 2009-54 for another year. We acknowledge that we do not know where we will be on this issue by next year and that more time may still be needed before we become clear.

Thursday morning, August 8

69. Friends gathered in worship and heard the epistle from Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends Churches. “We were encouraged to pray as a people captive in a strange land, as a broken people, as a people who will one day be one in the Lord.” Their prayer is that others may know that they are Christians by their love.

70. Friends accepted the memorial minutes that were read during our Sessions.

71. During Bible Half Hours this week, Michael Birkel (Clear Creek MM, Ohio Valley YM & Earlham College) led us to examine the Bible through the eyes of Early Friends. Early Friends found in Scripture the language for the Inner Life. He told the story from Luke of the Ethiopian court official who was riding home from Jerusalem reading Isaiah. Philip asked if he understood what he was reading. The Ethiopian replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” Michael used the writings of early Friends to guide us through the Bible and the reading of the Bible to guide us through the writings of early Friends. On Sunday, Michael unpacked the scriptural references to Revelation and Isaiah in a passage from the Journal of John Woolman. On Monday he took the letter from George Fox that starts, “Sing and rejoice you children of the day and of the light...” which was written to Friends in prison. Michael traced the themes of captivity and release that it references in Zechariah, Exodus, Isaiah, the Song of Songs, Jeremiah, Psalms and other places. On Tuesday he used the writings of Sarah Blackborow to show how reading Scripture can provide a reflection of our inner life. On Wednesday he showed how the garden of Love described in the Song of Songs is a fulfillment of the Garden of Eden, a garden with no weeds, thorns or forbidden fruit. He showed examples of the tantalizing, passionate longing for the One our soul loves. On Thursday he showed how the Song of Songs came alive for early Friends. It appears as the noonday rest the Beloved provided to his flock; it appears in the story of the blind watchmen who knows not where the Beloved is. It provides the metaphor that can support the love, power, intensity and intimacy of the meeting for worship. Love is at the root of peace.

72. We enjoyed hearing reports from Friends who visited the other parts of our larger body this week.

• Childcare: Martha Schwope (Wellesley) described the creative, peaceful and joyous rooms that had been prepared for our children — and packing them up at the close of Sessions.
• Grades K–2: Susan Webb (Wilderness) and Chris Andres (Putney) experienced how the children played cooperative games. Their cooperation extended to recovering toys from the trees. The hand gestures during singing provided aerobic exercise. They had fun.
• Grades 3–4: Deborah Humphries (Hartford): The 3rd and 4th-graders start with the rest of JYM for Bible for 10 minutes. They leave the larger group following their leader in a wizard hat, which Debbie modeled for us. Providing each other accountability and support, they reported to each other about how they slept and ate. There were many echoes of adult practices in their business sessions.
• Grades 5–6: Lynn Cadwallader (Cambridge) showed examples of the art works produced by the group. Later they played parachute games with Kevin Lee. This was her first exposure to the power of Kevin Lee.
• Afternoon Choices: The Yearly Meeting clerks met one afternoon in the tent during afternoon choices. It was a joy to share the space with them.
• Junior High YM: Mary Gilbert (Cambridge) described their Yearly Meeting theme, “Stepping out into the Light.” They were decorating shoes. They had groups that met throughout the week to share queries and open-ended questions. When asked what they would tell friends at home about Sessions one responded, “The people here are less judgmental.”
• Young Friends: Laura Hoskins (Putney) and Kathryn Cranford (Concord). Their meeting was started with a rousing singing of “Vine and Fig Tree.” One Friend was considering a leading to join Permanent Board. They think OAFs (Older Adult Friends) spend too much time on word choices in their minutes and not enough time on the larger issues. They told us that we should have more fun, and love, and spend more time getting to know each other.
• Young Adult Friends: Regina McCarthy (Wellesley) and Carol Letson (Mt. Toby). YAFs responded to a query from Permanent Board about the future of the Student Loan program. They gathered with Friends from Cuba. They heard that Cuban Friends are still talking about the visits of YAFs to Cuba last year. They laughed, danced, sang and shared the Living Water.

73. We heard reports about Sessions. Our Sessions Coordinator, Kathleen Wooten, reported on the attendance at Sessions. We had a total of 616 registrations: 486 adults, 62 of whom were YAFs, 55 Young Friends, 68 children and seven toddlers or babies. We had 75 adults aged 35–50, 94 aged 50–60, 173 aged 60–70, 43 aged 70–80, 19 aged 80–90, and 1 aged 90–100. 

74. Noah Baker Merrill (Putney), Yearly Meeting secretary, reported that last year we ran a deficit at Sessions of $11,000. This year we project a small surplus. We gave more equalization grants this year and we had more Friends contributing to equalization this year. Since the numbers were published in the Advance Documents, we have received general donations of $47,000, $17,000 of this during Sessions. This is the result of great generosity expressed in many donations both small and large. Faith is the turning of dreams into deeds. He expressed gratitude for the service of the outgoing Sessions Committee clerk of the past four years, Jean McCandless (Burlington). Her service has been a work of love.

75. We heard and approved the General Epistle.

76. The presiding clerk expressed appreciation for the work of outgoing reading clerk, Will Jennings-Hess (Beacon Hill). Many other appreciations were expressed from the body about the multitude of Friends whose work made possible the graceful unfolding of our time together. We also expressed our thanks to Bryant University and its staff who have hosted us here for 13 years.

77. We sang together as the children joined us.

78. New England Yearly Meeting minutes our appreciation for the ministry of Kevin Lee (Westport), who was led to create a program of spiritual nurture for the young people of this community and for their families and has carried this leading for 26 years with extraordinary love, with concerted attention to each child and every family and with troves of silliness and joy. We have been so deeply blessed by this ministry and through Kevin’s model and teachings the early Meeting has grown to recognize his leading as our own.

Thank you, “Joseph Kevin Michael Patrick Lee, if you please!”

79. Friends heard the epistles from the children’s, Young Friends and Young Adult Friends yearly meetings that have been meeting here during this week.

80. With no further business before us, we closed with worship, purposing to meet again, God willing, at Castleton College on the 2nd of Eighth month 2014. We concluded our worship in song with the chorus to “Live up to the Light” led by Susan Stark.

Live up to the Light, the Light that thou hast.

Live up to the Truth and remember, my child,

You are never alone, no never.

Oh, live up to the Light that thou hast

And more will be granted thee,

Will be granted thee.

Oh, live up to the Light thou hast.