SOCIETE RELIGIEUSE
DES AMIS, ASSEMBLEE DE SUISSE (QUAKER) RELIGIOSE GESELLSCHAFT DER FREUNDE IN
DER SCHWEIZ (QUAKER)
To all Friends
everywhere
Our Yearly Meeting
2002 opened on a beautiful day in May in our usual location on a mountain
plateau with views of Lake Thun and the high snowy mountains of the Bemese
OhAri,qnrl
Against this
seeming idyll, in a meeting for worship sharing, the gathered Friends spoke
their thoughts on the meaning for each of us of the September 11 attacks last
year in the United States. For many, this had served as an awakening to explore
again our personal and corporate responses to our peace testimony.
Two sessions on
the following day helped us to attempt to formulate practical ideas on how
Quakers can contribute actively to peace efforts in a world where military
violence still exists as a response to violent attacks. A beginning answer was
found by Friends in personal response to threats of violence: live your life as
a testimony to peace and, when the test comes, you will be ready. The bigger
questions, such as, "'what alternative is there to violent conflict?"
still confront us as Friends.
After a report
from the delegate from the Quaker Council for European Affairs, we agreed to
organize a retreat with the theme proposed by QCEA: Spiritual Values and
Citizenship. We feel this also is support for the peace process.
On Sunday we were
challenged in a moving talk by one of our Yearly Meeting clerks, Jackie Leach
Scully, who is a molecular biologist and a bioethicist at Base' University. Her
remarks, based on the Swarthmore Lecture she gave at Britain Yearly Meeting
this year, concerned genetic technology, ethics and spirituality .She told us
that her Quaker convictions are in harmony with her scientific research. For
her, scientific research is a continual unfolding of a closer relationship to
God, involving a diversity in all of nature which builds up into unity. Jackie
emphasized that genetic technology is not good or bad in itself and urged all
Friends to encourage and support its use in positive ways which benefit human
beings in terms of medical care and in reducing poverty worldwide.
An enrichment for
Friends was a talk by Evi Guggenheim, originally Swiss and one of the founders
of the community of Neve Shalom in Israel, where Jewish, Christian, Arab, and
Palestinian Israelis are dedicated to learning to live peacefully together in a
region of intense conflict. We were encouraged to learn of this practical
approach to living in peace, so similar to Friends' beliefs.
The children among
us, symbolizing our hopes for the future, enriched our gathering, which also
included many young adults this year. [t was a joy to observe the youngest
attender, a baby of one year, crawling on the floor during meeting for worship,
and to celebrate the 97th birthday of our oldest founding member, Madeleine
Jequier.
United in the love
that binds us all, we send you our warm greetings
For the Yearly
Meeting,
Nancy Krier,
co-clerk