Epistle and Minutes from Called Session on Peace

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To Our Brothers and Sisters Around the World:

Greetings in Love from a called session of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (the Quakers). We bring you good news of a process beginning with us to share the transforming power of God's Love. Peace is possible - it is possible to end all forms of violence. We invite all who read this to gather in worship and prayer to test how God is calling us to live a testimony of peace more fully in the world.

We see how violence tears apart individuals, families, communities, nations, and the world. We acknowledge that our own experience of this is most often from a distance. We humbly seek the leading of the Spirit in a renewed engagement with all our neighbors. We want to move beyond the comfort of our safe meetings and communities to reach out to a suffering world.

If we are to move forward in the way of Peace, we need to move forward in the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. We must choose not to do this by ourselves. We must hear God's call to us to share our ministry beyond our Meeting house walls. We must actively seek also to witness to those who do not share our views. We need to do this because we want to share a vision of the Kingdom of God which we experienced in worship today.

We believe that Peace begins with each of us through personal accountability, responsibility, and witness. But we can not stop there. We must love one another. We must work for justice and nonviolent solutions to conflict.

We rejoice that we are being led to a new commitment to Peace. We know that we have a lot to learn about how to turn conflict into an opportunity for healing. We commit ourselves to the spiritual foundation of our testimony which is the transforming authority of Love. We have been called to reclaim the spiritual roots of our testimony as it was first witnessed by early Friends. Scripture told them and tells us still: Go you into the world to share the good news with all you meet.

To our brothers and sisters across the world in all faith communities, in fact to everyone regardless of your perspectives, we send you these greetings of Love. We invite you to join us in prayer and a discovery of personal and corporate action. We ask your help to find ways to heal the wounds that divide us and to learn together how we might end all forms of violence and coercion.

Signed on behalf of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting

Thomas Swain, Clerk

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Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Called Session on Peace  (November 18, 2006)

Click Here to download the Minutes in PDF (111k)

Minutes - morning - 1st session

Friends of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting settled into worship at the appointed hour at Arch Street Meeting House for a special called session to consider our peace testimony, 11th Month 18th, 2006.

The clerk, Thomas Swain, Middletown Meeting, Concord Quarter, began the session with a reading from Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, chapter 1, verses 4 to 6. Friends on the facing bench introduced themselves. Present were Carol Bernard, Alternate Clerk, Hockessin Meeting, Western Quarter; Kate Busch, Young Friends Youth Clerk, Uwchlan Monthly Meeting, Caln Quarter; Sarah Jochum, Young Friends Recording Clerk, Media Meeting, Chester Quarter; Alice Gitchell, Young Friends Adult Clerk, Atlantic City Area Monthly Meeting, Haddonfield Quarter; and Rich Ailes, Middletown Meeting, Concord Quarter.

Clerk asked for approval for the following Friends to be recording clerks at today’s sessions: Rich Ailes, Middletown Meeting, Concord Quarter; Richard Bernard, Hockessin Meeting, Western Quarter; and Susan White, Princeton Meeting, Burlington Quarter. Friends approved.

Tony Manasseh from Brummana Monthly Meeting in Lebanon introduced himself and was welcomed. Clerk also welcomed young Friends in attendance, announcing that today’s sessions were multi-generational.

The clerk then described the intention of today’s gathering: to allow our relationship with our peace testimony to be influenced by our worshipping together. It is hoped that something new will break forward for us as the result of considering the following queries:

What authority lies behind our peace testimony?
Is love integral to our peace concerns?
How does peace become a personal reality?
How do we testify to the power of peace in our lives?
What is the highest experience of our work in peace that we can achieve?

Friends then settled into worship. In the next hour many messages were given to us, as if those attending were bursting with thoughts and feelings that needed attention. Many of the messages worked with our personal dealings with the peace testimony. One Friend described her Meeting’s Sabbath year that allowed her to encounter Jesus and set aside an unfounded fear that she would have to work beyond her means for peace. Overall we were reminded that personal responsibility, personal contact, personal accountability, and personal transformation are all the beginning of how we are to take peace into the world. There was a sense among us that peace truly does begin with “me”.

However we were also reminded of the “us” component. There are those here today who have been called to be actively supporting a peace agenda. Our personal relationship with the peace testimony must resolve into a corporate response that helps our community “wage peace” in the world. We must look not only to ourselves but to our testimonies for guidance.

The clerk then called for a break as those attending faced the next session needing to balance our personal responses to the peace testimony with our sense of corporate accountability.

Minutes - morning - 2nd session

Clerk asked the meeting to approve Sarah Jochum of Media Friends Meeting and recording clerk for Young Friends as Recording Clerk for this part of the session. Friends approved.

After a brief exercise led by Steve Gulick and a reading and approval of the first session's minutes, Friends settled back into worship to review some of the tensions between our individual and corporate visions. A sense of understanding fell upon us. We in the few hours together have found a sense of peace, and were surprised by a joy that we already have creatively overcome a small part of this seemingly insurmountable challenge.

It was stated that one way to peace is through building community. We are detached, partly because of the complex framework of our society. To change this, ingrained conventional approaches aren’t always the best. We must come together and move outward, away from the gated communities of our Meetings which contradict our expressed desire for peace with justice.

Some felt the overwhelming pressure put on us to create a better world, can feed the violence, driving some to hostility on behalf of achieving peace.

A Friend announced comically that we can improve a sense of community here, by speaking loud and clear with the given equipment: the microphone. She reminded us that a mumble is still a mumble, even when amplified through the microphone.

A Friend from Lebanon, who grew up in a war zone, expressed great hurt in painful memories. War changes people, and widens the gap between what many believe and their actions. It brings out the worst in humanity; people become homeless, there is unforgivable poverty, and social differences expand. Horrific sights were given to us followed by the questioning of teachings and values. With these conditions a grass roots approach to finding justice and prosperity must be acted upon in order to create peaceful living conditions. Our response needs to be bigger than one to one.

A frustrated voice commented on how much money is spent on war; then raised the question, "How would the world be different if that money was used for peace?" The epidemic of war and its repercussions are spreading by the day.

A Friend commented on the need to feel the suffering of the world in order to respond in full to its tragedies, and we are responsible to use our equipment to spread this insight.

It was brought to the Meeting's awareness of the meaning of testimony. Many had not previously considered the word usage, but accepted it. It is not a doctrine or a teaching, because as witnesses we can only testify if we have direct experience. We, as Quakers, have experienced the strenuous effort for peace for hundreds of years. This gives us the power of authenticity in our actions. We do not jump into challenges without discerning if we are truly called; we can then walk unafraid towards our goals.

One Friend told us of his work in Washington DC, lobbying congressional staffers for the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act. They were amazed that someone would believe that a country could do without a standing military. By advocating these rights, he was spreading awareness of our convictions; one to one.

There was mention of our existing peace authorities, Friends Committee on National Legislation and the American Friends Service Committee, which are spreading peace; but this effort alone is not enough.

We must love and pray for our enemies, and recognize that of God in them, even to the point of sharing our concerns deeply with President George W. Bush, ministering to his condition, together searching for truth in this time of violence.

Many voices called out in frustration for us to do something. There was seeking, begging, urging, and praying. Help us change our passionate convictions into actions.

Our conventional wisdom is not effective; it is not in the vision of a progressive future. We are working towards the “Kingdom of God,” God’s dream for our world. The Spirit is an active participant in guiding us to this dream; living through the leadings by using people to be prophets. Like our microphones, picking up more than a mumble.

There was recognition of the need to change from I to we, me to us, and only then may we find that our different paths are illuminated by the same light. Hoping this light will lead us to a path where we would become an activist pacifist community. This is only the beginning of the needed change; we must spread from one to all. This challenge cannot be only spoken; it must be bravely taken up.

Minutes - afternoon - 3rd session

After a period of opening worship the clerk read a letter to the assembled group from Zac Dutton, Wilmington Monthly Meeting, Concord Quarter, who was unable to be present at the day's gathering. The letter reminded us that our outward testimonies and actions begin with love for each other. Zac challenged us to reaffirm all of our testimonies and suggested that we establish a new testimony, the Love Testimony.

The minutes from the later morning session were read. After Friends made suggestions for corrections and additions, the minutes were approved. Clerk thanked Sarah Jochum for filling in as recording clerk on last minutes’ notice.

Clerk then asked that the Epistle Committee present its first draft of an epistle to the assembled group. Dana Kester-McCabe, clerk of the Epistle Committee, gave the first reading, after which Friends made many suggestions for additions and improvements in language and structure. The Epistle Committee was asked to retire to consider the suggestions from the corporate body of the Meeting.

While the Epistle Committee was working on a second draft, the clerk asked that the minutes of the first half of the afternoon session be read. These minutes were read and approved with suggestions for editing and additions.

Clerk then re-read the queries for today’s called session and asked that we continue in prayerful consideration of these queries while waiting for the Epistle Committee to complete its second draft.

Minutes - afternoon - 4th session

Clerk lifted up the faithfulness of the Friends of Centre Meeting, Western Quarter, in bringing forward the minute which asked our Yearly Meeting to have today’s special session on peace. A second part of the minute asked that the clerk of Yearly Meeting appoint a special committee to reconsider our peace testimony, and to create a white paper to suggest meaning and way forward for us to seek peace in today’s world. Friends approved.

Clerk then read again the queries created for today’s session.

What authority lies behind our peace testimony?
Is love integral to our peace concerns?
How does peace become a personal reality?
How do we testify to the power of peace in our lives?
What is the highest expression of our work in peace that we can achieve?

Session then settled into open worship. In preparation for this time, clerk asked Friends to seek broadly in messages to be lifted up. Friends then offered vocal ministry on peace and its meaning among us and in our world today.

 • A Friend from Centre Meeting lifted up his sense that Friends of that Meeting see today’s session as the fulfillment of a dream. In a time of terrible tragedy this past summer, Friends of that Meeting gathered for worship, looking for peace of mind. But they found that this was not enough. One Friend there lifted up a need that Friends must act, and act urgently, to work for peace to be truthful to our faith. Friends of that gathered Meeting joined in that sense, and Centre Meeting next took this discernment to Interim Meeting. From Interim Meeting came today’s session. The image of a pebble thrown into a pond was lifted up, with ripples going out and moving far beyond the original place.

 • Witness to the power of love can come from just one person, as a young man did who recently set up a "free hugs" site in a park, and touched many who passed by.

 • A Friend lifted up that today is an intersection of hopes and fears about peace. In seeking peace, we witness to the love of God even as it came into the world in the Christ child.

 • Peace with justice was raised up by a Friend who is a part of Delaware’s Pacem in Terris. Even from lives of privilege, we can be aware of the violence and tragedy in the lives of many around the world, and can seek ways to help build peace. We struggle to find ways to seek peace.

 • The opportunity to seek forgiveness was shown in the Peace and Reconciliation process after the end of apartheid in South Africa. As a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand, the Friend experienced forgiveness from someone who had been violently anti-American during the war. He sought reconciliation through working with her in a positive way.

 • A Friend offered her sense that Centre Meeting called us together today to reconsider our peace testimony, which had grown stale in today’s world. Her sense is that only by living the peace testimony will it not become stale again in a short time. How can we make peace inside ourselves, to be able to reach out to the world?

 • When we leave today, can we go back and talk to those in our Meetings who did not come today? What is the leading we have today to seek peace in the world. Can those here today dedicate themselves to going back to our Meetings and seek to be the seed that can strengthen and reinvent the meaning of peace among Friends today?

 • Dealing with such great issues in one day is difficult. We talk about peace beginning at home, and peace beginning with me. But do we really seek peace in our own Meetings?
 
 • We talk about love – it is a nice term, but what does it really mean?

 • How can we connect with those people who have different views, and not go forward looking to win over others?

The Epistle Committee then came back to the session, and read the outgoing epistle which they had revised including suggestions and concerns lifted in our session today. Friends warmly approved the epistle as revised.

Minutes of second part of afternoon session were then read, corrected, and approved. Clerk lifted up thanks to all those who'd helped organize today's sessions. After a period of worship, the called session of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting rose at half past four in the afternoon, to meet again in regular session Third Month 23rd 2007, in our Meetinghouse at Fourth and Arch Street, according to Divine will.

Recording Clerks: Rich Ailes, Richard Bernard, Sarah Jochum and Susan White

Alternate Clerk: Carol Bernard                Clerk: Thomas Swain