 May/Summer 2000 (XXXVIII 3) |
Editor's Note: Yearly Meeting Clerk Arlene Kelly of Central Philadelphia Meeting wrote the following essay as followup for the Annual Sessions held March 23-26.
ur recently completed Annual Sessions had much richness and sharing, together with an awareness of how we might do still better next time. Those of you who attended have your own stories to tell. For those who couldn't attend, the very best way to learn what the experience was like is to ask the Friends from your Meeting who were there. They were part of creating what occurred.
There is much that I could share of my own experience, but in this article I want to lift up just one theme for your reflection. That is: What do we envision to be the connection between what occurs in our Annual Sessions and what occurs in our day-to-day lives and deliberations within our Monthly Meetings? Are our Annual Sessions an "event" which we attend, having little expectation that the experience will carry over to our lives within our Monthly Meetings? Or do we see Annual Sessions as part of an organic whole, much like small streams that come together to form a river which ultimately joins yet a larger body of water only to be recycled through evaporation and rain back to the streams?
My bias is strongly in the direction of Annual Sessions being part of an organic whole. So I would like to invite further dialogue on those areas in which Monthly Meeting Friends, in session at Yearly Meeting, found life-giving energy.
Although we had Sessions on discrete topics such as Education, the Peace Testimony, and Celebrating Our Monthly and Quarterly Meetings, I find that my sense of what occurred among us arises more from the threads running through the Sessions. One very dominant thread was concern for our young people. This thread was woven in through our rejoicing in the opportunities for intergenerational worship sharing and hearing from middle school and Young Friends on Saturday evening. It was apparent as we heard of the fruits of the Covenant on Education, which has helped us move beyond focusing on the virtues of public education versus a Friends School education to a place of recognizing that we need to ensure a right education for each young person, regardless of the setting.
The challenge of making our Peace Testimony vital on a day-to-day basis, our concern for our young people and our concern for education were simply and dramatically brought together in one thread by our middle school and Young Friends. They made it clear that living peacefully in a violent world and the climate of our schools, whether public or private, are integrally related for them. It was reassuring, in the reports of Monthly Meeting and Quarterly (regional) activities, to learn how some of our Meetings are under the weight of this concern. How do we learn from those Friends who have already started projects which are working? How do we, as Friends, continue the dialogue with our young people? How do we channel what we learn back into our Yearly Meeting Sessions?
Another dominant thread of our Yearly Meeting was our sense of gratitude for opportunities for deep worship and opportunities for continuing to wrestle with the question: What is it to which we are called as a Yearly Meeting? Clearly, as a people, we long to have that Mystery, on whose name we can't agree, work in our lives and transform us, both individually and corporately. Many Friends at Yearly Meeting rejoiced in our discovery that when we shared experientially, leaving aside the naming, we were able to hear each other in deep and profound ways. For those who are fed by such sharing, what are the ways in which we can continue to create the space and safety for it to continue? How do we, in authentic ways, continue to seek the leading of the Holy Spirit?
Finally, in my list, is the thread which identifies our awareness of where we are not yet. We live in a world in which we witness human suffering and injustices of profound proportions. Yet we did not, with the exception of our Minute on Drug Concerns, find a way as a faith community to give voice to how these injustices are contrary to all that we know to be right and to be life-giving. What is it which contributes to our muteness? If we desire that to be different, what would help make it so?
By the time this issue of the PYM News reaches your home, your Monthly Meeting clerk should have received a mailing which invites you to continue the dialogue on these threads running through our Yearly Meeting Sessions in whatever ways are right for the life of your Meeting. The same packet and invitation will be going to our Middle School Friends, our Young Friends and our Quarterly Meeting Clerks. We hope that you will find greater commitment, understanding and joy in joining with others in your Meeting to explore these issues more deeply and in helping that energy to flow back into Quarterly and Yearly Meeting Sessions when we come together as a larger community of Friends. I do believe that if we are faithful in this search with each other that we will be led to places of greater commitment and understanding.
Arlene Kelly
Central Philadelphia Meeting
Clerk of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting
Last modified: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 08:19 AM