 November/December 2001 (XXXIX 5) |
n February 2001 the parent of a high school Young Friend informed PYM staff that their Young Friend had engaged in consensual sexual activity at recent PYM Young Friends Gatherings. This was a violation of behavioral guidelines that prohibit sexual intimacy at Young Friends Gatherings.
In response, the Young Friends Working Group, with the support of the Religious Education Concerns Group, the Education Standing Committee and General Secretary Thomas Jeavons, decided that we would separate genders in sleeping quarters at the Burlington Meeting House Conference Center. The separation is to continue until Young Friends can demonstrate a commitment to maintain the safety and integrity of everyone at Young Friends Gatherings, and come up with a plan for effective community enforcement of our behavioral guidelines.
Issues of appropriate behavior between men and women had been raised by Young Friends with each other during their December 2000 Gathering, and Young Friends and Friendly Adult Presences have been laboring with this issue ever since. While the overwhelming majority of Young Friends have always accepted and followed our guidelines, we are also clear that we need to recover integrity in our community and in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.
At the Young Friends Gathering held at Camp Onas in August 2001, Young Friends devoted an entire Business Meeting to this topic. The following minute came out of that Business Meeting, and is presented in an effort to share our struggle with our parents, our Meetings, and all interested Friends.
A Minute from Young Friends
Young Friends met in Meeting for Worship with a concern for Business on Wednesday evening, August 22, 2001, at our Camp Onas Summer Gathering. We welcomed Arlene Kelly, Clerk of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, who joined us, along with our valued Friendly Presences and members of the Yearly Meeting’s Religious Education Committee, under whose care we are sponsored, nurtured, supported, and loved.
We engaged in an honest and open dialog about sexuality and our community. We sought divine will to guide us in our search for truth. We recognize that we all share responsibility for the serious violations of our sexual intimacy guidelines which have occurred. We extend forgiveness to those whose actions have brought us to this point, and we hold them in the Light as they struggle with the consequences and their impact.
We wish to focus on the future, to seek agreement where we have it, and honest dialog and active listening in those areas where we still seek clarity, unity, and divine guidance. We are still disappointed with our behavior, but we recognize there is no instantaneous change. We need intimacy: friendly physical intimacy is OK, especially here. We recognize we still have boundary confusion, and this is causing great stress in our community.
The values that make Young Friends sacred to us are Trust, Respect, Community, Safety, and Spirituality. We don’t deny our sexuality, but we are here for spiritual and emotional education and growth. We come here to let our spirits grow. At the same time, we don’t discourage developing friendships and relationships which may blossom into meaningful romantic relationships and continue within and outside Young Friends in the context of our sacred values. Choosing to be single, to not participate in romantic relationships at Gatherings, is also a valid choice that Young Friends honor and value.
We ask ourselves if we are being honest about the shift in our expectations? Are we serious about it? We do not want to build rules we don’t intend to follow. It’s not only about sexual expectations, but they are a part of it.
We discussed the Friends Testimony on Sex and Sexuality from Faith and Practice, which reads in part:
“In our personal lives, Friends seek to acknowledge and nurture sexuality as a gift from God for celebrating human love with joy and intimacy. In defining healthy sexuality, Friends are led in part by their testimonies: that relationships be equal, not exploitive; that sexual behavior be marked by integrity; and that sex be an act of love, not aggression. Sexuality is at once an integral and an intricate part of personality. Our understanding of our own sexuality is an essential aspect of our journey toward wholeness. Learning to incorporate sexuality in our lives responsibly, joyfully, and with integrity should be a lifelong process beginning in childhood. …
“Our faith can help us to examine relationships honestly, with the strength to reconcile the often conflicting demands of the body, heart, and spirit. Even with its respect for individual leadings, Quakerism does not sanction license in sexual behavior. Precisely because our sexuality is so powerful, seeking the divine will becomes all important. The obedience thus called for is more personal, perhaps more difficult than an adherence to an external code. … Sexual activity, whether or not it includes intercourse, is never without consequence.”
Young Friends united with this Testimony, with appreciation for the way in which it speaks to our condition. We feel this speaks to the way in which intense intimacy is sometimes expressed in the context of Gatherings. These encounters lack the integrity of our testimony, and therefore are not in keeping with the expectations we have for our community. We further commend the testimony on Sex Education to those who wish to read further in Faith and Practice on this matter.
Our dear friend George Price reminds us of the Lakota expression “Mi-tak-i-a-sin,” which means “to all my relations.” We are all related. In our Sweat Lodges, and in our community, we seek integrity in all our relationships: within Young Friends, with our parents, and with our Monthly and Yearly Meetings. Within Young Friends, we seek to find integrity on our sexual intimacy boundaries that we will live within and follow. With our parents, we seek to encourage honest and open dialog about these issues and our expectations. With our Monthly and Yearly Meetings, we seek to communicate our struggle and our progress towards integrity, so they will have their faith and trust in us restored.
Approved by Young Friends, Aug. 25, 2001
Clifton Smoot and Mike Ayars
Co-Clerks of Young Friends of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting
Last modified: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 08:18 AM