Philadelphia Yearly Meeting

of the Religious Society of Friends

Epistles

2019 Annual Sessions – Middle School Friends Epistle

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ERICA: Dear Friends Everywhere, We are the Middle School Friends of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.

We gathered at The College of New Jersey in Ewing, New Jersey from July 24th to July 28th, 2019 for Annual Sessions. We grew as a community and expanded our knowledge by learning about the LGBTQIA+ and people of color communities. We learned about microaggressions and how to work as a community by talking about our disagreements and vulnerabilities with Pushed Learning Media.

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2019 Annual Sessions – Young Friends Epistle

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Dear Friends, everywhere,

We the Young Friends of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting gathered together at The College of New Jersey located in Ewing, New Jersey from Wednesday, July 24​the ​, through Sunday, July 28​the ​, focusing on this year’s theme; “How do we center ourselves in trust and love?”

Throughout the week, the Young Friends were able to build a more unified and trusting group through a variety of activities. We started our week with a multi-generational gathering where we were able to connect with Friends on a more spiritual level through storytelling. In this activity, we had community members tell a spiritual story, that all Friends present appreciated. Following this, the Young Friends came together to discuss guidelines for this gathering that promoted a safe and loving environment for all Friends.

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2019 Annual Sessions – Philadelphia Yearly Meetings Final Epistle

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We as Friends are called to work and witness for justice, wholeness, and connection. We feel a hunger to be gathered in the Spirit despite great pain and brokenness within our body and in the wider world.

Worship Sharing: Questions of Race, Inclusion & Diversity July 28, 2019

To Friends everywhere:

Greetings from the 339th Annual Sessions of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, held on the traditional land of the Lenni-Lenape at The College of New Jersey in Ewing, New Jersey, from July 23 to 28, 2019. We recognize Lenni-Lenape peoples past and present and honor ancient and contemporary spiritual connections.

How do we Center ourselves in Trust and Love?​ was the theme as Friends from meetings in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania were joined by Friends from other yearly meetings as well as traveling Friends from Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ireland, and Lebanon. We sought to deepen our spiritual ground, enhance our ability to listen, to be teachable, and to share with each other through our work, play, and worship. This year an Artist in Residence, Eric Anthony Berdis, shared his energetic spirit, warmly inviting friends to contribute their own creativity to a fiber art project, which he will later exhibit.

Our time together began with a retreat led by our Spiritual Formation Collaborative, which helped us to center ourselves in trust and love. On our first evening together, all ages of Friends gathered across generations to experience the Faith & Play story, “Listening for God.” During the waiting worship that followed, we wondered where and how else we listen for and find God in our lives. Vespers each evening created a space for reflection and community after a full day of activity.

Multi-generational worship began each day. During one “All Together Time,” Young Friends led us in an activity that helped us understand and practice Enthusiastic Consent. We were challenged to ask for consent — verbal, emotional, and uncoerced consent — before engaging in physical contact, such as a hug. This lifts up our testimony of equality, and respects the specific movement of Spirit within each individual. Friends received this teaching with deep appreciation, and some noted how the practice modeled a respect that we could bring to bear not just as we offer to hug someone, but also as we consider the challenging nature of our work. Friends recognize that even the youngest among us can lead us towards new knowledge and deep understanding.

This year, the facing bench was draped with a table skirt created through the “One Quilt, One Yearly Meeting” project, stitching together individual patches contributed by our monthly meetings, collaboratives, and Friends schools. Our clerk encouraged us to be vulnerable, to love more deeply, to lean into challenges, and to embrace our stumbling steps forward. Our

clerk repeatedly challenged us to not get stuck seeking perfection, but instead to work with the “good enough” of our broken world and our imperfect Religious Society of Friends. Valerie Brown, our keynote speaker also emphasized the importance of being vulnerable with each other in her interactive program that moved us to share.

Moving forward with business required us to revisit the impact of racism and the resulting trauma in our yearly meeting. We made space in our agenda to focus on concerns that arose during our meetings for business, specifically on racism and the sustainability of the Religious Society of Friends.

White privilege and white supremacy continue to exist within our yearly meeting. Individual hearts are at various points, including some who feel emotionally raw, but how has our organization changed since our called session on racism and the resulting minute of 2015? Several Friends rose in meeting to share the transformative work taking place within their monthly and quarterly meetings, specifically including reparations, food banks, training sessions, and community investment.

Philadelphia Yearly Meeting needs to address trauma inflicted on beloved souls in our Quaker family and to attack the roots of racism inside and outside our religious society. This is the cry of Spirit in our midst. Stories of heartfelt emotion and pain stemming from our history and our current practices moved Friends to share what is weighing on their souls. Friends lifted up prayer for Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, naming concerns that threaten our vision for the future.

Acknowledging the impact of racism has forced some of us to recognize personal presumptions, and the often invisible culture of privilege that is contrary to the leadings of Spirit. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting accepts accountability for the real hurt experienced by Friends of color.

We need to examine our traditions and structures. Young Adult Friends asked us to consider their concerns around the traditional structures of membership. The requirement of monthly meeting membership can be a barrier for those who wish to more fully participate in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and the wider Quaker world. Might we discuss what membership means and how to welcome those who seek fellowship and service within our community?

Our Quaker Life Council united with a minute of concern from Haddonfield Quarterly Meeting: “Haddonfield Quarterly Meeting joins with people of good will everywhere in affirming the way of love. We denounce the normalization of hate and violence in society and within ourselves. We commit to working with others to build trust and understanding in our wider community .”

A Friend and pastor from Bolivia shared with us the dramatic effects of climate change in her country, and the water crisis that has emerged as a result. Bolivian Friends established a

Bilingual Friends Center where Young Friends connect those in need to safe drinking water. She asks Friends to be aware of the effects of climate change in our world, and to support the efforts of Friends and Young Friends in her country and elsewhere.

During their affinity time, Friends of African Descent met for an Mbongi, a Congolese word that means “the learning circle,” to discuss the Friends General Conference Institutional Assessment on Systemic Racism. Friends found unity to encourage Philadelphia Yearly Meeting to engage with the results of that assessment.

All of us live in the heart of God with the help of others. Friends desire to remain teachable as imperfect people. We continue to stumble forward as we seek to hold each other and invite you to hold us in trust and love.

2019 Annual Sessions -Young Adult Friends Epistle on Membership

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To All Friends Everywhere:

Greetings from a gathering of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Young Adult Friends, together on Lenni-Lenape land at Haverford Friends Meeting for our spring retreat, April 26–28, 2019.

Issues surrounding our structures of membership have long weighed on the hearts of young adults—among others—in the PYM community. Among YAFs, it has never been a requirement to hold a formal membership affiliation in order to serve in clerking roles. While we were together, we made time to think through these concerns: to share our stories about membership and belonging, and to be in dialogue with our recently appointed presiding clerk, Chris Lucca. We know this exploration to be one of many, as Britain Yearly Meeting and New York Yearly Meeting have been grappling with similar questions on membership. Just across the road, our recording clerk was part of an intergenerational group at the Haverford Corporation, holding a simultaneous discussion. [Read more…] about 2019 Annual Sessions -Young Adult Friends Epistle on Membership

Epistle from “At the Well” Gathering

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December 7-9, 2018, twenty-four Quaker women and genderqueer people with a call to ministry gathered at Stony Point Center, New York to explore and nurture our different ministries. Among those in attendance [from 6 yearly meetings and 19 monthly meetings] were six Friends from Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, two of whom had been on the planning committee for the gathering. “At the Well” grew out of the experience of the 2016 Quaker Women in Public Ministry gathering. The intention of the 2018 conference was to create a space to gather again with a wider circle of Quakers in public ministry, including Friends of all marginalized genders.

At the Well aspired to witness to the particularity of callings laid upon participants’ hearts by providing a venue for Spirit to knit together a blessed community of connection, support, mentoring, restoration, and passion. From the epistle, linked below: “As have the many generations of Quaker ministers that have come before us, we gathered for renewal. Coming from many places in the U.S. and Mexico, we arrived parched, excited, discouraged, weary, and hopeful.”

The time together was, as one participant described it, “A time of making vital connections, giving and receiving encouragement, looking at hard truths, and remembering that the Power of the Spirit comes through groups better than through individuals.” The At the Well epistle lifts up the words of Margaret Fell, “We are a people that follow after those things that make for peace, love, and unity,” and we challenge ourselves to truly live into embodying the full meaning of these words, rather than using them to maintain the status quo. Even as we lifted up hard truths about challenges to carrying ministry in the Religious Society of Friends, particularly the impact of racial injustice, we ask: what does love look like in times of conflict?

Read more powerful testimony from the gathering:  Epistle of At the Well Gathering, December 2018

2018 Annual Sessions – Final Epistle

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Now the Work of Christmas Begins
by Howard Thurman

When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost,
to heal the broken, to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people,
to make music in the heart.

July 29, 2018

To Friends everywhere:

Greetings from the 338th Annual Sessions of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, held at The College of New Jersey in Ewing, New Jersey, from July 25 to 29, 2018.

Christmas in July greeted Friends who arrived early to attend a 24-hour retreat led by the Spiritual Formation Collaborative. The retreat leaders, holding an open, listening space, offered exercises to deepen spiritual grounding and personal reflection. While four yearly meeting Elders were present, all the retreat participants felt led to step forward as elders for the duration of Annual Sessions, relying on Spirit, and the belief that God could transform us during our time together.

Our theme of “How our Lives Speak” resonated throughout sessions as we practiced breathing, deep listening, grounding, and holding our clerks and each other with care and compassion. We recognized that we will make mistakes, we will say the wrong thing, we may hurt each other and yet we will love and care for each other as members of the beloved community.

We mourned the loss of our beloved clerk, Penny Colgan-Davis, who served with grace, wisdom, and firmness through challenging and sometimes contentious times. In the absence of a clerk, our Alternate and Council clerks stepped up to form a collaborative, cooperative clerking team designing a sessions agenda that balanced reports and minutes with spirit-filled plenaries, grounding exercises, reflection, and body prayers.

Plenaries offered rich examples of the work of Christmas. Sharing her ministry of transformation, Dr. Amanda Kemp focused on the questions, “How do we prepare ourselves to let our lives speak? What kinds of spiritual practices do we engage in so that we stay grounded and maintain our own integrity as we do the hard work of loving the world?” She encouraged us to hold space for transformation by getting grounded, breathing, checking in with ourselves, and setting an intention to allow unconditional love and unconditional acceptance to flow through us. Amanda also offered that the first song in her head each morning provides her spiritual guidance for the whole day.

Members of Ujima Friends Peace Center offered a presentation on the work, witness, and worship of Friends of recent African descent. Ujima serves the North Philadelphia community by offering weekly worship, after-school programs, food giveaways, renters’ rights workshops, and conflict transformation. Ayesha Imani, president of Ujima and member of Germantown Monthly Meeting, defined Ujima as recognizing that the problems of our brothers and sisters are all of our problems. Friends from Ujima celebrated that children in the neighborhood identify them as “the Quakers.” She invited us to look at our own communities and see how we can bring the spirit of Ujima to the places we live.

In an experiment in open space technology, we connected with others who shared our passions. A later plenary led by Walter Hjelt Sullivan helped us examine our covenant relationships and explore the pain in our community when the covenantal relationship is broken. In a listening exercise, the workshop leader encouraged us to find the balance of firmness and gentleness in our connections with each other.

Each afternoon we participated in workshops on a wide range of subjects, led by Friends of all ages. The workshop covered a wide variety of topics including “Emergent Strategy: Creating Community, Unpacking the Knapsack, and Transforming Justice,” “Art and Advocacy: Making Comics for Social Change,” and “How our lives speak as we dialogue with Native and Indigenous Peoples.” On Saturday evening, we celebrated the official printing of our new edition of Faith and Practice. Each day we gathered for multi-generational worship in All Together Time and heard reports on the activities of our young Friends. Our younger members ministered to us by providing soul-searching queries for all members to consider in a worship-sharing format.

We experienced the transforming Power during important business. The clerk of the Multicultural Institutional Audit Steering committee offered a personal reflection on the misunderstandings that have led to profound frustration and delays. The clerk’s reflection offered a new way for the committee to move forward. The Friends present from the committee expressed a sense of disillusionment and disappointment about the overall experience, yet remained dedicated to completing this work. In an afternoon listening session, more than 100 Friends gathered to share perspective on the process, listen to each other, and through the grace of Spirit, transform into a place of trust, hope, and faithful listening. In an evening meeting for business, and with the winds of Spirit still present, Friends affirmed their support for the committee and their ongoing work.

An empty water goblet at the Clerks’ table reminded us that we are ready to be filled with the Living Water, sometimes over and over. A juggling ball represented the transfer of leadership within our clerking team. A hazelnut reminded us of our prayer upon rising each morning and before retiring for the night. Beautiful, natural collections of flowers recalled fond thoughts of our former clerk. Quilts scattered on the floor signified our commitment to comfortable worship space for the littlest legs in our community.

We leave with a deep sense of God’s work in us still present, and a renewed commitment to love, trust, support, encourage, and care for each other. We return to our communities, replenished with a sense of love for our neighbors and an intention to share Spirit with those who were not here with us.

Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in Annual Sessions July 2018

2018 Annual Sessions – Children’s Epistle

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To All Friends Everywhere,

We, the Children of PYM, came together for Annual Sessions at The College of New Jersey, July 25-29, 2018.

We gathered to discuss Earthcare, one way we can let our lives speak. Resident artist Anna DeCaria hosted a sustainable weaving workshop. We used recycled fabric to make pom poms and bags. We had a meeting for business where we discerned and we’re in unity to plant flowers at the next Children & Families gathering, to compost and recycle more, and to raise money for a nonprofit centering Earthcare by hosting a bake sale. We learned that taking care of the Earth is very important. We urge the community to follow our lead and love the Earth by planting seeds, helping people, and sharing the joy!

We urge adults to ask the children because we know how to take care of the Earth.

2018 Annual Sessions – Young Friends Epistle

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Dear Friends Everywhere,

The Young Friends program of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (PYM) gathered at The College of New Jersey in Ewing, New Jersey, for the days of July 25, 2018 through July 29, 2018. Our community welcomed Friends, both old and new as well as the new incoming Young Friends Facilitator, Lori Sinitzky.

The gathering program began with light-hearted introductions, part of ensuring that there were a variety of different opportunities throughout the gathering for self-care and fun. We enjoyed spending time Thursday evening playing games with the rest of the youth programs. The Young Friends  community continued its traditions, including the vigorous physical activity of Wink and the playing of board games while connecting during Late Night. A new addition was a fun personality test. We had the opportunity to cool off with Frank (the unicorn who spouts water out his horn) and a slip-and-slide. Young Friends were also led in a weaving workshop led by Anna Decaria. Numerous Young Friends were  inspired to continue practicing this new skill throughout the gathering, and are grateful for Anna sharing with them.

The Young Friends are also a seriously introspective, spiritual group, and attended many various forms of meditative activities. Apart from regularly attending meeting for worship, we also had daily sessions of worship sharing and had many thoughtful discussions. We also were a part of the multigenerational All Together Time, a time where young and old alike explore spirituality as a single group. Those of us who identify as LGBTQ+ and Allies took part in a unifying time during dinner, to strengthen bonds between those Friends. Some of us finished our evening with a multigenerational vespers, which allowed us to settle in for the night with a state of calm.

Our Nurturing Committee enjoyed providing opportunities for deeper connections and spiritual growth by writing worship sharing questions both for Young Friends and for all of Annual Sessions. Young Friends decided during their business meeting to affirm our work of writing worship sharing questions for Annual Sessions in 2019.

A very controversial issue among the Yearly Meeting and the Young Friends alike was the PYM Staff Voice Policy, which limits the ways PYM staff can share information and opinions related to PYM policies and operations. Led by a call to unify Young Friends, some of us sat in on a discussion with the PYM Personnel committee, in order to give our individual opinions, which were received by the committee.

The “World of Loss” activity was a memorial to victims of gun violence from the Philadelphia area, as well as victims of the Parkland School instances of gun violence. Names, ages, and death dates were written for each victim onto a t-shirt. These were then placed on a stake to represent the victim in a handmade memorial. Those that participated were deeply moved.

Later, the Young Friends conducted their business meeting, where they attended to various pieces of business for the care of their community. They then heard a presentation from the Undoing Racism group about challenges in the broader PYM community regarding anti-racism work. The Friend from this committee shared that a report regarding a multicultural audit process was about to be shared with the adult business meeting. After reading and reflecting with this report, many Young Friends felt that Quaker process had not properly been followed. Some Young Friends felt strongly inclined to share their concern for this report and hustled over to adult Business Meeting. From that group, many Young Friends attended an extended portion of adult Business Sessions on the same topic. After sitting with this information and reflecting both individually and as a community, some Young Friends continued to show an interest in this work and attended the evening adult Business Session to hear the next steps for the Multicultural Audit Committee. They then brought their impressions back to the community for further reflection during worship sharing.

Another important issue that was discussed in the broader PYM body in the presence of Young Friends was the Youth Program Vision and Mission Statement. The Young Friends community shares its gratitude for having our input heard in the Vision and Mission Statements. As Friends entered the plenary space at the outset of the evening business session, Young Friends spontaneously sat at the clerks’ table and held the space during worship.

The Young Friends attended many different workshops. Young Friends had an opportunity to show leadership in the wider community of PYM by facilitating an intergenerational workshop, which was planned collaboratively in advance of the gathering by a group including Young Friends and adults covering a wide range of ages. The workshop topic was “Roots of Injustice, Seeds of Change”. The workshop, which was created by Paula Palmer working with Indigenous North Americans, provided participants with an opportunity to learn about, and to experience, the taking of the land of the Indigenous Peoples by European settlers. Participants took on roles of Indigenous Peoples, and facilitators took on roles of both Native peoples and Europeans. The workshop included a script that summarized 500 years of North American history from the view of Indigenous Peoples, as well as opportunities for group discussion and reflection. Each Friend who attended received a corn seed to symbolize reconnecting with Native Peoples.

Another workshop was a guided discussion in a worshipful setting relating to Liberation Theology and the application of the nativity story to today’s marginalized peoples. Young Friends opened with a discussion of our understanding of the nativity story. Many Young Friends created stories, artwork and poetry expressing their application of the nativity story to today’s world.

We were led in a combination of a Panel and a Workshop, or a “Panel-Shop”, in which three guests- Dana Robinson, Lane Taylor, and Sa’ed Atshan- told us a personal story about their work relating to Earth Quaker Action Team, Fat Acceptance, and education and Quaker involvement in other countries, respectively. The Panel-shop started by each Friend sharing a personal story that explained how they found their true calling. After these three Friends finished sharing individually, the community broke into small groups with our guests to share further about finding our true callings. The Panel-Shop helped us embrace the knowledge that we may find our true calling in life at any age.

After this long gathering, the Young Friends of PYM Young Friends have joined together to laugh, worship and make business. We were grateful to share this gathering with each other and the wider community, and we are looking forward to gathering as a Young Friends community again at Camp Onas in August, and to gathering as part of the entire PYM community again at Continuing Sessions this Fall.

Thank you, PYM.

Respectfully submitted,

– PYM Young Friends Epistle committee on behalf of the Young Friends body

– Committee members: Joe Schiffer, Kaise Coyle, with support from Adult Co-Clerk Robert Rosenthal

2018 Annual Sessions – Young Adult Friends Epistle

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29 July 2018

College of New Jersey, New Jersey, USA

To Friends Everywhere:

This is America: an environment riddled with fear for our entire lives as Young Adults, although we strive for and center justice and peace in this spiritual space. The search for justice and peace will always be ongoing, and never fully achieved. They are ideals we must constantly rediscover, redefine, and reinvigorate.

As one voice, Young Adult Friends speak to breathe life in our beloved community. Our entire lives, those our age have been politicized in the name of a War on Terror. We were all raised, to some extent, in a disconnected and violent world. The difference is that many of us were born with privileges that raised us with some shelter. [Read more…] about 2018 Annual Sessions – Young Adult Friends Epistle

2018 Annual Sessions – Middle School Friends Epistle

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Dear Friends Everywhere,

We are the 2018 Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Annual Sessions Middle School Friends (MSF) community. This week, MSF had fun, built a community, and attended various workshops.
We engaged in many enjoyable games and activities.

On Friday we took a trip to the pool. Some of us relaxed in the shade, while others dove off diving boards and slid down slides. The following day, we continued our water fun using a Slip ‘N Slide and a giant blow-up unicorn sprinkler. Later that day, many Friends participated in the talent show, the dance party, and then finished the day by leading vespers for the PYM community.

This year MSF at Annual Sessions had a new sleeping arrangement. We now sleep as a community in the College of New Jersey’s dorm rooms. This helped to strengthen our community and caused us to form new friendships as well as further already existing ones. As a result of our strong friendships, it became easier to open up to each other. This made our Worship sharing groups more meaningful. Not only did we have a growing bond within the MSF community, but we also grew closer with the wider youth programs.

During the course of this week, MSF attended various thought provoking workshops and plenary sessions. We, along with the PYM community, were introduced to Ujima. Ujima is a peace center dedicated to supporting people of African descent to find a black Quakerism that speaks to attendee’s condition. Following the Ujima presentation, we had a workshop led by Anna DeCaria about quilting, collaging, and fabrics. Later that evening, the MSF community came together to share our ideas in a Meeting for Business where we discussed and planned MSF led Vespers.

Throughout this week, the PYM Middle School Friends have gained many friendships and learned many interesting and funny facts about each other. We have all been through the mixing up of schedules, our facilitator standing up for the MSFers, and rushing out from lunch. We had so much fun this week going on the slip ‘ N slide, playing with a giant unicorn sprinkler, swimming at the pool, diving, and sliding into fun.

Even our long business meeting was a little fun. We played a lot of outside games and had many dance, snack, and group game breaks. All in all in this Annual Sessions, the MSFers learned how to work well as a group and ultimately as a community.

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