Karen Tibbals uses her background in market research and Quaker religious studies to help people understand how others–on opposing political sides and with different ethical frameworks–make decisions. This work, like the graphic image above, draws groups with differing opinions into relationship (pink and blue become purple!) Her book can help liberals and conservatives identify the truths they share, and it explains the success of modern societal accomplishments like gay marriage and outlines why guns feel safe to conservatives and scary to liberals. Here we interview her about who she is, and how she came to publish the very helpful books she writes.
Pastoral Care
What Do We Talk About, When We Talk About God? – Personal Reflection on a Workshop
As part of our Runway to Annual Sessions we’ve been featuring more than two dozen workshops, plenary, or wellness events. Shelly Xia is a young professional who works with PYM on organizing membership information in our new database. In addition to being knowledgeable about data and excel sheets, she is passionate about bridging people from different parts of the world to work together on protecting the environment and addressing climate change. She enjoys martial arts, photography, and Argentine tango in her spare time.
Many people come to Quakerism without growing up in the faith. We wondered what it might be like for someone to experience Annual Sessions programming for the first time, so we asked Shelly if she’d be interested in describing her ‘first time’ experience of a PYM workshop for our web readers. [Read more…] about What Do We Talk About, When We Talk About God? – Personal Reflection on a Workshop
Ministry & Care Letter to Our Meetings
Dear Friends,
This is a check-in to see how you and your meeting are doing in these unique times. The physical distancing required by the Covid-19 pandemic has created unexpected opportunities for discerning how to feel connected when physical contact is not possible. Some meetings are also struggling with how to complete their Spiritual State of the Meeting Report given the challenges of Covid-19. We offer some guidance here. [Read more…] about Ministry & Care Letter to Our Meetings
Sustaining Community in Challenging Times – Report from Lehigh Valley
The following report comes from Lehigh Valley Friends Meeting’s recent experience with virtual Meeting for Worship. With thanks to Friend John Marquette, who interviewed Lehigh Valley Worship & Ministry clerk, Mary Lou Hatcher
On March 22, six Friends from Lehigh Valley gathered at their Bethlehem meetinghouse to experience and share worship online.
Many meetings have selected the Zoom system to begin online meetings for worship. Lehigh Valley took an incremental step toward true unprogrammed worship with a live stream using YouTube Live and a notebook computer. [Read more…] about Sustaining Community in Challenging Times – Report from Lehigh Valley
Gathering Together: Support for Families & First Day Programs
Last Sunday, a handful of families in my meeting decided to try online Children’s Meeting (our First Day program for children) and worship together online. It was a last-minute decision to fire up my Zoom account and see how it worked. We posted the information on Facebook and sent out a quick email on the meeting listserv. Two hours later, when we gathered across households, we were joined by a former attender now living in Seattle, and three other PYM families who had seen the Facebook post. We came together across miles and even time zones to share songs, a reading, queries, and waiting worship. [Read more…] about Gathering Together: Support for Families & First Day Programs
Threshing Session on Membership Minutes of Appreciation
The Quaker Life Council approved the following minutes of appreciation as a sincere expression of gratitude to the Friends who facilitated the recent January 26 Threshing Session on Membership and to the monthly meeting that hosted. In addition to continuing a process of discernment about membership that has had many years of seasoning in our wider yearly meeting, this was an opportunity for intervisitation during which Friends from across our yearly meeting community could join a meeting for its worship on Sunday and take part in its community life. Intervisitation is an important part of Quaker tradition because it serves to reinforce the bonds we need in spiritual growth.
[Read more…] about Threshing Session on Membership Minutes of Appreciation
Threshing on Membership Report
View a downloadable/PDF version of the report here.
Introduction
The bulk of this report is made of minutes of exercise taken by PYM Recording Clerk, Jim Herr. The minutes review the proceedings of the day. Following the minutes of exercise, the report contains a transcription of collections of “advice to the yearly meeting” in response to several queries that participants wrote down in small groups. Find in Appendix A the advance documents that were provided ahead of the threshing session.
The Value of State of the Meeting Reports
Find a letter below from the new PYM Ministry & Care Committee of Quaker Life Council. The letter went to our community on Tuesday, January 21, 2020, describing the value of Spiritual State of the Meeting Reports as the capstone to the spiritual self assessment process, and requesting engagement from all of the communities in our yearly meeting.
Friends are invited to submit state of the meeting reports by using an online form or by forwarding written reports to Zachary T. Dutton at zdutton@pym.org.
Dear Friends,
As one of its very first tasks, the new Ministry and Care Committee of Quaker Life Council has turned attention to the Spiritual State of the Meeting Reports. Friends may wonder why. We believe that the annual custom of conducting a spiritual self-assessment deepens and enriches our spiritual community.
These reports support monthly, quarterly and ultimately the yearly meeting in moving toward shared understanding of and greater obedience to Truth. Gifts and needs can be identified and shared through this process, both internally for each meeting and throughout the yearly meeting as a whole. Concerns expressed in the spiritual state of the meeting report can evoke support from and provide guidance to other meetings. With wider awareness of needs, more appropriate allocation of resources becomes possible at all levels.
Crafting a Spiritual State of the Meeting Report is a transformative opportunity for the meeting, and can serve to draw the community together more closely. Meeting members and attenders can profit from sharing their spiritual condition and relationship with the Divine and looking together at experiences that have enriched them throughout the year. Communication of felt needs allows meeting members and attenders to express their yearnings and learnings within the meeting community and to share them with the broader fellowship of the yearly meeting.
Issuing a Spiritual State of the Meeting Report detailing the process a meeting community undertook and the insights that resulted helps the wider Quaker community. When we see what others are celebrating, mourning, and witnessing across our yearly meeting, we can be inspired and moved in our spiritual development. We benefit when we learn we are not alone in our spiritual journey.
We continue to support the process outlined in 2018 by the Quaker Life Council for developing and sharing Spiritual State of the Meeting Reports:
• All monthly meetings are encouraged to craft a Spiritual State of the Meeting Report and forward it to their respective Quarterly Meetings.
• Quarterly Meetings are encouraged to craft their own Spiritual State of the Meeting Report and to forward it along with the reports of their monthly meetings to the Ministry and Care Committee of Quaker Life Council.
• Worship groups and any other communities that are part of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting may also submit a Spiritual State of the Meeting Report, forwarding it directly to the Ministry and Care Committee of Quaker Life Council.
• If desired, monthly and quarterly meetings can use this online form to submit their state of the meeting report, either by responding to the questions, or by inserting or appending your report to the form. Friends can also email their reports directly to the PYM office, or mail hardcopies to: Ministry and Care Committee of Quaker Life Council, c/o Zachary T. Dutton, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1515 Cherry St, Philadelphia, PA 19102.
• The Ministry and Care Committee of Quaker Life Council will read every State of the Meeting Report that it receives and use the reports as a basis for its assessment of the state of the spiritual and religious life of our whole yearly meeting community.
• Based on these communications, The Ministry and Care Committee of Quaker Life Council will submit its own State of the Meeting report to QLC to be presented at the July 2020 Annual Sessions and then shared widely with Friends thereafter.
Friends may desire some direction in developing a Spiritual State of the Meeting Report. It may be helpful to consider the meeting’s journey in worship, religious education, witness in the world, preparation for worship and work, pastoral care, ministry, vocal ministry and also those operational processes which have been supports or stumbling blocks throughout the year. Meeting communities may also refer to the queries in our new Faith & Practice as a guide for conducting a spiritual self-assessment and for writing the state of the meeting report.
The Ministry and Care Committee of QLC is interested in the spiritual life of your meeting. In addition to the elements outlined above, we would be interested to learn of specific issues of concern your meeting has experienced in the past year. How has God led your meeting to face and address conflict and/or misunderstandings when they have arisen? How is your meeting community thinking about the purpose and importance of membership? Has the meeting undertaken any anti-racism work, large or small, that your meeting might be exploring? What are those learnings and yearnings particular to your meeting that you would be willing to share?
The Ministry and Care Committee of QLC plans to review state of the meeting reports in late May 2020; in order that the committee may provide a summary report to QLC in time for their June meeting, please submit your report by May 15, 2020. Meetings who have not responded to this invitation by that date may also receive direct inquiries from the Ministry and Care Committee of QLC in order that the experience of as many meetings as possible can be reflected in the Spiritual State of the Yearly Meeting Report. We acknowledge that every monthly and quarterly meeting has their own way of writing and managing their State of the Meeting Reports, and ask to receive whatever commentary best reflects the current spiritual state of your meeting at this time using the suggestions in this email as guidance where you find them useful.
Jean-Marie Prestwidge Barch, Clerk
on behalf of the PYM Ministry and Care Committee of Quaker Life Council
An Invitation to Center ourselves in Trust and Love
At March Sessions we accepted the name of a consultant to assist us in the work of learning how racism moves among us. We did not achieve unity on the nature of our next step in this learning process but our work was uniquely transformative. Despite our differences, we remained in the room together. We struggled but struggled together. We listened in spite of our anxieties and fears. That shared commitment is the beginning of our shared next step.
“Cohesiveness is the prime requisite for the successful management of conflict. Members must develop a feeling of mutual trust and respect, and must come to value the group as an important means to meeting their personal needs.” … “A member who realizes that others accept and are trying to understand him or her finds it is less necessary to hold rigidly to their personal beliefs.” — Yalom
The author of this well-known text on group psychotherapy is speaking of the human need to trust and respect others as a requisite to successful meaningful communication. We must foster love and respect in our community to overcome the barriers of thoughts, anger, guilt, and shame. Only then, can we see clearly “what love can do.”
As Friends we are members of a faith community in which we accept on-going Divine revelation as a way to foster our shared spiritual health. We treasure the experience of the Divine among the corporate body. We strive to be gathered in the Spirit. From that place of centeredness we can access the trust and respect needed to experience deep listening and communion. We can begin to address the ills of these chaotic and often contentious times. We can venture into the wider world to help the returning citizen, the newly arrived immigrant, the prison inmate, the less economically blessed, the mentally ill, the physically suffering, and those persecuted for different styles of living and beliefs.
Is our Yearly Meeting centered in a love and trust strong enough to listen and respect a wide range of voices, opinions, and actions? Can we lovingly nurture a broad spectrum of actions to address, even counter the myriad inequities caused by racism?
In the past, Friends worked to combat slavery, the mistreatment of immigrants, the horrors of war, and the plight of social and economic inequality. How are these times demanding similar courageous efforts of us now?
Come to Annual Sessions. Be a part of our efforts to labor faithfully for the shared good of our yearly meeting. Be an agent of peaceful, meaningful change within our yearly meeting and in the wider world. Be Friendly. Be teachable. Be present and together.
With the hope of Peace Within & Among Us,
Christopher A. Lucca,
Presiding Clerk
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting
Workshop at Sessions: “Holding Our Families in the Light”
We are delighted to welcome Windy Cooler to Annual Sessions again this summer to present her workshop, “Holding Our Families in the Light: A Candid Assessment of Quaker Pastoral Care for Families.” Windy’s workshop will be on Friday, July 26 at 3:00pm in the Family Neighborhood Lounge of Hausdoerffer Hall.