1
August 2004
To Friends
everywhere:
Baltimore Yearly
Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends gathered at James
Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia from 26 Seventh month
to 1 Eighth Month, 2004, for our 333rd Annual Sessions.
Friends found ourselves challenged by the theme for this
Annual Session, “Inclusive or Exclusive?
Meeting God in Everyone.”
Spirit-led ministry throughout our sessions reminded us
of the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, whose message
of radical inclusion led him to minister among the poor, the outcast,
and the voiceless of his time.
We asked ourselves how have we excluded others in our past,
and what must we do to remedy the injustices we see today in our
world.
Our retreat
opened us to experience the healing power of touch and prayer
and helped Friends to be open to the leadings of Spirit during
our business sessions. We
felt the truth and power in the message we heard in Britain Yearly
Meeting’s Epistle (2004), that “prayer is love in action and therefore
profoundly subversive….”
Traveling minister
Vanessa Julye and Donna McDaniel blessed our gathering by sharing
with us historical research they have undertaken, supported by
Friends General Conference, on the relationship of African-Americans
with and in the Religious Society of Friends from 1688 through
the present day. The
sources they presented described Friends’ lengthy practice of
slave-holding, fears of inter-racial marriage and denial to African-Americans
of membership in the Society and admission to Friends schools.
We learned that despite
our testimony of equality and examples of creative resistance,
Quakers share a legacy of racism similar to the world in which
we live.
Friends labored,
with several threshing sessions, over a concern regarding our
relationship with Friends United Meeting (FUM), to which we belong.
The concern was minuted by several Monthly Meetings, brought
before our Third Month Interim Meeting, seasoned, revisited in
Sixth Month Interim Meeting and then forwarded to the Yearly Meeting
in session. FUM has
a long-standing policy requiring its staff and volunteers to affirm
to being celibate outside of marriage while also defining marriage
as solely between one man and one woman.
Yearly Meeting Friends feel the injustice that this policy
has visited upon us all.
Tony Campolo,
founder and President of the Evangelical Association for the Promotion
of Education, challenged us with humor and biblical passages to
center ourselves in authentic Christian witness, as understood
in the Beatitudes, and to evangelize from this center.
Trayce Peterson, Director of Campus and Quaker Ministries
at Earlham College, brought her pastoral gifts to the Carey Memorial
Lecture, pulling these themes from the week she had spent among
us: passion, leadership
and what it means to be an inclusive community. The
Inward Teacher meets us at the place of our passions; she urged
us to pay attention to that and embrace a “holy boldness.”
Throughout this
session, Friends were aware that this was the final Yearly Meeting
session with Lamar Matthew as clerk.
Several Friends read a minute they had prepared expressing
love and profound appreciation for his six years of service.
They then sang a five-verse tribute to him, to the tune
of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” with all present joining
in the chorus, “Thank thee, kindly Friend Lamar….”
Lamar, in turn, thanked Friends for the opportunity to
serve.
While the business
sessions, workshops and interest groups engaged us, we were mindful
that some one third of those present for the week participated
in Junior Yearly Meeting and the Youth Program – children, teens
and the adults who nurture them.
We showed our love to our children this year by singing
a song to them during a business meeting session – “How could
anyone ever tell you, you are anything less than beautiful?”
Our treasured
camping program reveals to us and nurtures the deep spiritual
well within our children, as does our Youth Program.
We operate “not a ‘camping program,’ but summer religious
education in an outdoor setting.”
Friends expressed gratitude to Josh Riley, Camp Administrative
Director, as he moves on to another calling.
In sharing the secret of the program’s success, Josh reminded
us of the simplicity of being inclusive:
“We love each child for exactly who he or she is.”
In the Light,
Baltimore Yearly
Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
