Beloved members have moved on to places where good works await them; numerous attenders engaged in the life of the Meeting have applied for recorded membership; newcomers have found welcome at special evening potlucks and a Friendly orientation in our Quakerism 101 course. An experiment in coordinating monthly Business Meetings with our later worship session on First Days has concluded in our seeking fresh ways of encouraging broader participation in governance and planning. Curriculum for our First Day School branches out this year into units on early Quaker history, integrity, the Peace Testimony, diversity, and New Testament. A major winter initiative will have the Meeting sharing responsibility, at a larger church in Charlottesville, for temporary overnight care of homeless people.

As usual, we have had our spring Bird Walk on a Friend's farm east of town, our summer worship shared with campers and staff at Shiloh Quaker Camp, and our simple meal and food collection to counterpoint the seasonal feasting. We continue to hold vigil when the state executes condemned men; host regular meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Charlottesville Center for Peace & Justice; and members direct and support weekend training for a growing number of participants in the Help Increase the Peace Program. We maintain a Quakerly liaison with nearby Tandem Friends School and continue raising scholarship funds. And we now have a degree of oversight for three worship groups in Madison and Louisa counties and at the University of Virginia.

Individual Friends have traveled to Pendle Hill programs; one member had a leading hand in writing the recent AFSC book When the Rain Returns, on prospects for reconciliation in the Holy Land. The settling of Annual Sessions in nearby Harrisonburg encourages more of us to take part in BYM, and the FGC Gathering in Blacksburg in 2005 will engage more of us. While we have minuted our vigorous dissent from FUM's sexually discriminatory practices, we pray for more light and formed part of a FUM-sponsored Chain of Prayer. The visit paid us by a contingent of several dozen Young Friends from New Garden Friends School renewed our awareness that, though a bit isolated from most of the Meetings, we rejoice to be givers as well as receivers of Friendly hospitality.

Birth: Ann and Daniel Duncan have a son, Noah Williams Duncan. They are living in Charlottesville where Ann is completing her masters in theology.

Charlottesville Friends Meeting has labored under the weight of a concern to respond to the Friends United Meeting Board's continuing and increasingly focused discrimination against gays and lesbians in their policies for hiring and for volunteers. We have been troubled especially by lack of truthfulness from staff and the board in the matter of Lamar Matthew's participation in their triennial gathering.

Friends continue to struggle with the best way to express our "disunity" with FUM on this issue. Many wish to withdraw our affiliation. Others are willing to take what is seen as an intermediate step - withholding our money from the that portion of our assessment which goes to FUM. We have willingly paid an assessment to cover affiliation with both FUM and Friends General Conference ever since we were approved years ago as a Monthly Meeting within Baltimore Yearly Meeting. A small group is reluctant to sever our ties to this larger body of Friends on account of our disagreement.

We feel this conflict keenly because we value deeply our common Quaker roots with this branch of the Religious Society of Friends, but we also value deeply the gifts that our gay and lesbian Friends bring to our Meeting.

We devoted a forum discussion hour to this issue, and prayerfully considered it again at length during our most recent Meeting for Business. Despite persistent differences with respect to specific actions, we are able to unite in the following minute, approved 6/6/04:

Charlottesville Friends are deeply hurt by the actions of Friends United Meeting as regards their exclusion of gays and lesbians from positions of leadership as volunteers and employees. We have found that the Light of God exists in all people, and cannot support a policy contrary to our experience.

Births/Adoptions: Corey Bauer, adopted by Ed Wayland & Mary Bauer in 12/2003

Outreach is the watchword among Charlottesville Friends in autumn. Regular members return from their travels or shake off a summer trance; new attenders arrive with the start of the school year. We have sought to make our Meeting more welcoming and accessible, continuing our traditions of potlucks and Friendly Circles that include, among others, a men's group, a monthly book discussion, and a group of Friends exploring practices of spiritual formation. From one evening to the next our Meetinghouse may host any number of activities benefiting the wider community: the rumble of drummers, the Dances of Universal Peace, a substance abuse support group, a string chamber orchestra in rehearsal.

A small worship group resumed its weekly evening meetings at the University of Virginia, student-led and Meeting-assisted. Across town Tandem Friends School continues to thrive. Friends attend mid-day weekly Meeting there, students and teachers from Tandem often worship with us on First Day mornings, and a number of Meeting children are enrolled_a pattern that our growing Tandem Scholarship fund should help sustain in the future.

With a view to wider Friends activities, we took steps this season to reaffirm our commitment to the BYM camping program. We have energetically publicized the availability of scholarships to Meeting families that can use them, and have issued a special call to Friends who may be able to subvene campers' costs by volunteering for a stint at one of the summer camps. With Meeting support several of our members have taken part in various programs at Pendle Hill. Another member has been active with the Middle East concerns of AFSC, and in return we have hosted a discussion with a visiting AFSC representative. Charlottesville Quakers continue to participate in demonstrations and vigils drawing public attention on the Iraq war and occupation, and on Virginia's death penalty.

Two Friends died in late 2003 who had graced and served our Meeting for years: Rosemary Johnson in Tenth Month, and Bruce Chartres in Twelfth Month. In supporting them, their associates and families, during the latter phase of illness and at large memorial services afterwards our Meeting was supporting itself as well.

And, speaking of support: Having paid off our old mortgage last summer, we now anticipate incurring a new one, for extensive renovation of parts of our Meetinghouse that good luck (to invoke no higher Sponsor) has upheld well past reasonable expectation. Thorough sifting of options on the part of our Building Committee has produced a plan for Friends' approval this winter, with construction to occur probably during 2005.

Spiritual State of the Meeting Report - 2003

2003 was, in general, a good year for Charlottesville Friends Meeting. We were blessed with growth in attendance at our First Day worship sessions, and in the way worshipping together centered our personal spiritual lives. Many Friends felt a deep connection to our small community. We even began contemplating a major renovation of our meetinghouse. In the midst of all this, we welcome the opportunity to examine more closely our spiritual state. As we do, as we hear the word "community" again and again, we find ourselves asking, "What is the connection between spiritual life and community?"

If by community we mean support and love for one another, then in this area Charlottesville Friends Meeting abounds in strength. Members respond to issues as diverse as "can I have a ride home" to "I am going through a difficult time and would appreciate your holding me in the Light." We worked hard to make the BYM camping program a financially available option for all the Meeting's children. During 2003 we lost two cherished members of our meeting, and the strength of community was palpable as we worked together to strengthen those members and their families during their last days. Meeting members expressed gratitude for the ability to give back, and also expressed their deep appreciation at witnessing others give what they themselves could not. It is our faith that enables us to give support; it is our faith as well that allows us to trust that others will give. Our community, grounded in nurture and support, is strong.

If community means our neighborhood and civic life, Charlottesville Friends Meeting has been active this year. Certain social and political issues, prominently focused by the convictions of individual Friends, put Quakers in the local news now and then. Our Meeting sponsored a dialogue on the Middle East peace process, and was active in death penalty vigils. When US troops went into Iraq, several of us were arrested for civil disobedience at the local office of our Congressman. Friends were active too in quieter ways: Participating in community-wide talks on school board issues, traveling to worship in other areas, working to help find the local farmers' market a permanent home. Our work in the public eye has made some in our Meeting proud of our leadership and activism. Other Friends, however, wonder if our corporate activism has put personal urgencies before the leadings of the Spirit. As we grow more active and as our world grows to need a Quakerly moderating, thoughtful presence, we need to remain conscious that our social activism arises from our spirituality and not merely our personal convictions.

If community is a sense of gathering, perhaps "fellowship" names the connection between such community and our spiritual life. It is in our fellowship that Charlottesville Friends Meeting is feeling some challenges. Although committee membership was thriving in 2003, the perennial problem of staffing our Religious Education Committee did not disappear, and for a time the Meeting seriously contemplated halting the First Day School program. Concern over relative lack of attendance at Meeting for Business reached a point at which the Ministry and Worship Committee was charged with attracting more participants. Why, at a time of increased attendance at Meeting for Worship, are we having such trouble getting people to take part in corporate decision-making? Are we growing so fast that we can't find the time to familiarize newcomers with Quaker process? The Finance Committee, noting that fewer families were donating financially, issued a Business Meeting-supported plea for donations. This Meeting needs the active, ongoing support of people who find it an important part of their lives. How can we encourage more of this support?

As members of a Quaker community, we hold that answers to these questions ultimately come, not from expedient decision-making, but from our attentiveness to the leadings of the Spirit. We seek the truth, regardless of the time it may take to arrive at that truth. As members of an increasingly pressured society, we must also struggle daily with finding time for all that is asked of us. A challenge for us is to make sure that the premium we place on everyday efficiency is not distorting our decisions at Charlottesville Friends Meeting by co-opting the way we make them. We need to remind ourselves that Quaker process is not only a precious practical instrument but also an invaluable spiritual exercise in itself. Ultimately, the community that is Charlottesville Friends Meeting is an ongoing expression of the will of God as we discern and try to enact it, and it is this community that we hold at the center of our spiritual lives.