Sandy Spring

• Spiritual State of Our Meeting - 2007
• Interchange, Summer 2007
• Spiritual State of Our Meeting - 2006
• Interchange, Spring 2007
• Interchange, Summer 2006
• Spiritual State of Our Meeting - 2005
• Interchange, Spring 2006
• Tom Fox
• Spiritual State of Our Meeting - 2004
   
• Interchange, December 2004
• Interchange, May 2004
• Spiritual State of Our Meeting - 2003

The spiritual state of Sandy Spring Monthly Meeting owes much to the many opportunities which result from our size. Each of the four weekly meetings for worship has its own character. On First Day, the 9:30 a.m. meeting is full of deep silence. At 11:00 a.m., the meetinghouse is bustling with children and messages. The meeting in Miller Center at Friends House is rich with seasoned Friends. Our mid-week worship on Fifth Day evenings has offered a faithful few a time of refreshment during the busy week, and serves those seeking help in time of need.

Worshipers sometimes find centering difficult as door latches open and shut and as the time for silence shrinks under the weight of vocal ministry. We listen for the kernel of Truth in the wealth of messages. We remember that every message is not for everyone, and we trust that the Spirit will come to us through expectant waiting for the still, small voice within.

Committees and other small groups abound. Over time, as the number of requests for membership and marriage has grown, we have created new committees to share the duties of the traditional few. A large Religious Education Committee, serving the needs of infants through high school students, is developing new First Day School curricula. Several committees offer our community occasions for joyful fellowship and service. A Community Life Committee plans several annual family events. Advancement and Outreach sponsors Friendly Eights and Seekers Sessions. Membership and Spiritual Care hosts welcoming circles at coffee hour for visitors and newcomers and support is provided to assist those with illness or other crises.

Two more editions of the Prison Journal were published by our Prison Committee, now a standing committee of the Meeting after thirty years of leading regular Quaker worship at the Patuxent Institution. Another new standing committee, Friends in Unity with Nature, sponsors educational forums on environmental sustainability and challenges us to minimize the impact of our activities on the earth’s resources.

In addition to regular Bible study, new programs for adults offer spiritual nurture and growth. Groups have discussed the writings of Wilmer Cooper, Lloyd Lee Wilson, and Brian Drayton. A class discussed the proposed revised Queries, Advices and Voices of the Baltimore Yearly Meeting Faith & Practice Committee. Members of the Peace Committee organized a Women’s Peace Exchange with women coming from Britain, Palestine, and Israel to the Metropolitan Washington area.

Many members are engaged in providing hospitality and caring for the Meeting’s buildings and grounds. Ad-hoc committees have been exploring possibilities for an expansion of facilities in the future. Committees and programs provide opportunities for participation in and connection to the life of the Meeting. In a large meeting serving members and attenders from disparate neighborhoods, these committee activities and programs offer the vital context in which we come to know one another. The fabric of trust and friendship, so essential to a strong meeting for worship, is woven in the work of more than twenty committees as they discern and serve the collective needs and aspirations of our Meeting community.

During 2007 our meeting for worship with a concern for business dealt with on-going difficult issues. Much time and attention was given to the process of deciding how to build and even whether to build additional spaces for First Day School and for small and large gatherings. The Meeting’s response to an abusive and disruptive member was developed through the work of committees and in the meeting for business. But questions remained about how best to support and care for this Friend even as we asked him to stay away from the Meeting property and offered off-site opportunities for worship and fellowship. Throughout the year, we felt uneasy about these two matters and although corporate spiritual discernment in business meeting permitted us to move forward in unity, the sense of unease remains for some. We work at finding a balance for conducting meeting for worship with a concern for business. Some felt our business meetings were too long and the pace was too slow in the past. Some feel the current pace of business meetings moves too quickly.

In this and in other ways, individuals come to our large meeting community with a heightened capacity for critique and a diminished capacity for service. But what is the proper role of the business meeting when a committee reports the results of their careful discernment? Perhaps the soundness of their leading should be tested in the light of our questions and concerns. And yet, we often ask them to retrace every step they took as the Spirit led them to unity, wary of their insight. Seeking to balance questioning and critique, on one hand, and trust in and gratitude for work faithfully done by committees and clerks on the other hand, may be our greatest need in the years ahead.

Many found the listening session and threshing session held in summer to be a welcome opportunity for all voices to be heard on the matter of how best to respond to the abusive and disruptive Friend. The listening was deep and sincere, and our Meeting gained strength from our struggle with an issue that touched us all. Perhaps, in this experience lie the seeds of a renewal of trust and a healing of hurts that have been experienced among us.

At Sandy Spring Monthly Meeting we are seeking to discern what membership means to us. We are called to engage in fresh thinking on this question in terms of our trust for one another and our commitment to the many activities of the Meeting through our participation and financial support. We hope that Friends will come to know that active Quakerism includes a responsibility to take part in meeting for worship with attention to business. Familiarity with our business meeting is important for all members and attenders as well. Meeting for worship with attention to business is a responsibility for all, and many have found that over time, attendance there deepens our collective witness to the movement of the Spirit in our Meeting community.

In January, Sandy Spring Meeting adopted a Minute of Support for The Women’s Peace Exchange meeting in October 2007. The theme of the conference will be “The Impact of War on Women and the Environment.” Guests at the meeting will be two women from Palestine, two women from Israel, and four women from the United Kingdom. To raise funds for Israeli and Palestinian guests’ expenses, Judith Simmons, whose art works have been widely exhibited in the Washington, Baltimore, and New York areas, is donating a sculpture for sale with proceeds going to the Women’s Peace Exchange. Also Sandy Spring Peace Committee held a simple meal (rice and beans) on April 15 at Sandy Spring Community House. Bill Mims, clerk of BYM Peace and Social Concerns Committee, spoke about his trip to the Holy Land with an AFSC group at the time of the olive harvest.

Sandy Spring Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends is a large, vibrant spiritual community. We have a beautiful historic Meeting House and our flourishing First Day school attracts many families. The paradox is that our size is both a blessing and a disadvantage. There are those who feel lost in such a large group. The intimacy and sense of community inherent in smaller meetings is more elusive for us.

Nevertheless, the quality of our worship, in all the different gatherings both large and small, has allowed us to experience an underlying oneness with each other and a deep unity with God. These gatherings range from the relatively small and quiet First Day Meeting for Worship at 9:30 a.m., to the larger and more vocal 11:00 a.m. worship. There is also a Thursday Worship at 7:30 p.m. which provides spiritual sustenance mid-week.

The Seneca Valley Preparative Meeting, which is under our care, holds a First Day Meeting for Worship at 11:30 a.m., followed by a potluck meal.

The two Meetings for Worship that are held in the Miller Center at Friends House have been described as “unique and special.” Perhaps this is due to the wonderful mix of our most seasoned voices with the younger Friends who provide assistance.

The work of our Committees is crucial to the spiritual life of our Meeting.

Committee members labor together on a regular basis, consciously cultivating a sense of fellowship and unity while taking actions that make manifest our Quaker testimonies in the larger community. The Membership and Spiritual Care and the Ministry and Counsel Committees have been particularly involved with challenging issues, and their work has sometimes overlapped.

At a special listening session held after Meeting for Worship, thoughts were shared about the general spiritual state of our Meeting. Words came forth like “caring” and “gracious.” Yet “isolated” and “grown too large to make people feel included” also surfaced.

This has been a year of challenge and growth for us. We have labored with difficult questions regarding the collective life of a large meeting: how can we best discern our needs in relation to facilities; and how does a large suburban meeting build a strong sense of community despite a widely dispersed membership? How can we reach out to those who feel marginalized? How can we ensure that we are providing adequate care and nurture to such a large and diverse group of individuals? How can we improve our ability to offer support to those who are ill, or grieving, and also welcome and integrate new attenders into our community?

Tension is manifest in the difficulty we have experienced moving forward as a community on a proposed building project. Some members are quite clear about the need for new and larger rooms to accommodate First Day school classes, committee meetings, coffee hour, and other activities that occur simultaneously on First Day. Some Friends question the need for a new building, the plans for funding construction, and the Meeting’s commitment to environmental sustainability in the design. As a Meeting we are struggling to find unity when it appears that this process may lead to painful and long-term divisions among our members. We also recognize that our Spirit-led work on this issue can give rise to a stronger and more unified community.

In another on-going challenge, the Meeting continued to focus on ways to respond firmly, but with love and respect, toward a Friend who has exhibited a pattern of angry attacks in Meeting for Worship with a Concern for Business. We have used three different responses in attempting to meet our need for centeredness and trust in our gatherings: a year-long sabbatical for the Friend from speaking at Meetings for Worship with a Concern for Business; sharing messages through an intermediary; and a Clearness/Healing worship group.

From these efforts we have learned that there is a need for a greater sense of connection within the Meeting for those who have felt excluded or marginalized. We also recognize the on-going need for deepening the quality of our vocal ministry and for maintaining a sense of worship throughout Meeting for Worship with a Concern for Business.

At our most clear and hopeful moments, we find ourselves drawn to realize that our Meeting is as close and intimate as the Spirit within us, and filled with every promise and blessing we share together. We are coming to know our Meeting as circles within circles of worship, with sharing and caring that reach far beyond what can be measured.

“ have patience with everything unresolved in your heart… try to love the questions themselves as if they are locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers… Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

– Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet.

Our Meeting continues to attract new members but our rolls actually shrank in 2006 because we removed a large number of inactive individuals, either with their consent or after several attempts to reach them to clarify their desire for continued membership. Still, the Meeting has over 600 members.

Our many committees continue to be very active. Significantly, the ad hoc Prison Committee recently became a standing committee of the Meeting. The Committee on Aging is proceeding with the Oral History Project to interview many elderly Friends on video to capture their memories of earlier days of Friends and the Meeting. Ministry & Council proposed resurrecting the practice of Memorial Minutes, but having no sense of the Meeting continues its research on why the practice was stopped many years ago. The Meeting did approve a recommendation from M&C to continue to withhold contributions to Friends United Meeting because of their discriminatory hiring practices regarding gays and lesbians. Instead, the Meeting will make those contributions to FUM ministries that do not support the hiring practices of the parent organization. Membership & Spiritual Care have begun “Welcoming Circles” after Sunday worship to actively engage visitors and seekers attending worship. The Meeting approved a recommendation from the Ad Hoc Committee on Hurricane Relief to allocate an additional $4,400 in ongoing support to victims of Katrina. Religious Education is still challenged to find enough teachers for the over 100 students and many classes of First Day School.

In hosting Quarterly Meeting in September, over 100 people—our largest turnout in many years— many more heard our own Betsy Meyer speak about the role of the Psalms in everyday life. The major topic for discussion at the Business Meeting was a request from Friends Meeting School (in Ijamsville, MD) to come under the care of the Quarterly Meeting. An exploratory committee was formed to take the request under advisement.

Our two-year-plus quest for facilities that match our current growth and expanse of activities continued. The trustees formed three subcommittees to get us to the next phase: one to recommend a final design to meet the needs, one to recommend a plan for fundraising and financing any new facility, and a third—with strong participation of members of Friends in Unity with Nature— to make sure any new facility or remodeling is as green as we can afford. The Design subcommittee has traveled to many Meetings with new facilities to learn how they got to where they are.

Finally, the Meeting has hosted several retreats and workshops with an upcoming one on Forgiveness on March 30 & 31. Both our wonderful Christmas pageant and annual “Quakers on Ice” also took place in good order. Our clerk returned to us after a month in Kenya on a Ministry of Spiritual Healing.

Our Meeting is strong and deeply rooted in love and over two and a half centuries of promotion of Quaker values. In that time, we have grown tens of thousands of Friends, some just passing through, some members of our community for life, who pass our values in ever widening circles to the secular community around us. Yet nothing is more consistent than change in a large community as ours.

We have been deeply affected and disturbed for over a year by a friend speaking in anger at Meeting for Business. After being asked to be “read out of Meeting” rather than be silent as requested by our Ministry and Counsel Committee, the friend found help from a friend of another Meeting who came, ironically, to our Meeting for Worship one first day seeking healing for himself. Whether we are in the eye of the storm or our troubled friend has found the beginnings of solace is too soon to know.

In February, the Meeting held our first training facil-ity and workshops in pastoral care attended by over 50 members and attenders seeking to improve their skills in reaching out to others. And recently, the Facilities Planning Committee made major recommendations to add and remodel over 8,000 square feet for our community facilities, including the addition of a new library, remodeling our kitchen, adding 5 new classrooms and adding a new large multipurpose room in addition to our historic lyceum.

On September 10th, we look forward to welcoming friends to Chesapeake Quarterly Meeting at our facility. Records from the 1950’s show routine attendance at over 500 friends to such gatherings. In recent years attendance has dwindled to less than several score. Either Quarterly Meeting is a gathering whose time has passed, or it needs new purpose and relevance to today’s friends. Surely the networking can be a most rewarding experience, even in these busy times.

The blessedness of unity, to which our Sandy Spring Monthly Meeting aspires, has been somewhat elusive this year. While the spiritual life of the Meeting is uplifting overall and the community is vibrant, the disquiet in the world and the political direction of this country have been a test to our faith. In our vocal ministry, we sometimes struggle to find the right words to express our concern. We put our trust in the Divine as we seek guidance from the Light within.

Several issues have challenged our unity in Meetings for Worship with a Concern for Business: whether to purchase the adjacent Hodges property; whether to make structural changes to our Community House; and, as in 2004, how to explain our challenges to achieve the ambitious budget goal set for this year. In these Meetings, and in specially planned charrettes (threshing sessions), we have endeavored to labor over these issues in good faith using Quaker process. Corporately, however, we are grappling with what to do when remarks are made in overly strident tones and/or become personal in nature. Yet, what to do if a speaker claims to have been moved by the Spirit'?

To aid in the resolution of difficult issues, our new Clerk has introduced some positive changes leading us back to traditional practices. These include more pauses for prayer and centering; the use of the longer name that reminds us that it is Meeting for Worship with a Concern for Business; encouraging a more inclusive participation (less dominated by a few); publishing the agenda ahead of time; and the option to adjourn the meeting early should the need arise.

One thing we have discovered is that we cannot respond to messages shared in anger. Although Friends have different styles of presentation, every individual should be encouraged to share spiritual insights through Quaker process if called to do so. We live in profound times for transforming negative issues into positive actions-mentally, physically, and spiritually.

A matter on which we did achieve some accord was in our response to Friends United Meeting's discriminatory personnel policies - an issue of personal impact to this Meeting since it affected the job application of one of our members. Agreeing that FUM's personnel policies are unacceptable, we crafted a sense of the Meeting to 1) examine our future financial contributions to FUM and 2) look for increased inter-visitations, with opportunities to discern together. To date, several visitations have occurred and dialogue is ongoing.

• Our First Day Meetings for Worship include two: The 11:00 a.m. worship usually consists of many families, with children for the first 15 minutes. A quieter worship is often characteristic of our 9:30 a.m. Meeting.
• For those who wish for spiritual sustenance and restoration mid-week, we offer a Thursday Worship at 7:30 p.m. Our Wednesday Noon Worship was laid down, due to a lack of participation.
• Additionally, there are two well-attended Meetings for Worship in the nearby Miller Center at Friends House on First Day and Wednesday that are convenient to residents not inclined or able to travel.
• Seneca Valley Preparative Meeting, which is under our care., continues to be a small but committed gathering of Friends, and is always welcoming of visitors

Our committees also play an important role in the worship life of our community. The following are but a few examples of committee activities this year:

• The Peace Committee has awarded peace scholarships to ten local high school students and joined with Friends House to support a weekly vigil in Olney against the War in Iraq.
• The Social Concerns Committee has raised consciousness and money for charitable causes, encouraging us to "let our lives speak as a witness ... for social justice." The two committees jointly administered the Meeting's Fund for Suffering.
• An ad hoc Katrina-Response Committee, formed from members of four committees working with a Friends House Group, has reached out to the nearby Sharp Street Memorial United Methodist Church, with whom we have historical ties. Together we have assisted with the relocation and settlement of a large extended family displaced by the hurricane.
• In another act of outreach, which has been ongoing since September 2001, several of our members have been sharing in dinners and worship exchanges with the Muslim Community Center a few miles away.

• Meanwhile, in response to concerns that our large membership often leaves people unaware of the needs of other members and attenders in distress, the Membership & Spiritual Care committee has taken steps to identify the needs and plans to equip more people for pastoral care.
• The Religious Education Committee has classes for almost every age group, providing for the spiritual enrichment of our youngest members and attenders.
• Also, the Hospitality Committee has faithfully provided refreshments that create the opportunities for us to interact socially and form bonds.
• Finally, Ministry & Counsel has sought to bring harmony to our worship community, working to tenderly elder those members or attenders who have trouble expressing their issues in a prayerful and constructive way. At the same time, the committee takes a supportive role in encouraging and enabling individuals to follow their leadings and develop their inner talents in areas of spiritual enlightenment, teaching and ministry.

  In conclusion, 2005 was a difficult year for our nation, the world and, in many respects, for Sandy Spring Monthly Meeting whose sacred Light cannot be disengaged from outside events. Nevertheless, the core of our spiritual community is strong and intact, and many small but important achievements were made, especially in areas of outreach to other communities. With faith in the Divine, we will humbly strive to listen more deeply, discern rather than disagree, and find the Light within each of us to support a whole and loving community.

  Presented for a second reading and approved on third month, 5, 2006

  

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  Interchange, Spring 2006
  
  

  2005 ended an exciting year for Sandy Spring Monthly Meeting, our 202nd since our founding. The Meeting grew once again by more than 25 new members, swelling to over 600 members and over 700 attenders.

  The year began with the Membership and Spiritual Care Committee forming a subcommittee on Pastoral Care to help assure that, with so many souls to care for in such a large area, the spiritual and physical needs of those in our Meeting community do not fall through the cracks. The new subcommittee actively seeks out those with needs and tries to best match the need with community resources, and has planned our first-ever Pastoral Care Retreat (February 2006) to begin to train members and attenders interested in being part of the Meeting's resources to those in need.

  After four years of false starts, 2005 also began with the formation of a new Facilities Planning Committee to assess the facility needs of the Meeting. Much of the effort so far has focused on our nearly 50 year old Community House, which holds First Day classes for 11 grades, committee meetings and functions and a variety of community and Meeting activities all through the week. Other areas of concern are parking and right-of-way traffic through the Meeting property. After holding three "Charrettes" (group design sessions) for all comers, the Planning Committee is expected to make its recommendations to the Meeting in the spring of 2006.

  Like Meetings elsewhere, many members of the Meeting (in addition to activity by our Social Concerns Committee) responded to Katrina through both volunteer efforts and donations. We reacted in horror and sadness with the kidnapping last year of four members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams, including our own very dear friend, Tom Fox. We joined with churches and mosques everywhere calling for their release. Unfortunately, they and others remain hostage to this horrible war.

  Our many standing committees, including Peace (e.g., supporting objectors to war taxes), Friends in Unity with Nature (encouraging a deeper sanctity for the natural world), Advance and Outreach (a revival of Seeker Sessions!), remain very active in the life of the Meeting and the wider community.

  We continue to be concerned about FUM hiring practices, mourn the passing of many weighty friends (including Mary Lillian Moore, Robert Turner and Roger Farquhar), and rejoice in another remarkable Christmas Pageant playing to a bursting Meetinghouse.

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    Sandy Spring on Tom Fox
  
  

  Christian Peacemaker Teams has asked us all to write and distribute statements supporting the peaceful nature of their work and to free the hostages. This is our minute, December 4, 2005.

  To Friends/friends Everywhere:

  Sandy Spring Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) is very distressed that four members of Christian Peacemaker Teams are being held captive in Iraq. One of these is Tom Fox, a very dear Friend who has been a shining light in our Quaker community, especially in bringing an understanding of peace to our young Friends. We know of Tom Fox's deep commitment to being a peacemaker in all his acts, and know that he is in Iraq to bring this witness, not for any purpose that would be in any way harmful to any other people.

  
  
  

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  SPIRITUAL STATE OF THE MEETING REPORT - 2004

  Throughout the year, many have expressed gratitude for our Meeting's acknowledgement of difficulties and our commitment and willingness to work together through challenges and opportunities in the Light.

  We continue to weigh whether love and unity are being maintained amongst us. Expressing our commitment to peace in these troubled times, we do not always find ourselves peaceful or in harmony. Yet each of us, drawn to Meeting on our own spiritual path, shares a need for each other. And we recognize our need to understand those who see and perceive differently, so we all can learn and be whole.

  Together, we strive to listen more deeply, discern rather than disagree, and see beyond pressing issues and queries to God's will. We have been asked to ponder how to build and nurture a Quaker community without causing some to feel excluded. Given ample reason for humility, we find ourselves grateful for the love and unity we do find in our Meeting, for much in our world, and in ourselves, still ripples our sense of Oneness.

  When we speak in Meeting for Worship, Meeting for Business or beyond, we have need to reflect on any difficulties our individual words cause. Only in this way can we truly remain together in both our brokenness and wholeness, recognizing God's presence over and within us all.

  In such ways, our spiritual state continues to ebb and flow. Both First Day Meetings for Worship draw settled, returning and new worshippers. Wednesday noon and Thursday evening Meetings serve those gathering midweek. Others faithfully meet in the Miller Center at Friends House or attend the Seneca Valley Preparative Meeting. We continue to weigh our leadings, search for ways to encourage and mentor each other, and nurture and support our children. Bible studies, the Course in Miracles, and Friendly Eights are vital to many. An increasing number of Friends come together twice monthly in Spiritual Formation Groups. Listening and seekers' sessions examine the quality of our faith and practices and how with love and trust, we might respond to other Friends' and our own shortcomings while honoring that of God within all who know the Divine differently.

  This year, we grieved the loss and celebrated the lives of many Friends who departed but remain present within our hearts. Many of us express gratitude for a year of shared commitment, caring and communion. Others among us who endure still painful personal losses and challenges are appreciative of the many Friends and resources for healing close at hand. And so we remain together, committed and faithful. We remember that the understandings and transformations that shape us take Divine guidance and time. And we strive to embody within us and our daily lives the changes we see as God's will for the world.

  

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  Interchange, Dec 2004
  
  

  Sandy Spring is in a period of deep Spiritual laboring. Our community is considering the relationships with those in the wider Friends community whose understandings are quite different than ours through the BYM/FUM concern; we are working with each other on how we express ourselves to others, individually and corporately, in worship and in business; we are needing to discern what our witness is in the way we use our resources, manage the property we own, and discern how much property is right for us to hold. This is a rich, but also challenging time. It appears that this reflects as well the seeking and confusion prevalent in the wider world. The wise among us remind us that the key to all of it is to do it with, in and through love.

  
  

  Our former Overseers Committee is now the Membership and Spiritual Care Committee; we are having well-attended (by new and long-time) Seekers Sessions on aspects of our Faith and Practice; our annual book and treasures Sale held by the Young Friends and the Peace Committee in November will raise funds for needs near and far; and the other committees, individuals and our one employee continue to work hard and produce sometimes miraculous results.

  
  
  

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  Interchange, May 2004
  
  

  With the blessing of continued interest and commitment to the Meeting, we have established a Long Range Planning Committee to make recommendations on how to meet the needs of a growing community. The in-creasing needs of Religious Education for the First Day school program, as well as the library are the primary concern at this time.

  The Meeting has to sadly report several losses to our community over the winter.  Deaths:  C. Bradner Brown,  9/2003; Victor Kaufman, 11/17/2003; C Frederick Stabler, 10/01/2003; Robert W. Hicks, 1/14/ 2004;  Sheila Callahan, 2/2004;  Ruth Clarke Wallace, 2/11/2004; Claire H. Walsh, 2/29/2004; Gene Aldous,  2/13/2004;  Christina Van Riper, 3/21/2004;  Celeste Fowler, 3/21/2004;  Caroline Schauffler, 3/27/2004 and Caroline Stabler Elliott, 3/30/2004. 

  Happily, however, we have added to our community through birth these two babies:  Andrej Berrigan S. Klema to Arry Berrigan and Johanna Klema, and Julian Robert Baldwin to Tim and Jenny Stiles Baldwin.

  

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  SPIRITUAL STATE OF THE MEETING REPORT - 2003

  Celebrating 250 years of practicing being a settled meeting, we rejoice in knowing our core values, deep spirituality and callings still resonate. As our lives, community and world change, we find ourselves both blessed and challenged. Our once homogeneous rural Meeting is now large and suburban with members and attenders drawn from many traditions. We continue to welcome seekers and search for ways to bring each of us from a sense of aloneness into Oneness. Seeking guidance from the Light within, we, carry both the joy and weight of this discipline. Through the years, our Meeting has been held by deeply spiritual people who shared their visions of truth and we strive, albeit falteringly, to be sensitive and supportive of our differences. Any splintering or fraction of our Meeting holds a part of the truth, and we seek to honor discernment and understand each other as well as issues. Working to put faith into practice in our Meeting as well as in the world, we find ourselves called to consider a query older than our gathering: "Are love and unity maintained amongst you?"

  The spiritual state of our Meeting and of ourselves ebbs and flows. The eleven o'clock First Day Meeting continues to draw new worshippers and vocal ministries, while steadily endeavoring to be gathered; others among us seek out the nine-thirty Meeting and the few messages that flow from its silence. Wednesday noon and Thursday evening Meetings serve those gathering for prayer and sustenance midweek. Under our care, about 50 worshipers meet in the Miller Center at Friends House and a small unified core collectively tend to the Seneca Valley Preparatory Meeting. We continue to weigh authentic leadings to speak, search for ways to encourage and mentor both new and familiar voices, nurture our children at First Day School, and try to prepare for Meeting early and welcome the late arrival within calm. Bible studies, the Course in Miracles, and Spiritual Formation are vital to many. Monthly round table explorations of new queries lead us to examine the quality of our worship, vocal ministries, faith and practices.

  Some of us are very comfortable with our Meetings for Worship with a Concern for Business. Others, who over the years have tried to participate, come away troubled and hurt. Within the Quaker faith there is a necessary balance between process, procedure and Spirit that can elude us, and we are reminded that procedure misused can exclude and divide. Participating responsibly in Business Meeting can take more preparation and serving on committees more time and patience than it seems we have. Other times, we are so eager to serve and our committees so busy with details long tended that we do not listen for what we are now called to do. This year conflicts have arisen between committees that test our understanding of Quaker process. Sometimes we forget that it should not be the Meeting making these decisions, but Divine guidance. The more we have to do and the more difficult our task, the more we must worship and seek direction. Realizing, as Quakers, the need for each of us to be God's hands and that our Meeting could not function, as we know it, without the faithful service of those tending these duties, we express gratitude and ask all to ponder these concerns in our hearts. We ask, too, that the part of each of us that turns away remembers grace often involves acceptance of human fallibility.

  In a time of confusion and war, stress and conflict test our endurance, faith, and the peace within our souls and Meeting. More significant issues lie before us than solely what our funds, time or human vision might achieve. Aware that we speak not only through our actions, but also through our failure to act, we seek to heed Baltimore Yearly Meeting's Faith and Practice which asks us to "consider openly matters at, issue, seeking a loving resolution of conflict, rather than preserve a semblance of community by ignoring issues." Remembering the decisions that shaped our Meeting House, Meeting and lives took not our, but Gods time, we remain steadfast in our commitment to Quaker process, trusting that, when our process seems to fail us, something more and different yet needs to occur within us, so Way opens. Our practice and faith call us to honor, not our agendas, but God's will.