| Baltimore Yearly Meeting | 301/774-7663 |
| of the Religious Society of Friends | 800/962-4766 |
| 17100 Quaker Lane | Fax: 301/774-7087 |
| Sandy Spring, Maryland 20860-1296 | bym@bym-rsf.org |
| | http://www.bym-rsf.org |
Eighth Month 5, 2007
And so, sink very low, and become very little,
and know little. For grace is a spiritual,
inward thing and holy seed, sown by God,
springing up in the heart . . . know your
heart more and more plowed up by the Lord
that God seed’s grace may grow up in you
more and more, and you may daily feel your
heart as a garden, more and more enclosed,
watered, dressed and delighted by God.
-- Isaac Penington
Greetings to Friends everywhere:
Baltimore Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of
Friends gathered for its 336th annual session from Seventh
Month 30 to Eighth Month 5, 2007 on the campus
of Frostburg State University in the mountains of western
Maryland, with Nurturing the Seeds of Hope as our
theme. Forty years ago, after 140 years of separation,
we closed our annual sessions for the last time as two
-- Hicksite and Orthodox -- yearly meetings. We met
the following year as one Baltimore Yearly Meeting,
and we have remained so to this day.
In our opening retreat, Virginia Schurman helped us
reflect on nurturing the seeds of the Spirit in our lives:
What kind of soil are we for the seed? How can our soil
become enriched and be made more receptive? What
spiritual gifts has God given us to nurture the seeds in
ourselves and in our meetings?
Our opening plenary speaker, Niyonu Spann, Dean of
Pendle Hill and a long-time worker on diversity issues,
told us that the first diversity issue was believing we are
separate from the Divine. Hope is a yearning transmitted
through the soul that sees through this separation to the
reality of oneness. The idea that sadness kills hope is
false. A resistance to sadness blocks hope, but diving
deep into the sadness liberates us from the resistance.
Then we can enter the deep spiritual place where hope
is found. Niyonu’s message helped us appreciate that
in many ways this year we have been experiencing this
connection between sadness and hope.
Our Young Friends and our Youth Programs Committee
have struggled with an incident involving drugs at a
Young Friends conference in the past year. A breakdown
in communication resulted in misunderstandings, anger
and hurt feelings that also affected the Junior Young
Friends program and others within our yearly meeting.
Friends from these groups and other concerned Friends
met this challenge by listening deeply to one another.
They labored to bring to annual session a clear picture
of the strength and gifts of Young Friends and of what
is needed to support them in their spiritual life. Young
Friends delivered a spirited and plain-spoken message
describing how they moved past their hurt and anger
to engage real concerns and explore revisions to their
practices and guidelines. Our youth inspire us and give
us hope.
Over the past year, our new General Secretary, Riley
Robinson, has interacted with Friends United Meeting
(FUM) in a variety of contexts. As an openly gay man,
he might have wondered how he would be received. His
reports on these meetings have consistently challenged
our assumptions about others in FUM and opened us to
the richness and complexity of the FUM community.
We are grateful for the respect with which he has been
received. Also, we are deeply blessed by his dedication,
hard work, and the depth of his spiritual gifts.
We continue to labor with concerns about our participation
within FUM. For over three years, we have
struggled with the question of supporting FUM financially,
unable to reconcile two contradictory yet deeply
held convictions. First, we are uneasy with providing
financial support to an organization that effectively
discriminates against people in loving, committed, life-
long relationships with someone of the same sex and
against those who support their relationships. Second,
we are uneasy with not providing financial support as a
member of an organization with which we have a long
and loving relationship and which helps address so many
vital needs on our behalf. We continue to seek God’s
will, knowing that God’s truth is always available to us
when we open our hearts to see it.
Independent of these concerns, two of our representatives
to FUM’s General Board brought us a
disturbing
report of the dysfunctional state of FUM’s leadership
and finances. These representatives raised serious questions
about our continued participation in FUM, and one
felt compelled to resign from the General Board. Still,
as part of FUM, we recognize our shared responsibility
for this state of affairs. Also, through neglect, we
helped weaken the bonds of community within FUM
over the years.
At this time, we are not clear to break community with
FUM – to some of us it would be to break the body of
Christ. As long as we remain part of FUM, we acknowledge
our obligation to help rebuild our beloved FUM
community. Our intervisitation program continues to
grow. It remains focused on listening deeply and rebuilding
relationships. As we try to visit more parts of
FUM, we again extend our heartfelt invitation to others
to visit us. We have appreciated the presence of many
visitors who enriched our session. Even with our deep
sadness concerning FUM, our continued labors give
witness to our hope.
Our time together helped us know one another at a
deeper level through worship, worship/sharing, Junior
Yearly Meeting, Bible study, yoga, workshops, and
interest groups. In particular, we cherished our many
intergenerational activities, including an interactive
Quaker history program and scavenger hunt organized
by Young Adult Friends. For the first time ever as one
Baltimore Yearly Meeting, we took a group photograph
of all present. Our yearly meeting feels like a family,
and our bonds of affection nurture hope among us.
We are a vibrant yearly meeting, and many of our monthly
meetings are growing, as is our camping program, in
its 85th year. Yet, we have had to make severe cuts in
order to balance our budget. We feel certain that greater
financial resources are available within the extended
BYM community, including camp alumni. Our budget
deliberations have reminded us of our obligation to back
up our leadings from God with our worldly treasures,
also a way to practice hope.
In the Carey Memorial Lecture, Joe Volk, Executive
Secretary for Friends Committee on National Legislation
(FCNL), coalesced our theme and encouraged us to see
hope as a verb, resulting from putting faith into action
with risk-taking. When FCNL redefined their collapsing
building as an opportunity rather than as a problem, they
experienced how hope works best when done in community.
By following Quaker process to God’s will, the
building now stands as a green and accessible witness on
Capitol Hill at exactly the time it is needed. Likewise,
Joe challenged us to see our country’s crumbling house
of democracy as an opportunity to practice hope.
Our Peace and Social Concerns Committee led us beyond
words and minutes into a period of deep worship
to consider whether we live in that life and power which
takes away the occasion of all wars. The Committee
charged us to look at what each of us is doing to end the
current occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan and to report
back to them. When situations seem hopeless, one of
the things we can do is worship, and we urge Friends
everywhere to worship around these concerns.
Praying that Friends everywhere may live in the abundance
of God’s hope,
Baltimore Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
