Worship and Action Gathering of Friends

Oakwood Friends School
August 23-25, 2002

The first yearly-meeting-wide gathering for Worship and Action took place August 23 - 25 at Oakwood Friends School. About 38 persons joined in extended worship and consideration of action for peace. Participants considered: What is the Spirit moving Friends to consider, and how might this gathering clarify this and share it with Friends for further prayer, worship, and implementation in good order.

The gathering began Friday evening with worship. Open worship continued and deepened for almost two hours on Saturday morning. In the afternoon small groups shared ideas for action and reported back. Four groups then considered clustered concerns and reported back on interfaith cooperation, coordinated war tax resistance, Friends peace centers, and conscientious objection concerns of Quaker and other youth.

Saturday evening there was settled appreciation of being together. The gathering commends to others the pattern of gathering in extended worship, sharing in a mix of whole-group and small-group times, returning often to worship, and including worship sharing.

Sunday morning focused on personal experience of the weekend, fasting as spiritual practice and public witness (recommended reading: Paul Bragg, The Miracle of Fasting), and civil disobedience. Ideas included

• a campaign of public check signing for medicines for Iraq as civil disobedience
• non-time-specific worship around What shall we do? is very fruitful and is recommended for all gatherings, committee meetings, etc.
• See the video Iraq Forum: Sanctions and the Politics of Weapons Inspections (30 min.), followed by discussion and prayer.
• Commit to light a candle in prayer at a certain specified time each day. You will know that others are doing likewise and that your prayers are uniting together.

"If we feel frustrated about Quakers' perceived inaction, or worried about whether a specific action is the right one for us, we must remember that the real agenda for action is the one we don't know about--that we need to listen for God." All present expressed a deep sense of gratitude in varying forms for our time together and the depth of worship, discernment, and mutual accompaniment we experienced.

As agreed at Oakwood, an open e-mail discussion group for Quaker Worship and Action is available at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/quakerwanda/.

To provide for further meetings for worship with attention to action for peace in four to eight months, Vicki Cooley and Irma Guthrie agreed to convene a gathering in western New York, and Linda Griggs and Vitalah Simon agreed to convene a gathering in the eastern part of New York Yearly Meeting.

Planning for the gathering at Oakwood was led by Paddy Lane (Butternuts). Contributors to planning, arrangements, facilitation, and writing these notes include Paddy, Vicki Cooley (Central Finger Lakes), Naomi Greenberg (Flushing), Gretchen Haynes (Westbury), John Humphries (Hartford, CT), Florence McNeil (Butternuts), Lois Pan (Poughkeepsie), Jim Peppler (Westbury), Greg Robie (Cornwall), Rachel Ruth (Poughkeepsie), and Karen Horne Staab (Purchase).

Notes from four groups:

1. Worship and Action: Notes from group on Interfaith Cooperation

   There are two distinct timelines for prayerfully considering leadings and action:

   • Short term there is a sense of urgency to counteract the sweep toward invasion of Iraq and to identify clergy who are already convinced. Start with informal contacts to share ideas and concerns.
   • Long term there is a need to build alliances that can respond to present and future challenges.

   The goal is to initiate joint actions such as placing ads, regular vigils, and town meetings. An identified problem is that clergy are ahead of their congregations on Iraq invasion and their jobs may be vulnerable if they get too active.

   Suggested Intermediate Activities

   • Informal meeting with like-minded clergy (ascertained by phone conversations)
   • Videos--show for clergy only to increase information and comfort (Scott Ritter, [weapons inspection; contact Paddy Lane] Silent Weapon [lift embargo; Church World Service 800-297-1516])
   • Informational meetings with other congregations (using above videos, or speakers)
   • Invite to peace vigil (at federal building or congressional office)
   • List of website resources -- FCLN; AFSC; NYYM; others - for clergy, congregation
   • Plough Shares Institute (Presbyterian) has workshop for clergy
   • Small group dialogue on controversial issues [using Friends' rules]
   • Share statements from other religious leaders: e.g. Pax Christi
   • Conscientious objection--sponsor Town Meeting with major speaker, press coverage

   Further concerns:

   • Should we network from the grass roots or go to the top--can do both--grass roots preferred.
   • We need to be sure to include Jewish clergy in our efforts.
   • Find out resources within Meeting such as connections of members to other clergy.
   • If placing Meeting or Interfaith ads, follow up with letters to the editor on the topic.
2. Worship and Action: Notes from group on Coordinated War Tax Resistance

   This group functioned not so much as individuals organizing and prioritizing a brainstormed list of ideas and concerns, but as a self-selected group attempting to process a leading and one's relationships to it. Work that is difficult to bullet!

   The group needed to begin by listing the alternatives to the concept of coordinated war tax resistance:

   • not paying the phone tax
   • writing ones tax check out to a humanitarian government agency
   • paying ones tax less a small symbolic amount
   • using tax avoidance strategies
   • living below the taxable level
   • creative employment arrangements
   Only after these alternatives had been listed and processed a bit, along with listing resources:
   • the Purchase Quarter war tax escrow account
   • the NYYM Amicus Brief
   • the Meeting for Suffering fund
   was the group able to turn its attention to the idea of coordinated war tax resistance.

   The coordinated approach to resisting war taxes is one in which persons find clearness to either directly resist paying war taxes, provide direct support for the physical needs of those who resist and their families, or support the action with communication directed to others through networks. It is a model where each person resisting war taxes is directly supported in that witness by at least 10 persons. In turn, each of these 10 support persons are networked to an additional 10 persons clear to communicate publicly concerning these matters.

   In the proposed model each person resisting war taxes is supported by at least 110 persons committed to direct involvement. If this action is disciplined to wait until a minimum of 7 and an average of 10 persons become clear, and networked as modeled, in each of the 11 Federal Circuit Districts before the coordinated war tax resistance is initiated, then the total number of persons who had found clearness and would be directly involved would be at least 12,210. Waiting on this gathered clarity of action and purpose, to some measure, assures that this idea, and its implementation, are spiritually mature and of God.

    

   SWOT: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Traps Coordinated War Tax Resistance An expression of conscientious objection to paying for war through personal income taxes by networking. (8/28/02)
   Strengths	Weaknesses	Opportunities	Traps
   Objector gets to witness through resisting paying war taxes and with this concept, even more so. Conforms to the advice to consider one's clarity to indirectly support preparations for war through the voluntary payment of war taxes (Advice 14) It promotes community building around the basis of the peace testimony. (Query 13) Conforms to Jesus' advice to be "wary as serpents and harmless as doves." One can sleep at night. It is an action that is positive, proactive and non-violent. Supports diversity relative to leadings and gifts for involvement in war tax resistance. It impacts relationships!	War Tax resistance is "terrifying." Few may follow such an idea. The IRS gets interest on the taxes placed in escrow (though this interest can only be used by the IRS--not the whole of the U.S. government). It impacts relationships!	The need for government can be affirmed and supported. It is a new use of non-hierarchical networked organizations. Purchase Quarterly Meeting's escrow account for war tax resistance can be utilized to place war tax resistor payments legally in escrow pending the U.S. government's recognition of the right of citizens to be free to exercise choice based on religious beliefs. NYYM Fund for Sufferings can be used to compensate resistors through their support network by utilizing tax-exempt donations. The information organized in the NYYM Amicus Brief for Rosa Packard can be used in further legal action and witness. It impacts relationships!	The U.S. government gets its money, regardless--through seizing assets. Attachments to results may cause one to miss the real opportunity: non-violent witness. There may not be enough energy to carry out such networked organizing. It impacts relationships!
   Updated HTML version of SWOT evaluation table currently posted at http://webusers.warwick.net/~u1004853/opento/ID/ID_SWOT.html.

    

3. Worship and Action: Notes from group on Friends Peace Centers

   After reviewing the Every Meeting a Peace Center notebook distributed to monthly meetings by the New York Metropolitan Regional Office (NYMRO) of the AFSC following 9/11, this small group suggested that resources which people could take away with them should supplement the identification of sources in the notebook. They also pointed out that some meetings do not have central meeting places, and offered suggestions such as exploring a presence in the local library, collaborating with other faith groups, and "projecting a peace presence," through consistent vigils, supermarket presence, or whatever Friends find works for them and their communities.

4. Worship and Action: Notes from group on Quaker and Other Concerned Youth and Conscientious Objector Counseling

   The Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors has information and American Friends Service Committee have draft packets that are resources and offer good information for conscientious objectors. The following are suggested outreach activities: run ads in college papers, prayer vigils, weekly potlucks, and network with the Circle of Young Friends (for contacts).

   Next Steps:

   1. Campus speaking in the high schools and colleges
      • A Voices in the Wilderness fast participant (and Worship and Action gathering attendee) wants to be a campus speaker now when schools are opening, or in November when he returns from Iraq. All he needs is an appointment and transportation.
      • AFSC has youth group organizers; if we find out where military campus recruiting is planned we can hook up AFSC with those campuses.
   2. Young Friends most emphatically want a Powell House weekend
      • in preparation, some young friends from various meetings should plan to attend Summit Monthly Meeting workshop on conscientious objector counseling, October 26, 2002.
      • AVP or other nonviolence workshops should be part of the Powell House weekend
      • pins or stickers designed by participants at workshop should be manufactured
   3. For future outreach
      • young celebrities against escalation of hostilities as speakers
      • Vietnam veterans against the war as speakers
      • Black Hawk Down - an antiwar book
      • Born on the Fourth of July - an antiwar book/movie

      Young Friends still need to decide for themselves how to proceed but they very much want adults as a supportive presence and to give them a sense that we have been down the road where they are going now.