|
|
Volume 31
Number 5
|
SPARK
15 Rutherford Place
New York, NY 10003
|
November 2000
|
SPARK (ISSN 00240591)
New York Yearly Meeting News
Published five times a year: January,
March, May, September, November
By New York Yearly Meeting,
Religious Society of Friends,
15 Rutherford Place
New York, NY 10003
212-673-5750
office@nyym.org
Editorial Board: Publications Committee
Editor: Helen Garay Toppins
SPARK deadlines are the first of the month preceding the publication month.
Permission is granted
to reprint any article, provided Spark is acknowledged as the source.
New York
Yearly Meeting Staff
Paul Busby
paul@nyym.org
Barbara Heizman
Helen Garay Toppins
|
All Coordinating Committees Meet
Saturday Morning December 2nd
On the weekend of Saturday, December 2, and
Sunday, December 3, the Yearly Meeting will continue with its work at
Representative Meeting at 15th Street Meeting in New York City. It is vital
that Friends attend for both days. All of the sessions are important if we are
to
carry out the work of Yearly Meeting. Attendance at these sessions by named
representatives and all Friends who can attend from our Monthly
and Quarterly/Regional meetings helps us to share and move forward on concerns
from every part of your Yearly Meeting. Therefore, please
be prepared to be with us for the business on both days - December 2 and 3.
Schedule
(Click for large-type printable schedule)
Hospitality & Meals & Childcare: Arrangements for overnight
hospitality, meals and childcare must be made in advance.
Indicate your needs on the registration form and
please register as early as
possible.
You
must
register by November
27th for overnight hospitality, meals, or childcare. Coffee and bagels will be
available Saturday morning.
Agenda
(at press time):
Introduction of the new Oakwood Head of School; Introduction of new Powell
House Youth Directors; Report
from FWCC Triennial July Meeting; Yearly Meeting Cooperation with Migrant Work
in NY State; Sharing Fund Report; Financial Report;
2001 Budget; YM Minutes--an Adjustment
If Meetings have items for the agenda, please
send them to the appropriate coordinating committee clerk: Ministry and Counsel,
Joseph Vlaskamp, General services, Margery Rubin; Nurture, Margallen Fichter;
or Witness, Anita Paul. Regional Meetings may forward business
for Representative Meeting to the Yearly Meeting clerk via the Yearly Meeting
office.
Registration:
Fill out the registration form on page 8. Mail the registration form to Barbara
Heizman, Representative Meeting Host Committee, 15 Rutherford Place, New York,
NY 10003. Please make checks payable to
15th Street Meeting.
Committee Meetings & Display
Space:
Yearly Meeting Committees can meet on Saturday,
3:45-5:30 PM or and/or Sunday at 1:30-3:00 PM. To arrange for a meeting room or
display space contact Paul Busby, NYYM office, 15 Rutherford Place, New York NY
10003;
212-673-5750; e-mail
paul@nyym.org
.
Representative Meeting Announcement/Information Sheet:
Items should also be sent to Paul Busby.
Friday Evening Program--
We will have lots of time for fellowship at our ArtQuake Reception from
6:30-8:30. Quaker artists from the
New York metropolitan area will be displaying their art works and informally
letting us know why they do what they do. Hosts may also want to arrange to
meet their out-of-town guests here at 15th Street.
Handicapped Accessibility--
Most of the locations in the 15th Street Meeting complex are NOT handicapped
accessible. Steps are required
for all meals and all committee meetings. (Sometimes multiple flights of
steps.) However, there is a ramp that allows access to the first floor
level of the meetinghouse.
15th Street Meeting is at the corner of 15th
Street and Rutherford Place. Rutherford is a short street between Second and
Third
Avenues, which runs from 15th to 17th Street in Manhattan. The entrance faces
Stuyvesant Park.
Friends can walk three blocks east from the
subway station at Union Square and 14th Street (Broadway or Lexington Avenue
lines).
Friends may also walk form uptown buses on Third and Fourth Avenues or downtown
buses on Second Avenue. All buses stop at 14th and 17th
Streets. Public transportation is available from rail and out-of-town bus
terminals. Call Metropolitan Transit Authority, NYC Travel Information
Line at 718-330-1234 for public transit directions and/or MetroCard
information. Taxis are also available. Shuttle van service into Manhattan
from Kennedy, LaGuardia, and Newark Airports is available approx every 20-30
minutes. Check with the airport terminal that you will be
arriving at for details. There are parking garages and lots in the area on 15th
and 18th Streets as well as on Third Avenue.
International YMCA
224 E. 47th Street
New York NY
212-308-2899
|
Lutheran International House
123 E. 15th Street
New York NY
212-677-4800
|
American Youth Hostel
891 Amersterdam Avenue
New York NY
212-932-2300
|
Back to contents
The senior choir of Farmington Meeting has
recorded a CD filled with some of their favorite and most requested anthems.
The CD will
be available in the Powell House Bookstore, or may be ordered by writing Marion
Cole, 5950 Allen-Padgham Road, Farmington NY 14425.
The cost is $10 per CD, $8 per cassette tape. Please add $2 shipping per CD and
tape. Checks should be made payable to the Farmington
Friends Senior Choir CD Fund.
Back to contents
Quaker United Nations Office--New York has an
opportunity for two interns at the Quaker UN office from September 2001 through
August 2002. Interns follow disarmament, human rights, economic justice,
development, environment, women and children, indigenous people,
refugees, and regional issues at the UN; research/write articles and briefing
papers; arrange/attend UN and other meetings; assist with
office administration. Candidates must be college graduates or have equivalent
experience, demonstrate interest in international affairs and a
commitment to Friends' principles; and possess good writing/computer skills.
Stipend and medical coverage offered.
For information and application form write:
Quaker UN Office, 777 UN Plaza, New York NY 10017, or by e-mail:
qunony@pipeline.com
,
or check our Web site at
www.quno.org
.
Deadline for submission of application and references is February 9, 2001.
Back to contents
Quaker House of Fayetteville, North Carolina,
seeks a director to counsel military personnel who want a discharge,
information about
their rights, or who are AWOL. Serving the southeastern US, the director works
with a nationwide organization of counselors as part of the GI
Rights Network.
Send letter of intent, resume, name, address and
phone of three references (one of which is to address the applicant's
involvement in
his/her meeting and Friends' activities) to Search Committee, Quaker House, 223
Hill Side Avenue, Fayetteville NC 28301 or
bethguy@acpub.duke.edu
.
Back to contents
I started doing photography when I was very young
and got to use my older sister's Brownie Box camera (it was literally brown and
box-shaped). In high school and my first year of college I majored in art, but
then switched to political science, eventually getting a Master's
in political science with thoughts of going to law school. At the time I was in
school, I was also raising my family and doing quite a bit of
painting. I was using some old cameras that had been in my family to take
pictures of the children, and to help me with my painting. While I was
working for New York Yearly Meeting, Joe Vlaskamp asked me to take some
pictures for
Spark
, and I discovered I really enjoyed doing that. I got
my first modern SLR at the time, went to photography school at night and built
myself a darkroom in our basement. Law school flew out of
my head, and I seemed to go back to my first love, which was art--but with a
different medium, film and chemicals, instead of oils and turpentine.
I eventually opened a small studio in my home,
did portraits and other types of photography part time, when I wasn't at my
"day job."
I finally gave up my "regular" job in order to do photography full
time. I discovered that I most loved using black and white processing, and
still love printing black and white most of all. I rarely do color work unless
I am specifically asked by a client or a newspaper. I am most
involved with doing fine art black and white photography right now. It most
seems to fit the look and feeling that I try to give my photographs. I did
a series on English churches, recently and I tried to give them a mystical,
other-worldly slant. I have a few other projects in mind currently,
but they haven't really jelled yet. I still really enjoy taking portraits and
other kinds of pictures for
Spark
, and look forward to doing it even
when I have heavy Yearly Meeting commitments. It's one good way to get to know
people.
I have also been trying a bit of digital
photography, using a digital camera and enhancing photographs on my computer.
It's fun and I find
it very useful for many things, but the computer generated pictures somehow
don't have the same look, although they can be very
beautiful. Perhaps someday when the technology improves more, I'll like it
better.
When my husband, George, retired and we moved to
Manhattan seven years ago, I gave up my darkroom, but luckily I was steered (by
Ed Druck, a member of Brooklyn Meeting!) to the camera Club of New York, which
is a co-op for photographers. I have been a member there for nearly seven
years, and it is where I am able to continue to do my work at this time.
Margery W. Rubin, Manhasset Meeting
Back to contents
Carolyn Keys, Montclair Monthly Meeting, left on
October 1st for 25 months of service with the Trauma and Healing Center being
formed by Burundi Yearly Meeting. She travels under the auspices of Friends
Peace Teams Project who is sending her with Brad Allen of
Grand Rapids, Michigan as a peace team. The team is under the care and
oversight of FPTP's African Great Lakes Initiative. This summer New
York Yearly Meeting endorsed a letter of travel from Montclair Monthly Meeting
in support of Carolyn Keys.
The Keys Fund of Montclair Monthly meeting has
been receiving funds to provide Carolyn Keys with a computer and printer. The
fund
will continue to receive funds for other special needs while she is in Burundi.
Montclair has formed a clearness committee and a committee
of support for Carolyn Keys.
The Witness Activities Fund, which is supported
by the Sharing Fund, has agreed to pay for the cost of Carolyn Keys internet
connection
for the two years that she is there.
Funding for Carolyn Keys' work in Burundi is
provided by Friends Peace Team Project through its African Great Lakes
Initiative
and continued support is needed. She will be reporting regularly on her work
to Friends Peace Teams Project. Rosa Packard, NYYM
representative to FPTP and Dee Rossman, Montclair Monthly Meeting will keep
NYYM Friends informed through Witness Coordinating Committee.
The international peace team joining The Burundi
Yearly Meeting Trauma and Reconcilliation Project is overseen by the working
group appointed by Friends Peace Team Project Coordinating Committee for its
African Great Lakes Initiative. (AGLI) David Zarembka is
the coordinatior of AGLI. An international consultative committee assists the
AGLI working group and
team.
In September 2000, David Jackman of the Quaker UN
office, who is a member of FPTP's AGLI's working group, arranged meetings
for Carolyn Keys with Burundian officials at the United Nations. A weeklong
preparation for Carolyn Keys and Brad Allen was held in
Maryland in September. The team will join other members of Burundi Yearly
Meeting for six months of
further preparation including language studies
and further education at the Quaker
Peace Center in South Africa.
Rosa Covington Packard,
NYYM Representative to Friends Peace Teams Project Coordinating Committee
Back to contents
In its first face-to face meeting since February
1999, representatives from groups in the GI Rights Network met in Washington
DC, June
16-17. Every organization is experiencing increased phone calls from GIs,
highlighting the need to identify and train new counselors.
(Quaker House is currently training four volunteer counselors in response to
the increased need.)
The increase in total number of calls comes from
a general increase in awareness of the GI Rights 800 number through word of
mouth
and through the GI Rights Web page. The GI Rights Web page (
www.girights.org
) now gets 75,000 visits per month!
Commensurate with the increased number of calls
coming into the network, is the increased costs of the 800 number. We appreciate
your donations to Quaker House, which help pay for our portion of these costs
and also helps pay for our ability to follow up phone calls by
sending out information on discharges, rights, etc. Our counseling continues to
be warmly welcomed by GIs.
Back to contents
Proposed Operating Budget for 2001
The Financial Services Committee recommends a
$400,000 Yearly Meeting operating budget for next year, down 0.3% from this
year.
The proposed budget will reduce the average contribution for a Yearly Meeting
Friend to $112 from this year's $119-and that's despite a decline
in our membership of 34.
The budget will be presented for consideration at
Representative Meeting in December. The full budget, with explanatory notes,
appears
on page 3.
Continuing a format initiated last year-designed
to make the budget easier to read and understand-individual expense categories
are
shown in italics and their subtotals, directly under them, are in boldface
type. Explanations for many of the budget lines are provided in the
accompanying Notes columns.
A copy of the preliminary budget, virtually
unchanged from this proposed budget, was posted for review and comment at
the Inn at Yearly Meeting in Silver Bay.
Spending Plans
The largest dollar portion of the budget-the
General Services section for office operations, salaries, rent and
equipment-shows a
1.3% decline. And that's despite an increase of 15.8% proposed for the Junior
Yearly Meeting. That increase is seen as a blessing, because
it represents the growing number of children attending Yearly Meeting.
Other budget items that need some explanation:
* A budget line of $5,000, unchanged from this
year, is recommended for the Ad Hoc Committee on the Function of the Yearly
Meeting,
the group studying new ways to restructure the Yearly Meeting.
* A reserve of $5,000 for a planned financial
audit-a project that has long been recognized as needed; that sum is in
addition to a
$3,000 reserve budgeted for that purpose last year.
* The budget line for publications
(
Spark
, the
Yearbook
and the
Handbook
) was reduced by 7% to $22,500 as a result of computer
technology efficiencies.
* In the Witness Section, what appears to be
sizable increases for three committees-Barrington Dunbar, Black Concerns and
World
Ministries-is actually an administrative budget adjustment. In preparing the
Yearly Meeting budget for 2000, those committees failed to submit
their financial requests in a timely way. So, to meet their financial needs,
the Witness Section at the time earmarked sufficient funds in a
separate expense and travel line. The Witness Section's overall budget rises
6.8% to $7,050.
* We continue to earmark a reserve of $25,000 to
cover the cost of any unanticipated needs that may arise due to the elimination
last year
of field secretaries. So far this year, only about $5,000 of that sum has been
spent. Ministry & Counsel
provides oversight for that budget line.
Allocation of Costs
The most difficult job of the Financial Services
Committee-and the task that requires the most worship-is determining the
recommended financial contribution of each region of the Yearly Meeting. As you
know, three years ago we abandoned use of the U.S. Labor
Department's regional income indexes as a guide for setting financial
allocations. After some study, we concluded that the indexes failed to
accurately
reflect a region's financial health or the constituent Monthly Meetings'
ability to contribute funds for the upkeep of the Yearly Meeting. As a result,
we turned to a considerably Friendlier process: We asked each region about
their financial condition and reviewed their recent payments, using
that information as a guide for setting the recommended allocations-a process
we informally call loving discernment.
As a result, you'll see in the proposed Regional
Shares that some areas are asked to contribute more than others. We believe
there is
Friendly equality in those differences.
Stanley Zarowin, Clerk
Financial Services Committee
Back to contents
|
GENERAL SERVICES
|
2001 budget
|
2000 budget
|
% Change
|
Notes
|
|
Section expenses
|
|
General expense & travel
|
1,300
|
1,300
|
0.0%
|
|
|
NYYM officers' expenses
|
1,500
|
1,500
|
0.0% |
|
|
Audit reserve
|
5,000
|
5,000
|
0.0%
|
1
|
|
Silver Bay capital fund contribution
|
1,200
|
1,200
|
0.0%
|
2
|
|
Total Section
Expenses
|
9,000
|
9,000
|
0.0%
|
|
|
Committee expenses
|
|
Ad Hoc Committee on Function of NYYM
|
5,000
|
5,000
|
0.0%
|
3
|
|
Junior Yearly Meeting
|
22,000
|
19,000
|
15.8%
|
4
|
|
Publications Committee
|
22,500
|
24,200
|
-7.0%
|
5
|
|
Nominating Committee
|
600
|
600
|
0.0%
|
|
|
Records Committee
|
4,175
|
4,000
|
4.4%
|
6
|
|
Sessions Committee
|
13,000
|
12,915
|
0.7%
|
7
|
|
Total Committee Expenses
|
67,275
|
65,715
|
2.4%
|
|
|
Office operations
|
|
Rent
|
18,300
|
17,425
|
5.0%
|
8
|
|
Administrative expenses
|
10,500
|
10,500
|
0.0%
|
9
|
|
Staff travel
|
6,000
|
6,500
|
-7.7%
|
|
|
Insurance
|
1,500
|
1,500
|
0.0%
|
|
|
Equipment reserve
|
3,000
|
3,000
|
0.0%
|
10
|
|
Total Office Operations Expenses
|
39,300
|
38,925
|
1.0%
|
|
|
Personnel
|
|
Salaries
|
75,000
|
80,000
|
-6.3%
|
|
|
Salary related expenses
|
18,750
|
20,000
|
-6.3%
|
|
|
Staff development
|
2,000
|
2,000
|
0.0%
|
|
|
Hourly staff expenses
|
12,000
|
11,000
|
9.1%
|
11
|
|
Volunteer support
|
1,500
|
2,500
|
-40.0%
|
12
|
|
Bookkeeping services
|
17,000
|
17,000
|
0.0%
|
|
|
Total Personnel Expenses
|
126,250
|
132,500
|
-4.7%
|
|
|
TOTAL GENERAL SERVICES
|
241,825
|
246,140
|
-1.8%
|
|
|
MINISTRY & COUNSEL
|
2001 budget
|
2000 budget
|
% Change
|
Notes
|
|
Epistle Committee
|
50
|
50
|
0.0%
|
|
|
Faith & Practice
|
50
|
50
|
0.0%
|
|
|
Spiritual Nurturance Program
|
800
|
800
|
0.0%
|
|
|
Pastors Conference
|
650
|
650
|
0.0%
|
|
|
Bible study leader at YM
|
1,500
|
1,500
|
0.0%
|
|
|
Section expense & travel
|
2,000
|
2,000
|
0.0%
|
|
|
Rep to Council on Ministerial Advisers
|
25
|
25
|
0.0%
|
|
|
Meeting program assistance
|
500
|
500
|
0.0%
|
|
|
TOTAL MINISTRY & COUNSEL
|
5,575
|
5,575
|
0.0%
|
|
|
NURTURE SECTION
|
2001 budget
|
2000 budget
|
% Change
|
Notes
|
|
Committees' Expenses
|
|
Advancement
|
8,000
|
8,000
|
0.0%
|
|
|
Disability Concerns
|
500
|
500
|
0.0%
|
|
|
FWCC Committee
|
400
|
400
|
0.0%
|
|
|
Religious Education
|
3,050
|
3,000
|
1.7%
|
|
|
Women's Concerns
|
800
|
800
|
0.0%
|
|
|
Young Adult Concerns
|
1,000
|
1,200
|
-16.7%
|
|
|
United Society Friends Women
|
50
|
50
|
0.0%
|
|
|
Total Committees' Expenses
|
13,800
|
13,950
|
-1.1%
|
|
|
YM appointees' expenses
|
|
FGC Committee
|
3,000
|
3,000
|
0.0%
|
13
|
|
FUM — Reps to boards
|
3,000
|
3,000
|
0.0%
|
14
|
|
FUM — Triennial Sessions
|
1,500
|
1,167
|
28.5%
|
|
FWCC — Section Meetings
|
1,800
|
1,800
|
0.0%
|
|
FWCC — Triennial Sessions
|
1,700
|
1,700
|
0.0%
|
|
Youthquake planning/travel
|
1,000
|
1,000
|
0.0%
|
|
Total YM Appointees' Expenses
|
12,000
|
11,667
|
2.9%
|
|
|
Allocations and Donations
|
|
Powell House
|
57,000
|
57,000
|
0.0%
|
|
|
Friends Council on Education
|
100
|
100
|
0.0%
|
|
|
FGC
|
10,000
|
10,000
|
0.0%
|
|
|
FUM
|
10,000
|
10,000
|
0.0%
|
|
|
FUM Third World Board reps
|
300
|
300
|
0.0%
|
|
|
FWCC
|
4,500
|
4,500
|
0.0%
|
|
|
N.J. Council of Churches
|
275
|
275
|
0.0%
|
|
|
N.Y. State Community of Churches
|
500
|
500
|
0.0%
|
|
|
Oakwood School
|
8,000
|
8,000
|
0.0%
|
|
|
YouthQuake
|
150
|
150
|
0.0%
|
|
|
Total Allocation & Donations Exp.
|
90,825
|
0,825
|
0.0%
|
|
|
Section expense & travel
|
1,000
|
1,000
|
0.0%
|
|
|
TOTAL NURTURE
|
117,625
|
117,442
|
0.2%
|
|
|
WITNESS SECTION
|
2001 budget
|
2000 budget
|
% Change
|
Notes
|
|
Yearly Meeting appointee expenses
|
|
FCNL
|
0
|
300
|
-100.0%
|
15
|
|
Friends Peace Teams
|
1,050
|
1,050
|
0.0%
|
|
|
Peace Tax Fund
|
800
|
400
|
100.0%
|
|
|
Total YM Appointee Expenses
|
1,850
|
1,750
|
5.7%
|
|
|
Section expense & travel
|
1,600
|
2,400
|
-33.3%
|
16
|
|
Administration & Travel
|
|
Alternatives to Violence Project
|
0
|
0
|
|
17
|
|
Barrington Dunbar
|
800
|
0
|
|
18
|
|
Black Concerns
|
625
|
0
|
|
|
Indian Affairs
|
0
|
300
|
-100.0%
|
19
|
|
Latin American Concerns
|
600
|
700
|
-14.3%
|
|
|
Peace Concerns
|
625
|
400
|
56.3%
|
|
|
Prisons
|
500
|
800
|
-37.5%
|
|
|
Right Sharing
|
0
|
0
|
|
20
|
|
World Ministries
|
200
|
0
|
|
|
|
Total Appointees Expenses
|
3,350
|
2,200
|
52.3%
|
|
|
Contributions
|
|
William Penn House
|
250
|
250
|
0.0%
|
|
|
Total contributions
|
250
|
250
|
0.0%
|
|
|
TOTAL WITNESS
|
7,050
|
6,600
|
6.8%
|
|
Footnotes
|
1.
|
Reserve for full financial audit
|
|
2.
|
2nd of 4 yearly donations; total of $5,000
|
|
3.
|
Travel and administrative expenses of committee
|
|
4.
|
Represents increase in youth attendance
|
|
5.
|
Printing, postage for
Handbook
,
Spark
,
Yearbook
|
|
6.
|
Partial cost of records stored at Friends Historical Library
|
|
7.
|
For Silver Bay plus two Representative Meetings
|
|
8.
|
15th St. rent
|
|
9.
|
Office supplies
|
|
10.
|
Planning ahead for computers, etc
|
|
11.
|
With smaller staff, we'll need more part-timers
|
|
12.
|
Pays for volunteers' travel, lunches
|
|
13.
|
Covers cost of committee travel; true cost is $11,000
|
|
14.
|
Covers cost of committee members' travel; FUM Triennial will be in Kenya
|
|
15.
|
Funds to come from Section expenses
|
|
16.
|
Includes expenses for death penalty task group and tax witness.
|
|
17.
|
AVP uses own funds
|
|
18.
|
Travel and administrative (T&A) expenses were incorporated in section
T&A budget last year.
|
|
19.
|
Funds to come from Section expenses
|
|
20.
|
Committee is reorganizing
|
|
REGIONAL SHARES FOR 2001
|
|
Regional Meetings
|
Adult members
July 2000
|
Asked for
in 2000
|
Asked for
in 2001
|
Average
share 2001
|
|
All Friends
|
353
|
40,101
|
39,965
|
113
|
|
Butternuts
|
98
|
8,207
|
7,975
|
81
|
|
Farmington-Scipio
|
770
|
69,944
|
69,795
|
91
|
|
Long Island
|
376
|
52,691
|
52,585
|
140
|
|
New York
|
429
|
52,691
|
52,580
|
123
|
|
Nine Partners
|
242
|
29,097
|
28,990
|
120
|
|
Northeastern
|
311
|
24,714
|
24,480
|
79
|
|
Purchase
|
498
|
62,484
|
62,365
|
125
|
|
Shrewsbury & Plainfield
|
271
|
36,371
|
36,265
|
134
|
|
TOTAL
|
3,348
|
376,300
|
375,000
|
112
|
|
CONSOLIDATION
|
|
|
2001 budget
|
2000 budget
|
% Change
|
|
General Services
|
241,825
|
246,140
|
-1.8%
|
|
Ministry & Counsel
|
5,575
|
5,575
|
0.0%
|
|
Nurture
|
117,625
|
117,442
|
0.2%
|
|
Witness
|
7,050
|
6,600
|
6.8%
|
|
Contingency Fund
|
2,925
|
543
|
438.7%
|
|
Transition Reserve
|
25,000
|
25,000
|
0.0%
|
|
TOTAL OPERATING BUDGET
|
400,000
|
401,300
|
-0.3%
|
|
|
|
REVENUE AND SUPPORT
|
|
|
2001 budget
|
2000 budget
|
% Change
|
|
Income from Meetings
|
375,000
|
376,300
|
-0.3%
|
|
Income from other sources
|
10,000
|
10,000
|
0.0%
|
|
Registration fees
|
15,000
|
15,000
|
0.0%
|
|
INCOME TOTAL
|
400,000
|
401,300
|
-0.3%
|
Back to contents
|
The history of Friends as a persecuted movement ought to make us sensitive to
the feelings of those who suffer from prejudice.
|
|
(NYYM
Faith and Practice
,
1998 edition)
|
As the incoming clerk I attended my first
gathering of the Witness Coordinating Committee last June in Montclair. It was
a lovely, summer day, one of the few we would have. I'd left the house early
for the drive from Schenectady, too early to say goodbye to my only grandchild
who had spent the night and would be gone before I returned. I knew that
carpooling with John Bishop would be a time of learning and laughing,
but I wasn't at all convinced I wanted to spend the day inside, far from home.
But I left the meeting awestruck and humbled by
what I experienced.
The Witness Coordinating Committee is a bit like
your local meeting's Peace and Social Concerns Committee writ large; the arm of
Yearly Meeting focused on trying to help meet the needs of those in the world
around us. There are close to twenty committees and task
groups working on the very issues that local meetings also care about, but at a
state and, sometimes, national level. Meetings then have a larger
voice. Rosa Packard's tax witness case presented before the Supreme Court last
spring asking for protection for Quakers' conscientious objection
to defense taxes was clearly Rosa's own long-standing leading, but she also
spoke for all of us.
Carolyn Keys, of Montclair Meeting, left October
1 for Burundi for the next two years with Friends Peace Teams. She has been
selected
to work on reconciliation there. WCC will pay for the cost of a computer link
to the US, and Friends have donated enough to buy the computer
she needs. Elaine Chamberlain makes yearly trips to the hospital in Chiapas,
Mexico, raising money that helps keep the hospital alive, and
that provides scholarships so that young children there can attend school.
Yearly Meeting recently sent the monies collected
to help pay for a vehicle for the Quakers in Honduras still recovering from
Hurricane Mitch.
The Prisons Committee was pleased this year that
the guidelines for prison spiritual advisors have at last been approved, a
document
useful to local meetings interested in prison ministry. Alternatives to
Violence provided over 250 three-day workshops to more than 5,000 prisoners
in New York State. The Peace Concerns Committee has contacted each meeting to
learn what peace activities meetings are undertaking and
what help meetings need. They will be sharing that information with meetings.
Each of these people and groups has had a leading
to undertake their particular work, but all these activities--and the many more
carried
out by WCC--also reflect concerns at the local meeting level; and each person
and group spends their energy and time not for themselves, but
on behalf of each of us, enabling us to extend our compassionate reach to more
people in need.
I reached home that day very grateful that so
many members of Yearly Meeting willingly set aside days, weeks, and even months
for
service to others, representing me, and all of you.
Anita Paul, Clerk
Back to contents
|
For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, fear not I
will help thee.
|
|
Isaiah 41:13
|
The Barrington Dunbar Fund gives thanks to the
Creator and its benefactors for keeping it afloat over these many years. We
continue to
forge ahead with God's help, ready and committed to face the challenges of the
new millennium.
The committee's main focus continues to be on the
academic and social development of African Americans and Hispanics throughout
the
tri-state area. This dynamic outreach program has spread its wings to various
communities and has enabled us to witness to a wide cross-section
of people who have the ability to achieve high educational and social
standards, but are financially and socially strapped in a community that
does not delight in uplifting its poor and needy. Having witnessed how the poor
and underprivileged members of our community have to struggle
to attain their educational goals and dreams, the committee agreed to award
partial scholarships and grants to Quakers and non-Quakers who
have demonstrated high academic ability at educational institutions such as
Brooklyn Friends, Westbury Friends, Clarke Atlanta University,
Rutgers University, and City College.
This gesture has resulted in an outpouring of
letters of gratitude, thank-you notes/cards and phone calls from recipients
expressing
their heartfelt thanks for the contributions we have made to their development.
We are delighted to share some of these extraordinary stories of
the power of giving and receiving. An excerpt from one recipient reads,
"The scholarship came at a time when I had great difficulties paying
my tuition, buying books, and feeding myself on a part-time job. My mother, who
was my primary provider was called to be with the Lord and I
had no one to turn to. I was introduced to the Quakers by a friend and thank
God today I am a licensed accountant." He continued, "I do hope
and trust that you generous people of the Religious Society of Friends
(Quakers) will continue to do this fine job. You have assisted one more
person in realizing his dreams. Thank you."
This is just one of the many letters of
appreciation we have received expressing gratitude and giving thanks for the
contributions.
The requests keep on coming from individuals and community groups who are
deeply involved in helping people improve their standards of
living. We have helped community groups who have cared for battered women and
children of incarcerated women. We have stretched out our
hands to help low-income working women, who have expressed the desire to
improve their educational status by entering college after the age of
40. We have witnessed the joy of an individual who obtained her nursing license
through this fund and has gone on to a better job with
increased financial gains to better support her family.
The Barrington Dunbar Committee is committed to
forge ahead lighting the path to a sustainable future through quality education
and improved social conditions throughout the twenty-first century for the poor
and needy. In order to achieve this goal, we must then continue
to thank our generous donors and ask God's blessing upon them. "May your
giving be overflowing and your financial harvest bountiful."
Gloria P. Thompson, Clerk
Back to contents
With a cold rain falling on cobblestone streets,
three AVP pilgrims from Purchase Meeting in Westchester County, Debby Wood, and
Katie and Fred Feucht, arrived at Oxford around midnight. It seemed that Oxford
had closed down for the night. They headed down a
narrow, deserted zig-zag street which seemed to be more of an alley, dragging
their luggage behind them. No signs identified the college
buildings behind the worn stone walls but they hoped
the street would lead them to Wadham College.
Finally, they ask for directions from a small group of students leaving a pub.
"Wadham is
right up the street" they said. The pilgrims found a small wooden door in
a blank stone wall and they wondered if anyone would be inside to
welcome them and give them a place to sleep.
As they entered the door they stepped in an
ornate archway framing a brightly lit quadrangle flanked by stately Tudor
Gothic buildings. They
felt like they were stepping back to the 18th century. The brilliant green
grass in the quadrangle looked so perfect it seemed like Astroturf.
Next to the arch was the lodge (office), where a cheerful scout (clerk) greeted
them, gave them their keys and showed them to their rooms. Soon they were able
to sink into comfortable beds in neat and cozy rooms.
The purpose of the conference was to bring
together AVP leaders from around the world to share experiences, information,
skills
and exercises. It was a time for personal growth and networking to spread the
message of peace and nonviolence around the world.
On the morning of September 15, AVPers found
their way to the great hall where meals were served. More than 130 delegates
were
seated on benches at long oaken tables, surrounded by stained glass windows.
The stern portraits of every warden (dean) of Wadham College for
the last 300 years stared down from the walls. A staff of waiters and
waitresses served a hearty breakfast of eggs, sausage, toast, fruit and coffee.
The program began in the ivy covered Holywell
Auditorium with a keynote talk by Steve Angell. He recalled the modest
beginnings of
AVP at Green Haven and Auburn Prison in New York State. In the last 25 years,
AVP has grown from a local program in New York Yearly
Meeting to a worldwide program in 25 countries. AVP is no longer just a prison
program, it has grown to provide conflict resolution skills to
community members in some of the most difficult trouble spots in the world such
as Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Russia, Georgia, Uganda, Nigeria
and others. In the next year, the AVP program will be coming to Chechnya and
Rwanda. Steve Angell then spoke of the worldwide challenges
AVP faces to reduce violence in the 21st century. The conference also gave a
special tribute to Ellen Flanders and Janet Lugo, longtime members
of NYYM and two of the leaders from the first workshops in 1975.
A roll call of the delegates from 22 countries
attending the conference brought the group together. Each group brought a
welcome to
the conference beginning with the Maoris from Aotearoa (New Zealand). With a
unifying and symbolic spiritual ritual using their native
language, the Maoris gave thanks to the earth... the sky... the masculine...
the feminine... the ancestors... the generations to come... the place...
the communities...and the AVP family. With dances and bringing symbolic gifts,
this was a dramatic and powerful welcome to all.
The afternoon brought a variety of mini-workshops
including Conflict Mapping by AVP-UK; Sociodrama by AVP-London, Trust the
Process by AVP-USA, Women and Families, a Latin American Experience by
AVP-Costa Rica and Working with NGOs to Spread AVP by
AVP-Nigeria. In the evening, many were privileged to meet with the inmates and
inmate facilitators at Grendon Prison near Oxford.
On Saturday AVPers focused on the theme of the
conference "Cultures and Conflict" with a workshop led by Eliane Dyer
of Aotearoa
and Eldred de Klerk of South Africa. Based on their experiences in South
Africa, participants looked at and shared their personal cultures in
small groups and learned to respect the cultural viewpoints of others. It was
powerful to hear the diverse voices from Nigeria, India,
Macedonia, Uganda, Hungary, Russia, Brazil, Costa Rica and other parts of the
world speak as part of the AVP family.
As a way of connecting the anniversary with the
beginning in Green Haven Prison, a special banner about 25 feet long was made
with cut
out letters saying,
GREENHAVEN 1975 OXFORD 2000
.
All the inside facilitators at Green Haven had signed the banner and written
messages to those at the conference. At the conference, all those attending
added their names and messages so the banner could go back to the inmates
at Green Haven.
The diversity of the conference was dramatic,
white, brown and black.Maoris, Indians, Ugandans, Nigerians and Europeans.
Delegates came from the following countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada,
Colombia, Costa Rica, England, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, India,
Ireland, Macedonia, Netherlands, New Zealand/Aotearoa, Nicaragua, Nigeria,
Russia, Scotland, South Africa, Sweden, Uganda, United States.
The next AVP International Conference will be
held in two years in Africa; either Uganda or South Africa. It is hoped that
Aotearoa
(New Zealand) will host the conference in 2004.
Fred Feucht, Purchase Meeting
Back to contents
Alonzo, a man of about forty years with
glistening black hair and a quick, confident smile, spoke softly and slowly as
he recounted the
horrors he and his family have endured over the past three years. Our group of
eleven North Americans - a Christian Peacemaker Teams
delegation (July 13-25, 2000) - gathered on small wooden chairs, some meant for
children, most borrowed from neighboring families, in Alonzo's
one-room house of cinder block and dirt floor, furnished only with a bed and a
makeshift desk.
This house is in San Cristobal de las Casas, a
city in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. It is the temporary home of Alonzo's
family. They
have hopes of one day returning to the charred remains of their real home. They
and 10,500 others from the municipality of Chenalho's are
"desplazados" or indigenous people, displaced from their homes,
forced to flee from the land they and their ancestors have worked for hundreds
of
years. Alonzo and his family are part of the civil society known as the Abejas
or "The Bees." The Abejas are Christians committed to
nonviolent resistance.
"In 1994," Alonzo began, "after
the Zapatista uprising, the supporters of the ruling party, the PRI or priistas
as they are called,
began threatening the Zapatista supporters. They said they would take our homes
and our land. But these are the words of the government. When
the paramilitary groups [comprised of priistas] began forming in [my village
of] Los Chorros, I spoke
with them and said we should not kill our
brothers and sisters."
The Zapatistas, Zapatista supporters, and the
paramilitary or priistas are all indigenous people. The Zapatistas and their
supporters
are seeking political and social change, i.e. equal rights for indigenous
people, the right to remain on their land, access to education and health
care, freedom from harassment by the federal army, and the honoring of the San
Andres Peace Accords, The paramilitary, on the other
hand, generally support the government. They are paid, supplied with weapons,
ammunition, narcotic drugs, and military training by the federal
army which is 70,000 plus strong in Chiapas, or one soldier for every seventeen
citizens.
Today, the Abejas and Zapatista supporters are
still unable to return to their homes. The paramilitary continue to be armed
and supported
by the ever-present federal army, and the paramilitary continue to live in the
villages and they continue to threaten indigenous
communities.
The Abejas, with the support of human rights
groups based in San Cristobal and from the international community, however, are
actively challenging government policy. With the support of full-time CPT team
members, they have held prayer vigils on army bases and
demonstrations in the state capital, Tuxtla Gutierrez, as well as in the
tourist mecca of San Cristobal, and
they and internationals have written letters to
government officials denouncing the actions of the army and the paramilitary.
"The Bees" are
so named because they have stung the government through their nonviolent
resistance.
But this low-intensity war is far from over. For
the displaced, everyday the struggle for survival is a little more difficult.
Our CPT
delegation visited the encampments of X'oyep and Polho'. More than 7000 people
in "houses" of plastic sheeting relying on NGOs for support. For
more information about the CPT delegation to Chiapas, see
www.cpt.org/chiapas/deleg0007/index.htm
.
Shirley Way, Morningside Meeting
|
Shirley Way is studying Spanish in Guatemala and has plans to volunteer with an
organization that assists indigenous women there. She is
immensely grateful for the spiritual and financial support she has received
from Morningside, from individuals and committees of NYYM, and from Friends
Peace
Teams Project's Elise Boulding Fund.
|
Back to contents
The main focus of the NYYM Black Concerns
Committee for the next year will be centered around the United Nations World
Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related
Intolerance, which be held August 31 through September 7, 2001, in
Durban, South Africa. Our committee is focusing on spreading the word among
Friends, especially those focused on doing antiracist work. We will
also participate in the planning of a Report Back Conference to be held at
Pendle Hill, October 26-28, 2001. Interested Friends please
contact NYYM Black Concerns Committee, 15 Rutherford Place, New York NY 10003,
or e-mail
contact@euroamerican.org
,
or call Jeff Hitchcock
at 908-241-5439.
On May 1 the High Commissioner for Human Rights,
Mary Robinson, told the first preparatory session that: "This World
Conference has
the potential to be among the most significant gatherings at the start of this
century….The challenge is to make this Conference a landmark in
the struggle to eradicate all forms of racism.… It is up to all of us to
ensure that the opportunity is grasped and that we produce a practical,
action-oriented result which responds to [racial discrimination, xenophobia and
other forms of intolerance]."
The participation of Friends and Quaker agencies
in response to this call for participation in this World Conference is growing
on
the domestic and international scene. As Friends we seek to engage peoples and
cultures in the Quaker belief that there is "that of God
in everyone." Friends and their organizations have a unique contribution
to make to the global and local networked programs of action
emerging internationally to fight the spread of modern racism. Our respect for
diversity and our historic work for peace can offer practical experience
and grassroots vision to a worldwide dialogue directed toward conquering racism
and discrimination. A real opportunity exists to contribute to
the vision, priorities, and practical remedies that will emerge from the World
Conference process on the grassroots and policy levels.
Although the agenda has not been established,
some of the suggested topics of imminent concern to Friends and Quaker
organizations include: the resurgence of racism, indigenous peoples, treatment
of migrants, refugees and immigrants, aftermath of slavery and
colonialism, ethnic conflicts and early warning mechanisms, education,
globalization, remedies, affirmative action,
and the implications of multiple identities
(race, color, gender, ethnic origin). The most prominent emerging issue
discussions in the US
concern how racism and discrimination affect women, youth, native peoples,
compensation/reparation, environmental racism,
immigration, and the criminal justice system.
AFSC has undertaken the Global Voices project, which consists of a packet used
for facilitating a kind of "listening project" to
collect testimonials and best practices to contribute to the governmental
discussions and the wider groups of non-governmental organizations.
In addition the Quaker United Nations Office is organizing a limited number of
"UN and You" presentations, to inform people about the
conference. Together these two projects aim to inform people about the
conference, network groups working on racism on the national and
international level, and offer guidance on how to use the UN as a
community-organizing tool. If you would like to contribute to these efforts
please contact Bahiya Cabral (at AFSC
bcabral@afsc.org
; 215-241-7179) or Nissa Puffer (at the Quaker UN Office,
npuffer@afsc.org
;
212-682-2745). For more information check
www.unhchr.ch
,
the official World Conference Web site.
Helen Garay Toppins, Clerk
Back to contents
Both Right Sharing of World Resources, Inc.
(RSWR) and the NYYM Committee on RSWR are focusing more on education of First
World Friends this year. However, this doesn't mean that money is not being
spent on Third World projects! On the contrary, our budget for grants
has nearly doubled since 1999; then it was $80,000, but for 2001 we have
budgeted $157,000.
RSWR, Inc. has prepared a bibliography of
education materials available from other organizations. This is now available
in draft form;
if you'd like a copy, write to Roland Kreager, 3960 Winding Way, Cincinnati OH
45229;
rswr@earthlink.net
.
RSWR of NYYM is mailing to all monthly meetings a
discussion paper on the question of Jubilee 2000: Should the debts of Third
World nations be forgiven? If so, under what guidelines? FUM has asked us (as a
yearly meeting) to respond to this question, and we feel the
best response will come if all of us learn more about the issue and discuss it
within our monthly meetings. If your monthly meeting hasn't
yet received this mailing, it is because the committee would prefer not to mail
blindly to clerks of all the monthly meetings. Clerks are, as we
all know, overworked. We are trying to find interested individuals to receive
these mailings and to initiate discussion sessions in their
own meetings. So, if you are one of those individuals, write to Mary Eagleson.
The larger question is: What will our world be
like in twenty or thirty years? Will we see human populations crashing into
Malthusian
limits? Or will we see economic development reaching the point where birth
rates drop? If we do nothing, we can be fairly sure that AIDS and
civil wars (even if we avoid international war) will cause immense suffering in
the Third World. If we share our wealth and persuade our
neighbors to do likewise, there is a very real possibility that AIDS could be
contained and extreme poverty might be eradicated in twenty years.
When I look at grant proposals from the state of
Tamil Nadu in India, where Right Sharing's work has been done, I wonder if the
number
of poor rural villages in the world is infinite. Yet this is how the change
will come about: village by village. An "animator" comes to the
village
and talks to people, mostly women. They are encouraged to form a
"sangam"--a community club which also functions as a savings and
loan organization. Then, with our financial help, the sangam makes small loans
to its members. When these are repaid (and the default rate is
only about 1 or 2%, even among these desperately poor people), the borrowers
may take out bigger loans. Gradually they build up a business,
start feeding the kids, put up a house, send even the girls to school--and
realize they don't want any more babies. Maybe they felt that way
before, but now they can afford contraceptives. Besides, when the wife is
bringing in income, it's harder for her husband to object to birth control.
But let's take a look at what is happening to us,
in the rich part of the world. Do we like what we see? Are we not, as part of
the larger
society, in danger of choking on our wealth? Cheshire Frager's message to the
Yearly Meeting last summer was a clear reminder that wealth is not
an unmitigated blessing. The goal of Right Sharing is to listen to God.
"God calls us to the right sharing of world resources, from the burdens
of materialism and poverty into the abundance of God's love."
The bibliography which RSWR, Inc., has prepared,
contains many resources for individuals and meetings to consider. Some are free,
and none are expensive. They range from
The Richest Dog in the
World
,
a 10-minute animated video available from Publishing and
Promotion Services, NCCB/USCC, 3211 Fourth Street, NE, Washington DC
20017-1194; 1-800-235-8722;
www.nccbuscc.org/opps/index.htm
to
Trek: Venture into a World of Enough
,
available from Alternatives, PO Box 2787, Sioux City IA 51106; 1-800-821-6153;
www.simpleliving.org
.
They include ideas for working with (older) children, videos, and games for
intergenerational groups.
Mary Eagleson, Clerk
Back to contents
QBL was created in 1995 by a body from the first
Quaker Study Tour, led by Ken and Pam Barratt, members respectively of
Birkenhead Meeting (UK) and Langley Hill Meeting (VA). When Pam and Ken
married, they spent their honeymoon in Bolivia and decided to spend
their lives nurturing the poor people in that country, especially the (almost
wholly indigenous Aymara) Quakers. They have organized annual
study tours to Bolivia. QBL's purpose it to fund mid-sized projects for
training, community empowerment, and economic development, based
on proposals from groups of impoverished natives, and to collect donations for
that purpose. QBL is registered as a 501(c)3 charity, and
contributions are tax-deductible.
Newton and Anneliese Garver joined the fifth
study tour, in 1999, and Newton joined the board of QBL-USA when it was formed.
We
visited about 16 projects during the tour. Most have to do with food production
or textiles, but a few major ones concern health and
education. Nutritional deficiency is a visible problem in Bolivia.
Horticultural cooperatives, pig-, chicken-, and guinea-pig-breeding projects,
fish
farms, irrigation projects, and potable-water projects help address this
problem.
Weaving has been high art in the Andes for
centuries. Most of the women are adept at knitting and weaving, and textiles
sell well to
tourists. All four projects in El Alto involve textiles. On our final day, some
of us had a conversation with Dr. Stanley Blanco, an INELA
(National Friends Church of Bolivia) Friend and Aymara doctor. He gave us an
enlightening overview of medical problems and services in Bolivia and
of some of the politics surrounding them. He gave a hearty endorsement to the
clinic at Amacari, which he thought might well be staffed
by Quakers and help significantly to strengthen the Quaker presence in the
region. He also helped Pam and Ken set up the family-planning project.
For further information, contact QBL at 2967
Lawrence St., San Diego, CA 92106;
qabolink@aol.com
; 619-226-7658 or Newton
Garver.
Back to contents
I wish you could have been with me at the
meetings of the Witness Coordinating Committee at Silver Bay last summer to
hear of the
varied witnesses that Friends are making in the world today. You would have
come away filled with their energy!
Carolyn Keys, of Montclair Monthly Meeting, was
given a travel minute by her meeting to join the Friends Peace Teams in Burundi
for
25 months, beginning in October 2000. Friends both shared her excitement and
found funds for a laptop computer, so that she can stay in
communication with Friends and resources at home. The Witness Activities Fund
has also supported this need. Both members of the Friends
Peace Teams and Friends in Montclair Monthly Meeting can bring you up-to-date
on Carolyn's current work to teach laypeople the basics of
helping survivors to heal from trauma.
Shirley Way, of Morningside Meeting, has worked
hard in Chiapas, Mexico, as a member of the Christian Peacemaker Team there. The
team is composed of a dozen Canadian and U.S. members of Mennonite, United
Brethren, and Friends congregations. Details of the
grim-sounding activities she has participated in await you on the Web at
www.prairienet.org/cpt
.
For example, the group accompanied to their homes
members of an indigenous community that had remained neutral in the massacre
almost three years ago. These former residents feared to return
home, and the Christian Peacemaker Team provided support to them. The same team
also made nonviolent demonstrations in the area of
Chiapas. Shirley received assistance in this endeavor from the Sharing Fund.
Speaking at Yearly Meeting was Ken Barratt, who
requested our support of the Quaker Bolivia Link. He and his wife visit
frequently with
the Quakers who live high in the Bolivian Andes and who walk several miles to
their meetings for worship on First Day. The Latin
American Concerns Committee has responded with a contribution.
Meanwhile, the Latin American Concerns Committee
has shifted its focus to the plight of migrant laborers who labor within the
Yearly Meeting area and who live in poor conditions. This does not, however,
keep members of the committee from continuing to support activities
at the San Carlos Hospital in Chiapas, Mexico.
Both the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP)
and the Prisons Committee concentrate on the needs of prisoners within the
Yearly
Meeting area. AVP works to teach prisoners (and others) alternative methods of
coping with stress. At the same time, the Prisons Committee
represents the concerns of both prisoners in worship groups and the Friends who
go into prisons to worship with them. In New York State, the
Prisons Committee is currently working with other religious organizations to
reform the Rockefeller drug laws.
If you attend the meetings of the Committee on
Indian Affairs, you know that each year a few students receive some financial
assistance
from this committee, funds that both pay extra fees and buy expensive textbooks
that are essential to their coursework.
If you attend the meetings of the Barrington
Dunbar Fund, you know some of the African American and Hispanic people that
Friends
witness to as they assist with the provision of funds for fees for licensing
exams and school courses. The Barrington Dunbar Fund also supports students at
Westbury Friends School, Friends Seminary, Oakwood, and Brooklyn Friends School.
If you attend the meetings of the Black Concerns
Committee, you know of the current efforts that Friends are making to identify
and
address racist practices within the Yearly Meeting.
If you attend the meetings of the Peace Concerns
Committee, you know of its current work in educating Friends in the Yearly
Meeting
around the technology of peace.
These and other committees of New York Yearly
Meeting need your help to continue their work. Your contributions to the
Sharing Fund
go directly to support these concerns.
Carol Kitchen, Clerk
Back to contents
Friends must cease to hide their light of
simplicity under a bushel. The Testimony of Simplicity is a message for which
the world waits. It
is a matter of corporate witness for the Society of Friends, especially in the
United States. We are guilty of a sin of omission when we keep
it undelivered. While we keep silent, other forces--powers and
principalities--are all too vocal and active.
For lack of this message, for lack of this
knowledge, people are dying. They seek to fill the emptiness they feel at the
center of their
beings, and are told: "Fill it at the mall." They wonder what the
measure of a man--or a woman--is today, and are told: "Your net
worth." They
ask about the meaning of life and are told: "Whoever has the most things
when he dies, wins."
We know better. We know that that life has
purpose and meaning. G-d, the sacred, the immanent and transcendent divine, is
the source of
all meaning in life; we know that there is that of G-d in each and every human
person; that every human being has worth and dignity by virtue
of being; that we matter. What happens to us matters. It matters to G-d. And we
know that the only true wealth in life comes in our
relationships--with G-d, our loved ones, our neighbors near and far, ourselves,
and all of
G-d's creation
The testimony of simplicity is about ensuring
that nothing interferes with our relationship with the Divine; that nothing,
nothing,
gets between us and G-d. It is about the first commandment: I am the Lord thy
G-d, which has brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the
house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
And the testimony of simplicity is about
liberation. G-d brings us liberation. Whether we realize it or not, when we
cumber ourselves
with needless possessions, with heedless getting and spending, with speed and
over-scheduled lives, we put ourselves in the house of bondage.
We bind ourselves to that which, so far from fulfilling, rather drains us. We
make of the path to G-d an obstacle course. We put anything
and everything before G-d.
Life after individual life is being wasted,
sucked dry, blasted by the obsession with materialism. If we Friends truly
believe in the
testimony of simplicity--and the first commandment--we can't keep our light
under a bushel. We have to find how to bring the testimony of
simplicity to the world. People are dying and we have a saving message.
This is a message of liberation to those in our
post-industrialized, post-human world. It is a matter of social witness,
because the USA has
a state religion, the worship of a false god. After forty years of cold war
against totalitarian communism, the West--especially the USA--
has produced totalitarian capitalism, which is treated as a religion.
Where once the West opposed communism because it
defined the human person as essentially an economic being, now it is
totalitarian capitalism that does so. Being totalitarian, it denies human
autonomy, the fullness and complexity of the human experience and the Holy
Spirit at work in our world.
It asserts authority over every aspect of life,
offering only one operative metaphor for life: economics. When an endeavor is
defined
as economic all other motives are subordinated. The point is to make money. All
other motives are inferior or suspect.
In the most pernicious sense, the market becomes
god: what the market produces is good. What it precludes is wrong or irrelevant.
The market is the arbiter of right and wrong, good and evil. To claim to be
author of right and wrong is to claim to be
G-d.
As a Society that seeks G-d's leading in all
things, what can we say?
A false god, because it is not a true source of
the holy, cannot sanctify, cannot hallow. Where a false god reigns, nothing is
sacred. What
are the consequences? Where nothing is sacred, nothing has intrinsic value.
Everything is thus a commodity, acquiring value only from
economic use. We are told we have no right to expect human need and human
meaning to be at the heart of society. Thus, corporate and
government policies (not always distinguishable) can openly promote
objectification of citizens. Where nothing is sacred, there is no awe, no
humility,
no sense of limits . . . and no guilt or shame.
Totalitarian capitalism's major product has been
a culture of disjunction, with no roots--a lack of community, truncated links
to family,
little sense of connection to others, etc. . . . a culture of floating human
atoms, growing up in alienation and anomie. How do you create a
community based on competition and isolation?
Under this false god, since being human has no
meaning, since being ME has no meaning, no one else has any meaning, either. We
can
do anything to anyone and it doesn't matter . . . and they can do it to us.
Without a sense of self, of sacred meaning, of connection, there is no
basis for a moral imagination.
It is said that all our testimonies are
ultimately one. Simplicity violated eventually violates all our
testimonies--integrity, peace, equality.
I hope that as we open ourselves to the message of Sabbath and Jubilee
economics we begin to see way opening to bring our message to the
world and to contend with powers and principalities.
People are dying spiritually and physically. We
have a testimony of simplicity that proclaims the primacy of our sacred nature
and the
great gift of liberation that comes from attachment to G-d, not things. I
deeply believe, Friends, that G-d is calling us to be corporate prophets.
This is a great work for us today.
Cheshire Frager, Flushing Meetying
Back to contents
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has invited
"civil society" (this means us, folks!) to express our wishes for the
future of the United
Nations and the world.
One vehicle for response was the Millennium
Forum, a meeting of 1,400 delegates of nongovernmental organizations, at the
United
Nations last May. This body adopted the Millennium Forum Declaration, which was
given to the heads of state who met in early September to set
goals for the 21st century.
Rosa Packard and I represented Conscience and
Peace Tax International, joined by Davis Basset (Ann Arbor Meeting)
representing the
Peace Tax Foundation. We brought the right to conscientious objection to paying
military taxes to the attention of the forum and, with much
effort, managed to get this sentence included: "In the context of the
right not to be complicit in killings, we call for full legal recognition of the
rights of conscientious objectors."
The Millennium Forum Declaration is on the UN
Web site,
www.un.org
.
Rosa Packard's "United Nations Millennium Forum Keeps
Conscience in Mind" is in the NCPTF Quarterly Update, Spring 2000.
The Eighth International Conference of War
Tax Resistance and Peace Tax Campaigns was held in Washington, July 6-9,
cosponsored by
the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund. Details of this year's conference
are at
www.peacetax.com
.
The CPTI Web site is
www.go.to/cpti
.
Thanks to the Quaker UN Office, many
conference participants were able to come to a consultation at Quaker House on
July 11.
Please contact me with any questions about paying taxes for war. The Purchase
Quarter Peace Tax Escrow Account offers an alternative for those
who cannot in good conscience write a check to pay for war.
John Randall, NYYM Representative
to the National Campaign
for a Peace Tax Fund.
Back to contents
The unabridged version of Cheshire Frager's talk
The Call to Simplicity
is still available. Cheshire gave this talk on the importance of
the Quaker testimony of simplicity at Yearly Meeting sessions. For a copy
please send $3.00 to NYYM, 15 Rutherford Place, New York NY
10003. The talk will also be posted on our Web site at
www.nyym.org/ministry/CalltoSimplicity.shtml
.
Back to contents
The Quaker House video has been completed! The
new video,
Another Way to Reach for Peace: Quaker House and the
Military
,
captures highlights of a unique Quaker peace witness which has been ongoing
since 1969. It includes interviews with founding members, with
current and past directors, and with conscientious objectors and others
assisted by Quaker House. You can hear about the FBI files, the mysterious
fire, and the expanding programs.
The video is 30 minutes in length and costs $20
including shipping. Checks should be made out to Quaker House and mailed to
Bonnie Parsons [address not included in Web version]. Included with the
video are attachments for discussion.
Back to contents
Click
here
for committee minutes. Password required.
At the FUM General Board Meeting Retha McCutchen
was named General Secretary of FUM. As Director of FUM's World Missions
for more than three years Retha has worked tirelessly on behalf of FUM ministry
throughout the world. According to Interim General
Secretary Wayne Carter, "No one is more familiar with the totality of our
ministry, including our field ministries both at home and aboard, and
the financial structure which makes it all possible.
Back to contents
The Liaison Committee, comprising the Yearly
Meeting Clerk, assistant clerk, and clerks of the four sections, met in
mid-September
at Albany Meeting to begin planning for December Representative Meeting. In the
first part of the meeting we reviewed and reflected on
our Yearly Meeting sessions, held July 30 through August 5. The clerk of the
Sessions Committee (the committee which has general
responsibility for arrangements of the sessions of yearly and representative
meetings), attended this first portion of the meeting, during which time she
shared a summary of evaluations from Yearly Meeting.
The Liaison Committee felt it especially
important in this year of Sabbath rest and Jubilee to listen carefully to
Friends' observations
and reflections on their experience at Yearly Meeting sessions. So much about
the week was different as we sought to observe a "time out of
time." In the evaluations and elsewhere, Friends shared a sense of
appreciation for a rhythm that allowed for deeper fellowship and holy
encounter; gratitude for the many opportunities for worship and reflection upon
messages brought forward.
The challenge now becomes, How might we best
prepare ourselves to continue in the spirit of worship, experienced at Yearly
Meeting?
How might a connectedness between worship, fellowship, business and plenary
sessions be observed? In what ways might we be guided into
a deeper and quieter pace even as we prepare to return to more
"ordinary" time?
These are the questions we ask Friends to take
deeply into prayer and meditation as we look ahead to our time together at
Representative Meeting. In addition to coming with hearts and minds prepared,
preparation involves reviewing the agenda and becoming familiar with
information pertaining to the matters that will be considered. (See
agenda
.
)
Discernment within the various committees
regarding the business that needs to come forward will continue over the next
several weeks.
The following, from the
Book of Christian
Discipline
of Britain Yearly Meeting, 1995, captures well the spirit in which we hope to
gather
at Representative Meeting in December:
In our meetings for worship we seek through
stillness to know God's will for ourselves and for the gathered group. Our
meetings for
church affairs, in which we conduct our business, are also meetings for worship
based on silence, and they carry the same expectation that
God's guidance can be discerned if we are truly listening together and to each
other, and are not blinkered by preconceived opinions. It is this
belief that God's will can be recognized through the discipline of silent
waiting which distinguishes our decision-making process from the
secular idea of consensus. We have a common purpose in seeking God's will
through waiting and listening, believing that every activity of life
should be subject to divine guidance.
Back to contents
Please forward dates for ALL Yearly Meeting Committee Meetings and Regional
Meetings as soon as they are available.
NEW MEMBERS
Brenda Daly
--Brooklyn
Robert Hawxhurst
--Shelter Island
Marko, Milos, & Rory
Maglich
--Brooklyn
TRANSFERS
Philip Bogdonoff
to Bethesda (BYM) from Ithaca
John Hayton
to Canberra Regional (Australia) from 15th Street
Peter Laughter
to Brooklyn from 15th
Street
MARRIAGES
Sarah Rebecca Worth
,
member of Brooklyn, and
Greg James Neurdoefer,
on July 1, 2000
Back to contents
|