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The Community We Seek to Be

Christopher Sammond, NYYM general secretary

From artwork of Ben Shahn, used with permission.

In my General Secretary's Report at Fall Representative Meeting, I shared that one quarter of all the monthly meetings and worship groups that I had visited to date were in protracted, debilitating conflict. It might be easy to draw the conclusion, then, that an absence of conflict would be the goal we are working toward as a community. This would be a mistake, as conflict is an aspect of any community.

If not an absence of conflict, then, what is the goal are we reaching toward? What kinds of communities are we led to create together? It is not terribly helpful to hold only an image of what we are trying to avoid; we need to have a clear sense of what our goal looks like. A clear vision of the community we seek to become allows us to get to where we want to go. Here are some core beliefs and practices of the community I feel we are called to be:

Conflict is a gift: I believe that we are called to create communities that deal with conflict openly, proactively, and without losing touch with the spiritual ideals that led us to come together in the first place. Conflict, when done well, is a community builder, rather than a community destroyer. So the first part of my vision for community is one that understands and embraces conflict as a gift and is willing and able to work through its differences and learn from them in the process.

Diversity is a gift: Another aspect is the welcoming of diversity. We are a community with an amazing degree of diversity—diversity of theology, race and ethnicity, class, culture, sexuality, and worldview. I believe we are particularly blessed by this diversity; it is perhaps our greatest strength. In the community I envision, Friends feel invited to share all of who they are with their worshipping community, and differences are known, mutually respected, and celebrated.

Our Religious Society is based on our personal experience of the Divine, and our living faithfully into the leadings that arise from that experience. I believe we are called to support one another in deepening both in our experience and in faithfulness in living out our leadings. We can do this only if we genuinely know each other in our spiritual depths. This requires a high degree of openness and vulnerability, of taking the risk of letting our spirit show. We can do this only if we know that all of who we are will be welcomed when we show ourselves.

Once we thus "know each other in that which is eternal," a deep trust and love undergirds all our interactions. These bonds of trust will enable us to weather any storm of controversy or difference. When we know each other in Love and Truth, conflict carries a wholly different connotation and feeling. It is lighter, more detached. We hold our own position in matters under consideration with integrity, but in the same moment carry a greater concern for seeking the truth, and for the well-being of those we disagree with.

Laboring in love is our practice: I call such seeking together laboring in love. I have recently learned what this means at much deeper levels while representing NYYM in the strategic planning sessions of Friends United Meeting. Friends had gathered from all over North America to seek direction for an organization in crisis. Tensions were high. Passionately held theological and cultural differences with many years' bitter history made it all too easy to harden ourselves against each other and strive to defend our positions rather than to listen to the truth we had to offer each other. And in the midst of this, we found grace. I do not believe we would have found it had we not previously come to know and trust one another in the manner I describe above. We learned, together, what it really means to labor in love, and it was breathtaking.

Here is what we learned, as reported at Fall Representative Meeting:

We have been humbled to learn that to labor with others in the hope of imposing our view on them feels like an assault to them, rather than love. We have learned that to labor in love means to let go of all sense of "us and them" and to understand that the moment we depart from a sense of the laboring body as "us," and move to viewing anyone as "other," we close our hearts in judgment and we have ceased to labor in love. We have learned that to labor in love means to listen deeply, to seek to understand, to refrain from judgment, to speak our truth without agenda, to know and celebrate each person in the room as a Divine spark of God, to not let our hearts cloud over with anger or recrimination, to genuinely love those we vehemently disagree with, even in the moment when our disagreement is at its peak—that is to labor in love, and we have been brought to it, and we are praying that we will continue in it, and we have come away changed in our souls because of the experience.

Knowing that conflict is a gift, welcoming all of who each of us is to come forward and be visible, laboring in love—these are aspects of the community we are called to be, and are already moving toward. As we live into these ways of being in community together, we are creating a network, a web of connection in the Spirit, that is enormously powerful and rich.

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Shared Divine Ground

Joanna Komoska, Peconic Bay Meeting

As 21st-century Friends consider the Kingdom of God within, do they rely entirely on their private assessments of the Truth as all that is necessary? Or do they test insights, messages, and leadings with the worshipping community as the Kingdom of God, finding sustenance in a shared sense of Truth?

What is the responsibility of the monthly meeting to nurture the diversity of its members' spiritual insights while also encouraging common ground for the shared Kingdom? This shared divine ground—level, yielding, yet supportive to those who walk together—is inevitably challenged by individual expressions and interpretations of the Light within. Although the individual and community Truth usually overlap successfully, tugging one way or the other is bound to occur. In one direction there is the desire for like-mindedness inherent in any group pulling one way and the tug the other way pulled by our individuality, resistant to merge, as if it might truly lose something by belonging.

One can see the prominence of the community in the 17th-century writing of Robert Barclay where he refers to "a secret Power" among Friends: "This Power being in a good measure raised in the whole Meeting, will suddenly lay hold upon his Spirit, and wonderfully help to raise up the Good in him, and beget him into the sense of the same Power, to the melting and warming of his heart." (Dean Freiday ed., Barclay's Apology in Modern English, Philadelphia: Friends Book Store, 1967, pp 355–56.)

In Barclay's writing, the Spirit—"raised in the whole Meeting"—comes from the community but can be manifested in the individual. The Meeting has the authority of the secret Power by which the individual benefits. But we also have Friends who would emphasize the Spirit in the individual Friend who, with a message during worship, can breath life into the Meeting.

Cool graffiti

When there is conflict in monthly meetings, is it coproduced in part by the instability inherent in these differing emphases of where authority for Truth lies—within the individual or within the community. Might it be that much of the conflict in Friends' meetings may be an outgrowth of a continuing silent dialogue between those who say that the Kingdom of God radiates from the individual and individual messages are infallible—and those who believe that the Truth comes from the whole Meeting's worship, which provides the environment in which the Kingdom of God emerges? Some meetings in our New York Yearly Meeting are so tender to individual leadings that they will literally suffer and lose attendance at First Day gatherings and meetings for business rather than confront a Friend whose sense of the Truth does not "speak the mind" of the Meeting. Whereas other Meetings might interpret spirit as residing within the community to such a degree as to alienate seekers with divinely inspired messages who may not fit their expectations of Spirit, suppressing in direct and indirect ways.

One might say that if Meeting participants become too bound either to a sense of the authority and infallibility of the individual or to the same of the monthly meeting, they can lose the ability to seek of the will of God that unites all Friends on the same path into the Kingdom.

In contemporary telling of Jesus' advice in Matthew 18, if you and a Friend in Meeting have a disagreement that does not resolve easily, find some Friends to join with you in seeking transcendence of the problem. If this does not resolve the difficulty, bring the matter to the whole Meeting, as in a clearness committee of the Meeting for Business. Sandra Cronk comments in reference to Matthew 18 that "The goal in this situation is not to apply sufficient pressure to force the 'offender' to give up the offensive ways. Rather, it is for all those involved to be open to hearing God's will. The admonisher [individual, clearness committee, or clerk] must also be ready to have faults pointed out. He or she may have a responsibility in the alienation which has occurred." (Peace Be with You, P.28). What she points out is that we need to recognize the coconstruction of conflict.

In discerning the Truth in conflict situations, we are seeking the Light that may by its presence restore good and loving feelings beyond an individual sense of the Truth about a matter. This restoration of God's will can provide goodwill and transcendence of conflict. If more support is needed, the worshipful effort can be supplemented by applying conflict-resolution skills. (These skills are ours already, but we can be reminded of them and made more tender to them.)

The authority of the monthly meeting and the individual Friends within its borders should be supported by larger bodies of Friends at times to help resolve their differences but in a nonhierarchical way. Michael Sheren traces the historic shift from the initial sense of the infallibility of God's speaking through individuals in Friends' gatherings to the development of monthly meetings that emerged to discern and test individual utterances that sometimes expressed beliefs outside a felt sense of the invisible boundaries of what was held as common belief and practice among Friends. He states, "[Some] Friends . . . were considered excessive in their contrariness and brought about more concern about Friends restraining themselves publicly. "Greater control over excesses could be exhorted by gatherings above the local level, but implementation was by local option." Beyond Majority Rule, pp 12–13. Quoting others, he strengthens the position of the experience of worship on the part of monthly meetings as what creates the monthly meeting as "innately sovereign." (p.16)

These larger meetings were originally almost entirely advisory to monthly meetings, and perhaps still are. And conflict may emerge between the differing levels of Quaker organization due to continuing inherent questions about how the Truth in the Kingdom of God is successfully accessed. But then how are larger bodies to be of assistance to meetings that are suffering unresolved conflict between members? Are we doing enough to encourage more learning of the use of Friends' processes and supporting methods that help Friends get beyond themselves to that deeper level in which their hearts are "melting and warming" together?

In his 2003 Pendle Hill Pamphlet 365, The Authority of Our Meetings Is the Power of God, Paul Lacey points out that we had procedures for "repudiating the inappropriate behavior of those who claimed to be Quakers" beginning with James Nayler (1656) before there were structures for membership. And it was in this nonmembership environment that the Spirit seemed alive and in Truth to Nayler and his supporters, but he did not have "the blessings of a meeting for his public "blasphemous" activities…"

After Nayler had been rejected by Friends, and after much torture in government jails, he was reunited with Friends, condemning his prior behavior, and leaving with us a message spoken on the day of his death, recorded by Friends, and the basis of Kenneth Boulding's Nayler Sonnets (see Pendle Hill pamphlet 337, There Is a Spirit).

Surely we do not require torture and prison to bring individual Friends into harmony with monthly meetings! How do we nurture individual gifts of the Spirit while encouraging their testing their leadings within the monthly meeting as a promised Kingdom of God? How do we test leadings in our meetings? Do we encourage Friends to identify their strongly held beliefs not as separate activities, but as gifts of God coming through that individual into the community? Do we then provide oversight for these leadings and consider how they might be made manifest?

If we do not see this as a significant aspect of the functioning of a monthly meeting, we then have Friends assuming individual actions, quite separate from a Meeting's care and oversight. Once given a travel minute, for example, a Friend may make his/her own individual evaluation of the Truth that they are receiving and take actions without the seasoning of oversight. In the "live and let live" world of this century, where the individual reigns supreme, how do Friends who have formed themselves into a monthly meeting translate most effectively their care for individual leadings? Our loving care of the individual who feels led is part of the responsibility of seeking the Kingdom of God together. For the vitality of Meeting life, we need to continue to evaluate ways to move this dynamic of individual and group identities past conflict into a more and more peaceable Kingdom.

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Conflict!

Tom Rothschild, clerk, Committee on Conflict Transformation

What does it mean for you? Excitement, stimulation, even eagerness to engage? Destruction, division, danger, fear, avoidance? Conflict can evoke all these strong emotional responses at once, and even more. But however considered, conflict calls forth explosions of energy. And energy is important; it is the stuff of life. All of the universe is an expression of energy in one form or another.

But what happens to this energy? All too often, the conflict itself acts as a "black hole," not only absorbing the energy it releases, but sucking in even more energy from everyone who comes near it. When this occurs within a meeting, it can destroy relationships, connections with one another, with the Sacred. It can swallow individuals, committees, even the whole meeting within its morass. Membership decline in the Society of Friends did not start in the 1950s; its roots were planted between 1810 and 1820 with the first beginnings of the conflicts that ultimately resulted in the deep and long-lasting schisms of 1825–27. Conflict is at its most destructive when we "play ostrich," pretending, as Friends so often do, that the conflict isn't there, that it will go away if we ignore it, that it's "no longer a problem because she left the meeting." Our general secretary has reminded us that a quarter of our meetings have unresolved, intransigent conflicts that have lasted for years. In some cases they have lasted for decades.

Properly focused, however, this selfsame energy of conflict can bring new life to the meeting instead of destruction, can bring spiritual insight and growth, lead to reconciliation. The outpouring of energy in conflict is not bad in itself; our response to it helps shape the result. An unchecked fire in the home will destroy it. But a fire in the hearth is desirable—even necessary—for warmth, for beauty. Without fire, there can be no life. We can mix the physical elements of flour and water with the life force of the yeast, but until we add fire we will not get bread.

How then can we nurture this process of growth? First of all, we must learn to recognize conflict. We must agree as a community to acknowledge it when it comes and face our responsibility to address it. Until we do this, little more is possible. Next, we need the right tools to bring healing and restoration of relationship to one another and to the Sacred (however we name it).

The Committee on Conflict Transformation was created by NYYM in 2003 to help us find these positive and spiritually transforming approaches to the conflicts among us. We work in confidence to provide support and assistance when conflicts arise. In the formal words of our charge, the committee exists "to provide an education in the spiritual basis and skills of Friends' conflict transformation and to facilitate the transformation of conflicts within NYYM."

How do we engage in this work? We seek the approach most supportive of the particular meeting, committee, or region experiencing conflict. Sometimes just offering a workshop may be sufficient to give a committee on ministry and counsel the tools and the confidence needed to begin a healing process on its own. On at least one occasion, several of the individuals directly involved in conflict attended our workshop themselves, seeking better understanding and ways to move toward reconciliation. On other occasions, a committee member or a Friend cooperating with the committee will meet with a committee on ministry and counsel and perhaps with others concerned to discern with them the way forward. The result could be offering a presence to hold the meeting in prayer as they address the conflict. It could be more active facilitation where appropriate, such as listening deeply to all parties and helping them move toward solutions.

Our committee cannot do this work alone. One part of our charge is education. Through our workshops we help other Friends learn about conflict transformation work and bring new understanding back to their meetings, where they can begin to address these issues themselves.

The committee continues to discern ways to call upon the gifts of those who are called to this work but are not members of the committee. We have done this on more than one occasion, and we expect that this practice will grow as our meetings become more familiar with our committee and its work and make more frequent requests for our assistance.

If your meeting is involved in conflict and you believe the Committee on Conflict Transformation could be of help, if you wish to assist in the work, or if you simply wish more information, please contact us. You can contact the clerk, Tom Rothschild, or you can reach the committee through the Yearly Meeting office. Like all of our work, such requests are held in the strictest confidence.

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Two-Hour Program to Explore Conflict in Meetings

Joanna Komoska, former clerk of Conflict Transformation Committee

The following represents a program for an adult discussion group that could be provided by a monthly or quarterly meeting seeking ways to encourage community building where conflict may stand in the way of wholeness in meeting affairs.

Reflections on Conflict: Allow 1½ to 2 hours for this program. Find a Friend to convene each of the three sections of the program. Find a timekeeper who will let Friends know when there are five minutes left before the end of a section.

The program is divided into three sections:

1. private self examination about conflict with queries and journaling (20 minutes)
2. sharing in pairs about conflict styles using queries and one-to-one sharing (30 minutes)
3. full-group worship sharing using a query (30–50 minutes)

Leave a 5- to 10-minute stretch break between the segments. Try not to linger after the breaks or Friends with limited time may not get to stay for the last portion.

1. Queries for Personal Journaling (to be done individually)

Section convener provides pens and paper. Someone volunteers to be the timekeeper. Have printed copies of the queries for section 1 available for distribution.

Group convener reads, "Please have paper and pen for this section. We have an opportunity to lay other concerns aside and focus individually on the following queries. We have 20 minutes to do so, and our timekeeper will remind us of when 15 minutes have gone by and we will need to wrap up our thoughts in 5 minutes. We are asked to journal our responses with sincerity and privacy. This information will not be shared with the group. We will read all the queries aloud and then you can write your private responses."

Query: When conflict occurs in my life, how do I first react?

• Think of a recent conflict. What role did you play in perpetuating it, staying neutral, or helping to solve it?
• What were your feelings during it?
• What were you able to say or do that pleased you?
• With hindsight, is there anything you would like to have done differently to lead toward a more positive outcome?

Provide 5 to 10 minutes for a break here. During this break, section convener helps Friends arrange chairs in pairs.

The convener selects a timekeeper and helps to reassemble the group on time. Have printed copies that can be distributed of the queries for section 2.

2. Queries about conflicts (in pairs)

Section convener reads, "We are reassembling in pairs. Try to sit with someone you would not ordinarily choose and to whom you are unrelated. You will have 30 minutes to converse—15 minutes max for each Friend. You can each answer a query and move to the next, being mindful of the time. It's okay if not all are covered. To increase a sense of trust and safety, please consider that what you share is personal and confidential and agree to not carry these insights outside this forum."

The timekeeper is to alert Friends when they have been conversing for 15 minutes. Have they been sharing the time to speak? If not, they need to switch so the other can now speak to the queries. The timekeeper also alerts Friends when there is 5 minutes of the 30 minutes remaining.

Query: When considering your personal style of relating to conflict, do you see it carrying over into your way of relating in Meeting?

• What do we disagree about in our Meeting and how do we disagree? How do I participate?
• Does my style of dealing with conflict interfere with or enhance the most positive outcome?

Provide 5 to 10 minutes for a break here. Section convener helps to move chairs into a circle during the break and encourages the group to reassemble.

Establish how long the group will meet for this section. Find a timekeeper to announce when there are 5 minutes to the end of the time. The convener leads Friends in 5 to 10 minutes' worshipful silence and then invites each participant to speak to the query, or to their experiences of the time together. Remind Friends of the confidentiality of what is spoken together and that there is a desire to have each Friend have a chance to speak, without cross talk about other Friends' messages. Friends are encouraged to speak briefly enough to allow time for all to share.

3. Whole Group Worship Sharing

The convener reads, "Query: As a Meeting, is it true that sometimes we are able to resolve differences and sometimes we have differences that remain unresolved conflict? When have I felt a conflict in Meeting give way to unity? Do we wish to find ways beyond conflict toward greater wholeness? Can the Spirit lead us there? What is my part in the solution?"

This discussion group can open up conversation and provide a way open toward greater community. But it can also be stressful if there are conflicts that have been standing in the way. Consider testing as to whether Friends might wish more programs of this nature before dispersing. One way without prolonging the program is to provide an evaluation sheet asking for feedback. Consider also having snacks afterward so that Friends have a chance to unwind together regarding the experience.

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Description of Committee on Conflict Transformation

Purposes and Objectives
To provide an education in the spiritual basis and skills of Friends' conflict transformation and to facilitate the transformation of conflicts within New York Yearly Meeting. It will use the June 2003 report of the Task Group on Conflict Transformation to inform and shape its work.

History
Minute 30 of the 2003 Yearly Meeting sessions approved the formation of the Committee, which evolved out of the work of the Task Group on Conflict Transformation laid down the same year.

Functions & Activities

1. The Committee's work is under the care of the Coordinating Committee for Ministry and Counsel, to whom they report regularly throughout the year.
2. The Committee encourages active engagement of the Yearly Meeting and its monthly and quarterly meetings in exploring effective ways to lift disagreements into the light of opportunity for growth and closer community.
3. The Committee provides workshops for learning skills and deepening understanding about conflict and its transformation, ranging in length from three hours to five days. All workshops encourage participation of the Spirit as the key ingredient in resolving conflict and healing from its negative fallout.
4. The Committee makes itself available at times of conflict, acting in confidence, to provide a neutral presence, to listen and to encourage healing dialogue, for the Yearly Meeting and its committees and equally for monthly and quarterly meetings and their committees.
5. The Committee is actively creating a historical record of conflicts and methods that helped resolve and heal.
6. The Committee provides bibliographies and literature of its own on conflict transformation.

Organization & Method of Appointment
The Committee has from six to eight members appointed by the Yearly Meeting for staggered three-year terms. Two to three are appointed each year as members rotate off. The Committee appoints its own clerk and recording clerk and a representative to Ministry and Counsel Coordinating Committee. These positions are held for a one-year term, which may be renewed.

Potential nominees should have characteristics such as mediation/negotiation/eldering skills, spiritual centeredness helpful in conflict situations, an ability to maintain confidentiality and neutrality, and ability to engage in skills education for Yearly Meeting Friends.

Meeting Times & Places
Meetings of the Committee are held at Yearly and Representative Meetings. At least two, and frequently more, additional day-long meetings are held during the year as called by the clerk, as well as occasional telephone conferences. Insofar as practical, committee meetings alternate between the Albany area and the metropolitan downstate area.

Finances
Funds are provided by Ministry and Counsel Coordinating Committee, which considers for approval an annual budget proposed by the Committee.

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A Case for Eldering and Discipline

Herb Lape, Westbury Meeting

In his report to December Representative Meeting, Christopher Sammond noted that one quarter of the Meetings that he has visited have a long-standing conflict that is sapping spiritual and physical vitality and inhibiting growth. My own monthly meeting had a conflict of this sort that periodically bubbled and subsided for nearly 40 years without resolution. Over the years, we had lost individuals, some of whom transferred to other meetings while others simply left Quakers, no doubt wondering about a group that talked about peacemaking and yet was unable to bring peace to their own community.

Historically our meeting community, like others, has been very tolerant and patient with conflict-prone individuals, hoping that positive nurture and mediation would encourage offenders toward more productive behavior and create an ideal "win-win" situation without recourse to communal discipline. As with many modern Friends, we were uncomfortable with the term "eldering." It conjured up negative images of scolding old men wagging their fingers in narrow, legalistic judgment of behavior. Our 18th- and 19th-century history of elders' disowning numerous Friends for a long list of infractions provide another good reason to prefer mediation to eldering.

But as mediation failed to settle conflicts, especially with difficult individuals who were not particularly open to mediation, God pushed us to recover a tradition of eldering discipline to preserve the health and peace of our community.

Several years ago continued disruptive behavior on the part of several individuals produced such a conflict that several people stormed out of business meeting in disgust. Our Ministry and Oversight realized that our approach had to change or we were going to lose valued members. An ad for an FGC (Friends General Conference) Traveling Ministries program on dealing with disruptive members in the meeting miraculously appeared at that moment, and we sent a member to learn. Prior to this, several members of our Ministry and Oversight Committee had been studying Quaker traditions of eldering and had already begun to tentatively try eldering discipline.

With the encouragement of past examples and contemporaries (the FGC program confirmed our own tentative efforts in the direction of discipline), we became more confident in our efforts to elder disruptive behavior. Without going into the details, the following pattern has developed. With the first instance of complaints, we encourage Friends to be tolerant of troubling behavior, especially among new attenders and the young, in the belief that continued exposure to Friends' practice will educate without the need of direct speaking. We also try nurture and plan strategies to help engage disruptive individuals to use their gifts in positive ways through service. If, however, the disruptive behavior continues and threatens the peace of the meeting, we assign a member of Ministry and Oversight to speak directly to the individual or individuals about our practice and how their behavior is producing unhealthy conflict. We offer counsel and help to encourage change.

In the occasions where the behavior continues in spite of these efforts, we write a formal letter outlining the behavior that needs to change. We reiterate our commitment to speak with the individuals any time we witness continued behavior that violates Friends' practice and disturbs our communal peace. If necessary, we might follow this letter up with a meeting with two or three "elders" from Ministry and Oversight. Our monthly Ministry and Oversight Committee regularly reviews how things are going with particular conflicts and modifies our actions accordingly. It has been our practice to begin with small, private actions and avoid group meetings, which usually end with contentious debates about whether the behavior in question is Quakerly and the discipline legitimate. Eldering is not a judgment of innocence or guilt. It is simply a statement that the behavior in question is producing major conflict in the meeting that threatens our communal health.

It would be nice to report a storybook ending to our discipline efforts, but, as expected, individuals have responded differently to discipline. Some have respected the needs of the community and modified their behavior. Others have maintained that we are attempting to crush their prophetic witness to truth and have withdrawn from active participation. Individuals are free to choose their response. We can't force them to see things our way, but we can insist that certain practices that have promoted communal peace over the years be respected. The weight of meeting opinion has been appreciative of our efforts to defend communal boundaries of good practice, and our meeting has been growing.

It has also been our experience that Quaker communities that fail to exert discipline in an open way through properly recognized channels will slip into "unofficial" discipline through talebearing, backbiting and shunning of offending individuals. Aboveboard discipline is much Friendlier than this vigilante approach and much more likely to settle the conflict in healthy ways.

I don't think that most people are looking for warm, fuzzy faith communities. I think they want to be part of real communities that wrestle with conflicting testimonies and are unafraid of exercising legitimate authority to settle conflicts in time-honored practices. I believe that our own Meeting has become more vibrant and spiritually alive, at least in part through eldering that has embraced discipline as well as nurture.

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Conflict Resolution with Children

Laura Goodwin & Adrianne Pierce, Chappaqua Meeting

Observing the experience that both of our daughters, Hannah and Cate, have had at Chappaqua Friends Nursery School has been a rich and rewarding experience for us as we witness how Quaker beliefs come into play in a variety of expected and not-so-expected ways.

We value deeply that this school strives to find the Light in each child and that all children are welcomed in this school. As vital as that thoroughgoing belief is in guiding the school, the ways in which Quakerism is expressed on a daily basis is even more remarkable. As conflict arises in the daily interactions of the children over a toy, over a turn, over the direction pretend play will take, rather than redirecting the children's attention to other play, or deciding who "wins" this debate, our teachers use these moments to teach these children how to resolve their conflicts. What are you feeling? How does your action make the other feel? What is a way that each of you can have a turn, or work together to enjoy this activity? In this age when many schools have adopted a "zero tolerance" policy toward bullying, this school offers another path that builds skills in peaceful negotiation and creates a space that is truly safe for all children to be themselves.

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Conflict as Opportunity

A Quaker Story with a Happy Ending . . .
and an Unhappy One

Jeffrey Aaron, New Brunswick Meeting

In the mid-1990s, New Brunswick Monthly Meeting was generally at peace with itself. There was a spectrum of opinions on a range of issues, but there were no major conflicts about issues that caused noticeable distress. In response to the general sense of peace, as clerk at the time, I decided to recommend that the meeting consider same-sex marriage. I sensed that laboring over a difficult issue would be good exercise for a meeting that was perhaps "too peaceful."

New Brunswick Friends took up the concern and proceeded to hold several threshing sessions. Those who were not able to be present at any of the threshing sessions were invited to let the clerk or any other Friend know in advance what they wished to share with Friends in the discussion, from their personal perspective. Although Friends have traditionally determined the sense of the meeting on the basis of those in attendance, we wanted to consider as fully as possible the perspectives of those who could not be present, since we planned to construct a minute reflecting our position as a body. Variant opinions were expressed and initially there was not a clear sense from these meetings what Friends could say and what we could not say. Eventually, however, words were carefully chosen expressing what we felt we could truly state as a body, which led to a simple minute, approved at a business session in 1996, as follows. The process seemed to be successful. The existence of the minute has since been very gratifying in the hearts of New Brunswick Friends.

There was, however, an unpleasant surprise ending. We completed the process and ended the business meeting with recentering silence, after which I turned to the recording clerk with a smile to shake her hand. She had not been active in any of the discussions, a fact that I had not particularly noticed. I said, "Well, we managed to get through that process successfully!" She looked at me and answered, with great distress in her voice, "Well, I think it was a terrible mistake. I think that gay marriage, or marriage between people of different races or backgrounds, just doesn't work and causes problems for everyone." Sometime later, she transferred her membership out of New Brunswick to a nearby meeting that is in a different yearly meeting, citing the fact that she had moved and was now closer to that meeting.

The experience was humbling. There were lessons to be learned, but just what those lessons were remains a matter of opinion. As clerk at the time, I was struck by the fact that we may often assume that we know each other well, but that may be an illusion. That we asked people to let us know how they felt, yet had remained unaware of a strong opinion of an active member of the meeting—an opinion that was so far out of the perceived Quaker mainstream—was startling. I have since tried to listen harder and to avoid any assumptions. We learned that there are many people, both among Friends and in society at large, who generally prefer the appearance of peace based on avoidance of any discussion of difficult issues. Some may feel that this approach is a mistake, but who are we to say that it is wrong? It may be wrong for me, but it may be right for someone else, someone who does not feel capable of laboring openly over an issue in which they may hold a minority or solitary position. Someone who may desperately need the peace that meeting seems to offer as a respite in a world in turmoil. Some Friends may have considered that it was right for that person to transfer to another meeting if she was uncomfortable with the meeting after the process, but who are we to say that what may have been a painful experience for that Friend was "good" for her or for the meeting? Was her position racist? That may be the perception of some Friends, but we never had the opportunity to explore the reasons—valid or not—for a perspective that was clearly deeply held by a longtime active member of the meeting. We must not be dismissive or judgmental in such situations without fuller explorations for which there were no opportunities. In retrospect, however, it is now clear that we could have created such opportunities, but did not do so. Friends permitted the renewal of the appearance of peace, the appearance of "safety."

Friends expect that we share our basic values. Generally we do; however, that fact does not imply that we will or should always meet, or expect to meet, in comfortable peace and harmony. Peace and harmony may be valid perpetual goals, but we are an open society. We welcome all those who would join us if they and we—as meetings—feel that the applicant is a sincere seeker who shares our basic values. If we are fortunate as a meeting, this fact will mean that we come from many different cultures or at least different subcultures. Our ways of interpreting the world may be far more at odds than we realize. Consider the infamous historical struggle within our society over the issue of slavery. Airing our differences can be a valuable experience, even if difficult.

We like to think of ourselves as an inclusive society. This means that we will need to labor among ourselves frequently over the issues of our world, just as society at large needs to labor over these issues. The very special gift that we offer society at large is the Quaker process of laboring together openly and with acceptance, hearing and listening to each other fully, rather than waiting for our individual opportunities to speak to promote our own preconceived perspective. Friends are generally aware of that fundamental Quaker notion, but may not, in reality, be skilled in carrying it out. This reality—the lack of this subtle skill—may make conflict seem threatening to Friends. But if there is no apparent conflict in a given meeting, it may be that Friends in the meeting are practicing avoidance, or that they have self-selected in an unconscious, exclusive way that may preclude real growth—both personal growth and in terms of membership. Either way, a meeting without conflict does not prepare us for effective participation in society at large. Conflict itself is neither negative nor positive. It is how the conflict manifests that is the issue. Like a canker, unresolved conflict is usually the real problem. Our meetings can provide opportunities to hone our skills in resolving such conflicts, and our society can provide assistance when we are stuck.

We should welcome conflict, but we must become increasingly sensitive to the need to hear everyone out as fully as possible, including those who may have difficulty expressing themselves. Extraordinary patience and tenderness may be required, and our efforts must not include insensitively pressuring a Friend who is reluctant to speak. Most of us are not trained or skilled at this work. It is a skill that requires consciousness and effort and, in difficult cases, training. It is fundamental to our Quaker notions of human interaction; yet it remains a rare skill. We have great expectations of ourselves as Friends, because we are Friends; yet we have limited skills for contending with difficult issues, especially when issues are personal rather than philosophical or theoretical. We have processes that are exemplary in theory, but Friends are often unaware of these processes or unskilled in their practice. Unlike other religious and social bodies that have personnel trained to function in these situations, or professionals or authorities hired to mediate, we expect our group processes to succeed "because we are Friends." Sometimes we do succeed; sometimes we do not. If the issues are complex or difficult, we may not be capable of addressing them successfully without outside assistance, which it may not occur to us to seek. We may be unwilling to request outside help or inappropriately embarrassed that our meeting may be in trouble.

Friends need to remind themselves that humility is a virtue and that not seeking assistance is to do ourselves an injustice when assistance is truly needed. As Friends, it just may behoove us at times to look for trouble.

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Making Friends with Conflict

Fred Feucht, Purchase Meeting

I have been a member of Purchase meeting for more than 30 years, and I have been a leader in the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) for 25 years. As a result of my involvement in the AVP program, I have come to view conflict in a different way. When I begin a conflict resolution workshop, I start by talking about conflict.

I usually ask, "How many people here like conflict?" Very few people raise their hands.

Then I ask, "How many would like to see a world without conflict?" And then many people raise their hands.

Then I ask, "How many people saw a television drama in the last week? …or went or a movie in the last month? …or read a novel in the last six months? …or saw a stage play in the last year?" Usually there are many hands raised.

Then I ask, "If I took the conflict out of the TV drama, the movie, the novel, and the stage play, would you have watched the TV drama, gone to the movie, read the novel, or attended the stage play?" The answer is generally, "No."

Without conflict there is no story. Conflict is essential to fiction. Conflict is a part of life.

What is important about these stories is not that they involve conflict, but rather, how is the conflict is resolved? In the case of the stage play, if there is a negative solution, we call the play a tragedy and the story generally ends with the death of the hero. If there is a positive solution, we call the play a comedy and although the hero may not go on to live happily ever after, the hero will go on with better skills and more confidence to reach a positive solution in the next conflict that life offers.

The question for me personally is: "What I want to do with my life." Do I choose to make my life a comedy with a positive ending? Or do I choose a tragedy with a negative ending?"

Personal growth is about making friends with conflict!

What would the world be like without conflict? How would the world be if it were totally peaceful and harmonious and my interactions with others were never questioned or challenged? Would I have any need or desire to grow and change? Hardly!

I have found that I am truly motivated to change only when I am faced with conflict. Without conflict, I would probably become complacent and self-satisfied Although, I may experience conflicts as difficult and painful, they are truly a gift. Each conflict that comes along is a new opportunity for me to grow and change. I have learned to be thankful for the conflicts that have come along in my life.

For many people, their dream of "a Peaceful World" is a world without conflict. Many people -fear conflict and will often go to great lengths to avoid- conflict. The Peace Testimony does not mean that we must avoid conflict.

Some of us grew up in families in which we were taught to avoid conflict. Many of us may belong to meetings that fear conflict. However, I have also learned that in the long run, avoiding conflict generally makes matters worse.

Although we may wish for a world that is completely peaceful and joyful and without conflict, even if it were possible, I don't think it would be beneficial or healthy for us.

Social change is about making friends with conflict!

When Jesus of Nazareth began to preach about a message of love and criticized the established religion of his day, he certainly created conflict. But he did not advocate violence to overthrow the Jewish religious leaders or the Roman government. I believe that Jesus was a person who made friends with conflict.

When George Fox and the early Friends started their ministry, they certainly created a great deal of conflict. They criticized the established churches of their day and refused to cooperate with the government. As a result, many of them were thrown into prison and many were persecuted. However, they did not respond with violence. I believe that George Fox was a person who made friends with conflict.

When Mahatma Gandhi was working to gain independence for India, he organized the Salt March to the sea. The Salt March certainly created a great deal of social conflict, but he was determined to resolve the conflict nonviolently. His strategy resulted in the social change that liberated India from the colonial rule. I believe that Mahatma Gandhi was a person who made friends with conflict.

When Martin Luther King worked to gain civil rights for all Americans he had a very simple, two-part strategy for social change.

First, he created conflict to initiate change. He writes in his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail:

"Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such tension that a community that has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue so that it can no longer be ignored."

The second part of his strategy was to make a commitment to a nonviolent resolution. When he was leading the bus boycott in Montgomery in 1956, he said: "We will not resort to violence. We will not degrade ourselves with hatred. Love will be returned for hate."

He presented America with conflicts that gave it an opportunity to grow and change. Schools were desegregated. Public transportation was desegregated. Restaurants were desegregated. African Americans got the right to vote. America did change, and it will never be the same again.

King was completely committed to a win-win solution. I believe that Martin Luther King was a person who made friends with conflict.

The challenge for Quaker meetings is to embrace change and make friends with conflict. The challenge is to find the win-win solution. This is a path that requires real courage. This is a path that requires prayer and guidance form the Inner Light. This is a path of spiritual warriors such as Jesus, George Fox, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. Although Jesus, Gandhi, and King gave their lives for moral and spiritual change, the world will never be the same again.

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Oasis of Peace

Deborah First, Fredonia Monthly Meeting

It happened during a sabbatical journey a dozen years ago, while my husband, Ted, and I were following in the footsteps of St. Paul, that we saw the beloved community in flesh and blood. While imagining listening to Paul ministering to the baby-new church communities in Corinth, Colossus, and Ephesus, we heard Jewish and Arab teachers ministering to the students in their baby-new school in Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam. While considering how Paul wrestled with the cultural norms of his day to bring into fruition a community that might be more whole, more caring, more conscious, we stumbled into an Arab-Jewish community in Israel that wrestled daily with the enveloping cultural conflicts.

When people born into fear, anger, and injury decide to join with the "other" and create a witness to certainty that peace can be created—minute by minute, day by day, year by year, life by life—it is a pearl of great price. And so it was that in our search to understand Paul's life of faith, we found ourselves in the middle of a living community, committed to a faithful search for the ways to peace for their troubled land.

Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam (the Oasis of Peace) was founded thirty years ago—on land donated by the Trappist monastery in Latrun—by Father Bruno Hussar, who was born a Jew in Cairo, became a Dominican in Paris, and resolved to devote his life to the creation of a place where Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Israel could live out Isaiah's promise that "…my people shall dwell in an oasis of peace." 25 Arab Israeli and 25 Jewish Israeli families (with hundreds of families on a waiting list) currently live in Neve Shalom/ Wahat al-Salam, making a daily commitment to conflict transformation and a just and peaceful coexistence. Their bilingual, binational, bicultural primary school serves not only their own children but also children from two dozen other villages, both Jewish and Arab, offering to the extended network of family and village relationships a vision of what is possible.

When we first set foot in the primary school, we happened on a literature lesson, where the children explored interpretations in both Hebrew and Arabic. Students and teachers together asked questions and offered answers in both their own and each other's languages. It happened that we arrived near the time when three religious celebrations were approaching: Hanukkah, Christmas, and Isra Mer'Aj. The children's enthusiasm for each other's symbols and stories was matched in intensity several months later when we listened to them tell their stories of Independence Day and The Naqba (the disaster). Rather than the cheerfully digestible picture of "we can all get along," we had a picture of what it actually takes to do this kind of deep peacebuilding work.

The children met in separate Arab and Jewish groups and grades, with teachers, to air their narratives and anxieties, to list the questions they wanted to ask, to imagine what the "other" explanation and description of the events could be. They made photo boards, pasted up news clippings, drew pictures, and made Israeli and Palestinian flags. When they returned to their classrooms, they listened and learned from one another. They learned, for example, that they could disagree utterly about a story and still make plans for playing together that afternoon. They could empathize deeply with each other's feelings and still feel pride in their own narrative. They learned that complicated stories and events that deal in real lives are not resolved by creating the most dramatic or the most polarized story. They learned that conflict transformation was a lifetime work that went on every day.

What Ted and I learned was that conflict resolution—a perspective and set of practices of which we were, as Friends, quite fond—was not a helpful idea. As the Jewish and Arab school principals said to us, "Some conflicts can not be resolved. No one is going away here and no one can repair the past. What we can do is find the ways forward, teaching the children (and their families) how to live with one another while trying to create a more just and peace-filled future." When the children left school that day, as they did every day, they walked into the streets of a village committed to the principle that Isaiah's oasis of peace was nothing less than a daily living of it. They walked home or to their schoolbus, seeing Arab and Jewish parents having coffee, talking, perhaps arguing, laughing, but above all being together.

Over the years, our connection to the wide range of peace work of Neve Shalom/ Wahat al-Salam has deepened and it has led us to develop a relationship with the Palestinian Hope Flowers School in el-Khadr, the "peace and democracy" school founded by man who grew up in the Deheishe refugee camp and whose experience with the School for Peace at Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam transformed his life and thereby the lives of the Palestinian children and their families in who are now educated in the Hope Flowers School. We have led a Habitat workcamp in rural Jordan as another bridge to peacebuilding. Certainly, Friends have a history in this conflict-rich land in the Ramallah Friends Schools, which bore witness to Friends' testimonies both before 1948, when the schools had a substantial Jewish population, and today, when often the only Jewish people seen by the students are Israeli soldiers. The new Friends International Center in Ramallah is another opening for witnessing to Friends' testimonies in an ever more challenged time. In Israel, the residential, programmatic, and practical realities of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam remain like a mother ship, like a well of deep water, from which inspiration and training are drawn for so many other hope-filled efforts.

I considered the business of the lion and the lamb, or the wolf and the sheep, and realized that Isaiah—being no fool—understood that the lion wasn't going to lose a taste for lamb overnight and the sheep wasn't going to develop skills in defense all that easily. What was asked of us was to live into the work of it, not the product of it, and the vision of how to do that had been given to us that day in this small, committed village that gives birth to projects and programs that are a literal laboratory for life.

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Friends for Peace

Friends for Peace, a project of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), is a place for the pro-peace majority to join together to make a positive, creative statement for peace in Iraq. Through Friends for Peace, people across the U.S. and around the world can put a face on the diverse majority who want to end the war in Iraq.

Courtesy AFSC

People from all walks of life now agree that invading Iraq was a mistake. Friends for Peace is a way to visually connect peace supporters and let everyone show a bit of their personality and individuality.

To join Friends for Peace, go to www.friendsforpeace.org and download one of their signs. Fill in a word or two that describes you (e.g., librarian, Red Sox fan, mother, etc.) and have a photo taken holding your sign.

Follow the instructions on the site to upload photos of you, your loved ones, friends, pets, whomever, with your sign supporting peace in Iraq. You can also see the hundreds of photos already in the system from other Friends for Peace. AFSC is getting ready to project photos on screens and walls at upcoming rallies and deliver photo albums of peace supporters to Congress.

Once your photo is uploaded, put your sign in your window or in some other prominent place to let friends, neighbors, and passersby know that you are a member of the pro-peace majority.

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But Who Is My Neighbor?

Friends General Conference 2007 Gathering of Friends
June 30–July 7, 2007
University of Wisconsin
River Falls, Wisconsin

"But who is my neighbor?" This question from the Samaritan story in Luke's gospel is the theme for the FGC Gathering this year. How does this speak to us today? How can we welcome as neighbors and (F)friends people from all walks of life, races and ethnic groups? How do we respond to this challenge in the reality of widespread violence in the world today? Is the earth our neighbor?

The Gathering will be at University of Wisconsin in River Falls. It is an easily accessible and lovely campus. The college is building a beautiful new student center where we will eat our meals and which can seat up to 1000 people. We have a capacity for 2000 of you and we are preparing a smooth registration process.

The Gathering Committee is hard at work planning the 2007 program. Already in place is the Elizabeth Watson Memorial Lecture to be given by Marcus J. Borg. Borg is a Bible scholar and author of The Heart of Christianity, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions and Reading the Bible Again for the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously but not Literally.

Join us at River Falls for the week as we worship together, play together, attend workshops, nurture our youth, and nurture ourselves.

For further information contact FGC, 1216 Arch St #2B, Philadelphia PA 19107; 215-561-1700; Fax: 215-561-0759; Website: www.fgcquaker.org; friends [at] fgcquaker [dot] org.

Advance Program, registration materials, interest group application form, and exhibit reservation form will be available on the FGC Web site March 15, 2007. Online and mail-in registration begins March 26.

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Everyone Invited to Representative Meeting

April 13–15, 2007
Chautauqua Institution

Farmington-Scipio Region welcomes Friends to Spring Sessions—April Representative Meeting. We will again be meeting on the campus of the Chautauqua Institution, in the southwest corner of New York State. Chautauqua Institution is a famous historic place along Lake Chautauqua that holds music and education programs in the summer. Our time together will be enhanced by the quiet atmosphere and lovely places to walk and enjoy the scenery. Attenders may wish to refer to www.chautauqua-inst.org for maps and links to local places of interest. As in previous years, we will be in Bellinger Hall, which has comfortable, dorm-like bedrooms, a dining room, and committee meeting rooms. We will hold worship and business sessions in nearby Lenna Hall.

Registration: Advanced registration is necessary for meals, housing, and childcare, which will all take place on the campus of the Chautauqua Institution. Please print out the registration form. The registration form indicates the prices for rooms and meals. Friends are reminded that financial help may be requested from monthly meetings, regional meetings, or committees. There are also designated funds through the scholarship fund, which you may request on your registration form.

Hospitality: If you would like accommodations with someone from Farmington-Scipio Region for either Thursday or Sunday night as you travel to/from Chautauqua, arrangements are being coordinated by Elmira Monthly Meeting member Joan Overman, 261 Upper Delevan Ave., Corning NY 14830; joverman [at] stny [dot] rr [dot] com; 607-962-1554.

Childcare will be provided during meetings times on Saturday and Sunday. In order to have a sufficient number of caregivers available, we will need the number and ages of children who plan to attend no later than March 25. Parents will be responsible for any children who have not been registered by the 25th.

Youth Program: The Farmington-Scipio Youth Activities Committee will be providing programs for both middle school and high school–aged youth. Young people must be accompanied by their parent(s) or a designated sponsor. Registration forms for youths must be sent in with those of their parent(s)/sponsor. For further information you may contact Jill McLellan, 585-526-5202 or mclellan [at] frontiernet [dot] net or Teresa Maciocha, 716-693-3149 or Tmaciocha [at] aol [dot] com.

Committee Meetings and Displays: Requests for committee meeting rooms and display space should be sent to Eleanor Doud, Fredonia Monthly Meeting, 716-782-3570; edoud [at] alltel [dot] net.

Note: Chautauqua Institution requests that we not bring our own food into Bellinger Hall. If you have not had supper along the way, you may wish to know that a restaurant called Andriaccio's is just a few feet north and across the road from the Chautauqua main gate.

Agenda: Business items at press time are General Services, Nurture, Witness, and Transition Working Group.

Directions to Chautauqua Institution

Interstate 90 (New York Thruway) to Westfield exit. After exit, turn left onto Rte 394 through Mayville (approximately 7 miles). Approximately 3 to 4 miles from the light in Mayville (stay on 394) Chautauqua's main entrance/gate will be on the left.

Interstate 86 (formerly Rte 17 & Southern Tier Expressway) going west. (Several miles past the Jamestown exit there is a split in the road. Follow the road towards Erie, PA) After crossing the bridge across Chautauqua Lake, take the exit 8 (the first exit immediately after the bridge), Mayville/Lakewood, Route 394. At end of the exit turn right towards Mayville. Go approximately 4 miles, Chautauqua's main entrance/gate will be on the right.

Public transportation:

Plane to Buffalo or Jamestown, NY or Erie, PA
Bus to Buffalo, NY or Erie, PA
Train to Buffalo or Rochester, NY

Two phone numbers where individuals might be reached at Bellinger Hall are 716-357-6241 or 716-357-6240. If you have any questions regarding travel or meeting room requirements, please feel free to call Eleanor Doud at 716-782-3570 or edoud [at] alltel [dot] net.

Motels in the Area

Comfort Inn, Jamestown, NY; 716-664-5920
Best Western, Jamestown, NY; 716-484-8400
Webb's Motel, Mayville, NY; 716-753-2161
Holiday Inn, Jamestown, NY; 716-664-3400

Schedule
Friday
5:00 P.M.	Registration
7:00–8:30 P.M.	Meeting for worship with a concern for initiating the weekend sessions
8:45	Fellowship & singing (Friends are encouraged to bring songbooks)
Saturday
7:30–8:30 A.M.	Breakfast
8:30	Registration
9:00–9:45	Meeting for worship
10:00–11:30	Committee meetings
11:45–1:15 P.M.	Lunch and fellowship
1:30–3:30	Meeting for business
3:45–5:15	Committee meetings
5:30–6:30	Dinner
7:30	Speaker: Judith Wellman
Sunday
7:30–8:30 A.M.	Breakfast
9:00–10:30	Meeting for business
10:30–10:50	Fellowship
11:00–12:00	Meeting for worship
12:15 P.M.	Lunch

Featured Speaker: Judith Wellman

Farmington-Scipio Friends' Leadership
in Reform Movements

Judith Wellman

As our featured speaker, Judith Wellman, will illustrate, Friends in the Farmington-Scipio Region have historically had wide-ranging influence in reform movements in the larger world.

Native rights: Friends worked with Seneca leaders after the fraudulent Treaty of Buffalo Creek in 1838 to prevent the forcible movement of Seneca people to lands west of the Mississippi.

Women's rights: Quakers were integral to organizing the first woman's rights convention at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, and about one-quarter of the signers of the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments came from Farmington Quarterly meeting.

Abolitionism and the Underground Railroad: Nationally known freedom seekers and abolitionists, both African American and European American, spoke or lived in Farmington before the Civil War. These included Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, William Wells Brown, William Chaplin, and the Edmondson sisters. Quakers in Farmington and Scipio Quarterly meetings—including J. C. Hathaway, Phebe Hathaway, Amy Post, Griffith M. Cooper, Pliny Sexton, Lydia and James Canning Fuller, Slocum Howland, Emily Howland, and the M'Clintock Family—were at the cutting edge of both the abolitionist and women's rights movements, nationwide.

Judith Wellman, Ph.D., is historian and principal investigator, Historical New York Research Associates, and professor emerita, State University of New York at Oswego. She has more than 30 years of experience in research, teaching, culture resource work, and grants administration in U.S. history, women's history, local history, Underground Railroad history, and historic preservation.

A member of Syracuse Meeting, she has worked as a consultant and principal investigator on award-winning projects with the National Park Service, the Mary Baker Eddy Library, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, the New York State Office of Historic Preservation, the Society for the Preservation of Weeksville and Bedford-Stuyvesant History, and several other organizations. She also regularly presents papers at major scholarly conventions, including the Organization of American Historians, Association for the Study of African American Life, and the National Council on Public History.

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WCC Minutes for Representative Meeting

Iran, torture, and parole issues: These concerns are central to our testimonies. The Witness Coordinating Committee (WCC) will be bringing forward minutes on these concerns at Representative Meeting in April.

At the WCC meeting on March 3:

These are the minutes WCC will offer for discernment to the Yearly Meeting body at April's representative meeting in Chautauqua. Excerpts from the minutes and additional information are offered below. Further information, and the full text of the minutes, is on the NYYM Web site at www.nyym.org/ministry/wcc4repmtg0704.html. The Web page also has information on a minute from Chatham-Summit Monthly Meeting on the death penalty.

Faith and Practice (p. 26) explains that "the Spirit leads our community to creative action, occasionally in ways that transcend reason, as we listen for God's voice in our prayers and in the messages we have for each other." Witness CC asks Friends, in the time leading up to representative meeting, to sit with and share the concerns expressed in these proposed minutes in worship, discussion and discernment. We know that your Light will brighten the way in our collective search for God's path.

The WCC minute on Iran reads in part, " In faithfulness to our testimony of peace, Friends call on the United States government to use diplomatic means in concert with the United Nations to resolve issues with the government of Iran, to disavow the use of military force in settling these issues, and to seek a positive, cooperative relationship with Iran in good faith. We call on the US Congress to reassert its constitutional responsibilities and to take action to prevent aggression against Iran."

The minute on parole reads in part, "It is a matter of faith among Friends (Quakers) that there is that of God in everyone. We know, experientially as a faith community, that it is possible for human beings to be transformed, by the power of Spirit at work in the world, and present in each of us, even in those of us who have broken the law, even in those of us who have taken the life of another."

In response to minutes received from a number of monthly and regional meetings, Witness CC approved a minute to ask Yearly Meeting to become a participating member of the National Religious Campaign against Torture (NRCAT) and to name a person to act as our representative to the Coordinating Committee of NRCAT and to be under the care of Witness CC. NRCAT is a coalition of national, regional, and local religious and secular organizations "committed to ensuring that the United States does not engage in torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of anyone, without exceptions." NRCAT's mission statement is included in the WCC material on the Web site.

Finally, the WCC material on the Web contains information on northern New Jersey Quakers' opposition to the death penalty, including a minute approved by Chatham-Summit Monthly Meeting.

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Young Quakes Conference Coming to NYYM!

The next Young Quakes Conference will be celebrated at Oakwood Friends School in Poughkeepsie, October 5–8, 2007, Friday supper to Monday lunch. This Friends General Conference gathering is for any young Friend who will be in high school in October of this year. The conference theme is Living a Revolutionary Faith. The purpose of the conference is to help nurture and deepen faith and witness, have fun together, and come to better understand who we are. There will be workshops, worship, plenary sessions, Bible study, sharing together, hanging out, small- and large-group work, exciting presenters, new friends to make, community building, and more. Complete registration materials, including cost and names of presenters, will be available by the end of June at www.quakeryouth.org/calendar/living-a-revolutionary-faith.php.

For further information contact Michael Gibson at 215-561-1700; michaelg [at] fgcquaker [dot] org.

See you there!

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New Home for Peconic Bay Meeting

Peconic Bay Quaker Meeting has a new home: The Wainscott Chapel on Main Street, Wainscott, N.Y. We have begun meeting there for worship every First Day beginning at 10 A.M. We follow worship with a period of afterthoughts and refreshments. Peconic Bay has been able to move part of their library to the Chapel and has been able to hang a sign in the meeting room. We will be holding an open house/meetinghouse warming on March 25, beginning with worship at 10.

The location is 10 miles east of where Peconic Bay Meeting used to meet at Southampton College. The Chapel is a 19th-century historic building, complete with a manually rung bell. It is near the ocean next to some of the few remaining farm fields on the south fork of eastern Long Island. Come and visit. Hospitality can be offered.

For more information or directions, call our clerk, Erling Hopel, 631-725-4294, or Joanna Komoska, 631-283-3981.

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Meeting at Historic Meetinghouse

Friends are invited to attend meeting for worship on Sunday, June 24, 2007, at the historic Quaker meetinghouse in the Genesee Country Village and Museum (GCVM) in Mumford, N.Y. (www.gcv.org).

Historic GCVM meetinghouse

GCVM is a living-history museum composed of authentic 19th-century buildings that have been relocated from their original places in western New York State. Volunteers at the village and museum dress in period costume and are very well informed about life in the 1800s. There are many demonstrations and traditional activities throughout the village (singing, crafts, folk dancing, etc.).

The Quaker meetinghouse has been reserved for us the morning of June 24. GCVM will also be hosting a War of 1812 reenactment that weekend. Let us be present to reenact peace! We are being offered a special group rate to enter the Genesee Country Village: Adults ages 17 and up, $8; children 4–16, $5; children 3 and under free. Those paying the group rate need to pay in advance and enter the Country Village as a group prior to worship. Please contact Suzanne Blackburn for more information: 585-468-5274 or odonata [at] hughes [dot] net. If you would like to enter at the group rate, please contact Suzanne before June 1. Friends who do not sign up in advance can enter GCVM at the regular rate and pay as they enter.

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The Yearly Meeting Prayer List Is Growing

Are you on the NYYM prayer list? Would you like to be? Yearly Meeting staff or Ministry and Counsel members frequently hear of Friends going through health crises, deaths in the family, abrupt transitions, spiritual openings, and all manner of life events that inspire us to pray for them. Usually, the word goes out in an informal way to those who might be concerned for this Friend and want to offer support. To widen this circle of support, Ministry and Counsel Coordinating Committee has a Yearly Meeting prayer list, providing support for several Friends.

Bobbi Sue Bowers, of Manasquan Monthly Meeting, is the coordinator for the list. Bobbie Sue receives names of those who feel a need for the support of the broader community. Once a week, she sends out the list via e-mail to those who feel a leading to hold others in the Light. Those without e-mail capacity may receive hard copies.

If you would like prayer support for any reason, you can be on the list in several ways: You can be on the list with an asterisk, which means that you do not want to be contacted or asked about why you are on the list; you can be on the list with a short description as to why; or your name can be there by itself. Please do not submit someone else's name without their permission.

If you wish to be on the list, or feel led to a practice of prayer, you can contact Bobbi Sue at bobbisue.bowers [at] juno [dot] com or 732-919-1261.

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Memorial for John Brush

The memorial service for John Brush will be held at the Medford Monthly Meetinghouse, 14 Union Street, Medford, N.J., on Sunday, April 1. at 2:00 P.M. Medford, in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, is near Route 70 in N.J., east of Philadelphia.

John was 87 when he died peacefully on February 20, 2007, in Medford, surrounded by family.

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Letters to the Editor

The Crime of Conflict

My meeting has vast theological differences including, among others, Wilburite Christianity, which speaks to my condition, Buddhism, universalism, and some Muslim attenders. I feel called to implore 15th Street Meeting to recognize that George Fox's revelation of true Christianity is as valid today as it was in the 17th century. Most members of 15th Street Meeting do not agree. Small wonder that there seems to be unease whenever I feel moved to minister during meeting for worship.

Yes, I feel a prophetic calling to influence our meeting to recognize that Christ Jesus, in George Fox's words, has come(and is present) to teach His people Himself. We need to wait on Him during our worship periods, for spiritual insight, a love that is beyond human understanding, and a willingness to be gathered in His name.

But what is my responsibility during worship? Certainly not to create disunity. On the other hand God requires me to discern when it is appropriate for me, as a Quaker Christian waiting on God for guidance, to discern whether I am properly led to vocalize during meeting, despite my desire to speak. I have faith that in Christ, God will quiet me vocally if anticipated ministry on my part would cause hurt instead of inculcating God's love. But, if there are enough Friends who desire ministry in the presence of Christ, then the Lord leads me to render ministry but in a nonbelligerent tone with words that comfort.

Meeting for worship is not—and cannot be—a seminar for laboring over Quaker concepts. That should be done during discussion groups where we do have the opportunity to evaluate competing Quaker concepts. Even in those groups that are exploring Friends' values, we need to be careful that our contributions are inspired by the Spirit, not our emotions.

During George Fox's lifetime, Friends in unity promulgated the message that God is with us. Today our conflicts frustrate us from ministering to a spiritually hungry population. That is the crime of conflict.

Arthur Berk, Fifteenth Street Meeting

Query: Have You Danced?

Years ago, when our son David returned from a trip to South Carolina, he brought me a lovely teardrop-shaped prism. He hung it in the window by our front door, and it has been there ever since.

In the fall of the year, when the sun sets earlier and lower in the sky, the last few rays of the sun come through the window and hit the prism, and there are rainbows dancing all over the front hall.

Last fall when I arrived home late one day, our daughter Amy and her daughter Madeline were already there, and they were dancing among and around and through the rainbows. It was a joyous sight. I mentioned this to a dear Friend who said, "Wouldn't it be a good thing to have as one of the Quaker Queries, "Have you danced with a rainbow today?'"

As Friends we are expected to ask ourselves some very serious questions, and hear some very serious advices. Perhaps we should ask ourselves if we danced with pure joy and felt thankful for the many blessings we are given, unasked for and freely bestowed.

Carol Coulthurst, Somerset Hills Meeting

Execute Justice, Not People!

As we started a New Year with images of the execution of Saddam Hussein, could anyone feel we have been successful on any level in Iraq?

I turn to Faith and Practice:

Is it any wonder that a society that finds capital punishment acceptable is capable of waging war, capable of living the high life of consumerism while turning a blind eye to civilian "collateral damage"?

Four executions were carried out in January 2007 in the United States—three in Texas. 53 people were executed in 2006. To keep up-to-date on scheduled executions, learn more about the individual cases, and contact the governors of each state and make your voice heard, visit the Web site of National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty at www.ncadp.org. You can sign up for execution alerts to keep yourself informed—you can easily send e-mails to protest each execution. It's the least we can do.

Judy Meikle, Wilton Meeting

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Notices

This column is prepared from information about membership received from the local meeting recorders.

NEW MEMBERS

Danielle Dybiec—Brooklyn
Barbara Meli—Jericho
Sal Meli—Jericho
Sandra Moore—Hudson
Ian Punnett—Orchard Park
Ken Punnett—Orchard Park
Maddy Punnett—Orchard Park
Kathleen Scanlon—Purchase
Wendy Schwenker—Orchard Park
Lawrence Daniel Syzdek—Schenectady
Elena Wickersham—Purchase
Kate Wickersham—Purchase

TRANSFERS

Diane Cano, to Ridgewood from Brooklyn.
Regina, Dennis, and Andrew Paul Haag, to Adirondack from Dover Friends Meeting (WYM)
Christine Koster, to Albany from Brooklyn
Barbara Mancuso, to Albany from Lehigh Valley (PYM)
Elaine C. Taylor, to Manasquan from Shrewsbury

BIRTHS/ADOPTIONS

Rebecca Lopez Deren, on June 30, 2006, to Nancy and Edward Deren, members of Ridgewood

DEATHS

Frances Carey Brown, member of Conscience Bay, on December 25, 2006
Lucinda Chapman, member of Elmira, on February 4, 2007
Stephanie Freivogel, member of Flushing, on April 22, 2006
Irene Garrow, member of Flushing, on March 17, 2006
Helen Turan Goff, member of Conscience Bay, on January 24, 2007
Barbara Pittenger, member of Syracuse, on November 9, 2006
Ellen Tifft, member of Elmira, on December 17, 2006