Part-Time Quaker

This was the tenth year in a row that my family has attended Pacific Yearly Meeting's annual sessions - and the first time I only went for part of it.

This year, because of the limited vacation time I have in my new job, I was only able to attend the final 48 hours of the sessions. It turned out that during that period, a major decision was reached by the Yearly Meeting and the sun finally came out both afternoons, after what had been a cold and damp week. So I'm glad I went when I could.

I think this is the first time I've ever gone to PYM and not spoken once in plenary or in worship. I recognized in the business sessions that others had stated my piece of the truth - maybe not as eloquently as I think I would have expressed it, but sufficiently that I would have just been repeating what had already been said. This is also in keeping with my current silence in my monthly meeting - not intentional silence but rather I haven't been given words to share. I think this also has to do with coming to meeting for worship less frequently and less prepared than I used to when my daily occupation was various forms of Quaker ministry.

I missed the interest group around the new document on supporting Friends with leadings that is being circulated by the PYM Ministry and Oversight subcommittee on Ministry and Leadings. But I had a chance to tell the outgoing clerk of that subcommittee that I thought it was well done and that I had shared it with my anchor committee so that they might share their comments with the subcommittee.

It was a little overwhelming to arrive in the middle of the week, so many people, so much going on, and the sense that I had missed most of the week. However, I was warmly greeted by many people, reaffirming my sense that I have a place in this community - even if I was only there for a short time.

Cranky at PYM

Maybe next year M&O can schedule an open mic time for spontaneous lectures about sociology and cultural sensitivity. Because I've heard some good ones this year.

Maybe then we wouldn't have to hear them all in meeting for worship.

Just because one speaks slowly in measured tones doesn't make it ministry. At least it's not taking me to a deep place of worship.

Dear Lord, save me from my judgmental mind and from well-meaning but undisciplined Quakers. Please grant me patience, compassion, and wisdom. Help me not to hold it against each new Friend who rises that the last speaker annoyed me. Amen.

[edited 8/4, 11:17 am]

Off to PYM 2008

We're camping out at Pacific Yearly Meeting's annual sessions, so it'll be another week without blogging, I expect.

We're going to be experimenting with more intergenerational activities this year. Every morning will be worship and worship sharing. The afternoons will have the business plenaries, and I think that all the teens and YAF are scheduled to be in the same sessions with the older adults. I'm not exactly sure. The evening sessions are definitely intergenerational, but I'll be mostly asleep - an intergenerational activity right in our tent!

I scheduled another meme to publish in the middle of the week, just so my blog doesn't get too lonely.

What now?

I’m feeling a little lost. I have been waiting for this week for months. For the time and space to do only what I want, when I want, for large chunks of time. But you know what? I miss having a rhythm to my days. Even the relatively unpredictable rhythms of young children. The best description I’ve been able to give is that it feels like I’m clapping off the beat, with that awkward, grasping motion that feels icky. The good news about this image is that I expect I will find the beat, within another chorus or two, and this too will pass.

Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

1) It helps to have external markers for my days, even if they’re artificial, like I have to get to the store by 10, so that I can start the dish I want to make for dinner before I have to leave to pick up the kids by 2.

2) It’s good to make arrangements to meet with other grownups. As in, I invited E. for coffee this morning so I have to shower and make my bed before 9:00. Not that E. really cares if my bed is made or not, but I know that I do better at housework if company is coming. Also, it’s energizing to me and my writing to be able to talk about it with others.

3) Exercise is important. There is actually a room with exercise machines in my building, but I tend to forget about them. So far, I’ve found two walks that work for me:

a) 20-30 minutes around the block that includes a great view from just above our development, since we live on the side of a big hill;

b) along the beach that could be anywhere from five minutes on the pier to two hours in the hills.

The main thing is that I get outside and move. It’s good for my body and good for my mind.

4) Sleep matters. It is one of my soapbox issues that it is remarkable how little mental illness is apparent in the homeless population considering how little sleep these folks get. I’m working on establishing a regular 10:30-6:30 sleep schedule, which would be great for me. It’s not a coincidence that my worst day this week followed a night when I had to go to the bathroom twice(!) and then one of my kids fell out of bed and woke us all up. Hmm. Unfortunately, I didn’t make the connection until after dinner on that miserable day. Otherwise, maybe I would have taken a nap.

5) Caffeine and food are best taken in moderation.

6) Prayer is a good thing. Sometimes just noticing that I feel anxious is enough to help me settle into a few minutes, or maybe seconds, of silent, eyes-closed, wordless communion. Or contemplation of the beauty that surrounds me, wherever I am. I’m going to try H.W.S.’s recommendation of taking my worries to God and handing them over, as often as necessary. We’ll see how that goes.

7) Writing and reading every day. It’s good for me to see these as work, not just a guilty pleasure.

One piece that I haven’t figured out yet is where or when to volunteer some time to help people with more urgent, practical problems than mine. I walked into the St. Vincent de Paul shop the other day, but I didn’t work up the courage to talk to anyone. I think I will try again on a day when I’ve had more sleep.

The last thing I’m going to work on is some kind of big scheduling calendar, so I can lay out all the projects I’m supposed to catch up on this month and work through them, you know with priorities and resource maps, just like my life was a real job. Because it is.

Helpful and relevant excerpts from Pacific Yearly Meeting’s Faith and Practice, Advices and Queries:

“A life centered in God will be directed toward keeping communication with God open and unencumbered. Simplicity is best achieved through a right ordering of priorities, maintaining humility of spirit, avoiding self-indulgence, resisting the accumulation of unnecessary possessions, and avoiding over-busy lives.”

“John Woolman said, ‘As Christians all we possess are the gifts of God… To turn all the treasures we possess into the channel of Universal Love becomes the business of our lives.’ The principle of stewardship applies to all we have and are. As individuals, we are called to use our time, our various abilities, our strength, our money and our material possessions with care, managing them wisely and sharing them generously.”

Do I center my life in an awareness of God’s presence so that all things take their rightful place?

How have I been faithful to the leadings of the Spirit in choosing work or vocation?

What am I doing with my talents, time, money and possessions? Am I sharing them according to the Light I am given?

Do I live simply and promote the right sharing of the world’s bounty?

Do I keep my life uncluttered with things and activities, avoiding commitments beyond my strength and light?

Is my conduct at the workplace consistent with my life as a Friend?

How does my daily work enhance my spiritual life?

How do I strive to maintain the integrity of my inner and outer lives?

Two convergent events in California

I think I finally have a short explanation of what I mean by convergent Friends:

people who are engaged in the renewal movement within the Religious Society of Friends, across all the branches of Friends.

What do you think?

In any case, here are two events that might be of interest to these people:

1) Extended meeting for worship at SF Monthly Meeting, July 29, 2007, 9:30 am - 12:00 pm

The first half hour will be reading from the Bible or other holy writings, modeled after Bible reading in the manner of Conservative Friends. This has been regularly practiced upstairs in our meetinghouse on fifth Sundays by members of the Christian Friends Conference. This is the first time it has been incorporated into our regular weekly meeting for worship. The next two hours will be our usual mode of waiting worship. For the full announcement, see Chris M.'s reprint of the handout. All are welcome to attend all or any portion of the extended meeting.

2) Convergent dinner at a Friend's home in Torrance, CA: August 4, 2007. This is timed to start after the last session of Pacific Yearly Meeting in Redlands, CA. If you would like to come, send me an email to the address listed in my profile and I'll send you the exact address, a contact phone number and directions.

Last year, a post-PYM convergent Friends dinner was held at the home of Wess and Emily Daniels. You can read more here and here. We had a good time and interesting conversations with Friends from Evangelical Friends Church - Southwest Region (EFI), Pacific Yearly Meeting, and the Western Association of Friends (FUM), and some Anabaptist friends of Friends. The formerly Quaker blogger Joe G. did a series of funny podcast interviews that night that are unfortunately no longer available online, however, I have the downloads, and I would be willing to send them to you if you ask, and you can help me figure out exactly how to do that, not being so tech-savvy myself.

Homemaker, writer, minister?

If you were to ask me my occupation, I’d probably say, “I’m a homemaker, a writer and a Quaker minister, of sorts.”

This month, it seems like the homemaker role is taking over my life. Well, I did edit my first Meeting Newsletter, which is now my primary Meeting responsibility, as of this month, after five years on the Ministry and Oversight committee, and it did involve some writing. But it felt more akin to preparing my weekly shopping list than any deep kind of ministry.

This is the last week of school for both my boys. H. is gone on the third grade overnight camping trip tonight, tomorrow is S.’s graduation from preschool and my last ever cooperative nursery school work day. (Last week was my last ever nursery school parent meeting!) On Friday afternoon, we will all attend the largest annual meeting for worship in San Francisco. I'm expecting about 400 people this year at the San Francisco Friends School closing meeting for worship in Golden Gate Park – 200 children plus all staff and most of the parents. (That reminds me I need to call H.’s friends’ parents and coordinate our picnic.) At the end of that meeting for worship, S. will officially be a kindergartener and H. a fourth grader: their first and last years of elementary school! And I’ll be a full-time mom for the summer.

A very busy summer at that. We’re probably moving to a new apartment, so that will be quite a process. It’s not that far away, but enough to disrupt all our daily/weekly routines. And of course, all the purging/packing/unpacking to be done.

Our zoo membership expires at the end of June, so I’d like to take as much advantage of that as possible. The new Grizzly Gulch opens June 14^th!

I’m sure we’ll play more baseball and tennis in the park across the street. I hope it still works out to have both boys in swimming lessons at the same time, so I can swim on the lap side of the pool. I want to find a way to continue walking by myself a few times a week even though the boys aren’t in school.

There are a few bright spots in my summer plans. In addition to FGC’s summer gathering in Wisconsin, we’re heading to PYM at the University of Redlands in southern California in August. I’m hoping to have another convergent dinner on August 4^th, somewhere in the L.A. area, but Chris Frazier and I are still looking for a suitable location. (The Daniels family is moving that week and can’t host this year. If you have any suggestions, let me or Chris F. know.)

Also, next week, I’m really looking forward to attending a meeting of emerging church leaders, called The Spiritual Ecology Project: A day of conversation about the emerging church and God's mission in our world. Including Doug Pagitt, Tony Jones and our own local Mark Scandrette. I’ve read these people’s blogs, and now I’ll get to talk to them in person. I think. I don’t know how many people are coming, but I don’t think it’s going to be one of those 500 people in the audience listening to speeches kind of events. The venue isn’t that big. I think it’s going to be small group discussions, but hey – I’ll see when I get there. This week, I’m just trying to arrange childcare for the day – of course, this had to happen the week AFTER school gets out.

The hard part this summer is going to be writing. How to carve out a room of my own, or at least an hour or two of my own, in the midst of normal family chaos? Can I write when the Spirit says write? How can I organize my days and nights to maintain some discipline and balance around this?

This story helps:

“Then Jesus went with them to a garden called Gethsemane and told his disciples, ‘Stay here while I go over there and pray.’ Taking along Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he plunged into an agonizing sorrow. Then he said, 'This sorrow is crushing my life out. Stay here and keep vigil with me.'
Going a little ahead, he fell on his face, praying, ‘My Father, if there is any way, get me out of this. But please, not what I want. You, what do you want?’
When he came back to his disciples, he found them sound asleep. He said to Peter, ‘Can’t you stick it out with me a single hour? Stay alert; be in prayer so you don’t wander into temptation without even knowing you’re in danger. There is a part of you that is eager, ready for anything in God. But there’s another part that’s as lazy as an old dog sleeping by the fire.’
He then left them a second time. Again he prayed, ‘My Father, if there is no other way than this, drinking this cup to the dregs, I’m ready. Do it your way.’
When he came back, he let them sleep on, and went back a third time to pray, going over the same ground one last time.”

Matthew 26:36-44 (The Message)

I want to be like Jesus in this story, but I know I’m more like Peter and the sons of Zebedee. Even if I can’t maintain focused discipline, I’m not alone.

PYM Queries for Sabbath Year

Tonight at San Francisco Monthly Meeting of Pacific Yearly Meeting (PYM) of the Religious Society of Friends:

6:00 Meeting for worship
6:30 Brown bag supper
7:00 consideration of the PYM Queries for the Year of Discernment 2006-2007

Here's the queries from the PYM website:

Ministry and Oversight Committee for Pacific Yearly Meeting invites Monthly Meetings, Yearly Meeting Committees, and the Yearly Meeting as a whole, to engage in a discernment process to determine right order for the Yearly Meeting and for our lives as Friends. Some see this as a Sabbath or Jubilee year where we step back and re-order our priorities so that we are in right relationship to Spirit. Ministry and Oversight welcomes your comments and learnings as you experiment with these queries. Send them to [the clerk of PYM M&O]

1. Sabbath involves both a saying no and a saying yes. (It does not mean just resting.)
   What must we stop doing in order to hear God’s word for us?
   How can we step back in order to renew our covenant relationship with God?


2. Are there aspects of our processes, habits or organization that enslave us?
   What structures or organization does the Monthly or Yearly Meeting need to lay the ground work for Spirit?


3. What disciplines or preparations do I need to establish in order to engage in discernment?
   Can I trust Spirit to carry me when I stop or slow my outward activities?


4. Sabbath can also be seen as a radical challenge to the prevailing over-achieving, consumer culture. What are we, in Pacific Yearly Meeting, or in our Monthly Meetings, called to do as people living in that life and power that is one with the earth and takes away the occasion of all wars and strife?

Resources for the Discernment Process [with comments by me.]

Testament of Devotion, Thomas Kelly - especially the chapter on simplifying our lives.

Friends Bulletin, November 2006, articles by Tony Prete on Sabbath and Joe Franko, clerk of PYM. [The November issue is not yet available online as a PDF.]

Friends Journal, October 2006, an issue of challenging articles are where Friends are being called. [with articles by me and Martin Kelley!]

Widening Circles of Friends, concentric circle exercises by Jane Peers, La Jolla Meeting.


I'd also add my blogpost right after the 2005 PYM sessions: Jubilee! The comments especially were worth reading.

It's probably a little late to post this now but all are welcome.

Robinopedia: PYM

I think I said this very early on my blog, but for folks who didn't happen to catch this last August, on my blog, PYM will refer to Pacfic Yearly Meeting. I know there are some folks who think this abbreviation belongs to Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, but they don't have a copyright on it, and on my blog, that august body will be referred to as PhYM. On other people's blogs, who might have reason to be confused, I will use the term PacYM to refer to my own yearly meeting.

Why do Quakers talk like that?

Why is it that so many Quakers start to talk really slow and deep-voiced, like they were suffering some grave illness, when they want to sound inspired in vocal ministry? Do we think it is somehow more fitting or more suitable to sound like we are in pain when we talk about God ?

I've been noticing this for a while, but now I'm really worried. At the PYM plenary organized by the Junior Yearly Meeting (teens) and Young Adult Friends (post-high-school age), I realized we've infected our youth.

I understand that it is painful for some people to speak in public. I know that sometimes our messages are not happy ones to deliver. But the deliberate, weighted down voices I hear in meeting for worship are not necessarily signs of weighty ministry.

Why don't we speak like we are having a good time? If God has sent us a message to share, why isn't this a joyous occasion? Why don't we talk about God in our "I got an A on my test!", "I biked up this whole mountain!", "I got a raise!", "He likes me!" voices?

Or if we're honestly not cheerful all the time, at least some of the time I would expect to hear our "Get back here and clean this up!", "What were you thinking?!!!!", "He hates me!" voices when talking about God.

I know that our young people, and even our elders still have these passionate and excited tones of voice. I hear them in the lunch line and at the coffee pot and during late night singalongs and games of Mao. I know I yell at my kids more often than I yell at God.

This day (the PYM intergenerational plenary) I missed an opportunity to say to my Friends, "Come talk to me, call me, email me, and let's be excited about God!"

Travel in Ministry

At the 2005 PYM annual sessions, we minuted our approval that Friends traveling to gatherings on PYM business will carry a statement asking Friends to consider the ecological damage imposed by their travel and to consider ways to minimize this damage.

I don’t have the exact wording, but that was the spirit of the thing, as I understood it. On the surface, this seems like a good thing. Yes, Friends should consider how to minimize the ecological damage we cause in any way. But I am concerned that the minute did not include any statement that we see traveling and seeing each other in person as an important part of our work in the world. I think it is imperative to do difficult business face to face. To be able to feel where words come from, a la John Woolman. This was mentioned in the introduction of the minute, but it will not be in the statement that our Friends will carry with them.

I actually think we need more traveling in the ministry, more face to face, personal communication among Friends of all stripes. But perhaps we need to travel more slowly, to pass through or even stop in more places, to use the less energy-consuming but more time-consuming methods of transportation. How would giving more time to our Friendly travel affect our ministry? Our worldly pursuits? Would this give us more time to prepare for our in person communication? Would we be more aware of our effect on the Earth? As in

“It would go a long way to caution and direct people in their use of the world, that they were better studied and knowing in the Creation of it. For how could [they] find the confidence to abuse it, while they should see the Great Creator stare them in the face, in all and every part thereof?

from William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude, 1693,
as quoted in PYM’s Faith and Practice,
Advices and Queries on Harmony with Creation

Life After Oil

This interest group was the Unity with Nature related activity that I enjoyed the most. Topic doesn’t sound like fun to you? Well, I admit I was only mildly interested in the topic but I knew the leader would make it fun.

I think Carl Magruder, the leader of the interest group (formerly referred to here as C.), is one of the shining lights among younger Friends in my yearly meeting. Some Friends think he’s “preachy” (and I do quote). They’re right. He is preaching a gospel of sin and salvation: sin against Gaia Earth and calling people to admit we have sinned, ask forgiveness, and resolve to make radical changes in the way we live that are only possible by the grace of God. [Note: this is my interpretation of his message, not his actual words. He may or may not agree with my interpretation, I don’t know yet.] He combines this with a sharp sense of humor and a gentleness and intelligence that makes it possible to tolerate him.

So here’s what I learned in the session:

What is Peak Oil? It is the point at which we have pumped out half of all the oil reserves that ever existed on Earth. After that point, oil will become a scarcer resource and increasingly more expensive. Estimates point to somewhere between the years 2010 and 2050 as the likely moment.Our increasing demand for oil will just hasten this moment. Some folks think this will be a major turning point for our fossil-fuel-based, capitalist economy.

Why does Peak Oil not really matter (according to Carl)? First, because the shift after that point will be gradual and it will take a while before we really notice any difference. Second, because in many cases we will just shift to other fossil fuels, notably coal, which is plentiful but a dirtier energy source. Third, because other ecological damage will be more noticeable sooner.

What can we do about it? One thing is of course to reduce our personal dependence on oil. Carl said that the U.S. military has already converted its entire operations to diesel motors because they can supplement it with alternative forms of diesel, so as to not be so dependent on petroleum. I haven’t bothered to research any evidence for or against this fact. Another thing is we can always do is educate ourselves, blah, blah, blah. The real answer will be in building communities that sustain themselves. The best ways to lessen our ecological footprint are all about living locally: public transit, buying food directly from farmers, sharing household resources from dining rooms to hedge clippers to swimming pools. [If you have to have one, share it!]

My own example is about car ownership. My husband and I didn’t either of us ever own a car until shortly before our second child came along. We live in a city with pretty good public transit, compared to many places, and for years we both walked to work but I said soon after the first child that “I wasn’t going to be schlepping two kids around on the Muni. I see women doing that, and they’re the ones we all think are bad mothers, yelling at their kids, grabbing them by the arm, etc. That would be me, and I don’t want to go there.”

So we finally got a car, a VW Golf, barely three months before kid #2 arrived, and things were fine. Then about a year later, my husband got a job about 30 miles/two-hours-by-transit away, and soon he was taking the car every day. So where was I? Schlepping two kids and all their stuff on the Muni.

What really made this work was that not long after that, an older Friend from Meeting offered to loan us her car on the days when I needed to take the boys to the dentist, or whatever. She didn’t drive it often during the week and she really made an effort to take public transit, even when it would have been more convenient for her, even though it was her car. On top of that, there were friends and Friends who listened to me bewail my transportation woes and still others who said “yes, I can pick up your child on a day when you need to be in three places at once.” In other words, community.

The sad fact is that we don’t live in a system that is set up to work without private transportation, and I finally decided that, compared to the therapy that would be required to restore my sanity if I didn’t have my own vehicle, it would be cheaper to have a second car. So this summer, when my oldest child was seven and my youngest three, we bought a second car. A station wagon with a third seat that folds up or down in the back and can hold up to seven people. It gets 25 miles to the gallon so it’s not the worst option, but still, I see it as a defeat that we have to have two cars. But without our community, we’d have gone that way long ago. And it is only by building strong local communities that we will change this fact of life for many families.

Unity with Nature

This is the PYM committee I most think I ought to be on but never really make time for. To compare and contrast, I don’t think I ought to be on the children’s religious education committee at my Meeting, but I wake up in the middle of the night with ideas about it anyway. I have a clear leading to do children’s religious education even if I keep trying to get out of it. Apparently, I can’t not do it. On the other hand, my intellect and my mystical experiences lead me to Unity with Nature, but I have no idea what I’d do if I was on it. I have no energy, no ideas, no enthusiasm for this work. Maybe it’s a latent or potential leading, but for now God needs me to raise a few Quakers before I get around to saving the earth? I dunno.

I do know that I never wanted to be an environmentalist. I grew up in a logging town with a fairly polarized community. Frankly, I didn’t want to be or marry a redneck logger or a tree-hugging ecofreak. I just wanted out of town, or out of the forest to be more exact. But over the last twenty years, I have come to appreciate my upbringing, my parents’ commitment to raising intelligent, responsible girls, and the true freedom and opportunities that small town life afforded me.

However, once I was away from the forest for a few years, God started calling me. Not back to the forest per se, but it is a fact that my most profound mystical experience happened in a mountain forest and gave me to understand that I am as miniscule as a mountain in God’s creation, and as immensely important as a blade of grass. There’s a bit more to it, but I won’t tell the whole story now. The problem is that I was so struck by the fact that God was talking to me that it took me ten years to even pay attention to what God was telling me. It took me a year and a half to find Quaker meeting, and then eight years of going to Quaker meetings before I got over the shock and was able to focus on the message. And then I realized that the message, in a nutshell, was unity with nature.

So what does this really have to do with PYM? I may not serve on the committee, but I try to go to some of their activities. I’ll just say now that I went to one session of the group on mystical experiences in nature and it felt flat to me. I didn’t go to the further meetings of the group, partly because the next one was too late in the evening, but partly because I left the first one feeling more irritated than inspired. Why is it that I am so disdainful of other people’s mystical experiences? I don’t know for sure, but it just might relate back to my disdain for “environmentalists” and my small-town, small-minded suspicion of anything so flaky as people thinking they’re mystics.

Jubilee!

On Friday, fifth day of the 59th annual sessions of Pacific Yearly Meeting (PYM), after some people left to attend an observance of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, and the rest of us considered our own experience of religious education as children and held a discussion of the PYM response to the discriminatory hiring practices of Friends United Meeting, our Ministry and Oversight committee (M&O) made, in my opinion, a brilliant proposal.

They proposed that starting now, the M&O committee will convene a series of Right Holding of PYM discussions. All Friends and especially all PYM committees will take this year as a planning period for a sabbath year, a year of jubilee starting with next year’s annual sessions.

The clerk of M&O referred to a Friends Journal article from February 2004 relating the experiences of Central Philadelphia, 57th Street and Beacon Hill Monthly Meetings and New York Yearly Meeting in having their own jubilee or sabbath years.

The original concept of a sabbath or jubilee year is from the Bible, Leviticus 25:1-55. The idea is that every seventh year, as a sabbath, the land will be allowed to lie fallow, and the people and all their animals will eat just what the land produces by itself. After 7 cycles, or every 50 years, a jubilee would be declared and all the people would return to their home and family. Slaves would be released from service, debts will be forgiven, leases of land and other property will expire. This is to acknowledge that humans are ultimately free except in their duty to God, and that land belongs only to God thus we hold it as tenants.

M&O offered these models of a sabbath year for our yearly meeting:

1. No work, just community building and re-creation activities
2. Deep spiritual formation, study groups, etc.
3. Threshing large community issues (race, money, children’s education)
4. Restructuring work and committee models

The reality of my week is that I had to leave to pick up my children from their programs after the first response, but I heard later that Friends went on and on. And at least one member of M&O was surprised at the degree of opposition to the idea. I suspect there were four main themes of opposition:

1. “But we already started planning for next year! Friday morning is too late to start this.”
2. Related to that is the concern that this was a coup, a power grab by M&O
3. I didn’t actuallly hear this but I expect it was said: “We’re already not doing enough and now we’re going to do less?”
4. Objections are also related to people who have staked their identity on the current structure: “What will happen to people who worked hard to get to be Clerk of a committee that may not exist next year?” No one will actually say this out loud, but I believe it is a strong factor.

It was clear to me that this was a proposal for consideration by the yearly meeting. That it is the intention of M&O to have a different kind of annual session next year, but they are not planning to dictate just how it will be, hence the year of discussions and planning.

This project appeals to me on two levels.

First, PYM needs a new vision of itself.
We were reminded at some point that Pacific Yearly Meeting started out with Anna Brinton’s vision of a Pacific Rim association of Friends, including the western United States and Canada, Latin America, China, Japan, Korea, etc. At one time, PYM included meetings in all of these places. But the communication has proved unwieldy over such a wide area, and now there are at least five yearly meetings in that area. (I’m not sure of the actual number) There are even hints that PYM might split again into North and South, basically along the lines of the two Quarterly Meetings. In any case, it is high time we acknowledged that we have changed.

For years, PYM has prided itself on being an Independent Yearly Meeting, and many (some?) have cherished the idea that by being unaffiliated with any of the larger bodies of Friends (FGC, FUM, EFI) we might serve as a bridge between branches of Friends. Ha! On any number of issues, we are so far from being a bridge, we might even be the far extreme among yearly meetings. So many of our Friends are already involved in the work of FGC, it is time for PYM to acknowledge this relationship. We’re like a long time attender that hasn’t come to clearness on membership, for a whole variety of reasons, none of which are valid anymore.

We need to consider what relationship the Yearly Meeting should have with its constituent Monthly Meetings. Does PYM provide any service to the monthly meetings in exchange for their assessments? Does PYM have any authority over the monthly meetings? Does PYM carry out the greater will of the monthly meetings?

We need to take the idea of forgiveness of debts and restructuring of resources seriously. I’d throw out the whole committee structure until we have some better sense of what work we are called to do. Then we could figure out what needs to have a committee and what resources would they need. I was VERY inspired by Johan Maurer’s proposal of an ideal yearly meeting, available here.

Secondly, this concept speaks to me on a very personal level.

At this point in my life, I am ready for a serious vision process. From a traditional standpoint, I have achieved the expected milestones: happy marriage, two cute kids, meaningful and well remunerated work. This is a good point for me to take stock of my life. What do I want to achieve in my life? What work is God calling me to? How do I avoid uber-Quaker burnout (to quote Evan Welkin and beppeblog)? It is good for me to remember that this process might take two years, which would conveniently overlap with the two years to go before my youngest child is in kindergarten.

It is important for me to remember that this process was not conceived and will not be designed specifically with me in mind. It will not meet all my needs, and I should not be too disappointed when it doesn’t. (Darn.)

Anyhow, my deep gratitude and admiration for the Ministry and Oversight Committee that both perceived this need in the yearly meeting and had the courage to lead the way out of it.

I wonder if any readers of this new blog have any experience with a Meeting Sabbath or Jubilee year? Would you like to?

Pacific Yearly Meeting

Just back from PYM. Hot, busy, invigorating.

Note: On MY blog, PYM will refer to Pacific Yearly Meeting. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting will be abbreviated PhYM. In other fora, I will use PacYM if necessary to avoid confusion.

In keeping with the general travelogue nature of Quaker blogs this summer, I wanted to report somewhat on Pacific Yearly Meeting’s 59th annual sessions. The week before, I thought about actually starting out by live blogging from PYM, but then my husband reminded me just a little bit of what PYM is like, and I gave up on that idea. I even started out the week taking notes for what I would like to write about on my future blog, but by the third day, I was reduced to simply doing what I had to do to be present.

The week was overwhelmed by the fact that my husband was convenor of the children’s program committee for the first time. Actually it’s the first year he was even on the committee, which says something about the state of that committee. Last year, PYM spent all this time talking about how important young people are and how we need to be more intergenerational, and still only two people agreed to serve on the children’s program committee, both of them parents of young children. This year at least the nominating committee has filled the six slots on the children’s program committee (even if all six are parents) and Chris has agreed to be the clerk from the beginning of the year, so they can start organizing sooner. The teachers and committee members finished the week with an evaluation session bubbling with ideas for next year.

Our kids were in preschool and lower elementary. There is also an upper elementary and a middle school program, and each of the four groups requires two teachers morning and afternoon, plus a variety of volunteers each session. These paid teachers, many of whom are parents, may not serve on the program committee.

Anyway, MY service to the Yearly Meeting for this and the coming year is to be support staff to the clerk of the children’s program committee. Providing childcare, logistics, some housekeeping, and of course, being eyes and ears where he is not. Said to me: “Would you let Chris know that I really liked the fact that the children were with us in worship every day this year?” Said by me: “Say, aren’t you teaching the middle school this year? Were you planning to go to the middle school orientation that’s happening right now?” And letting him know about things that happen in plenary when he’s riding the program circuit, i.e., “The clerks of all committees will meet for an evaluation at 2:30 today.”

Folks were very appreciative and supportive over the week. Which I hear has not always been the case for the program committee.

I made it to most of the plenaries, three “interest groups”, and worship sharing every day. I went to sleep with my kids by 9:00 most nights, some nights earlier, thank goodness.

Further PYM Themes:
Jubilee!
Young Friends
Religious Education
Life After Oil
Food and Site issues
Why do they talk like that?
Mysticism
Camping with Kids
Middle Aged Quakers?
Worship Sharing Queries
The Cool Grey City of Love (our return home)