During 2008, Port Townsend Friends Meeting grew and deepened, with a number of new attenders joining our beloved community for worship. Our worship, in silence and in voice, was rich and deep, with Friends frequently experiencing a gathered meeting. The clerk ably led us in reviewing the job descriptions of our committees. Friends joined committees with a calling to pursue the goals of these committees.
The Religious Education Committee planned a weekend retreat with Stephen Matchett, inviting Friends from Agate Passage Monthly Meeting, Whidbey Island, Sequim and Lopez Island worship groups to join us. Going to the Well: Encountering Early Quaker Writers, with a Focus on Barclay’s Apology; What Do 17th Century Friends Have to Say to Us Today? brought Friends together in spiritual inquiry, study of Barclay’s Apology, the Bible and story sharing.
Friends participated in a half-day of Bible study with Christine Hall, a spiritual director from the Whidbey Island Worship Group.
Laboring about Owning a Meetinghouse was planned by the Ministry and Counsel and Meetinghouse Committees as an interactive one-day retreat, including time for people to draw their ideas for community and/or a Meetinghouse for Port Townsend Friends Meeting. We spent time looking at our gifts, joys and fears, and how the Meeting might resolve conflict. We will continue to seek discernment in relation to a Meetinghouse.
The Records Clerk beautifully completed the entries for our first six years as a monthly meeting in our new roll book and organized the archives.
In May, we laid down the Religious Education Committee, until such time as children were coming to the Meeting, and within a few months had a child attending. Having children as a part of our Meeting is something we have wanted for a number of years. We are happy to have a child and the possibility of some other children, but getting a First-day School committee started has taken longer than we anticipated. As one of our members, says, “be careful what you wish for.” We also started a communications committee to oversee our publicity, newsletter and website, www.quaker.org/port-townsend .
Members of the Peace and Social Concerns Committee were called to initiate and explore a number of concerns and projects.
Tax Day turned into a fun, highly interactive leafletting session in front of the post office, as we knew many of the people coming in and out. In addition, our picture and an article appeared in the newspaper.
Our work on prioritizing concerns for FCNL was spirit-led and fruitful. We forwarded the following priorities to FCNL:
In Port Townsend, many are called to work for peace. We participate in the Port Townsend Peace Movement. A number of collaborative events have grown out of that movement. Nearly every year, a Port Townsend Peace Portrait is taken and made into posters and cards. In 2008, the portrait was taken in Carl Nomura’s field, which has a giant peace symbol plowed into it. More than 10% of the population turned out to be in the portrait. A visit to Naval Magazine Indian Island grew out of the personal connections one of our attenders had been nurturing over a number of years. Five of our members and attenders were part of a group of eleven Port Townsend Peace Movement members which was invited to tour Naval Magazine Indian Island as part of an ongoing dialogue about depleted uranium and the other munitions stored there. This tour and dialogue with the base commander was described as “an extraordinary visit. Commander Whitbred had promised us an hour and in fact spent four hours with the group. There was candid talk about the munitions depot’s place in our country’s misguided foreign policy and the gross disproportionality of the U.S. military spending in the federal budget. There was a clear sense of meeting with human beings at the base, not defensive or evasive functionaries.”
Eleven canoes from 2008 Tribal Canoe Journey stopped overnight in Port Townsend in July. Friends helped in various informal ways to welcome the pullers and their support teams.
We collaborated with other religious groups on providing a winter shelter for single adults, including provision of food and night monitoring for our 2 weeks.
We were pleased that Joe Volk, FCNL Executive Director, would take the time in the middle of a bicycle trip to give an exciting and informative talk on his trips to China and Iran and what is happening with lobbying in Washington, D.C. to a room packed with nearly 70 Port Townsend citizens.
We held a number of meetings about prison reform, including lobbying with Senator Hargrove on that topic. As a Meeting, we are moving toward some kind of a post-prison project, with the goal of assisting people who have been released from prison.