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2004 Epistle of Illinois Yearly Meeting

To Friends Everywhere:

We write to you with a sense of yearning. Our 2004 Illinois Yearly Meeting has left us longing to reach out and support you as you grow with God, while also asking that you pray for us. We have been called in many directions. The theme of our session was "Building Communities of Peace." God is calling us to develop a "Peace House on the Prairie" to support peacebuilding in our own region. Yet God also calls us to support Friends and other peacemakers across the Earth: for example, African friends rebuilding homes and trust amid war, young adult Friends growing their Quaker faith, and wealthy Friends struggling to recognize their own role in economic injustice and racism.

Amid these calls, "peace" becomes such a small word for a great tapestry of solutions. Peace begins with imagining a dream. A just peace is not passivity, but a dynamic form of life in which people flourish in community. Peace is recognizing the "life cycle" of violence and intervening early in the tension stage, such as in Kenya today. Peace is seeing that disagreements can provide a wellspring of creative energy, if they are addressed with expertise, love, recognition of all gifts, and mutual respect. The foundation of a community of peace is the love of God. Are we willing to accept God's love, to be directed by the living God, and to find our deepest fulfillment in growing toward God?

All around us, Friends and other peacemakers are developing wonderful ways of peacebuilding that are easy to learn. Deep, active listening from an open heart. Telling over and over our stories of peacemaking, conflict resolution, and community building, which are also the Story of God's Work. Openness to alternatives. Remembering that the atrocities of our wars will perpetuate unless we engage in formal reconciliation programs; the United States civil war 140 years ago lingers in the form of racism, and such scars will persist in today's war zones unless we bring Alternatives to Violence and Trauma Healing programs to those communities.

Dearest Friends, we rejoice to tell you that in worship following a divinely inspired message, God blessed our community with a convincement. We had been made tender by our days sharing Spirit together, and had been reminded to surrender self-will to an innocent trust of God. Twice we were invited to end our worship session, and twice we were unable to rise. Our message from this experience is that "Communities of Peace," the communion of Spirit, begin to grow only when we can share our pain and hear our neighbor's pain with an open heart. The pain of our own racism is guilt, fear and shame. Asking for help from the meeting and from God, we can hear, validate, and then begin to heal the wounds in our humanity. We all must ask for repentance.

In the midst of joyful music, we finally rose. We thank everyone for sharing their gifts at our gathering. The quality common to all Friends is that we are active spiritual seekers. Friends, we hope we can hear your pain and your gifts with trusting, tender hearts.

God's blessings on you,

- Illinois Yearly Meeting of Friends

High School Friends' Epistle

Junior High Friends' Epistle

Dear Yearly Meeting friends:

We are members of the McNabb, Illinois yearly meeting group, sending this epistle. While we were here in McNabb for the weekend, we did many activities. Our meetings started Thursday with a guest speaker named Alice Howenstine, whom spoke about her journey and how she discovered Quakerism. Then, after her story, we repainted a mural for the shed that we kids hang out in. We named this shed the "Penn House". Lastly, that day we dug up Daylilies by the meeting house because termites were eating away at the foundation needed work.

Next came Friday. It started off as an early morning at 9:00 when meeting with guest speakers named Grayce and Neil Mesner, who also talked about Quakerism. Then, we started a new activity of origami and continued the same activities as yesterday. Around 2:30, some Junior High students then went swimming at an indoor pool in Hennepin, Illinois.

Saturday, we played a name game to get to know each other. We all said our name and said an animal that started with the same letter as the beginning of our first name. Exp: Alyssa, Ape or Bart, Bear. Then, we played with a Frisbee called Beamo after our worship of silence. Lastly, are some further activities that we engaged in:

• Several in our group participated in the First Annual IYM 26 mile bike ride. We biked through cornfields, soy fields and visited a marsh on the Illinois River. Then, one of our members had a bad tire that we patched with duct tape, which held for 20 miles!
• During the night, several of us were awakened by a baby crying in pain from an ear infection. Even though we were awakened by her crying, we still cared for her as we are all part of a community.
• We enjoyed watching the beautiful, joyful babies playing in their playing area.
• Some of us experienced a need to sleep and care for ourselves and to not go to bed late and wake up tired.
• On Friday night, we enjoyed the tradition of dancing on the lawn, followed by watermelon. Several of us with hands sticky from juice enjoyed shaking hands with those that had clean hands. Some of us ate so much watermelon, we got stomach aches!

We all had a great time and look forward to meeting again next year. We wish you all a peaceful year!

6-10 Year-old Friends' Epistle

Dear Friends Everywhere,

The theme for Illinois Yearly Meeting this year is "Building Communities of Peace."

We started by making toys for animals in shelters. After we heard the story of the Good Shepherd we did activities like weaving and journal-making. We liked being able to put down our feelings in places where only we could understand. It felt good to finish our weaving. It felt good when we got to the very last stitch in the weaving.

We liked to talk together and sing songs. We popped big bubbles and played together. We caught the giant frisbee ten times in a row. We are glad when each new child joins us.

We heard the story of the Good Samaritan. People who help you are your neighbors. If you need help and don't get it, then the person who didn't help is not your neighbor.

We heard the story of the "Fierce Feathers." We liked this story because nobody had to fight. The Quakers welcomed the warriors into the meeting house with friendly faces. Young Dinah wanted a feather so she could tickle her brother.

We wish yearly meeting did not have to end.

Peace be with you,

The Six to Ten Year Olds of Illinois Yearly Meeting 2004: Sylvia, Delia, Nathan, Gabriel, Billy, Laure, Claire, Aaron

3-5 Year-old Friends' Epistle

Dear Friends Everywhere,

On Thursday we read books and did art projects on how each of us is special, and the different feelings we have.

On Friday we talked about helping each other and how there is room for everyone. We talked about how God makes enough for everyone if we share it with each other. We read a book about being kind to small creatures. It was called Please Don't Step On Me!

On Saturday we read The Rainbow Fish and learned that sharing can bring peace. We made beautiful rainbow fish out of paper bags and glitter. Then, Helen played the flute for us and we sang songs.

And every day, we had fun playing with play dough.

-- Kajetan, Marlena, Phoebe, Pam, Jeff and Helen

Exercises

Friends gathered for the 2004 Illinois Yearly Meeting to explore the theme of Building Communities of Peace.

Our clerk, Maurine Pyle, skillfully, steadily, and lovingly guided Friends through several complex discussions and explorations. Friends labored with various financial issues, including the annual budget, decreasing contributions to wider Quaker organizations, and the cost of Meeting House maintenance and restoration, the ongoing discussion about building a new dormitory and dining hall, and nominations to fill position vacancies. Friends passionately talked about the need to increase the level of financial support to some wider Quaker organizations, such as FWCC and FGC. Friends were given direction on how money can be donated to various organizations.

Meetinghouse maintenance became a critical concern when the lift pump failed Thursday evening and part of the dining hall flooded. Friends give grateful thanks for the late-night visit from a local plumber and to several sleep-deprived souls who stayed until the problem was resolved.

The evening addresses asked us to look deeply into ourselves as to how and with whom we create peace communities. Mary Lord gave the opening keynote address. She talked about building communities of peace. The foundation of a community of peace is the love of God. Peaceful communities have conflict, and Friends need to learn to deal with this conflict. Finally, a peaceful community has a prophetic role to play in the world.

David Westling and David Zarembka spoke about their journeys in becoming peacemakers. David Westling talked about his experiences restoring houses in Burundi and Rwanda. He also spoke about his first experience with AVP (Alternatives to Violence Program) in the most needed circumstances - Burundi - and helping to introduce AVP to people in Nairobi, Kenya. David Zarembka spoke about his experiences working in the Great Lakes Region of Africa. He challenged the Yearly Meeting to partner with an Africa Yearly Meeting, a challenge which Friends continued to discuss.

Christopher Sammond gave the Saturday evening address. He told us that spirituality and the love of God must be the center of how we approach everything, including building communities of peace. One of the obstacles to building communities of peace is fear, which is the result of woundedness. He spoke of his own woundedness so that we could look at our own wounds and how we have the potential to hurt others when we act out of our own wounds. He related this to his observations and experience with racism. A deep silence and Friends' reflection on their own racism followed.

Our annual Plummer Lecture was given by Janet Means Underhill. Her talk was entitled "The Mystery of It All - I Give Thanks".

High School Friends also explored building communities of peace. Michael Terrien introduced them to various cooperative games used in the Play for Peace program on Wednesday night. Scott Searles and David Westling introduced them to an abbreviated version of AVP on Thursday. High School Friends served dinner and cleaned up Thursday night. They enjoyed the experience so much that they plan to make it an annual event. High School Friends discussed whether to hold their own Quake this year or to attend regional Quakes. Some High School Friends attended adult workshops.

Our workshops furthered our exploration of building communities of peace. They included: "Telling Our Stories about Gifts and Leadings", "When Peacework Brings Division: the Prophet and the Mediator", "Labyrinth as Contemplative Spiritual Discipline: Way Opens To Center", "When to Say Yes and When to Say No: Discerning Our Capacity Of Working Your Faith In The World", "William Penn & the Redefinition Of Quakerism", "Israel/Palestine with the Christian Peacemaker Team", "Nuclear Power - Nuclear Waste (Worship Sharing on Earthcare Circles)", "Beyond War", "Resource Information For Meeting Treasurer, Finance Committee Members and Others", "Partnering with African Quakers and the African Great Lakes Region", and "Quakers in America".

Several social activities were organized to balance the serious contemplations of the week. Friends participated in a 26-mile bike ride on Friday afternoon to explore the area surrounding the Meeting House, including restored wetlands on the Illinois River. Friends saw blue herons and a red-tailed hawk. Friends found a 1002nd use for duct tape: it can be used to repair temporarily a high pressure tire with an aneurism. Young and older Friends danced with joy at the annual Friday evening folk dance.

We were blessed with beautiful, cool weather and gentle, cooling breezes throughout the entire gathering - a miracle and welcomed relief for most from the sweltering temperatures we usually experience in late July. We were also blessed with a full, blue moon during the last days of the gathering.