PLENARY II
The Presiding Clerk, Margaret
Mossman, opened the meeting at 9:30 a.m. with worship. We heard Friends reflect
on the diversity of qualities, needs, and gifts within the large human family
of which we are part. We were told that Friends who have a hard time being
heard may be best able to listen.
Jane Peers, Reading Clerk,
read from the epistle of Northern Yearly Meeting. She read a portion of a poem
written by the �central� Friends � those of middle school age � of North Pacific Yearly Meeting.
The Clerk invited visitors to
introduce themselves. We welcomed Mike Ingerman, Development Director of
Friends House (Friends Association for Services to the Elderly), and Anthony
Manousos, Editor of Friends Bulletin.
Lincoln Moses, Clerk of the
Faith and Practice Revision Committee, reported on the work of approximately 30
people who have contributed to this revision. The Committee now has 11 members.
The preliminary draft was offered to Friends for revision and comments in
March, 2000, at the meeting of our Representative Committee. The Committee
continues to welcome responses, which will be taken into account as revision
goes on. Quaker quotations are needed, with full citations to their
sources.� In the present meeting for
worship, Friends were asked to give worshipful consideration to our statement
of Faith and Practice.
A Friend who had read through
the draft in a single session found it satisfying and an accurate reflection of
the current thinking and practice of this Yearly Meeting. A universalist
himself, he felt some concern for what he perceived as a lack of christocentric
language.
A Committee member informed
us that comments about language were profuse among recommendations received by
the Committee, some of them quite vehement. Many of us are �allergic� to
explicitly religious phrasing. It is difficult to write a statement of the
faith and practice of a nondogmatic religious society, yet there is great
danger in the temptation to avoid articulating our beliefs and our ways as best
we can. If we use language with care, we may find our way to a deeper place of
understanding that is beyond words.
Another Committee member gave
thanks for her awareness of the spirit�s guidance in the meetings and the work
of the Committee, even as Committee members struggled to find their way,
learning to release their own initiative and listen for guidance. We seek to
express our truth in this document, aware that our truth must transcend
inevitable blemishes of expression. We were asked to settle into worship, not
knowing what the spirit would bring us, but knowing it would be what we needed
to hear.
Study groups in Santa Cruz
Meeting, we were told, united in the conviction that we should include an
unequivocal statement on unity with nature in our Faith and Practice.�
We were reminded that we
sometimes learn from shocks. A former revision of Faith and Practice was
greeted, in part, with anger. Pegge Lacey, a former Presiding Clerk of this
Yearly Meeting and Clerk of the Discipline Committee which prepared that
revision, died in a traffic accident on the evening of the day when she and her
Committee had presented their completed work to a plenary session. Chastened by
loss, Friends labored together more tenderly in the following year.
We heard gratitude for this
draft�s focus on spirituality over procedure, and for its inclusive quality. It
does not suffer from the dilution of clarity that might result from efforts to
avoid offending Friends with firm views on sensitive issues. A Friend found
this revision especially helpful in explaining membership to new inquirers.
The work of revision is not
about a product; it is about process. We seek not to exclude anyone, but to
include all who are part of this fellowship.
We heard a concern that our
queries and advices on family may be too ambitious in scope, departing from the
comparative simplicity of our statements on other topics. Let us bear in mind
that historically Friends have had influence on society beyond what might be
expected of a small minority. Our language should be accessible to the larger
society.
Why do we say so little about
unity with nature? Have we ceded our responsibility for the environment to a
small committee of especially concerned Friends, so that most of us may neglect
it? Our attention was drawn to a concise statement on environmental stewardship
that was recently prepared by Eric Sabelman, Clerk of our Unity with Nature
Committee.
We were asked to be aware
that we speak and write not only for ourselves and for our monthly meetings,
but for all of the varied organizations we have created.
We will not come to unity on
a final statement of Faith and Practice, because our leadings are
given to us anew as we worship day by day. Can we approve this draft as our
current statement, knowing that it will be superseded? Some issues, including
unity with nature, may be more appropriately treated in other media.
To a former member of the
Faith and Practice Revision Committee, a central question was this: �Are we a Christian
community, or are we not?� His monthly meeting, and others, have valued members
who do not consider themselves Christians as well as others who are committed
Christians. Can we call this a book of Christian Faith and Practice?
We heard a Friend report that
her monthly meeting gave detailed, careful attention to this draft, with a very
positive response.
The draft was described as a
delightful, delicious puzzle, with many pieces in place. This is a puzzle
without edges, for which we must design pieces even as we fit together the
pieces that have been given to us in the past. Our awareness of our inherent
unity with nature, and of the imperative to live simply, walking lightly on
this earth of which we are not owners but stewards, should be prominent in our
statement of Faith and Practice.
Even for those of us who are
universalists, who draw on varied religious traditions for inspiration,
preservation of the language and the concepts of our Christian heritage is
needed as a foundation.
We give thanks for the
stories that have become part of Quaker culture. They help us to recall our
history, and to preserve the wisdom of past generations. We were reminded of
the story of the Indian chief who listened to the ministry of his visitor,
Friend John Woolman, understood none of his words, then said that he loved the
place from which the words came.
From a Friend whose small
meeting lost three elderly Friends in recent months, we heard of the diverse
ways in which these beloved people were memorialized. There is no right and no
wrong way to celebrate the lives our dead. This Faith and Practice provides
the spiritual framework for our search for ways to greet death and celebrate
life in a manner suitable to the lives and the deaths that are given to us.
A Friend who grew up as a
Christian and recently returned to Christian discipleship after years of
separation described her discovery that fidelity to the teachings of Jesus is
more alive and consistent among Friends than in other groups she had explored,
despite our allergies to Christian language. Words are metaphor; spirit is
real.
We heard thanks to the Faith
and Practice Revision Committee for its decision to approach this session as a
meeting for worship. A former member of the Committee was surprised and
grateful that expressions of the core of our faith do appear in the pages of
this draft, having found it so difficult to frame such expressions.� Our Yearly Meeting needs to labor with its
most challenging problems in this way. As we do, insights emerge.
Our pronouns matter. When
queries ask, �What do you do?�, we hear the questions in the voices of
those we revere and have learned from in the past. They claim our attention.
A person new to Friends told
us that she found Faith and Practice helpful and not restrictive, having
observed that her own Meeting diverges from written guidelines where different
practices seem fitting.
When Friends stand while
another is speaking, is the spirit attempting to interrupt itself? We were
reminded that it is in stillness that we hear the messages we are meant to
give.
The Committee was commended
for having found language that is clear, direct, and plain. To a former social
worker, the sections on family life and death seem especially important, as she
herself approaches the end of life with waning strength, growing dependency,
and greater need for help. How should we care for the many people in our
society and throughout the world who come to the end of life with meager
resources? Elderly people face great decisions and daunting challenges, while
strength ebbs and self-reliance becomes more difficult to sustain. How will we
help?
To many of us, a change of
consciousness has occurred about our relationship to the natural world. We are
not superior, spiritual beings given dominion over nature, but a species to
whom stewardship has been entrusted and from whom much destruction has come.
Our Faith and Practice should reveal us as a part of the web of life.
Too little emphasis is given
in the history section of this revision of Faith and Practice to the
positive qualities of �incandescent spirituality� that are revealed through
courageous Quaker social action. The section is good as far as it goes, but it
does not represent our witness fully.
We were asked to consider
whether the draft represents Pacific Yearly Meeting as it is now. The Committee
has heard much about language and much about unity with nature. If my personal
faith is not well represented in this statement, can I learn and grow from the
faith of others in this, my spiritual community, so that I find myself more present
in these pages? Can I convey my ministry better, so that I am more fully heard
and understood? Let us not lobby, seeking to influence the Faith and Practice
Revision Committee and so to shape the final draft in our individual images.
Let us, rather, support these Friends as they complete their task.
We heard announcements from
Janet Leslie, Assistant to the Presiding Clerk.
Faithfully submitted,
Jamie Newton, Recording Clerk���������������������������������� Margaret
Mossman, Presiding Clerk