Contents

• Moving Toward a Covenant Community: Extracts of Representative Meeting Minutes
• Seeking Light
• Quaker Arts
• Grants for Christian Mysticism
• Bolivian Quaker Education Fund
• FUM Triennial
• Friends Association for Higher Education 2005 Gathering
• Meetings and Miracles with Rubye Braye
• Peer Counselor Training Workshops on Enlistment Issues for Youth & Adults
• Conscientious Objection Not Just for Guys Anymore
• Rockland Mentoring Program
• AFSC Responds to Natural Disaster in Asia
• Convictions
• Fellowship of Friends of African Descent 2005 Gathering
• FLGBTQC Midwinter Gathering 2005: Spiritual Work at the Edge of Certainty
• Notices

Moving Toward a Covenant Community

Extracts of Representative Meeting Minutes

6. Thomas Martin (Wilton) presented the proposed operating budget for 2005. This year, Financial Services brings forward a budget totaling $545,625, having listened carefully to regional, quarterly, and monthly meetings, who offered what they felt they could commit to for 2005. Tom suggests we call these Covenant Donations. He also pointed out that a budget is just a financial plan. It is what we do that counts. He noted that the proposed covenant donations do not meet the proposed expenditures, leaving a possible shortfall of $33,625. But he cautioned that continuing with deficit budgeting is not sound practice, and that we must not set a precedent for future budgets. Friends spoke to the proposal. Friends approved the proposed operating budget for 2005.

8. Tom presented the proposed expected covenant donations for 2005, totaling $476,000. Friends approved the proposal.

9. Christopher Sammond brought forward a draft report on policies and procedures to protect the health and spirit of our youth. In response to requests from NYYM's insurance carrier regarding child abuse, a task group was formed under General Services, with representatives from Junior Yearly Meeting, Powell House, Prison Concerns, Alternatives to Violence Project, Personnel Committee, and Trustees....

10. The Clerk introduced Julia Giordano, clerk of the Powell House Committee. Julia reported on the work of Powell House and its committee. In the past year, Powell House has offered scholarships to 211 youth and 330 adult conference attenders. The committee is working on growing its endowment so that their small staff could be larger, so that they could offer more scholarship to more attenders, and so that they could lower their request from New York Yearly Meeting. Christine DeRoller (Old Chatham) reported on . . . the Powell House Youth Center. Chris noted that this Yearly Meeting has an amazing group of youth. At Powell House, youth conferences are all about honoring diversity, caring for each other and themselves, and learning of each person's gifts. She spoke of a large camping trip up in the Adirondacks and the recent trip to Honduras with a dozen youth, where they were blessed in many ways. She felt very strongly held in the Light by Friends throughout this trip. . . . One of the blessings the young Friends say of their experiences at Powell House is that they receive the strength to take their Quakerism home with them and live it there too.

14. . . . The Clerk . . . introduced Anita Paul (Schenectady), clerk of the Witness Coordinating Committee, who drew the attention of Friends to the recent fund appeal of the Sharing Fund. This year's Sharing Fund goal is $70,000. She mentioned recent activities the Sharing Fund has been able to support.   Anita brought forward a minute from Ithaca Meeting, endorsed by Farmington-Scipio Friends, which asks for Friends' support for the rebuilding of the meeting house in Ramallah (West Bank, formerly Jordan) into a Friends Peace Center. Friends agree that the Yearly Meeting shall send a letter of support to Ramallah Friends. The Clerk was directed to write a letter to monthly and regional meetings asking them to consider writing their own letters of support for the rebuilding project, and to consider making financial contributions to it, through the general secretary of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.

15. Anita introduced S. Jean Smith (Manhattan), who suggested that because of recent judicial action, this is an opportune time to reassert Friends' historic opposition to the death penalty. . . . The New York State Assembly plans hearings to aid their rethinking of the death penalty, where Friends could testify. . . . Friends were united in reaffirming their historic opposition to the death penalty. Members in New York State were encouraged to testify at the hearings. The Clerk was directed to inform Friends at home of this minute, and to take a copy of it to the New York State Council of Churches Collegium.

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Seeking Light

I have been serving New York Yearly Meeting as its general secretary for just over four months. It has been a time of plunging in and getting up to speed on many fronts simultaneously. I have done extensive visitation, spent time putting my office together, gotten to know the staff and how the office functions, learned about the work of many of the committees, become somewhat apprised of our insurance, accounting, bookkeeping, and budgeting practices, met with the pastors and ministers of the Yearly Meeting, etc., etc.

The greatest portion of my time, and my highest priority, has been spending time visiting Friends. I have sought to listen deeply to many Friends' experience of the Yearly Meeting as an organization and how that organization relates to their life in the Spirit, both personally and in their monthly meetings. I have visited about one fifth of the monthly meetings and worship groups and all but three of the regions/quarters of the Yearly Meeting. Meeting with and listening to so many Friends has helped me to gain a fuller sense of the Yearly Meeting. While I have still only met with a fraction of NYYM Friends, the mix of views and perceptions that I have been hearing has been pretty consistent. I feel that I am beginning to have a reasonably coherent picture of the Yearly Meeting, with all of its complexity, new life, and challenges.

Some Friends in my travels have asked me to outline my plans for my work. Just what do I expect to do to improve the life of the Yearly Meeting and all of its constituent monthly meetings and worship groups? When I have responded that the first phase of my work will be immersing myself in the Yearly Meeting to gain a sense of the lay of the land, and that the particulars of my future work will only arise out of that initial understanding, some of them have been disappointed. They have expected me to be working from a prescriptive, proactive plan.

I do not have such a plan. I do, however, carry a vision, a vision of what we are being asked to create. All my work will move toward that vision.

The vision I carry is that of a yearly meeting as a people. As a coherent people that knows itself to be bound together in the fellowship of being faithful to the leadings of God as we each experience and know God. A people that is open and celebratory about differences, that deals constructively with conflict, that is deeply alive in the Spirit, and that draws great strength from the felt sense of being united in this common effort to be faithful. I know the seeds of all of this to be present in New York Yearly Meeting, and I have heard a deep hunger for its fruition. I have heard it in my visits with Friends, in the reports of many years of ad hoc committees addressing the life of the Yearly Meeting, in the frustrations of Friends who want the Yearly Meeting to be very different than it is, and in the excitement of Friends who see the beginnings of the changes they so long for.

I believe that Friends are called, today, at this difficult time in history, to create such a community. I believe that if we can live into this vision, we will be living the practice of proactive peacemaking, creating peace from the roots of our community.

And while I am not working from some kind of a strategic plan, I feel that I have been here long enough to have a general sense of the nature of my work. My visitation will of course be ongoing, but I sense that the focus will soon shift from my listening to gain a sense of Friends' condition to that of visitation that is more oriented toward building up the life of the body. I see aspects of this including empowering others in their gifts, kindling spiritual fires, connecting gifted Friends with Friends that need those gifts, helping Friends in core Quaker practices of discernment, clerking, recording, and vocal ministry, and supporting efforts in community building and conflict resolution.

I am only one person, and the need for Friends engaged in this work far exceeds what one or even several Friends can do. It is quite clear to me that a lot of my work will need to center around supporting others in discerning and acting on how God is calling them to service. We need many, many Friends engaged in this ministry, and we need to find ways to support this work, whether that support comes from nurturing Friends traveling in the ministry, through a coordinated YM program for spiritual nurture, or in changes in committee and staff structure. We need to release Friends' gifts in ministry, and the best way[s] of doing that are not yet clear.

Longer term, it is clear to me that we need to work toward a common vision for what New York Yearly Meeting is and does. We need to become a Yearly Meeting that is an integral expression of the life of the Spirit in the monthly meetings, worship groups, and quarterly/regional meetings. We need deeper, reciprocal relationships between the monthly meetings, worship groups, and the Yearly Meeting.

This is the Light that I have so far about my work here. I would really welcome hearing from Friends as to how this resonates in their hearts and spirits.

Christopher Sammond general secretary

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Quaker Arts

Bayard Rustin was a long-time collaborator in the civil rights movement with Martin Luther King Jr. Raised as a Quaker, he routinely risked life and limb as a crusader for racial justice, via nonviolent means. Inspired by Gandhi and Quakerism, he was a pioneer of pacifist methods of resistance in the 1940s, and an influence on King's choice of nonviolent methods in the 1950s

Additional films to be screened in the series include: Friday 2/18/05, Theme: Peace and Social Witness in Times of War: films Witness to War and Anyone's Son Will Do; Friday 3/18/05, Theme: Quaker Women in History; Friday 4/08/05, Theme: Intergenerational Films about Art.

For more information on the Friends Film Series, please contact Bob Baldridge at 212-388-7999 or quakerstory@yahoo.com, or visit www.quakerarts.org.

Robert Baldridge, Fifteenth Street

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Grants for Christian Mysticism

Recent grants were awarded for: traveling exhibition of mystical artwork; assistance to build a hermitage cabin for mystical retreats; development of books, videos, and other resources on mysticism for a university program; scholarly research into the mysticism of Friedrich von Hugel; an inner city art project by a contemplative community.

Individuals wishing to apply for grants in 2005 should submit seven copies of their proposal no later than March 1, 2005, to the grant secretaries at the address given below. Two or three individuals who know the applicant and are familiar with his or her work should be asked to send letters of reference by this deadline as well. Grant recipients are requested to make a progress report within a year.

Proposals should be brief (one or two pages). Guidelines and additional information on the Bogert Fund are available on request by contacting Michelina and Vinton Deming, 4818 Warrington Avenue, Philadelphia PA 19143; vintdem00@aol.com.

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Bolivian Quaker Education Fund

The strongest of the BQEF programs is scholarships for higher education. This year there are 25 (about half women), up from 15 last year. Since there are already 15 new applications in hand with ten weeks to go, BQEF will be hard pressed to fund all the worthy candidates.

We were impressed with the quality and competence of the committee (again, half women) that Bernabé has gathered to review and rank applications. The committee meets monthly, continuing to monitor student progress after the scholars have been chosen.

The next two BQEF programs are improved instruction in information technology (IT) and English in the three Bolivian Quaker secondary schools. We have submitted grant applications, and we expect to begin installing equipment in January 2005 and to have these programs fully implemented in 2006.

Bolivian Friends have shown special interest in learning more about the FCE (Friends Council on Education) workshops for non-Quaker teachers in Quaker schools, and about AVP workshops for secondary school students. There was also some discussion of management workshops. It will be a challenge to develop concrete proposals to respond to it. We invite your suggestions.

Besides the Scholarship Committee, an IT Committee and an English Committee are active. Their work has been and will continue to be integrated into our grant proposals. In 2005 Bernabé hopes to establish three more committees—for Infrastructure, for Math and Science, and for workshops. In this way BQEF is building a solid organization and including more people in the effort to improve Bolivian Quaker education.

Everywhere we went, we carried greetings from Buffalo Meeting, Fredonia Meeting, and Farmington-Scipio Regional Meeting. Bolivian Friends received these enthusiastically, and send their own heartfelt greetings in return. So: ¡Saludos, hermanos!

Newton Garver, Buffalo Meeting

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FUM Triennial

The theme, "The Lamb will overcome them," was selected from Revelation 17:14: "These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful."

The opening worship speaker will be Retha McCutchen, general secretary of FUM. The Johnson Lecture will be by Oliver Kisaka of Nairobi Yearly Meeting, Kenya. The keynote address will be by Canby Jones, a member of Wilmington Yearly Meeting. Jan Hoffman of New England Yearly Meeting will lead the closing worship.

A youth and children's program, as well as USFWI and Quaker Men banquets, Bible studies, workshops, and local trips are in the planning stages. The January 2005 issue of Quaker Life has registration forms, which are also online at www.fum.org.

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Friends Association for Higher Education 2005 Gathering

According to coordinator Helene Pollack, "We are anticipating a broad conference that will focus on issues of interest to Friends who work in higher education as well as independent scholars and persons committed to lifelong learning. The conference program will include presentations relating to history, English, anthropology and many other disciplines, Friends testimonies and economics, pedagogy, Native American issues, global communications, technology, campus ministry/faith development, and witnessing through scholarship. An overview of the conference is posted on the Web site, at http://www.haverford.edu/hcweb/fahe/. We hope that many Friends from NYYM will be able to participate."

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Meetings and Miracles with Rubye Braye

The weekend, cosponsored by NYYM Advancement Committee and Powell House, and supported in part by a grant from the Advancement Committee, is designed to provide Friends with the opportunity to experience fully the joy of the Spirit of God, always present and available in us and in the world but all too often not made manifest in our busy, distracted lives. There will be time for group work and individual reflection, and at least one intergenerational activity, Creating the Peaceable Meeting. The goal will be to help all make their meetings "miraculous, wonderful places to be for all ages."

Rubye Braye's more than 23 years of involvement with Quakers has included work with monthly and yearly meetings throughout the country, and with FGC, FWCC, and AVP. She worships with Wilmington, N.C., Friends.

The weekend begins with dinner at 7 P.M. on Friday and concludes with lunch on Sunday. The cost is $120 for adults, $80 for children and teens (2–17), and $40 for infants. Childcare can be arranged with three weeks' notice. For more information, or to register, call Powell House at 518-794-8811 or go to www.powellhouse.org.

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Peer Counselor Training Workshops on Enlistment Issues for Youth & Adults

Current U.S. foreign policy will require a steady stream of young recruits to keep it functioning. The military has years of practice in marketing the military lifestyle. As young people look toward graduation they are faced with the difficult challenge of deciding what to do with their lives. The military is ready to offer them help in making that decision. Are we?

The Peer Counselor Training Workshop Project's goal is to develop a resource bank of young people who can assist other youth as they wrestle with recruiter promises and their own future. The aim is to enable youth to address military enlistment issues within communities. The workshops will train young people to assist their peers by:

• answering questions about military recruitment; military money for college programs; and life in the military;
• helping them resist pressures to join the military;
• helping them to get out of the Delayed Enlistment Program (DEP); and
• preparing them to present their own version of the counter recruitment workshops.

This weekend begins with Friday night dinner at 7 P.M. and concludes with lunch on Sunday. Powell House provides the bedding and towels.

Cost: $170 adults, $80 children & teens (2–17), $40 infants. Scholarship available.

To register, call or write Powell House, 524 Pitt Hall Rd., Old Chatham NY 12136; 518-794-8811; info@powellhouse.org; www.powellhouse.org.

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Conscientious Objection—Not Just for Guys Anymore

The Center on Conscience and War provides clear information on the types of conscientious objection (CO) and the steps toward claiming CO status. If you find yourself searching for a place to begin, they share a few helpful questions to set you on your way. For more information visit the CCW's Web site at: www.nisbco.org. Other sites worth looking at include www.sss.gov/FSconsobj.htm and www.objector.org.

Erica Jackofsky, Conscience Bay

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Rockland Mentoring Program

 

How my heart aches for all of you, for your loss of an angel. Leigh was one of the nicest ladies I've ever had the privilege of meeting. She blessed us all. Her love and devotion to us wayward women was unbelievable.

Leigh Schuerholz, a member of Rockland Friends Meeting (RFM), had been providing a parenting program at the Rockland County Correctional Facility under the auspices of what is now the Family Connections program, a part of Rockland Parent Child Center (RPCC). When Leigh died in 1999, several of the women she had helped came to her memorial service and gave testimonies of how her work had changed their lives. People donated money to the Meeting in Leigh's honor. RFM decided to establish the Leigh Schuerholz Memorial Fund to carry forward the work she had begun.

 

When I contemplated suicide she implored me not to even consider hurting the children like that.

The Peace and Community Action Committee (PCAC) of RFM began considering ways to honor the life of Leigh Schuerholz. Last fall someone suggested that we honor her memory by establishing a mentoring program to help ease the transition from prison to outside life. The idea took hold, and the PCAC began seeking ways in which it could be accomplished.

I want you to know how much Leigh helped all of us.

We visited two established programs, the Women's Prison Association in Brooklyn, which was begun by a Quaker woman, Abigail Hopper Gibbons, in 1844; and another program in Westchester, directed through Westchester Jewish Community Services and the Westchester Office for Women. The two programs were most helpful, and from them we learned how a mentoring program can be established, what is required of mentors, and what the participants can expect from the program. They gave us full access to their training materials to be adapted to our own needs.

 

In one of my letters I ask Leigh why she spend most of her time dedicated to others? She responded: "To smile at someone who is sad; to visit, even for a little while, someone who is lonely, to give someone shelter from the rain with our umbrella, to read something for someone who is blind: these and others can be small things, very small things, but they are appropriate to give our love concrete expression to the ones poor of spirit."

The Meeting and PCAC decided that RFM did not have the resources or the person power to establish a mentoring program all by itself. A member of meeting suggested connecting with RPCC, where Leigh had worked. What more natural partner than the organization through which Leigh conducted her parenting classes?

 

It is possible that they find themselves abandoned in the street because no one gave them love and understanding. You and I could be in their place if we have not received love and understanding from other human beings. I will never forget the alcoholic woman who had surrendered to alcohol to forget the fact that no one loved her. Before we judge, we have the duty to look inside ourselves.

In the spring of 2004 we contacted RPCC to learn if they were receptive to the idea of a joint collaboration in establishing a mentoring program. They were enthusiastic. By early summer it was agreed that RFM would provide funds from the Leigh Schuerholz Memorial Fund to hire a post-release case manager and that RPCC, using materials gathered from Women's Prison Association, would develop a mentor-training manual and train the mentors.

 

She replace in many ways our unloved hearts, she gave us so much, that it felt unreal.

Knowing that RFM alone could not supply the number of mentors needed, we sought volunteers from other churches and organizations. An informative news article published in the Journal News, a local paper, helped publicize the program and swell the group of volunteers.

As a result of these efforts, RFM in collaboration with RPCC established a mentoring program for persons recently released from Rockland County Correctional Facility. The mentors will help the participants' transition from life inside to life outside the facility. Participants in the parenting program will be paired with a mentor a few weeks prior to release. The participant and her/his mentor will set goals, review difficulties, and in general lay out a plan of action. Mentor and participant will meet approximately once a week for about a year, implementing and perhaps modifying the plan of action. This will be assisted by a post-release case manager who will help connect the participants with appropriate community resources. Mentors will also be able to draw on the experience of the project director.

Mentors can be any age, sex, race, ethnicity, etc. A compassionate heart and a willingness to share one's life experience with the participant are all that is really necessary. Mentors agree to a one-year term with one participant. Training is provided at the outset, and supervision is ongoing by both the post-release caseworker and the project director. The training and supervision are modeled on the Women's Prison Association in Brooklyn (http://www.wpaonline.org).

On October 23, 2004, the first training class was held at RPCC with the first seven volunteer mentors. We now have seven trained volunteers, two of whom have been paired with participants, and we have four other volunteers awaiting training.

Anyone wishing to share time, talent, or treasure is heartily welcomed. Contact the clerk of RFM, 60 Leber Road, Blauvelt NY 10913 or the executive director of Rockland Parent Child Center, 137 First Ave., Nyack NY 10960.

Louis Coulombe, Rockland Meeting

(Quotations in boxes are from letters received by the Schuerholz family on Leigh's passing.)

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AFSC Responds to Natural Disaster in Asia

AFSC is accepting donations. You are welcome to visit our Web site http://www.afsc.org and make a donation to the Crisis Fund. Gifts received in our Crisis Fund as of press time will go to relief and recovery in Asia. AFSC is presently accepting financial donations only and is not collecting materials nor sending volunteers.

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Convictions

Convictions, a new 22-minute video about the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (formerly School of the Americas, or SOA), uses the word in both senses. The video was made by Robert Richter, of Richter Productions, and is distributed by SOA Watch (Box 4566, Washington DC 20017; www.soaw.org). One of the demonstrators who crossed the line plays with the word in its double sense: "I am not a criminal, I am a person of conviction."

SOA Watch organizes a demonstration each November at the current home of the SOA/WHISC, Fort Benning, Ga. This year the demonstration, with between 15,000 and 20,000 participants, coincided with President Bush's trip to Chile, and hence with the large public protests in Santiago against some of the same policies being protested in Georgia. The video was made about the demonstration in 2003, including the preparations, the crowds and marches, the arrests, the court appearances, and their aftermath.

One of the demonstrators featured in the video is Shirley Way (Central Finger Lakes MM), who crossed over the short wall separating public ground from forbidden military ground, was arrested, and served three months in a federal prison. She speaks eloquently of why she is led to commit civil disobedience. Outside the court her mother, Mary Way, speaks in support.

The video reminds us of the savagery and brutality perpetrated by those trained at SOA/WHISC, a record of thousands of deaths and of the widespread suppression of democracy. It is a record of terror, state terror against the people. Heads of government dislike to acknowledge state terrorism, but terrorism cannot be defeated unless we can terminate state sponsorship of terrorism. SOA Watch reminds us each November of such sponsorship by our own tax dollars.

For those who think that SOA Watch might be engaged in a quixotic fight, the video reminds us that the last time round the vote to continue funding for SOA/WHISC passed in the House by only ten votes. Write your representative!

Newton Garver, Buffalo

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Fellowship of Friends
of African Descent
2005 Gathering

Penn Center (www.penncenter.com) is among the oldest and most significant African-American cultural and educational institutions in North America.

The Gathering will focus on the rich culture of the Gullah people. According to Althea Sumpter, Gullah historian and coclerk of the Gathering Committee, "The Gullah/Geechee culture off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia is the most intact West African culture in the United States. Members of the culture have retained ethnic traditions from West Africa for over 250 years. Many traditions were passed from one generation to the next through language, agriculture, and spirituality. The culture has been linked to specific West African ethnic groups who were enslaved on island plantations to grow rice, indigo, and cotton starting in the early 1700s." Althea Sumpter will be our opening plenary speaker.

We have also invited Emory Campbell, former director of Penn Center and author of Gullah Cultural Legacies, and Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, our sister Quaker from South Africa and deputy minister of health for the Republic of South Africa.

Bill Jenkins & Althea Sumpter
Gathering coclerks

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FLGBTQC Midwinter Gathering 2005: Spiritual Work at the Edge of Certainty

One of those discernment practices is taking the time, and being in a place for centering and renewal. Midwinter Gathering will offer these. Our plenary speaker, Deborah Fisch, will help focus our attention on practices that help us thrive on the edges of our experience. Saturday morning we will join together to learn about border concerns and cross-cultural issues in the Southwest from Kitty Ufford-Chase and Marcela Diaz. Following that, our program will be loosely scheduled, allowing Friends time to bask in the beauty of the area, play, rest, worship and explore.

Fear and anxiousness seem to abound as people face uncertainties in their individual lives and in their communities. We will take time to look at the changing attitudes toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer concerns, both within Quakerism and on the Virginia Frontier, the site of Friends General Conference 2005. What is the work we still have to do on this border?

Let us gather, Friends, to explore and share with each other those things that allow us to center and then to move freely into the world, speaking with love, and working with the deep commitment that comes from spiritual awareness.

For more information contact MWG05@hotmail.com.

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Notices

Elias Kim Amorel – Brooklyn
Carol Avery – Shelter Island
Aaron Cohen – Brooklyn
Brian Doherty – Fifteenth Street
Jennifer Flaccus – Saratoga
Thomas E. Joyce – Perry City
Jessica Sue Packard – Brooklyn
Brian John Williams – Perry City

TRANSFERS

Arthur Berk, to Fifteenth Street from Stillwater (Ohio Yearly Meeting)
Diane Bonner, to Brooklyn from Fifteenth Street
Faith Brzostoski, to Rockland from Shrewsbury
Martha Crawford, to Brooklyn from Fifteenth Street
K. Per Larson, to Morningside from Housatonic
George Ogno, to Morningside from Housatonic

DEATHS

Lois Coffin Briggs, member of Poughkeepsie, on October 28, 2004
G. Howard Carrothers, member of Poughkeepsie, on December 8, 2004
Helen DeJager, member of Farmington, on September 20, 2004
Ralph F. Harnish, member of Farmington, on November 6, 2004
Anne Jane Smedley, member of Summit, on October 21, 2004
William Waldo Williams, member of Easton, on November 25, 2004

MARRIAGES/COVENANT RELATIONSHIPS

Linda Louise Hill, member of Fifteenth Street, to Charles Robert Brainard, on October 2, 2004.
Karin Terebessy and Lee Hansen, under the care of Binghamton Community Friends, on November 6, 2004.

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