Meetings for Discernment Steering Committee Report 2012-11

Report on Meetings for Discernment, NYYM

to Fall Sessions, 2012

Two sessions were held at Summer Sessions, July 2012. About 120 friends attended the morning session; the afternoon had about 85 attenders. Approximately 40 friends attended a follow-up evening meeting for reflection and discussion. Four friends served as note takers and more than two dozen elders shared the service of holding the meetings in prayer. More detail on the sessions is provided in the full report, which can be found on the Yearly Meeting website.

Morning queries were, “How do we know what is true and how do we share it as Friends and as meetings? How do our meetings respond to the challenges that living with integrity presents?” Afternoon queries were, “Where is the Spirit of Truth leading our meetings? Are we following it toward greater wholeness? What are the challenges?”

Again, there is much fuller information in the report on the website, but some answers that were heard to the queries are: Truth, despite our experience that it cannot be grasped in its fullness and sometimes takes much time to discern, is found in our love for each other. It is leading meetings and individual friends in a wealth of ways, from antifracking activism to spirit-led stewardship of resources. Lack of a shared theology was seen as a challenge, which some meetings were able to meet through open sharing.

The next sessions will be hosted by Brooklyn Monthly Meeting on March 2, 2013, with a snow-date of March 9. Planning is underway for hospitality and for provision of transit help to out-of-town friends. The morning queries, focusing on monthly meetings, will be:

“What are your dreams, yearnings, and hopes for your meeting? What is God calling your meeting to become?”

For the afternoon session, focusing on the yearly meeting, the queries will be:

“What are your hopes, leadings, and expectations for our yearly meeting as a gathered body? What work is God calling us to do together that we cannot do separately?”

The steering committee continues to meet to discern way forward and welcomes input as well as new members.

Lucinda Antrim, Clerk, Steering Committee, Meetings for Discernment