To Friends Everywhere, 

Grace and peace to you, in the love that flows from the Holy One who longs to help us know and live our unity with our human kindred and with all Creation! New England Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends gathered for its 364th annual meeting at Castleton, Vermont, and by video conference, from August 2nd through 7th, 2024. 

We acknowledge with humility and gratitude that we met on Ndakinna (n-DAH-kee-NAH), homeland of the Abenaki peoples. It was a joy to hear from Jorge Luis Peña, presiding clerk of Cuban Yearly Meeting and to have the presence of Cuban Friends by video conference. 

As we came together, we were acutely aware that our world is in turmoil. Armed conflicts in Israel/Palestine, Ukraine, Sudan, and other places are inflicting fear and suffering on millions. Oppressive regimes burden millions more. As climate change accelerates, we live with grief because of the wounds to the natural world that we love. As our days together unfolded, the sometimes stormy weather in Castleton reflected these impacts of climate change, which have resulted in recent disastrous flooding here, especially in the “Northeast Kingdom” of Vermont where we have beloved Friends. 

We acknowledge our participation in many of the world’s crises, such as climate change, political polarization, and the continued effects of white supremacy. There has been turmoil within our yearly meeting as well, as differences have arisen on many points, for example during our discernment about the creation of a new meeting. We have felt the need to strengthen our capacity for conflict response. 

Yet we affirm the joy and consolation of our community in the Spirit, within New England and beyond. We are glad to see our Friends new and old, and as we have centered together in worship, we are glad also to welcome the evidence of God’s work within and among us. The One who speaks, Creator-Sets-Free, is our steadfast companion, whose guidance we listen for, and whose love we strive to embody, however incompletely. When we accept that we are loved, we are strengthened to address our conflicts and our complicity in the ills of our society. 

Our Bible Half Hour speaker, Genna Ulrich, of Portland Friends Meeting, reminded us how important it is to accept one another fully, even one who at first does not seem to belong, like John the Baptizer clothed in unshorn camel-hide and eating locusts and honey. In being able to do this, we reflect in our measure the radical way that God accepts and loves each of us. Our experience of this love allows us to better hear the Good News and change our purpose to better align with the divine ordering, the Gospel Order.

Our plenary speaker, Lloyd Lee Wilson, of Friendship Friends Meeting, North Carolina YM(C), reminded us of the many, sometimes wordless, ways that the divine speaks to us. He described his experience of the “spirituality of subtraction,” a practice by which we find ourselves gradually freed from distracting habits and unexamined assumptions. This makes it easier to hear the messages we are given by the One who speaks, God-With-Us, even if we are led in ways we do not at first understand. 

We also were reminded that faithfulness to the leadings we are given, even when we see no great effects, is humble participation in Christ’s ministry of reconciliation. In our time together, sharing reports of our experiences of the Spirit’s gifts has given us courage and led us to see the many ways in which we need to grow in the love and power of the divine life, if we are to respond, in our measure, to the challenges before us, within our community as well as in the world. 

We continue our efforts to understand ways in which we enact the patterns of oppression that express the values of the culture in which we are embedded, a culture which places differential values on humans, the children of God, according to race or gender expression, class, education, or age. We long to be perfect in love, as Jesus calls us to be, and to respond humbly to others, but we remain beginners, apprentices in the school of the spirit that is Quakerism, struggling to apply the lessons of love, even with those near to us, where trust and forgiveness ought to be in richest supply. 

The work of repairing relationships with those we have harmed is even more challenging and requires greater humility. For example, this year we heard from Friends who presented a report on the complicity of New England Yearly Meeting in the great harms inflicted by the so-called Indian Boarding Schools. The report found that New England Friends were deeply, directly, and intimately involved in the creation and material sustenance of these assimilating boarding schools and the policies that drove and justified them. We encouraged the reporting Friends to continue their work and explore what next steps we may take as way opens. 

We have come to recognize that many structures and practices in our meetings at every level must be renewed or transformed, if they are to help us listen to the Spirit and act in faithfulness. We hope to listen more to young and old, newcomers and old-timers, to tend their seeds of spirit and encourage the use of their gifts. Such changes in practice and habit are unsettling, and can bring conflict. Experimental living in community requires patience, forbearance, and the healing flashes of divine humor as we try and fail, improvise and revise. 

We can know that we are walking with the Guide by the growing beauty and freedom of the way we are led, the fearlessness with which we love and act, the growing scope of our gratitude. Not all at once will we come to maturity in that Spirit; not all at once will we acknowledge where we have fallen short, or be able truly to forgive or accept our need for forgiveness. Genna Ulrich reminded us of Jesus’ teaching that only God is good, and challenged us to avoid the easy assumption that because we’re Quakers, we are “good people” — rather than examining our actual behaviors and effects in the world.

But we are reminded this week that the blessings we have — among them our children, our friends, the abundant Creation, and the resources of the Quaker way — are bread for the journey, deriving from the divine Seed whom we cherish so dearly. Knowing this, the call and the need for radical transformation are invitations to meaning, and to joy. We recall with hope God’s prophetic assertion: I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? (Isaiah 43:19 NRSV). Alleluia! 

Yours In Faith and Love, New England Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends , Rebecca Leuchak, Presiding Clerk

Brian Drayton is a recorded minister of New England Yearly Meeting through Salem Quarter. Below is his most recent report on his ministry over the past year or two, a remarkable statement of how he views ministry among Friends, or at least his ministry. (You can read his religious reflections on his blog Amor Vincat.)

Here is the Epistle from the annual sessions of New England Yearly Meeting this year, held in Castleton, VT, in August 2023.

Worship at Durham Friends Meeting on February 19, 2023 focused on our annual practice of writing a ‘A State of Society’ report for this Meeting for 2022. You can find State of Society Reports from previous years at this link.

Tess Hartford gave a message about State of Society Reports that also carried a request for contributions tyo our annual report.

         What is the State of Society Report? According to our Faith and Practice we receive these words as the purpose and value of such a report. “At the end of the calendar year, Ministry and Counsel should appoint one or more of its members to prepare and present to its sessions a report on the state of the monthly meeting. The report when approved should be forwarded to the Monthly Meeting. When approved by the Monthly Meeting, it should be forwarded to the quarterly meeting and then on to the yearly meeting. The report should be a searching self examination by the meeting and its members of their spiritual strengths and weaknesses and of the efforts to foster growth in the spiritual life. Reports may cover the full range of interest and concerns and should emphasize those indicative of spiritual health of the meeting.”

        Things to consider are following:

           ` Quality of worship and spiritual ministry;

           `efforts to foster spiritual growth;

           ` stands taken on Friends’ principles;

           ` personal and family relations;

           ` relations with community and other religious groups;

           ` participation in general activities of Friends;

           ` significant activities, outreach, or concerns of the local meeting;

           ` youth of the meeting; and

           `the meeting community;

And to this list I would also add; encouragement of gifts and leadings among meeting members and attenders. So those of us who make up the M&C committee have before us the charge if you will to generate this State of Society report, but as co-clerk of Ministry and Counsel, along with Renee Cote, I am eager to hear form all of you since we are all carrying various thoughts, sentiments, hopes and fears, and concerns as individuals. We are all in this together .What do you think are some of our strengths and some of our weaknesses? How have we grown together this last year? What are some of the challenges we face and where do we need to place more of our attention? And what is important to each of us as we face this new year ahead?

           I will share with you some of my “burden” on my soul. When I use the word “burden” I don’t mean something that is distasteful or repulsive or something I am so weighed down by that I feel hopeless.IN this instance when I use the word”burden” I frame it as a hea in vy concern. Then, if I name it, I can share it and when I share it, it becomes lighter, and not so heavy. In the words of our great teacher Jesus of Nazareth, we are heartened when he said, “Come to me all you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. I am gentle and humble in spirit. Accept my work and learn from me” My burden is light!!!! Let’s meditate on that for a moment- my burden is light. We are given the word light- we have been given the light in which we are covered, covered, so that might carry that yoke of light wherever we are. The opportunity to embrace this light is through our relationship with the living Christ within. The Christ light that asks us to gently surrender our small grievances, our fears of uncertainty, our sense of hopelessness and our deep woundedness. A collective woundedness that we all experience through loneliness, isolation and our sense of separateness from life and from each other.

            I believe that in this examination of our lives as individuals and as a community of seekers, the burden of light requires us to pick up some of the lost threads, and to reach across the divides among us, to show up and submit to the light of God’s power and presence in order to heal our wounds. I believe that we must ask for the humility to see one another as true brothers and sisters, friends, and lean into each other with radical trust and openness. And so Friends, I ask each one of you to examine what is on your heart and to take a little time to write down what are your concerns, your sense of our strengths and weaknesses and to consider where the light is leading us for the good of the whole. What is important to you as a vital member of this community of the Society of Friends? We of M&C ask you to share your thoughts and hearts’ desires, so that we together can build on and continue to grow stronger. To become more forbearing, more loving, more vital and more compassionate with ourselves and the world..The body of Christ who pray and worship together, who work and joy together, who shine light in a world that sorely needs.it. Shining a light, respecting and appreciating our differences, siding on correctness of attitude and communicating our kindness to and with each other. Being a candle flame that can be felt and perceived even in the darkest of times. We have so much for which to be grateful.

At the beginning of Meeting, Leslie Manning (care of worship) read a letter from Sarah Gant (Clerk of the Meeting Accompaniment Group) and Noah Baker Merrill (General Secretary) of New England Yearly Meeting:

“It is that time of year when we gather in our local meetings to reflect on our collective condition as a faith community. This process is a chance to prayerfully reflect: What is our growing edge as a spiritual community? How is the Spirit moving among us? Where have we found sustenance and nurture? How have we sought to hold up and care for our meeting communities?

“The draft chapter on Ministry & Counsel (https://neym.org/engage-texts-currently-under-discussion) from the Faith and Practice Revision Committee offers some guidance on the State of Society process:

“Corporate discernment on its spiritual condition helps the community see how it has been led, how faithfully it has responded to challenges, and where it might need to focus its attention in the future. It helps bind the community and renew its sense of commitment.

“Reports may cover the full range of interests and concerns but typically emphasize those indicative of the spiritual health of the meeting—both that which is thriving and that which is challenging, changing, or needs strengthening, such as:

• The quality of worship and vocal ministry
• The strength of relationships and trust within the meeting community
• Efforts to foster spiritual growth and evidence of growth
• Possible hardships for the meeting, and how Friends are responding to those challenges
• Significant events or activities in the meeting’s year together
• Social or civic concerns of the meeting and stands taken on Friends’ religious principles
• Service and relationship with Friends beyond the local meeting
• Relations with the community and other religious groups

“It is important for us, as a gathered community of monthly meetings and worship groups across New England, to hear how Spirit is at work in our midst.

“from Sarah Gant, Clerk, Meeting Accompaniment Group and Noah Merrill, General Secretary, New England Yearly Meeting”

This text received preliminary approval at Yearly Meeting Sessions in August 2021 for inclusion in Faith and Practice, the book that provides guidance for Friends in New England Yearly Meeting. Read as a message at Durham Friends Meeting by members of its Committee on Ministry and Counsel, November 14, 2021.

Personal Spiritual Practices (from NEYM Interim Faith and Practice)

“Give over thine own willing, give over thy own running, give over thine own desiring to know or be anything and sink down to the seed which God sows in the heart, and let that grow in thee and be in thee and breathe in thee and act in thee; and thou shalt find by sweet experience that the Lord knows that and loves and owns that, and will lead it to the inheritance of Life, which is its portion.” — Isaac Penington, 1661

…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control… . If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. — Galatians 5: 22-23, 25

The basic spiritual discipline of Friends is regular worship, both communal and individual. This discipline is supported by a variety of practices. Just as one supports a busy life with healthy personal habits, which vary from person to person, Friends choose spiritual practices that help ground them in the life and guidance of the Spirit.  Although most of these are shared with other faiths, a few are especially valued by Friends, such as intentionally taking time to “stand still in the Light” (George Fox) and to “sink down to the Seed”. Friends believe that the Light can illuminate the whole of one’s spiritual being.  It may fill one with joy and comfort, or it may show what is distressing and difficult, shedding light on places one may not wish to acknowledge or face. By embracing this guidance of the Spirit, Friends open themselves to the possibility of transformation.

Friends seek to live in continual awareness of the Spirit. It is the underlying intention of awakening to the Presence that makes something a spiritual practice. Many people commit themselves to a daily spiritual practice to settle their hearts and minds and to refresh their awareness of God’s presence and guidance. Early Friends recommended daily times of “retirement”: time spent in worship, prayer and Bible reading, in silent waiting upon the Spirit, and in journal writing. Contemporary Friends continue to use these practices and have augmented them with readings from Quaker writers past and present, meditation, gratitude practices, engagement with nature, wisdom from other traditions, movement, artistic endeavors, and service, among others. Friends may also look for those moments in their lives when they feel particularly centered or open to the movement of Divine love and find ways to use these times of awareness as a spiritual practice. When Friends embrace these times as a priority, they make space for them, integrating these practices into their lives. Regardless of how peaceful or busy a Friend’s life may feel in any particular moment, taking time to attend to one’s own spiritual condition can offer refreshment and renewal.

A daily spiritual practice helps bring one into a realm of spiritual stillness that opens one to the Inward Light. The Light illuminates the inner landscape, allowing one to see oneself more clearly.  Early Friends spoke of being “searched” by the light while at the same time feeling the calling and the support to transform themselves. Friends understand that in opening themselves to the enlivening influences of the Spirit, their experience allows them to become more open channels of God’s love. Spiritual practices also help one to stay in balance, bringing one back to center and so more available to the motions of divine love. Sometimes the fruits of a practice are what one hopes for and expects. At other times those fruits may be surprising, challenging, and life-changing. Sometimes it is difficult to recognize them at all. While a spiritual practice is the journey of an individual with the Inward Light, it bears fruit in the world.

Over time it is not uncommon to find that a particular spiritual practice no longer opens the space of refreshment and inspiration that it has in the past. An ebb and flow of motivation to continue in a daily practice is also a common experience. Spiritually dry periods or plateaus can be discouraging, yet worship, patience, and trust may reveal important lessons. By remaining alert to the changing dynamics of living in the Spirit, one may come to discern whether it is right to continue a particular practice, despite the dryness, or whether it is time to move on. The counsel of a spiritual companion can be a great aid in this discernment.  Seemingly independent of one’s effort or awareness, experiences of breakthrough may arrive.

Children also experience spiritual insights. They understand, at an early age, the impulse toward moments of quiet joy or spontaneous expressions of gratitude and may instinctively adopt spiritual practices that center, calm, and sustain them in difficult times. A child’s awareness of the Presence often reveals itself in unselfconscious expressions of awe and wonder at life. The freshness of a child’s trust and exuberance of discovery are gifts. Young people learn to nurture spiritual awareness by observing the practices of adults in their lives. Many families use mealtimes to pause together for silent grace or a spoken prayer of gratitude. Times of shared reverence can be a source of joy for all ages.

Friends who practice a discipline of worship throughout the week come to meeting prepared for corporate worship. They are able to center more quickly and help to anchor the meeting in prayer. Their practice is a gift to the community, enhancing its life in the Spirit and aiding in the faithful conduct of business.

Spiritual discipline, at its heart, involves a decision to listen for, and be obedient to, the Inward Guide in every situation, holding the commitment to do whatever love requires.

“Begin where you are.  Obey now.  Use what little obedience you are capable of, even if it be like a grain of mustard seed.  Begin where you are.  Live this present moment, this present hour as you now sit in your seats in utter, utter submission and openness toward Him.”  — Thomas Kelly, 1939

Extracts

1. Retirement may be the practice most accessible to contemporary Friends. Our meetings for worship are times of retirement. Walks in the woods or sitting by the ocean can be times of retirement, as can retreats extended over several days. Thomas Kelly wrote that we can be in contact with “an amazing sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a divine center.” Times of retirement are the times when we pull back from the chatter and busyness of our outward lives, enter that amazing sanctuary, and allow our inner wisdom, the Inward Teacher, to rise up in us.

For early Friends retirement was a prerequisite for a life of faithfulness. Retirement was a daily discipline, sometimes many times in a day. We may think that at the pace of 21st-century life, there isn’t time for daily retirement, yet retirement is a basic building block for all other spiritual disciplines. We have to pause, let the static quiet, so that we can hear. Thomas Kelly reassures us that if we establish mental habits of inward orientation, the processes of inward prayer do not grow more complex, but more simple. (Patricia McBee, 2003)

2. Stand still in that which is pure, after ye see yourselves; and then mercy comes in. After thou seest thy thoughts… do not think, but submit; and then power comes. Stand still in that which shows and discovers; and there doth strength immediately come. And stand still in the light, and submit to it, and the other will be hushed and gone; and then content[ment] comes. (George Fox, 1652)

3. The purpose of meditation is to enable us to hear God more clearly. Meditation is listening, sensing, heeding the life and light of Christ. This comes right to the heart of our faith. The life that pleases God is not a set of religious duties; it is to hear His voice and obey His word. Meditation opens the door to this way of living. (Richard Foster, 1978)

4. Just before the farm dam, I pause, totally by myself. I look up the valley. The sky is an incredible blue, touched by the rock faces of the mountains. I rest on my stick, and I am filled with peace. God is near. (Neil Brathwaite, 2007)

5. Written shortly after the death of his father with whom he shared a passion for photography.

The real beauty is the magic that happens while the product is being made. For myself that journey consists of silence, listening to the world around me and waiting for it to speak. … Most of the time I find that peace in nature, but that’s only a particular setting.

I find my inner light has a clearer voice when the waves of the ocean lap on the rocks with the sun dipping below the horizon and lighting the sky with deep golds and reds to darker magentas and deep purple blues. I can feel my father next to me, sitting in silence as we wait for the magic hour to pass while capturing images that center my mind and bring me to calm….The journey of art is my religious space, the end product is the voice that has sparked me to speak. Whether someone likes it or not is not what is important to me, it is the journey. (Will Reilly, unpublished, 2020)

6. Consider now the prayer-life of Jesus… Incident after incident is introduced by the statement that Jesus was praying. Are we so much nearer God that we can afford to dispense with that which to Him was of such vital moment? But apart from this, it seems to me that this prayer-habit of Jesus throws light upon the purpose of prayer. … We pray, not to change God’s will, but to bring our wills into correspondence with His. (William Littleboy, 1937)

7. I have always greeted God in the morning. It makes a difference. There is no way that I would have faced my teaching day without morning devotional time. One year I had a girl in my class whose behavior often devastated the other children, leaving them in tears. Having used many methods of responding to her behavior and its impact on the other children, I knew that more help was needed. Each morning I held her in prayer with me, in a circle of light, putting Jesus in the mix as well. I could not do this alone and needed a strong visual to remind me of that. Her behavior gradually changed for the better. One day she surprised me by giving me a hug. I do not know if the prayers helped her, or more probably, changed me, and my relationship to her, and she responded positively. (Sue Reilly, 2021)

8. I love to knit. I love creating lovely things, learning new stitches, designing my own patterns. But really, how many shawls, sweaters, socks can one person use? I have discovered over time that knitting for charity is a useful way to engage in a craft I love without being overwhelmed by things I don’t really need. As I was browsing through charity knitting websites I came across the story of a mother whose infant died at birth. She recounted the pain of going to the children’s section of a department store to find a gown in which to bury her child. The store was filled with mothers and healthy babies and adorable clothing her child would never grow to wear. She fled, overwhelmed with grief. I found patterns for burial gowns on the site and thought maybe I should try one. Small, no big commitment, not too complicated. As I began to knit, however, I found myself thinking about that mother. I was grateful that I never had to experience that pain. I grew more and more quiet in my mind, simply letting my hands be guided by compassion. The completed gown and cap were given to a friend who is a chaplain in a hospital that specializes in high risk births. She asked me to knit more. Since then, I have knit many burial gowns, the smallest only six inches from neck to hem. I don’t knit them all the time. I wait until I find myself unsettled in my own life, feeling unbalanced, or small minded, or ungrateful. Then it is time. As love and compassion flow through my needles, they also flow through me. As I offer a gift of love and healing, I am also healed, returned to balance, held in loving arms. (Marion Athearn, 2017)

9. Music. The language of all humankind. For some, it is the vibration of the sound that flows up from the ground and flows through their body becoming the drum of their heartbeat. For some it is a friend, holding them. For some it is what knows exactly the right thing to say.  For some it is what inspires movement, drawing their arms to sky, palms open. For me, it is sanctuary. Music is the air that I breathe, the food that I hunger for. In a wide ocean with no boat, it is my life jacket. Music is what flows through my veins and pours out of my soul, it fills my belly in the evening…There is a sense of such awe that I experience when singing or otherwise creating song with a group of other people. It becomes evident that we each are all merely a colored piece of thread, woven together into a larger tapestry. Together we sing through the dissonances and burst into colorful harmonies, we mourn together, and we sing of splendor and joy together. I don’t know what God is. I don’t know who, why, or how God is. I don’t even know IF God is. What I do know, though, is that whatever this light is, whatever this energy shared amongst all of humanity is, this feeling, this togetherness, this LOVE, is what will bring me to walk hand in hand with the unexpected, and lead me through the melody of life. (Joli Reynolds, age 18, 2020)

10. For many of us, it’s in meeting for worship (typically in a Quaker meetinghouse) that we most readily connect deeply with Spirit, seek guidance, offer thanks for the abundance of our lives, and honestly feel the pain and confusion that sometimes dominate life’s moments.

But in artistic creation, and in the contemplation of the artistic, we can also be present with Spirit, and open to important leadings.  For me, being in the dance studio, typically with my camera, I’ve found that as I experience the creation of new choreography I witness a living, moving rendition of God’s grandeur.  The dance studio has become my other meetinghouse, where miracles happen every day and where both the dancers’ and my own creativity come alive and find new expression.  A spirit of grace enters my life each time I set forth in these sacred spaces, and God does speak to me. Just as we center into worship, I center into my presence in that space where dance is created. I use the word “worship” to describe this experience – there is no other word that captures the reverence and excitement. Early Friends were afraid of the arts, concerned that artistic work would be a distraction from the spiritual work that is so important. Friends were cautioned to avoid the arts, to not have pianos or other instruments in their homes, and to shun any possible distractions. My testimony is exactly the opposite: creating and experiencing any artistic work is a way to encounter our spiritual center, to be led by it, and to express it. When we stop measuring our artistic attempts and just look for the purity and passion of our intent and our source, we will find that our lives are filled with even more spiritual nourishment. (Arthur Fink, 2018)

11. I read that I was supposed to make “a place for inward retirement and waiting upon God” in my daily life, as the Queries in those days expressed it… . At last I began to realise … that these apparently stuffy old Friends were really talking sense. If I studied what they were trying to tell me, I might possibly find that the “place of inward retirement” was not a place I had to go to, it was there all the time. I could know the “place of inward retirement” wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, and find the spiritual refreshment for which, knowingly or unknowingly, I was longing, and hear the voice of God in my heart. Thus I began to realise that prayer was not a formality, or an obligation, it was a place which was there all the time and always available. (Elfrida Vipont Foulds,1983)

Also, see Chapter 1, Extracts 1.18, 1.20 and 1.36.

Advices

1. Preserve places of silence in your life to “sink down to the Seed”.
2. Yield your life to the Inward Guide, remembering to turn to that guidance throughout your day.
3. Make time for the Bible and spiritual writings in your devotional reading. Become familiar with the experiences of Friends through time.
4. Be aware of times and activities which help ground you and open you to the Presence, and make space for them in your life. 
5. Recognize and uphold the spiritual life of children and youth. Invite them into times of quiet reflection and prayer. 
6. Know that you are held in love when your practice takes you to a place of illumination that is painful or unsettling. Open yourself to God and the possibility of transformation. 
7. Experiment.  Be adventurous.

Queries

1. Do you make time in your daily life for reading, silence and waiting for God in prayer that you may know more of the guidance and presence of the Holy Spirit?
2. Do your spiritual practices lead you to a greater sense of the Presence?
3. What practices help open you to be a channel for Divine love?
4. Do you take time to attend to your spiritual condition? Do you turn to Faith and Practice for inspiration as a part of your spiritual practice?
5. Are there times you resist a spiritual practice, and why?
6. During times of dryness or difficulty what helps you to persevere? Can you trust that God’s work is continuing when you cannot feel it?