Dec-98 - Friends Journal

Celebrating our 40th year!
Strong program of academic
and experiential learning in a farm
and forest setting.
Students participate in small
classes, family style living, growing
food, caring for farm animals, and
making community decisions.
A Quaker school engaging
students in fundamental values:
respect for the integrity of individuals,
peaceful resolution of conflict,
stewardship of the land, the dignity
of physical work, the importance of
group process, and the persistent
practice of intellectual and
spiritual openness.
26
Boarding Grades 9-12
Postgraduate
Financial aid available
For more information, visit us at
www.mv.com/ipusers/tms
call or write:
telephone: (603) 899-3366
email: office@tms.mv.com
The Meeting School
s6 Thomas Rd.
Rindge, NH 03461
Reports and Epistles
Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting
Ohio Valley Friends gathered in annual
sessions at Wilmington College in
Wdmington, Ohio, July 29-August 2. For
the second year in a row, attendance topped
200 with enthusiastic groups of teens and
children making up about a third of the total.
Deborah Saunders and Allen Oliver spoke
powerfully to our theme, "Preaching What
We Practice." Deborah told of her own spiritual
journey in putting her faith into practice
and challenged us to witness to our faith in
our deeds. Allen called for a renewal of vitality
in the Religious Society of Friends growing
out of the gathered meeting as a message
that must be told from the heart about that
experience.
Workshops and worship-sharing groups
stimulated us to think about the ways that we
profess our faith to the world and to share
with one another our spiritual insights. Children
also learned something of these things in
their own activities and taught us simple expressions
of faith in our interactions with
them. Our teens and our new group of junior
high young people especially have much to
share with us of their experience with the
spiritual. Marjorie and Reed Smith shared a
message of lives lived faithfully and in service
to others in the "Living Witness" presentation.
While business sessions were long and we
snuggled to make room for all the issues needing
attention, much was accomplished. We
carne away feeling hopeful that we are being
faithful to God's plan for us and carrying out
his work in good order.
Over our time together, we worshiped,
struggled, prayed, and played toward being
God's partners in the nurture of our world.
We experienced the call to nurture ourselves,
our children, our ancestors, our brothers and
sisters as ways open and Light is given. We
were then given the prophetic word to go and
tell a hurting world that there is one who has
come, is here, and is coming to speak to thy
condition.
We have been given much in trust; therefore,
much is expected of us. Friends departed
from our time together to speak of our experience
as the Spirit demands. We ask you who
read these words to hold us in Ohio Valley
Yearly Meeting in the Light as we set out to
share the Quaker Evangel.
-Barbarie Hill
Southeastern Yearly Meeting
The 36th annual gathering of Southeastern
Yearly Meeting was held April 8-12 at the
United Methodist Life Enrichment Center
in Leesburg, Florida. On the theme of
"Integrity," 214 Friends of all ages, including
50 under 18, carne from the stresses and
distractions of day-to-day life into a place
where we could greet each other as beloved
children of God and discover ways to become
clearer examples of truth and love in this
world.
Jonathan Vogel-Borne of New England
Yearly Meeting led us in "Worship and
Threshing on Integrity," and in "Sharing on
Integrity" as we live with our God, with
ourselves, and within our communities.
Later, at the 35th annual J. Barnard Walton
lecture, Jon spoke of five steps: from grace as
unconditional love, to faith as our response,
to divine prompting, to divine lead!ng, to
testimony. He illustrated these steps with
moving experiences from his own life. Integrity
is the crosspoint of our inner and outer
life. Our testimony is ultimately one: God is
love, and the Word became flesh.
Our connections with Cuba Yearly Meeting
were strengthened by the presence of
Miguel Periche and through his sharing on
the Peace Testimony in Cuba. Toward extending
our love and support as it manages
the challenges of emerging unprogrammed
worship groups in Cuba, we released several
Friends to travel in ministry as guests of Cuba
Yearly Meeting.
In the light of imposition of visa requirements
for Canadians coming to visit the United
States, SEYM urges the U.S. government to
treat both Canada and Mexico as friendly
neighbors without requiring visas at either
border.
In response to the query, "What, specifically,
has our meeting done this year to counteract
the social disease of racism?" we are
asking monthly meetings to work actively each
year co reduce racism in our own meetings,
communities, state, and nation.
We approved a process for revising SEYM' s
Faith and Practice, through prolonged study
and discernment by monthly meetings and
individuals, that we hope will appear in 2000
or 2001.
We joyfully and lovingly recorded Ft.
Lauderdale as our 16th and newest monthly
meeting.
Annie McPherson is our new administrative
secretary, following Nadine Hoover, whose
loving nurture of the yearly meeting through
traveling ministry will be continued in an
active program under the care of the Worship
and Ministry Committee.
At our final session, Wee Friends circled
through the room, beneath their flowered,
floppy, crumpled newspaper hats, in an Easter
parade. Young Friends spoke of producing a
play "The Duck and the Gun" on the Peace
Testimony; Teen Friends of asking older
Friends how they work for peace; and Young
December 1998 FRIENDS JoURNAL