DQM 2020-11-29

Dover Quarterly Meeting

held over Zoom

November 29, 2020

Friends present from: Weare/Henniker – 3, Dover – 7, North Sandwich - 2, Souhegan – 1, Concord – 3. Kathleen Wooten was visiting from Fresh Pond Meeting in MA.

Clerk: Erik Cleven.  Minutes recorded by Erik Cleven.

The meeting opened with silent worship.  This was followed by a round of introductions.

20.4.1  Nominations

The clerk has finished his three-year term as of July 2020.  The treasurer has asked to be replaced and we have not had a recording clerk for some time.  A nominations committee was formed consisting of Jeremiah Dickinson (Dover), Mark Barker (Concord) and LeeAnn Stevens (North Sandwich).

20.4.2  Dover Quarterly Meeting representative to Beacon Hill Friends House Corporation Board

Mark Barker introduced the topic and informed the meeting that Faith Sillers and Kathy Urie of Concord Friends Meeting were prepared to serve in this role.

The meeting approved the appointment of Faith Sillers and Kathy Urie as Dover Quarterly Meeting representatives to the Beacon Hill Friends House Corporation Board.

20.4.3  Sanctuary Renovation Group Report

A group from Dover Friends Meeting presented a report about efforts to renovate the meeting house in Dover to make possible further sanctuary work.  A written introduction to this work will be sent out along with the quarterly meeting minutes and will include information about how Friends might contribute to these efforts.

Dover Quarterly Meeting adopted the following minute:

Dover Quarterly Meeting joins with Dover Friends Meeting and endorses their leading to offer sanctuary in their meetinghouse.

This leading arises from an increased awareness of immigrant justice issues, in part due to the presence of Strafford County Department of Correction housing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees from across New England and a desire to, in the words of the prophet Micah, “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.”  Dover Friends have twice been able to offer sanctuary but now find themselves in a position of needing to make significant modifications to their meetinghouse to meet fire codes in order to continue.

We find this leading comes from a place of deep faith and encourage Friends of the Quarter and beyond to consider if they may be led to join with Dover Friends in this leading.

Dover Friends also approved the following minute:

Dover Quarterly Meeting will donate 80% of its unrestricted funds to the renovation of Dover Friends Meeting’s meetinghouse.

20.4.4  Apology for Native Americans

Sara Smith presented on the work of NEYM and Concord Meeting on an apology to Native Americans.  Sara serves on the NEYM Right Relationship Resource group as well as working on this issue for her meeting (Concord). 

As we are all (supposedly) working on this issue to develop our preparedness to issue the Apology she had an idea of relevance to Dover Quarter.  Since we are all in the same territory for the Pennacook / Abenaki and there are one or two tribal groups to cover this area, members of Dover Quarterly Meeting may want to gather to discuss our relationship and need for an apology with some of those leaders.  This should happen after monthly meetings have spent some time learning about the issues past and present with our relationship. 

Issues in the apology such as the benefits we have received from the stolen land, forced assimilation especially for children particularly at Quaker Indian Boarding Schools, and distortions of history based on European telling could be examined by individual meetings.  Then we could sit with the local Native Americans and dialogue about this. 

There is a template we can use as a guide for this session on the resource page.  A webinar or Zoom meeting could happen in the spring or early summer, before August Sessions, when we will be approving the Apology so it can then be presented.  If we do it as a group, we won't be burdening our Native American friends with multiple meetings for each MM.

In addition to the template, several resources for the purpose were mentioned including the following websites:

Mark Barker also recommended the book This Land is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving by David J. Silverman.

20.4.5  Next meeting

The next meeting of Dover Quarterly Meeting will be held on zoom on January 31, 2021.

Sanctuary Renewal Group—Dover Friends Meeting

For three years, Dover Friends have carried a powerful leading to offer sanctuary and refuge to asylum seekers and released detainees.  We have offered sanctuary twice.  Each time the faithful service has electrified our meeting.  To continue this work, we must make expensive renovations to our 252 year old building to comply with fire safety regulations.  Friends feel strongly that this is our work to do.  The need was, is, and will continue to be urgent.

At the heart of the leading is a call to offer mercy-- not make a political statement.  We have been transparent with City of Dover officials.  The Police and Fire Departments have been exceptionally supportive, guiding us to meet their requirements while fulfilling our leading.

Our space and location are ideally suited to this ministry.  The basement level of our meeting creates a separate apartment.  Our meetinghouse is located near the Strafford County Department of Correction which holds a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to house all detainees from Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine as well as others transferred from around the country.

Built in 1768, our meetinghouse has no sprinkler system.  We need to ensure a 2-hour fire safety rating by wrapping fire retardant material around support beams and staircases.  Kitchen and laundry facilities are also required.  Our first construction estimate, given a year ago, is $85,000.  We expect higher estimates this year.  We have submitted grant applications to the Legacy Fund and the Jonathan E Rhoads Trust. Friends are contributing private donations.  We are getting creative and selling art and craft items online! We hope to begin construction in spring 2021.

Collaboration has been a hallmark of this leading from the beginning.  In 2017, Dover Friends helped to establish the Seacoast Interfaith Sanctuary Coalition (SISC).  Many houses of worship joined together to offer mutual aid when serving as a sanctuary site.  SISC has developed and begun to implement a comprehensive vision for immigration justice including prison visitation, legal aid, a bond fund, and host home network.

The Quarter was clear in uniting with the following minute at their November 29 meeting:

Dover Quarterly Meeting joins with Dover Friends Meeting and endorses their leading to offer sanctuary in their meetinghouse.

This leading arises from an increased awareness of immigrant justice issues, in part due to the presence of Strafford County Department of Correction housing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees from across New England and a desire to, in the words of the prophet Micah, “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.”  Dover Friends have twice been able to offer sanctuary but now find themselves in a position of needing to make significant modifications to their meetinghouse to meet fire codes in order to continue.

We find this leading comes from a place of deep faith and encourage Friends of the Quarter and beyond to consider if they may be led to join with Dover Friends in this leading.

A broader geographic reach seems to be opening to us.  We welcome Friends in other Meetings to join us, as led.  We are all part of the same immigration detention catchment area.  Individuals detained by ICE in your area, wind up in our county jail.  Please consider how you might be led to join with us in this vital ministry of compassion and justice.

How might you and your meeting be led?

  • Pray for our meeting and its ministry.
  • Transport and offer logistical support to released detainees.
  • Host a released detainee. SISC has guidance about serving as a Host Home.
  • Witness for Immigration Justice in your area.
  • Discern if your meeting might be led to offer sanctuary.
  • Donate to support our renovations.  Make checks payable to Dover Friends Meeting and mail to: Dover Friends Meeting, P.O. Box 98, Dover, NH  03821-0098.  Please write “Sanctuary Renewal” on the memo line.
  • Ask how you can help us fundraise!

For more information, contact Ginny Kristl, VKRISTL [at] mac [dot] com

TEMPLATE

Listening Session and Worship Sharing

Seasoning the NEYM Letter of Apology to Native Americans

Gathering

Suggestions: Hold waiting worship; offer a prayer; and/or make a land acknowledgement

Video Centering Native Voices & Experience *


Reading of the Letter

15 minutes

NEYM Apology to Native Americans

To the Algonquian peoples of the Northeast who continue among us: the Abenaki, Mahican, Maliseet, Massachusett, Mi'kmaq, Mohegan, Narragansett. Nipmuck, Passamaquoddy, Pennacook, Penobscot, Pequot, Pocumtuc, Quinnipiac, Tunzis, and Wampanoag,

Apology

As participants in European colonization and as continuing beneficiaries of that colonization, Quakers have participated in a great and continuing injustice.  For too long and in too many ways, we as a faith community have failed to honor that of God in you, the original peoples of these lands, and in doing so betrayed that of God in ourselves.  We are deeply sorry for the suffering we caused in the past and continue to cause in the present. Today we acknowledge that injustice and apologize.

We acknowledge that Quakers participated in and benefited greatly from the colonization effort which stole your land and displaced your ancestors and caused genocide and sought cultural erasure.  We know that the injustice of displacement and disrespect continues. We also see the ways that we continue to benefit from broken treaties and genocidal policies. We have much work to do to attain right relationship.

We are sorry for our advocacy of the “Indian Industrial Boarding Schools” which we now recognize was done with spiritual and cultural arrogance.  Quakers were among the strongest promoters of this policy and managed over 30 schools for Indian children, mostly boarding schools, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  We are deeply sorry for our part in the vast suffering caused by this system and its effects.

On behalf of New England Quakers, in particular those of us with European ancestry, we offer this apology. We commit to continuing our efforts to learn, to see more clearly the implications of settler colonialism in our own lives, and to work toward right relationship.

We hold ourselves open to suggestions and to dialogue, holding no expectations of you.  We will continue to pray for guidance and to seek divine assistance in the transformation we know is needed within each of us, and in the world.

[Signature on approval]

Source: https://neym.org/sites/default/files/2020-09/Apology.pdf

Breakout Rooms

15 minutes

● In triads, speak to the resonance you feel with this as a letter of apology.  For now, focus less on the action steps and sit with the acknowledgement of wrongdoing.  Each person will have 5 minutes. How does this reflect the process of revealing, surrender, and turning spoken of at NEYM sessions?

Worship Sharing

15 minutes

● Customary settling into waiting worship and speaking once out of the silence.

Closing Worship


* Suggested Videos

  1. (a video of your own creation or selection)
  2. 5 minutes  Oren Lyons, Onondaga Faith Keeper, speaking on Rights and Responsibilities (Part of the Sacred Land Film Project) https://youtu.be/USwPW29W-aY
  3. 17 minutes  'We the People' - the three most misunderstood words in US history: a TEDx video with Mark Charles (2019) https://youtu.be/HOktqY5wY4A
  4. 18 minutes  Native Americans : We Shall Remain | LoVina Louie | TEDxCoeurdalene https://youtu.be/ilf5vDptOYk
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