Friends Journal
Rhapsody in Purple
Maybe it is a weird quirk that I actually like going door-to-door to talk to complete strangers about politics. Maybe it is even weirder that I enjoyed it during this most recent election: as a “blue” Democrat in a “purple” town where Trump won for the third time.
Sure, I’ve experienced my share of yuck over the years, usually in the form of doors slammed in my face or getting cussed out. But those moments are much smaller to me than the folks who invite me in or shiver on the stoop with me for 20 minutes in their stocking feet while we talk politics. The occasional unpleasant moments weigh so much less than the moments of unexpected connection and even intimacy with people I might never have met any other way.
The shattered old man whose adult daughter had nearly died of an opioid overdose that morning. The vigorous elderly woman who gave me the rundown on how she had voted in every election since Eisenhower. The woman who said nothing while her husband went on and on praising Trump; after hubby stomped off, she quickly muttered she was voting for Hillary and slammed the door. The three guys—all with the same story—in a row of efficiency apartments: lost their factory jobs in 2008, lost their houses, lost their partners, washed-up, jobless, and hopeless in Ripon. My heart broke wide open . . . and the Obama campaign got some traction with a few new voters.
Once I rang a doorbell in a low-income housing development. The guy who came to the door was a taut bundle of rage, just radiating anger and hostility. I said I was knocking on doors for Janet somebody-or-other who was running for state assembly. He burst out, “They’re all a bunch of d—heads!”
“Well,” I proffered, “so we gotta counteract the d—heads.” He looked at me like Mount Olympus had spoken, punched the air with his fist, and yelled, “Yeah! Counteract the d—heads!”
It turned out that until recently he had been a homeless veteran. I was the first person to ring his doorbell and the first person ever to enter his apartment (which I confess I did with some trepidation). For about 20 exhilarating and slightly alarming minutes, we surfed the churning sea of his rage, gradually channeling his anger and energy toward positive actions he could take.
We established the procedure for registering to vote, his polling place, the bona fides of the candidate, the issues veterans were facing, where he could get more information . . . and every so often, he would break in and yell, “Yeah! Counteract the d—heads!”
As we were finishing up he told me what it meant to him that I had rung his doorbell and come inside to talk with him. We did a final grinning fist-pump and refrain together as I walked out the door.
The real value of canvassing lies not in winning the election but in strengthening the social fabric. The medium is the message: “I value you enough to knock on your door to talk with you and hear you out.”
I had a whole new experience of canvassing when I ran for a non-partisan county board seat. In my first election, I ran against a “God and guns” Christian nationalist who favored jury nullification and armed resistance to the government. It was a hard-fought race, and I canvassed a lot of Republicans. The second time around, I had no opponent, but I still sent out a letter to every likely voter and went door-to-door. Reaching out to my constituents after a couple years on the job actually felt more meaningful to me than anything I had accomplished on the board. I realized at one point that the means and the end had switched places for me: rather than canvassing giving me an opportunity to serve on the county board, being on the county board gave me a reason and an opportunity to canvas!
One day as I was explaining for the umpteenth time why I was campaigning, even though I didn’t have an opponent, I realized this: even though I could win without MAGA (Make America Great Again) votes, I no longer wanted to. Was this campaign reshaping my heart? I found that even when much about serving on the board was frustrating, the chance to build relationships across the aisle motivated me to run.
I once learned at a recycling center that strong paper has long fibers; having only short fibers makes paper weak and prone to tearing. I think this is a useful metaphor for thinking about communities. As I see it, any connection between two people is a fiber. A long fiber is a relationship across divides of class, race, education, neighborhood, political leanings, etc. The more long fibers you have, the stronger your community.
For me, canvassing my purple district is about creating fibers—the longer the better!
A few weeks ago when I was out canvassing, an old home-schooling friend of mine came out to say hi. She is an Evangelical Christian and a Trump supporter, and she’s one of the best mothers and loveliest souls I have known. She knew what I was doing, and she still came out to give me a hug and tell me how much she treasured our friendship, not only despite our differences but, in part, because of them. I felt the same way. It was a small town, long-fiber moment.
As I see it, the real value of canvassing lies not in winning the election but in strengthening the social fabric. The medium is the message: “I value you enough to knock on your door to talk with you and hear you out.” It’s harder to demonize people you have those conversations with. And it’s harder to distrust a government that shows up on your doorstep and asks you what you think.
I often meet people who bemoan the lack of opportunities to engage with people across our divides. Well, here’s a simple prescription: canvas! Yes, there will be a lot of doors that won’t open, and some days, it will be nothing more than a frequently interrupted walk in the neighborhood. But you will also have a chance to connect with an amazing, random collection of human beings, some of whom will touch your heart in ways you cannot predict. You will help weave our distrusting, anger-shredded society back together, fiber by fiber.
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The Delight of Being Alive
I am an Indigenous Quaker. I need both my faith communities for me to connect deeply with God, whom I also call Creator and Lord. I am a member of the Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe of Plymouth (Patuxet), Massachusetts, the tribe who met the Mayflower Pilgrims. My father, who has passed over to the spirit world, raised me with traditional Indigenous practices and cultural values. We are descendants of Massasoit (Great Sachem), whose given name was Ousamequin. My mother’s people were from England, came over on the Mayflower, and included William Bradford, who became the governor of Plymouth Colony. They were Puritans before becoming convinced Friends of the Truth, the original name for Quakers. Generations later, when someone in the family decided to marry someone who was not a Quaker, membership in the Religious Society of Friends was ended. I am the first in my family to return to the Quaker faith. I became a member of Sandwich (Mass.) Meeting; Sandwich was the ancestral homeland of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. I have been attending meetings for worship on Cape Cod since the 1980s.
In April of 2020, during the pandemic, suddenly and with no warning, the U.S. Department of the Interior disestablished the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s reservation, taking their 320 acres of land out of trust, affecting the tribe’s sovereignty, and creating a great suffering for the Mashpee Wampanoag people. This action was a direct attack on sovereignty, culture, and the ability to self-govern and provide vital programs and services such as food security, housing, education, healthcare, language reclamation, and judicial services. For the next two years, I focused my attention on Indigenous rights, decolonization, right relationship, and environmental concerns, working with other Indigenous and Quakers. (A U.S. district court later reversed the ruling and the federal government dropped the legal battle against the Mashpee lands in December 2021.)
In 2022, burnt out from the slow pace of social justice, I realized that I was beyond my measure: doing far too much and some of it not in the right spirit. From worship, I discerned (individually and with others) that I needed to take a break from half of what I was doing. I prayed for Creator’s guidance to give me what was mine to do. I sought advice and counsel from Indigenous elders. I added a woodland walk to my daily schedule. I went into the woods to heal, and this has made all the difference. What follows is my story about healing in and with the natural world.
A mallard duck in Santuit River; the fish ladder that allow river herring to reach spawning grounds in Santuit Pond. Photos by the author.
I’m walking the same path every day: two miles following the Santuit River, headed in the same direction as the herring swimming upstream, full of roe and purpose. When they reach Santuit Pond, they lay their eggs, and another generation is spawned. Every day I feel more alive. My thinking feels different; it’s not so much about the lists and chores, more about attention to whatever the moment calls for. Mindfulness. There’s a reawakening of my inner child, that wonder and delight of experiencing the natural world. I did not surrender the curiosity and joy of childhood. The delight of being alive in this way is still a part of me. There’s a sense that something is being made right in my world that has created a wider path to my heart. The longer I do this daily walk the easier it becomes to maintain a peacefulness throughout the day.
During the first week of my walking prayer meditation, I relaxed into the increasing familiarity of my surroundings, noting that I had favorite trees along the path and anticipated the sight of them before seeing them. When I place my hands on a tree, I feel an exchange of energy: a back and forth greeting and response. There is a sense that we are comforting one another. Even as a child, I had trouble keeping my hands off my favorite trees, and why should I? Is it a surprise that we should have favorite trees, the same way that we are drawn to a closeness and fondness for certain aunts, uncles, and grandparents?
I climb a tree, different trees, every day. One day, I was in the arms of a white pine: silent, holding completely still. A blue heron lit on a branch, two trees down, about a yard from me. I waited and watched wondering when he would notice me. He did. We locked eyes for a good two minutes, before he hopped off the branch with a six-foot wingspan and flew, maneuvered—I don’t know how—through that dense thicket of pine branches, and with such Grace. I wanted to shout: Yes. Yes. Teach me that. Teach me that form of grace! Sometimes our hearts are made to be full to bursting with longing.
I do know that if I sit long enough in stillness day after day, there will come a time when I transform into a feeling of oneness with all life; my separateness disappears. I am a part of the pulse of life, just one being in the web, no more or less important than other life. No hierarchy.
When I hold completely still and quiet, hidden in a tree, all life around me loses the tension that exists when I am visibly present. The birds and the two- and four-leggeds come back out into the sun and air once again. I sometimes wonder if we become invisible when we are so still. I’ve had songbirds light on me as if I’m a limb on the tree. I do know that if I sit long enough in stillness day after day, there will come a time when I transform into a feeling of oneness with all life; my separateness disappears. I am a part of the pulse of life, just one being in the web, no more or less important than other life. No hierarchy. I am fortunate to have this knowledge, received from my F/father, my ancestors, and from Nature’s teachings. One day while looking up into the tops of several very tall white pines that the sun was streaming through, I became aware of how very small I am. I am not the center of the world. Giving up ego for the reward of greater potential becomes a gift. At the same time, I was given to understand that the face of Creator can be seen everywhere in the beauty of creation.
I leave the path to explore and touch and smell things: turn over dead wood to see what bugs are underneath, rub pitch pine sap between my fingers and inhale, sometimes rubbing that scent under my nose. I like to run white pine and cedar sprigs through my fingers when I’m walking the path. The myth that moss only grows on the north side of trees is not necessarily so. It grows wherever it is shady and damp and wants to. My favorite moss is light green moss that’s so soft to the touch that it’s irresistible to bare feet. It grows best near the base of trees and dead stumps. One day, I pulled a dead herring out of two criss-cross logs where it got stuck in the river. I checked because I wanted to know, and yes, it was a female loaded with eggs. Too bad. I left it on the bank for an animal to eat. I spotted pollywogs in a ditch of an abandoned bog and took in the heavy scent of mayflowers nearby. Dad taught us to always pick out a good stick at the beginning of a walk: for protection. He was fixated on rabies. I only ever saw one rabid animal in my whole life, but I sure considered it plenty in my imagination because of Dad’s concern.
I acknowledge and honor the relationship that I have with water during my walk by squatting on the bank of the Santuit River and submerging both hands in the water long enough to leave my scent in the river. I anoint my forehead with river water from one hand and the nape of my neck with the other hand, so as to carry her scent. I am in the river, and the river is in me. After all, we are about 60 percent water. Of course we are related: kinfolk. Some days I am given to singing or humming to the river. A soft singsong that has words or not, maybe hummed, is pleasing to do and appreciated by the river. If the songs have words, they always express gratitude and may be the words repeated over and over. Wampanoags have appointed water keepers, always women, whose service it is to sing to the water. It is the same way that the men are the firekeepers. We are all capable of interacting with Nature and protecting life but for the desire and commitment.
Everything, every life form has a presence. I am grateful for the presence of the blue heron whom I often see during my walk. I found that it’s possible to bring the presence of other beings, like the heron, into the silence of expectant waiting with me during worship—just for the asking. The same way the Creator is always available just for the invitation, for the longing. We are not completely self-sustaining. We depend on other life forms for existence. Understanding the interrelated, interdependent web of life is the beginning of right relationship with Nature.
Photo by KristinWhat we love we protect. If we bear witness to the beauty and the suffering of all our relations on earth, we might be led to action: to be a voice for those who have no voice. The survival of life on earth as we know it depends on the relationship that humans have with Mother Earth.
As the weeks go by, I come to the path with a greater ability for deep listening, reverence, and joy. Peace is easier to come by. Nature has taught me these things. What we love we protect. If we bear witness to the beauty and the suffering of all our relations on earth, we might be led to action: to be a voice for those who have no voice. The survival of life on earth as we know it depends on the relationship that humans have with Mother Earth.
I come to the path every day with this question: What will I fall in love with today?
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Lessons from My Quaker Ancestors and the People They Enslaved
For the past year I have been studying the history of slavery and abolition in my family. Here are some of the stories I encountered and what I learned from them.
Some of these events and the language describing them will be unpleasant. I have tried to read and report without judging. I do not feel guilt about my ancestors’ bad behavior, nor do I take credit for their good behavior. I try to feel compassion for everyone involved.
There were many captive workers and Quaker enslavers on the Eastern Shore of Maryland; this is the eastern side of Chesapeake Bay. It is farmland suitable for tobacco plantations. More than 131 people were enslaved by 16 of my Quaker grandparents who lived there between 1669 and 1780. (Sources for the data described here are in my report “Slavery in My Family,” online at digitalcollections.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/node/498768.)
For example, 13 captive workers were in the inventory of the estate of William Troth when he died in 1710. He and Isabel Harrison were my seven-times-great-grandparents and they lived near Easton, Maryland. They were Quakers, as were all the enslavers and abolitionists in this article.
I do not know more about these 13 enslaved people. Were they of African or Indigenous heritage? Under what conditions were they living? What happened to them? Like footprints in the sand, the records only hint at what went before.
Twenty-four people were enslaved by William and Isabel’s son Henry Troth and his wife, Elizabeth Johns, at the time of Henry’s death in 1729.
Forty-three people were enslaved by Elizabeth’s parents, Elizabeth Kinsey and Richard Johns, when Richard died in 1717. These captive workers represented the largest item in the inventory of his estate: they were valued at £1,143, which was 53 percent of the total value.
Slavery was more common in my family than I knew. In total, I found over 1,550 people enslaved by 246 of my close relatives—counting Quaker and non-Quaker grandparents, uncles, aunts, and first cousins with their spouses. Of the 246 relatives who held people in bondage, 68 freed at least some of them. Sixty-seven relatives were active in the movement to end slavery. As the project went on, I felt a growing obligation to be a voice for these people whose stories were almost lost.
Market House in the town square of Easton, Maryland. Market Days were held every week, and sometimes slave sales were held there. Photo from commons.wikimedia.org.I was surprised by how common slavery was among Friends in general. A sample of the wills of 50 Quakers in the Eastern Shore of Maryland, between 1659 and 1750, showed that 21 of them were enslavers. In Philadelphia, of 13 Quaker leaders whose careers ended between 1742 and 1753, ten held people in bondage.
Continuing the stories of my Quaker ancestors on the Eastern Shore, in 1669 William Berry’s second wife, Margaret Marsh Preston, insisted on a prenuptial agreement. Among other things, she asked for “the little Negro Girl called Sarah, born in Richard Preston’s house, valued to ten pounds sterling. If the said Girl should die, the said William Berry to make the same good to the said Margaret by another Negro or the value.”
Two people were freed in William’s will in 1685, although this was “at the discretion of his wife.” Was Sarah freed? She would have been in her 20s.
Enslaved people were owned by William’s son James Berry Sr., who married Elizabeth Pitt, and other captives were owned by their son James Jr., who married Sarah Skillington. I don’t have more details.
And then, John Woolman brought change. In the words of historian Kenneth Carroll:
When John Woolman traveled on foot through the Eastern Shore of Maryland, in the late spring of 1766, he seemed almost an “embodied conscience.” His undyed clothes stemmed from his testimony against the slave labor used in producing dyes, and his journey on foot expressed his intention to put aside comfort and ease (and to have a sense of the “condition” of the Negro slaves working in the fields along the dusty roads). He traveled from slaveowner to slaveowner in the Quaker community, calling upon Friends to free themselves from the love of comfort, ease, and selfish profit which enabled them to hold their fellow man in bondage.
James Berry III married Elizabeth Powell in 1758. Her parents, Mary Sherwood and Daniel Powell, owned 40 people when Daniel died. In 1768, eight people were freed by James, who was the clerk of Maryland Yearly Meeting. His brothers, Joseph and Benjamin, also freed enslaved people at that time.
Elizabeth’s sister Sarah Powell was 17 when she freed Jenny, Judith, Minta, and Rose. That was in 1770. Two years later, Sarah married Benjamin Parvin, and, five years after that, he freed Adam, Eve, Isaac, Phill, and Pegg. Benjamin had an interesting history: he accompanied John Woolman on his journey to Wyalusing, a Lenape village, in 1763. After listening to Woolman speak, Papunhank, the Lenape leader, famously said, “I love to feel where words come from.”
Mary Bonsall was James Berry’s third wife. Both of them were designated ministers in their meetings and active abolitionists. In 1795, Mary Berry and Anne Emlen Mifflin became the first women to petition a legislature on the subject of slavery. They warned the legislators that the people held in bondage “have, we apprehend, with their uplifted cries, pierced the very Court of Heaven from whence a decree may issue from him who ever remains the refuge for the oppressed, that retribution for these things shall be made.”
Anne Berry, a daughter of Elizabeth Powell and James Berry III, married Samuel Troth, a grandson of Elizabeth Johns and Henry Troth. In 1797, Samuel was named by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting to a committee to draft a message to the U.S. Congress urging them to end slavery. Samuel and Anne’s son Henry Troth was treasurer of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society for 13 years, and he also served as a manager of the Pennsylvania Colonization Society (which helped establish the independent nation of Liberia in West Africa). This Henry Troth and his wife, Henrietta Henri, were my three-times-great-grandparents.
Wenlock Christison Defying the Court by Frederick Coffay Yohn, 1930. Photo from commons.wikimedia.org.Change came gradually to Friends. When they started taking a stand against slavery, they simply declared that members could no longer buy or sell people. Later, Friends decided not to allow enslavers to be appointed as elders in their meetings. Then they refused to accept financial contributions from enslavers. These steps were taken before Friends finally declared they would disown any member holding another person captive. This took most of the eighteenth century. Participation in meeting for worship by people of African descent came later. Gradual change happened in part because there were people calling for immediate and total change. Even gradual steps may have seemed radical at the time.
People on all sides of the slavery issue used religion to justify their actions. Some of my relatives behaved with extreme cruelty toward other people while supporting the Golden Rule, the gospel of love, and the presence of God in every person. Their religion did not protect them from bad behavior.
Nor were they protected by their political beliefs: many of them were passionately committed to liberty and human rights for all.
Consider Wenlock Christison, one of 40 Quaker missionaries who went to New England between 1656 and 1661 to preach in the streets, knowing they would be punished as heretics. Wenlock was beaten and robbed, whipped and placed in stocks, and jailed and banished on pain of death if he returned. He did return and was sentenced, but, while waiting to be hanged, Charles II put a stop to the Massachusetts policy of executing people for being Quakers. After his escape, Wenlock lived in Barbados and then moved to Maryland’s Eastern Shore. There he was warmly received by Friends. They gave him land, and he married Elizabeth Gary Harwood, my eight-times-great-aunt.
Wenlock arrived in Maryland with Ned, Toby, and Jack: enslaved men he had agreed to sell for their owner, a Quaker in Barbados. But Wenlock never sent the money. After he died in 1679, a court ordered his heirs to pay the heirs of the owner 10,000 pounds of tobacco “for the price and use of the negroes,” plus court costs. I don’t know if Wenlock kept the men, or sold them and kept the money.
The ability to behave in contradictory ways is common among humans: we learn readily, and we fool ourselves readily. It sometimes worries me that I, too, may be unaware of the ways I am adjusting my convictions to the needs of my life.
I see a positive side to this flexibility in the relation between faith and the rest of our behavior. We have all known people living good lives while holding vastly different religious beliefs. We see a variety of Quaker faiths accompanying our traditional practices as we look around the room during worship, and as we look at Friends around the world and back through history.
As individuals, we feel a direct connection between our faith and practice, but it doesn’t have to be the same connection for all of us. We can unite in the practices, accommodating our differences by responding to where words come from, rather than reacting to the particulars on which we differ. That is a lesson I embrace.
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Learning Our True History
People in the United States and Canada recently have become more aware of evils carried out within Indigenous boarding schools run by federal governments and religious institutions. Friends worked closely with the federal government to design the Indigenous boarding school system and operated at least 30 of these schools nationwide. Alaska Friends Conference, an unprogrammed yearly meeting of Friends in Alaska, has taken some important steps in the past several years toward healing and repair. While we are still at the beginning of a lifelong journey, we have some stories and suggestions for Friends to consider.
Friends mission in Kake, Alaska. Established by Oregon Friends in 1894. Photo courtesy of Alaska State Library Historical Collections.How Did We Get Here?“It’s critical for Friends to learn your true history of missionizing in Alaska and the consequences it has had for Alaska Native people and communities,” said Ayyu Qassataq, vice-president of First Alaskans Institute, during a 2019 meeting in Anchorage organized at the request of visiting Friend Diane Randall, then general secretary of Friends Committee on National Legislation. Ayyu spoke about what had been taken away from her people by Quaker missionaries. She hoped we Friends would be brave in our research to more deeply understand the particulars from Indigenous perspectives. She also encouraged us to share what we learned with others. “Help us pull back the veil of this carefully hidden history,” she said, “so that Native people aren’t the only ones who talk about our forced assimilation as a source of trauma which still affects us today.” Ayyu went on:
And, if you come to it, we believe an apology is in order. We also hope you Quakers can find ways to help repair what has been broken. For example, because Friends missionaries banned dancing and your schools punished our children when they spoke our languages, you might want to help fund dance or language programs, if our communities so wish.
Friends met in annual sessions a few days later. There was a sense of excitement and resolve to follow Ayyu’s guidance. Friends formed a committee that has met monthly since then. At first, we mostly read and discussed historical documents and books written by and about Friends missionaries in Alaska. After a year of this, we were asked a head-scratching question by Ayyu: “As you do this research, who are you accountable to?”
A month later, First Alaskans Institute, a respected Indigenous organization, invited Alaska Friends Conference into an accountability partner relationship. A big part of our role as accountability partners was participating in tribunals sponsored by the Institute to listen to Alaska Native people’s truths, and put our hands alongside theirs for healing and for transformation of the institutions that still do harm.
During the tribunals, individuals told of their own and of their communities’ experiences. Over the span of many months, we listened to people speak on four topics: “Protecting our ways of life,” “Our lands and laws,” “Indigenous boarding schools,” and “Murdered and missing Indigenous relatives.” People told stories of strength, courage, and fierce love but also of exhaustion, pain, and rage. The Alaska Native truth providers spoke of assaults big and small, including the inability to access ancestral land, the depletion of food, unjust laws, racism, pandemics, alcohol, and the depredations of mining camps. But strikingly, the thing that they named again and again as particularly crushing were the boarding schools. Too often children came back strangers who didn’t necessarily know how to parent when they had their own children. The boarding schools were intentionally designed that way by the federal government to destroy Native American culture and assimilate children into White society, using whatever means deemed necessary. Christian denominations, including Friends, were contracted by the government to run these schools. Some also took advantage of the children’s free labor during the summer months, further separating the children from the teachings of their own relatives and putting the children at further risk of illness and predation.
We Friends felt grief as we listened, knowing of Friends’ active participation in the boarding school system. However, during the months when we were hearing these hard truths, Alaska Native people continued to invite us to take steps with them toward the healing and well-being of their communities. For example, Alaska Friends provided logistical and financial support to Alaska Native healers so they could participate in an elders and youth conference. We helped with the funding and construction of a memorial bench for missing and murdered in Alaska, with acknowledgment of the particular impact on the Native community. In order for the family members of three missing and murdered Alaska Native relatives to give testimony of their loved ones, we assisted with their travel and lodging. We also sent requested supplies to a remote coastal Native village inundated by a storm. These actions were not big in themselves, but maybe that is the point. They were small things asked specifically of Alaska Friends by Alaska Natives. We said yes, and more steps followed. It felt similar to the old Quaker counsel to live up to the Light that you have, and then more Light comes.
Meanwhile, Alaska Friends Conference also drafted an apology for the harms done by Friends’ Indigenous boarding schools. We shared the draft for input from our Alaska Native partners. These included Aurora Sampson, then superintendent of Alaska Yearly Meeting, an evangelical yearly meeting of primarily Iñupiat people in northwest Arctic Alaska; and Aqpayuq Jim LaBelle, Iñupiaq elder, boarding school survivor, and then-president of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition. We had come to know Jim through the tribunals. During Alaska Friends Conference’s annual sessions in 2022, he told us what it was like to attend boarding school in Wrangell, Alaska, starting at age eight, and the healing he had done since then. The power of Jim’s presentation was important in Alaska Friends’ approval of the apology, a momentous milestone for us in August 2022.
The last paragraph of the Alaska Friends Conference apology reads:
It is not the responsibility of Alaska Native people to help us to transform our behavior. At the same time, we see that our acting without first listening has led to great harms. We seek your guidance and input to ensure reparations are done on your terms that will help your communities heal. We ask for forgiveness and pledge to walk beside you as we work together for healing and transformation.
We Friends were open, curious, and maybe felt a bit of trepidation about what would come next, once the apology was approved by our yearly meeting. The “next” came quickly.
Left: Ayyu Qassatq, who served as vice president and later chief administrativeofficer of First Alaskans Institute until 2024. Photo by Ayyu Qassataq.
Right: Historical photo of totem poles in Kake, Alaska. Photo courtesy of George Fox University Archives.
Within the month, Jim LaBelle sent the apology to Jamiann S’eiltin Hasselquist, a Tlingit leader and member of the Deisheetaan, Raven Beaver Clan of Angoon, who at that time was vice president of Alaska Native Sisterhood Camp 2 in Juneau, Alaska. Jamiann was working with the coalition Haa Tóoch Lichéesh (Htlcoalition.org) to organize an Orange Shirt Day/Day of Remembrance for Indigenous boarding school survivors near the actual site of the Friends Mission School in Douglas, Alaska, near Juneau. Jamiann invited us Friends to read the boarding school apology during the remembrance event. Friends read Alaska Friends Conference’s apology to about 150 people, many of whom were Tlingit or of other Alaska Native ancestry.
The following year, Jamiann and Jim and Susan LaBelle were keynote speakers at Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting of Friends annual sessions in Oregon. They spoke of the horrors of Indigenous boarding school institutions, and they watered seeds for justice and healing within the listeners. Jim later talked about how moving it had been for him when actual descendants of Oregon Quaker missionaries came up to him and apologized in person.
Friends Way, Agaayyiaġvik, near Kotzebue Friends Church, Kotzebue, Alaska. Photo by Jan Bronson.Kéex’ (Kake), AlaskaOne hundred miles south of Juneau is the Organized Village of Kake (OVK), a village of 500 people on a remote island that is bursting with life. The president of the tribal council of OVK, tribal leader Joel Jackson, has a vision to establish a regional cultural healing center in a currently unused U.S. Forest Service building on the island. Jamiann could see the alignment between Joel’s vision for a cultural healing center and Friends’ wish to make reparations, so she introduced us Friends to Joel. We could feel the possibilities too, and we started fundraising for the healing center. After working together for six months or so, Joel Jackson invited members of Alaska Friends Conference to share our boarding school apology, as well as the money we had raised, in Kake during a community gathering.
Three members of the Alaska Friends Conference (Cathy Walling, Scott Bell, and myself) offered the boarding school apology. A Tlingit man spoke: “I have heard of apologies being offered, but this time I heard it myself. Your words landed on my ears, and I feel a weight being lifted.”
In addition to the apology, we offered a check for $92,809 for the healing center. The healing center will help people heal from intergenerational trauma caused in part by Friends’ insistence on assimilation and its enforcement while Friends were missionaries in Kake from 1891–1912. The healing center will be based on connections to culture, land, and one another: the very bonds that assimilationists tried to break. As Jamiann Hasselquist has said, “The things they took from us are the very things that will heal us.”
The money we gave was part of reparations from Friends to Alaska Native people. It came primarily from Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting of Friends, who contributed $75,000, as well as from Friends in Alaska and beyond.
Kéex’ Kwáan Dancers, a Tlingit dance group, in Kake, Alaska, Jan. 19, 2024. Photo by Cathy Walling.Recommendations
Help uncover the effects of Quaker mission/boarding schools on generations of Indigenous people by supporting S.B.1723/H.R.7227, the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies in the United States Act and by joining Quaker-specific research efforts.
Following Ayyu Qassataq’s request to share widely what we are learning, we have these suggestions:
Learn your Quaker history as it relates to Indigenous people, but go beyond that and learn the priorities, projects, and protocols of Indigenous people in your area. If you are invited to an event or to do something, show up! Stay in the metaphorical back seat of the car, though. Friends are not driving, and we aren’t even in the passenger’s seat when it comes to the identified needs and strategies of Indigenous people.
Stopping White supremacy behavior. We have heard from Alaska Native leaders about the importance of Quakers learning about and stopping White supremacy behavior that many people with European ancestry have unwittingly picked up because of the society we live in. These behaviors include, for example, automatically taking charge, filling silence with talking, disregarding elders and children, expressing urgency rather than letting things unfold in the right time, acting as if Western norms and ways of doing things are superior to other ways, and talking about good intentions as a way of explaining bad behavior. Jamiann Hasselquist regularly asks Alaska Friends to become better at self-stopping White supremacy behavior “so that it isn’t so exhausting to be around you.” She also talks about the rarity and hopefulness of the work we are doing together, while also insisting we do our internal work.
Support cultural learning and sharing. Sugpiaq elder Susan LaBelle says, “It is within our cultural strengths, which are connected to our traditional values, that we will find the resiliency we need.” Uphold the sovereignty of Indigenous peoples, based on their histories as self-governing, independent nations since before the United States was formed.
im LaBelle, Jamiann S’eiltin Hasselquist, and Susan LaBelle at Sierra-Cascades YearlyMeeting of Friends annual sessions in Oregon, 2023. Photo by Jan Bronson.Going Forward
We know many other Quakers are doing this work too, or are interested in starting. We would love to learn what others are doing and see where we might collaborate. Our Alaska Native partners keep telling us, “It’s all about the relationships,” and we are living into the wisdom of this. Together let’s grow relationships with Indigenous communities, other Friends around the country, and that Spirit who loves and nudges us.
Questions and Answers
Here are some questions we get and that we wrestle with ourselves.
“By saying you are committed to reparations and by raising so much money for one particular project, aren’t you opening yourselves up to a nonstop stream of requests until you’re overwhelmed?”
That has not been our experience so far. Facing this fear is a “growing edge” for us. But we are finding that we are being asked to participate with our presence, our efforts, and sometimes with money, and that among us we are pretty much able to meet the requests that have come our way. We are building up our generosity muscles in terms of both money and time. Far from being overwhelmed by requests, we are instead overwhelmed by generosity, including that of other Friends and certainly that of Alaska Native people.
“But my branch of Friends or my yearly meeting was not involved with Indigenous boarding schools.”
Distinctions between branches of Friends don’t mean much outside of Friends circles. In any case, during the extinguishment period, roughly 1870-1930, most Christian denominations and most Quaker groups of all “flavors” either actively supported the schools or were silent as they were happening. Alaska Friends Conference itself didn’t exist during the boarding school era. However, we of Alaska Friends Conference benefit from our Friends history when it is positive, so we are also willing to make right our denomination’s wrongdoings.
In any case, it is not a matter of figuring out exactly what “our yearly meeting did” and therefore how much “our yearly meeting owes.” We can’t pay enough for what children experienced at some of these schools. But we can be in relationship with Native people, put our hands beside theirs when asked, and share resources as we are able, so that their communities and children and ours thrive.
“Weren’t there a variety of experiences at boarding schools?”
Yes. Although in total, boarding schools did a great deal of harm, individual experiences varied. We are glad whenever we hear of a positive experience. Our apology doesn’t negate those; it apologizes for the harms when they did occur.
“Alaska Friends Conference is the smaller of two yearly meetings in Alaska. The much larger Alaska Yearly Meeting is made up of primarily Iñupiat people. How have you worked with them during this apology process?”
We’ve done this by staying in touch with their superintendent for guidance, attending their annual sessions, and keeping them informed of our actions. In 2023 members of Alaska Friends Conference were asked to share our apology during Alaska Yearly Meeting’s summer conference, and the apology seemed well received. We are building this relationship like others: at the speed of trust.
The post Learning Our True History appeared first on Friends Journal.
Emblems of Change
Global warming has made the earth’s atmosphere more humid, intensified precipitation, and caused glaciers to melt rapidly, according to a 2021 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Climate change has disrupted the water cycle around the globe, which has led to more droughts, arid land, wildfires, and floods, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.
More frequent and severe natural disasters that result from climate change take human lives, cause homelessness, and threaten people’s health, both physical and mental. Quakers around the world are drawing on their spiritual resources to respond to climate-related calamities.
Mercy Miroya, a member of Mukuyu Meeting in Kenya, views responding to climate-related problems as an essential part of following God.
“God mandated us to guard and cultivate the land,” Miroya said. Kenya is a water-scarce country with widespread poverty, according to Miroya. She teaches others of the need to plant native trees to conserve water.
Around 1902, the colonial government brought eucalyptus trees to Kenya to provide wood to fuel the railroad running from Kenya to Uganda, Miroya explained. Eucalyptus forests currently occupy about 250,000 acres in Kenya. Each eucalyptus tree consumes about 100 liters of water each day, according to Miroya.
“The rapid growth and economic benefits of eucalyptus, such as providing timber, fuel, and construction materials have made them popular among Kenyan farmers. However, concerns have emerged regarding their environmental impact, particularly on water resources,” Miroya said. Eucalyptus trees’ large water consumption leads to groundwater depletion and the draining of rivers and wetlands, Miroya explained.
Miroya organizes and educates community members, especially in the Kitale region of Kenya, to advocate for removal of eucalyptus trees in riparian zones. For the past eight months, Miroya has collaborated with residents of the Kitale region to chop down eucalyptus trees growing near bodies of water. Miroya received a Millennium Fellowship, which offered training to support her work toward the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 6: clean water and sanitation. The Jiinue Community Based Organization in Kitale also supported her efforts. Miroya’s tree planting program along the Nzoia River focuses on native trees that consume less water than eucalyptus do. The group has planted 85,000 indigenous trees.
“Such actions are vital in mitigating the adverse effects of climate change on water and food security in Kenya,” Miroya said.
Distribution of potato seed to Indigenous families from Patacamaya, Bolivia, supported by FIBC’s Food Security Project, 2024. Photo courtesy of FIBC.A shifting climate threatens food security around the world. Climate change has brought extreme weather to Bolivia. It has also shortened and lengthened growing seasons unpredictably, decimating the country’s staple potato crops. In 2022, the country experienced a crushing lengthy drought, according to Emma Condori Mamani, director of Friends International Bilingual Center (FIBC). The center started its Food Security Project the next year. The project distributed potatoes for food and planting. It also gave out rice, oil, and sugar in both the jungle and the highland.
“In the highland there is only one harvest season, so too much rain or drought destroys the potato crops. For these families potatoes are the main food item. Then this situation of losing the potato crop makes them vulnerable to starvation,” said Mamani, who is a member of Holiness Friends Yearly Meeting in Bolivia.
In 2023, the project began by raising funds for ten families, or about $500 in U.S. currency. They subsequently sought to raise $7,500. Individual Friends as well as larger Quaker organizations have supported the project, according to Mamani.
Bolivian young adult Friends are the primary volunteers responsible for the project. They survey the impact of floods and droughts on communities, including Indigenous villages. The young adult Friends also coordinate with village authorities, as well as distribute potatoes and other food. They share their time on Saturdays because they study and work during the week.
In the Asia–West Pacific region, climate change has disrupted both the dry and the rainy season, ruining the planting-harvest cycle, according to Kins Aparece, initiative coordinator of the Asia– West Pacific regional team of Friends Peace Teams. Flooding destroys crops, and small farmers typically cannot afford to insure their harvests. Droughts also occur, which make crops more likely to fail. Calamities raise prices by reducing the supply of agricultural goods. Farmers go into debt and often cannot repay their loans when their harvests fail, Aparece explained.
Food distribution in Gatumba, Burundi, supported by FWCC’s Climate Emergency Fund, following floods, 2024. Photo courtesy of FWCC.In addition to economic devastation, climate change causes public health problems such as increased disease and mental illness. Upper respiratory infections become more common as temperatures increase, Aparece explained. When megacities flood, rats come out and spread disease, according to Aparece. Sanitation systems collapse. Diseases attack people’s open wounds, often fatally.
In the immediate aftermath of calamities, survivors need food and water. After two or three weeks, they need a source of income, making them vulnerable to human traffickers.
Calamity survivors also suffer from malnutrition. First responders distribute instant noodles, which yields a lot of plastic waste. Lack of soap to clean utensils leads to increased spread of communicable diseases. For instance, the number of tuberculosis cases rises.
When disasters destroy people’s houses, they seek refuge in public buildings such as schools. The shelters are extremely cold, according to Aparece. In such congregate settings, refugees—including children—suffer abuse and sexual assault, Aparece explained.
Aparece recalled one instance of traumatized mothers and grandmothers being unable to sleep while staying in a gymnasium. The storm survivors explained that the sound of a creaking piece of galvanized iron kept them awake because it sounded like the typhoon they had just been through.
On December 16, 2021, a typhoon struck the Philippines. Aparece went to the affected zone to provide COVID masks and food packs. Many survivors believed that the typhoon had washed away all the COVID germs, Aparece explained.
Aparece went to the islands of the Philippines and asked storm survivors what they needed. They said they particularly wanted fishing boats, so they could get food and rebuild their lives, she explained. Quakers gave about 30 fishing boats to the poorest of the poor.
People often use calamity as a communal reference point, such as asking others where they were when a typhoon struck, Aparece explained. Survivors have extended families and neighbors with whom they spend time talking and laughing, which promotes healing.
Aparece recalled a training she attended at which the facilitators showed a 30-minute film containing natural disaster footage. The participants were frozen. Aparece encouraged them to move, realizing that they had not healed from their own experience of natural disaster.
One disaster area that Aparece visited had no water, no food, and no stove. She visited the area several times, two to three months apart. She offered trauma response workshops inspired by the Alternatives to Violence Project. Mothers were the first to be trained. The workshops encouraged laughter, shouting, and playing. They sought to get away from the idea that survivors are weak or not connected to God if they show strong emotions.
Mental health professionals are sometimes deployed to disaster zones, but there are rarely enough of them to address the needs of the thousands of people impacted by a calamity at one time, Aparece explained. Mental health workers also need specific training to help people who have survived natural disasters, she noted.
Clinicians sometimes work with survivors in groups and other times they see clients individually.
“Getting healed in a community is way more efficient,” Aparece said.
Interfaith side event, including QUNO and QEW, at the 2023 UN Climate Change Conference in Expo City, Dubai. Photo courtesy of QUNO.Living in ongoing fear of weather-related catastrophes causes mental health issues, as do the disasters themselves, explained Adrian Glamorgan, executive secretary of the Friends Word Committee for Consultation (FWCC) Asia–West Pacific Section.
“When you see a house that you built over ten years washed away in ten minutes, there’s a lot of grief,” Glamorgan said.
Many residents of the Asia–West Pacific region live in poverty, according to Glamorgan. In Bangladesh, increased flooding has displaced 140 million people. Such catastrophes create anger, tension, and uncertainty.
FWCC’s Asia–West Pacific Section’s (AWPS) response to climate change is to offer networking opportunities to people suffering the effects of climate change. The section does not have money to give away in general, Glamorgan noted. Connecting transnationally is essential, according to Glamorgan. Media and national politicians often present stories of climate change as existing within the boundaries of nation states rather than acknowledging its global causes and implications, Glamorgan observed.
AWPS offers webinars in which inhabitants of the region who have experienced climate-related disasters exchange stories. AWPS also invites residents to share stories of efforts that promote resilience and such projects as renewable energy, according to Glamorgan. One such anecdote concerned the danger of flooding to women in regions where it is culturally inappropriate to teach women to swim, Glamorgan noted. After a climate change-related disaster, the community often relies on women to restore social cohesion.
Global networking leads individuals to realize that climate change is a transnational problem, Glamorgan observed. When climate change causes people to evacuate uninhabitable areas, cultures, lifeways, and connections are lost to the present generation’s grandchildren.
“It’s just obvious that this is happening around the world,” Glamorgan said.
The Quaker testimonies are interconnected, Glamorgan observed. Justice is a big part of the testimonies. The peace testimony calls on Quakers to welcome and support climate refugees.
Evan Welkin, in Emilia-Romagna, Italy, in front of the massive hole that opened up in the road to his farm after flooding and landslides. Photo courtesy of QUNO.The Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) lives out the peace testimony by supporting UN efforts to address climate change, according to Lindsey Fielder Cook, QUNO’s representative for the Human Impacts of Climate Change Programme. QUNO advocates climate change solutions that protect human rights rather than “technofixes” and “false solutions,” as Fielder Cook describes them. QUNO representatives work at climate change negotiations by offering spaces for what they call “quiet diplomacy.” Quiet diplomacy offers negotiators an opportunity to speak off-the-record and personally, according to Fielder Cook, who works in QUNO’s Geneva office. In side meetings at global climate summits such as COP29, as well as during the year between such negotiations, they can discuss climate change with countries with whom they don’t want to be seen talking with publicly. For example, diplomats for countries at war can speak personally about potential shared goals.
QUNO staff write publications to give to negotiators pursuing climate pacts. The amount spent on militaries worldwide is $2.4 trillion. Some of this money could be redirected to responding to climate change.
Fielder Cook advocates for grants to developing countries rather than loans that lead to insurmountable debt. Other improvements that Fielder Cook suggests include a fossil fuel tax, an aviation tax, and shifting military spending to address climate change.
QUNO communicates with Quakers around the world. If QUNO staffers see a country that promised money to developing nations seeking to address climate change, QUNO lets Quakers in the region know what is happening on the ground so they can advocate for accountability, Fielder Cook noted. She speaks to monthly and yearly meetings as well as other Quaker organizations to promote climate activism.
Most people around the globe do not see politicians responding to climate change, addressing the root causes, promoting sustainable growth of food, endorsing more equitable building of homes, and increasing tree planting, Fielder Cook explained. Lack of commitment by political leaders highlights the need for grassroots action, she observed.
Quakers are the only faith-based group that advises the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“We as Quakers are viewed as the ethical voice in the room,” Fielder Cook said.
QEW’s QuakerEarth Action Map showing Quaker-led climate initiatives worldwide. Map image courtesy of QEW.Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) is looking at how climate change is impacting people’s livelihoods, according to Evan Welkin, executive secretary of FWCC Section of the Americas and a member of Olympia (Wash.) Meeting. Welkin is a climate migrant because his farm in Italy was devastated by flooding and landslides in 2024.
FWCC’s Climate Emergency Fund was established by the FWCC World Office and the Europe and Middle East Section (EMES). Any future travel taken to FWCC events will be recorded for its climate impact, and the cost will be paid into the climate emergency fund, according to Welkin. The money from the various sections would then be earmarked for small grants people can apply for. The World Office and EMES have a tool to calculate climate impact. The tool gathers information about journeys and calculates the total carbon output, which is put into a formula.
Friends had questions about the ethics of anonymous offsetting programs and wanted to contribute to onsetting by creating the Climate Emergency Fund. The emergency fund contributed to the seed potato project in Bolivia.
Another transnational tool available to Friends concerned about climate change is an online map that Quaker Earthcare Witness (QEW) developed in conjunction with FWCC. Individual users, as well as those from monthly meetings, can use tags and filters to research what other Friends in their area and around the world are doing to address climate change, according to Keith Runyan, general secretary of QEW and a member of Grass Valley (Calif.) Meeting.
The map generates hope and enables Friends to progress toward becoming an eco-faith, Runyan noted.
The map can support Quakers in celebrating each meeting’s efforts to respond to climate change. It is important to celebrate action projects, Runyan explained. Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT) is partnering with QEW to spread climate activism. Runyan envisions Quaker meetings becoming resiliency hubs by providing food, water, shelter, and power when climate change-induced disasters occur. Friends meetings can also serve as centers for spiritual grounding in the wake of calamity. The map is the first phase of a campaign to help meetings build resilience to climate change.
Runyan compared the current moment to renewals Quakers experienced during the Vietnam War and the movement for the abolition of slavery. Quaker moral leadership comes not from a place of vitriol but rather a sense of deeply grounded spirituality, Runyan noted. Quakers attract people by being at the moral forefront of society, according to Runyan.
“We do it by being emblems of change,” Runyan said.
The post Emblems of Change appeared first on Friends Journal.
The Time of Flooding
Noah had a vision. Vesta, his wife, listened.
She was strong and tall. Vesta cut
the thickest trees, and together
they sliced logs, bent them to build
a seaworthy boat with cabins.
She sang to the trees as they fell,
sang how their strength would be known
in stories of all people, how they
would save all life by giving their own.
She sang as they built their boat.
Birds flocked to its masts and built nests.
Fox, squirrel, and rabbit hopped into corners
for shelter when the waters rose.
Noah dug small apple trees, grapevines,
and vegetables, carried them to the deck.
Vesta picked the garden clean, cabbages,
potatoes, stored any food that was dried or ripe.
She was newly pregnant, so stored mint to settle
her stomach, and goat cheeses to nourish.
Noah said it was time; he brought farm animals on board—
chickens, ducks, two donkeys, and more. They sailed off,
lifted by floods into the sea, floating with hawks, owls,
chicks, and ducklings. Floating with new life.
Sometimes Noah put his ear to her womb,
listened to the small heart beat, wondered
what kind of fool he was, because of a vision,
sailing away from all they knew.
Early one morning hawk returned from flight,
a small mouse dangling from her mouth,
food for her own child. Noah rejoiced, set course
for a small far away spot that caught rays of sunlight.
He noticed rain had slowed to a drizzle.
Vesta and a goat stood at his side.
The post The Time of Flooding appeared first on Friends Journal.
Legacy
If legacy means long arms—
my grandfather’s smile
stitched to the gap
in my teeth, then
when I die, make
me a golem
from a palmful
of dirt and torn
pocket of time, with arms
long enough to reach
you, to play
with the fringes at your waist.
The post Legacy appeared first on Friends Journal.
Turning a Row
I attend to a display book of
quilters’ life work, wondering—
how love inscribes its wanderings
in patterns in a Blocks and Strips sheening,
its Sears’ corduroy complementary colors,
blazoned on blue, expresses what I wished
on last night’s slew of stars.
Friend, time is shorter, and all
I want to do is make myself useful.
Toiling calls for a yearning
beyond predictable change—
harrowed in all ways—
May such memory remnants find a purpose,
warmth and shelter become
beautiful, with imbuement—
an image of one soul turning to another.
One, in Housetop style,
from sky-view, reveals
a grid of nestled square cut-outs
from out of its maker’s clothes,
her own head-scarf at the center,
radiating a sunrise
moistening rays over rows,
like the time I said, Dad, I love you,
pieced to his, the feeling is mutual—
a beginning turning to an end.
The post Turning a Row appeared first on Friends Journal.
Forum, February 2025
I appreciate Gabriel Ehri’s editorial comments in the January 2025 issue (“Where Our Treasure Is”). Having been appointed as a representative multiple times to Friends World Committee for Consultation’s (FWCC) World Gatherings of Friends, I feel it is an experience many more Friends in the United States need to be part of. Those of us who attend our monthly meetings and feel that’s “all there is” need to know that FWCC is a world family of Fiends whose bright light gives deeper meaning to the Religious Society of Friends.
I have always often felt FWCC was never a high priority in the life of our Society of Friends. This is very unfortunate. Friends need to rethink the importance of FWCC. A way to start is to attend a regional gathering of yearly meetings. There is also the annual meeting of the FWCC Section of the Americas. Finally, one can become a representative to a world gathering to feel, to see, and to be part of the different ways we worship. To feel, to see the different languages in which we communicate. To feel, to see, to be part of the silence, the ministry, and the singing will give you a new perspective on the vitality of our Quaker family.
At the world gathering held in New Hampshire in 2000, I had the privilege to be part of a conversation called by Simon Lamb of Ireland Yearly Meeting (who recently passed away). He was struggling with a concern: should he ask his yearly meeting to release him so that he could travel among Friends with a personal spiritual concern as to our future. This was a very moving experience to me, one that I would not have had if I had not been a part of this world gathering.
George Rubin
Medford, N.J.
Pamela Haines articulates the modern dilemma of the despair inherent in modern individualistic culture (“To Dance with Openness,” FJ Dec. 2024 online). The strength of Quakers, and other religious groups, is in community. We are not alone. We share our values and spiritual being with others who are in sync with us. It’s a community that has allowed us to survive for 372 years. Alone we are ineffective, but together we have impact on the world around us.
We are called to be faithful to our spiritual vision and mission, not necessarily to be successful. The outcome is beyond our control, but being true to our testimonies is something each of us can do with the support of the community.
Joseph Anthony Izzo
Washington, D.C.
Thank you, Pamela, for your clear-headed and full-hearted article. You spoke to my condition and I will be re-reading this frequently.
Lynn Huxtable
Albuquerque, N.M.
Pamela, your article is most apt and wise, supportive and good teaching throughout for those to whom it is naturally accessible. But I am beginning to wonder if this style works any more beyond a limited, shrinking circle. Is it possible, I wonder, to find a form of written utterance that is closer to the experience of silent worship. Thoughts and images do not flow there like prose, or even poetry. If the experience of silent worship is more powerful than listening to preaching or reading or hearing scripture, then perhaps as writers we need to find ways to emulate it in text. I confess that at this stage I do not quite know what I am talking about, except that I am striving myself to write without wasting words, as I think conventional prose can do, perhaps inevitably.
Paul Conway
Northern Bruce Peninsula, Ontario
Benjamin Lay thought he and his wife Sarah Smith’s crusade to convince Friends to disavow slavery was a failure. Sarah died in 1735 when American Friends’ meetings accepted Friends owning people as slaves as commonplace. Benjamin was disowned by multiple meetings for his disruptions of meeting for worship with his loud condemnation of “Negro-masters” in meetings. It was not until 1757 that Philadelphia Yearly Meeting began calling for an end to slavery. Benjamin died in 1759.
When the Quaker Initiative to End Torture (QUIT) was laid down last July (News story, FJ Dec. 2024, Nov. 2024 online), some Friends involved in the group felt their work was a good effort but a failure. But any witness against dehumanizing people, both physically and mentally, is valuable. It is through repeated witnessing that steps to stop war, physical and mental cruelty, and injustice become visible to others—visible to those who are not aware of, or want to ignore, the harm and pain each causes. Just as Benjamin and Sarah Lay were witnesses laboring against great indifference, facing great anger for their repeated witnesses, QUIT’s efforts were seen, and are steps toward rousing that of God in everyone.
Edna Whittier
Floyd, Va.
I love the dual interpretation of Jesus’s second commandment (“A Joyful Abandon to Love” by Barbara Birch, FJ Jan.). Both/and equality is better than either loving your neighbors as much as yourself, or loving yourself as much as neighbors.
George Gore
Chicago area, Ill.
Once I have learned meditation, and then using meditation to concentrate on solving particular problems, I then turn to loving others as I love myself as another problem to be solved. What are their issues and how can I help them with their problems?
Jeff Brotemarkle
Hillsboro, Kans.
Yet another use for our money came to me as I was reading your insightful stories on how meetings use money in the January issue of Friends Journal. In a word: outreach. We want to spread Quaker principles and practices to more people.
Here are some ways that come immediately to mind. Post directional signs on the major streets nearby. Adopt a street in your community, which usually entitles you to a sign posted on that street saying something like this to passing motorists. Make sure the sign in front of your meetinghouse is conspicuous. Design and print bookmarks, then distribute them through your public library. Host public events that draw others to your meetinghouse.
Tom Louderback
Louisville, Ky.
The post Forum, February 2025 appeared first on Friends Journal.
Writing App: Quaker Revivals
- Features run 1200-2500 words (General information)
- Submissions close March 17, 2025 (Ready? Submit here)
- Questions? Email editors@friendsjournal.org
Our June/July 2025 issue will look at Quaker Revivals.
Revival is a funny concept if you think about it too hard. It can mean many things: a quickening of spiritual fervor, an increase in numbers, a return to some earlier golden age. Quakerism began as a revival of sorts—a brash new religious outlook that didn’t have much regard for other denominations—and we have had many revivals in the 385 years since.
Friends have gone through regular cycles of getting set in our ways and being roused to renew our commitments to the radical promise of the Quaker way. Many of the Friends we remember and celebrate were calling for a change and a return. People like John Woolman, Lucretia Mott, and Rufus Jones were all reacting to what they saw as a decline in Quaker vitality.
There’s often a kind of purity in revival that casts off those who don’t share the vision. Large numbers of disownments and schisms accompanied reform movements, and ex-Quakers went on to heavily influence other religious movements in the United States, from Methodists to Mormons, and Shakers to the more modern Jesus Movement.
Revivals often reshape us. In the nineteenth-century, Britain and much of the U.S. Midwest was awash in an evangelical spirit that spawned revivals and Quaker missionary work around the world. It brought Quakerism to millions of people, but in new forms that sparked controversy and schisms. We’re still reacting to these changes today in our worship, unity, and organization.
Many twentieth-century Friends forged a new consensus that created a new form of modern Liberal Quakerism that drew in people with its return to Quaker pacifism, a stress on relief efforts, and a strong sense of engagement with the world and sciences. U.S. political activism in the 1960s and 1970s brought in new waves of Friends drawn to a worldview and lifestyle that didn’t always fit the old forms. Every revival has reshaped us, in ways that can focus our efforts while simultaneously driving us away from other Friends.
What’s the state of Quaker revivals today? Where is it needed? Are there places where we are in danger of catching fire? When I look around I see bits of revivals that have excited subsets of Friends: movements like 2011’s Occupy Wall Street, the 2023 Asbury Revival, the early-aughts Emergent Church networks, hashtagged justice protests like #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter. Where do we need to grow and is it possible to have that growth without splintering Friends further?
Submit: Quaker RevivalsOther upcoming issues:- August: Open (due May 19)
- September: Affinity Groups and Worship (due June 16)
- October: Open (due July 21)
Learn more general information at Friendsjournal.org/submissions.
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Writing Opp: Housing and Homelessness
- Features run 1200-2500 words (General information)
- Submissions close February 17, 2025 (Ready? Submit here)
- Questions? Email editors@friendsjournal.org
Our May 2025 issue will look at Housing and Homelessness. As anyone who has tried to buy or rent a house or apartment in the last few decades knows, this is a serious problem in the United States and many other countries. There’s a fundamental scarcity of housing that is raising prices beyond the means of many citizens. Service economy workers are being forced to move further from potential jobs and rely on often unreliable public transit. Housing insecurity and homelessness is a very real issue for millions of people.
Housing has been a primary source of generational wealth for most Americans: our houses are the most expensive things we own (or, more likely, the highest debts we owe). When people are locked out of the market it becomes harder to save money to pass on to succeeding generations.
Additionally climate change is shifting where we can safely live, shrinking the market even more. As we saw with the recent fires in Los Angeles County that destroyed 12,000 homes, extreme weather in climate risk areas are leaving more and more people without a place to live. Where will they go?
We’d like to hear of Friends working on solutions for these issues, either in their neighborhoods or on a larger scale. What kind of regional or city planning can alleviate these conditions? Can ideas like ecovillages or small houses help? How does a community affected by a natural disaster rebuild?
And how does the housing crisis affect our Quaker communities? Many Friends have less time or resources to devote to their Quaker life because they work extra jobs to make the rent or mortgage every month. The rising prices are also increasing the number of unhoused neighbors, a tragedy for them and a strain on our wider community. What have meetings done to help alleviate the issues that unhoused neighbors face?
There’s also room for stories about our houses—that is, the actual buildings and structures we live in, whether a multi-bedroom with a backyard, a one-bedroom apartment, an RV, or a converted van. Where do you live? Where did you grow up? How do our housing choices reflect our values and build our faith community?
Submit: Housing and HomelessnessOther upcoming issues:- June-July: Quaker Revivals (due Mar. 17)
- August: Open (due May 19)
- September: Affinity Groups and Worship (due June 16)
Learn more general information at Friendsjournal.org/submissions.
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With Peace in Sight, Friends Reflect on the Israel–Hamas War
Under a ceasefire agreement brokered by the United States, Qatar, and Egypt, the Israel–Hamas war that has lasted more than 15 months will end, provided an initial six-week truce holds, The Washington Post reports. The current conflict began when Hamas killed approximately 1,200 people in attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, and took more than 250 Israelis hostage. The Israel Defense Forces killed more than 46,000 Palestinians, as of January 15, in the war that followed the attacks, according to Reuters. Approximately 1.9 million people are internally displaced in Gaza, according to the United Nations.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is weighing South Africa’s allegation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. A final ruling could take years. The ICJ delivered a preliminary opinion in January 2024 stating that the genocide accusation is “plausible.”
Prior to the announcement of the latest ceasefire agreement, three Friends with personal connections to the conflict discussed their views on the ICJ opinion, the future of the region, and how to foster dialogue about the war. The Quakers interviewed offered insights about the historic underpinnings of the conflict, as well as views on contemporary Friends’ responses.
“In the ’90s it felt like there were a lot of possibilities for peace,” said Marigold Bentley, who previously served as head of peace programs and faith relations for Britain Yearly Meeting. She also worked for the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel.
Beginning in 1993, the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Israel participated in peace talks that led to them signing the Oslo Accords in 1993 and 1995, which outlined a two-state solution to the longstanding conflict. The accords delineated restricted Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in exchange for recognition of Israel’s right to exist and for its citizens to live in peace.
The accords provided for electing officials to the Palestinian Authority, which would govern the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The agreement also called for Israeli security forces to move out of six Palestinian cities and more than 400 villages.
During the optimism that followed the Oslo Accords, a Quaker who was an art therapist traveled to the region in 1994 at the request of a Jewish psychotherapist to conduct therapeutic workshops. The Friend requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject. The source described an art therapy activity in which people from both sides of the conflict participated.
“Two women, one Palestinian, one Israeli, they were carefully drawing around each other’s pictures so as not to cross anything. Their interpretations afterward were the Palestinian woman said, ‘Well I felt like she was surrounding me just like all these settlements on the hilltops.’ The Israeli woman said, ‘I felt she was surrounding me just like all the Arab nations trying to push Israel into the sea,’” the source said.
Unresolved issues in the Oslo Accords included which side could claim Jerusalem as a capital, and the right of Palestinians displaced by Israeli settlement to return to their homes.
Approximately 5,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis died in the Second Intifada, which lasted from 2000 until the Sharm el Sheikh peace talks ended that conflict in 2005.
British Quakers believed they had something to offer to peacemaking efforts in the region. British Friends felt a deep responsibility because of Britain’s historic role in the creation of the state of Israel, according to Bentley.
The 1917 Balfour Declaration, written by British foreign secretary Arthur Balfour to a Jewish leader in Britain named Lionel Walter Rothschild called for a Jewish homeland in the Palestinian territory. Under the British Mandate for Palestine, Britain helped European Jews immigrate to the region.
Before the Balfour Declaration, Jews and Palestinians co-existed peacefully, according to the anonymous source. Problems arose due to one piece of land being promised to two groups of people, the source said. The source’s parents survived the Holocaust. The source’s cousin went to Britain on the Kindertransport and lived with Orthodox Jewish foster parents. The Kindertransport relocated children from Poland, Austria, Germany, and Czechoslovakia. The cousin’s country of origin is not being mentioned to protect the source’s anonymity.
After the current war began, Bentley noticed that members of churches in Britain were very nervous about the public response to the violence. Churches Together in Dorchester has run three facilitated meetings about the conflict, according to Bentley. The meetings each lasted 90 minutes and used a consensus-building model that invited participants to publicly articulate the kind of world they wanted. Two such sessions took place with just clergy and one involved both congregants and clergy members, according to Bentley. It is important for participants to speak from their own authentic experience, according to Bentley, who ran a session on the war for Woodbrooke Quaker Study Center in Birmingham, UK.
People in Britain have seen horrifying media images of the war. Watching media accounts and feeling helpless has caused high anxiety, Bentley noted.
“You’re meeting people who have traumatized themselves,” Bentley said of participants in dialogue about the war.
Topics such as the Israel–Hamas war make it hard to practice deep listening, according to Lori Piñeiro Sinitzky, program administrator in the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Villanova University and a member of Green Street Meeting in Philadelphia, Pa.
Sometimes people say others are wrong and there is nothing else to listen to, Piñeiro Sinitzky noted. Maintaining somatic awareness, expecting discomfort, and keeping in mind the complex humanity of all participants in the discussion are ways to stay in the conversation, she explained.
Many clergy members do not feel comfortable giving sermons on the war but do offer prayers about peace and care for people suffering in wars, according to Bentley. She noted that many members of the British public are unfamiliar with the language of human rights.
Quakers were involved in the Kindertransport, which evacuated Jewish children to England from Nazi-occupied Europe. In response to present-day Quakers’ participation in the ecumenical accompaniment program, some Jews in Britain felt betrayed, according to Bentley.
“They said, ‘You used to love us and now you hate us,’” Bentley said.
The October 7, 2023 attacks terrorized and traumatized Jews, reminding them of the Holocaust, the anonymous source observed. Israel’s military response to the October 7 attacks was “disproportionate and stupid,” the anonymous source said.
There is a significant difference between Jews seeking a land of safety and the aggressive Israeli settlers expanding ever deeper into Palestinian territory, according to the anonymous source.
“I grew up understanding what happened during the Holocaust on a very visceral level and also understanding that the world could be a dangerous place for Jewish people,” said Lori Piñeiro Sinitzky. Piñeiro Sinitzky’s father is a Holocaust survivor. Her mother converted to Judaism.
Growing up, she saw televised images of Israeli tanks and Palestinians throwing rocks at the vehicles. She noticed a power imbalance. She viewed Israel as a safe place for Jewish refugees, but she also came to believe that the Israeli government has practiced apartheid and oppression of Palestinians. The current Israeli administration has exacerbated the problem, according to Piñeiro Sinitzky.
“The ongoing expansion of settlers into Palestinian territory has made things worse,” said Piñeiro Sinitzky.
She traveled to Israel before October 7 and saw apartheid and oppression. Currently she notes destruction of life, culture, homes, and communities that members of the international community should interrupt.
Asked about the International Court of Justice’s finding that South Africa’s accusation that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians is “plausible,” she said, “I believe that ‘plausible’ is probably the right word. I know it feels like genocide to me. I know that there are semantic disagreements and I think that’s a distraction,” Piñeiro Sinitzky said.
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An Experiment in Holy Abundance
The 2012 sale of the New England Friends Home in Hingham, Massachusetts, provided New England Yearly Meeting (NEYM) with an abundance of $1,100,000 net proceeds—and the challenge of discerning what God was calling us to do with it. We spent two years seeking input and proposals via meetings and surveys. Once clarity was reached to use the bulk of the funds to support ministry and witness among us, the financial questions arose. In 2014, Cuban Friends visiting yearly meeting sessions asked: “How can we be a Church with money in our pocket?” “How can we use all our resources to be God’s people in the world?”
In response, some Friends advocated giving it all away, while others encouraged using a small percentage each year while preserving the principal for the future. Friends came to unity to do both, creating two funds as part of an overall Legacy Gift Fund. One of these specific funds, the NEYM Witness and Ministry Fund, was started with $750,000 as a quasi-endowment to draw four percent each year to provide grants. The remaining balance (and accumulated earnings) of $470,975 became the NEYM Future Fund, available to distribute until it was all put to use. Applications, guidelines, priorities and procedures were developed and the Legacy Gift Committee was created to implement the two new funds. This experiment was to be reviewed in 2024 after the initial 10 years to see if it still had life.
In 2015 NEYM approved the following statement of purpose:
Guided by our living testimonies, we seek to strengthen our Witness through the funding of public and released ministry, with attention to Racism and Climate Change, and to nurture our beloved community through the support of education, outreach, released ministry and meetinghouse projects. Our hope is that the Legacy Funds will serve as potent seeds to help Friends answer God’s call in our time and to strengthen the new life that is already rising up in our yearly meeting.
For 10 years now, the Legacy Gift Committee has engaged in this experiment of holy abundance, inviting funding requests for up to $10,000 via two annual application review cycles. Since inception, the Future Fund awarded grants totaling $541,953. It was completely spent down, as intended, in 2020, having grown even while it was being used. As of June 2024, the Witness and Ministry fund has awarded grants totaling $202,999, drawn from annual investment income.
Several years ago, wanting to be able to respond to opportunities and short term leadings that arose between the two annual funding cycles, we added time-sensitive grants of up to $1,000 that are available on a rolling basis. Time-sensitive grants have funded things like helping Friends participate in Beyond Diversity 101 workshops or traveling to a border march organized by the American Friends Service Committee.
Our applicants are young adult Friends, retirees, and all ages in between from across NEYM. Many have never written a funding application or calculated a project budget before. They come from large urban meetings and from very small rural meetings with varying levels of experience or capacity for supporting witness and ministry. Sometimes more seasoning is needed. Sometimes the leading changes along the way. Legacy Gift Committee works with the applicants and their meetings as needed, through the process of applying, reviewing, and ensuring spiritual and fiscal support during the Legacy-funded life of the leading.
As of June 2024, 41 of NEYM’s 62 Friends meetings have benefitted from Legacy Gift funds (either as a meeting or in supporting the witness or ministry of individuals). Over half of them have received more than one grant. Meetings in all of NEYM’s quarters have been touched by Legacy Gift funding, including a majority of the meetings in six of the eight quarters. Approximately 25 other Friends-related groups and organizations, including Friend schools; Friends Camp in South China, Maine; Beacon Hill Friends House in Boston, Massachusetts; Woolman Hill Quaker Retreat Center in Deerfield, Massachusetts; Quaker Voluntary Service; and NEYM committees have also received funding, many of them more than once.
Financially, our goal is to help release Friends to respond to God’s call so that spiritual faithfulness is not dependent on personal financial means. We also ask about and let applicants know of other potential funding sources—especially to help support longer, continuing leadings. The committee’s application review process begins with the Legacy Gift Committee meeting as a whole to let questions for each applicant rise. After that, a two-person review team meets directly with each applicant, along with members of their oversight, anchor, or support committee. Following the visits, review teams bring funding recommendations to the whole committee for discernment. At the end of the funding period, grantees submit reports about where the Spirit took them, how the funds were used, what they learned, and any challenges they encountered and if the ministry or project is continuing. Legacy Gift Committee shares summary reports with NEYM through the newsletter, website, and at the yearly meeting annual sessions.
Clockwise: Ministry on Racial Bias in Policing/Sarah Walton sojourning in Atlanta, Ga., 2016; Maine Poor People’s Campaign, Diane Diccranian (Winthop Center), 2018; Wabanaki Program (Cobscook Meeting & AFSC) 2016; Haven’s Harvest food rescue and recovery program of New Haven, Conn.
During this experiment in holy abundance, we’ve heard about Friends’ experience of these funds prompting and nurturing a deeper understanding and practice of noticing, discerning, holding accountable, and supporting leadings of the Spirit and ministry.
Meetings have shared with us that their understanding of ministry and how to support ministry has grown as a result of engaging with the Legacy Gift program and workshops.
Because engaging in Spirit-led ministry and witness benefits from more than basic financial support, we require meetings to provide oversight, support, or anchor committees for grantees as they engage in the work to which they are called. We also require meetings to serve as fiscal sponsors, and send the grant award checks to them to disperse to the grantee (and to provide any tax forms that may be needed). Ten years ago, many meetings did not have experience in supporting ministry, so we also offer workshops with titles like “Leadings, Meetings, and Money.” We have all learned and grown as a wider Quaker body in our understanding and practice of noticing, nurturing, and supporting witness and ministry among us.
We have planted many seeds that have borne fruit. Over the years the funds have supported a wide variety of ministries and witness activities, starting with the initial priorities of addressing racism and climate change and expanding to encompass further concerns that Spirit has since called us to. Legacy Gift funds have helped send young adult Friends to antiracism workshops, provided racial inclusion and equity training for staff at Friends Camp, funded the Black Quaker Project, and supported Friends in developing racial justice courses. This all contributed to increased awareness and influenced changes in individual meetings and across the yearly meeting as a whole.
Support of climate ministry has helped Friends work with students to document climate solutions in their community. Legacy Gift funds have converted a farm tractor to run on solar energy, created a carbon footprint calculator, and engaged in nonviolent prophetic acts of climate witness. Legacy funding has also helped many meetings, Friends schools, and conference centers install solar panels, energy efficient windows, increased insulation, and sustainable heating systems, thus significantly reducing their dependence on fossil fuels. Adaptations for accessibility, helping small meetings repair roofs, bringing a meeting up to code to provide sanctuary for refugees, peaceful mitigation of beavers who were flooding a meeting’s driveway, and addressing the challenges during COVID were made possible thanks to these funds.
Faithful inreach and outreach efforts have been nurtured by Legacy Gift funds. One grantee developed an online Quaker library and adult Quaker education classes. Others traveled in the ministry of intervisitation among meetings. A meeting member created digital outreach videos for their meeting. Funds helped ministry supporting our living testimonies as one meeting set up a peace center, Friends addressed food insecurity and rural poverty in Maine and another produced a book of art by incarcerated men in Vermont.
Initial leadings have rippled out, with some seeds growing into ongoing ventures like the summer food rescue initiative that has become Haven’s Harvest, a nonprofit keeping tons of food out of the climate-impacting waste stream and into hungry bellies in Connecticut. An individual’s exploration of art as a practice of faith grew into an art camp. A ministry grant to create a dinner church led to the establishment of a new open, affirming Christian online Quaker meeting.
The ministry supported by the Legacy Gift funds has been far-ranging and meaningful. A gathering for women in public ministry that was funded brought together Friends from several yearly meetings. Funds have helped Friends travel to international gatherings, conferences and to an American Friends Service Committee action at the southern U.S. border. Funds helped develop curricula and Quaker books for use in collaboration with Friends’ schools in Rwanda. Funds supported travel for the Black Quaker Project to present their work to the Quaker United Nations Office in Geneva, Switzerland, a health ministry in Mongolia, participation in a Friends Peace Teams training in Poland, a young adult Friend to learn about earth stewardship and responses to climate change in Bolivia, and for a Friend’s ministry of friendship and humanitarian support for the people of Ukraine. Other grant recipients have traveled to Cuba, Latin America, Africa, Europe, and other parts of the US in faithfulness to their leadings.
Clockwise: Traveling ministry with ultimate frisbee to Cuba, Julian Grant (Hanover) 2016; Quaker Dinner Church, Kristina Keefe-Perry (Fresh Pond) 2018; Leadings, Ministry & Money Workshop with Viv Hawkins, Sarah Spencer, Jeremiah Dickinson, Greg WiIliams, and Beth Collea (Wellesley Meeting), October 2016; Faith & Play with African and Latin American Friends, New England Committee of FWCC, 2016.
An emergent priority over the last decade has also been seeking right relationship with Indigenous People. Using some of the funds for reparations was originally proposed during the first years of discernment while setting up the Legacy Gift funding program. The question of reparations was brought to annual sessions several times, in 2012, 2013, and 2014. One minute read that “A Friend noted that the money in this fund comes from the sale of land that ultimately came to us through the Doctrine of Discovery, and asked that we consider the reparations that might be appropriate out of this sale. How does our use of these funds, and indeed of all Yearly Meeting resources, reflect our testimony of integrity?”
These conversations led NEYM to make an apology to Native Americans in 2022. Several Legacy Gift grants have been made in support of nurturing relationships with Indigenous People and doing research into New England Friends’ role in supporting Indian Boarding Schools in the late 1800s. During the 10 year Legacy Gift review process we heard again the call for NEYM to consider reparations. During annual sessions, NEYM approved next steps to initiate a conversation and discernment about restorative actions and future reparations, inviting local meetings to engage in learning and reflection, and report back to annual sessions with yearly updates. If NEYM becomes clear to make financial reparations, a significant draw from the funds gained through the sale of the New England Friends Home may be used for this purpose.
As one Friend shared, “A really important part of the Legacy Gift Funding Program is that it encourages Friends in general and Meetings in particular to live into the life of the Spirit. Witness, Ministry and faithful presence from a perspective of abundance, rather than scarcity, is a necessary shift for all people of faith.”
The fruits of the Legacy Gift funds have been rich, powerful and many. Getting to serve on the Legacy Gift Committee is a blessing and ministry in itself. Meeting Friends across NEYM, glimpsing where Spirit is rising among us, and being able to support faithfulness is a joy! As we journey into continuing the Legacy Gift experience we celebrate the great blessing the funds enable in nurturing the movement of Spirit among us. Perhaps other Friends will be inspired to put funds to use in similar ways to answer God’s call in our time.
Much of this article was drawn from the initial 10 year review report of the Legacy Gift experience, co-written also by Suzanna Schell in Massachusetts (Beacon Hill and Three Rivers Meetings), who clerked the discernment that led to the establishment of the Legacy Funding Program and was the founding clerk of the committee; and Fritz Weiss from Portland (Maine) Meeting, a prior NEYM presiding clerk who served ex officio on the Legacy Gift Committee. This article is written from our experience, not on behalf of nor representing New England Yearly Meeting as a whole. For more information, guidelines, funding priorities and a slide show of grant recipients, see Legacy Gift’s page on NEYM’s website at neym.org/committees/legacy-gift.
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