CMM 2017-07-09 Possible Items for Agenda

Here are some possible agenda items for Seventh Month’s Meeting for Worship with attention to Business, which will be on the 9th of Seventh Month.  Some of the items from Sixth Month have been carried forward.  Some of the proposed items may need further seasoning. They are in no particular order at the moment.

During worship, please hold in your heart the following from George Selleck’s “Principles of the Quaker Business Meeting”.

The Quaker method of reaching decisions always has been primarily a religious one. In some real sense Friends intend to seek God’s will rather than merely human wisdom. Decisions do not in the end depend on the particular knowledge and wisdom of certain outstanding leaders, but on a gathered insight in which the whole meeting is unified. The method is based on the faith that each person can know God’s will and that God’s will is one. The meeting for business seeks to find it.

In practical terms this means that such meetings are held in a context of worship, so that those present may repeatedly and consciously seek Divine guidance. Fox put it tersely, “Friends are not to meet like a company of people about town or parish business ... but to wait on the Lord.”

This is not to be taken, however, as an ancient practice to be observed only by a formal “moment of silence.” It is important that the meeting for business should begin with a genuine period of worship, with an awareness of the real presence and direction of Christ in the worshipping fellowship. The religious fellowship experience during such a period of reverent waiting is helpful also in seeking Divine guidance and in finding unity of action in the transaction of business. Only as Friends are aware that they are functioning in the Divine presence does the Quaker method really work.

  • Minutes of Sixth Month’s Meeting for Worship with attention to Business.
  • Finance Committee report
  • Property Committee report
  • Solar Committee report
  • Youth Religious Education Committee report
  • Ministry & Counsel report
    • Social Justice Fund:  Proposed Policy for process in discerning usage. We ask all committees to be open to ways in which this money could be used to further God’s work in the area of racial, social and economic justice.  Committees should bring seasoned proposals to Meeting for Business.  Individuals with ideas should bring them to an appropriate committee for discernment. 
    • Status of follow-up to Minute 2017.2.8 :  draft text for minute proposing a process for making time-sensitive public statements.  Ministry and Counsel has this under consideration, but we're asking Friends to continue their discernment.
  • Modify the purpose of the PSECC Committee.
    • Responding to NEYM Minute 2016-64 on White Supremacy including discernment on “Black Lives Matter” sign.  As background for helping our discernment, it would be helpful to read or listen to the discussion on On Being.  The following excerpt is from the program.

Ms. Tippett: Right, we don’t have these kinds of generally universally respected places where everybody is looking and seeing authority. But an implication of that — actually, this could be the dream of democracy, right, that it’s back to each of us in our lives. And I wonder what each of you would want each of us to ask of ourselves.

Ms. Gordon-Reed: What I would like to see people do — and, I think, particularly, white people to do — would be to challenge one another on this question of white supremacy and racism. I mean black people can’t and should not have to convince white people that we are human beings who have a right to be on the earth.

[applause]

The only time we’ve made progress is when whites, a critical mass of whites say, “Enough of this. Whatever it is I’m getting out of going along, I can’t.” And people have done that. William Lloyd Garrison did it. Through the years, you’ve had people who did that. I would like to see more whites do that, because it’s demeaning, it’s not right for people to have to make the case that we are humans. And to the extent that your family members don’t seem to know that or your friends don’t seem to know that, I think that’s something that — that’s a conversation that has to take place among whites. And it has happened; it does happen, and we have made progress. But it should happen more.

Mr. Kaphar: I just want to piggyback on that for just a second. I think when you say, “We shouldn’t have to prove that we are human,” I think there’s probably people out here who probably think that that’s a form of hyperbole, probably think, “There’s no way in the world she actually thinks that there are people who do not believe that black people are human.”

Let’s not think about it in those direct terms for just a second. Let’s think about what happens to black people. So you may say, “Of course black people are people. I just said ‘people,’ didn’t I?” But when you think about what is going on — and again, I don’t even want — this is something I want to work on. I don’t even want to talk about it in that frame, because it’s not just black people. It’s not just black people. There are so many people who are treated as though they are not humans. I mean let’s forget about black people for just a minute, just a second, and talk about undocumented people in this country. Talk about not being treated like they’re humans. Let’s talk about indigenous people not being treated like they’re — treated like they’re not humans.

I have been somewhat involved with the Nuclear Weapons Working Group convened by Peace Action, AFSC and Veterans for Peace. There is planning going on right now for a Hiroshima commemoration/ anti-nuke observance on August 5th. As usual, I will be at NEYM so I can't participate. I sent an email to Dave Woolpert as convener of PSECC to see if that committee might find someone from Meeting to be involved with promotion and other planning activity but didn't hear anything back. If I still don't hear anything before July Meeting for business, I'd like to do a report/request then.

Announcements

  • Registration for NEYM Annual Sessions in Castleton, VT opened online on June 1st at https://neym.org/sessions
  • NEYM Annual Sessions is looking for an Office Assistant, a Childcare Coördinator, and an Events Coördinator.  Job descriptions are at https://neym.org/jobs
  • 4th Sundays in the summer : Meeting for Eating! No program, just sharing over potluck
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