We are gathered and still gathering more deeply as a community. Going more deeply into our sense of community and examining how we are growing as a community was the heart of our discussion. With much feeling and introspection, we found the following to be our truth.
Looking at the faces sitting around our circle we could see familiar and newer faces reflecting the coming and going of our meeting. Our engagement in outreach and welcoming has led to many new faces. Our strong youth religious education has engaged families making space for newer people with children to bring both their children’s and their parent’s spiritual needs to meeting and to see them flourish. As other newer attenders have started to set down roots, they have brought rich ideas and energy to our community. Yet we also sadly say goodbye as others move too far away or stop attending. When someone leaves and we don’t know why we wonder if we could have done more.
We have done much this year to bring seekers and deepen the relationship with those newer attenders. Finding that the sense of community grows as we work together, we see new faces on our committees, leading to new ideas like trying Dances of Universal Peace [1], restarting our Peace, Social and Earthcare Concerns Committee, and an ongoing series of ‘Quaker Basics [2]’ courses. We also shared some of our spiritual practices at a town-wide interfaith gathering [3] which was enriching for both us and the others.
Sharing our spirituality in Love and Light in and to the wider world has become a shared ministry of in-reach and outreach and extensive witness. We share in the work of justice for the immigrant community, sharing in the Jericho walk during ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement) check-ins and helping at and participating in the 42-mile four-day pilgrimage from Manchester ICE [4] to the Strafford County Jail [5]. We have worked for the repeal of the Death Penalty [6] in NH. We shared with the public an open meeting with the new Principal of the Ramallah Friends School [7] and its work in Palestine, learning of the struggles in that community. Paula Palmer shared with us the pain of Quaker participation in the Indian Boarding Schools [8] of the past and the need to repair that relationship. Sometimes this witness is a struggle between deeply grounded spiritually and being available to do the work. This means that we sometimes feel deeply grounded and other times we balance on the knife’s edge of the conflicts of the world.
In spite of our White Privilege [9] we are starting to see beyond that point of privilege into the pain of people of color. Knowing we, a nearly all White meeting, have only scratched the surface of what lies behind our White Privilege, which our deeply culturally ingrained bias makes so hard to see. Our culturally mandated participation is difficult to disengage from, even though we are becoming aware of the pain it causes. We look for ways to change this paradigm. How can we see beyond and into those biases to reach out to and welcome all people regardless of that which separates us? We strive to be allies and to be welcoming and inclusive and remove the barriers that separate us. The lack of the presence of People Of Color in the Meeting saddens us.
Our celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of two of our members following their transition to a transgender same sex couple was a moment of great joy. We celebrate the love that is all Love and which takes many forms and ways of being. May radical acceptance be the rule and not the exception.
The fruit of much engagement in the work of finding ways to bring community and Earthcare needs together was the installation of new solar panels and the lowering of our carbon footprint [10]. Countless hours went into the fulfillment of the dream of solar power made economically feasible for a non-profit entity. This is a witness we can and will share with the world.
Another example of shared work bringing gifts is the passing on to us of the remaining land of the Appalachian Mountain Teen Project [11]. Years ago, when we accepted the first gift of the land the Meetinghouse would be built on, we included a joint use agreement and a right of first refusal in the event of a laying down of either organization. As their work could no longer be sustained, we accepted the remainder of their land here, to use and steward in the vision Don and Lois Booth.
We close with thankfulness for a blessed year. We have many growing edges that are fed by the Spirit. With faith and the help of our Inner Guide, we hope to continue to find our way.
— approved at Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business in Fifth Month 2019
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Canterbury, New Hampshire 03224-2043 USA
Links:
[1] https://www.dancesofuniversalpeacena.org/
[2] https://www.concordfriendsmeeting.org/Library#QuakerBasics
[3] https://www.facebook.com/events/475495909525686/
[4] https://www.gsa.gov/cdnstatic/NCotton_more.pdf
[5] https://co.strafford.nh.us/jail-home-page
[6] http://nodeathpenaltynh.org/
[7] https://www.rfs.edu.ps/en/page/welcome-from-the-school-director?p=welcome-from-the-school-director
[8] https://www.boulderfriendsmeeting.org/ipc-boarding-school-research/
[9] https://neym.org/rsej/white-privilege-and-supremacy
[10] https://neym.org/earthcare-ministry/news/calculator-project-awaits-you
[11] http://www.teenprojectnh.org/