Minutes for Meeting for Business May 15, 2011
Posted: under Minutes from Meeting for Business.
Bennington Friends Meeting
Minutes for Meeting for Worship on the Occasion of Business
Senior Citizens Service Center, Bennington, Vermont
May 15, 2011
…when you and I speak we must be willing to test our truth against the truth received by others.
Here is where Friends can contribute to community by refusing to follow the religious individualism of our times. Behind these new movements lies the assumption that truth is totally subjective – one truth for you, another for me, and never mind the difference. But when we understand truth that way then the truth we are given will have no chance to transform society or ourselves. If we affirm community we must risk that our partial versions of truth will be enlarged or even made uncouth by the light given to others….”
Parker Palmer, 1980, cited from The Spirit of Quakers, Geoffrey Durham, p. 189.
Present were Timmy Bullock, Juliet Wright, Joseph Tracy, Arnold Ricks, Beth Cheadle and Ehsan Noori.
Out of the silence the clerk read the above quotation from Parker Palmer The Spirit of Quakers, Geoffrey Durham.
2011-31 Meeting met with Ehsan Noori and were very impressed with his commitment to Afghanistan and were persuaded that it would be good to contribute to his education at Oakwood Friends School. We will contribute $500.00, which will be drawn as follows: $200.00 from Friendly Grants, $100.00 from Sufferings and $200.00 from Special Appeals. An additional $500.00 will be contributed with the understanding that the Special Appeals budget line will be increased by that figure.
When the Friends Meeting contribution is introduced to the Interfaith Council Meeting we will mention the $1000.00 that the meeting has contributed to the $9,000.00 need.
2011-32 Meeting for Business encourages Joseph Tracy to continue to work on his powerful letter on global climate change. We as a meeting appreciate its passion and urgency and we also ask ourselves as a meeting how we as meeting can address this call and bring this urgent claim to the larger community, for example, the Interfaith Council. Bain Davis will ask Interfaith Council to invite Joseph to present at the September Interfaith Council Meeting. We would aim by the June monthly meeting to consider practical applications.
2011-33 Meeting approves Ministry and Counsel’s approach to planning for retreat. Meeting would add the following questions: “What is the general population searching for now? How do Friends life and testimonies address those needs?”
2011-34 The meeting is comfortable with deferring the State of the Society to the July post potluck if any Friends attend the Quarterly Meeting on June 4 and 5.
May 8, 2011
Meeting of Ministry and Counsel
Present: Timmy Bullock, Priscilla Tracy Co-Clerks, Auberta Galusha and Beth Cheadle
Pastoral concerns were discussed. In the course of that discussion, which spoke to what we saw as the depth and strengths of our worship and discussions while also recognizing how few of us there are to share those powers, we developed minute 10-11. We also briefly discussed Ehsan Noori’s letter that will be brought to Meeting for Business on May 15.
10.11 Ministry and Counsel posed the following queries as a possible scaffolding for our annual retreat: “Why are we here? Why aren’t they here? Why aren’t they drawn to what is on offer – to what we have to offer? Why does Friends draw (mostly) highly educated, fairly financially stable folks?”
11.11 Ministry and Counsel recommends that we as a Meeting endorse Joseph Tracy’s letter and ask that it be given consideration at the next Quarterly Meeting and be published in the Northwest Quarterly newsletter. We also asked ourselves whether it might be something to publish in Friends Journal.
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May 18 2011