Bennington Friends Meeting
Meeting for Worship on the Occasion of Business
Held at the Senior Citizens Service Center,
Bennington, Vermont
July 20, 2014
Present were Timmy Bullock, clerk, Juliet Wright, Auberta Galusha, Bain Davis, Eliza Navias-Bell, Arnold Ricks and Dorothea Izzo
Our life is love, and peace, and tenderness, bearing one with another, and forgiving one another, and not laying accusations one against another, but praying for another, and helping one another with a tender hand.
Isaac Penington, 1667
Out of the silence the clerk read the above quotation from Isaac Penington.
The recording clerk read the minutes for meeting for business for June 15, 2014, which were approved.
2014-22 Timmy Bullock reported on behalf of Ministry and Counsel. The minutes are attached.
2014-23 Meeting for business discussed Ministry and Counsel’s suggestion for retreat topics. The questions raised that we are asking Ministry and Counsel to consider as a framework are: What is a concern you have as an individual? And an untapped potential? How can meeting support your concerns and interest and help you make your gifts more manifest? How do we manifest our gifts both as individuals and collectively to the outside world? Part of the process would be for attenders to write descriptions of others’ gifts that would be given to them privately.
2014-24 Meeting for business deferred any decision on asking questions at the end of meeting for worship. We will consider this topic in the future.
2014-25 Meeting for business determined that the practice of putting out quotations will not be continued, at least for the foreseeable future.
After a few moments of silent worship, the meeting adjourned.
Timmy Bullock, clerk
Juliet Wright, recording clerk
Minutes for Ministry and Counsel
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Present were Timmy Bullock, clerk ex-officio, Priscilla Tracy, Auberta Galusha, and Juliet Wright
Pastoral concerns discussed
14-9 Ministry and Counsel encourages meeting for business to reflect on the questions raised in the Ceresole discussion. What is our legacy as Friends, both individually collectively? What is our collective and individual call to action? We see these questions as helping to determine the focus of a retreat.
14-10 Ministry and Counsel recommends reviving the practice at the close of worship that helps us learn a little bit more about each other. Questions should be focused enough to illicit stories about a particular period in a person’s life.