Minutes of July 18, 2021
Posted: under Minutes from Meeting for Business.
Bennington Friends Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business
July 18, 2021
Present: Timmy Bullock, clerk, Auberta Galusha, Juliet Wright, Alison Levie, Priscilla Tracy, Kerby Lovallo, Scamp (Kirby’s dog), and Michael Wajda.
We gathered in the Senior Center for meeting for worship with attention to business for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic. The meeting opened with a period of worship during which the clerk read the following quote from The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt:
Anyone who values truth should stop worshipping reason.
The recording clerk read the minutes of our April 18, 2021 meeting for business for information.
2021-12. The meeting affirmed its earlier informal decision to contribute $80.00 toward the two-month cost of a porta potty for the weeks we worshipped in the Hiland Hall Farmhouse gardens. Our Treasurer has already transmitted the funds.
2021-13. Priscilla Tracy reported for Ministry and Counsel. The report about Michael Wajda’s call to support corporate yielding to the mystical experience in the Society of Friends given to Ministry and Counsel was read. Michael described this call as something that he sees as ongoing. Details and plans are not set but are emerging as he discerns with those who have agreed to work with him. The meeting expressed an interest in participating in the discernment. The Meeting has agreed to provide at least one person to attend an initial meeting of the discerning group. A practice retreat with Bennington Meeting around Michael’s leading might help the Meeting understand and participate more deeply as well as to help guide future movement. The question of whether Bennington Meeting would be able to function as a pass-through for funds if needed was discussed. The Meeting is willing to consider that form of support.
The meeting affirmed and is grateful for Michael’s leading. We appreciate the importance of the sense of call that undergirds it. We are willing to continue to work with him as his needs unfold.
2021-14. The meeting heard a suggestion from Juliet Wright to focus our next meeting for learning around an article entited “Living as Children of the Light,” by Kelly Kellum. It was published in the Winter 2021issue of Quaker Life and includes a number of queries that could be used for worship sharing.
The meeting supports using the article and referred the details to the small committee that has been planning meeting for learning. They will include Juliet in their considerations. Alison encouraged us to “listen beyond translation” to spiritual words that are not our own. Can we listen deeply enough to feel the Truth in the language that is used by the person speaking? Meeting for learning will pick up again on the fourth Sunday in August, which is August 22. Juliet will bring additional copies of the article to meeting next week for distribution.
2021-15. Michael Wajda reported on the activities of the Interfaith Council. The group has been focused on three major issues this year: racism in Vermont, support for the homeless, and safety along the Walloomsac River Walkway. The Council focused its Martin Luther King commemoration on the theme “End White Silence.” They sponsored free weekday hot beverages every afternoon in front of St Peters Church from December through March. They also have been organizing once a month walks along the Walloomsac Pathway to help raise awareness of the safety concerns and to improve the use of this beautiful asset in the community. Michael has been personally involved in all three of these activities.
2021-16. We have been asked if we want to help again with one or more of the Sunday Community Dinners held weekly at the Second Congregational Church. There is always a need for providing some of the food. This winter they plan to begin allowing inside dining as well as takeout, if the pandemic subsides sufficiently in Bennington. One date Michael learned that is completely open is December 12. We will look carefully at providing significant support for the December meal, including serving as well as providing food. We make a final decision at our next meeting for business.
The meeting closed with a period of worship.
Michael Wajda
Recording Clerk
Comments (0)
Jul 18 2021