Epistle from Britain Yearly Meeting
Held at Friends House, London on May 25-28 2012
To all Friends everywhere, We send loving greetings to Friends everywhere from a sunny London, where about a thousand Friends have gathered, including 150 children and young people. A message from the sixth World Conference of Friends in Kenya in April inspired our consideration of what it means to be a Quaker today. It was helpful to hear from Friends throughout the world that the life of community can be most present in difference. When we are inclusive there is enough love for everyone.
In 2011, British Friends made a major commitment to become a low-carbon, sustainable community. The need for change is urgent; our recently formed sustainability group reported a positive start from Friends and looks forward to hearing from other meetings. In this commitment, we are encouraged to find a positive place of hope between smugness and despair. This is our work, and it is our responsibility to provide the necessary resources.
Not all our work can be done quickly. We were reminded that it took many years for the North Atlantic slave trade to be abolished, and our Swarthmore lecturer described a way of working at the Quaker United Nations Office in Geneva that requires patience, perseverance and the willingness to engage, sometimes for decades, with a single topic, such as child soldiers, or the imprisonment of women.
In our consideration of economic justice and sustainability, led in part by younger Friends, we again felt a tension between the urgent need for change and the time it takes to allow a better way to emerge. We need both our passion and a clearer understanding of economics. Let us dream, but let us also hear the pain, hunger and despair of those who have no choice. Let us stand in the Light, pray for the emergence of a ‘good economy’, and practise our opposition to the current system: in our lives and in the deeply spiritual process of putting our money in better places. We need to find ourselves in a place that feels right. Right relations with others will sustain us through what may be a long journey with an unknown outcome.
We have heard many suggestions about how to build on the work done by groups such as the New Economics Foundation, the energy of the Occupy movement and the positive aspects of behavioural economics, but we need more columns in the ledger to express the contribution of peace, respect and joy. Any target needs to be infused by love. At the centre of our worshipping community is the Meeting for Worship. As we commit to its discipline, we enable the power of love to guide our action in the world. For it is what we do that is important. We ask ourselves and our meetings: What is our ministry? What are we ready to give up? Or take up?
‘Quakers listen.’ We have tried to listen to each other this weekend, sometimes in unfamiliar ways. A guided meditation enabled us to create ‘Postcards from the Future’, in which we shared visions of a just, sustainable future, and some first steps to get there. Lofty aspirations were tempered by the more realistic dreams of younger Friends! Electronic communication during a series of workshops was another innovation, enabling the wider participation of Friends.
We have begun to explore what it means to be a Quaker today, a process that we hope to continue in our local meetings as well as in future Yearly Meetings.
If we are to face these issues aright we are called to re-examine our whole way of life. At the personal level we must ask ourselves how we spend our time, and how we use the talents God has given us… As members of the Society of Friends we must ask the same question about the resources of our Society. (Quaker faith & practice 24:51)
Signed in and on behalf of Britain Yearly Meeting
LIS BURCH, Clerk
To view pictures from throughout Britain Yearly Meeting 2012, please download the PDF.
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