Letters - 12 June 2020
From a mission of equality to our 'central command'
Mission of equality
After Sunday’s Zoom Meeting for Worship, a Friend was in tears because she felt helpless about the situation in the United States after the recent tragic death in Minneapolis.
‘The mission of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is to secure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights in order to eliminate race-based discrimination and ensure the health and wellbeing of all persons.’
Please can I use your pages to encourage people to visit this American organisation’s website? It is easy to make a donation.
Bill McMellon
Revitalise representation
This letter was written before Meeting for Sufferings took place, see page 6 for full report.
In June Meeting for Sufferings meets electronically. The meeting lasts for two hours, allowing an average of just over ten minutes for each agenda item. With such constraints, it might seem self-indulgent if Meeting for Sufferings spends time focused on itself. However, there is an urgent need to do so.
Meeting for Sufferings, our representative body, needs to be revitalised to fulfil its roles of questioning, consulting Area Meetings, discerning the central work, seeking accountability, and guiding the life of the Society of Friends. Time now focusing on the depth and breadth of this role will be time well spent.
I hope all representatives and alternates will recognise this responsibility and commit themselves, and all of us, to fulfilling it. Meeting only four times a year in the next triennium, reduced from five, is not consonant with the importance of the role, and I hope the proposal will be set aside.
Christine Cannon
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