Pattern matching: Beth Allen responds to Yearly Meeting Gathering with a familiar prayer

‘We often still think about forgiveness at a nursery level.’

'Real forgiveness means change, mental effort, movement away from our old way of behaving and thinking.' | Photo: by Christopher Stites on Unsplash

We give ourselves such problems when we live with other people! They are different from us – so awkward! We disagree with them, but quietly, so as not to upset anyone. In this year’s Epistle from Yearly Meeting Gathering we reminded ourselves that ‘we need to tenderly explore disagreement… and avoid a false peace’. We also committed ourselves to thought and action in three huge areas of disagreement: our enmeshment in racism, our attitudes to our gender diversity and action on climate justice.

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