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An all-age Quaker Community has gathered in Friends House and online. [Zoom] has enabled wider participation, but it can be harder to be aware of everyone in our sessions. Our time has included programmes for children and young people, as well as Junior Yearly Meeting. We have welcomed representatives from other churches and faiths, and Friends from overseas. We have celebrated the 400th anniversary of the birth of George Fox.
The first three days of Yearly Meeting (YM) 2024 had ended with something of a cliffhanger. Proposals from the Group to Review Yearly Meeting, Yearly Meeting Gatherings and Meeting for Sufferings (GRYYM) had been considered, but those gathered had not yet found unity around them. The question of whether to replace Meeting for Sufferings (MfS) with a ‘continuing Yearly Meeting’ was therefore still up in the air on Monday morning as Session five began in worship.
In the opening worship of Session six, one Friend paraphrased Quaker faith & practice 3.06: ‘When we unite with a minute offered by our clerks we are not suddenly expressing absolute agreement, there are still minority views, but what we are expressing is confidence and faith in our tried and tested methods of seeking God’s will.’
Outside of Yearly Meeting sessions, Friends had opportunities to worship together throughout the five days – early in the morning, and bringing the day’s schedule to a close in the evening.
Session seven was held to deal with some of the practical issues resulting from the Meeting’s approval of the proposals for a ‘continuing Yearly Meeting’.
First, one Friend offered some emotional ministry. ‘Liberation does not look like anything that we [already] know,’ she said. ‘As Quakers we are, apparently, invited to be open to transformation. I’m struggling to see in my experience of this Yearly Meeting where that is… I feel that antiracism, which is the piece that speaks with me, does not get a lot of space.’
In the opening ten-minute worship of Session eight, the closing session, Friends seemed quick to speak. Arriving late to the morning session, one Quaker said he had been reminded of the words of Robert Barclay: ‘When I came into the silent assemblies of God’s people, I felt a secret power among them, which touched my heart; and as I gave way unto it I found the evil weakening in me and the good raised up.’
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Written by and for Friends on the bench
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