Caroline Anderson(This entry was originally posted on the Friends Committee for National Legislation Intern Blog, Of Peace and Politics, and with Caroline's permission is also posted below.)

 

At our staff meeting last Monday folks were understandably upset about some of the shenanigans Congress has gotten into lately. Some of the elder staffers were waxing nostalgic for protest movements set to folk tunes, and I could see visions of Bob Dylan and marches on Washington dancing in their heads.

I didn't want to seem flip about the need to oppose current disastrous policies promoted by Congress and the President, but I also wanted to say (in the most respectful way possible) - snap out of it!

How can we get the message to Congress that what they're doing isn't right? By using the methods of the past? Perhaps. But it's going to be awfully hard to find people who are willing to do it.

Who has the time to protest? Not professionals who are the responsible heads of organizations and companies. They can't be spared for enough time to trek to Washington, or devote hours and hours to protesting outside the district offices of their members of Congress. They simply don't have the time. It is instead the youth that must protest, must take the time to park themselves in front of offices and government buildings, and then follow up that demonstration of opinions by actually voting.

But for the large part, my generation doesn't seem to have the will to take time out of their lives and protest. Why? The country is in an even worse mess than we were in 1968, mired in a war and a slumping economy at the same time. And yet we sit at our desks, or go to class, not taking advantage of our right to assemble and protest this awfulness.

Is it that we don't have opinions on these issues?

No, but we have been taught over the past eight years (when most of us were learning about government and first exercising our right to vote) that what we think doesn't matter. That when we want something to change, it won't. That even when we protest, nothing will change. I was on one of the 6 buses that traveled down to Washington from Bryn Mawr in the spring of 2004 to join the March for Women's Lives. That march seemed full of hope and promise, and I felt that we were going to be listened to, to make a difference. And yet, in the years that followed, almost everything we were protesting against that day happened. It gets a girl a bit discouraged.

I remember that after the 2004 election one of the college freshwomen I was advising reported to me that she reacted to the results of the elections in this manner:

"Caroline, first I cried, then I threw up, and then I cried some more."

This is not the reaction of someone who is apathetic toward the issues. What it is is the reaction of someone who feels helpless, who feels that all she can do is cry and get sick, because her vote and her actions won't make any difference.

As we moved out of college and into the real world, the economy tanked. I think this pushed us even more firmly into offices and safe jobs and away from mass marches. If we turned our backs on employment and steady income to protest or organize we would fall behind, not find another job, be consumed by the tidal waves of the failing economy. The closest I ever came to organizing was canvassing for New Jersey PIRG and the Sierra Club, a job which I took and threw all my energy into for the paycheck as much as for the satisfaction of protecting the environment. We also know that we're pretty much on our own for retirement. We can't count on Social Security or a pension to protect us there.

We also feel deeply angry that the generation who caused global warming is not doing anything to stop it (We mean you President Bush, the House of Representative, and the Senate), leaving us with a problem that threatens our and our children's future.

Ultimately, we're mad as hell, but afraid to do anything about it. When the environment is failing, the military gets more money than education or healthcare and is still over extended, and there's little hope for the economy, the first instinct is to protect ourselves. And that's what we're doing.

Clearly I'm not presenting any solutions here, and my parents' might think that I'm whining about my situation. But darn it. How do you expect young people to work up the will to protest when we are mired in a malaise that seemingly has no end? Also, we can't afford the gas to come to Washington and the national train system is too slow and expensive to do the job.

Query for Friends: How do you witness or protest in your life?

Hey Everyone,
I just wanted to let Friends know about an awesome new pamphlet that the Youth Ministries Committee was involved in publishing. It’s called Coming into Friendship as a Gift: the Journey of a Young Adult Friend, and it’s written by a YAF from Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting and Association. It’s a beautiful account of her journey to Quakerism, and everyone who helped her along the way. She also acknowledges that many YAFs have not had experiences like her own, and that we need to work together as a religious society to create a truly intergenerational, whole spiritual community. At the end of the pamphlet, she gives a number of different examples and suggestions of how monthly meetings can support younger Friends, and how we can all engage with one another. It also includes queries and a resource list. I highly recommend it!

From the back cover, “By naming the gifts she has received from her meetings, Christina Van Regenmorter offers a resource both for younger Friends and for meetings striving to welcome, support and nurture the young people in their midst. Christina notes:

It can be tempting to look at the absence of young faces in our meeting houses and blame it on the ‘digital age’ or on young people needing ‘something more lively.’ However, I would like to hold up the possibility that people coming into Quaker meetings are not looking for a certain prevailing skin phenotype or age presence, but for the Spirit to be evident in the lives of the Friends who are there. I believe that they, like me, ache to have a spiritual community where they feel truly seen, truly held, and deeply challenged.”

Deborah Shaw, the Assistant Director of Friends Center and Campus Ministry at Guilford College writes “If Friends desire their meeting to be a spiritual community where love is the first motion and a place where young Friends feel welcomed, nurtured and supported, prayerful engagement with this text would be a fruitful place to begin.”

Angelina Conti, a Philadelphia YAF says of this book, "As a relatively active young adult Friend I am often asked where all the other young adult Friends are -- what meetings can do to be open, welcoming faith communities where teenagers and young adults feel seen, nurtured, and needed. I am so thankful for this book, its author, and the Youth Ministries Committee for making this story and its accompanying queries and suggestions available. Christina Van Regenmorter's experience is as teachable as it is inspiring, and provides a powerful model for meetings under the weight of youth concerns (while also offering several good tools for young adults themselves). Our meetings are not whole when they lack the presence and ministry of young people, and this pamphlet offers a powerful place to begin to work towards wholeness."

Check it out at http://www.quakerbooks.org/coming_into_friendship_as_a_gift.php

Happy reading! In peace, Emily

YAF Conference 2008: Taken by Ruth Murray

 

For a bigger shot, go to http://www.flickr.com/groups/quakeryouth/pool/

 

Hey Friends, This is the awesome skit that Maya Wright wrote for the YAF Conference. Author’s Note: Anyone is welcome and encouraged to re-perform this skit, with or without alterations. Please tell me about it if you do! Directions for downloading the skit. Click on the highlighted blue word "attachment" below. It will take you to another page. On that page the attachment will be listed as Quakerism in 10 pts Skit.doc. Just click the document and it should open in Word. Let me know if you have any problems. emi...@fgcquaker.org Peace to all, Emily

Young Adult Friends’ Conference

Living as Friends, Listening Within

Richmond, Indiana

May 23-26, 2008

Dear Friends Everywhere,

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” - Romans 12:2 NRSV

In worship, in small groups, in conversation, we have been transformed. Friends affirmed their love for one another again and again. The act of coming together physically was a first step to enacting loving unity. We are hungry for connection and growth in grace with one another, and the healing of our divisions. We heard sermons and joined voices in song. Friends had opportunities to experience and participate in unfamiliar forms of worship. We felt the support of seasoned Friends who provided pastoral care and the many Friends that held the gathering in prayer.

Formal small groups gathered every day for checking in and more personal discussion of the challenges and joys of the conference. Small informal groups treasured free time where we found the space to address other concerns. These informal discussions created a foundation for the depth at which we arrived in worship. Earlham School of Religion professors, students, and alumni led workshops, while conference participants held interest groups on various topics. On Sunday, participants could choose between programmed (First Friends), semi-programmed (West Richmond) or unprogrammed (Clear Creek) worship in the community.

In Spirit-led worship we found that Friends spoke to the necessity of continuing in conversations about our similarities and differences. Friends were asked before the conference to consider the cultural norms of others present, and whether certain choices may impact our ability to find common ground. We began exploring scripture together in workshops, Bible study and programmed worship. This invited new challenges and opportunities to engage with texts important to the experience of Friends. We were reminded by Mark Walker that living in unity as a Religious Society of Friends will make us more effective in our work in the world. The discernment of corporate and individual leadings is one of the obligations we have to one another as a Society. We hear the need to acknowledge diverse leadings, such as Gospel, traveling, vocal, and eldering ministries. Recording these gifts is one way of making individuals and meetings accountable to leadings.

Friends heard a call to find ways to share the good news that has been revealed to us at this gathering. We strive to carry this light with us when we return to our home meetings and churches. We have invited one another to our respective yearly gatherings and to explore ways of opening our spiritual homes. May we share with the world the light and love that was a presence at this gathering.

 

In peace,

The YAF Conference Participants

 

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO DOWNLOAD THE QUAKER HISTORY SKIT, CLICK HERE!

 

FOR PHOTOS FROM THE CONFERENCE, CLICK THE FLICKR PHOTO ICON ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE SCREEN 

Bikes Rule!What is the EarthQuaker bike trip?
It's a just under 300-mile bicycle trip from Pendle Hill to Johnstown, PA in time for Friends General Conference Gathering-- although folks don't have to go to the gathering if they go on the bike trip.

What's the vision behind it, why do it?
Well, the primary reason is that, as far as I can tell, Quakers have had a hugely disproportionate effect on the course of history, and while we haven't been shy about being involved in the political system, or using money if we acquire it, the primary reason I think we've been effective is that we have been patterns and examples. So if we travel sustainably to Gathering by pedal power, a rolling faith community witnessing to others that we meet along the way-- that seems to me like a very important exercise for modern Friends. That's the primary vision. It also happens to, incidentally, involve having a lot of fun. I don't think that all faithfulness is about the cross. I think that some faithfulness is about the state fair.

When you meet with people along the way, what's the message that you'll be carrying?
We're going to visit three monthly meetings in the Caln Quarter, and we're going to sit down and talk with them about earthcare. Part of what I'm hoping to do is draw them out and find out how lively those concerns are in the meeting. So it's not just a question of us going there and telling people how it is, but a question of having a dialogue. Then we're going to do service projects with the meetings, and also service projects in the communities. Those might be working at organic farms or working in soup kitchens. That's one of the reasons it's an eight-day trip, when it's only 280 miles. We have two days when we won't pedal at all, and some half days of service as well.

How are you going to build faith community together?
Part of it is the work, part of it is the hardship of traveling together and having tolerance with one another, sleeping on the floor of the meetinghouse together. But also waking up in the morning and having meeting for worship, having yoga together, and just being in community. I'm confident that the community part will be what's richest about it, and I think we're going to bring leaven to the loaf of FGC gathering, because the forty of us-- forty, that's what we're aiming for-- we're going to come already knit together. It's an intergenerational trip, and I'm really expecting to have everybody there.

Is there a concern for earthcare in Quakerism historically?
Oh yeah. That was one of the interesting things to me when I first took it up. Woolman is the consummate earth Quaker. He goes to England and he's concerned about the abuse of the horses and the abuse of the post-boys. There's no distinction-- it's just cruelty. In a statement of faith pretty early on in the journal, he says he realized that to profess to love and God and to act with cruelty to the least of His creatures was a violation of faithfulness. He just gets it. William Penn, too. If you read Fruits of Solitude, he says some amazing stuff. He has that great quote,

It would go a great way to caution and direct People in their Use of the World, that they were better studied and known in the Creation of it. For how could Man find the Confidence to abuse it, while they should see the Great Creator stare them in the Face, in all and every part thereof?

If you look, the core is there all the way back. Fox walked up Pendle Hill. He didn't go into Canterbury Cathedral! For me it's there all the way through, everywhere.

In a world that is trying to figure out how to deal with issues of earthcare and sustainability, what is the specifically Quaker voice, if there is one?
Part of my sadness is that I don't know that we are running out front on earthcare. For instance, when I started talking to Quakers about earthcare in 1998, most Quakers still had a strong division between social justice issues and earthcare. The attitude seemed to be, "Yeah, that's fine kid, we'll pick up litter after we've abolished war." Now I think we are starting to get it.

We have stood for the notion that the abolition of war is possible. That's a completely crazy idea. There's never not been war. Most people consider war inevitable. With the environment, people are saying, "Well, how can we damage the environment less?" I think when Quakers get it together, what we may stand for is, it should be possible to have a mutually beneficial human-earth relationship. Not just, we're not doing as much damage, but straight up, people are good for the planet. That's a quantum leap from where anybody is. We're all at damage control. And damage control just means we're slowing down how long it will take us to kill it.

Anything else about the bike trip or Quaker earthcare concerns?
Please come out. It's going to be a good time. It's going to be physically intense, but not impossible by any means. We'll be an intergenerational bunch of folks. We're going to camp out, sleep on floors, cook food together, and clean up together. My plan is to swim in a river-- every day, if possible. It's going to be live. And there will be a lot of room for people to make it what they want it to be, because that's community.

For more information, please visit http://www.fgcquaker.org/gathering/2008/eqbt

By Cara Curtis

Cara Curtis
Linda asks, “What does it mean to live from the center?” She is sitting on a log at a mid-summer firecircle, twilight descending as we settle into familiar silence. This is a query that isn’t particularly new to me—in one form or another, it’s something I’ve been challenged to answer my whole life as an unprogrammed Quaker. In cinderblock meetinghouses, at “Big Meeting” in Friends schools, dozing on friends’ shoulders at conferences, and finally this evening at Quaker camp: what does it mean to live from the center? How do we let our lives speak? What does it mean to walk cheerfully and to answer God? I think vaguely, look up at the tree canopy under a darkening sky, and come to some of the same conclusions as usual—this is comforting, but not all that illuminating. Little do I know, or ever expect, that it will take flying across the country and meeting Friends with an entirely different experience of Quakerism for me to find new, more well-rounded truth in this familiar query.

 

Fast-forward six months. I am sitting in seat 9F of Southwest Airlines flight 1852, the lights of Portland, Oregon growing steadily brighter below me. Rapidly, linearly, and unavoidably at this point, I’m being delivered to a town where, by my own slightly overexcited design, I will spend the next nine days in intervisitation with Friends whose spiritual language is quite different from mine, whose worship is programmed and whose practice it is to actively spread the good news of their faith (the word for all of this, charged as it is, is “Evangelical”). In my emails with my hosts, they have been more friendly and welcoming than I could’ve asked for—certainly more than I could see myself being if some impetuous college student had invited herself into my community for a week. And yet incessantly, recklessly, and, I think, humanly, I have a strong impulse in this moment to hijack the plane and drive it back to my warm, safe, familiar east coast bubble. Or at least curl up into a ball and feign insanity.

Newberg Friends Church* * * *
I didn’t curl up into a ball, in the end—the authorities would’ve been brought in and it could’ve gotten messy. So that meant that I landed in Portland and was met by an extremely kind man who drove me back to his community in Newberg, 45 minutes southwest of the airport. We chatted agreeably the whole way, Bruce intermixing sentences about his life as a Christ-centered Friend with reflections on how he thinks John Edwards is an important voice for the poor. During my time in Newberg I stayed with the Gathercoals, a family in one of the local churches: father, mother, energetic five-year-old, and 18-year-old college student. Roy and Kathleen worked tirelessly despite Roy’s significant and painful health concerns to help me make connections with Friends in the community (Newberg, a town of 25,000, is the home of six Friends churches, the Friendsview retirement community, George Fox University, and the headquarters of Northwest Yearly Meeting—affiliated with Evangelical Friends International). Rarely have I come across people who better live out Jesus’ call to be, regardless of geographic proximity, unconditional and loving neighbors.

 

Even so, on the surface level at least, the religious life of Friends in Newberg felt viscerally different from my safe bubble that continually asks what it means to live from the center. Most noticeably, Friends in Newberg are almost uniformly Christ-centered: as disciples who strive to live out his message, Christ is a part of their daily lives (one Friend was puzzled when I noted that Friends where I come from were more into the social justice piece of Quakerism than the Christ-centered aspect: “how can you separate the two?” he asked, “that’s at the foundation of what Christ taught”). This one main difference translates into a host of smaller manifestations that band together to make Evangelical Friends’ practice feel very different from unprogrammed Friends’. Direct vocal prayer and Christ language are common before meals and in worship, which is mostly programmed. Men and women tend to to get married in their early 20s, even while still in college. And in addition to regular conference-type events that would feel familiar to an unprogrammed Friend, youth in Northwest Yearly Meeting go to Bible Quiz Meets where they compete in game show-style battles to showcase their prowess in scriptural recitation (they also get to spend the weekend with their friends). Coincidentally one of these meets was happening the weekend I was in Newberg, so I actually got to watch. (“Do you have Bible Quizzing back east?” a Friend from Idaho asked me innocently. I smiled weakly at the thought of my meeting’s tie-dye clad youth getting up early to practice reciting Colossians and Ephesians with anything near the facility that these kids did.)

 

So there it was, the community presented to me and in so many ways different from the Friends tradition that I know. Most viscerally jarring, I think, was seeing people put their arms in the air during musical worship—not too many did this, but a fair number of people did at some of the worship services I attended. At some deep level this struck my prejudiced, stereotyping liberal core (“gah! It’s just as I’d imagined!”). After a while, though, the practice grew on me a little bit and I was able to see it differently, a genuine idiosyncrasy of faith—not any weirder, say, than when we in unprogrammed meetings indulge in the endearing “silent clap” or look like we’re sleeping when we pray. And the further I went, too, the more I found practical differences like these receding under the swell of genuine unity on the most foundational tenants of our shared faith. The language of “that of God in everyone” might not have been the same (evangelical Friends were more likely to reflect on Fox’s revelation that “even Christ Jesus” could speak personally to one’s condition), but the experienced belief was still there, as central and fundamental as it is with unprogrammed Friends. I don’t want to gloss over things and make it sound like we’re exactly the same—we’re not, and some of the differences are difficult and painful to deal with. But differences also spice things up sometimes, giving us new avenues to find similar truths.

 

Between Newberg, OR and Haverford, PA, we also all seem to find both joy and struggle in the surrounding communities that inform our meetings and churches—be they made up of religion-suspicious east coast intellectuals or members of the evangelical mainstream. The symmetry that is present in this, actually, is striking: both in Newberg and in the mid-Atlantic where I’m from, Friends are working hard to love and answer our most radical convictions while also leaning towards the center of where Quakerism stands today. A story told to me by Northwest’s superintendent Colin Saxton resonated particularly: several years ago, he said, some Friends had felt a call to add “Evangelical” to Northwest Yearly Meeting’s name. The community had sat with the issue and struggled, but ultimately decided not to change the name for fear of isolating themselves, however symbolically, from dialogues with other Friends—I was reminded acutely of Baltimore Yearly Meeting’s struggle with Friends United Meeting’s hiring policies around homosexuality, capped by BYM’s ultimate decision to continue membership and dialogue with FUM.

 

Later on in my stay, I talked to Quaker students at George Fox University about my experience at Haverford College, where I’m studying now. Both they and I are in a significant minority by being Quaker (this is the norm at Friends schools) and as with the story of the yearly meetings, were pulled closer together by that shared faith. Specifically with them, I talked about the efforts of Haverford’s Quaker students to help the community remember that Quakerism is a religion and not simply a social justice mission. The George Fox students, it seemed to me, were doing the same thing in a very different context: the majority of their student body belongs to mainstream evangelical and fundamentalist churches, so that Quaker students are often in the position of educating their peers on what it means, beyond the peace testimony, to be Quaker. Their experiences and mine, rather than rigidly parallel as I had expected, really ended up presenting themselves as a symmetrical pattern of outreach from a center in Quakerism.

 

So after all of that, what does it really mean to live from the center? I had this query in mind again as my stay in Newberg neared its end, framed in this beautiful and confusing symmetry, wondering if this odd equilibrium could somehow be a map through the differences in our practice and help us pull towards the center as witnesses of the same Quaker truths.

 

And then Roy Gathercoal shook everything up. The afternoon of my last full day in Newberg, I stood by my host’s bedside as we talked about my visit. After listening politely to my symmetry paradigm, Roy announced that he thought reaching across the theological-cultural divide wasn’t actually all that important, that there were more crucial parts of Quakerism that needed to be brought out and held up. Roy envisioned a community composed of people whose sole purpose in life was seeking Light and Truth, a community of Friends that wouldn’t really pay attention to different branches or histories or conflicts within the faith. Answering that of God would be the most important thing to people in this community, a conviction that would lead them to take compassionate risks: whether legally, by sheltering unfairly-treated immigrants, financially by taking off work to protest treatment of U.S. detainees, or spiritually by constantly re-evaluating the source of their faith. But this is unrealistic, I protested—it’s not sustainable! It’s not practical! It would be really, really impossibly hard!

 

And it’s true: as much as my protests came from the same fear of risk that Roy was proposing to eliminate, living so radically from the center would be difficult—but perhaps that’s the point. Finding the center is not as easy as looking back to the Quaker testimonies, nor is it as simple as figuring out a way to compromise on theological or political dichotomies. To live from the center, to faithfully remain servants of the God within ourselves and everyone around us, is a constant struggle—and one we can engage in together. I’m grateful to Friends in Newberg for so many things, but especially for helping me find new truth in this old, familiar query.

I’d be glad to hear anyone’s thoughts, reactions, objections, or questions about my trip to Newberg and my reflections on it—I’m also happy to talk to people about the more day-to-day activities that I did, or offer help to anyone who is thinking of doing an intervisitation. ccur...@haverford.edu.

We've started a new blog at www.friendsofcolor.blogspot.com and I would love to get other young Friends around the country to contribute. I can add anyone who wants to write about issues of more diversity and inclusivity (regarding race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, ability, age, etc.) I won't control what the contributors say, as long as it falls under the guidelines of being "compassionate, critical and constructive" in regards to these issues. Please speak your truth and help it add to the whole Truth.

This blog was started to call attention that some voices are not being heard or acknowledged enough within the RSoF. I myself felt that my opinions were being brushed aside, so this is my peaceful way of rocking the boat.

I really feel that this is important because I see Friends as the gold standard for activism. Now I want to see them be the gold standard for community. If Friends, who say they believe there is the Light of God within everyone, have testimonies for Peace and Community and Service, cannot exemplify people coming together in programmed or unprogrammed worship, then I wonder what RSoF will represent to an increasingly activist, multicultural American society that also works for justice and peace.

How many young Friends have learned how to be friends with people of different races, ethnicities, abilities, genders, sexual orientations and ages? I'd venture to say that a lot of you have learned to see the Light of God in everyone, not just through activism but in your daily lives through friendship. Our generation has crossed a lot of barriers, and I feel strongly that it's our turn to educate others about the often subtle prejudices our elders instilled in us that we've overcome.

In something that I insist is more than just coincidence, the RSoF remains a largely a white European-American society and its numbers are dropping. Yet in the world outside of Friends, our generation is mobilizing like never before. Young people are politicizing and celebrating a society that is trans-racial and trans-gender. In other words, people that acknowledge race and culture and gender bias and strive to be above it. People who want the higher road.

It's important to translate the good stuff within RSoF into modern day language that is welcoming and accessible. Young people still yearn for a spiritual experience, but don't know where to turn when a lot of religious institutions still condemn other religions and certain lifestyles. I think RSoF has a history that will appeal to a lot of young people, and a theology that is pretty open to what young people will bring in.

This is not an issue of proselytizing. This is an issue of participation.

To participate in this discussion: email aeyoung82 AT yahoo DOT com and request to be added to the contributor list.

PHILADELPHIA (February 20, 2008) - The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker humanitarian service organization, has nominated Western Sahara human rights activist Aminatou Haidar for the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize for her nonviolent leadership in the Sahrawi people’s struggle for self-determination. AFSC received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947 in recognition of Quakers’ humanitarian service during and after the two world wars and as a past laureate is entitled to nominate others for the prize.

Western Sahara is often known as “Africa’s last colony.” Despite international recognition of their right to self-determination, the Sahrawi people have lived under Moroccan occupation since 1976. Haidar has dedicated her life to achieving self-determination for its citizens. In 1987, during a peaceful demonstration in Morocco, Haidar was arrested and detained in secret for four years. During her detention, she was tortured, beaten, and endured physical abuse that caused irreversible health problems. Haidar never received an explanation for her arrest and detention. She has been jailed twice since then.

Haidar is a divorced mother of two and lives in the town of El Aaiun in Western Sahara. In between her two prison sentences, Haidar earned a degree in modern literature.

“We have few models of those who can turn from their own suffering to forgive their oppressors and work for a state of reconciliation and equality,” says AFSC’s General Secretary, Mary Ellen McNish. “Aminatou Haidar is a model of how ordinary working mothers and fathers can rise above their circumstances in their devotion to a cause greater than their own survival.”

Haidar has been nominated for and won various awards for her fight for social justice. In 2005, she was nominated for the Sakharov Prize and in 2006 won the Juan Maria Bandres Prize given by the Spanish Association for Refugees and Human Rights. Last year Haidar won the Silver Rose Award in Sweden for her achievements in work for social justice.

AFSC is a Quaker organization working for peace, justice, and human dignity. With national headquarters in Philadelphia and offices in 22 countries and 42 U.S. locations, AFSC conducts economic development, peace building, and human rights programs that touch tens of thousands of lives each year.

# # #
The American Friends Service Committee is a Quaker organization that includes people of various faiths who are committed to social justice, peace and humanitarian service. Its work is based on the belief in the worth of every person and faith in the power of love to overcome violence and injustice.

IYM AYF Retreat

By Madelyn George

It was just a coincidence that the first annual Tsunami retreat was held around the same time that a real live one hit Southeast Asia. The title was invented through the reasoning that Quakers start out having tremors, followed by quakes, but then skip straight to retreats. It is only logical that adult young friends should have "tsunamis". We ask that you use this terminology in your own yearly meeting if you are led to do so.

The second annual gathering of Adult Young Friends of Illinois Yearly Meeting was held January 11th to the 13th at Evanston Friends Meeting. Twelve of us were in attendance this year compared to eight people in 2007. At this rate there should be about 180 of us by the year 2020. We trickled into Evanston on Friday and spent the entire night playing games. On Saturday we woke up bright and early to the sound of the new fire alarm system. Apparently making pancakes isn't as easy as we thought. Then it was off to the aquarium in Chicago where we thoroughly enjoyed the free admission, and I particularly liked the giant sea turtle. From there we headed back to the meetinghouse for our business meeting, followed by dinner.

That night in a workshop led by Greg Woods we watched the documentary "Why We Fight", which looks at the history of US involvement in foreign wars. The discussion that followed was an intense one for many of us, and lasted until after midnight. I think most of us emerged from it having learned a lot about ourselves as we cope with complex feelings about our country's politics. Before the night was over some of us participated in the production of a film concerning maggot-like aliens that bore a striking resemblance to Quakers in sleeping bags.

We attended meeting for worship with Evanston Friends the next morning, and then said our goodbyes. At this point I guess it's some kind of tradition to say something funny about how there is no crying in baseball, but I don't really get that joke. Sorry Friends. But seriously, I'm really excited to report on the strength of IYM's group of young adults. At this stage in our lives it can be hard to keep track of each other, but it's so important that we do because otherwise certain alien videos would not be spread throughout the world via youtube. The date and location of next winter's Tsunami should be announced this summer. I hope to see you all there! With love, Madelyn

In photo: Casey Kashnig, Jon Wixom, Caryn, Madelyn George, Chris Earp, Greg Woods, Jesse Joe Snyder, Choz Howard-McKinney (in the exact middle), Carrie Seltzer, Brianna Murtha-Zee, Meg Nelson, & Lucas Young.