by WebPost | Feb 11, 2017 | Peace and Social Concerns, Testimonies
Randee Humphrey, Clerk of Richmond Friends Meeting, joined a number of religious and organizational leaders at a Standing Together press conference, held at Temple Best-El on December 1, 2016, to demonstrate support for those who were increasingly targeted over the previous month and to stand together against divisive and bigoted rhetoric and actions. Along with others, Randee delivered prepared remarks.
The Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities posted short videos of all eight speakers on their Facebook page, here. The videos were posted on December 2. The video of Randee is part 4.
A PDF copy of Randee Humphrey’s remarks: Randee Humphrey remarks.
A PDF copy of the Standing Together program and pledge: Standing Together program.
by WebPost | Jan 12, 2017 | Adult Spiritual Education, Testimonies
This coming Sunday, January 15, 2017 at 9:30 am in the Community Roomplease join us for this important session on Earthcare Witness. This is the session that was cancelled last week due to the snowstorm.
Barb Adams is our Meeting’s representative to Quaker Earthcare Witness, and in this session she will help us explore our intimate relationship with the earth. Through interactive experiences, personal discussion, and sharing, we will examine our emotional connection to our planet and the larger cosmos. Barb will guide us in using our own experiences of nature to understand the vital importance of living within the earth’s carrying capacity. Barb will bring some essence of Joanna Macy’s teachings from her presentations at this year’s Friends Conference on Religion and Psychology.
by WebPost | Jun 22, 2016 | Baltimore Yearly Meeting, Testimonies
(From the Baltimore Yearly Meeting Working Group on Racism)
“For far too long, society has treated minority groups from a deficit analysis, focusing on what they lack rather than what they add. Institutions have reacted to racial tensions instead of proactively creating inclusive spaces. We have taught people how to adjust to an unacceptable status quo instead of sharing the legitimate means to challenge injustice. By not taking the time to listen to people, we have let efficiency trump listening and allowed limited diversity to supplant real equity at the table, at the lectern, and in the boardroom….
“We all have good will, but we must move beyond good will. Universities can help improve a sense of belonging by setting clear goals, fostering inclusive environments, and challenging negative stereotypes about certain groups. We have to create structures that ensure participation of minority groups in decisions. We need to model and teach the competencies of deep listening and respectful dialogue across differences. We must also determine how to work cooperatively to transform deeply embedded practices that have created barriers to belonging.”
Excerpts from an article by Julio Frenk, “Why We Need a ‘Scholarship of Belonging’,” published in the May 20, 2016, Chronicle of Higher Education. Julio Frank is president of the University of Miami and former dean of Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
This column is prepared by the BYM Working Group on Racism (WGR) and sent to the designated liaisons at each Monthly and Preparative Meeting for publication in their newsletter or other means of dissemination. The WGR meets most months on the third Saturday from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm. Locations vary to allow access to more Friends. If you would like to attend, on a regular or a drop-in basis, contact clerk David Etheridge, david.etheridge@verizon.net.
by WebPost | Apr 20, 2013 | Testimonies
“Testimony” is used by Friends to describe actions and attitudes based on the realization that there is “that of God in everyone,” that all human beings are equal, and that all life is interconnected. It is affirmative but may lead to action that runs counter to practices common in society at large. Shunning conventional dogma, Quakers look to the testimonies to reflect our beliefs, wherever individual Friends may be on their personal spiritual journeys. Many use the acronym “SPICE” as a reminder of our testimonies.
Simplicity
This testimony means seeking to focus our attention on what is essential and eternal, without distraction by the transitory or the trivial. Plain and honest speech is an expression of simplicity. Respect for God’s creation and, therefore, concern for the environment and the right use of the world’s resources is another obvious expression of this testimony. Extravagance, wastefulness and artificially stimulated wants is seen to be a fundamental violation of the testimony of simplicity.
Peace
This leads Quakers to avoid war and violence, while also encouraging efforts to ease suffering of victims of war on all sides. It means efforts to be or to seek a reconciling force between peoples and nations in conflict. It means a constant search for nonviolent means of conflict resolution. It means a continuing search for peace and social justice through personal and group nonviolent techniques for mediation and social change.
Integrity
Integrity (truth) is a complex concept in Quakerism, involving honest, reliable truthfulness, honor, uprightness. Sometimes the word is used more generally for the conviction and way of life and arise from worship. One example: The concern for truthfulness led early Friends to refuse to take oaths, which they considered a sign that there were different levels of truthfulness. They believed that truth was constant and that we should tell the truth all the time.
Community
Since there is “that of God in everyone, all human beings are brothers and sisters, one human family, no matter how great our differences of experience, of culture, of age, of understanding. Friends have found that the Light may illuminate a gathered group as well as an individual heart and bind the group together in a community of faith, conscience and experience.
Equality
If God is within and directly accessible to all persons, then all persons are to be equally valued. This has been manifest in many ways, from opposition to slavery and the death penalty to our early incorporation of same-sex marriage within meeting.
Some Friends also include other testimonies, such as Unity, Compassion, Justice, Truth, and Stewardship, all consistent with our shared understanding and experience in silent worship.
by WebPost | Dec 18, 2008 | History - Quaker, Peace and Social Concerns, Testimonies, Writings - RFM
Friends affirm a Biblical basis for the peace testimony. A Prince of Peace was prophesied who would bring in a Peaceable Kingdom. “Thou shalt not kill” is one of the Ten Commandments. Jesus taught and lived peacemaking and love of enemy. George Fox similarly counseled his followers “to live in the life and power which does away with the occasion for war.”
The material below was prepared earlier by Mary Fran Hughes-McIntyre and is excerpted from her History of Richmond Friends Meeting, 1795-1962, available in the Meeting Library. (or here:THE HISTORY OF RICHMOND FRIENDS MEETING 1795-1962)
Living Out the Peace Testimony
Friends affirm a Biblical basis for the peace testimony. A Prince of Peace was prophesied who would bring in a Peaceable Kingdom. “Thou shalt not kill” is one of the Ten Commandments. Jesus taught and lived peacemaking and love of enemy. George Fox similarly counseled his followers “to live in the life and power which does away with the occasion for war.”
Early Richmond Friends were firm pacifists, disowning from membership those who bore arms. Doubtless knowing Friends from Cedar Creek Meeting who had firmly refused to fight during the Revolutionary War, Friends in Richmond affirmed a pacifist stand in the War of 1812. Friends suffered payment of muster fines rather than fight. As part of Virginia Yearly Meeting, they concurred with the following statement:
While we view with sorrow the awful progress of war spreading desolation and Misery in the human family, let us endeavor to guard our Minds from mixing in the politics of the times, which will insensibly leven into the spirit, and will lead if not to the practice at least to the promotion of that destructive evil.
During the War between the States, some Richmond Friends chose to fight, and some were conscientious objectors. Cedar Creek Monthly Meeting (of which Richmond Friends became a part in 1841) accepted the resignation of three persons who chose to fight, but “earnestly hopes that the day is not distant when those with many others aroused by the awful juncture of war now presented to our view may be enabled to renounce principles which lead to such results and enlist under the banner of the Prince of Peace.”
In the period from 1914-1920 the Peace Committee of Richmond Friends meeting was particularly active workingfor peace and reconciliation in the period of the Great War. Peace literature was distributed in the schools, and prizes were offered in 1916 for the best essays on “Why We Do Not Need a Large Increase in our Army and Navy”: $15 first prize to a boys’ school, $10 first prize to a girls’ school. (Editor: Friends have not been free from societal sexism and racism.) Money was donated for Belgian relief in 1914, for English and Armenian relief in 1916, for French orphans in 1917, and for feeding the German children in 1920. Letters were sent to Senators and Representatives in 1916 urging opposition to the so-called “preparedness” for war. The Friends Peace Committee ran two advertisements in the newspapers, including the following:
PEACE OR WAR?
To our fellow-citizens:
In this time of crisis when our country’s highest good is the common aim of all, we voice this deep conviction of patriotic duty.
The causes for which men fight—liberty, justice, and peace—are noble and Christian causes. But war itself violates law, justice, liberty and peace, the very ends for which alone its tragic costs might be justified…
In World War II, Friends were again active in peace-making. Member Hoge Ricks met at homes in 1940 with young Friends to think through their stands on the peace testimony in anticipation of their being faced with conscription. After the war opposition to conscription continued, with visits to Congressional Representative, and a firm stand against the Selective Service Act of 1948.
A change in Friends’ custom of disowning those who bear arms in evident in 1943. A member wrote saying that he had joined the Armed Forces as a result of personal conviction, and that he doubted the Meeting wanted his membership. The Meeting decided to stay in touch with him, since “to encourage him would do more that to ostracize him.”
(Richmond) Friends were proud of having several members, who were conscientious objectors, serving in Civilian Public Service Camps. Their peace testimony was affirmed.
Thus, Richmond Friends stood consistently against war, and dealt in increasingly lenient ways with Friends who chose to fight.
* * * *
(Editor: During World War II, some 12,000 men who were conscientious objectors to war, served in non-military occupations across the U.S. Under the leadership of Mennonite, Quaker and Church of the Brethren agencies, they were engaged in mental health care and medical experiments, in forestry and diary farming, and in other important civic projects.)
