Greetings from the 340th Annual Sessions of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. These Annual Sessions took place in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic that led Friends to meet via Zoom videoconferencing technology. This pandemic has exacerbated the very racial injustice and societal inequities that have hindered our spiritual growth within the PYM. [Read more…] about Yearly Meeting Epistle — 340th Annual Sessions, August 2, 2020
To all Friends everywhere:
Greetings from a gathering of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Young Adult Friends, together from many different homes for Annual Sessions, July 29–August 2, 2020. Many of us gathered from the lands around Philadelphia, on the traditional homelands of the Lenni Lenape. We humbly acknowledge that many or all of us are settlers here, and live on stolen lands. [Read more…] about Young Adult Friends Epistle from Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Annual Sessions 2020
Friday night, July 31, before an audience of 160 people, Naomi Madaras made the case for faith to choose paths that embraced conflict, anger, protest and justice. A Master of Divinity candidate at Union Theological Seminary in New York, Naomi’s clinical training has been in hospitals and nursing homes in New York where she provides spiritual care to patients, families, and staff. [Read more…] about The Fire of the Light: Abolition, Conflict, and Being Known in Quaker Community
In a soaring, spoken word poetry program held on Thursday evening July 30th, Zenaida Peterson (they/them), energized a multi-generational audience of 110+ Friends with their poems, a song, worship sharing and poetry writing. [Read more…] about Meeting for Worship with Attention to Poems
Photo: Young Friends (high school group) together in program on Thursday, July 3
This year, we start our Sessions days with all-ages worship and All Together Time on Zoom. In the last part of the hour of worship, Youth Programs staff transition us from waiting worship to All Together Time. This is when we do something all together in a worship space that uses our spirits and bodies and connects us with one another. When we gather for Annual Sessions, we are an all-ages spiritual community, even in virtual spaces. [Read more…] about We Are . . . PYM Youth!
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting hasn’t always offered the chance to participate in affinity spaces as part of Annual Sessions, but has increasingly found they meet important needs of our community. They add a unique opportunity to yearly meeting gatherings for fellowship and meaningful conversations
[Read more…] about What Are Affinity Spaces: Q&A
Photograph – A View of Pendle Hill from the 2012 Quaker Pilgrimage
Following worship, a Land Acknowledgment by S. Boone O’ Scheyichbi, and a brief meeting for business, PYM’s keynote speaker, Marcelle Martin, welcomed 144 Friends of all ages to an evening of spiritual programming on Wednesday, July 29th.
She began her presentation by inviting the assembled community into a deeper relationship with the Faith. She acknowledged an apprehension in leading a virtual session with so many numbers of PYM Friends. However, by looking at the evening differently—through the perspective that God wants to reach us—this relaxes the heart. She noted that for her and for gathered Friends, Spirit can have a way of opening the self to a keen sense of possibility and connection—all through God’s love and power. [Read more…] about Friends Then and Now, Connecting to the Source of Spirit
340th Annual Sessions of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting
Held by Zoom video conference
Worship: Acting clerk Jonathan Rhoads introduced himself and we settled into worship. Boone acknowledged that the land on which we are meeting is recognized as the homeland of the Lenni Lenape people.
Introductions: When worship ended, Olivia Brangan had us create a word cloud with our locations and explained all the tech matters. Clerk asked clerks group, elders, pastoral care team members, visitors and first time attenders to introduce themselves. He then called on Melissa Rycroft, clerk of Nominating Council.
Epistle Committee: Melissa presented the following names to make up this year’s epistle committee: Anthony Stover, Germantown Monthly Meeting, Philadelphia Quarter; Yelena Forrester, Chester Monthly Meeting, Chester Quarter; and Joan Broadfield, Chester Monthly Meeting, Chester Quarter. We were in unity with this list.
Minutes to this point were accepted in unity.
Clerk introduced our speaker for this evening, Marcelle Martin
It has become PYM’s practice to begin Annual and Continuing Sessions—as well as plenary spaces, or sessions/spaces where we gather as a yearly meeting community/body—with a land acknowledgement. During this virtual Annual Sessions, we have extended that commitment over the runway of events to Sessions by offering a different land acknowledgement prayer before each Plenary and meeting for Business. [Read more…] about PYM Land Acknowledgment and Why it Matters to Friends
Some drawings from the “Build a Team” activity during the PYM Staff Huddle on Monday, July 27.
Each year as we get close to the end of July, staff makes a pilgrimage to the event site for that year’s Annual Sessions.
This is the moment when everything becomes real. We pace out how our five days together will feel, think about tech support, negotiate better cafeteria food or ice cream parties, and plan the welcome tables and our most essential events. We investigate the places and spaces that hold and gather family and youth, or support the Young Adult Friends (YAFs), and nurture us in plenary. [Read more…] about We Can Do This! Virtual Sessions Begins
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