Like the yearly meeting quilt, Annual Sessions knits together Friends everywhere. Saturday August 1st began with worship and All Together Time where we all made a haiku poem. This was followed by Youth Programs, then a lunch break. The afternoon featured a Bible study class with Chris Mohr and George Schaefer. At 2:00 the PYM community convened 102 Friends for a meeting for business. It included a review of the budget, and nominations for the positions of Clerk, rising clerk and other roles. Minutes follow: [Read more…] about Minutes of PYM 340th Annual Sessions Meeting for Business of August 1, 2020
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting
We Are . . . PYM Youth!
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!
What Are Affinity Spaces: Q&A
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
Friends Then and Now, Connecting to the Source of Spirit
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
PYM Land Acknowledgment and Why it Matters to Friends
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
We Can Do This! Virtual Sessions Begins
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
Spiritual Formation Retreat Launches our 340th Annual Sessions
At 6:45 Tuesday evening our 340th Annual Sessions launched with a Spiritual Formation Retreat guided by Marcelle Martin.
There were 76 participants of all ages. Marcelle grounded the retreat by connecting the lived experience of early Friends and their longing for God with our spiritual feelings and practices today. [Read more…] about Spiritual Formation Retreat Launches our 340th Annual Sessions
Poet in Residence to Share 2020 Annual Sessions Poem Thursday
The 2020 PYM Annual Sessions poem has been created and it’s fabulous! Make sure you are there Thursday (from 7-9 PM) when our Poet in Residence, Zenaida Peterson (they/them), presents it as part of their Keynote presentation. [Read more…] about Poet in Residence to Share 2020 Annual Sessions Poem Thursday
Report on Budget Plenary – A Steady, Familiar Budget
At 7:30 PM on July 21, participants gathered for a Plenary Session on PYM’s FY 2021 budget. Alternate Clerk Jonathan Rhoads opened the meeting with worship. S. Boone O’Scheyichbi offered a land acknowledgement that named the four historical Lenape Nations and spoke to “inclusion in a place of truth with diversity and equity.” General Secretary Christie Duncan-Tessmer briefed the 34 participants on technology. [Read more…] about Report on Budget Plenary – A Steady, Familiar Budget
Willits Book Trust Participates in A Community Reading of Frederick Douglass’ July 4 Speech
As a representative of the Willits Book Trust Committee, a grantmaking group of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Lisa Stewart Garrison, a member of Greenwich Friends Meeting in Salem Quarter, was invited to take part in a community reading of Frederick Douglass’ “4th of July Speech” sponsored by the National Park Service and the Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.
