Unami Monthly Meeting
Spiritual State of the Meeting Report – 2023
Unami Friends gathered on the morning of March 17 to consider the spiritual life of our worship community during the past year. Friends expressed appreciation for the queries and guidance offered by the PYM Ministry and Care Committee and settled into silence to consider our responses.
How is spirit moving in your worship, and how have you nurtured deep, spirit led vocal ministry?
In late 2022 our Worship and Ministry Committee presented a recommendation to the meeting that we temporarily suspend our decades long practice of including a brief (5-10 min.) period of ‘twilight’ at the rise of meeting for worship. We had long embraced the practice as an opportunity for Friends to share thoughts or reflections that they may have felt during the worship period but had not felt ready to share vocally. We always invited twilight thoughts with the caution to Friends to avoid engaging in discussion. There was wide acknowledgement that this twilight period had produced deeply moving experiences over many years. The recommendation from the W&M committee to suspend the practice was brought forth with the notion that some Friends may be inclined to withhold their vocal message during worship with the knowledge that they could share during twilight. After careful discernment the meeting approved a 4-month suspension of inviting twilight thoughts at the rise of meeting. In May of 2024 Friends agreed that we had experienced an increase in spirit led vocal ministry during meeting for worship and would therefore discontinue twilight indefinitely.
Another example of how spirit is moving in our meeting is how we have confronted the challenge that was presented when a member of the meeting who was convicted of a Tier 3 sex offense with a minor nine years ago recently indicated their desire to return to meeting in person at Unami. It is hard to express how deeply this issue affects individuals who have themselves been victims or have family or friends who have been victims. For them this person’s presence would undoubtedly induce a return of their trauma and would likely lead to their leaving Unami. At the same time there are Friends who felt deeply devoted to working toward forgiveness and who felt that it is our responsibility to remain open to this person’s redemption and to welcome them back with guidelines. Our Care and Membership committee met on numerous occasions to discern our meeting’s response. Two C&M members met with the individual and offered support on a personal level while discouraging their return to meeting in person. As the discernment process began there were members of the committee who expressed very different perspectives, but all members ultimately came to understand the gravity of the decision for the health of the meeting and found strength and unity through the spirit-led process.
How have you fostered an environment in which members and attenders of all ages and abilities know they are loved, trusted and respected?
Our meeting has been working hard to ensure that families with young children feel welcomed and nurtured through their experiences at Unami. Our Worship and Ministry Committee planned a visit by Melinda Wenner Bradley to help us determine whether Intergenerational Meeting for Worship at Unami would be a good fit. Melinda led a 90 minute discussion on how other meetings have done this and then presented a Faith & Play story to start our first Intergenerational Meeting for Worship with members of all ages present. Members were enthusiastic to schedule IMFW for the first Sunday of each month going forward. Our W&M committee determined that it would work better for our meeting to allow those interested in leading the start of IMFW to develop their own approach to the content that would be presented rather than relying on the Faith & Play program.
Our C&M committee organized our first family game night which was attended by over 40 adults and children. We shared pizza and veggies and then played a charades-type game that included everyone. After that many smaller groups chose games from a broad selection and literally filled the night with fun and games.
As is our tradition we hosted a family picnic day at a local park/playground and it brought great enjoyment for all.
It is also important to note that our W&M committee plans one or two discussions each month to be held prior to MFW on Sundays. The topics of these discussions often originate from ideas presented by other members of the meeting. In this way we encourage and respect participation by all members and attenders.
How have you sought to be neighbors and in relationship with other communities and how have you been changed by these connections.
Unami launched our new website in 2023 and established a Facebook page. These initiatives are intended to promote and extend our engagement with individuals and communities both near and far. We felt success in this when we had 10 people from afar who wanted to attend one of our discussions which sadly needed to be postponed – but the understanding of the reach provided by being online was real.
We are regular contributors to Open Link the local social service organization that provides many needed services and material aid to those in need.
We are members of the Upper Perkiomen Valley Ministerium which affords us the opportunity to remain aware of the activities and initiatives that originate in other local faith communities.
Several of our members have become deeply involved in the Upper Perkiomen Valley Homelessness Coalition and are working toward the establishment of a Code Blue shelter in Pennsburg.
Members have also been involved with the Friends of the Delaware Tribe, an initiative that is encouraging and supporting dialog between members of the Delaware Tribe from Bartlesville OK and people local in our area who are hoping to secure land for the purpose of establishing a resting place for the remains of ancestors who once knew this area as their native home and to acknowledge the land that was taken from them by European colonialists.
Several members of our meeting have summoned support for material aid and letters of love to be sent to families in Ukraine who are known to Unami Friends through prior engagements with our meeting.
How have you been called to address issues of social justice, inclusivity, and difference, both within your meeting and in the wider world?
The first response from those present was – “this is our Raison d’etre.” We are a meeting that is comprised of many individuals who act on their own to advance social justice issues and are members of Unami Meeting in part because they can join with other Friends to make their voices and impact stronger.
Unami Meeting has endorsed and is supporting the Carbon Forest Project which is a model for creating swaths of land specifically and in perpetuity devoted to growing native trees to help capture and retain carbon on Earth.
LGBTQ+ affiliation is strong and resonant.
We maintained our bi-annual practice of convening a discussion in order to submit a reply to FCNL about legislative priorities. We consider this an important responsibility.
Racial diversity is lacking but we are consistently working to change that. Our Peace and Social Concerns committee is very active in working to maintain focus on issues of diversity which includes compiling and publishing a list of Black-owned Businesses in our region.
In response to the query above related to inclusivity our members expressed a concern that has been addressed frequently for many years at Unami – Are we as inclusive as we could be? We gave voice to our sincere introspection of this question – are we welcoming to those who have diverse political, social, and theological perspectives who come to Unami seeking spiritual sustenance? We know that this requires something different from us than when we welcome new people who represent perspectives aligned with our meeting’s general viewpoints. We acknowledge that we must constantly remind ourselves to remain open to continuing revelation – we know not from where it will come – it may be in a form or shape that is not familiar to us.
We also know that as a small meeting that includes many members who have known others in the meeting for many decades it may be very difficult for new attenders to find their way into such a close-knit group. We recognize the need to show our welcoming spirit from the moment that new people cross our threshold.
What advice would we offer to other meetings based on our experiences?
Amongst our suggestions for other meetings would be:
– Encourage your Nominating Committee to directly contact attenders to ask how they might want to participate in committees.
– Consider Intergenerational Meeting for Worship to grow family involvement with the meeting.
How can PYM support our monthly meeting?
– Unami Meeting held a Quakerism 101 series many years ago with Chel Avery. What resources are available now for helping new attenders and others who want to have a fresh experience of learning Quaker history and ideologies?
Respectfully submitted on behalf of Unami Meeting,
Philip Donnelly
Clerk, Worship and Ministry Committee
