Category Archives: Hard-Core Quaker

Another Day, Another Split Attempt– The New Target: North Carolina YM

I suppose it was just too good to last.

In August, North Carolina Yearly Meeting (FUM, or NCYM) considered and rejected a plan to split the yearly meeting.

Instead, it decided to reorganize, offering two sub-associations for meeting to move to, within a revised and shrunken Yearly meeting. NCYM would become a kind of umbrella holding company, mainly concerned with managing endowment funds and real estate.

This decision was challenged at the November Representative session: the pastor of New Hope Friends called for reviving the split plan. But there was no interest in, or discussion of that idea. (A week later, New Hope decided to leave NCYM.)

That same day, plans for revising and managing the reorganized finances & YM structure were approved.

So far, so good. The foul atmosphere of heresy-hunting and attempted purges which had choked the body for two years seemed to have dissipated.

But . . . .

My Dark Reflection: Guest Post by Judith Dancy

It may have happened while Emma was sleeping so soundly last night, for surely she would have sounded the alarm as the Abyss, with its tank loaded with the fuel of Despair crept through the crack under the front door… the one I keep meaning to put another rubber strip on to keep out the cold wind. I’ve been meaning to do that for years, and now I wish it were only cold wind that crept through.

It’s not that it’s a gray and rainy day. It’s not the death of another precious friend. It’s not the pain that seems unwilling to leave. It’s a sensation I don’t remember ever experiencing ,even in the midst of long periods of deep depression.

I want to apologize, I think, for not recognizing the death of hope. Here I’ve been reassuring you that this is just a birthing process and that something beautiful will be born…not soon enough for some of us, but good will come of what seems like no-good. I’m pretty sure that is not true.

Despair may be the only sensible response to the new reality issued in by the election. I’m not afraid, certainly not for myself, but after more than a month of fooling myself and maybe you, I’ve joined the other side.

No. I am a little bit afraid, and I need you to hold me in the Light. I’m am not afraid of the new reality, but of my hopelessness.

Is North Carolina Yearly Meeting Giving Peace A Chance?

But as we have seen, NCYM is not the same. In August, when it rejected the split-in-two plan, the YM agreed to “reorganize” around two distinct sub-associations, with the NCYM structure as a kind of skeletal holding company managing common assets and property and not much more. So the other significant item presented to the body on Saturday was a tentative list of meetings under the two new provisional headings of the “Authority” group and the “Autonomy” group.

There were approximately a dozen meetings in the “Autonomy” grouping, and 37 in the “Authority” section. (I say “approximately,” because there are a few meetings which don’t wish to be put in either group, and their status is still to be worked out.)

The “Authority” group will function under the pending revision of NCYM’s Faith & Practice, which had inserted into it a year ago a provision making the yearly meeting supreme over the meetings.

The “autonomy” group members will decide what Faith & Practice they want, if any, but most seem inclined to go with the yearly meeting document minus the “supreme authority” insertion.
Within each group, funds, committees & programs will be handled separately .

How will these groups function?

North Carolina Yearly Meeting: Zombie Apocalypse Coming?

Already the impact on the YM of all this struggle is evident, particularly in the latest news release from the YM office. For instance, staff slots are opening up: the staff at Quaker Lake Camp now needs to be replaced.

Further, the YM interim Superintendent, Don Farlow, is stepping down, and the notice for his successor is for another interim, and on a part-time basis. Further, the job description indicates as a major duty, to “Assist in the implementation of NCYM Procedural Plan for Reorganization”; and that as a part-timer, the new hire will “Work no more than 3 days per week with no speaking engagements on Sunday mornings (except to address the reorganization of NCYM).” Might this language give a hint about the YM leadership’s attitude toward the zombie split plan?

And not least, there’s the budget. A proposed 2017 budget is also online now, and the total for next year is $431,624, down by $53000 from the 2016 total of $484,654, a cut of 12 per cent. And the 2017 total will also be subject to further shrinkage if Hopewell and any other meetings jump ship.

Staff turnover, budget cuts, potential membership decline: all the signs of what we call the Blockbuster Video Effect are in evidence at NCYM. Confronting a zombie split plan will only add to the pressure. Sad.

Northwest Update: The Expulsion Plot Thickens

When it comes to West Hills Friends in Portland, Oregon, expelled from its association for becoming LGBT welcoming, , the main positions are pretty well laid out:

— If the expulsion is overturned (West Hills can stay), then some are clear NWYM is headed for hell in a handbasket, and they may head for the door.

— If West Hills is indeed forced out, then some others are sure the YM will be barreling toward Hades in a Prius, and they may look for an exit.

— If there’s no decision?

(This last is the only possibility that’s much interesting to me. That’s because there have been numerous times in Quaker history when yearly meetings have been in conflict, and decided to stay together and live/work them through. Taking such a path in NWYM might also provoke some attrition, but would be both novel and for many, uplifting — even Christian.)