@Martin — Well, thee has only four years’ more experience here than I do. Perhaps the reasons are not so apparent to those of us from “away”… either geographically or spiritually.

I came to Intermountain Friends Gathering at a very good time… The meeting I attended was populated by folks from the east (or Britain), and the meeting that had met in my undergrad advisor’s living room outgrew that, then outgrew (within about 2–5 years) the modest building north of town — now expanded.

Older (40–50 year old) Friends not only took people to lunch, they invited them home for lunch — after which we spent afternoons alternately asking questions, going for hikes, or taking care of the kids — sometimes all three at once. That pattern was continued in Canadian Yearly Meeting.

@Liz — Thanks for the reminder… Stephen Crisp’s Journal and Letters of admonition always pull me back to the realization that early Friends also had challenges of discipline.

@Christine: I didn’t realize that this phenomenon was such a longstanding Philadelphia tradition. It is outright ageism. And it’s short-sighted.

Nepotism is the rule rather than the exception when it comes to asking younger Friends t server. Almost everyone under 40 who I saw involved in FGC committees was the child of a well-known Friend. That’s an incredibly narrow pool and doesn’t provide much diversity of experience (especially important when we consider outreach). Whenever some youngster came on the scene, Julie would sarcastically ask “who’s kid is it?” While this sounds like cynicism, the fact that I could give her an answer her nine times out of ten made it just reality.

In my twenty-four years of involvement with Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, I have been contacted by Nominations once–about five years ago. No one could adequately explain what the committee actually did. It’s kind of sad that so many involved Friends are just put the work into these layers of bureaucracy. PYM is tiny by the standards of religious institutions. Surely we can be engaged in more direct work.

Funny, but every now and then, I come across some writing by an early Friend… or writing by a contemporary Friend about early Friends… and a number of them point to very similar questions:

Is our faith’s connection to the Divine as strong as it once was?

Why are there so many Friends who think that “good ideas” [aka “notions”] are the same as Divinely inspired leadings?

Why does it seem as if only a few individual Friends are doing so much of the work?

In fact, when I feel down-and-out about the current state of the Religious Society of Friends, I often start reading some of the earlier Friends, and I take heart: while it may be true that the more things change, the more they stay the same, but this time, it’s MY turn to either be part of God’s message or not.

Quaker blogs and the friendships that have emerged from them have helped me stay faithful and loving, despite the flaws that exist within our modern-day faith community.

Blessings,
Liz Opp, The Good Raised Up

The younger (40–50 something — now 60–70 something) Friends with whom I began to serve aren’t around any more. Some are active in spiritual endeavors outside PYM — or felt dismissed when they suggested greater spiritual grounding to the point where they left Friends.

A couple of years ago, I felt I had a calling to the nominating committee… I know quite a few younger Friends, and began to suggest names. The only Friend who eventually was invited to serve on a standing committee was a well known Friend’s grandson… For others, “do they have enough experience the the complexities of PYM?” Perhaps we might have a simpler structure…? Other Yearly Meetings seem to do well enough without the numbers of committees and working groups and staff. (I yearn for the days of Intermountain Friends Gathering, which I encountered when I first came to Friends in my 20s.)

I have stepped down from committee service for a time. I can encourage folks in other ways to better effect, I hope… That, too is in God’s hands. I may come back on to nominating committee after a year or so, but at the moment, it does not seem rightly ordered.

And I really like the Sufi image of the seeds all coming up at once.

Hi Stephen: I had meant to send you an email as I posted this but it ended up being one of those 5‑minute good intentions that never quite happened!… The original version of this was about twice as long and fleshed out the “glimpses of issues that I planned to address afterwards in my talk.” Maybe I’ll send it along.