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The General Board of Friends United Meeting met last week for their October sessions. For the first time, the African and North American/Caribbean Regions met for a highly unusual international hybrid session. Board members gathered in person in the chapel of Friends Theological College in Kaimosi, Kenya, and at the FUM office in Richmond, Indiana. Other members joined from their homes online. Given that our presiding clerk, Sarah Lookabill, was ill, the session was co-clerked by Hastings Ozwara and Scott Wagoner, FUM’s Assistant Clerks. Each region conducted its business and addressed matters related to its region during times when it was inconvenient for the other region to fully participate. On Friday, the two regions met together to do shared work and receive reports related to the entire FUM community. The Recording Clerks for both regions will collaborate to produce consolidated minutes of these unusual sessions.
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Editor’s note: During this election season, when our political life in the United States seems especially contentious, Friends United Meeting has invited a variety of Friends to share their thoughts on how to navigate as a Quaker through these divided times. Our eighth installment is by Kat Griffith, of Northern Yearly Meeting. Beating Megaphones Into Ear Trumpets*—Being a Friend in This Election CycleOn my bike ride today I passed by a big new sign that said “Trump 2024 F*** Your Feelings.” I took a picture before continuing on my way—a nudge to think about the query, “What does it mean to be a Friend in this election cycle?”The thing is, I represent this guy on the county board. And I find that serving in elected office has changed both my vision and my options for Friendly political activism.
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Friends United Meeting sends Living Letters trips to join in the celebration and to experience the life and witness of Cuban Quakerism. We hope to encourage Friends, and to worship with Friends in Cuba, and to receive encouragement from Friends on the island. This one-week intervisitation trip is gentle enough for older Friends and is focused on sharing in worship and fellowship.
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This Sunday’s lessons remind us that God’s nature is justice. In that sense, God has already lifted up the lowly. God has already brought down the powerful from their thrones. Signs of God’s activity are everywhere, as in Isaiah’s vision of the transformation of the land. “Say to those who are of a fearful heart, ‘Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God!’” Yet the vision is incomplete. We are like farmers—we must learn to wait.
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I often tell people that marriage is a lot like living in a war zone. I lived in the middle of a war zone once, in Southern Sudan, and experienced weeks days and weeks of normal, boring, everyday life—interspersed with moments of pure terror.
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In 1656, two otherwise obscure Friends, Margaret Killam and Barbara Patison, addressed a “Warning from the Lord to the Teachers and People” of the city of Plymouth, England. The Lord apparently found much to fault in Plymouth, and Killam and Patison asked some pointed questions. Among them were these:
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Throughout our history, the people known as Friends (or Quakers) keep rediscovering an essential and enduring truth: There is one who speaks to our most basic needs and most significant hopes—Christ Jesus the Lord. Both individually and communally, we are learning to know and follow the Voice that guides us in the way we should go. Together, we seek to understand and obey that truth which sets us free. As a people, we share in the experience of that powerful life which makes all things new. Maybe you are searching for an authentic and transforming faith and community to call home—if so, come in and join us as we seek to know and follow Christ.
Friends United Meeting commits itself to energize and equip Friends through the power of the Holy Spirit to gather people into fellowships where Jesus Christ is known, loved, and obeyed as Teacher and Lord.
