Quakers in the Rocky Mountain West
Save the dates for the upcoming Intermountain Yearly Meeting – Annual Gathering, Wednesday June 21-Sunday 25, 2023, hybrid (online and in-person) at Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO.
Note that for 2023 there will be no Early Days.
We are excited to welcome plenary speaker Jon Watts as he helps us explore this year’s theme of “Becoming the Quakers the World Needs Today.”
The IMYM Program Working Group seeks interest group proposals for the upcoming 2023 Intermountain Yearly Meeting – Annual Gathering, Wednesday June 21-Sunday 25, 2023, hybrid (online and in-person) at Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO.
Note that for 2023 there will be no Early Days.
We are excited to welcome plenary speaker Jon Watts as he helps us explore this year’s theme of: “Becoming the Quakers the World Needs Today.”
Jon Watts is a Quaker singer-songwriter and video creator. In 2014 Jon founded the YouTube channel QuakerSpeak, a production of Friends Journal. Over the following 6 years, he produced 220 videos and brought 3.5 million new eyes to the Religious Society of Friends. Jon travels extensively, and some consider his singer-songwriter performances to be a “public ministry.” Jon defines ministry as “sharing or acting upon one’s gifts, whether in service to individuals, to the meeting, or to the larger community.” His latest project Thee Quaker seeks to further explore and innovate how we as Quakers communicate and share our faith and experience in today’s world.
Visit Jon’s website at: https://www.jonwatts.com
We are also excited for YOU to share your “public ministry” at the Annual Gathering in the form of interest groups, participatory activities, or short videos for discussion! In recent years, we scheduled 12-14 interest groups, 60-90 minutes each. Historically IMYM Annual Gathering topics have included:
Poetry
Sanctuary
End of Life
Story Telling
Restorative Justice
Participatory Crafts
Couples Enrichment
Quakers in Palestine
Experiment with Light
Dance and Movement
Empire and Resistance
The Power of “Enough”
Nuclear Weapons Policy
Quakers and Social Media
Exploring Quaker Mysticism
Quaker Songbook Singalong
How CoVID can Bring Change
New Mexico Local Food Project
Migration and Immigration Policy
Friends Addressing Climate Change
Acknowledging Native Peoples’ History and Presence
Film and Talk Back (Migration, Monteverde, Race and Identity)
If you would like to submit an Interest Group proposal, please fill out the Interest Group Proposal Form by clicking this link: https://bit.ly/InterestGroupsCall
We have a limited number of time slots available and as such may not be able to accept all submissions. Multi-day workshops cannot be accommodated this year.
Please contact PWG@IMYM.org if you need assistance or have questions.
Interest group proposals will be accepted until Monday, February 20th, 2023.
The Program Working Group looks forward to your submissions!
You will say, Christ saith this, and the apostles say this;but what canst thou say? – George Fox
Pendle Hill -is a Quaker retreat, study, and conference center in Wallingford PA now accepting applications for the Sping Term of their 10 week residential study program – learn more HERE.
Information about other UPCOMING PENDLE HILL EDUCATION PROGRAMS is listed below:
Hope Leans Forward: Braving Your Way Toward Simplicity, Awakening, and Peace
Dec 5, 2022, 7:30-9pm EST
An online First Monday lecture with Valerie Brown exploring themes from her new book from Broadleaf Press. Read more and register here.
New Year’s: Open Heart, Peaceful Mind
Dec 28, 2022 – Jan 1, 2023
An on-campus retreat for rest and reflection with Valerie Brown
At these times of high stress and high anxiety, we need now, more than ever, to exhale deeply and feel fully nourished through resilience-building, heart-opening, and peace-making practices. We can’t do this alone. We need a caring and supportive community and space and time to be nurtured and supported.
This retreat includes periods of silence, reflection, group discussion, creative arts, walks in nature, deep relaxation, and mindful movement. Savor guided meditation and extended periods of silence to deepen discernment about how to live your best self, and return home with tools to create greater peace and hope in your life. Read more and register here.
New Year’s: Music of Vision and Inspiration
Dec 28, 2022 – Jan 1, 2023
An on-campus retreat with Maestro Karl Middleman
Amidst these times of strife, where can we gain inspiration? Where is peace and tranquility to be found? “Music of Vision and Inspiration” offers compelling reasons to be resilient and hopeful. According to reformer and abolitionist Lydia Maria Child, “Music is a prophecy of what life is to be, the rainbow of promise translated into hearing.” This program delivers on Child’s prophecy by exploring composers’ engagement with serious social issues such as war and plague to find edification and upliftment. Read more and register here.
Speaking with Spirit
Jan 1-31, 2023
An Online Poetry Immersive with Jesse White
Tuesdays, January 3, 10, 17, 24, 6:30-8:00pm ET via Zoom. Final Session: Tuesday, January 31, 6:30-8:30pm ET via Zoom. Cap of 30 participants.
As we move through themes connected to our relationships with Divinity in our writing practice, we will journal and explore various forms of poetry. This course will accommodate everyone, from those with little experience to experts at reading, understanding, and crafting poems. We will meet Divinity and each other with the same loving spirit. Read more and register here.
Pendle Hill’s Reading Group (January)
Jan 18, 2023, 6:30-8pm EST
A consideration of Vanessa Julye’s Radical Transformation: Long Overdue for the Religious Society of Friends (PHP #476), hosted by Janaki Spickard Keeler. Read more and register here.
Beyond Diversity 101
Jan 22-26, 2023
An on-campus intensive with Niyonu Spann and Lisa Graustein
Sunday at 6:00 pm through Thursday at 1:00 pm
Beyond Diversity 101 intends healing transformation. This intensive provides frameworks, offers practices, and holds a space for growing skills to de-structure systems of oppression and raise up liberation. Participants are offered pathways to move beyond the guilt-blame cycle toward radical truth-telling, co-responsibility, and activating joy and justice! Read more and register here.
Exploring a Quaker Commitment to Reparative Justice
Jan 28-29, 2023
An online weekend collaboration with Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre.
Explore the spiritual imperative and deep need for Quakers to commit to repairing harms done by Quakers and others through their involvement in slavery and its afterlives. This workshop will examine the patterns of behavior in Quaker meetings that may emerge around anti-racism initiatives and what stops us from taking collective action, and will share an actionable framework for understanding reparations both individually and collectively. Read more and register here.
Our life is love
and peace, and tenderness;
and bearing with one another,
and forgiving one another,
and not laying accusations one against another;
but praying for one another,
and helping one another up with a tender hand…
–Isaac Penington
Greetings
In this newsletter you will find…..
Contents
For more than 350 years the type of worship and the good order and manner of Friends has inspired spiritual growth and moved thousands of people into action. Early Friends were able to articulate and nurture a way forward towards the “reign of God”, peace, harmony, and the good. Many of us who have benefited and grown spiritually by our engagement with the Quaker way believe and hope that something will happen and that folks who have a need for and would benefit from the Quaker way will discover it.
Intermountain Yearly Meeting evolved out of gatherings of Quakers in New Mexico and Arizona in the 1950s. In 1970 these gatherings grew to include Friends from more states and became the Intermountain Friends Fellowship. In 1974 we became the Intermountain Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. The original mission was to foster fellowship, community, and spiritual renewal with minimal organizational structure.
Both our Monthly Meetings & Intermountain Yearly Meeting are all facing challenges, including an aging membership & a shortage of volunteers to perform committee jobs. IMYM’s inability to find sufficient volunteer help to carry out the work of the yearly meeting is an immediate crisis. The recent debacle surrounding the nomination of a new Presiding Clerk demonstrates the dysfunction in our Quaker process.
We have many questions facing us. How can IMYM serve the needs of our members and Monthly Meetings? What level of volunteer and financial support are our Monthly Meetings willing and able to provide? Can we find Friends with the energy, imagination, and prophetic sensibility to help discern a way forward? Does IMYM need to revitalize its original mission or find a new vision and mission? Can we find ways to articulate and communicate the Quaker Way in language that resonates with a broader range of people?
As we seek ways to address these and perhaps other questions, how do we do it? Which questions do we address, what tools and resources do we have, or can we find to help answer the questions? For example, some of the tools from formal “Strategic” planning and Project Management may be helpful to us. Are there Friends within IMYM with experience and expertise in this type of work? Have others either inside IMYM or the broader world of Friends already worked on these questions and thereby be resources for us?
To create a roadmap for planning, the Representatives Committee approved minute:
2022.10.28-1 Intermountain Yearly Meeting (IMYM) will create a Visioning Working Group to develop a process to discern a way forward for envisioning the purpose and mission of IMYM and the structure that will support these. The clerk will appoint this group and facilitate its work. The working group will report to the Representatives committee in February 2023.
I need your help to begin this work. Please contact me if you have passion and energy for discernment around moving IMYM forward.
In summary, how can we “Become the Quakers the World Needs Today?”
Seeking the Light,
Jerry
For more information and to apply:
https://www.imym-old.org/job-opening-administrative-assitant-imym/
PLEASE CIRCULATE THIS INTERNET LINK WIDELY IN MONTHLY MEETING ANNOUNCEMENTS AND PUBLICATIONS. ALSO, THE JOB DESCRIPTION CAN BE DOWNLOADED TO ADOBE.PDF FORMAT, PRINTED AND POSTED ON BULLETIN BOARDS.
Imym.org has been redesigned and updated. Prominent on the opening page is Recent News and Announcements. A goal of the “Recent News and Announcements” section is that if your meeting has unified around a peace and social justice minute, please send it and other news to annoucements@imym.org. Increasing communication among our monthly meetings is important!
IMYM is working to improve how we communicate with and serve the IMYM community. As part of that effort, we are working to improve how we collect, manage, and use our mailing list information.
Unfortunately, much of the contact information now in our mailing list is incomplete or outdated. If now receive email messages and newsletters from IMYM, please click on the “update your preferences” link in the footer of the email message and take a minute to review and update your contact information.
IMYM is committed to protecting your privacy. Our mailing information contains basic contact information to facilitate communication with individuals that have either participated in an IMYM related event or who signed up to be on our mailing list through the imym.org website.
IMYM uses the mailing list primarily to send out newsletters and notices about events sponsored by IMYM and affiliated regional and monthly meetings. As a Friends General Conference (FGC) affiliated Yearly Meeting, IMYM allows FGC very limited use of our mailing list. IMYM does not sell or share our mailing list information for use by other outside organizations. See our privacy policy here for details.
We are also creating an Internal Directory to support communication between Friends who serve on IMYM Committees or work on IMYM sponsored events and projects. This Internal Directory will not be shared with the general public but only with others included in the Directory. Online access to the Internal Directory will be password protected. By default, your information will not be included in the Internal Directory unless you opt into being included by checking a box when you update your mailing list contact information.
Send questions about the IMYM mailing list, the Internal Directory, or our privacy policy to meeting@imym.org.
A call to discernment for all in the IMYM Community who among us have the needed gifts as writers, experts, curious, and interested people:
The Faith & Practice Committee invites you to join a content working group to contribute to the revised Faith & Practice. We seek collaborators to research, share knowledge, interview, discern, edit, or write. We are currently forming working groups to explore our IMYM Community’s light on right relationships within our families and our shared planet.
Whether you have interest in a whole chapter or specific parts of it, we look forward to hearing from you! (If you have already shared your interest, we will be in contact with you soon.) Contact us at faithandpractice@imym.org.
The Representatives Committee approved the following queries. Please forward your meeting’s responses to me at clerk@imym.org on or before Sunday, January 15, 2023.
Both monthly meetings and the yearly meeting are experiencing challenges, for example: aging members and too many volunteer roles. To be relevant and vital we need to be open to change. To provide a context for discerning the change needed, the theme for Intermountain Yearly Meeting for 2023 is “Becoming the Quakers the World Needs.”
2022 Annual Gathering While many of us miss Ghost Ranch as a host site for Annual Gathering, overall, clearly, Fort Lewis College in Durango better meets our needs at this time. There were 175 participants in person including children, and 40 joined the online sessions. To understand what happened at the Annual Gathering check out our well-crafted Epistle from IMYM to Friends everywhere available HERE.
See the text of the minute HERE.
See the text of the minute HERE.