By Mariellen O. Gilpin
It was late afternoon on a hot August day at Illinois Yearly Meeting, probably in 1975. In what we expected to be the last business session, a minute was introduced encouraging the President to grant amnesty for the Vietnam War draft protesters who had emigrated to Canada. The presiding clerk asked if there were objections. Something about that minute distressed me deeply, but I didn't know what. (I'm "not political," and this was a political minute.) I waited for someone to object. No one did. If that minute was going to be stopped, I had to speak. I spoke, and 200 Friends rustled in their seats to look at me. The recording clerk, ordinarily a sweet soul with a saving sense of humor, glared.
I was asked why I objected. I didn't know why. I just knew I didn't like that minute. I stammered out something; I'm told I managed to say that I was not opposed to a minute; the problem was that minute. I agreed to be on a committee to draft another minute. Other Friends volunteered. We would meet after dinner. The recording clerk gave me a good eldering during dinner. I have seldom been more miserable.
The committee met in one of the unused rooms in the dorm; we sat on the bare metal springs of the cots. We discussed a bit. I felt that the right minute only needed for us to listen to the Spirit. I called for a silence. I listened with aching intensity. One young man spoke in the silence, pleading for the minute. A few minutes later, he spoke again. And a few minutes later yet again. I boiled over: "Will you shut up and let the Spirit move!" The poor young man wilted. Silence fell at last. A woman began writing purposefully. Then she read what she had written. "That's it," I said. We changed a word here, added a thought there. She would read the proposed minute at a special business session before Sunday worship.
I went to apologize to the young man, but he was nowhere to be found. I was told he wasn't familiar with Friends ways, and had come down from Chicago expressly to shepherd that minute through IYM. He left immediately after the dorm meeting. I have never seen him since; I hope and pray he didn't give up on the Society of Friends because I yelled at him.
Next morning we read the new minute, and there was a collective intake of breath. One after another, Friends stood to say they'd been hot and tired and hungry the day before. They had been uneasy with the old minute, but had wanted a minute. They'd thought, "This one will do." Now they saw how much better the new minute was, and they were grateful for the process we'd been through.
It was not a stellar performance on my part. I wasn't anything I'd like people to remember me for—not clear-seeing, articulate, creative, or even couth. My part was merely obstructive; someone else did the creative part. I hope I'm never asked to serve in just that way again. But I've been told the process we went through has shaped some IYM Friends' vision of the power of Quaker business process.
Mariellen O. Gilpin, an editor of What Canst Thou Say? quarterly newsletter on Quakers, mystical experience, and contemplative prayer, is a member of Urbana-Champaign (ill.) Meeting.
It was late afternoon on a hot August day at Illinois Yearly Meeting, probably in 1975. In what we expected to be the last business session, a minute was introduced encouraging the President to grant amnesty for the Vietnam War draft protesters who had emigrated to Canada. The presiding clerk asked if there were objections. Something about that minute distressed me deeply, but I didn't know what. (I'm "not political," and this was a political minute.) I waited for someone to object. No one did. If that minute was going to be stopped, I had to speak. I spoke, and 200 Friends rustled in their seats to look at me. The recording clerk, ordinarily a sweet soul with a saving sense of humor, glared.
I was asked why I objected. I didn't know why. I just knew I didn't like that minute. I stammered out something; I'm told I managed to say that I was not opposed to a minute; the problem was that minute. I agreed to be on a committee to draft another minute. Other Friends volunteered. We would meet after dinner. The recording clerk gave me a good eldering during dinner. I have seldom been more miserable.
The committee met in one of the unused rooms in the dorm; we sat on the bare metal springs of the cots. We discussed a bit. I felt that the right minute only needed for us to listen to the Spirit. I called for a silence. I listened with aching intensity. One young man spoke in the silence, pleading for the minute. A few minutes later, he spoke again. And a few minutes later yet again. I boiled over: "Will you shut up and let the Spirit move!" The poor young man wilted. Silence fell at last. A woman began writing purposefully. Then she read what she had written. "That's it," I said. We changed a word here, added a thought there. She would read the proposed minute at a special business session before Sunday worship.
I went to apologize to the young man, but he was nowhere to be found. I was told he wasn't familiar with Friends ways, and had come down from Chicago expressly to shepherd that minute through IYM. He left immediately after the dorm meeting. I have never seen him since; I hope and pray he didn't give up on the Society of Friends because I yelled at him.
Next morning we read the new minute, and there was a collective intake of breath. One after another, Friends stood to say they'd been hot and tired and hungry the day before. They had been uneasy with the old minute, but had wanted a minute. They'd thought, "This one will do." Now they saw how much better the new minute was, and they were grateful for the process we'd been through.
It was not a stellar performance on my part. I wasn't anything I'd like people to remember me for—not clear-seeing, articulate, creative, or even couth. My part was merely obstructive; someone else did the creative part. I hope I'm never asked to serve in just that way again. But I've been told the process we went through has shaped some IYM Friends' vision of the power of Quaker business process.
Mariellen O. Gilpin, an editor of What Canst Thou Say? quarterly newsletter on Quakers, mystical experience, and contemplative prayer, is a member of Urbana-Champaign (ill.) Meeting.
How we do business
I am particularly pleased both that Mariellen recorded this (some years ago) and that you have published it. I will want to refer to it when our annual sessions of ILYM begin mid-June.
The practice of having several Friends withdraw to consider something out of the pressure of "getting things done" in the whole business session is one that we've used and improved upon over the years, to where it now seems second nature.
It's in the nature of "committee work" or appointing an ad hoc committee -- or anything else in the nature by way of preparing or "seasoning" what comes for final decisions to a Meeting for Worship with a concern for Business.
For a Friend to "have a stop" on a matter, and then be fully and prayerfully heard, gives a Meeting opportunity to considre new light that may not have been there. It is essential, however, that Friends see this not as unilateral "veto power" -- "able to block consensus!" -- but rather as an invitation to further spiritual work, together.
Thank you, Mariellen. Thank you, Friends Journal.
-D.H.F.
(presiding clerk,
Illinois Yearly Meeting)
Shut Up and Let The Spirit Move!
Words of wisdom for all of us to heed in our daily lives as well. Something I began to trust in my mid-30's after a marriage ended that should never have been in the first place. Yes, because I didn't listen to my "still small voice."
Thank the Spirit
Isn't it wonderful how the Spirit can use us even when we don't really understand what the Spirit is saying, and even if we're a bit cranky? Thanks for sharing this, Mariellen. I think too often we insist on knowing more about the reasons for the Spirit moving us in a way than what we've been given before acting on a leading.
In the years I was active in a YM, I was often troubled that the YM would make all these minutes on various public policy issues that often seemed more political than driven by the Spirit. Not that the positions weren't right and not that they weren't things it was appropriate for Friends to express concern about, but too often it seemed to me we were more about being politically correct than listening to the Inward Teacher. And, frankly, approving a minute tends to do almost nothing for a cause. I don't think there's a need for a minute on every important public policy issue. We have to listen to what we are being called to work on at the time, and trust that God has others in mind to work on the other issues.
"Knowing comes before "doing".
I appreciated this article and what it says about Friends' process in approving Minutes. I do have to say I don't agree with the idea that ". . .approving a minute tends to do almost nothing for a cause." That was said of a minute I brought to SAYMA's yearly meeting in 1986 that was not approved until 1993.
What I found was that until everyone's pain about this concern was heard, we could not come to unity on the words, even though we had all endured the effects of the Patriarchy in all of our lives. Each year a few words were changed and some years the minute was not even discussed at yearly meeting.
Since that approval, we don't have to pretend that Patriarchy doesn't exist and that has helped in many ways, especially when we discussed our Community testimony and our Equality Testimonies as they relate to marriage.
Sure "doing" is sometimes necessary. But often, "knowing" is a step on the way to "doing" and until the Spirit moves in our unity, we don't know as much as we might.
Check out the minute at:
http://www.sayma.org/online_documents/PatriarchyMinute.pdf
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