Serving as a member of the yearly meeting staff includes ongoing learning as individuals and as a staff community. Staff meetings during any calendar year include collaboration and planning across departments, always with the Strategic Directions held at the center of our service to the yearly meeting. “Meetings for Learning” have included professional development topics and inclusion and belonging work together, and four times a year they are focused on Quakerism. The group of staff who plan these times actively listen for and collect topics of interest from colleagues. In May, our focus was on the testimonies in relationship with our lives and work.
Three queries offered by staff centered our morning and the variety of ways we explored Quaker testimonies:
- How do Friends uphold the different testimonies?
- How do we seek to uphold qualities like “simplicity” day by day? What about on a larger scale?
- How do you notice when you are falling out of alignment with the testimonies, and how do you respond to that feeling?
The morning program for all staff began with worship and reflection on the testimonies as a way we let our lives speak. Staff then gathered in small groups with excerpts from PYM Faith and Practice, to share and reflect on together. An example of one quotation considered:
127 …our testimonies are not a pre-packaged set of values. Our spiritual experience, our openness to being led and to living a guided life, leads us to a life we have little choice over. Testimony is the outflowing life we cannot help but lead.
Ben Pink Dandelion (2014) from Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice (2018)
Poster-sized post-its were hung around the walls of the room, each with a testimony written on it. Small groups were invited to shift from discussion of advices in Faith and Practice to walk around the room and use the posters to reflect on where our staff work intersects with the testimonies and Quakerism as a lived faith. What follows are reflections from staff — with thanks to jess purvis, Office Administrator, for transcribing.
Equality was described as showing up in honoring the Light in everyone, which includes how we consider accessibility, hiring practices, and being intentional about how we create a work environment that meets all of us where we are and allows us to excel. It was reflected that in our staff community each staff member’s concerns/thoughts are listened to, and in the wider community of Friends in PYM we seek to meet youth where they are – inviting them into the community.
Reflecting on the testimony of peace, there were several affirmations of conflict transformation and the encouragement to hold awareness of the impact of both words and actions. In our work with families and the youth programs, the building of community that comes from fostering relationships has peace at its center. There was a reflection on the importance of encouraging staff to communicate their needs as a way to peace in our work environment, and a question: What can we do to heal rifts and mistrust between staff & the membership?
Simplicity and stewardship were approached in comments that relate both to the “everyday” work of the staff — streamlining processes, only purchasing what materials we need and reusing what we can, and responding to communications in a clear, concise way — and also in reflections on our work in a broader context of Quaker faith: reconsidering “plain language” today, being conscious when to listen and when to share, and releasing the things that are not about building spiritual community and expressing God. The advice to “take a deep breath” was written — encouragement to pause, listen. Reducing our carbon footprint was lifted up as a practice and goal, and staff acknowledge time as a resource to be stewarded with care (“How can we make the best use of volunteer time?), alongside stewarding institutional knowledge.
Reflections on the testimony of integrity followed a similar pattern of day-to-day and broader concerns, including the acknowledgement that centering the strategic directions is being true to the leadings of the body. Staff noted seeking intentionality and clarity in our use of time in meetings and on projects, and coming back to rightly ordered process in our work. In an area as specific as Development, seeing to nurture alignment with donor intent and Quaker life today, alongside in communications authentic messaging that reflects Quaker values. In our Youth Programs, staff seek to be open an dhonest in interactions with youth and families, to make space for their voices in programs and our wider yearly meeting community.
Community is clearly at the heart of our work across all departments and tasks, and this was a long list of reflections! Connecting meetings, individuals, and neighbors was named and affirmed by other comments next to it. Our work includes engaging all kinds of families and youth, supporting retreats for young adults, and fostering accessible information and communication technology. Elevating stories and events that increase a sense of belonging was affirmed, and an acknowledgement that we invite and value the contributions and gifts of Friends through various events, retreats, and worship sharing opportunities. Finally, the importance of the exercise itself was reflected — that we gather as staff to learn/explore/know each other better in our shared work.
The grounding in Quaker faith that we do together as a diverse staff brings us closer in community and flows outward in our relationships and work in the yearly meeting.