Sometime in the late 19th Century, a pair of Quaker missionaries from South China, Maine, traveled in the Ottoman Empire, including in the Holy Land, and founded (helped to found? I am unclear on the history), a Girls’ School. Ramallah Friends School remains an important institution in Palestine to this day, and Friends in Maine (as far as I know, there is not a monthly meeting in South China, but Vassalboro Monthly Meeting and Vassalboro Quarter both see continuity) continue to see this institution as part of their heritage.

Sometime in the early 20th Century, Friends gathered in Richmond, IN, and formed the Five Years Meeting, later to become Friends United Meeting (FUM) the most Christ-centered or Evangelical of the Big 3 Global Quaker organizations. New England Yearly Meeting was a founding member, and Ramallah Friends School became a part of the mission and ministry of FUM.

Much more recently, in the 21st Century, New England Yearly Meeting found a leading back towards the practice of Eldership, which many American Quakers walked away from during the late 19th Century when Elders were often seen as responsible for policing community behavior. One recent aspect of this revival is that at NEYM Business Meetings, Elders sit on facing seats and hold the Meeting in the Light. Another is the book “An Invitation to Quaker Eldering” which I am reading and may have more to say about later.

Earlier than the rediscovery of Eldering, but still in the 21st Century, FUM established a hostile-to-LGBT-staff policy, which challenged NEYM and other liberal Yearly Meetings that support and are members of FUM. NEYM’s response was (in part) to ask our Presiding Clerk and Board Representatives to engage constructively with FUM, building relationships while expressing our concern.

Elsewhere and recently, in response to various noticings of White Supremacy in the yearly meeting and related institutions, NEYM established a “Noticing Patterns of Oppression and Faithfulness” working group and practice, intended to allow us to better notice the patterns of oppression and faithfulness which often guide us in ways we have difficulty perceiving.

In 2022, at a moment when Friends in New England had recently accomplished one initiative towards Right Relationship with Native Peoples, and were seeking to discern other opportunities, the United States’ first Native American Secretary of the Interior invited groups and institutions who had supported indigenous boarding schools to make an accounting of their actions. 19th C Quakers, including New England Yearly Meeting were at the vanguard of this cataclysm, and NEYM took up the challenge to research and account for our actions.

I am sure there are other strands which led from here to there which I’m unaware of.

While gathered for our 2023 Annual Sessions, a few things happened:

A Friend stepped down from the gathered body to the facing benches to both remove themselves from the discerning body and add to the group of elders facing the body After acknowledging the ongoing work of our archives group, a Friend reminded us that the Quakers who pursued the Indigenous Boarding Schools were gathered in Business Meetings much like ours, seeking to listen to the Spirit as we do, and that for him this was a faith-shaking awareness. Another Friend noticed patterns, specifically who was gathered to make decisions, then and now. My sense (and I look forward to the Minute of our discernment to see how the Clerks captured the sense of the gathered body) is that this complicated without contradicting the faith-shaking-ness Facing a budget shortfall, NEYM elected to zero out our contributions to outside organizations like FUM for a year unless we can fundraise additional money, which will be split between our previous outside contributions and reserves In response to this, we heard a (successful, if maybe not completely) fundraising appeal from at least one person with a historic connection to FUM We also heard an appeal to support an AFSC initiative in Palestine, in which one of the impacted victims was a student at Ramallah Friends School 2023 Business Meeting was full of moments in which seeds had been laid years or decades or centuries before. Some of those moments came to full flower (or close to it) this year. Others were steps along the way as they build. It’s a bit trite to say things like “the past isn’t really past”, but it was powerful to see different kinds of history converging in a few days of eighth month, 2023.