Putney Friends Meeting

PFM will host a called Meeting on a date to be determined by the

Clerk and Social Justice and Peace committee before the next Meeting

for business of 11/15/15 to consider how the Meeting can support in

unity the planting of a “Black Lives Matter” sign in front of the

Meeting house and how PFM wants to proceed in addressing the issue

of racism in our culture

Here are queries from the NEYM Committee on Racial, Social & Economic Justice:

• How has the issue of white privilege touched your life? 

• What are the spiritual consequences and brokenness related to living in a world that hasn’t achieved perfection in these justice concerns?

• What does that still small voice say to inform us of our responsibilities in this regard?

• How does your Meeting bear witness to this work?

This is now scheduled for Dec. 3 (a Thursday) at 6:30.

In preparation Friends are asked to consider the NEYM Query:

Minute on Racism

New England Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends affirms its commitment to

becoming an open, affirming, anti-racist Religious Society. Our understanding of racism is that

it is a system that accords advantage or disadvantage based on racial identity. Racism is

fundamentally inconsistent with the divine guidance that has led our Religious Society to

testimonies such as Equality, Peace and Community. We seek divine assistance and the help of

other friends of Truth to examine our individual and corporate complicity in racism. We aspire

to a more perfect union with the Author of all, who shows no partiality in the diversity of

creation.

Those of us who have grown up with a white identity in America have a particular challenge in

that we have been conditioned not to notice the system of racism and white privilege. Our well intentioned

attempts at color-blindness can have the unfortunate result of blinding us to the

system of racism in which we unwittingly participate. Let us remember Jesus’ admonition to

remove the log from our own eye before seeking to remove a speck from our brother’s or sister’s

eye. We all pray for clarity of vision so that in the words of George Fox, we may “be patterns,

be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations wherever you come; that your carriage

and life may preach among all sorts of people, and to them; then you will come to walk

cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone; whereby in them you may be a

blessing, and make the witness of God in them bless you.”

Approved at New England Yearly Meeting Sessions 2003

Also:

Visit the Black Lives Matter Site:

http://blacklivesmatter.com/

Here is an Article entitled: Please stop telling me that all lives matter

Article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julia-craven/please-stop-telling-me-th_b_6223072.html