State of San Francisco Friends Meeting 2011

It's 9:15 pm on Seventhday (Saturday), 4/30/2011. My term as clerk of San Francisco Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) will technically end at midnight.

Our Quaker meeting appoints its clerks on a one-year basis, and I was approved four years in a row. Now, it's time for me to lay down this role. I knew it was time even before we decided to move to Philadelphia for Robin's new job. I leave without feeling particularly burned out, a sense of accomplishment, and a certainty that if I stayed much longer I would burn out. So it's good.

As my last official act, I sent a copy of our annual "state of the meeting" report to College Park Quarterly Meeting and Pacific Yearly Meeting, the two regional and super-regional bodies of Quakers in Northern California and related areas.

The report is pretty long as these things go. For completeness, I'm posting it below.

Thank you to San Francisco Friends for allowing me to be of service this way. It has felt like the right choice, and now it's time for our F/friend Stephen Matchett to take up the clerkship. This will be his second time doing so, and it feels right, too.

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San Francisco Monthly Meeting
State of the Society Report, 4/10/2011

Friends discussed the state of the Society at a regular meeting for business on 3/13/2011, and the meeting clerk subsequently wrote this report.

Spiritual Health
Overall, the spiritual health of the meeting is good. The weekly Firstday meeting for worship is a time of deep waiting. This sense of depth is typically maintained when there is vocal ministry, even when there are several messages. A midweek meeting for worship was moved to Wednesday in the past year, and serves as a small but gathered fellowship for those who attend, often including newcomers.

The meeting for business is held as a spiritual exercise, truly a meeting for worship with a concern for business. This has been commented on both by long-time members and by a couple visiting from Australia for a year. One Friend said, “Sometimes I think meeting for business is more spiritual than meeting for worship.” The clerk has continued to invite a minister among us to report at each meeting. This has led to a greater appreciation of one another’s gifts and callings, as well as offering a grounded start to each business meeting.

Friends have made efforts to share their spiritual lives. Notably, a women’s retreat at Sierra Friends Center accomplished this for nearly 20 women, plus several children. Out of it has come other events, such as an occasional women’s Bible study group, and at least two requests for membership. The Friendly 8s potluck groups have dwindled to just two, and so this spring, Ministry and Oversight called for participants and began matching up new groups for fellowship and conversation.

We still sometimes have trouble processing situations with difficult or challenging people. Ministry and Oversight Committee regularly discusses past situations as well as the possibility of developing guidelines for what to do in general. However, the committee has not found clarity on what to bring to the meeting as a whole. This feels like an area where we are somewhat stuck.

The meeting has been able to find unity on larger undertakings, including the creation of a Fund for Leadings and the first approval of an application to it, and the establishment of a neighborhood food pantry at the meetinghouse.

Spiritual Formation
Our weekly Quaker study group and twice-monthly Bible study group continue to be at the core of our religious education for adults. Both groups serve experienced Friends as well as newcomers to our meeting.

At the rise of meeting most Firstdays, there is a discussion on a “Frequently Asked Quaker Question (FAQQ),” such as, “What do you do in meeting for worship?”, “What do Quakers believe about God?”, or “How do you become a member?” The number of people who participate varies, from just a few to almost a dozen people, but everyone hears the question, which is announced by the clerk at rise of meeting.

The meeting found unity to approve the Children’s Religious Education Committee creating a new paid position of teacher’s aide, in addition to an existing child care provider. With the additional support, Firstday School has become more organized for the children. More people from the meeting at large have been volunteering to help with the children, so that parents have more opportunity to worship.

The meeting retreat at Ben Lomond Quaker Center is a central annual event in the life of our community. It is very family-friendly, and several individuals and families who have moved away often return for it. Its lightly structured format allows time for Friends to both play and worship together for a long weekend under the redwoods.

Our meeting feels the need for more leadership development. Occasional breakfasts for committee clerks and officers have provided mutual support in the past year. While the call to leadership is not always easy for Friends to heed, it is clear that now is the time, as several experienced Friends have moved away from our meeting or passed away in the last few years.

Activities and Witness
Our vigil for peace continues outside the old federal building on Golden Gate Avenue. The billboard at the local tire store paid tribute to the vigil recently.

The larger global situation, with US-led wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and recently Libya, continues to weigh on us. Several Friends continue to labor with a scruple against paying taxes for war, and are sharing opportunities for others to join them in some level of witness. The Meeting endorsed the National Religious Campaign Against Torture and the Campaign for New Priorities, and seeks to participate in an ongoing way.

As mentioned, the meeting acted locally to establish a community food pantry. This is our biggest sustained service project in memory, serving 70-85 households weekly. Volunteers include Quakers, neighbors, clients, people who find the online signup pages including a group of medical students, and families from the San Francisco Friends School.

Welcoming
Our location in a destination city provides a steady flow of visitors. One Midwestern Friend described San Francisco as “the most welcoming urban meeting” he’s been to. We continue to seek ways to encourage newcomers to return and become regular attenders, with mixed success recently.

Fortunately, we have been blessed by a slow but steady stream of new requests for membership.

Engagement
The meeting does modest outreach in the wider local community, including through participating in the PRIDE Festival, outreach cards in business card format, and posting large signs with quotes from Pacific Yearly Meeting’s Faith and Practice in our front window. The San Francisco Friends School may publicize Quakers more widely than we do. The school’s Quaker Life Committee, with two meeting members on it, published a booklet on Quaker testimonies and values, which they are now sharing with the many applicants to the school. It has also been used in some classrooms.

The meetinghouse is a both a modest source of income from rentals and a location for many community groups to meet. Our part-time Building Manager maintains the property with support from the Property and Finance Committee. After years of discussion, meeting reached unity to approve renovating the meetinghouse kitchen; plans are being developed.

San Francisco Friends are active in the wider Quaker world, including College Park Quarterly Meeting, Pacific Yearly Meeting, Quakers United in Publishing, American Friends Service Committee, Friends General Conference, Friends for Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender and Queer Concerns, Friends Committee on Legislation of California, Friends Committee on National Legislation, and Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC).

In fact, our member, Robin Mohr, was recently selected to serve as Executive Secretary for FWCC – Section of the Americas. She will be moving to Philadelphia this summer with her family, including Chris Mohr, who will have just completed four years of service as meeting clerk.

In sum, San Francisco Monthly Meeting is a vibrant, spiritually alive community that, despite its flaws, provides opportunities for worship, growth, and transformation.

In peace and friendship,


Chris Mohr, Clerk
San Francisco Monthly Meeting
of the Religious Society of Friends

Last Meeting for Worship as Clerk of San Francisco Friends Meeting

Last Sunday (4/24/2011) was my last day to clerk meeting for worship** at San Francisco Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). I didn't even realize it was my last time until a Friend said something about it during refreshments time afterward.

I thought I had one more Sunday to go. Nope!! April has 30 days, so there were just 4 Sundays this month.

It was a pretty amazing meeting. One person counted 9 messages. Here are three that moved me:

Friend 1 spoke about how her elementary schooler and 3-year-old had really wanted to go to a church. They especially wanted to see statues of Jesus and Mary. They went to four churches before they found one that was unlocked. Once there, they stopped to kneel at each statue and look at the candles. On the way out, the elementary schooler said, "That was the most awesome time ever!" The 3-year-old said, "But I wanted to see the talking Jesus." Friend 1 tried to explain that Jesus is still talking, through us and not a statue.

Friend 2 said he had emailed the outgoing clerk [i.e., me] to see if there was anything special for Easter at the Meeting. The clerk wrote back to say, "Yes, meeting for worship. And sometimes there is an egg hunt." He said as an "Episcopalian" Quaker of sorts (using "Episcopalian" as an adjective more than a dual identity), he likes ritual. He went to Grace Cathedral which had a beautiful Easter service involving a darkened sanctuary with a bonfire in the labyrinth, lighting one candle from the bonfire, putting out the bonfire, then passing on the light from the one candle until lots of people had candles. It was beautiful, and yet he found it didn't move him. He thought, the Quaker Meeting is his cathedral.

I spoke near the end to say we teach that the building isn't the church, the people are. That's why we call it a meetinghouse, not a church, and in our case we have a skylight rather than a steeple. So what are our monuments? They are our peace vigil, every week on Thursday from noon to 1; and our food pantry, every Saturday from 10:30 to 1:30. These are concrete acts of love and service, and yet not made of physical concrete.

(Friend 1 thanked me afterward. She said this was just the kind of example of the "talking Jesus" she would share with her 3 year old. "Yes, Jesus is there on the street corner at the vigil, or at the food pantry!")

Friend 3 had simply said, "I am profoundly grateful for this community." I think there were a few more words that implied "this community" meant the wider Quaker community, not our meeting, especially because I think the person was a visitor.

I too am so grateful for my friends and Friends at San Francisco Meeting. I am blessed to be a part of, and a leader in, it. Thank you, God, "for most this amazing community," as e.e. cummings once wrote.

__________
** SF Friends Meeting is at 65 9th Street, between Mission & Market streets, near the Civic Center BART/MUNI station. Join us on Sunday from 11 am to noon for unprogramed, waiting worship in the manner of Friends; on 5th Sundays, you can start at 9:30 for extended worship to noon. Or come on Wednesdays from 6 pm to 6:45 pm. Come on by if you're in town!

Last meeting for business as clerk of San Francisco Monthly Meeting of Friends

Today I clerked my last meeting for business at San Francisco Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), at least for this go-round.

After four years, it was simply time to stop. I've enjoyed clerking and was the right person during that time, but had let the community know some months ago that I was ready to lay it down. While I felt stretched at times throughout the four years, and was definitely ready to let go at the end, I do not feel burned out. This is a good time to conclude this period of service.

Fortunately, my successor as clerk, Stephen Matchett, was approved today (whew), and so he will become the Meeting's clerk on May 1st.

It was an eventful business meeting on which to end: In addition to approving the slate of nominations, we had two memorial minutes, one membership release, a confession from a Friend that this Friend’s work had felt like a “joyless burden,” a report on our neighborhood food pantry on the occasion of its first birthday, and the annual "state of the Meeting" report.

After the state of the Meeting report, I said a few words as "a minister among us" about my role as clerk, likening it to the parable of the sower: The Meeting had provided fertile ground in which to grow. And however much I had given, I had received more in return.

(I hope to post the state of the Meeting report later. It’s pretty long. We’ve decided that’s okay: We’re doing enough interesting things that we like to report on some of our activities as well as the spiritual health of our meeting, so that perhaps others might learn from or be inspired by our efforts and experiments.)

When I read the draft report to the ministry & oversight committee earlier this week, I could not fully contain my emotions of sadness and loss at moving to Philadelphia. For example, reading the line about how our Meeting retreat at Ben Lomond Quaker Center is a central event in the life of our community, I felt a huge pang that this year’s retreat will be our last one, for a while, anyway. Another member of the committee continued reading for me, for which I was grateful.

Yet when I read the report at business meeting today, I was pretty composed. I had prayed for help to be faithful, and to love God with mind and body and spirit as well as my heart/emotions, and that seemed to keep me focused enough to read it through. It was satisfying to have people breathe out and smile gently when I was done, because it showed that the report appeared to accurately speak to our condition.

During joys and concerns at the close of business meeting, a Friend said, “I don’t know if this is appropriate, but I would like to thank Chris for his four years of service as clerk.” Yes, Charles, it was appropriate, and I’m grateful to be acknowledged, and more grateful to have had the chance to be of service.

Through our combined efforts, may we hear the word of God, encounter the divine presence, sense the eternal. May we love God and love one another.

Clinic on Quaker Clerking

Last Sunday, I played hooky from San Francisco Friends Meeting (Quakers) and instead worshiped with Berkeley Friends. I think it may have been the first time I attended Sunday meeting at a Bay Area meeting that was not San Francisco.

Afterwards, I co-facilitated a workshop on clerking for about 20 Friends. It was organized by the meeting's Outreach and Nurture Committee (great name!). It was a good experience, and so I share the outline and talking points here.

Berkeley Friends Meeting:
Clinic on Clerking, 2/26/11

Opening Worship

Introductions

Everyone said her or his name. To begin my remarks, I held up a copy of Elizabeth Boardman's Where Should I Stand? A field guide for monthly meeting clerks. I said Elizabeth was my predecessor but one as clerk of San Francisco Monthly Meeting. When she left, she wrote the book about clerking! So she left big shoes to fill, and we were all somewhat in awe of how omnipresent she was in the life of our meeting. Fortunately, the meeting understood I was going to be a different kind of clerk, because I'm a father of two youngish children, husband, and director of a small nonprofit. I was going to have a different manner and style of clerking, and that was okay. As Robin likes to say, "The water tastes of the jug it's poured from." So, each clerk will have her or his own personality and style, just as each committee or meeting will, too.

What is Meeting for Business?

> Purpose of meeting for business: Finding unity

oDefinition of unity from Pacific Yearly Meeting’s Faith and Practice: “the spiritual oneness and harmony whose realization is a primary objective of a Meeting for Worship for Business; within a gathered group of Friends, the state of finding and recognizing a unified sense (often referred to as God’s will) about a concern or item of business.”

o Friends seek, find, and then follow that spirit of goodness for the organization and the individuals who compose it; God’s will.

o Cf. Michael Sheeran’s book, Beyond Majority Rule: Voteless Decision Making in the Religious Society of Friends

> How do committees work in that structure?

> What is the role of individuals participating?

Committee Clerks

Role of clerks is more active than a meeting clerk

1) Administrative Support: set agenda, find minute-take and ensure there are minutes (at least action minutes),

2) Spiritual Support: create a worshipful space with opening & closing worship, hold silence when needed, make sure everyone gets a chance to talk, name the sense of the committee when needed & if appropriate state an action minute everyone can unite with

3) Active participation in the business of the committee – the “content”

Types of Committee Presentations at Meeting for Business

1) Purely informational: Written reports are helpful

2) Status report: Here’s where we are in our process on an issue

3) Recommendation for action; helpful to bring a proposed action minute

Communication

> Email is good for scheduling and logistics, and clarifying questions

> It is NOT a good medium for discernment.

> Phone calls and in person discussions are good for one-on-one communication.

> Decisions ordinarily need to be made by the committee in real time in person (or, sometimes, over phone/Skype)

> It is important not to second-guess unity found at a gathering where I was not present. If you want to be heard, you need to show up.

“Clerk Thyself!” Thoughts on Discipline

> Address the clerk, speak from your own experience, leave your ego or attachment to outcome aside as much as possible,

> Speak once; hold back if your point’s already been made, and trust it’s been heard.

> Wait to speak; see if your point is going to be made by someone else; if not, then speak if you feel clear to do so.

> “Weight” is shorthand for the respect earned by a Friend over time for her or his consistency, care, knowledge, compassion, insight, and the like. People usually have more or less “weight” on different issues because they may have more experience or wisdom to contribute in one area than in another.

What is Your Experience?

Each person said what committee and clerking experience, if any, she or he had.

There was time for questions, answers, and discussion.

Closing worship

Some of the organizing tasks of a clerk among Friends

I wrote up the following as a handout for a workshop for staff and board committee clerks that I'm leading on 11/24/08 at the San Francisco Friends School. The board of trustees of this particular school is very well organized and well run, in my experience. They need some time to grapple with the spiritual nature of Friends decision-making, and how to apply it in a school context, so that will be a focus of what I address. Nonetheless, every committee clerk should be mindful of good organizational practices, so I created these two lists.

In my experience, unprogrammed Friends meetings have a great need for lists like this, especially because most of us don't have staff. Does your monthly, quarterly or yearly meeting have anything like this? I assume Philadelphia Yearly Meeting does, because of the work Arthur Larrabee has done through the years on teaching clerking. Feel free to add links to other resources in the comments. It wasn't meant to be comprehensive; rather, I was trying to fit it all onto a one-page handout.

SOME OF THE ORGANIZING TASKS
OF A CLERK AMONG FRIENDS

1. Set an agenda, preferably in writing; if feasible, distribute in advance.
2. Begin and end the meeting with a moment of silent reflection or worship.
3. Facilitate the meeting.
   • Create the opportunity for all views to be heard.
   • If it is a large group or if it is a contentious discussion, ask people to be recognized before speaking.
   • If necessary, allow for a short period of silence between speakers.
   • If someone hasn’t spoken, ask if he or she has something to add before the discussion concludes.
4. Take minutes, or assign someone else to take minutes.
   • If there are “action minutes” recording a decision by the committee, consider reading back the wording of that minute to be sure everyone agrees about what was decided and how it is recorded.
   • Distribute the minutes soon after the meeting, or have them available at the next meeting.
5. Check in with committee members between meetings as needed to remind them of assignments and learn about progress.
   
6. As needed, consult with the board clerk or other committee clerks who may have relevant information about the matters your committee is addressing.
   
7. Find outside resources to help with the work of your committee, or ask for help from the committee to find the resources or to follow up on your leads.
   
8. Find or develop queries as needed.
   
9. Publicity and communications:
   • Give enough advance notice for meetings, especially to people who weren’t at the last meeting.
   • Send a meeting reminder by email; leaving a phone message can be even more persuasive.
   • If a meeting will be open to the rest of the community, provide enough advance notice for everyone to hear about it.

Some Printed Resources for Clerking Among Friends

1. Beyond Majority Rule, Michael Sheeran. The classic text on Quaker unity decision-making, written by a Jesuit.
   
2. Growing into Goodness: Essays on Quaker Education, Paul Lacey. See especially Chapter 3, “Roots and Fruits: Quaker Decision Making.”
   
3. Faith and Practice, Pacific Yearly meeting: See www.pacificyearlymeeting.org.
   
4. Beyond Consensus by Barry Morley; Pendle Hill Pamphlet. Discussion of the distinction between consensus in decision-making and a “sense of the meeting,” reached through discernment of a greater wisdom or continuing revelation of truth.
   
5. Friends Council on Education: See www.friendscouncil.org. Publications for sale include:
   • Governance Handbook for Friends Schools, with a section on decision making;
   • Principles of Good Practice for Friends School Boards & Trustees.
   • The Quaker Decision-Making Process: What is it? How do we use it in a Quaker school?

Finally, in the context of a Quaker meeting, rather than a school, I would also highly recommend San Francisco Meeting Member Elizabeth Boardman's Where Should I Stand? A Field Guide for Monthly Meeting Clerks, published by Quaker Books of Friends General Conference. Elizabeth also has a blog for it at whereshouldistand.blogspot.com.

In case I didn't have enough to do

So I'm getting ready to be a teacher for a week for the first time ever, at Pacific Yearly Meeting's annual sessions (Yearly Meeting being the name of a regional Quaker gathering).

I've taught plenty of Firstday School (Sunday School) lessons but never four hours long, for five days. I have an outline and some curriculum. And the social curriculum of letting kids hang just out together and play is a big part of it.

Meanwhile, today I clerked a threshing session at our meeting, a time when we discuss an issue and "put all the laundry on the line." The topic was the meeting's relationship with the American Friends Service Committee, and the session was sparked by some frustration in the meeting. What was clear was how much Friends value AFSC, even with some of the frustrations, mostly around communications, and how long a history we have together. So sure, if you're married for 75 years you'll have a few complaints about each other. But you're committed to each other and you want to make it a bit better if you can. That was the sense I had of the meeting.

Thoughts on starting a second year of clerking

I’ve been asked for the second year in a row by my monthly meeting to serve as clerk. I have some gifts that help me to be of service in this role, as well as persistence and faithful participation (my family and I go to meeting every Sunday we’re at home), loyalty, and helping out in several different roles over the years.

I keep saying I’m not the executive director of the meeting. It’s a true statement, and at the same time, I bring my experience as an executive director to the office. It has its helpful aspects. I feel blessed to have the opportunity.

Fortunately, too, I had about a year of clerking fairly easy business meetings before we had a couple of challenging ones. It was helpful to have some experience under my belt before all that erupted.

At business meeting this month, there was a moment when I thought, “God, I truly have no idea what to do next.” It almost felt like leaning on the Everlasting Arms. (If I was more dramatic, I would have thought, “I give up! You have to do it, God. You lead us through the desert, because I don’t know the way!”)

And then clarity emerged, gradually, as more Friends spoke.

Thank you, Friends, and God, for this opportunity to serve. Help me to be open, centered, present, compassionate, and joyful. May I be of service.

Clerk's corner

(I wrote this for SF Meeting's newsletter and decided to publish it here, too.)

There is a waterfall at the new development where Robin & I live now. The water flows from 7 am to 11 pm. The lights under the water go on around dusk and turn off at 11, too. It’s a terrible waste of energy, and of water because of evaporative loss, yet it’s beautiful. My children are captivated by its loveliness. They now sit at the breakfast table in the two seats that enable them to see the water start flowing at 7 am.

The timed artificial waterfall contrasts with the flow of the Living Water, always present, always flowing, somewhere in the very ground of our being. Do we take time to notice it when we are not in meeting? For that matter, do we find it in meeting?

Be a Quaker without Ceasing: How would it feel to live every moment aware of that flow, living every moment as a Quaker? To have that integrity, to achieve that level of integration, that centeredness within at all times? Interesting questions!

Of course, I’m thinking of Paul’s exhortation in 2 Thessalonians 5:17: “Pray without ceasing.” For me, getting anywhere near that place starts with mindfulness, being present, as in Zen meditation. From being present comes awareness of Presence itself.

(By the way, there are many other good lines in that chapter of Thessalonians: “5 Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day… 13b. Be at peace among yourselves…. 15 See that none render evil for evil unto anyone; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all.” One of the names early Quakers gave themselves was “Children of Light.”)

Speaking of “Extreme Quakerism”: What did you think of the extended meeting for worship on 9/30? Ministry and Oversight seeks your feedback about this experiment, which we did on the fifth Sundays in July and September. Email Jeff Mead, M&O clerk, jeffbikedog --at-- gmail.com.

Faith and Practice group: The last few months, Ministry & Oversight held Sunday morning sessions about Pacific Yearly Meeting’s Faith and Practice, including the advices and queries and the sections on meeting for worship and meeting for business. Friends had a rich time of discussion and reflection at the two I attended. We will continue organizing these sessions from time to time, focusing on topics identified by participants. One future topic will be clearness committees, the method Friends use for membership, marriages, and discernment around life changes. By the way, you can find the full text of Faith and Practice online at www.pacificyearlymeeting.org.

Meeting for Business: The October meeting for business will have a longer period of discernment around queries from our environment subcommittee.

Quakers in the News: Cal Broomhead was quoted and photographed for an article in the S.F. Business Times, on green home renovations and building. Robin Mohr has an article in the October issue of Friends Journal. And I was quoted in the Peninsula edition of the Examiner, as part of a series looking at the struggle that low-income families face in S.F. and San Mateo Counties.