[saymaListserv] RE: Politics in Meeting

[Susan Jeffers]

Thanks so much for the discussion on whether and how to include politics in 
Yearly Meeting.

I'm a member of another Yearly Meeting (Lake Erie YM, which includes the 
lower peninsula of Michigan, northern and eastern Ohio, and 2 meetings in 
West Virginia). I subscribe to the SAYMA list because my husband and I have 
ties to Charleston WV Friends Meeting, and I like to keep up with what's 
happening with our immediate YM neighbors.  Also y'all have a REAL nice 
EMail list!

I'm especially interested in this discussion because I'm on the LEYM 
Program Committee, and wondering whether and how we should be doing 
something, program-wise, to make space for Friends political concerns to be 
aired.

Free's original post "Friends don't usually bring politics into the 
Meeting, but does President George W. Bush's focus on WAR change that? Can 
we get a discussion going at YM that raises this concern? What do you 
think?" could easily have been written by any number of LEYM Friends, as 
could his additional, more specifically "defeat Bush at the polls" addendum.

I'm sure there would also be a number of LEYM Friends (I'd be one of them) 
who would say "this Friend speaks my mind" to Paul Nunis' post:

"There is one politcal practice that I personally would
wish to see less of in our midst, and that is the
partisan vilification of those for whom one did not
vote, or the perjoration of those who voted
differently, wrapped in a pseudo-Friendly 'message'.
Attempting to tar an individual, or a group, as being
the mechanism for society's ills, would seem to miss
several points, not the least of them Biblical."

So -- what do y'all think about this?  As Larry Osborne so eloquently asks 
-- what should be our process?

Thanks again -- God's blessings to you all --

Susan Jeffers
Lake Erie Yearly Meeting Program Committee

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EMail: susan at read-the-bible.org
Peace Church Bible Study Home Page: www.read-the-bible.org