Saturday
Getting Personal
You may wonder what this (series of communications) has to do with your Society? My witness is to the benefit of Quakerism, and provides an example of how one Society, New York Yearly Meeting, is dying.
The ministers of NYYM have made another departure from Friends tradition to add to the list - this time using my full name in a sanctimonious letter broadcast to the body. Last week the NYYM Clerk and the NYYM Clerk of the Ministry and Counsel Coordinating Committee wrote this letter naming me to its universal mailing list, as persona non grata, and somehow also trying to impose Gospel Order upon me. I refused an offer of clearness in 10th Month 2006 with NYYM ministers for good reasons, one being the non-objectivity of those who were on this committee. My transfer out of NYYM was then blocked and then Friends also retaliated in other ways in 11th and 12th Months 2006. I began my communications after the holidays in 1st Month 2007.
I continue to show by example that I am within the Friends tradition of non-personal witness (I have not named anyone personally in my messages), and that NYYM has degraded to a point of rogue status among civil Quaker nations for many reasons (many examples of public lying, a hierarchy maintained by a few, an annual meeting which is mostly a cheap vacation (but expensive and lengthy annual sessions) for the declining populous, and other examples of authoritarian malfeasance of governance), including this reason, which I have begun to address in my communications. Next, I’ll address how NYYM has added a required registration fee applied to everyone doing NYYM’s business at its two yearly Representative Meetings, one which is upcoming in 4th Month 2007.
I publish the ministers’ letter here with my name translated to Glenn R. and their names translated to their official titles as above. I also publish my letter to these two Friends, in response to their letter showing them that I am willing to talk if they’d like to consider solutions to their degraded condition.
I also have added a simple tabular chart showing more clearly NYYM’s derelict financial contribution to wider affiliations comparatively with similar membership sized and located Yearly Meetings. Please note that NYYM is declining in membership even though it has said it is growing over the last two years, and NEYM and BaltYM have been growing over a long period of time. Please see here.
