Epistle - 23-25 June 2023
Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting of Friends
Annual Sessions Epistle 2023
To all Friends everywhere,
Greetings from the 7th annual session of the Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting of Friends (SCYMF). Around one hundred of us met June 23rd-25th on the campus of Western Oregon University in Monmouth, Oregon, joined by as many as 40 on Zoom. The highlight of our gathering was the presence of three Alaska Natives who generously told us their stories of trauma at the hands of boarding schools, including one run by Quakers. Throughout the annual session the themes of trustworthiness, truth, accountability and right relationship reappeared time and again.
Leann Williams opened our Friday worship with a presentation about trauma and how it is stored in our bodies. As followers of Christ we are called in Romans chapter 12 to mourn with those who mourn and weep with those who weep. In the same passage we find these words: “Let love be without hypocrisy.” We are called to love others and help them heal from their traumas, but first we must heal ourselves. Together we hummed, sang and made movements to help us inhabit our bodies.
At the beginning of SCYMF, six years ago, many of us were deeply wounded from the split with Northwest Yearly Meeting, and highly skeptical of creating rules and structures. Some thought we didn’t even need a Faith and Practice document. There were many occasions this weekend to look back and note how far we have come since then.
Our Faith and Practice committee is seeking input and laying the foundation to create a guiding document for our Yearly Meeting. For their process going forward, they have coalesced around the word “Trustworthy”. They suggest that a good Faith and Practice document is like a covenant we make so that we can trust each other. “The more we are honest about ourselves the more trustworthy we will be, and the more trustworthy, the more people will be honest… When you are a trustworthy community, you liberate members to live their gifts - prophets to be prophets, mystics to be mystics… etc.”
The most anticipated event of the weekend was our Saturday evening plenary session with our Alaska Native guests. They were introduced by Cathy Walling and Jan Bronson of Alaska Friends Conference, telling how they became aware of the history of harms caused by Quaker missionary boarding schools in Alaska. They began their journey by reaching out to Alaska Natives and joining in collaborative healing; first to listen and learn, then to apologize, and continuing on in friendship.
Then, three Alaska Natives gifted us with their stories - stories we were privileged to hear but to which we are not entitled. The first to speak was Jamiann S’eiltin Hasselquist (Tlingít) who educated us about the root of her People’s oppression: the Doctrine of Discovery, which is ultimately a failure to see all people of color as fully human. Jamiann shared her journey of seeking and finding her cultural and personal history, which included ancestors who attended Quaker schools. As she spoke, her two support sisters adorned her with jewelry, a sash, a vest and a hat, all carrying cultural and historical significance, until she stood before us as a beautiful embodiment of her cultural inheritance.
Tears were spilled. Songs were sung. Jamiann ended her presentation with a list for us of possible actions of reparation and repair. It is clear that our journey is just beginning. The first step is to learn our own history.
One Friend in our community recently realized that her great-grandmother had worked in a Quaker mission in Alaska. This friend returned to Jamiann a brooch of scrimshaw she had inherited from this great-grandmother.
Jim LaBelle (Iñupiaq) is the president of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition. He described in detail the dehumanizing experiences he suffered at a Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school. He had a long journey as an adult to be reintroduced to his culture, and has spent decades working to pass that cultural knowledge on to future generations.
His wife Susan LaBelle (Suqpiaq) had a boarding school experience where her family relationships were treated as unimportant. Susan went on to become a fierce advocate for keeping Native children with their families and communities. Her organization helped parents and other relatives take the steps necessary to regain custody of their children.
The Saturday session ended with a prayer: May our interwoven stories create a fabric of love and courage strong enough to bear the truth and tell the truth…. May we write a new story together for our grandchildren and their grandchildren to mend the tears and unraveled threads of the cloth given to us by the Creator and ruined by arrogance and greed.
In our Sunday worship, we sat with the difficult feelings of the night before. How could Quakers have ever discerned that removing children from their families and taking away their names was the right thing to do? How does hearing these stories of suffering show us how we need to change? We asked ourselves: Whose suffering are we not seeing today? Who are the children who are being harmed by the systems and policies in which we are complicit?
Remembering the story of Elijah, we pray that the bread and water we have received will sustain us, so that the journey may not be too much for us to bear.
In the Light,
Norma Silliman and Erin Wilson
SCYMF Co-Clerks, on behalf of Sierra Cascades Yearly Meeting of Friends
