Olympia Friends Meeting Business

Friends Committee on Washington (State) Public Policy* (FCWPP) is looking for a part-time Legislative Advocate and Policy Analyst (lobbyist) for the 2017 legislative session in Olympia.  This position will require approximately 20 hours a week during session and 10 hours a month before and after session (starting November 1, 2016).  Compensation is $20-30/hr., depending on experience.

Deadline for resume and letter of interest – September 15, 2016.

Download the full announcement with more details here in PDF format.

The Olympia Friends Meeting’s Peace and Social Justice Committee has joined Steven Aldrich, OFM, Doug Mackey, Olympia Unitarian Universalist Congregation, and Kim Dobson, Fellowship of Reconciliation, to host Maiya Zwerling, the national field organizer for the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL).

Our shared effort is to support an FCNL project structured to help break the gridlock in Congress.

With Maiya’s assistance we are launching an FCNL Advocacy Team in Thurston County.  You can help us coordinate with similar FCNL supported Teams across the country.

Maiya is coming to Olympia on Wednesday, June 29th to tell us more at the Olympia Friends Meetinghouse, 3201 Boston Harbor Rd NE, from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm.

It’s no secret that Congress isn’t making enough progress on the issues that matter most. But the Quaker lobby that works through FCNL has an amazing track record of fostering Congressional champions for peace and justice — they take strategic steps every day to move Congress in the right direction.

Please join us.  RSVP with the form below to let us know you will attend.

Peace,
Thurston County FCNL Advocacy Team
Organizing Committee:
Steven Aldrich, OFM
Doug Mackey, OUU
Kim Dobson, FOR
Olympia Friends Meeting, Peace and Social Justice Committee
(Organizational names associated with individuals used for identification purposes only)

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Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta, a Quaker Jewish activist and writer from Burnaby, B.C., Canada, will speak on nonviolence in Palestine and introduce her book, “Refusing to be Enemies: Palestinian and Israeli Nonviolent Resistance to the Israeli Occupation.”

 “An interview-based study that presents the voices of over 100 practitioners and theorists of nonviolence, the vast majority either Palestinian or Israeli, as they reflect on their own involvement in nonviolent resistance and speak about the nonviolent strategies and tactics employed by Palestinian and Israeli organizations.”

May 28, 2016 at 7:00 pm / 3201 Boston Harbor Rd. SE; Olympia, WA

Download the flyer for this event (PDF format): RefusingToBeEnemies–MaxineKaufman-Lacusta-OlympiaWA-May28-2016

More info at http://refusingtobeenemiesthebook.wordpress.com

Copies of “Refusing to be Enemies” will be available for purchase and signing

This event is sponsored/endorsed by the Peace & Social Justice Committee of Olympia Friends Meeting, the Canadian Friends Service Committee, and Independent Jewish Voices (IJV-Vancouver and IJV-Canada).

For more information, contact: Jack Zeiger, (360) 943-0965.

Olympia Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends has noted with deep concern the Ugandan Government’s passage of a law targeting the LGBTQ population. This law has created a climate where the life, health, and freedom of all LGBTQ Ugandans and those who help them are at immediate risk. We are appalled at hearing about those who have already been kicked out of their homes, denied basic rights, abandoned, beaten, imprisoned, or killed, or who live in constant fear.

Olympia Monthly Meeting has been called to create a “New Underground Railroad” project – “Friends Ugandan Safe Transport Fund” to aid LGBTQ Ugandans who are fleeing their homeland for their lives and safety. We have been given an opportunity to provide direct assistance that will save lives. In the first few weeks of this effort we have helped 17 LGBTQ Ugandans get to safety and freedom. Many others remain at risk, and are trying to escape.

We call on all Friends, both individually and in their Meetings, Friends’ organizations, and all people of good will, to help us in this effort. For more information, contact Gabi Clayton, Co-Clerk, Peace and Social Justice Committee, Olympia Monthly Meeting.

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You can make a donation to the Friends Ugandan Safe Transport project through PayPal:

Or send a check to:

Olympia Friends Meeting
3201 Boston Harbor Rd. NE
Olympia, WA 98506-2800

Make checks out to “Olympia Friends Meeting” and put  “Uganda” in the memo line. Please let us know through the form below that you have sent a check so we can use that information to plan.

Thanks!

Note:  Contributions to Friends Ugandan Safe Passage Fund through Olympia Friends Meeting are tax-deductible. This Minute has led to a project:  “Friends Ugandan Safe Transport Fund” and we have  a separate website for it  here: http://friendsugandansafetransport.org/ where there is a lot more information.

 

 

If you have questions, use the form below or call Gabi Clayton, Co-Clerk, Peace and Social Justice Committee, Olympia Monthly Meeting: 360 888-5291.

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“There is a principle which is pure, placed in the human mind, which in different places and ages hath had different names. It is, however, pure and proceeds from God. It is deep and inward, confined to no forms of religion nor excluded from any, where the heart stands in perfect sincerity. In whomsoever this takes root and grows, of what nation soever, they become brethren.” – John Woolman (1746)

As Quakers, and as Americans, we are saddened by the spate of violence and hostility being directed toward our brothers and sisters in the American Muslim community. During the past several months, they have experienced the burning of a mosque, attacks on religious schools, attacks on graves, violence and hostility directed at both children and adults, libelous and untrue charges, and intensifying abuse and discrimination.

Our testimonies of peace lead us to pursue measures to end the pain and suffering experienced by our friends and neighbors who have done us no harm. We believe that attacks on American Muslims are attacks upon all of us.

We call upon all Friends, all members of meetings, churches, synagogues, community organizations, and people of goodwill everywhere to stand alongside our Muslim brothers and sisters to pursue peace, answering that of God in all of us. We call upon our community to replace “tolerance” with understanding and respect, and sustained collaboration on issues of mutual concern.

We commit ourselves to renewed efforts to engage and embrace the difficult work of reconciliation, to help heal the wounds inflicted by ongoing trauma, and to stand in support of the Muslim community against this violence.

This minute was adapted from the minute developed by the Atlanta Friends Meeting and approved by them on July 16, 2006

Olympia Friends Meeting supports the continuing work and courage of the Christian Peacemaker Teams. We hold all involved in prayer, the peacemakers, Jim Loney, Harmeet Sooden, Tom Fox and Norm Kember, their captors, and the many people who cannot escape violence. We hope for a safe and peaceful resolution of this situation, and urge the United States government to resist the temptation to use violence.

“We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fighting with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretense whatsoever. And this is our testimony to the whole world. ” — The “Peace Testimony”, George Fox’s Declaration to Charles II, 1660

For some 350 years, Friends have held the right of conscience – the following of the leadings of the Spirit, “the Light Within” – to be paramount. Central to our faith and practice, we are called upon to abjure all war, and to seek out the causes and seeds of war among us.

Today, the leadings of the Spirit are still working among some who, through whatever circumstance, find themselves called upon to kill, or otherwise participate in organized military efforts that result in the death of others. When faced with the possibilities of losing their homes, their freedom, and their personal security, and placing their families at risk, those who feel led to obey the dictates of conscience may seek those sharing similar leadings for clearness and assistance.

Friends have a unique history in assisting those who have made the difficult decision not to kill, even placing ourselves at risk in order to do so. Olympia Monthly Meeting asks that all Friends consider this calling in the light of our history and our continuing experience of the Spirit, and act as they feel called. Specifically:

• We invite [Quaker] Monthly Meetings within North Pacific Yearly Meeting to join us as we consider adopting minutes affirming our historic commitment to assist those who, for reasons of conscience, can not participate in killing.
• We invite North Pacific Yearly Meeting and other Yearly Meetings to consider affirming this commitment.
• We invite individual [Quaker] Meetings and their members to consider and season how best to assist those who leave or consider leaving military service for reasons of conscience.
• We invite [Quaker] Meetings in Canada and elsewhere outside the United States to consider how they can assist those who leave or consider leaving military service in the United States for reasons of conscience.
• We ask Monthly and Yearly [Quaker] Meetings in the United States to work with and support Canadian and other Meetings outside the United States in this effort.
• We invite both Monthly and Yearly [Quaker] Meetings to consider witnessing to our adherence to our historic calling publicly in any and all ways which seem appropriate.

The Olympia Friends Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) opposes the current bombing and planned invasion of Iraq by the United States of America. We urge our government to work with the international community to seek diplomatic solutions to conflicts with Iraq. We join people of conscience, other faiths and churches who oppose this dangerous and misguided thrust toward violence. A U.S. attack on Iraq will destroy thousands of lives.

We must use America’s power to break from the past, reject violence and build international institutions of law and order, economic and political justice and environmental protection. Positive U.S. leadership would catalyze people of good will all over the world to effective action. The lives of our children and grandchildren can be liberated from the terror and hatred our own generation is enduring.

We oppose war, believing it is the ultimate rejection of God’s creation. We believe that the sources of violence can be exposed and transformed through creative, courageous and unexpected acts that restore justice, heal human relationships and untangle the deep roots of conflict.

We seek peace and justice through such nonviolent means as God would have for us all.