Sanctuary (Minute approved April 10, 2018)

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Olympia Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) pledges to support immigrants in our larger community, particularly those who face unjust criminalization, detention, and deportation. We will work to defend and protect individuals, families, and communities affected by unjust policies and to protest the enactment of these policies.

Our Quaker testimonies of equality, community, and peace lead us to honor the worth and dignity of each individual, regardless of immigration status. We will encourage members of our Quaker community to engage in the sanctuary movement, providing support in the following ways, as we are able and led:

  • Accompanying immigrants to Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) hearings and to court, and writing letters of support.
  • Organizing for the enactment of just immigration policies.
  • Resisting unjust policies, including efforts to remove Sanctuary status from our city and state.
  • Supporting faith communities that offer physical sanctuary and individuals living in places of sanctuary.
  • Providing financial assistance, material support, and other contributions as requested by the immigrant community.
  • Rapid Response, such as being present in places of ICE activity.

We will work in partnership with our immigrant communities and leaders and with the South Sound Faith Network for Immigration and Refugee Support and other like-minded groups.

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This Minute is available in PDF format here.

Job announcement: new part-time staff position at OMM called Hearthkeeper

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Update March 26, 2018:
The Hearthkeeper staff position for Olympia Friends Meeting has been filled. Thanks.

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February 24, 2018

Greetings,

At our last Meeting for Business, the Meeting agreed to create a new part-time staff position called Hearthkeeper. A four-page description of the position and how to apply is linked below as a PDF document.

It is hoped to have the new Hearthkeeper begin work April 2nd. Initially, we are announcing this among f/Friends until March 11.

Deadline for in-house applications: received by noon, Sunday March 10. After that time, depending upon the response, the position may be advertised more broadly.

Here is the description of the position and how to apply: OlympiaFriendsMeeting-Hearthkeeper-job-description-and-how-to-apply-2018 (PDF format)

Olympia Friends Meeting is seeking a Children’s Program Support Specialist

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Olympia Friends Meeting is seeking a Children’s Program Support Specialist: a quarter-time (approximately) paid staff member to coordinate and support our programs for children and teens.

We are hoping for a person who has experience with working with children/youth, has a background in the Quaker faith and/or religious education of a compatible faith, and a willingness to become knowledgeable and qualified to support and teach about Quaker traditions and values.

The person in this position will assist our Children’s Committee in implementing our programs, by helping with curriculum, coordinating volunteers, obtaining supplies and helping support our events for children, youth and families.

We would like this person to be ready to start in early July.

Interested folks should read the job description carefully, then submit a resume and cover letter by June 19, 2017. We are hoping to interview in late June.

See the job description here. (PDF format)

Atonement Prayer (for the United States)

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by Vince Schueler

Oh God of mercy, justice and truth
 You who have raised up nations in Your name
      And have brought them low
Hear our prayer of atonement

We who in our arrogance and pride
 have placed ourselves above your holy order
    and have exalted ourselves above all nations, call your name
We have plundered the earth’s natural bounty
 to preserve our comfort, wealth and safety
   in a measure far greater than our share.

We who have abandoned you
 to worship the idols of hatred and contempt, hear our prayer.

Our divisions increase in number as
  we fuel the fires of resentment in our furnace of disparity
    and with bellows of fear and distrust we heat to white hot
    what holds us together in law and harmony.
      Forging asunder
       Blue and red, rural and urban,
         Muslim, christian, jew, white, black and brown
            Immigrant or native, legal and illegal
                Traitor – Patriot, Us – Them

Oh merciful one
  Save us from our failing institutions and leaders
    Who bend truth to serve their desires, not Yours
      and who have made selfishness a virtue.
Protect us from those who have betrayed us,
  as we have betrayed them, in our surrender
      to the demons of distraction, indifference and despair

Open our eyes to what we have become
  Let us not turn away in disgust and shame
    Or strut away in affronted anger
      Or run from our creation in fear

God of justice mercy and truth
  Bring us back into unity with You and Your one law of love
    Bring us back to your holy presence

Fill us with your mercy and love
Provide sweet balm for our callused callousness
and quench our heat with Your love
Direct our thoughts and actions to those that will mend our bonds
And return us to your divine center

New Testament Version

Jesus – we have really screwed this country up,
  Help us with your love.

May 20, 2017

Potluck lunch and screening of the film, “Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin,” followed by discussion

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Saturday, February 4, 2017, noon to 3 p.m.

Olympia Friends Meetinghouse
3201 Boston Harbor Road NE
Olympia, WA  98506-2800

Bayard Rustin was raised by his Quaker grandmother. In high school he protested segregation at a hometown restaurant and was arrested for sitting in the whites only section of a theater. Rustin’s belief in nonviolent action as a means for social change gave him a guiding vision for the civil rights movement. He helped A. Philip Randolph plan a March on Washington in June, 1941. Abraham Muste, executive secretary of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, who had also been involved in planning that march, then appointed Rustin as FOR’s secretary for student and general affairs. Rustin met Martin Luther King Jr. in 1956 after traveling to Montgomery, Alabama, to assist with the boycott of the city’s segregated bus system, and is credited with helping to mold the younger King into an international symbol of nonviolence.

Bayard Rustin was the primary organizer of the 1963 March on Washington.

Despite these achievements, Rustin was silenced, threatened and fired from leadership positions – sometimes because of his uncompromising political beliefs, but more often because he was an openly gay man in a fiercely homophobic era. BROTHER OUTSIDER reveals the price that Rustin paid for this openness, chronicling both the triumphs and setbacks of his remarkable 60-year career.

This free event was sponsored by the Oympia Friends (Quakers) Meeting’s Peace and Social Justice Subcommittee on Institutional Racism.

The resource packet shared at this event which was put together by PFLAG Olympia is available here: Tapestry – PFLAG-Olympia’s 02-19-2010 Outreach Packet for African-American History Month (PDF format)

Questions? Contact Gabi Clayton, 360-888-5291
http://olympiafriends.org

Download this event flyer in a full 8.5″x11″ page and a 4-up on 8.5″x11″ page (both in PDF format) here by clicking on the links or on these images:

Addressing Systemic Racism (Minute approved on October 9, 2016)

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Olympia Monthly Meeting acknowledges and embraces the need to address systemic/institutional racism both within our OMM community and the wider community.  To take action on this concern, we agree that we will do the following:

  1. Members and attenders of the Olympia Monthly Meeting will make time in our lives to make a real contribution to an ongoing effort to reverse systemic racism and to promote personal transformation concerning our own racism.
  2. As a first step, we will form a subcommittee on racism under the care of our Peace and Social Justice Committee to help structure and organize the work. We encourage broad participation in the subcommittee among all members and attenders. We ask this subcommittee to help us hold ourselves accountable to contributing to those changes that we believe our Testimony and Discipline require of us. This work will be reviewed after one year to determine any required next steps or changes in structure.
  3. When planning and pacing this work, we ask the subcommittee to consider the following:

i. How can we increase our experience of the “light of truth” by working with African-Americans, Native Americans, and other people of color to develop an increased individual and corporate understanding of systemic racism?

ii. How do we identify traditions and behaviors that could make our society and monthly meetings less inviting to people who have been harmed by systemic racism? How do we increase our awareness and sensitivity to better welcome these individuals and their families or descendants when they are led to join us?

iii. What ways exist to celebrate our neighbors by meeting with them where they live, work, worship, and play? Consideration of African-American activist and scholar Ron Daniels’ statement that the “goal … is not so much integration and organization, at least from the vantage of most African Americans. It is a question of equity and parity,” and his discussion of “coerced internalization of the dominating, or white culture” also encourages us to look for ways to meet with neighbors where they are most at home.

iv. What are other Friends organizations doing to contribute to all the above work? What opportunities exist for us to contribute to these efforts?

The Minute was Accepted.
10/09/2016
Olympia, WA

Quaker Lobbyist position – Help us provide a Quaker Voice in the Washington State Legislature

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FCWPP-logo

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.

June 29, 2016: Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) Advocacy Team Workshop in Thurston County – with Maiya Zwerling

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FCNL-logo

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.

Maiya Zwerling FCNL National Field Organizer
Maiya Zwerling, FCNL

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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“Refusing to be Enemies” Book Event with Author Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta – May 28, 2016

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RefusingToBeEnemies--MaxineKaufman-Lacusta-OlympiaWA-May28-2016_facebook event

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.