2016 Australia Yearly Meeting Epistle

Dear Friends,

One hundred and eighty-two years ago James Backhouse and George Washington Walker came to Hobart Town with a concern for the just treatment of convicts and Aborigines. This week we have come from all States and Territories of Australia and beyond to meet at The Friends’ School, Hobart.

Winter School asked us:

“How can our faith and action inspire?”

The State of the Society address asked us to consider:

“How has the Spirit moved through me this last year?”

As a Yearly Meeting we face challenges and changes. The most evident this year was the change to a winter YM.

Our Earthcare Committee encouraged us to “walk country” in the manner of Indigenous People so we can have a sense of belonging and a right relationship with the land. We need to pray/ read/ act/ celebrate the earth to begin the healing process in our “three minutes to midnight” world. An Indigenous Friend acknowledged the importance of right language, but impressed upon us the reality of poor health, despair and suicide in his remote community.

Our Membership is getting older; our children, Junior Young Friends and Young Friends wish to be engaged but face the difficulties of finding their own path. We celebrate the wealth of experience and wisdom in our elders and the freshness and enthusiasm of our Younger Friends. We are enjoined to accommodate both.

Ministry in the all ages Meeting for Worship affirmed our unity in diversity – and diversity in unity – reinforcing the importance of including children, Junior Young Friends and Young Friends in all aspects of the life of our Meetings. Young Friends remind us of our disquiet about Australia’s decisions and policies in our local regions – which have directly affected human rights and freedoms, not only of refugees but also of all of us.

We are reminded in the Backhouse Lecture that the base and the nourishment for our social concerns comes from the inward Light.

Faith in action is evident in the breadth and depth of peace and social justice work done by Australian Friends. We recognise the need for longer-term projects in areas of ongoing concern. We value the links we maintain with Friends in the Asia Pacific Region and the wider world. As always we are enriched by visiting Friends from overseas.

“Everyday prophets” in our midst demonstrate courage and heroic action in answering their leadings. This requires of us willingness to change, and being prepared to go in indirect and unforeseen directions, like the sailor tacking into the wind to move forward.

Isaac Penington said:

“When the life is at any time lost, the only way of recovery is by retiring to the invisible, and keeping there, and growing up there.”