Epistle to all Friends from Intermountain Yearly Meeting

To Friends Everywhere

We send greetings from Intermountain Yearly Meeting (IMYM) Annual Gathering 2025 at Fort Lewis College in southwestern Colorado. Here on a mesa above the Animas River Valley at 6,900 feet, we are close to the San Juan Mountains which still have a little snow on them. The weather has been perfect with warm temperatures and sunshine. The storm clouds here when we arrived have dispersed.

The origin story of the college starts with Fort Lewis, named after a relative of Lewis and Clark fame. The fort closed to become an Indian Boarding School from around 1890 to 1910 and afterwards was developed as a two-year then four-year college. The college is free to a third of the students; they are tribal members from anywhere in the country. During the gathering a few attendees visited a colorful show of Navaho rugs from the college museum’s collection. As was related in our 2022 epistle from this location, we need to remind ourselves of “the dominant cultural narratives in this region that have been told without full recognition of its original residents who continue to inhabit and connect with this land”.

The theme of our gathering was Beloved Community: Gathered in Courage and Care. It gave us three nouns to explore and play with: community, courage and care. However, a second theme emerged from the start: nonviolence. This was an unplanned and powerful topic developed.

We started our conversations with storytelling by Elizabeth Freyman about the different gifts people can bring to a meeting. Seated cross legged on the floor and surrounded by the next generation of Quakers she reminded us of the storytelling tradition of native peoples. Elizabeth’s quiet, clear voice, the discussion she generated with her wise questions, the inclusion of the children, created a spiritually gathered meeting. The introspection of the respondents, our self-questioning, was unexpected and powerful. “Gifts” is now a word loaded with new meaning for many.

Exploring Beloved Community continued in the worship sharing and two plenary sessions. The planning committee had chosen to ask our own community members to lead the plenaries rather than invite an outside speaker. So instead of being spoken to, attendees were asked for their responses to queries; after we shared our knowledge we broke into small groups for discussion. Many long-time attenders have prioritized worship sharing, and this year we had wonderful opportunities to share. Another gift was the technology of the college that allowed the on-line attendees to feel really included. Several of them commented how well their small groups had flourished.

In the first plenary session Friends responded to a query on the characteristics of a beloved community. This was followed by a three-person group listening-into-wholeness exercise. In the second session it was suggested that we reword AJ Muste’s phrase on peace into “There is no way to beloved community; beloved community is the way”. After responding to some queries, we broke into twelve groups to do an exercise on choosing and sharing three words describing community. Both these sharing experiences were deep, opening up fresh thoughts and understandings. This program enabled us to spend our time getting to know each other, to develop new friendships with trust, and grow into a blessed community.

The unanticipated theme of passive opposition started with the five Statements of Conscience we agreed to at the on-line business meeting on May 31. Presiding Clerk, Bruce Thron-Weber, brought it back with his welcoming address. His own connection with the term “beloved community” was with Martin Luther King, Jr.; for him it was further developed by Thich Nhat Hanh. Giving love and caring as a community has always been the Quaker way; today we are called to respond to the injustices happening in our country; we seek to use nonviolence as an action “to defeat injustice, not people.”

We had further opportunities to learn about nonviolence. Bruce led a discussion when he shared with us more about Martin Luther King and the building of the community of support among Black people. The nonviolent actions were planned and discussed with lots of training: people were trained not to respond to taunts when they sat at the counters. Building solidarity is essential and today this training is available from several sources. Small cadres of trained people can be more effective than mass unorganized protests. That evening we watched the film “The Third Harmony: Nonviolence and the New Story of Human Nature” produced and directed by Michael Nagler. A third opportunity was given to us on Friday when we discussed “Making Change the Quaker Way”. Once again, we did much sharing on what we are afraid of and made suggestions on how our Quaker spirit-led way can lead us to practical actions. Finally, on Saturday a large intergenerational group went with banners to join the No King rally in Durango; in the late afternoon we held our own vigil on the campus.

All along we were aware this was an intergenerational gathering. Many of the younger children’s activities were in a room adjacent to the principal gathering room and we could see them through the glass. The younger people joined at the story telling plenary. More children and youth attended than was initially expected, and the family camping experience beforehand was highly successful. The Next Generation Advisory Group has already initiated a parent’s chat platform and is recommending the hiring of a youth organizer. At our business meeting Mountain Friends Camp former attendees and adults told of their joy attending the camp and encouraged IMYM to increase its financial support.

The business meetings were shorter this year and the evening entertainment as long as usual. We have completed our time together with a strong feeling of a community covered by the Spirit that we trust to guide us in the challenging world we must live in as Quakers.

Signed on behalf of Intermountain Yearly Meeting, USA

Bruce Thron-Weber - Presiding Clerk