What brought joy to your Meeting this year and why?
Our simplest joy is the love and support we experience as part of Wilton Friends Meeting. Our community continues to grow in numbers as well as in depth. This year saw a constant stream of newcomers to our Meeting, including some who are new to Quakerism. We have experienced great joy in the process of our growth, working together and supporting one another to accomplish common goals.
Our most exciting accomplishment this year was the startup of Connecticut Friends School, the first Friends school in Connecticut. We saw the First Day School raise funds and send two inter-Meeting groups to Jamaica to help build a chicken coop and refurbish the sleeping quarters at a Quaker orphanage. Our outreach activities with Janus House, NEON Food Pantry, Gillespie House, Abolition 2000, and Alternatives to Violence (among others) continue to enrich our sense of contributing to the larger world community.
Our most challenging task was seeking a sense of the Meeting with regard to our role in same gender covenant relationships. The resulting minute affirms the Meeting's commitment to equal treatment of all persons seeking marriage under the care of the Meeting.
How might you realize God's presence more fully in your Meeting?
We must continue to realize the expansiveness of the Spirit and to remain open to the spiritual needs of all of our members and attenders. We want to provide an environment that is conducive to explorations of mystical and personal approaches to God and to discussions about the "Him/Her or It" of God. We continue to work on our respect for the divine leading of spoken ministry.
Our efforts towards pastoral care and adult religious education are areas in which we are always looking for improvement. We want to continue open discussions about honesty, simplicity, and other Quaker testimonies. We need to be watchful for other ways to develop contemplative awareness, both individual and shared, and to deepen our experience of Spirit through prayer and in the daily activities of life.
As a faith community we need more shared understanding of the difference between intellectual reasoning with self-will and ongoing revelation. Revealed Truth leads to humility, patience, love and joy. This kind of Truth can be discovered only when we move beyond our human concepts of what God's will ought to be.
How does your Meeting support Friends of all ages in living out our testimonies?
Our First Day School is a dynamic, interactive group that is extremely rewarding to all who participate. We continue to look for ways to include members of Meeting in the FDS process for both inspiration and assistance in order that the teachers may attend Meeting.
Connecticut Friends School seeks to expand its enrollment and make its program affordable to a diverse population. Although the Nursery school doesn't have any diversity scholarship children at this time, they continue to work with the NEON program in Norwalk in order to broaden the childrens' awareness of other races and cultures.
Overseers have been asked to take on the responsibility for providing a clearness process for Meeting's young Friends and attenders of high school and college ages in order to provide a regular structure to ensure that young friends approaching their 22nd birthday are counseled about reaffirming their membership. Ministry and Counsel has established clearness committees upon request and Meeting for Healing continues to meet. Some friends have expressed concern that we need to become more aware of the needs and interest of older members and attenders.
Overall, we strive to be a community that recognizes the value of all members through our corporate worship and pastoral care as well as through our new school, our Powell House retreats, First Day School, the Friendly Forum, our newsletter and more.
What are your Meeting's hopes and aspirations for the coming year?
Connecticut Friends School seeks clarity as they try to provide a spiritually, physically, socially and emotionally invigorating education in our local context. We want to help them realize their dreams and accomplish the daily work of building the bricks and mortar of an institution. First Day School hopes to establish a more structured curriculum which sets forth learning criteria for each level. Peace and Social Action seeks to expand the motivation of those within the Meeting to give of their time, energy and spirit to the community beyond the families of Wilton Friends Meeting.
We need to expand our physical space to allow more room for meetings, discussions, fellowship and learning for all age groups. This will allow our Library to be a tranquil and welcoming space for quiet study and contemplation of Quaker sources, as well as for spiritual counseling.
Our aspirations are centered around the hope that we can nurture the growth we are experiencing and expand ourselves both physically and spiritually while being mindful to include all of our members and attenders in the process. We want to be sure that God has an active role in our lives and that we can draw on the strength of the Spirit more consistently.