The Canadian Friend

September-October 1998


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I’ve written a lot in this issue of The Canadian Friend, so I’ll try to be brief here. It’s difficult though. It was a full, and deeply moving week for me. Besides putting together this issue (and not being quite pushy enough about it – otherwise you would not have so much to read by me!) I also co-coordinated the teen program with Jane Orion Smith. It’s always a delight to work with the teens and this year we had lots of help – from a motley crew of wild and wonderful Brits, a contingent from the Quaker Youth Theatre, who came to do drama workshops with the Youth Programme (12 and up). QYT (also known as the Leaveners) was formed in Britain in 1978, when some Young Friends there put together an impromptu piece of street theatre about Quakers, and how they started. The show wound through the streets of Lancaster, and was the beginning of the annual shows which QYT now does every summer, in their summer gathering and also at Britain Yearly Meeting when it is residential. Anyone who wants to join them can do so, and work on lights, have acting parts, make scenery – the full performance is put together in two weeks. It’s an intense experience, leading to five nights of performance, with each day starting and ending in worship. Our teens had a little taste of this at CYM this year, not as intense because they had only two hours of the Leaveners each afternoon, rather than the twelve hour days that would happen at Britain Yearly Meeting. There were also presentations each morning on racism and racial diversity (the theme for the Youth Programme this year), given by Vanessa Julye (from Friends World Committee for Consultation), Liz Kamphausen (from Pendle Hill), and our own Betty Peterson (Betty was in her Raging Granny persona, well worth seeing). All of this led up to a series of tableaux on the theme of racism for Family Night on Friday. It was marvelous. At the Meeting for Worship for Business of Canadian Young Friends, there were many who expressed interest in going to do sessions with QYT at their summer gathering at Canterbury in England in 1999. Judging by this summer’s sessions, it could be a life-changing and transformative experience. I hope that our Young Friends will find a way to do it.

All week I floated between the business sessions, the youth programme, the food coop, and my work with The Canadian Friend. I feel as though I managed to cover the whole of Yearly Meeting, but know that there was a lot I missed. It’s as though there were several Yearly Meetings running concurrently – almost in different dimensions. It would be nice if the issues we look at in the Youth Programme (justice last year, racism this year)could be tied in with the business of Yearly Meeting. The only point of overlap came when Robert Wright, a social worker from Halifax, came to give presentations, to the adults on Thursday night and the kids on Friday morning, about African Canadian history in Nova Scotia.

All in all though, it was a great week. I hope that reading this issue will inspire more people to make it toYearly Meeting next year next year, in Winnipeg. It’s well worth the trip.