Each year, Quaker communities within Southeastern Yearly Meeting are invited and encouraged to submit Spiritual State of the Meeting Reports, and SEYM uses them as the base on which to build a picture of our yearly meeting.
The purpose of the reports is to create an opportunity for Friends in meetings to consider how Spirit has been moving in their worship community during the year just passed. The need for self-assessment is valuable to the meeting, we believe, and to the yearly meeting. Learning that there are needs and gifts that can be shared among us or that there is a need for greater capacity or support in a particular area is one important outcome from prayerful consideration of the Spiritual State of the Meeting reports. [Credit: Philadelphia Yearly Meeting]
Clearwater Friends Meeting
2023 Spiritual State of the Meeting
During the past year Clearwater Friends began to look more closely at how to structure our Meeting while caring for one another and strengthening the spirit and well-being of Friends. Helping individuals get to meetings and events, checking that members and attenders can meet their basic needs, and holding in the Light all who experience the sorrows of everyday life, showed us how deeply we care for one another and our mutual dependence on each-other.
We are becoming more comfortable with life in the digital age. We use Zoom as an adjunct for our worship and business meetings and for standing committees, such as Ministry and Counsel. Friends unable to attend face-to-face meetings use Zoom to maintain vital involvement with our meeting. Our new website (clearwaterfriends.org) publishes notes of Quaker activities, and links to other community groups, expanding our visibility online. The weekly Clearwater Friends Newsletter (Quaker News), now in its fifth year, is widely distributed by email. We are grateful to members and attenders who volunteer their technical skills and manage the digital life of our meeting.
We reached out to the community through our work with the NAACP, League of Women Voters, Peace4Tarpon, and the Dunedin Walk for Peace. We hosted the local Interfaith Story Circle at the Meetinghouse which was well attended. Our musically talented members performed at several events with their joyful songs. Our donation of a “White Christmas” to the Shepherd Center included white underwear and socks for all ages, and diapers.
In response to the recent “book banning,” some of us attend School Board Meetings in Pinellas County to challenge efforts to restrict access to books in our public schools. We are implementing a local campaign to distribute books consistent with Quaker values through the network of “free little libraries” in Pinellas and Pasco counties.
We experienced mixed emotions as several of our members and faithful attenders moved away from the area and although we share their joy, we miss them and shall continue to hold them in the Light on their new journeys. As the winter months bring visitors to the Meeting we are infused with their goodwill and encouraged by their friendship.
Two of our members celebrated their 95th birthdays. But our special times together are not always so joy filled. During the summer a special Meeting at John Chestnut Park in Palm Harbor gathered to hear Caroline Kaufmann’s eulogy in memory of her husband John. We also grieved the deaths of Members Elaine Bardsley and Luella Chatters. We are reminded that our love for these precious lives endures.
As our numbers diminish and we seem to grow more senior in age, we changed the Meeting structure to work more as a “Committee as a Whole” while laying down the Peace and Social Concerns and First Day School Committees. After much thought Friends decided against purchasing our own place to meet, and instead, to use the designated funds to further our presence in the community. It also became clear that we needed to adjust our budget while continuing to support those in need. To be more responsive to our fiscal obligations we are encouraged to donate to the Meeting on a monthly or quarterly basis. We are fortunate that the generosity of Clearwater Friends over the years enables us to
continue a Friendly presence in our community.