FALL 2003

ear Friends,

I am now about halfway through my clerking term. It has been a rich learning experience for me; I continue to feel honored to serve you in this capacity. Thank you, Friends, for all each of you brings to the Quarter and for your prayers for me and the community. Thank you for your willingness to exercise your gifts to serve and strengthen our meeting community.

Over the past eighteen months as clerk, I have been reminded that God provides all the gifts, nurture, challenges, and questions necessary for true community. I have been reminded of the importance of each of these for community. Experience has convinced me that God graces each person with gifts and talents for the whole community, not just for individual use. I have never met an ungifted person! Our gifts are myriad, from prayer, listening, and discernment to teaching, financial management, and care of quarter properties, and lots between. Each is vital and, I hope, valued. When the community seems to be lacking a gift, very often someone with the necessary gift appears and the community is strengthened and enriched. There are many wonderful surprises in community. In my work with and for the quarter I hope to be more intentional in working with you to call forth the faithful exercise of gifts. I realize that I also need to be more intentional in claiming and naming my own gifts—looking to the community for clarification at times—and that I need to do all without any jealousy of others’ gifts.

I am coming to understand that sometimes the challenges, discomforts, and questions we have as individuals are also for the community. I do not believe they are obstacles or problems, nor are they only personal. Some of our challenges and questions are for the whole community to live through day by day until we can grow together into the answers. I hope to be more intentional in my clerking work in honoring the questions and concerns and in giving them appropriate respect, time, and space—neither too much nor too little.

I have experienced again and again that the Spirit offers sufficient nurture and guidance for the community if we only pay attention and respond in faith. This nurture may come through individuals of any age or condition, through the corporate body itself, through the direct activity of the Spirit, or in some totally unexpected way. I have experienced that sometimes things which seem like dilemmas can end up becoming blessings which stretch the community and foster growth. Our tasks, I believe, are to be attentive and faithful, to give of ourselves as we feel led as a community, and to not get in the way of the Spirit but be living vessels. I personally hope to be more intentional in helping to keep our work grounded in worship, rooted in God’s Spirit, and open to what God is doing in and through the community.

Community is not automatic. Salem Quarter is the lively worship and service community that it is because its members have made it so, assisted by divine grace. For the continued vitality of our quarter, I pray we will each daily ground our work, whether individual or committee; remain centered in God and Spirit led in all our activities and relationships; and look for, honor, and help to develop the gifts we see in ourselves and in one another.

Blessings
—Michael Gibson, clerk

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