FALL 2007Phil Anthony
(856) 769-0066 (voice)
(856) 769-1416 (fax)
salemqtr@verizon.netMy friends the Woods live in a 19th-century Presbyterian manse on 63 acres in upstate Pennsylvania. Until this summer, the house and property were owned by a family trust made up of descendants of its original occupants.
It was discovered, however, that once the family had grown to 200 members, the trust was too cumbersome to do the job. Accordingly, the family spent the past year crafting bylaws. On July 4, I was present for the vote and signing of the papers to turn it into a nonprofit family corporation.
SEPTEMBER QUARTERLY MEETING
Greenwich Monthly Meeting
Sunday, 9 September 20072:30 pm Gather 3:00 pm Business meeting 5:00 pm Brown-bag dinner: desserts provided by Mickleton and Mullica Hill MM 6:00 pm Program: Tyesse Gould of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape speaks of her tribe and its relations with the Quaker community 7:00 pm Candlelight worship Child care provided Darwin Wood, president of the trustees, introduced the session. He traced the history of the property, and the family. He spoke of the torch being passed, and of the difference between the spirit of the family and the individual members. Legally, the corporation is formed to preserve the property. But the new legal entity is charged to preserve the spirit as well as the property where the family comes together.
Nor is the manse and surrounding land to be preserved as a museum or historical site. It's important to be mindful of the past, he advised—and in fact the manse contains significant historical relics. But the family is a living entity. Those who maintain the property must be open to the changing needs of the living human beings who use it.
The legal ownership, he said, must follow the spiritual ownership, not determine it. The corporation must seek to embody the spirit of the family. What is of consequence is grounding the legal transfer of property obligations in the spiritual implications.
As I listened to Dar, who formed the trust in the 1960s, I couldn't help thinking of the meetings of Salem Quarter. Like the manse, our property and its contents have historical value. The forms we use to preserve it are charged with care of the physical assets. Underlying that, however, is the spirit of our meetings—what the first three chapters of the book of Revelation refer to as the Angels of the Churches.
Like Dar's family, the meetings are living, growing entities. Each meeting has its own spirit—its angel. Our meetings are grounded in our peculiar Quaker structure. Their "angels" are shaped by the meetings' history. But what we hold in trust is the living, changing spirit which gives them their value, adapts to meet the needs of new generations, and makes hospitable homes for our living members.
Another part of our living Quaker history is the subject of our program at Salem Quarterly Meeting on Sunday, 9 September, at Greenwich MM. The Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape of South Jersey still remember the treaty their ancestors signed with William Penn in Salem County.
Tyesse Gould is the daughter of the chief of that tribe, and their representative to the white Friends of the Lenni-Lenape. She will be speaking to us of her nation—both its past and its present with a new tribal center just constructed in Fairton, Cumberland County.
She and her tribe, along with some of us in Salem Quarterly Meeting, envision the possibility of a new, living relation being formed between the Quakers and the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape. Please come listen to Tyesse and think about the possibility, which brings with it opportunity for so much mutual enrichment. Directions are here.
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