One has to applaud the sheer hon­esty of the group of lead­ing Quak­ers who have recent­ly pro­posed turn­ing the grounds of Philadel­phi­a’s his­toric Arch Street Meet­ing­house into a retire­ment home. It makes per­fect sense. Arch Street is the host for our annu­al ses­sions, where the aver­age age is sure­ly over 70. Why not insti­tu­tion­al­ize the year­ly meet­ing reality?

The Arch Street Meet­ing­house grounds are also a ceme­tery. In about ten years time we can raze the meet­ing­house for more head­stones and in about twen­ty years time we can have a big par­ty where we cash out the year­ly meet­ing funds and just burn them in a big bon­fire (there’s a fire sta­tion across the street), for­mal­ly lay­ing down Philadel­phia Year­ly Meet­ing. The fif­teen of us who are left can go attach our­selves to some oth­er year­ly meeting.

This year’s annu­al ses­sions con­tin­ue their tra­di­tion of self-parody: the fea­tured speak­ers are the umpteenth gray-hair pro­fes­sion­al Quak­er talk­ing about the peace tes­ti­mo­ny and a psy­chol­o­gist who appears on NPR. It’s safe to assume nei­ther will stray beyond the mildest com­mu­ni­ties of faith talk to men­tion God, gospel order or nam­ing of gifts, and that nei­ther will ask why there’s almost no one under forty involved in the year­ly meet­ing. The last time I went to a nom­i­nat­ing com­mit­tee work­shop at annu­al ses­sions, mem­bers open­ly explained to me why Friends under forty could­n’t serve on com­mit­tees. Lat­er dur­ing that ses­sion we learned the aver­age new atten­der was in their thir­ties yet the year­ly meet­ing clerk did­n’t think it was appro­pri­ate than any Friend under fifty com­ment on that (about 40 old­er Friends were rec­og­nized to share their thoughts, natch).

The gen­er­a­tional freefall is com­ing to the year­ly meet­ing. Arch Street Meet­ing is smack in the mid­dle of one of the pre­mier hip young neigh­bor­hoods of Philadel­phia yet they’ve been resis­tant to doing any seri­ous out­reach or adult reli­gious ed (I could tell sto­ries: don’t get me start­ed). This week­end I learned that the oth­er down­town meet­ing, Cen­tral Philadel­phia, con­tin­ues its prac­tice – almost pol­i­cy – of not sup­port­ing emerg­ing min­istry in long-time young atten­ders (I could real­ly tell sto­ries). I would­n’t be sur­prised if Philadel­phia has the low­est per-capita year­ly meet­ing attendance.

So why not just admit that the year­ly meet­ing is irrel­e­vant to younger Friends? Why not turn our meet­ing­hous­es into retire­ment homes?

PS: How I wish I weren’t so cyn­i­cal about the year­ly meet­ing. I don’t want to feel like it’s a state of all-out gen­er­a­tional war­fare. I’ve tried, real­ly I have. I’m even will­ing to try again. But no where have I found a space to have these dis­cus­sions, at year­ly meet­ing or any­where else. Oth­er Phi­la. YM Friends con­cerned with these issues are wel­come to email me – maybe we can fig­ure out some forum for this either inside or out­side of the offi­cial structures. 
PPS: There are a lot of won­der­ful Friends involved with the year­ly meet­ing. They have good ideas and sin­cere­ly try to make it a more wel­com­ing place. The best part of the year­ly meet­ing ses­sions I’ve attend­ed have been the unex­pect­ed con­ver­sa­tions. It’s the insti­tu­tion I am frus­trat­ed with: the sense that it’s big­ger and dumb­er than all of us.
PPPS: What if I took my own words to heart and con­sid­ered a PhYM renew­al as part of the fifty-year plan? If I just stopped com­plain­ing and just attend­ed patient­ly and faith­ful­ly year after year for those “teach­able moments” that might inch it forward?