Smithfield Friends Newsletter SUMMER 2000 Smithfield Monthly Meeting of Friends 108 Smithfield Road Woonsocket, RI 02895 Vol.12________________________________________________________________________ No.120 Parsonage: 762-5726 Internet: http://www.oftedahl.com/SmithfieldFriends Clerk: Bruce Kay Recording Clerk Susan Furry Pastor: Marnie Miller-Gutsel Treasurer:RichardFrechette Ministry&Counsel Rhoda Mowry Newsletter: Randy Oftedahl CALENDAR FOR JUNE/JULY/AUGUST EVERY SUNDAY 10:30 am: MEETING FOR WORSHIP First Day School Child care for infants and toddlers LAST SUNDAY OF EACH MONTH: Unprogrammed Worship and Pot Luck Lunch OTHER WORSHIP UNDER THE CARE OF SMITHFIELD MEETING OR RI/SMITHFIELD QTLY. MTG. SECOND SUNDAY OF MONTH 7:00 PM: Unprogrammed Worship at Uxbridge Meetinghouse, Uxbridge, Mass EVERY WEDNESDAY 6:00 PM: Unprogrammed Worship and discussion at ACI(Maximum) Other Events: June 25 Following Meeting: Pot luck picnic at the Sprague's home July 16 Quarterly Meeting at Providence August 5-10 New England Yearly Meeting at Bryant College, Smithfield, RI September 3 Newsletter Deadline for September Reminder: Kara Price will provide First Day School will continue throughout the summer. Come to Meeting this summer! Letter from Marnie Dear Friends, This will be a very active summer for me. In July, I'll head first for Pendle Hill for a pre-FWCC Triennial Conference on Identity, Authority, and Community. (The first of these conferences, in July, 1997, in Birmingham, England, was a fascinating and deeply thought-provoking introduction to the 1997 Triennial. Those two gatherings gave me insights into the nature of Quakerism around the world that I had never had before.) From Pendle Hill, I'll go on to Triennial 2000, at Geneva Point, NH. But none of this would have been possible without you. When I go, I will be carrying a banner with a picture of our Meeting House and your hand prints and/or signatures on it. It will displayed during the gathering, and then be exchanged for the banner of another representative from some other Yearly Meeting. But it's not a "Yearly Meeting" banner--it's yours. And it represents your presence with me in this enterprise. If I were not deeply rooted in this community, and supported by it, not only materially, but emotionally and spiritually, I would not and could not be there at all. Not just I, but we, will be there. I was thinking about this in connection with the contrast between Jesus and John the Baptist. John was not in a community. He was a loner, a 'voice crying in the wilderness--which was OK. But I think it's immensely important to see how Jesus rooted himself in a community. And what a community! There were his immediate followers--some were people of power and influence, but others were the scruffiest bunch you could imagine. Tax collectors. Harlots. Even Romans and Samaritans. People nobody else in his community wanted to associate with. But he was also rooted in the wider Jewish community. He worshipped and taught in the synagogues, and performed all the duties expected of observant Jews. This is what community is--it includes all the rich variety of humankind, everyone with some gift to contribute. It's really rather sad that in this individualistic age, we are losing our sense of how important community is, how much its leaders need that encouragement and support. The leaders cannot accomplish nearly as much on their own. I saw a wonderful symbol of this on my way back from Philadelphia last week. My train was passing through a scruffy inner city neighborhood, full of overgrown lots, deserted buildings with broken windows, and shabby houses. Then we passed by a small school, with a playground paved in concrete. It all looked pretty depressing. But in the playground was a group of about ten or twelve people; they looked liked folks from the neighborhood. They had been smashing up some of the concrete slabs and setting the chunks to one side. And in the earth they had uncovered, they were planting a neat row of little trees, each about six or eight feet tall, stretching across the playground. And I thought, YES! No one person, no matter how strong, clever, or imaginative, could have done that alone. But together we can say, "We don't have to live this way. Here, in this bleak schoolyard, or wherever we are, together we can begin to build the Kingdom of God. Have a wonderful, building summer, Love, Marnie Planning Your Summer? Take note of the brochures in the foyer for Friends Music Camp, NEYM China (Maine) Camp, and FGC General Gathering 2000 (July 1-8 in Rochester, NY.) RE folks, don't forget the conference for RE educators and parents, Awakening Minds and Hearts, August 17-20, at Massenetta Springs, in the Virginia mountains. For more information on that conference, contact the FGC office, 1216 Arch St., 2B, Philadelphia, PA 19107; EMail: www.fgcquaker.org. Yearly Meeting Coming Up Previous attenders should have received a flyer in the mail. Extras are available in the foyer. Don't forget the dates--August 5-10, at Bryant College. If you've never gone before, come and see what a great time is available for everybody, of all ages. Health Care Professionals Looking for a fun and educational fall break? The Friends Medical Society will hold a one day conference at the Arch Street Meeting in Philadelphia on Saturday, October 21. The theme is Meeting the Challenges of the New Millennium. If so moved, Friends are invited to submit proposals for short papers (Deadline--June 15) or to be panel participants (suggest a topic). Costs are modest--only $30, and home hospitality can be arranged. See brochure on bulletin board--Marnie can make extra copies. Young Quakes Conference, 2000 High school age Young Friends will gather in McNabb, IL (near Chicago) Columbus Day weekend, October 6-9. See flier on bulletin board. Be A Part of The Triennial! Plans are in the works for hosting Triennial representatives from around the world, and Smithfield will have its part--details will be announced after upcoming Meetings for Worship. Since there will be no newsletter for the rest of the summer, if you are interested in participating in some of the activities, call Marnie, Rhoda, or Bruce for additional details as the time draws nearer. In addition, the pre-Triennial Consultation on Identity, Authority, and Community, which will be held at Pendle Hill, wants your input. Smithfield will be discussing these issues in a variety of ways as a Meeting, but in prepartion, the planning committee for the Consultation has sent us the questions below. Marnie will be one of the New England reps, and would welcome your thoughts on them. New Meeting Directory Coming Out Please check the draft list in the lobby, and correct the information about you and your family as needed. "Your Job is to Witness" This is a reprinted segment of Marnie Miller-Gutsell's November 1997 report from the Friends World Committee for Consultation meeting in Birmingham, England of that year. As Friends might expect--if they are familiar with my deep love and concern for Northern Ireland--one of the most memorable Triennial events for me was an interest group on the current Irish "Troubles," led by Martie Rafferty. When I first met her back in 1988, I was doing a seminary field internship in Belfast, NI, and she was directing the unusual Quaker prison projects sponsored by the Ulster Quaker Service Committee. By the end of that summer in Belfast, I had concluded that there was a major piece missing in the peace efforts. Somehow, the hate and fear was not being fully addressed. Many people were working with children, with families, with terrorists who had been caught and imprisoned, But these people were--at least temporarily--out of the loop of direct and immediate involvement in the violence. Only a little work was being done with the ones who were actually in the streets throwing rocks or petrol bombs, shooting, loading cars with explosives. At the time, I couldn't envision how these people might be reached, how the rage and fear might be touched and healed. Now Martie is doing it, and she calls it a ministry of healing. She works one to one with terrorists and ex-terrorists, their friends, families, and victims. She has recruited ex-terrorists to work with young boys, trying to steer them away from the path of violence, She organizes teams of ex-terrorists to go to the police academy and teach the recruits how to police their neighborhoods without triggering violence. She mediates between warring factions within the terrorist ranks, trying to get them to stop killing each other. She has to deal with the outrage of community members who cannot understand why she works with "those men who murdered my son [brother, father, husband]." The work is slow and discouraging. But a wise priest told her, "It's not your job to rescue them from each other, They know what they have to do, Your job is to witness to the love of God." Fanny Drayton, Lancashire, England. The home parish of George Fox in the 1630's. Smithfield Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends Minutes of Meeting for Business - June 4, 2000 2000-41 Opening Minute Smithfield Monthly Meeting met in a regularly scheduled meeting for worship with attention to business at noon on June 4, 2000. Bruce Kay presided and twelve Friends were present. We began with a period of waiting worship, waiting for God to lead us. 2000-42 Campaign of Conscience for the Iraqi People Bruce Kay read our minute from last month (00-38) on the Campaign of Conscience for the Iraqi People. We reviewed the information on possible penalties which was published in our newsletter. Friends worshipfully considered the issue, including our concern for the 5,000 Iraqi children dying each month, and our gratitude for this opportunity for us to take a public stand against our government's policy, as individuals and as a corporate body. All minds being clear, Friends approved that Smithfield Monthly Meeting publicly endorses the Campaign of Conscience for the Iraqi People, and will make a financial contribution as a token of our support. Friends agreed to take a special collection for the Campaign of Conscience on Sunday mornings for the rest of this month. Friends agreed to forward this concern to Rhode Island Smithfield Quarterly Meeting, and to send our minutes on the matter (00-19, 00-38, and 00-42) to the Quarterly Meeting and to the other Monthly Meetings in this Quarter. Friends authorized Peace and Social Concerns Committee to send a letter explaining our action to appropriate groups, including other churches in this area and our Senators and Congressional Representatives. If the committee wishes to send information to the press we request them to bring the matter to a later meeting for business. 2000-43 Nominating Committee Recommendation For Nominating Committee, Connie Bair-Thompson recommended appointment of Ronald Belliveau to Ministry and Counsel. Friends approved this appointment. 2000-44 Quaker Youth Pilgrimage Support Joshua Oftedahl will be going to the Friends World Committee for Consultation's Quaker Youth Pilgrimage in England and Northern Ireland this summer. The total cost is $1,800. Our Meeting committed itself to financial support last November (99-85). Friends agreed that this is a very appropriate use of the Bessie Ewen Memorial Fund, which is to be used "to enrich the spiritual life of the Meeting through development of the gifts and ministries of individual members and attenders (99-31). Friends approved a grant of $600 for this purpose and request Joshua Oftedahl to inform us if more is needed. Friends also request Josh to report to us about his experience in some form after his return. 2000-45 Meeting House Sill Bruce Kay read a note from Harry Bushnell, clerk of Building and Grounds Committee, saying that he has contacted three people for estimates on the repair of the Meeting House sill, but has not received any of the estimates yet. 2000-46 Requests to the Nominating Committee Friends asked the Nominating Committee to bring us recommendations for: representatives to New England Yearly Meeting sessions, for representatives to the Yearly Meeting Ministry and Counsel and Yearly Meeting Nominating Committee, for a representative to the Quarterly Meeting Stephen Aldrich Fund Committee, and for replacements for Susan Furry, who will soon need to resign as Recording Clerk and member of Ministry and Counsel, and Paul Mangelsdorf, who will soon need to resign from the Finance Committee and the Building and Grounds Committee. Friends asked Connie Bair-Thompson to convene the Nominating Committee as soon as possible, noting that the appointments to the Yearly Meeting and Quarterly Meeting positions need to be made in July. We will have a meeting for business on July 9 to hear these recommendations. 2000-47 Vacancy on Nominating Committee Friends asked the Clerk to bring us a recommendation for an additional member and a clerk of the Nominating Committee, to replace Paul Mangelsdorf. News Item...public support for retributory death begins to wane.... "US starts to find the death penalty a turn-off" By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles 13 June 2000 The most extensive study of capital punishment ever conducted in the United States revealed yesterday that more than two-thirds of death sentences are overturned on appeal because of serious judicial error - a figure so staggeringly high that it provoked immediate calls to overhaul or even abolish the system. The study, which looked at all death-penalty cases across the country from 1973 to 1995, showed that 68 per cent of capital convictions were overturned because of incompetent defense counsel, misconduct by police or prosecutors, or judges misdirecting juries. Reported errors ran the gamut from defense lawyers falling asleep in court, to prosecutors keeping African Americans off the jury when a black defendant was being tried, to judges badmouthing defendants to the media in the middle of trials. The findings deal a serious blow to the only remaining system of capital punishment in the Western world. In recent months, new DNA evidence has challenged many death penalty convictions, leading to an almost unprecedented erosion in public support and causing politicians in two conservative states, Illinois and New Hampshire, to take steps to stop executions altogether. James Liebman, a Columbia University law professor, former criminal defense lawyer and lead author of the study, said the figures revealed a system that was "wasteful and broken" and raised questions as to whether other judicial errors had gone unnoticed. Of the cases where death sentences were challenged on appeal, 75 per cent led to lesser punishments and 7 per cent led to a final verdict of not guilty. Even in the 18 per cent of cases where the death penalty was reapplied on retrial, further appeals often led to sentences being overturned again. Three states, Kentucky, Maryland and Tennessee, had been unable to make a single death sentence stick since the reintroduction of capital punishment in the early 1970s. Nine other states, including California and Georgia, had reversal rates of more than 80 per cent. And although two of the states that carry out the most executions, Texas and Virginia, were near the bottom of the list (52 per cent and 18 per cent respectively), Professor Liebman said this could be a commentary on their inability to spot errors rather than an indication of greater judicial competence. The litany of errors, and the excruciatingly long time it takes to uncover them - nine years in a typical judicial review, and more than twice that long in some cases - was exacting "terrible costs on taxpayers, victims' families, the judicial system and the wrongly condemned", Professor Liebman concluded. Of the 5,760 death sentences passed during the study period, only 313 - less than 5 per cent - were actually carried out, raising questions about both the efficiency of the system and the psychological cruelty imposed on death-row prisoners. "It's not just one case, it's not just one state. Error was found at epidemic levels across the country," Professor Liebman said. "From the point of view of a taxpayer, I am paying all this money and they're managing to carry out just one in 20 death sentences." The study, originally commissioned by the Senate Judiciary Committee as a scientific analysis of judicial error, took nine years to complete but arrived at the most sensitive time possible, when the issue has entered the presidential election campaign because of the unprecedented rate of execution championed by the Republican candidate, the Texas Governor, George W Bush. Texas has almost doubled the number of its executions since 1995, the end of the study period and the year Mr Bush first became governor. Human rights groups have increased their accusations of violations of due process in that time - claiming the Texas system knowingly provides inadequate counsel to defendants unable to pay for their own lawyers to hurry the system along and save money. Supporters of the death penalty, including the staff of Governor Bush, tried to minimise the impact of the Liebman study, arguing that the high rate of reversals was an indication that the system was working, the result of the thoroughness of the courts rather than their sloppiness. One Bush spokesman, Ari Fleischer, chose to focus not on the 68 per cent figure but rather on the 7 per cent of death-row prisoners eventually exonerated of the crimes laid at their door. "This shows that 93 per cent are still found guilty," Mr Fleischer said. "It's not an error about their innocence. It's just a question of the appropriate punishment." But a chorus of commentators took the opposing viewpoint. "There should be zero tolerance for mistakes, not a 60 to 70 per cent tolerance for mistakes," said Patrick Leahy, a Democratic Senator for Vermont and a long-standing opponent of the death penalty. "You certainly could not run a public utility or an airline or a hospital that way." Senator Leahy was one of a group who put together draft legislation last week that would give death-row prisoners the automatic right to present DNA evidence not available at their original trial. The Senate will conduct hearings on the issue later this week. Several former death-penalty advocates, including the televangelist Pat Robertson and the conservative newspaper columnist George Will, have expressed doubts about judicial executions in recent months, particularly since the introduction of DNA evidence that has thrown the previous certainty of the criminal courts into deep confusion in several states. Stephen Saltzburg, a former Justice Department official in the Reagan administration, which supported capital punishment, said of the new study: "It must make any fair-minded person wonder what is wrong with the death-penalty system around the country." The death penalty remains overwhelmingly popular in the US, with about two-thirds of the population supporting it, but opinion polls show it has recently hit a 22-year low in public favour. The development of DNA testing has been responsible for rocking confidence in a number of convictions, some of them stretching back two decades or more, and was instrumental in persuading Illinois' conservative Governor, George Ryan, to call a halt to executions in his state because of 13 cases in which the guilt of the defendant was thrown into serious doubt. In one case, the defendant, Anthony Porter, went through the court system without any error being detected. Less than 48 hours before he was due to die, he was granted a stay because a psychologist's test showed he had an IQ of less than 50 and might not be mentally competent. Journalism students at Northwestern University subsequently uncovered evidence that exonerated him altogether. Dearly beloved Friends, these things we do not lay upon you as a rule or form to walk by; but that all, with a measure of the light, which is pure and holy, may be guided: and so in the light walking and abiding, these things may be fulfilled in the Spirit, not in the letter; for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. - Letter from the Elders Gathered at Balby, 1656 Smithfield Monthly Meeting of Friends 108 Smithfield Road Woonsocket, RI 02895