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When I came to Quakerism, as someone who was already kind of a young adult in college,
it felt like this beautiful coming home to a family that I didn’t even realize that
I had. There was no pressure. There was no, “Where have you been? You’re a little
late.” It was just: “We’ve been waiting for you and we’re so happy that you found
your way to us.”
Some of my twenties… it was an interesting time because I’m traveling and living in
different places. I think I lived a month or more in probably a half dozen states in
the course of my twenties and then I have a different job every couple of years, and
one thing I found was that—you know, I think this is a time, twenties and thirties, where
people started to maybe fall off from religion—for me, it got deeper. Because one constant I
had was that I was a Friend.
If I lived somewhere I was looking for a meeting. I was I was trying to attend, I was trying
to participate. Particularly on things relating to their social concerns, their witness. Instead
of my religion just being a part of my life, that my life was framed by my religion, and
my spiritual sense was important to me and I felt it important to nurture that.
What has kept me engaged as a Young Adult Friend and in Quaker institutions and Quaker
life is the values that I have learned from those communities: despite how jaded you could
feel by the work that still needs to be done in the world, there is something to be hopeful
for. There’s a lot that is worth working that hard for and quite simply there is no
one else to do this work if we’re not going to do it.
I think when people are looking for other Quakers who are roughly young adult age, it
can be a little difficult because we are spread out and many of us might be focusing on things
that are not Quakerism at this particular moment in our lives. Having the opportunity
to work at FCNL right after college was a really awesome way to transition out of this
great Quaker community that I had at Haverford College into another great Quaker community.
And FCNL (the Friends Committee on National Legislation) was a constant for me. I knew
that wherever I was, I intended to go to its annual meeting. They were just a part of that
sense of permanency that I didn’t often have a lot of. I knew that no matter what
I was doing, I would have that and I would be involved in that.
These Quaker communities have given me so much in my life that it’s nothing for me
to become more involved. That’s what I have to give at this point because I don’t have
financial contributions to give yet, or much else, and so what I have is my time and energy
to give towards things. I’m very happy to give it at this point because I’m ready
to see it carried forward and to honor the work that everybody’s done that’s come
before. And in a sense, it’s kind of comforting.
You’ll go to D.C. every year, maybe in a different location or something, but I’ll
see many of the same people. I’ll be engaged in some of the same work. And it’s very
intense. Especially being on policy committee, which I got onto the year after I joined the
general committee. It does get very intense in some years, especially in the last 3 or
4, but I always feel nurtured at the end of it. The work we do: it is well with
my soul.