The invitation to attend Yearly Meeting 2025 has dropped into Friends’ inboxes with the news that the focus of discernment will be on our Peace Testimony. It will include our evolving responses to the Earth crisis.
Resources relating to the Earth crisis listed in the ‘Preparing for Yearly Meeting’ document include Resistant Movement: Rajan Naidu writes from prison, an extract from Adrienne Rich’s poem Natural Resources, and all-age activities inspired by The Work That Reconnects.
I feel the embracing of the Earth crisis within discernment focused on our peace testimony reflects the growing awareness among Friends of the link between our Peace and (younger) Sustainability Testimonies. Indeed, in Quaker Faith & Practice the Peace Testimony Section comes just before the Unity of Creation section.
At the same time, awareness is growing in wider society of how military conflict, the arms industry, nuclear weapons production, and stockpiling all contribute to the poly-crises (peace, earth, and climate). It is difficult to be accurate, but a rough estimate by The Conflict and Environment Observatory suggests that the world’s militaries are possibly responsible for 5.5% of CO2 emissions. (John Menadue’s Public Policy Journal ‘Pearls and Irritations’).
The new seeds around peace dialogue and activity are motivated fully or in part by the Earth crisis. In 2024, the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) began a conversation through their U.N. connections about the need for peace to be a continual process, not an end point for a current conflict. The International Red Cross Committee made a statement to a U.N. Security Council meeting in July 2024 clearly identifying world conflicts as a dangerous and damaging contributor to the poly-crises and encouraging greater work around U.N. peace-keeping and associated activities.
At a local level here in the UK and in other countries, Quakers are involved in peace vigils and online meetings for worship for peace, alternatives to violence projects, peace education in schools, non-violent communication initiatives, and protests at arms fairs, military sites, etc. – all of which are working for the benefit of humanity and our co-existing companions here on Earth.
In preparing for Yearly Meeting, we have the opportunity to contemplate and reflect deeply about the intersection of these two Testimonies: how they enrich our spiritual understanding and lived experience, and what may be emerging as the seeds for a new way of being.
Preparing for Yearly Meeting: https://www.quaker.org.uk/documents/yearly-meeting-2025-preparing-for-yearly-meeting
Registration for Yearly Meeting: Registration information | Quakers in Britain
Kathryn May