FCNL’s Diane Randall delivered the Friday night message at Annual Meeting 2017, envisioning the next five years for FCNL.
“Truth is one and the same always, though ages and generations pass away, and one generation goes and another comes, yet the word and the power of the Living God endures forever, and is the same and never changes.” Margaret Fell
This is a story about all of us. Tonight, my message is about power, politics, and prophecy. It is about the collective power we share and the individual power we live into. It is about how the fierce urgency of now calls us to the prophetic work of loving our neighbors with no exception.
What does it mean to stand in the Light? For me, it is this: knowing how to make meaning and be alive in the world. My Quaker faith and practice—shaped by the belief that the Spirit lives in me and in each of us, that this Spirit gives life to my witness and practice—this inward movement compels my witness in the world. The essence of who we are at FCNL and how we witness in the world is grounded in the faith and practice of the Religious Society of Friends. This witness is more than resistance. It is about being present with a prophetic vision of justice, grounded in love. Let us name and claim what that world would be.
What if:
We lived in a world free of war and the threat of war.
We lived in a society with equity and justice for all.
We lived in communities where every person’s potential was fulfilled.
We lived on an earth restored.
When I spoke to this gathering in 2011, the year I began as executive secretary of FNCL, I encouraged us to be bold, strategic and relentless. And we have been. For the past 74 years, this organization has been respected on Capitol Hill, and by Friends and other supporters across the country. Seven years ago, FCNL had weathered the recession of 2008 and had aspirations from the General Committee to do more with young adults. The General Committee also took on the risk or purchasing the property adjacent to our office building not yet knowing we would create a Quaker Welcome Center, but knowing the value of a growing presence on Capitol Hill. Indeed, we knew the time was ripe for a capital campaign.
By seizing these opportunities to be bold in our witness, to build FCNL’s presence on Capitol Hill and around the country, here is what we have done:
our staff has almost doubled;
we’ve established a young adult program that brings FCNL to 60 campuses across the country and offers practical lobbying experiences to over 500 young adults each year; we’ve launched a new program called the Advocacy Corps, which equips 20 young adults to organize in their local communities over a 10 month period developing relationships with their members of Congress; we’ve established a formal summer internship program; strengthened our yearlong Young Fellows program.
we are becoming a more diverse organization, in both our staff and our program work; we take a broad view of diversity, certainly ethnic and socioeconomic diversity but also age, theological and political diversity is important to us; moreover, we are striving to garner the benefits of being a more diverse organization by being a more inclusive organization;
we have built a network of 80 Advocacy Teams in 36 states: over 1,000 people who are committed together to build relationships with their members of Congress;
we are opening our Quaker Welcome Center on Capitol Hill to encourage Friends and others to witness every week. We are inviting staff, volunteers and anyone passing by our busy location to a midweek time of silent reflection.
we have seen a year over year increase in the number of lobby visits—both by our staff lobbyists and by our network across the country in local offices, building relationships with members of Congress and their staff—for peacebuilding, for diplomacy, for human rights, for healthcare, for criminal justice reform, for compassionate immigration reform, for support to refugees, for Native American issues, for addressing climate change.
We have been empowered by the culture of trust established by our General Committee. The work we do to engage people across the country and Congress is premised on a relationship of trust—that we share common ground and that we can listen and act on Truth.
This trust—built through integrity and established relationships—over decades for FCNL, is in the living stream of Friends’ faithful witness over many centuries. Trust builds community and this community gives us a standing for faithful and effective advocacy:
To build relationships across the partisan divide on climate change that recognizes the imperative to act.
To shepherd the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act that establishes stronger peacebuilding programs in our federal government
To lobby last year for an important bill on criminal justice sentencing reform—getting to the cusp of seeing this bill move forward, only to see it set aside in the political tsunami of 2016 election—but to be persistent in our advocacy for that legislation—which is once again advancing
To press relentlessly against the billions and billions of dollars that the administration and Congress shovel to the Pentagon, and to share our personal stories about why this is wrong to allow one federal agency, the Department of Defense, to spend with impunity, with no audit or accountability for waste, fraud and abuse.
To carry out this David v. Goliath lobby initiative by citizens who are empowered to act in opposition to the glut of lobbyists who spend well over $100 million a year to perpetuate and grow defense contractors business at taxpayers’ expense.
To protect the expansion of health care through the Affordable Care Act—particularly for people whose incomes are low—people who are working and people who have disabilities or who are elderly and rely on Medicaid.
To stand for religious freedom for people to worship, work, live and thrive in our communities—whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or Quaker.
To welcome refugees and immigrants—recognizing that the unprecedented number of refugees is caused by people fleeing violent conflict and economic hardship; to understand that compassionate and comprehensive immigration policy creates a stronger economy and stronger communities.
I am proud of the work we have done together—during my time leading FCNL and over the 68 years before I arrived. I’m proud of our staff and the deep commitment of our Committee. We work hard and we make change. We lead with hope.
And, I’m ever grateful to Friend Tom Ewell who told me before I began working at FCNL: “We’re very glad you are here, Diane, and we think you are going to be a great executive secretary. But, you should know, this organization isn’t about you or only about the staff here—as great as they are (and they are great!). It’s about the people around the country who created and sustain FCNL through their actions. It’s about our role among Friends.” I am encouraged every time I think of Tom’s counsel because I know that the weight of our work rests not only on what staff do, but on all of us who long for the beloved community and who support this work through prayers, good intentions, financial support and lobbying of people across the country.
So, I tell you this evening, that as happy as I am to have all of you with us here in Washington at the Quaker Public Policy Institute and Annual Meeting, and as proud as I am of the over 250 lobby visits you’ve done over the past 2 days and of the hundreds of lobby visits you’ll do in the coming months, the state of our society, the condition of our country, the plight of our planet demands that we do more. We cannot be satisfied or rest easily about our successful capital campaign or our growth of Advocacy Teams. We cannot rest on our 75 year history or Quaker values, on our moral grounding or on our successes.
We can and do stand on this powerful foundation.
But, Friends, we are operating under governmental power structures—in this country and in countries around the world that are a threat to humanity.
People across the globe are being killed in deadly conflict by weapons made in the United States. The U.S. military is fueling the Saudi airplanes that are wreaking the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II in Yemen. Civilians are being killed and starved.
What we have known as the existential threat of nuclear war is made more real by the taunting, bullying and lies of Donald Trump and Kim Jung Un.
We are not only negating any movement toward the vision of Shared Security, our president has slammed the door shut on diplomacy—from decertifying the Iran deal to pulling out of the Paris climate accord, our country is walking away from the diligent and demanding labor of diplomacy.
As one of the biggest contributors to carbon output in the world, we are pulling back on the commitments we made to the other 190 nations that signed the Paris Climate Accord in 2015 and to families and neighborhoods that have counted on the protections of the Environmental Protection Agency.
At the same time, we have an administration that is radically retrenching through dramatic changes in the federal budget and federal agencies while pushing for a hugely regressive tax restructuring. Our government—for the people, by the people and of the people—is being twisted to serve a narrow segment of our society. We may not see the results of these shifts immediately, but they will be felt for generations to come.
The structural racism built into our public policies over generations that subjugate people with brown or black skin to different standards—from criminal justice to public education to healthcare to housing opportunity—is now more overt with brazen demands and displays from white supremacists that are accepted by our president. The grievous acts of white supremacy exhibited in Charlottesville presented a full affront to what many African-Americans and people have color have experienced throughout their lives—behavior that demeans, degrades and rejects anyone other than “white.” The fault lines of whiteness that make true equality a lie are deep and touch every one of us.
Knowing this, where do we stand? How do we stand in the Light? Do we hear the still small voice or a roaring outrage or a finely honed love that leads us to act? Are we moving into proximity of the oppression, the conflict and the injustice? How does each of us show up in this mission for FCNL: “to live a prophetic Quaker vision for a peaceful, just, and healthy planet through education, lobbying, and grassroots advocacy?”
And, perhaps, even more importantly, how do we “live into the virtue that takes away the occasion for war?” When we are touched by the Sacred or the Light or by God or by the Power that is greater than any one of us, we yearn for wholeness. We find violence intolerable; we are in pain for the earth; we suffer the injustice of people whose dignity is disregarded and disdained because of their religion, their race, their gender of their sexual identity.
Using our power is not about the politics of partisanship or political parties. It is not about the power of money, of domination or of empire. It is about the power of people, of human beings.
Two months ago, I traveled to the Middle East with on a delegation with the National Council of Churches. We had meetings with Muslim and Christian leaders and with government officials and activists. We visited the presidential palace in Egypt, replete with chandeliers and high security and met with el-Sisi. And we visited the dusty, hot Hebron Hills in Palestine and met with Issa Amro, a human rights activist who uses the power of non-violence to confront the occupation of Israeli settlers. The subject of human rights and religious freedom were discussed with everyone; the desire to be recognized and respected as human beings who can live in peace is universal.
The other universal message is the hope that we will recognize that every action our government takes has a corresponding reaction across the globe.
For FCNL, the evolution of our direction in the next five years began even before the political turmoil of this past year. It began through the commitment we made in The World We Seek: Now is the Time capital campaign: to grow our young adult programs and create a Quaker Welcome Center, to create an endowment for the Friend in Washington program and for our lobbying. When the Forward Planning Working Group brought its recommendations to this gathering last year, it was the fruit of nine months of labor together in 2016 to outline organizational priorities and a mission statement. It was before the seismic shift of our politics was confirmed by the election of Donald Trump to be president of the United States. It turns out that the priorities named by that Forward Planning working group were prescient for FCNL, you might even say prophetic.
Our Direction in the Next Five Years has power
Because of the powerful foundation of Friends, because of our Quaker practice of listening to the Spirit, because of the imagination and efforts of so many of you, I believe that in the next five years, we can take bold steps to transform national policy discourse and decision-making. We can build political will for legislation and public policy change that reflects our legislative priorities. Our relentless advocacy on Capitol Hill and in congressional districts throughout the country will strengthen constituent voices and offer a compelling narrative for what we value: peace and social justice, empowering civil dialogue for policy change by Congress.
This will require a bigger presence for FCNL—in the media, on Capitol Hill, and in congressional districts across the country. It will require the vital support of Quakers and all people who share our vision and mission.
Our organizational structure and programs will adapt as we continue to become a more diverse and inclusive organization, increasing the representation and meaningful involvement of Quakers and people from many ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. We are more powerful through the diversity of our staff and dedicated volunteers. We will nurture an FCNL culture that recognizes that of God in every person, affirms individual strengths, and cultivates organizational excellence.
Changing Public Policy
Advancing effective public policies through federal legislation is the heart of FCNL’s mission. Fielding a Capitol Hill lobbying team that brings subject matter expertise and strategic political analytics to our work is essential to our faithful representation of FCNL’s legislative priorities for peace, justice and sustainability. Relationships with congressional offices and with coalition partners matter to the effectiveness of our Capitol Hill work.
We’ve seen the power of constituent advocacy as the way to influence Congress.
Last week, I attended a Ploughshares Fund conference with Anthony and Abigail where a number of members of Congress spoke. Rep. Adam Smith of Seattle, who does have a relationship with FCNL, said this to my question about what should we be doing to motivate Congress to prevent a confrontation with North Korea or to preserve the Iran Deal: “The best thing you can do is get into the offices of the 535 members of Congress on a consistent basis. Let them know you are watching and expecting action.”
Strengthening FCNL’s Strategic Advocacy Network.
An effective grassroots advocacy program coupled with our registered lobbyists makes FCNL a powerful operation. Constituent voices matter to members of Congress. Influencing the policy conversation from the local level has huge importance. Persistent constituents speak to the needs of their communities, and they can open doors for our lobbyists on Capitol Hill. FCNL’s network provides a way for people around the country to have a meaningful impact on national policy and to foster a community of hope and inspiration for one another.
When we lobby, we are loving our neighbors without exception. We are saying that even if I don’t agree with your positions as an elected official, I will respect you and speak and listen with love. And I can expect the same in return—this is civil dialogue.
Your role as governors and close supporters of this organization offers you a way for your personal witness and for your meeting or your community’s witness. But FCNL also offers itself to a much broader community of people who share the inward experience of hope and value the dignity of every person. We help set up the opportunities for people to speak about these values and hopes through advocacy. Undoubtedly, many of you already connect with other people and organizations in your communities that are working for goals that unite with FCNL’s—the affiliations of like-minded people who are willing to stand together is another form of power. It is true that the policies and practices of the Trump administration has accelerated activism—although the problems we are responding to didn’t start with this administration. In local communities across the country, people are organizing and working on solutions in ways that empower people to speak for themselves—DREAMERS from Tulsa or Tallahassee telling their own stories or people identified with Black Lives Matter telling their stories of the impact of structural racism from Minneapolis or Nashville.
And, social media has given everyone the platform to speak for themselves and to organize digitally. This world of instant communication about every shred of political news affects all of us. Some of you here remember the days when FCNL sent mimeographed action alerts and recorded the action alert on a phone message that people could call into. From the yellow Washington Newsletter to action alert emails to Facebook posts and Tweets to more visual content, FCNL’s communications are evolving.
Expanding Media, Marketing, and Communications.
We know that effective communication is key to transforming national policy discourse. The fact that we are recognized as having integrity and expert staff gives FCNL a voice to challenge and change the conventional narratives that guide federal policy-making. We can infuse a clear and distinctive moral, faith-based, and Quaker voice in our educational and advocacy efforts. Using this voice in the media will increase the visibility and reach of FCNL’s vision for a just society and a peaceful planet.
The Quaker ethic is not one that boasts or promotes itself. We prefer to “be discovered.” Many of you who are convinced Friends may even tell the story that you were always a Quaker and didn’t know it until you took the Belief-o-matic quiz on the internet or until you found a local Quaker meeting. As one FCNL supporter recently said to me: “People are looking for you; you need to make it easier for them to find you.”
Let me ask you this: How do we stand in the Light and become more visible in a world that amplifies celebrity and outrage and yet hungers for righteousness and humility? What does Quakerism have to offer right now in that world? What does the Friends Committee on National Legislation have to offer now and in the years to come for a political environment that is too often toxic and harsh, an environment that makes those who want to live in peace and simplicity turn away?
We are all called to witness, even if we don’t feel capable and even when we feel weary. Elizabeth Fry, a Quaker prison reformer and philanthropist, who lived from 1780 to 1845 said this: “I look not to myself, but to that within me, that has to my admiration proved to be my present help, and enabled me to do what I believe of myself I could not have done.”
When we stand in the Light, the doubts, the fear, the hesitation melts away, we gain a power that comes from within—a power to speak truth. It is our experience of “truth” that is the foundation of our witness. It is not driven by political party or by political identity; it is bearing witness or doing the truth. As Thomas Gates describes in the Pendle Hill pamphlet “You Are My Witnesses” the testimonies for early Friends were not simply a list of virtues but were the lived witness of their daily lives: “the outward and visible manifestation of an inward transformation.”
When Jesus chose his disciples, he didn’t go for the Ivy League grads of his day. He asked the fisherman and talked to the women who others shunned. He paid attention to children. Jesus taught us how to love our neighbors without exception.
Shouldn’t we do the same? Shouldn’t we talk to everyone? Shouldn’t we welcome everyone who is looking for ways to practice hope, to open the possibility of faithful action? Do we have a faith that is alive, a practice that is inspired?
Building Relationships between FCNL and the Religious Society of
Friends.
FCNL strives to be led by the Spirit in its work. Friends always have held that spiritual clearness can be discerned in community with fellow seekers. The theological and political diversity and practices among Friends offer FCNL an opportunity to build a stronger Quaker constituency. FCNL has a unique position to engage in peacemaking among Friends and on behalf of Friends. We need one another in order to do this work.
Friends are often reluctant to talk about the use of power and while we speak of our “prophetic witness,” we don’t always define it. Recently, I have been reading Abraham Heschel’s book The Prophets, and it has helped me understand something about prophetic witness. He states that “the main task of prophetic thinking is to bring the world into divine focus.” Seeking a world free of war, a society with equity and justice, a community where every person’s potential can be fulfilled and an earth restored is prophetic thinking.
I want to propose to you that our work of being faithful stewards of God’s love is to claim the power that God gives us; and that the faithfulness we exercise in our work at FCNL is to fully live in the power we have through our Quaker faith, and that we can grow and thrive as we expand that power to bring about the world we seek and speak truth.
Ensuring Organizational Sustainability.
These aspirations can only advance in the next five years and beyond with a healthy organization. We will be effective stewards for the planning of our financial, personnel, physical, and technological infrastructure. Given the rapid organizational change of recent years, we are strengthening our FCNL not only through our Quaker practice but also through effective non-profit management.
Spend a moment with me imagining the future of FCNL:
Imagine if …
… . we truly claimed the power of standing in the Light: responding to the social, political, cultural changes, that is, being open to divine revelation, while holding to the truth that we know: that God’s love in not changeable.
… .we practiced “dangerous unselfishness,” the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s admonition regarding support for the striking sanitation workers in Nashville before he was murdered
… . the young adults who connect to FCNL through Spring Lobby Weekend or Advocacy Corps or summer internships or Young Fellows started attending Quaker meetings because they were captured by the welcoming and inclusive communities of our meetings and churches.
… . in the next year, every one of the 425 people in this room tonight committed to visiting a district office of your congressional delegation—either your two senators or your representative—every month, that’s over 5,000 lobby visits in the coming year.
… . when you return home, every one of you found 3 other people who will commit to taking action on line each week—a commitment of 10 minutes a week. That would be 1,275 people x 45 weeks for a total of 57,375 messages to congressional offices every year from FCNL constituents!
… . that every week that Congress is in session, we have a group of advocates packing the Quaker Welcome Center to learn, lobby and lead.
… . we had not 80 Advocacy Teams in 36 states, but imagine if we had 535 Advocacy Teams in every one of the congressional districts in this country.
… the Friends Committee on National Legislation had the name recognition of the National Rifle Association or Amnesty International.
… .all the members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee called on FCNL to help write new legislation that advances peacebuilding, human rights and diplomacy.
… .that the Republican and Democrat leadership of Congress and the administration figured out that a fair carbon tax is a positive solution to the problem of climate change.
… . the iconic words on the Statue of Liberty…”Give me your tired your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” actually meant that we welcome the stranger to our country—refugees and immigrants.
… . we practiced loving our neighbors without exception every day.
We have no small plans for FCNL. If we are successful, we should expect that our work will help people in the United States and around the world feel more secure—from the threats of war, climate change, economic insecurity, and the violation of human rights. And we should expect that people who work with FCNL will feel hopeful and experience a renewed confidence in our political system’s ability to affect positive change in their lives and the lives of people across the globe.
FCNL has a power to influence public policy in the United States and thereby around the globe. In 1974, our first executive secretary, E. Raymond Wilson wrote these words that have even deeper resonance today:
“Why try to work uphill for peace, justice and freedom on Capitol Hill at a time when cynicism about the character and operation of government and government officials is widespread and when disillusionment about the church and organized religion is so common and so vocal? Because religion should be vital and relevant and because the health and the future of democracy rests upon responsible participation by informed and concerned citizens.
A world without war, without conscription and militarism has still to be achieved. Even in the United States the price of liberty is still eternal vigilance. The battle for justice is never-ending. A world dominated by military, economic and political power easily forgets fairness and compassion for the disadvantaged and dispossessed at home and abroad.
To strive for these and similar goals has been the role of the Friends Committee on National Legislation. “
E. Raymond Wilson, Uphill for Peace, May, 1974
We have done that for 75 years; we are doing it day in and day out—through our collective action.
What am I asking of you tonight?
Help us grow FCNL’s power.
Strengthen our spiritual foundation. Hold us in the Light—every day. If you are a praying person, pray for FCNL—for our General Committee, for our staff, for our Advocacy Teams, for our Visiting Friends, for our Advocacy Corps. Pray for the elected officials we talk to.
If you don’t pray, but you meditate, hold us in the lovingkindness of the universe. Wrap us in the good intentions for creating a better world.
Support FCNL financially. If you are monthly sustainer, a monthly donor to FCNL, consider an increase. Did you make a stretch gift to the capital campaign? Consider another special gift to honor FCNL’s 75 years. Many of us in this room may miss the celebration of FCNL’s 100^th^ birthday in 2043, but your presence will still be felt—through a legacy gift.
Recruit new people to join us. Let your lives speak. When people see how you are empowered by lobbying, it will attract others.
Above all: Speak Truth to Power. Speak of your values and the moral underpinning that guides your life. Exercise your heart and soul by creating time in your days and weeks for silent reflection and for being present with people in ways that builds community. Speak Truth. Act from Hope. Show Love.
Together, we can work toward that world that we imagine.