2025 Epistle
To Friends Everywhere from Ohio Yearly Meeting of Friends 2025
The Lord isn’t slow to keep his promise, as some think of slowness, but he is patient
toward you, not wanting anyone to perish but all to change their hearts and lives.
2 Peter 3:9 Common English Bible
Greetings to Friends Everywhere,
As we have shared epistles from Friends around the world, we know from what we have read and hear from Friends, from many Friends who have joined our worship times online, from those of us who have traveled and reported back to us, and from our own experience in these challenging times, that there is much fear, frustration, anxiety and even despair about the very real sufferings people face throughout the world. We also know, and have heard testimony about, the One who overcomes the world, Jesus Christ, alive in every living thing, as a seed at least, and in many as a shining Light, to guide us powerfully in Love and Truth. It is this overcoming Light and Love that we are called, as Friends have been called throughout our history, to live into, to affirm in one another and proclaim to the world.
As we have attended to our business throughout these sessions, in our morning bible reading times, afternoon prayerful conversations around our faith, our evening presentations covering both the foundational principles, beliefs and practices of Friends throughout our history and how Friends are at work in the world today, and in quiet conversations over meals, along the way between the Olney School dining room and the Stillwater Meetinghouse, we have experienced and felt both the present anxiety and the overcoming Love of our dear Savior and Redeemer. It is this Love which we wish to share with the world, through our epistles perhaps but especially in what we say and do, with every breath we take, for we know and can proclaim, as George Fox proclaimed during troubled times those many years ago, that there is an ocean of darkness, yet behold, an infinite ocean of Light and Love that flows out over the ocean of darkness. It is a sweet blessing of our Creator, Lord and Savior, and the only Way we know.
We are delighted with the presence of a number of children this year and a dedicated group of adult leaders. Their playful laughter and genuine care for one another remind us serious adults struggling with the important business issues of the yearly meeting that Jesus is teaching us to, “let the children come to me, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
For Ohio Yearly Meeting,
Charles Thomas, Jr, Clerk