Continuing Revolution 2019: Experimenting Beyond Capitalism
Join young adult Quakers and seekers (age 18-35) at Pendle Hill for our annual young adult conference! The group will interrogate how the economic system functions and its role in fueling inequality and oppression among people of different classes, races, ethnicities, genders, nationalities, and more.
To learn more visit Continuing Revolution.
Pendle Hill, 338 Plush Mill Rd, Wallingford, PA 19086, USA (map)
How often do we get swallowed up in the busyness of the world and the details of daily existence — losing touch with our truer selves and becoming less available even to those we love most deeply? We invite you to come away from the hectic and the fraught, and get in touch. A weekend with John Calvi.
For more information visit Getting in Touch
A Day of Silence and Meditation Practice
Led by Carol Blotter
Each retreat is a separate opportunity to enjoy the quiet of the country while practicing sitting and walking meditation. This day is appropriate for anyone interested in meditation: beginners will have break-out instruction; experienced meditators can be in silence all day; those in-between can practice and have their questions answered. These retreats are fundraisers for the benefit of Michigan Friends Center.
Saturday, May 18
Saturday, September 14
Saturday, November 16
Suggested donation $30 or as able.
Pre-registration requested; contact Carol Blotter at 475-0942 or cb.meditate@gmail.com to register.
For more information, go to MFC’s Programs page
Michigan Friends Center is in Chelsea, Michigan. It is run by a volunteer Board of Directors, most of whom are currently members of meetings in Lake Erie Yearly Meeting.
Green Pastures Quarterly Meeting (GPQM) Spring Gathering will be held at the Michigan Friends Center on Saturday, May 11, 2019, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
This gathering will include a meeting for worship for the conduct of business in which we hope to approve a simpler and more meaningful new structure for GPQM and a new slate of officers.
The afternoon program (2–3 o’clock) will be a talk on the 25-year history of the Center, followed by a spring wildflowers walk around the Friends Lake property.
Morning snacks and a catered lunch will be provided.
To register, e-mail Raelyn Joyce, GPQM’s clerk, at raejoyce10@gmail.com.
Are you already engaged in organizing for social justice? Do you value the importance of interconnection, community, and spiritual practices to sustain you in your work? Radical Faithfulness in Action may be for you.
Join experienced organizer-facilitators and committed people of different faiths to strengthen your capacity for effective community action for peace and justice.
To learn more visit Radical Faithfulness.
Pendle Hill, 338 Plush Mill Rd, Wallingford, PA 19086, USA (map)
Mindful Mark-Making: Abstract Drawing as Meditation
When: April 26 – 28, 2019
Where: Pendle Hill, 338 Plush Mill Rd, Wallingford, PA 19086, USA (map)
A weekend of quiet creativity with pen and ink facilitated by Sadelle Wiltshire and Ann Coakley. Explore meditative drawing methods using a variety of techniques in pen and ink that encourage and nurture creative flow: continuous line drawing, free form patterns, Zentangle and more contemplative mark-making.
For more information visit Mindful Mark-Making
LEYM minutes in both Word and PDF formats from 2016, 2017, and 2018 are now available on the LEYM Minutes page under the Resources tab.
A new searchable file with all of the minutes from 2001 through 2018 is also available at the bottom of the page.
Do you yearn to open more deeply to a greater sense of God’s presence, power, and guidance? Do you ache to live from the Divine Center? To live a life both deeply grounded and on fire with the Spirit?
The School of the Spirit board joyfully announces the launching of a new program, Participating in God’s Power. After more than a year and a half of shepherding its beginnings, we celebrate the launch of the website and registration.
Living in solid connection with the Divine is transformational. But when that Inner Teacher points us to places that aren’t easy to go, what keeps us from following God’s leadings fully and courageously? The School of the Spirit’s newest program – Participating in God’s Power — models a resilient and thoughtful set of tools for exploring how we let our own brokenness get in the way of a robust trust in God’s guidance.
Participating focuses on ways in which we unconsciously resist being with God’s love, how unhealed or unrecognized aspects of ourselves inhibit our being fully present and alive, and how we can release what obscures our Inner Light. The program also explores ways of repatterning our lives to support living in ongoing transformation.
Through engagement in four residencies and three webinars led by core teachers Angela York Crane and Christopher Sammond, this program will build self-awareness and capacity for wise, brave, Spirit-led risk-taking. Through Quaker worship, structured exercises, and small group practices you will be invited to open more deeply and honestly to God’s presence, guidance, healing, and power.
This year-long program is particularly geared for Friends (and others) who have already participated in a spiritual formation program or the like and who want to go deeper yet, or who seek some renewal in their spiritual lives.
We will begin with an opening retreat in New Hampshire in August 2019; our closing retreat will be in the Philadelphia area in September 2020. Come and be a part of this movement of the Spirit. And please share this widely with those who you think might be seeking just this opportunity.
The School of the Spirit is a ministry of prayer and learning from a Quaker perspective. For more information, visit their website. A number of LEYM Friends have gone through their year and a half “On Being a Spiritual Nurturer” program.
How are people in Friends General Conference (FGC) creating community that is accessible, equitable, and transformational? FGC’s task force on our “Institutional Assessment on Systemic Racism within FGC” offered this summary of the ongoing work as of November of 2018:
“Two years after Friends General Conference’s governing body approved the initiation of an institutional assessment on systemic racism within FGC, a summary with recommendations and a full report are now available.
Based on these, FGC’s governing body, Central Committee, has approved a minute to commit FGC to becoming an anti-racist organization in a multi-year process. There was strong unity in the body, which gives hope to many.”
The full report notes that “This will be a multi-year process to uproot from within ourselves the on-going reality of white supremacy that spiritually harms us all.”
Last weekend, FGC’s Executive Committee approved the names for a task force charged with implementing the recommendations and moving the work forward within FGC and with FGC Friends. Stay tuned for further developments.
You can read an interview with the co‐clerks of the original Task Force from the January 2019 issue of Friends Journal.
Marvin Barnes (Birmingham) and Caroline Lejuste (Red Cedar), Lake Erie Yearly Meeting Friends, served on the Task Force. LEYM and individual LEYM meetings have contributed generously toward FGC’s Institutional Assessment. A number of LEYM Friends serve on FGC working groups, committees, Central Committee (the governing body), and Executive Committee.
Posted 11/13/18
Dear Friends,
We are so grateful for your words of support as well as your prayers for our community and our nation. It makes a significant difference in these moments to be reminded of the connections we have with each other.
Recognizing the unique role of guns in this violence, we approved the attached minute at our November Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business.
Like you, we want this and all similar events to translate into Spirit-led action. Right now there are immediate needs – if you’re led to make financial contributions, THIS link supports families of the victims. The roots of this violence are deep, however, and we pray that the tragedy also renews our vigor, dedication, and perseverance in addressing those. A sampling of ideas that have surfaced for us so far include:
There are many other potential actions on individual, group, and institutional levels. Hillel the Elder’s words sound the clarion call more than ever – “If not now, when?” We pray that all of us will find ways to let our lives speak powerfully to these times.
In the Light,
Kathie Hollingshead, Susan Loucks, and Richard Shaw
Clerks, Pittsburgh Friends Meeting
Pittsburgh Meeting: Minute Responding to Gun Violence in our Society