Seventh Month, 2003

QUERIES for the Seventh Month: SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC RELATIONSHIPS

• Are you working towards the removal of social injustices? Have you attempted to examine objectively their causes, and are you ready to abandon old prejudices and think anew?
• What are you doing as individuals or as a meeting to insure equal opportunities in social and economic life and in education for those who suffer discrimination because of gender, race, creed or social class?
• Do you take a living interest in the social conditions of the community in which you live?
• Do you seek to promote the welfare of those in any kind of need and to secure a just distribution of the resources of the world?
• Do you regard your possessions as given to you in trust and do you part with them freely for the needs of others?
• Do you recognize that we are a part of the natural world and are you responsible heirs of its resources?
• Are you concerned that our increasing power over nature should be used responsibly with reverence for life and with a sense of the continuing creation of God in which we are called to participate?

CALENDAR NOTES

• C'mon out and bring the kids! Join us for our annual day of rest and re-creation on Flagler Beach at the Windfordner beach house. Details on flyer (bulletin board and on back table). Hope to see you there.
• The bible seminar will continue our study of Galatians using, this month, Merril Tenney's Theological Method.
• Reserve 8/29 for an evening at the Buskirk's with Annie McPherson leading a discussion on "Is there a Quaker Way to Parent?" We will talk about the testimonies and their application to family life - particularly to raising our children. This study will be based on a workshop that Annie gave a few years ago at an AFC Gathering. The August Newsletter will have a set of queries for that workshop to help us prepare for a thought provoking evening.

MEETING NEWS

Go Gators! As one of Kanapaha Middle School's most avid readers, Nicole Dominguez was interviewed by the Gainesville Sun for her help in reviewing a young adult novel, The Graduation of Jake Moon. Nicole was quoted as saying, among other things, "the main point is that Jake learned to focus on how much he and his grandfather loved each other."

There are record numbers of homeless in our community with many of them sleeping in the woods. The public resources for assisting them are inadequate. These folks are greatly in need of nonperishable food and mosquito spray. Brenda Bayne will collect the food and has available a wholesale supply of bug spray ($4.00 per can). Donations can be placed on the bench (in or beside the box).under the window of our worship room

Thanks to Ellie and Larry Clayton for a wonderful evening of food, fun and fellowship at their home in company with the Ocala Meeting.

The library is taking on a new look, a more inviting look since Sybil Brennan and the other members of our library committee have been working on it. I predict a transformation over the coming year!

From Ministry and Oversight

There is no Meeting so open, so tender, so free, so stable, as the Meeting that is united in faith in the prophetic ministry, in the belief that God speaks to man, calls him to action and leads him through it. While this belief is characteristic of certain "unprogrammed" portions of the Society, whose worship is rooted in it, it is known to Friends with programmed meetings as well, for the faith that God reveals Himself to man in time is a basic tenet of Friends in general and is found throughout Christendom, though its practice differs from group to group.

It is understood in such a Meeting that any messages that are spoken strive to be God's word for these people at this time; that is, no one will speak unless he has prayerfully considered two questions; whether the message is God's or his own, and whether it should be given to these people now or is for the individual alone.

To be sure, sometimes "the water tastes of the pipes." Our experiences, including what we have read and what we have memorized, are all a part of us; God can use what we are. On the other hand, we can be mistaken; some parts of our "pipes" dissolve all too readily into any passing fluid.

Because the Meeting knows the Source of true messages and knows that the speakers will "test themselves in the Light" before speaking, the hearers will listen with the deepest sort of sensitivity, even to a message with which they would normally disagree. No one dare think,"Oh, that's Tom riding his hobby-horse again."

Not every message is for you. Perhaps it will never be for you, but perhaps also it is something you will some day grow into. Rejoice if it rings true, but if it does not speak to your condition do not discuss it or dissect it.

The Meeting which is united upon this principle of the ministry can accept the messages of the child, the fool, the disturbed person, and the stranger worshipfully, as a natural thing, without any trace of condescension, for God can speak through these people too, even if they do not fully understand the basis of the ministry. Such a Meeting can absorb quantities of disturbance, because each worshiper lays what he hears reverently before the Lord with the unspoken prayer, "Show me how this is for me."

From On the Vocal Ministry by Ruth M. Pittman