Ninth Month, 2001
QUERIES for the Ninth Month: EXTENDING OUR MESSAGE
- Do you try to share in the religious life and fellowship of the whole community?
- Do you cooperate as fully as possible in its work, availing yourself
of opportunities for worship and service with other local religious
groups?
- Is your distinctive Quaker witness characterized by humility and a willingness to learn from others?
CALENDAR NOTES
- FCUN planning session on a forum called
Conscious Living. The forum will try to answer "How can we be a moral
people in an immoral situation?" The Committee will use the Summer
2001 issue of EarthLight as a resource toward attaining sustainability
in our use of automobiles, in our homes and in our consumerism. All
welcome to attend.
- Join us for a Friendly Potluck followed by a
discussion on Quaker mysticism. We will use some readings recommended
by Ken Leibman.
From NEWSWEEK Religion column, August 13, 2001:
Quaker Votes
Liberal Quakers are a quiet bunch, and until recently, so was the
Beliefnet Web page devoted to them. It got so few hits that tracking
software didn't pick it up. Now it's one of Beliefnet's top 50 links,
thanks to Belief-O-Matic, a tongue-in cheek quiz matching personal
ideologies with established faiths. Editor Steven Saldman says the
quiz pegs "a disproportionate number" of respondents as liberal
Quakers. Suddenly, test takers have flooded Quaker groups with
curious e-mail. "We used to send out two sample copies of our
magazine a week," says Trish Edwards-Konic, Quaker Life editor. "Now
we send out 10." Online forums are also buzzing with posts ranging
from the newly converted to, well, the quizzical.
Thanks, David Cook for spotting this article. Annie McPherson asks
the logical question: Why are we so few then? Please share your
ideas on this in the next newsletter or at meeting.
MEETING NEWS
-
What to do with a windfall? Betty Odum suggests that we donate our tax refund to the building fund. In
Galatians 6:8, Paul says, Because ... he who is sowing with a view
to the spirit will reap everlasting life from the spirit.
-
Jean Larson , our intrepid Clerk of the Building Committee and world
traveler came back from Vienna with her arm in an immoblilizer due to
a fall. Hope you heal in a hurry, Jean. We can't do without you!
Please all join us in holding Jean in the LIGHT.
-
Ted Lochwin will be moving to New York City to take a job as Director
of Arts and Education for the Michael Mao Dance Co. They use dance to
teach English as a second language in high school. They'll open with
"Firecraker" in November.
-
John Graham-Pole has been named Medical Director for the new Pediatric
Hospice program. Way to go, John!
-
Friends! Please stand up and speak out when you have a message so that we all may share it.
You are the light of the world.... People light a lamp and set it,
not under the measuring basket, but upon the lamp stand, and it shines
upon all those in the house. Matthew 5: 14-15
-
Alachua County Commission requested that we provide the invocation for their meeting in September. We declined with a sense of the Meeting that we want to affirm the separation of church and state and feel that religious invocations should not be a part of government.
-
The Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice has requested the Meeting's hospitality for out of town visitors on the weekend of Oct 6. FCPJ is hosting the 85th Birthday party for Stetson Kennedy, author, lecturer and activist (he wrote Unmasking the KKK). The celebration will be in Graham, Florida. Call Carol, FCPJ coordinator, at 352/468-3295 or e-mail her at fcpj@juno.com if you can help.
-
Our condolences to Phil Buskirk on the unexpected loss of his four-footed friend, Sport. He has been a welcome presence at our Quaker Study Group.
TOWARD A NEW MEETINGHOUSE:
From Jean Larson
"On a recent walk of the property, purple trumpet
shaped blossoms on the wild casaba greeted me by the gate. I walked
the path and had to push my way through waist-high Spanish needles
with feathery leaves and inconspicuous flowers. I unlaced a potato
vine spanning the path on my way to the creek. In the dim light of
dusk, bright yellow fungus glowed on a fallen log."
"Please join us on the workday Sept 29th. The building committee will
be drawing up a list of jobs for teams of two and three people to do.
For example you can cut down the vines that are strangling a pine tree
or mow potato vines where we park or help clear the strip on the
northern boundary where we hope to plant shrubs."
Joan Andrews, editor
j6and8@aol.com
converted to HTML by Bill Mitchell,
mitchell@math.ufl.edu