Tuesday Feb 7 | 11:30 am | Friendly Lunch at Books, Inc. |
Sunday Feb 12 | 1:30 pm | Meeting for Business at Chalmers' home |
Sunday Feb 19 | 12:30 pm | Library Committee Meeting at Books Inc. |
Sunday Feb 19 | 1:00 pm | Earthcare Witness, meets at Books Inc. |
Friday Feb 24 | 6:00 pm | Quaker Study Program and potluck at the Buskirk's |
Sunday Feb 26 | 1:00 pm | Bible Study at Books, Inc |
Sunday Feb 26 | 9:30 am | Peace and Social Concerns at Brenda Bayne's |
Sunday Feb 26 | Deadline for March Newsletter | |
Saturday Mar 11 | 6:00 pm | Quaker Market Dinner |
Sunday Mar 19 | afternoon | Dedication of the new meetinghouse |
Quaker Market dinners are a fundraising effort for the new meetinghouse. Suggested donations are $10.00 per adult, $5.00 for children over 5 years old, and free for those under 5.
The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing,
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on the brow
of the flower,
and retell it in words and in touch,
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing.Galway Kinnell, from St. Francis And The Sow
Jacob died too young. He knew of my heartfelt Love. My only solace.
George Fox
Many months ago, in the old meetinghouse, we had a discussion about what's the best way to influence members of Congress: via email or through letters sent in the U.S. mail. In its most recent newsletter the Friends Committee on National Legislation provides a numerical answer to this question. As it turns out, email and the U.S. mail run about neck and neck. According to a study done by the Congressional Management Foundation, 44% of the 350 congressional staff surveyed said individualized postal letters have a lot of influence while 34% said individualized email messages do the same. However, 60% said individualized email messages have some influence while only 52% said the same of letters. The biggest influence on congressional decision-making comes not surprisingly, I suppose from in-person visits from constituents, and next from contacts from people representing many constituents. (I wonder if the latter equates with money.) To complete the picture, 20% of the respondents said phone calls have a lot of influence while 68% said phone calls have some influence. So whether you use email or the U.S. postal service, (1) choose one issue you care about, (2) write a personalized short message (staff say they pay more attention to messages that don't look like they're copied verbatim from a form letter), and (3) make a request for specific congressional action.
You can make a difference.
Don Smith, FCNL Rep
Many of us in the meeting were moved by Connie Ray's worship on the laws of the universe. Michael Daube found the article that Connie referred to during her worship, and sent it to the newsletter for us all to ponder.
From the comic strip You Can U in Sunday Newspapers: 9/29/96
Dear Jax:
What are the laws of the universe? --- from Lee Kear --- Woodbury, TNDear Lee,
That's kind of a mind-expanding question. The best questions are the ones that make you think a bit. And Beakman and I thought a lot about this one. Genius Nobel-prize-winning physicists like Leon Lederman are out looking for the one law of the universe. But when we answer questions we keep seeing the same powerful laws pop up over and over. Today's comic might seem all cosmic, but the Universe is a pretty cosmic (and comic) place to be. --- Jax Place.
#1 The universe likes balance
The universe working toward balance is why airplanes fly, why balloons lose their air, how fish can get oxygen from water, how batteries work, why the wind blows and lots more. If an atom wasn't balanced it couldn't exist. Â The forces of nature will push tirelessly and forever to make things balance. Yow!
#2 Nothing ever disappears
There is only so much stuff in the universe. Â None of it disappears even when things seem to disappear, they've really only changed their form. Like fire. Â Where did the wood go? Â It mixed with oxygen and transformed into other gases particles in the smoke, and even into light and heat. Â An important part of the law is that energy is just another way for matter to be, and vice versa. Â Radical!
#3 There is no darkness only light
You cannot make something that is not a thing. Negative things like darkness or cold are not really things at all. They're the absence of things. There is only more or less light. There is only more or less heat. To make dark you must block the light. To make cold you must remove the heat. Energy will move into cold or dark spaces, until all of the spaces shares equal light, equal heat. See the Law #1.
#4 There are different truths.
Energy can be a wave, like a radio wave or a light wave. A whole set of laws of Nature flow from energy being a wave. But energy can also seem to be a quantum - a little chunk or particle of energy. Photons are particles, chunks of light. And whole new laws flow from the view that energy is in chunks. We call this view quantum mechanics. Both views are way different. Both are completely true. They are different truths.
During a recent Meeting for Worship a prophetic and distressing analogy was shared. The speaker likened our current state of the earth to the sinking of the Titanic where all of humanity is on board and the ship is taking on water before our very eyes. This dire message concluded with the question: "What would Quaker passengers do in this circumstance?"
Later in the sharing period following worship, another speaker rose to exclaim, "Our Meeting carries precious cargo and our first priority is do everything in our power to save it." At this point, as if on cue, First Day students, from tiny tots to teens, trooped exuberantly into the worship room as if to dramatize the speaker's words.
There is no doubt in my mind that the growing environmental crisis is the greatest challenge that most of us are likely to face in our lifetime and certainly the greatest threat to future generations.
It was all brought home to me poignantly the other day as I sat rocking on the front porch, holding my seven-month-old grandson. We looked out at a sunny wood alive with busy Carolina wrens calling to one another and the rustle of leaves as gray squirrels scampered from tree to tree. It was a special time of contentment and bonding for us, but it was also clouded by my thoughts of what the future might bring to this new life in my arms.
The words "what would Quakers do...." and "our Meeting carries precious cargo...." still ring in my ears and have rekindled my commitment to be fully engaged in understanding and facing up to the crisis before us, as well as taking concrete steps towards eliminating the root causes. The Earthcare Witness Committee was originated for this purpose and invites all members and attenders to join us in this important endeavor.
Richard T. Beardsley 1/21/06
Are you brave enough to stomach one more "Quaker/surveillance"
quip? This one is from "Anonymous," the author of Imperial
Hubris, and Through Our Enemies' Eyes. "Quakers make excellent
surveillance targets, because they sit still longer than anyone
else." Becky Ray called me last night with that one. She attended
a forum featuring several experts on espionage who discussed the
latest flap about presidential power, etc. She was the first one
to ask a question, which was, essentially, if the president has
all this power, what is to stop government agents from conducting
surveillance on groups such as Quakers? Nobody gave her a
straight answer, but they all made comments. She liked the
sitting still longer comment best. She was subsequently
interviewed by three journalism students and a Russian television
crew!
Connie Ray
The great error of the ages of the apostacy hath been to set up an outward order and uniformity, and to make men's consciences bend thereto, either by arguments of wisdom, or by force; but the property of the true church government is, to leave the conscience to its full liberty in the Lord, to preserve it single and entire for the Lord to exercise, and to seek unity in the light and in the Spirit, walking sweetly and harmoniously together in the midst of different practices.
(Quaker Isaac Penington, 1659)