Dear Friends,
Below are my quickly assembled notes on the announcements, news of the
community, and requests to hold people in the Light that were shared at the
Rise of Meeting for Worship last Sunday, April 12th. The zoom conversation
continued in what our moderator, Ann Delorey, called fellowship time after I
left the meeting, so, unfortunately, not everything Friends wanted to share is
included here.
I put these notes together very quickly; please excuse grammatical,
typographical, and spelling mistakes.
In Friendship,Rebecca
Announcements April 12, 2020 The brown box for financial contributions has
gone virtual.Contributions to the Meeting can be made through PayPal or by
check. See AnnStone’s recent list-serve posting for details or contact her for
moreinformation. Mary Kearns is continuing to offer virtual gentle
yogaTuesday evenings from 6 to 7 p.m. Participants are welcome to make
acontribution to the Meeting as “payment” for the course, but it’s
alsoavailable at no charge for anyone who wants to participate. Contact Mary to
receive a zoom invitation. Next Sunday, April 19th, we will hold our
monthlyMeeting for Business. Worship via zoom will start at 10 a.m., with
Friendsgathering and chatting starting at about 9:45. At 10:30 we will
transition assmoothly as possible into Meeting for Worship with a Concern for
Business.There will not be a break between these two forms of worship; if
Friends needto step away from their computer screens, they should do that
individually andreturn when they can. Clerk Tim Hunt will soon send out an
agenda and all thewritten materials for Business Meeting in one email. Please
have thosematerials handy, as we won’t have a virtual table at the back of the
meetingroom with copies of the agenda and reports. Among other matters of
business, wewill be receiving and considering the Spiritual State of the
Meeting Report. Timaims for the meeting to end at noon. He asks that we bear
with him as he triesto figure out how to call on Friends in this virtual
setting. If committees andothers have items of business that Tim doesn’t
already know about, please be intouch with him right away. The Finance
Committee reminds other committees that it needsto know what expenses they have
had during the current fiscal year so we cansettle the books for this fiscal
year. It also needs requests for funding fornext year by April 25th to be able
to prepare a budget for 2020-2021to present to the Meeting in May. Please send
your information to Jessica Mott. The Communications and Outreach Committee
is trying toupdate the Meeting’s website, including updating the information on
committee’sindividual pages. Ollie Moles urged all committees to review their
web pagesand get back to him and to Rick Post with any changes they want to
make. Thecommittee will be sending notes to committees that haven’t yet revised
theirpages pointing out things that seem outdated. In two weeks, on April
26th, Bill Mims, OllieMoles, and Walter Brown will lead a 2nd hour to discern
our guidance to FCNL as it sets its legislative priorities for the next
Congress. Bill recently posted on the Meeting's list serve
backgroundinformation on this process as well as FCNL’s current priorities. He
asks everyone to review this material before the April 26thsession, and come
prepared to search together for the guidance we want to giveFCNL about its
priorities. Dona Boyce Manoukian asks us to join her in documentingLangley
Hill’s experience during this Covid-19 pandemic. In what ways are youpersonally
and the Meeting as a body changing to meet the needs of this specialsituation?
Please share your thoughts, pictures, and ideas. You can post thingsto the
Meeting’s list serve or send them directly to Dona. She hopes eventuallyto
compile these materials into a permanent record of how the Meeting coped
andchanged during this time. She urges us to record these changes while they
arehappening and are fresh in our minds and hearts. Ann Delorey asked how
thesematerials will be collected and made available, suggesting that we might
wantto set up a common repository for them. Dona invited Ann to work with her
onthe project. The Religious Education Committee met by Zoom earlier in
theweek and organized a program for the Meeting’s children for today. The
childrenwill be gathering virtually at noon where Jen Post will read the story
of theCountry Bunny to them. Parents who want their children to participate
need tocontact Jen to receive the Zoom invitation. The Care & Clearness
Committee will hold another of itsTown Meetings via Zoom this Wednesday
evening, April 15th, at 7 p.m.Look for information on how to join on the
Meeting’s list serve. News of the Community and of the Wider Quaker World
Paul Werbos said he had just learned the Emily Wirzba, wholed the 2nd hour
program at Langley Hill last Sunday on Congress's changingattitudes about
climate issues, is no longer working at FCNL. TimHunt explained that Emily has
accepted a new position working on the same issues with the Environmental
Defense Fund. The change is a growing opportunity for her. Georgia Fuller
reported on some of the effects of the Covid-19pandemic on Friends in Kenya.
The decision to postpone the FUM Triennial thatwas to be held in Kenya later
this year was a difficult one. She reports that Quakersfrom different tribes
are being more successful at working together duringthese very challenging
times and thinking of themselves as “we.” They areasking, what can we do for
the most vulnerable among us? Nicole Bivens Collinson recently participated
in aninternational women’s gathering where the cultural differences and
themagnitude of the effect of the pandemic were overwhelmingly evident.
Thispandemic has not put us all in the same boat, she said. We are all on the
sameocean, but some of us are on ocean liners while others are facing the ocean
ona raft. Food insecurity is already serious and likely to get much worse.
Andfood scarcity often leads to violence. We need to realize how very serious
thesituation is and is becoming in much of the world. Reactions to meeting
via Zoom A Friend said she finds it distracting to have so manyimages of
Friends on her computer screen, each in its own small box, with somewaving
their hands to be recognized. It’s hard for her to focus on the personspeaking
with so much visual distraction. She suggested that we turn off thevideo
portion of our meetings and simply have boxes with names in them on ourscreens.
Many others quickly said how much they appreciate seeing the faces ofFriends
during our meetings. One Friend says she joins these meetings both onher
computer and her tablet. She uses the Gallery function on one device so shecan
see everyone and the single-frame feature on the other, where only theperson
speaking appears on the screen. Tim Hunt suggested that he and theMinistry &
Worship Committee reflect on the comments heard today beforenext week’s Meeting
for Business. Requests to Hold in the Light Hugh and Georgia Fuller are
continuing their transition toliving is separate parts of their continuing care
community. Please hold themin the Light. A key colleague of Laurie Wilner’s
husband, Paul, hasrecently returned from a trip to Bangladesh and is in
self-imposed isolation.She has a cough, and she and her friends are worried
that she may have becomeinfected. Please hold her in the Light. Najla
Drooby asks us to hold decision makers all over theworld in the Light that they
act wisely about reopening businesses. There was more The meeting
continued in what our moderator, Ann Delorey,called a time of fellowship.
Unfortunately, I didn’t stay for it so I can’tshare what happened then.
