News and Notes
- Can you help the Miller-Seif family with food needs? During Jenn’s pregnancy they are requesting help with the following: 50-pound bags of unbleached flour, brown rice, whole oats or quick oats, and Michigan-produced sugar or beet sugar; boxes of whole wheat spaghetti and bags of wide egg noodles; home-canned tomatoes and vegetables; whole-grain cold cereal; dried fruit and items to make granola; canola oil; yeast for bread; denim (10 yards blue, black or grey); heavier muslin (20 yards).
- Would you like to work to make love visible? LEYM is sponsoring workdays with Habitat for Humanity on July 24-25, in conjunction with LEYM Annual Sessions in Bluffton, OH. The work will be done in a Habitat ReStore in Lima, OH, and a Habitat house in Delphos, OH. There will be small and large jobs, something for everyone age 16 and over. Organizers hope to have childcare for little ones. Housing and meals will be arranged; costs will be low. Please send an early indication of interest, with names and ages listed, to Nancy Taylor, 324 Hilldale Dr., Ann Arbor, MI 48105, or contact Nancy at netaylor@tds.net, 734-995-6803. More details about the work project are available at www.habitatlima.org.
- FGC seeks mentors for new meetings. As part of supporting new meetings and worship groups, the FGC New Meetings Project is seeking seasoned, faithful Friends to serve as members of mentoring teams. Friends who can bring an experiential understanding that the Spirit can teach us together, invite people more deeply into God’s presence, and teach the Quaker way, should speak to Mike Holaday for more details about the NMP and the mentoring teams. There’ll be a Mentoring Teams retreat November 15-17, 2013, at Quaker Hill Conference Center in Richmond, IN.
LEYM ADVICES AND QUERIES: THE MEETING COMMUNITY
Our life is love, and peace, and tenderness; and bearing one with another, and forgiving one another, and not laying accusations against another; but praying one for another, and helping one another up with a tender hand.” Isaac Penington, 1667, Letters, ed. John Barclay.
How do we weave our Meeting into a community? Do all adults and children in our Meeting receive our loving care and encouragement to share in the life of our Meeting and to live as Friends? Do we truly welcome newcomers and include them in our faith community?
As we enter with tender sympathy into the joys and sorrows of each other’s lives, are we ready to both give and receive help? How does our Meeting keep in contact with all of its members and attenders?
Are love and unity maintained among us? Do we foster knowing one another in “that which is eternal”? How do we come to clearness in dealing with troublesome differences between us, living our faith and acting in love? Do we listen to the Spirit which can draw us together in humility and mutual trust?
Do we uphold Friends in their efforts to develop stable and loving relationships? In what ways does the Meeting assist couples and families to communicate, grow together, and rear children in a loving and spiritually nurturing environment?
Do we support Friends as they meet life’s challenges such as birth, illness, marriage, divorce, old age, and death? Are we able to ask for support during difficult periods? Can we approach old age with acceptance and anticipation, discerning the right time to relinquish long-term responsibilities? Do we arrange the practical matters (regarding possessions, location of documents, burial, etc.) that will arise when we die so that our families and Meeting are not unduly burdened? Are we comfortable with the relationships we will leave behind when we depart?
LEYM’s Advices & Queries, for Use by Individual Friends, Meetings, and Worship Groupsis available online at http://leymquaker.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/aq3f2.pdf.
