Community Companion

Community Companion

Community Friends Meeting Volume 13, Issue 4

3960 Winding Way Fourth Month 2007

Cincinnati, OH 45229 (513) 861-4353

Calendar of Events

(All events and meetings take place at the Meeting House unless otherwise noted)

From the Book of Discipline of the Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting

Religious Society of Friends 1978

Peace and Cooperation

God's law of love, as fully exemplified by the life of Jesus, is applicable to nations as well as to individuals. Because of this application, war as a means of settling differences between nations becomes morally unlawful, just as are feuds between groups and duels between individuals. We cannot recognize a double standard of morality, one for individuals and another for nations. The morality which is required of us in our dealings with one another is equally binding upon us when we are called upon to act for our nation.

From its earliest days the Religious Society of Friends has held that war is contrary to the spirit, the life and the teachings of Jesus, who renounced the weapons of worldly passion and used methods of love and self-sacrifice in their place. We restate our conviction that no plea of necessity or policy, however urgent, can release individuals or nations from their duty to follow the law of love. It is a serious and solemn thing to stand as the advocate of an inviolable peace. To carry out such a profession consistently will, at times, require the highest resolution, perseverance and courage. Such should, however, be the devoted effort of every Friend.

Draft Minutes of Community Friends Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business – At recent Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business it was requested that draft Minutes not be published within the newsletter but instead the minutes need to go back to the next Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business for review prior to approval. At that time, the approved minutes will be published within the newsletter.

There is some concern by the editor that the timing of the newsletter is such that the approved minutes will most likely be published at least two months after the events occurred. While the newsletter is not suppose to be an official record of actions taken within the meeting, the editor does suggest that recent actions and discussions need to be reported in a timely manner to Community Friends so that those not attending the Meeting for Worship will be aware of the most recent happenings. For this reason the editor started placing the draft minutes within the newsletter.

A second suggestion was made in that the newsletter could be published earlier. Currently the newsletter is published at the end of the a month for the next month that is the April newsletter will be published the last Sunday of March An alternative plan could be that the newsletter be published immediately after the Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business so that the approved minutes can be immediately available. This would make the publication date the third Sunday instead of the last Sunday. This would require that the information for the newsletter be provided sooner than normally delivered to the editor.

As editor, I would really appreciate any comments, questions or concerns regarding this matter and look forward to hearing from a number of friends.

Gardening Class Hits the Spot

What do gardeners and wannabe gardeners like to do in the cold of February? Salivate over seed catalogues. Thirteen F/friends met on a cold February evening for the first of a series of gardening classes, led by Sue Brungs. After her initial presentation on planning the garden, we had a roundtable sharing of past and future plans, as well as questions and answers. Join us for the next two classes sponsored by Friends in Unity with Nature Committee. Friday, March 9th 7:00pm: START YOUR SEEDS and Sat., April 14th 4:00pm: SPRING INTO ACTION: PLANTING TIME

Upcoming Middle Youth Event.

May 5th – Bike Trip and overnight at meeting house – Our Yearly Meeting Middle Youth are planning a bike trip and overnight adventure on May 5th, 2007! We will bike down the Loveland Bike Trail in Little Miami Scenic State Park near Cincinnati, OH. For more information on Loveland Bike Trail, see Community Friends Meeting (Cincinnati) will host those who want to stay overnight at the meeting house. It will be a grand time with lots of fun and food. Please look for more details to come.

May 27th – The star of a Quaker story presentation, Krystin’s mother, will meet with the Young Friends during First Day School to talk about historic Quaker women and her research for the presentation before performing The “Two Martha’s” as a second hour session.

June 10th – The Young Friends will end the curriculum program year that has focused on famous Quakers with a tour of a home in Springboro, built by Jonathan Wright, one of the first Quaker settlers in the area. The home (now a bed & breakfast) was built with a hiding space for transporting slaves on the Underground Railroad. We may also take the classes to see the Miami Meetinghouse and Quaker cemetery in Waynesville the same day, time permitting. More information will be sent directly to parents in the coming month.

THE NEW UNIVERSE STORY: RE-AWAKENING TO SPIRITUAL PRESENCE

Three Saturday sessions at Community Friends Meeting

During the last few decades a growing number of people, such as priest/cultural historian Thomas Berry, have been discovering a new world view as they weave together a variety of cutting edge scientific findings This new Universe story contrasts with the old story of inert matter in a machine-like Universe, which still underlies our culture. It reveals a living, evolving Universe in which creativity resides at the heart of all matter, and in which we humans, no longer cosmic strangers, are fully at home.

This new vision, which is very compatible with the Quaker experience of the Light, calls us to a new (and ancient) sense of reality in which Spirit, Mind, or God are everywhere present and continuously active. Many (including me) have found this new story to be a grounding inspiration for sustaining their faith and action in the face of the ominous global ecological and political unraveling which is now occurring.

Session I: Saturday, April 21, 3:00 to 4:30 or 5:00. A 50 minute slide presentation and discussion.

Session II: Saturday, May 5, 3:00 to 4:30. Reflections and meditations to help embody this new vision of sacred reality. We’ll also explore its compatibility with Friends beliefs.

Session III: Saturday, May 12, 3:00 to 4:30. Further discussion, including worship sharing with queries.

Feel free to join us for the first session only, or for one or both of the others as well. ask, however, that you attend session I as a pre-requisite for II or III. Presenter: Bill Cahalan

“Western culture has a million ways of reinforcing the illusions that the world consists of inert stuff out there and that we are the active agents of change whose role is to get that stuff in shape.” --- Parker Palmer

“There is no deeper source of meaning for human beings than to experience our own lives as reflecting the nature and origin of our Universe.” --- Joel Primack & Nancy Abrams..

Quaker Blogs - Faith and Practice

Friends here is a Quaker electronic newsletter (blog) which I found and spoke to me. In an effort to show Community Friends diversity of Friends I asked to reprint the blog to which Heather allowed. Please enjoy and please let me know if you would like other reprints of information found on the internet.

Santa Cruz Meeting had its annual retreat at Quaker Center this weekend. It was a good weekend, full of community, deep discussions with Friends, and moments to be held and cherished.Moments to be cherished: The hands of the oldest and the youngest at work together. At my Prayer Shawl Ministry workshop, I asked how many people had never knit. Eight hands went up. I then asked how many people knew how to knit well enough to teach someone else. A half dozen hands went up, including the hands of the three young teenagers attending the workshop. The teenagers taught some of the oldest and weightiest Friends in our Meeting how to hold the yarn and cast on.

The glowing faces of the teenagers as they carried out the lovingly prepared organic vegetables, lasagna with and without allergens, cabbage salad, fruit salad, and shamrock cookies for Saturday dinner. The teens had planned the meal, done the shopping, and chopped mountains of vegetables for the most delicious meal of the weekend.

Hiking up to the waterfall with three 7-year-olds, a 5-year-old, another adult, and a stalwart 2.5-year-old who marched the whole way with his boots on the wrong feet.

Seeing a Pacific Giant Salamander with the children.

Connecting with other woman Friends over our thirst for feminine aspects of the Divine.

Listening to Live Oak Preparative Meeting's musical rendition of their State of the Meeting report.

Walking the labyrinth silently with a group of about 20 Friends, journeying inward to the center and then back out again. Watching their faces as they centered inward, and seeing their unique beauty as they stood in silence after the labyrinth walk.

Having a long and heartfelt discussion with another member of Worship and Ministry about what the gospel of John did to Christianity and how Christianity might be different if we had the gospel of Thomas instead.

I had a good weekend and a busy weekend, but it was more a working weekend than a spiritual retreat for me.

In the final worship, however, we gathered quickly and the faith of my Friends pulled me down to the deepest worship I had experienced in a good while.

"I'm out of practice," I thought, "Why don't we talk more about the practice part of Faith and Practice? I say that I am a Quaker, but have I been doing my Quaker practice?"

I thought about the seasoned Friends I admire the most, and how their years of Quaker practice have built the spiritual gifts I most admire in them.

I have been under incredible stress these past few months. I've also been impatient with worship, having so much that I need to do and so little time to do any of it. Even when I've sat in worship, I've skimped on good practice. I haven't had energy to tend worship or to clear out my own spiritual detritus so I can be a pure well of Divine Light.

(Before worship, a dear Friend reminded me that I don't always need to be centered, that this is exactly why Quakers gather in community, so that we can help bring one another back to the Light when we stumble.)

During worship, I reflected on the importance of our corporate practice. Meetings, like individuals, learn how to be Quakers by doing our Quaker practices. I closed my eyes and tended my spiritual well, and then I opened my eyes and blessed each of my dear Friends, all the way around the circle.

I'm left thinking that I need to practice Quakerism much as the children need to practice the piano. I need to run through my Quaker scales, to exercise my Quaker faculties, and to gather with my Meeting for our corporate practices. Only then will I become the Quaker I can be, and the Quaker that my Meeting needs me to be. Without the practice, I'm a Quaker in name only, the outer shell of a Quaker without the inner Quakerness. Posted by Heather Madrone March 18, 2007 (

Community Friends Meeting

3960 Winding Way

Cincinnati, OH 45229

Address Correction Requested