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"Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Look to yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. For if any one thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each man will have to bear his own load." Galat. 6:1-5.

Come to Meeting for Worship, sit down, open your hearts and souls and freely allow your depths to rise into consciousness. Feel the powerful and sacred act we take together.

Everyone's life contains disappointments, errors of judgement, impulsive anger as well as humor and wonderful experiences of grace. It is in Meeting for Worship that we step back from the material world, trust the spirit and look within. Can I allow my heart to open to total surrender to whatever may come forth - from who knows where? This is the mystery.

In our Meeting for Worship, communication is taking place without talking, writing, or body language. That is worshipers are communing with each other when nothing outward is taking place. Intellect may bind us too tightly to human invention. Too heavy a reliance on our logical, linear, abilities may interfere with our perception of the Spirit moving in our lives.

The above was paraphrased from The Dynamics of an Unprogrammed Meeting for Worship, by Mary R. Hopkins.

"I told them wait upon God to feel his power, to gather their minds together to feel his presence and power and therein to sit to wait upon him." George Fox

Joint School Committee-Worship and Ministry Committee session to discuss 7th and 8th grade expansion. Details below.

Play Day at the school, including collection of used bicycles for Pedals for Progress.

Meeting picnic. Details enclosed.

Religious Education

May 7: Adult class will be announced. Faith & Practice meets in the library.

First Day School for the children.

May 14: Lynn Sinclair will talk to us about Rancocas Friends Academy, a pre-K through fifth grade school that is expanding to include sixth through eighth grades.

Faith & Practice meets in the library.

First Day School for the children.

May 21: Closing ceremonies. Everyone is invited to congratulate the children and honor their teachers for their participation in the past yearís First Day School program.

All are invited to a joint Worship & Ministry, School Committee session to be held in the Meeting House on April 30 at 7:00 pm to discuss the proposal to expand HFS by adding a 7th and 8th grade. More specifically, the topic will be item 3 of the minute approved at the April Meeting for Business,

"Reassessment of the operations and mission of the school and our commitment to Haddonfield Friends School." Please come.

Flora McKinney

On Saturday, May 6th, from 10 am to 5 pm there will be a conference entitled "Wrongful Convictions and the Death Penalty: Telling the Stories." It will held be at the Calvary Korean United Methodist Church, 572 Ryders Land, East Brunswick. N.J.

The speakers list sounds very rare & moving. It includes people who were sent to death row and later found innocent, plus lawyers and others who work with inmates on death row.

Nancy Wogan

Library Committee announces its second book sale: it will be held Saturday and Sunday, June 10 and 11, from 12:30-4:00 pm. Please bring donations on or after May 21. Take home unsold books, please.

Nancy Wogan

Painting for Meditation is a group forming in an informal way. Recently several of us went to Boathouse Row in Philadelphia to sketch and paint. If interested, call Jane Stokes. We plan to meet at various locations one Sunday afternoon a month.

Connie, Bob, Meredith, and Maureen Brookes

Dear Friends, Many thanks for your prayers, concern and the food (!) during Meredithís recent hospitalization and arrival home. We really appreciate all of your support during a difficult time.

Maureen Brookes

I would like to thank everyone from Meeting who helped to sponsor me for the Operation Smile marathon volleyball game at Haddonfield High School. The marathon was a huge success and your help enabled me to be a part of it.

Dottie Kriebel of Rancocas Meeting

The annual Strawberry Festival at Rancocas Friends Meeting will be on Saturday, June 3, from 5--8 pm. Located in historic Rancocas, at the Meeting House on Main Street, the Festival offers strawberries, homemade cake, ice cream, the Coles Roberts put-put ice cream churner, an Art Exhibit by Rancocas Meeting's Pre-School children, a tour of the school, Balloon Art by Jingle the clown and Friendly camaraderie. Tickets are $4.00

Monthly Meeting for business was held April 14, 2000. The annual report from Property Committee was received with appreciation. Included in the report was a completed survey of the graveyard, an upgrade of rental rates, Phase II of tree work including removal of dead trees and fertilizing of others, and receiving from John Nicholson a piece of land next to the caretakerís house making space for a respectable drive.

The Treasurer reported operations for nine months, and Fiduciary balances of December 31, 1999.

Nominating Committee presented its annual report.

About 20 people attended Yearly Meeting. Some gave brief reports.

It was decided to return Monthly Meeting to the auditorium in May.

A discussion of 7^th and 8^th grade ended with approval and the beginning of implementation of the following minute:

If the way opens, Haddonfield Friends Meeting will add 7th and 8th grades to Haddonfield Friends School. The Meeting will begin the process by exploring:

The transfer of Ranan Banerjiís membership from Abington Monthly Meeting was accepted.

Religious Education Committee received approval to apply for a grant to hire a director of First-day School.

Peace and Social Concerns presented a letter to be sent to Camden County Freeholders in support of a Lawnside citizensí protest against a proposed sports center. After some revision it was approved.

Nominating Committee

Committee work continues: see the attached list. The reason for committees, and the duties of committees, may be found in Faith and Practice, pages 179-187. The star indicates convenor or clerk. Please note that some committees have neither. New members begin their terms in May. May committee meetings should include old and new members so that committee work may continue smoothly.

A number of members have served "their" six years. We are grateful to all. Welcome to all new committee people.

Of particular note: Fran OíNeill, clerk of Friendship Committee, Stuart Harris, Clerk of Property, and Jean Landis, Treasurer, have served years keeping us fed, a roof over our head, and money to pay for it all. Thank you.

Recovering the Past -Clarifying the Present -Imaging the Future

Flora McKinney

The decade, from 2000 to 2010, has been declared by the United Nations as a time to build a Culture of Peace. A gathering of about one hundred met at the Burlington Conference Center March 16 to 18 to consider ways a Culture of Peace has been building since the Teachings of Jesus: George Foxí declaration that we live in the power that takes away the occasion of all war, and other leadings, work in prisons, conscientious objection, relief in disasters natural and man made -, all these work to change those things that are the roots of violence in our culture.

We were encouraged by the many efforts at peace-building today: training in nonviolence in prisons, in mediation and conflict resolution in schools and communities, demonstrations such as in Seattle, where most of the action was nonviolent but the violence got the press, the work in Bosnia, and the presence of Bosnian students sponsored by Meetings in this country, etc.

We searched for ways all of us can be effective in building a culture of peace. These include learning ways to interrupt bigotry (ageism, racism, oppression, etc.), supporting and sponsoring training in nonviolence, war tax resistance, peace tax legislation, learning to listen, learning to deal creatively with differences, finding ways to make connections, recognizing volatile situations as they arise and finding ways to deflect them, and finding ways to encourage all of us to be aware of whatís going on and to be encouraged to "just do what comes to hand in our daily lives." Elise Boulding

Efforts are being made to develop an international multiethnic "Standing Peace Force" that will be trained in nonviolent strategies and tactics that can be deployed to a conflict or potentially violent areas to create a space for peaceful resolution of the conflict. To learn more contact PEACEWORKERS@igc.org and learn ways to support the proposed Standing Peace Force.

Harold Heritage

Consciousness can be defined as the faculty of apprehension, and concerns the relation of the self to the non-self, of the knower to the known, and the thinker to that which is thought about .

We must recognize that we humans are not totally conscious on the physical level, nearly conscious on the emotional level, and only developing the consciousness of the mental level. (Krishnamurti)

Consciousness is an ever-widening awareness of the light, and is gradually being developed in all of us.

Our first attention, the Personality is the level needed to live in the physical everyday world; the will to live, to feel, to know. This part of us is of real value in earning our living, and making us acquainted with the "know how" of existence; aptitudes, abilities, and prowess we have developed through life. BUT it takes impeccability, the right use of our energy, not to get trapped in the psychological jungle. ( Castenada)

Through the quieting of the mind; silencing of everything that is of the outer personality, all that hinders the creative force, we can become conscious of the second attention, our Essence.

Our Essence is experiencing the universe as an individual, dynamic whole. It consists of dimensions which inter-penetrate one another; not subject to time. It demands full participation; feeling, sensing, and allowing the world to make a deep impact at each moment. It is the access to the inner world, breaking through illusions of the outer world. (Castenada)

Howard W. McKinney

My eighty year old memory

on some days

is not to be trusted

I spoke in Meeting

Sunday last

and attributed to the Psalmist

a passage that alas

is found in Job,

My folk are gentle

with me.

I got three e-mails

regarding a web-site

where one can

check Bible verses

from seven translations

and nine languages.

John Keats

I.

ST. AGNESí Eve- Ah, bitter chill it was!

The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;

The hare limpíd trembling through the frozen grass,

And silent was the flock in woolly fold:

Numb were the Beadsmanís fingers, while he told

His rosary, and while his frosted breath,

Like pious incense from a censer old,

Seemíd taking flight for heaven, without a death,

Past the sweet Virginís picture, while his prayer he saith.

II.

His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man;

Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees,

And back returneth, meagre, barefoot, wan,

Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees:

The sculpturíd dead, on each side, seem to freeze,

Emprisoníd in black, purgatorial rails:

Knights, ladies, praying in dumb oratíries,

He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails

To think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails.

III.

Northward he turneth through a little door,

And scarce three steps, ere Musicís golden tongue

Flatteríd to tears this aged man and poor;

But now already had his deathbell rung;

The joys of all his life were said and sung:

His was harsh penance on St. Agnesí Eve:

Another way he went, and soon among

Rough ashes sat he for his soulís reprieve,

And all night kept awake, for sinnersí sake to grieve.

Scrupling to do writings relative to keeping slaves has been a means of sundry small trials to me, in which I have so evidently felt my own will set aside that I think it good to mention a few of them. Tradesmen and retailers of goods, who depend on their business for a living, are naturally inclined to keep the good-will of their customers; nor is it a pleasant thing for young men to be under any necessity to question the judgment or honesty of elderly men, and more especially of such as have a fair reputation. Deep-rooted customs, though wrong, are not easily altered; but it is the duty of all to be firm in that which they certainly know is right for them. A charitable, benevolent man, well acquainted with a negro, may, I believe, under some circumstances, keep him in his family as a servant, on no other motives than the negro's good; but man, as man, knows not what shall be after him, nor hath he any assurance that his children will attain to that perfection in wisdom and goodness necessary rightly to exercise such power; hence it is clear to me, that I ought not to be the scribe where wills are drawn in which some children are made ales masters over others during life.

About this time an ancient man of good esteem in the neighborhood came to my house to get his will written. He had young negroes, and I asked him privately how he purposed to dispose of them. He told me; I then said, "I cannot write thy will without breaking my own peace," and respectfully gave

him my reasons for it. He signified that he had a choice that I should have written it, but as I could not, consistently with my conscience, he did not desire it, and so he got it written by some other person. A few years after, there being great alterations in his family, he came again to get me to write his will. His negroes were yet young, and his son, to whom he intended to give them, was, since he first spoke to me, from a libertine become a sober young man, and he supposed that I would have been free on that account to write it. We had much friendly talk on the subject, and then deferred it. A few days after he came again and directed their freedom, and I then wrote his will.

Near the time that the last-mentioned Friend first spoke to me, a neighbor received a bad bruise in his body and sent for me to bleed him, which having done, he desired me to write his will. I took notes, and amongst other things he told me to which of his children he gave his young negro. I considered the pain and distress he was in, and knew not how it would end, so I wrote his will, save only that part concerning his slave, and carrying it to his bedside read it to him. I then told him in a friendly way that I could not write any instruments by which my fellow-creatures were made slaves, without bringing trouble on my own mind. I let him know that I charged nothing for what I had done, and desired to be excused from doing the other part in the way he proposed. We then had a serious conference on the subject; at length, he agreeing to set her free, I finished his will.

REPORT AND QUESTIONNAIRE

April 2000 Flora McKinney

This is the second year of having Care Circles in Haddonfield Friends Meeting. Facilitators have worked hard in their own creative ways, using various ways of reaching out to circle members. They have telephoned, written notes, formed telephone trees, tried pairing of families, collected news notes from each member and sent them to circle members, arrange gatherings met at covered dish and before business meeting. All of these met with some success. As a result more people are better acquainted with others members and attendees in the Meeting.

This year several Facilitators felt they could not continue this ministry, some because of new responsibilities, others because of discouragement from lack of response from Circle members. Consequently the number of Care Circles shrunk from sixteen, with ten families each, to ten Circles with fifteen families. Having larger numbers in Circles makes it more difficult to have Circle gatherings and just to keep in touch with everyone.

For the second year we have tried to keep the same grouping in Circles as nearly as possible. In looking toward the third year we could like to have your answer to the following Queries.

The purpose of Care Circles is to help us to get to know each other so we can worship and work together better:

++ Should we rearrange Circles Membership so that member have an opportunity to meet and share with different people.

++ Do you have a preference as to age range in a Circle?

++ If there are two or three Facilitators to a Circle would you be willing to serve as a co-facilitator?

++ What suggestions do you have for Care Circle activities?

++ As a Circle member what would you be willing to do, to get acquainted with other Care Circle members?

Present Care Circles will continue through September. Facilitators will be meeting June 4th to make plans for 2000-2001. Please return your answers by June 1 to Flora McKinney.