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of the Religious Society of Friends

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Families

Stories of Faith on the Road to Easter

Written on: February 22, 2021

We are a people full of stories. Stories help us create meaning, make sense of our world, and develop identity. Stories are how some of the greatest teachers, including Jesus of Nazareth, shared their message and showed the path of a faithful life.

Over six weeks in February and March, a series of Godly Play and Faith & Play stories about the life and ministry of Jesus will be available for viewing with meeting communities or sharing at home. While the style of this storytelling is often associated with programs for children, we all need and yearn for stories. These are for all of us at any age.

The videos could be shown over Zoom for adult or youth religious education, or the link shared for a discussion series. Friends did not traditionally keep liturgical seasons like Lent or celebrate Easter as a holiday; contemporary meetings might not observe Easter Sunday as a day different from any other First Day, or the meeting may have Easter traditions. For some Friends today, Lenten practices and these stories may be part of an earlier tradition they belonged to and remain an important part of their inner life. For our children, offering these stories in a way that is open to wonder and continuing revelation supports biblical literacy and exploration of Quaker faith and its Christian roots.

The six videos are offered as a way to come close to the stories behind the days in this time of year, and wonder about their significance to us on our spiritual paths.

Each story will be linked below; please check back for additional links, which will also be shared on the PYM Facebook page. If you would like to receive a weekly email when a new video is live, email mwennerbradley@pym.org


February 22: Parable of the Good Shepherd

A Godly Play telling of a parable, weaving together language in Psalm 23 and verses in John 10.


March 1: The Woman at the Well
Adapted from John 4:1-42. A story about strangers, grace, the Living Waters, and sharing messages.


March 8: The Parable of Great Pearl
From Matthew 13:45–46, an exploration of what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.


March 15: Living the Ways of the Spirit
A story about Friends testimonies and their spiritual roots in the ministry of Jesus.


March 22: Faces of Easter
The story of Jesus of Nazareth’s life and ministry from birth to death, and the hope to know him in new ways.


March 29: An Easter Story for Friends
Written for Friends, an Easter story that explores God’s love for everyone.

Filed Under: Families, Ministry & Care, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Religious Education, Worship

About Hybrid Meetings: How They Work

Written on: February 10, 2021


Background

Back in the fall of 2020, two gatherings took place – one for monthly meeting leaders and another for quarterly meeting leaders. Worship during the pandemic was a big topic of discussion, so we had a follow up meeting on January 26, 2121 wherein we asked monthly and quarterly meetings to let us know who in their communities had experience with virtual and hybrid meetings. These are the notes from that meeting. [Read more…] about About Hybrid Meetings: How They Work

Filed Under: Communications & Outreach, Faith & Practice, Families, Ministry & Care, Pastoral Care, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting

How Meetings Coped with a (Mostly) Virtual Christmas

Written on: January 21, 2021

As the nation welcomes new leadership in Washington, and our state health systems continue to confront Covid 19 with vaccine roll-outs, it’s important to celebrate what we have right at home: faith, connection, and fresh ideas.

This Christmas, PYM worship communities and meetings needed to reconsider exactly how to engage Friends in virtual or distanced Christmas celebrations. With the help of many people, including resources shared by PYM’s Youth Religious Life Coordinator, Melinda Wenner Bradley, Friends came up with the wonderful ideas shared below. [Read more…] about How Meetings Coped with a (Mostly) Virtual Christmas

Filed Under: Families, Ministry & Care, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Religious Education, Youth Programs

Pastoral Care for Our Children in These Times

Written on: January 8, 2021

As the pandemic continues, and this week our nation struggles once more against the legacy of racial injustice and violence, our children look on. 

Children and teens are experiencing the continued uncertainty of Covid and its impact on school, peer relationships, and future plans. Additionally, the events in Washington D.C. on January 6 were deeply disturbing and young people may feel anxiety, confusion, fear, sadness, or anger, and have questions about what they see and hear in the media and from friends. As parents, we’re holding space for our children’s feelings alongside our own anxiety, fury, and questions about moving forward. What follows are resources specifically for children, youth, and families.*


Where to Put Feelings

I was reminded by a Friend that worry dolls are a simple way to acknowledge children’s concerns and help them to find a place to put them. Sitting with a child while they share their worries, fears, and questions with the small doll and put it under their pillow at bedtime may not resolve the feelings, but it models healthy sharing and perspective.

Children need us to hear their concerns, and we can provide reassurance even if we do not have answers. Offering up our concerns in prayer is another way to acknowledge and place them in a larger “container” of our faith. This set of coloring pages “Prayers For When You Feel Anxious” includes both suggested prayers and three different sets of images for mindful coloring.

Young children cannot always articulate their feelings, and they may show us how they are feeling through play or behaviors. Sadness may look like: anger, tiredness, boredom, numbing out (often on screens), displaced frustration, resisting direction from adults. Their anxiety may show up as: anger, negativity, difficulty sleeping (particularly falling asleep), defiance, avoidance, lack of focus, over-planning, and chandeliering (“flying off the handle”). 

In her article, Five Things Kids Need in Order to Learn and Thrive During this Pandemic Year (linked below), Stephanie Malia Krauss names children’s need to:

  • Feel safe: physically and emotionally
  • Know what’s going on (within age-appropriate parameters)
  • Feel socially and emotionally connected
  • Have time, space, and support to learn and create
  • Feel loved and know they belong

Resources for Adults Supporting Children:

How To Talk To Kids About The Riots At The U.S. Capitol

Spiritual Practices for Use During a Traumatic News Event from Traci Smith

Five Things Kids Need in Order to Learn and Thrive During this Pandemic Year.

A Kids Book About Anxiety by Ross Szabo from the “A Kids Book About” series. The inside covers suggests, ”This book is best read together, grownup and kid.”

It’s Not Just Adults Who Are Stressed. Kids Are, Too. — Identifying your child’s emotional and behavioral reactions to stress is crucial, experts say, especially when anxieties are high.

COVID-19 Quarantine: an Emotional Tipping Point for Teens

“It’s okay to just be sad” from Courtney Martin and her blog, “the examined family.” 

“Coping with COVID-19: A Work Book for Kids and Teens” Designed to help children and teens communicate and cope with their feelings and emotions regarding the global Covid 19 pandemic. Includes writing and drawing prompts to help create a therapeutic experience and provide an opportunity to have open conversations. A good resource for pastoral care for young people (this resource does not touch on death or bereavement).


“Death feels closer”

There may be times in coming days when, in our experience as a meeting, or as a family, or as friends and neighbors, there is a child or young person dealing with loss. A research study published by Penn State University last summer concluded that every Covid-19 death leaves an average of nine survivors who have lost a grandparent, parent, sibling, spouse or child. Millions of Americans are in mourning for friends and relatives, co-workers and community members. 

Some of the more difficult conversations I’ve had in the past months with my own children have been about death. My college-aged child remarked during a conversation one day, “Death feels closer,”and has expressed anxiety about family and friends getting sick. A younger sibling has shown up at my bedside unable to sleep, and shared their deep uneasiness about the inevitability of death. “Darn existential questions!,” he tried to joke through tears.

As a parent, I hold my children close and provide what comfort I can. I’m glad for the Godly Play stories they heard and wondered about as younger children, which gave them images and language for big questions about the Divine and created spaces to come close to existential questions we all face about death and aloneness.

Thinking about how we talk about death and helping children develop a vocabulary for loss and grief is pastoral care preparation we can also do across ages in meeting communities. There are excellent resources for children through adolescents for talking about death and dying, that could be recommended to a family in need of support. In addition to this list of books about grief for young children through teens, the titles below are highly recommended. 

Suggested Books about Death and Grief:

Giants by A.E. McIntyre, illustrated by ElisaBeth Steines. A gentle treatment of a child’s grief story, written by a parent who lost their own parent as a young child.  Website for the book.

The Pear Tree A folktale retold by Luli Gray and illustrated by Madelyn Goodnight. Probably better for older children, the message is that death is a reality of life, but there is always hope.

Death Is Stupid by Anastasia Higginbotham is part of the “Ordinary Terrible Things” series. A realistic and moving read-along for a child and adult.

The Memory Tree by Britta Teckentrup is a story about remembering and letting go, and what remains — the forest animals lead the way.

A Little Blue Bottle by Jennifer Grant, illustrated by Gillian Whiting. Thinking about the sadness of losing a neighbor, and what our grief means to God. Includes a page, “Best Practices for When a Child Is Grieving.”

A Kids Book About Death by Taryn Schuelke from the “A Kids Book About” series. The inside covers suggests, ”This book is best read together, grownup and kid.”


*Pastoral Care for our Community during the COVID-19 Outbreak is another resource by my colleague George Schaefer, Care & Aging Coordinator. Adults seeking support can also reach out to the Friends Counseling Service.

Melinda Wenner Bradley, Youth Religious Life Coordinator mwennerbradley@pym.org. (My children gave their permission to be quoted in this piece.)

Filed Under: Counseling, Families, Friends Who Care For Youth, Ministry & Care, Pastoral Care, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting This article mentions:Children, Covid 19, Death, Families, Grief, Pastoral Care, Teens

Tuition Aid for Friends Children in PYM Friends Schools

Written on: December 29, 2020

PYM’s Committee on Friends Education reminds families that monthly meeting members’ children attending or applying to Friends Schools  are eligible to apply for educational support for the 2021-22 school year. Funding for all grants comes from the National Friends Education Fund and Philadelphia Yearly Meeting endowment income from the Jonathan Rhoads Fund and other PYM education endowments. [Read more…] about Tuition Aid for Friends Children in PYM Friends Schools

Filed Under: Faith & Practice, Families, Finance, Friends Who Care For Youth, Grants, Middle School Friends, Monthly Meeting Management, Pastoral Care, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Quaker Life Council, Quakers & Quakerism, Religious Education, Young Adult Friends, Youth Programs

Christmas Together in New Ways

Written on: December 3, 2020

Meetings may be seeking to create meaningful Christmas programs that keep Friends connected while also being safe about Covid-19. Two online Conversation Circles were hosted by the Youth Religious Life Coordinator to share ideas and support each other with how to plan for celebrations in this challenging time. [Read more…] about Christmas Together in New Ways

Filed Under: Families, Friends Who Care For Youth, Ministry & Care, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Religious Education This article mentions:Children, Christmas, Community, Families

For Our Children: A Quaker Parent’s Perspective

Written on: November 23, 2020

Abigaile Brace-Higgins is a member of Mickleton Meeting and serves on the planning circle for PYM Giant Children’s Meeting programs. This article originally appeared in the Salem Quarter News, Fall 2020.


On March 16th, 2020, I laid down in the cool, muddy-grass at the foot of a tree in my backyard and looked up at the bare branches crackling like brittle-veins across the clear sky in the stark morning light. My two and a half year old son, Keegan, played quietly in his sandbox next to me. The heavy news of Covid-19 was thrashing like a storm all around us, but in that moment we were still. Nowhere to go, anytime soon. The impossible sadness of tragedy befalling thousands of people around the world pounded deep inside me. As a parent of a young child, my mind swelled with questions: How should my child understand this? How should I help him adapt? To cope? To stay safe? How long is this going to be? How are we going to move forward and stay connected to all those in our lives we hold dear? [Read more…] about For Our Children: A Quaker Parent’s Perspective

Filed Under: Families, Religious Education, Youth Programs This article mentions:Covid 19, Giant Children's Meeting, Melinda Wenner-Bradley, Query, Religious Education, Wondering

Parenting + Presidential Election + Pandemic

Written on: October 29, 2020

Parents have been holding a lot in these past eight months. In addition to the multiple stressors of life during a pandemic and social unrest and violence in the news and neighborhoods, the intensity of the election cycle is an experience both for us as adults and for our children. Depending on their age, children and teens may be aware of the anxiety of the adults around them and experiencing their own anxiety about the outcome of the election next week. [Read more…] about Parenting + Presidential Election + Pandemic

Filed Under: Families, Friends Who Care For Youth, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting

Restoring Civility Across the Political Divide: Author Interview with Karen Tibbals

Written on: October 28, 2020

Karen Tibbals uses her background in market research and Quaker religious studies to help people understand how others–on opposing political sides and with different ethical frameworks–make decisions. This work, like the graphic image above, draws groups with differing opinions into relationship (pink and blue become purple!) Her book can help liberals and conservatives identify the truths they share, and it explains the success of modern societal accomplishments like gay marriage and outlines why guns feel safe to conservatives and scary to liberals. Here we interview her about who she is, and how she came to publish the very helpful books she writes.

[Read more…] about Restoring Civility Across the Political Divide: Author Interview with Karen Tibbals

Filed Under: Communications & Outreach, Counseling, Families, Friends Counseling Service, Ministry & Care, Pastoral Care, Peace & Social Justice, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Quaker Life Council, Resource Friends

Catch Up on the Quaker College Fair

Written on: October 21, 2020

A free event designed for students engaged in the college search process, the 2020 Quaker College Fair was held 11:00 am – 1:30 pm on Saturday, October 17th over Zoom. After the panel discussion, representatives from several college admissions spoke with attendees.

See below for the agenda, a list of panelists, and a list of the college admissions representatives. [Read more…] about Catch Up on the Quaker College Fair

Filed Under: Families, Religious Education, Young Adult Friends, Youth Programs

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