For our yearly state of the meeting report, the State College Friends selected queries from those suggested by both the Philadelphia and Baltimore yearly meetings. We chose these queries because they offered a good mix of local and global concerns. That is, we were-we are-concerned with how our meeting helps Friends in their daily lives and how it helps Friends as they navigate what feels like an increasingly fraught political world. We decided on five queries:
- How does meeting help us deal with uncertainty that comes from change? What kind of changes are you expecting that you will need to work with?
- How do we maintain the spirit of openness and humility as we proclaim our testimonies and live them?
- As we work for peace, are we nourished by peace and justice within and among ourselves?
- How are we taking good care of ourselves and each other?
- How are we working to become a more anti-racist and justice-seeking community?
We gave Friends three opportunities to answer these queries: a called in person meeting on Sunday, February 16; a called Zoom meeting on Tuesday, February 18; and an online survey.
- How does meeting help us deal with uncertainty that comes from change? What kind of changes are you expecting that you will need to work with?
To this question, many Friends spoke of how meeting is an ongoing source of stability in their lives. In the old and new testaments, faith in God or Christ or faith alone is often likened to a rock, and Friends feel similarly about meeting. It is spiritually calming. It is stillness amid upheaval. One Friend spoke for many by noting the comfort they feel from just sitting in a room where everyone is doing the same thing. Others spoke of how participation in various groups that have grown out of meeting-spiritual friendship, peace and justice, climate justice-provide them with a way to engage with a chaotic political world rather than feel completely cowed by it.
Others spoke of when the uncertainty that comes from change does not come from a changing political world but from aging and illness. In that case, the stability that meeting offers takes the form of assistance of one sort or another, and meeting creates the relationships that can provide that assistance.
Finally, one Friend observed that change is not necessarily bad. Why would we want an imperfect world to remain imperfect? If so, then meeting can provide not just stability to survive change but the stability to go out into the world to change things for the better.
- How do we maintain the spirit of openness and humility as we proclaim our testimonies and live them?
This query gets at one of the contradictions of Quaker life. We are deeply committed to our testimonies. We are also deeply committed to the idea that there is that of God in everyone, even those whose ways of being and whose treatment of others may depart from and even contravene those testimonies. How to balance these commitments?
Some Friends feel the contradiction less than others. They believe that we have entered a political moment when it is more important for Friends to speak our truth and embody our commitments than it is to shy away from them. That is not to say that openness and listening are irrelevant. Only that for the moment the calling to shelter the outcast is urgent indeed.
Other Friends value that one of our testimonies is, effectively, humility. As one Friend has been known to put it, we value the questions as much as the answers. Our testimonies offer guidance but not certainty. With uncertainty in mind, there are limits to how confident we can be in the answers. Perhaps the upshot is, as one Friend described their answer to this question, that we have to trust that if we are inspired by love then the balance between humility and assertion will take care of itself. Or, as another Friend put it, our spiritual journey is never complete. That knowledge should guard against the arrogance born of certainty.
- As we work for peace, are we nourished by peace and justice within and among ourselves?
Below we say more about how our meeting is working for peace (and justice). Here let us note that as with the previous query, Friends detected a tension between competing values. On the one hand, yes, in working toward peace and justice without, we strive to maintain peace and justice within. On the other hand, it asks a lot-perhaps more than most of us can provide-to not feel angry about the injustices of the world, particularly as those injustices multiply by the day and hour, and to let that anger inspire a commitment to change the world.
One way out of this contradiction is to note, as one Friend did, that peace is not the absence of conflict. Rather, the challenge is to respond to conflict with peace, even though our initial impulse may grow out of anger. The question also offers an answer to itself. The challenge is not only to be nourished by peace and justice within us but also among us. In other words, approaching each other in a sense of peace and justice can ensure that we approach the world in a similar spirit.
- How are we taking good care of ourselves and each other?
Friends offered a concrete answer to this question. We have revived the Pastoral Care committee, whose charge is taking care of others when they ask for help. More generally, Friends spoke of the comfort they feel knowing that others would be there for them when they needed help and how they would feel comfortable taking help because they had previously offered it.
One friend observed that attending meeting is a way of caring for ourselves and others at the same time. In other words, I am spiritually renewed by attending meeting each week, and by attending meeting each week, I make it possible for others to be spiritually renewed by attending meeting. It is a form of mutualism. (Bees pollinate flowers while collecting nectar.)
Friends also appreciated the Spiritual Friendship groups and the other opportunities (monthly pizza nights, Friendly gatherings, fundraising dinners for local organizations, monthly lunches at Foxdale, Adult Religious Education programs and social hour chats) to create communities within the community. It helps, too, that the State College meeting has seen an uptick in those attending meeting. There is spiritual strength in numbers as well.
Here may be the place to mention Religious Education, which takes good care of the children of the Meeting. (See the attached). This too is an example of mutualism. We take care of children, but as many people have pointed out, and indeed have been led to point out, it does the whole meeting good to have so many children around again.
- How are we working to become a more anti-racist and justice-seeking community?
Friends regret that the Racial Justice Working Group did not survive COVID and the loss of leadership. But many were excited by other developments, including the
revival of the Peace and Social Concerns Committee. That committee adds to the other good work(s) the State College Meeting undertakes, including for LGBTQ+, Climate Justice (see the attached), Out of the Cold, and more. One can always do more, but Friends are grateful for-and inspired by-the work that is being done.
We close with a statement that we think accurately summarizes the state of our meeting. In response to one of the queries, a Friend observed that given the world we find ourselves in today, meeting feels more valuable than ever.
Addendum 1
The Spiritual State Of SCFM Religious Education, 2025
The spiritual state of RE is joyful and robust. On a typical Sunday we have 10-16 children, and often some parents join us as well. The older children are nurturing the younger children which contributes to the happy sense of community. Our fall picnic, bake sale, Christmas tree decorating, gift wrapping presents for preschoolers, Santa’s workshop, and sled riding activities have helped children and parents form relationships with one another and develop a sense of belonging in our Youth Program.
Visiting Foxdale assisted living residents 5 times over the course of the school year, has been very sweet. The residents seem very happy to have the children visiting and the children eagerly participate in the games, poems and music that we do.
Elders in Meeting, Paula Schroeder and Sue Knox, help make this happen.
While some families have moved or not returned this year, we have new families joining us regularly. A couple of families have children at Friends School, some are neighbors of people in Meeting and some have come specifically seeking supportive community. In the past, we have noticed attendance dropping off in the spring, but participation in our play kept attendance high last spring, and hopefully will do so again this Spring. The enthusiasm, creativity and storytelling that are part of the puppet-making and performance, are providing a joyful contagion for both new and existing families.
Our Mission is to create a welcoming community in which children feel empowered to participate, learn and lead in our youth program. Key teachers, Denise, Hannah and Eliza all bring creative and caring energy to every week of our program. We all keep in mind Maya Angelou’s words, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Last May Kerry was trained to do Faith and Play lessons, and has brought some of these lessons both to the Youth Program and to Intergenerational Worship with our whole Meeting. This program supports us in helping children to develop reflection on their own spiritual lives.
Last year, when the youth performed our play on Quaker history and the SPICES, Meeting members saw how capable our older youth are, and subsequently invited a couple older youth to serve on the Meeting’s Centennial Committee.
The RE Committee, including two new members, is pleased with the direction our youth program is taking. We feel blessed to have the opportunity to work with the children and families.
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Addendum 2
SCFM 2024 Climate Query Responses
- How is spirit guiding SCFM as we experience and address climate change and issues of climate justice?
Each year, as we see more disastrous effects of the climate catastrophe, more of our Meeting members tune in and become more educated and active on climate issues. Our Climate Justice Working Group reads our climate and justice queries before the silence at beginning of our meetings in order to focus on our purpose.
- How do we keep this concern in our presence in the midst of our busy lives? We keep the Climate topic alive in Meeting by recurring announcements of events at the rise of Meeting, a bulletin board in our Social room on which we display current topics and change ~3 times a year, announcements in our weekly bulletin
and, when useful, as emails sent out through our listserv. We post information, links, resources, slide presentations and a video on our CJWG webpage. Having time in Nature inspires and motivates us to do this work.
- How has Meeting addressed the action items raised by the Playbook- particularly as to the 5 action areas around climate change?
Climate Justice Working Group – 2024
Jan. 2024 Hosted Paul Takac”s PA legislation action on climate presentation at Foxdale (Advocacy)
Mar. 2024 Harvested burdock root & sent to Singularity Botanicals (Racial Justice) Earth Day Apr. 2024 CJWG booth shared space with information from 2 other Churches & had a children’s activity (Education & Advocacy)
May & Sept. 2024 Facilitated Community Climate Action Conversations at SCFM and Foxdale using Centre Region COG’s kit (Education & Advocacy)
Fall 2024 Worked with the Buildings & Grounds and Finance committees to release
$11,000 for energy efficiency improvements in the 2025 budget (Carbon Footprint Reduction & Finance)
Oct. 2024 Created a local EQAT Vanguard campaign action/education at Meetinghouse (Advocacy & Finance)
Nov 2024 Held a Meeting conversation to propose a conversion of½ acre of Meeting grounds from gas mown lawn to more biodiverse native plant meadow or forest. (Carbon Footprint Reduction)
Dec 2024 Harvested & sent medicinal herb roots to Singularity Botanicals for use in Chester County’s African American community & maintained herbal medicine garden year-round (Racial Justice)
