In the past year we have learned a lot about how to gather online as a community. Yearly Meetings, Quarterly and Monthly Meetings, and other Quaker organizations have been working to create community online and to find ways to allow Spirit to move us. As we transition from an all online world to a blended in-person and online one, it seems valuable to come together to share our learnings.
fellowship
March Music @ the Little Egg Harbor Monthly Meeting!
Join us on 3/7/21 at 10:30am for Silent Worship followed by a short music selection by Ed Aniski. We look forward to seeing you!
Carrie Newcomer Online Concert: ‘Remembering Radiance, Acknowledging Grief, Claiming Love’
Barnegat Monthly Meeting is pleased to partner with Carrie Newcomer to present her online concert at the Mandolin site. Buy tickets here:
Carrie Newcomer is a performer, recording artist, and educator, described as a “prairie mystic” by the Boston Globe and one who “asks all the right questions” by Rolling Stone. Her song “I Should’ve Known Better” appeared on Nickel Creek’s Grammy award-winning gold-certified album “This Side”, and she earned a regional Emmy for the PBS special “An Evening with Carrie Newcomer.” Carrie is the 2019 recipient of the Shalem Institute Contemplative Voices Award. Recent media appearances include PBS’s Religion and Ethics and Krista Tippett’s On Being. In the fall of 2009 and 2011 Newcomer was a cultural ambassador to India, invited by the American Embassy of India, resulting in her interfaith collaborative benefit album Everything is Everywhere with world master of the Indian Sarod, Amjad Ali Khan and his sons Ayan and Amaan. In 2012 and 2013 Carrie traveled to Kenya and the Middle East performing in schools, spiritual communities and AIDS hospitals. Carrie has 17 nationally released albums on Available Light and Rounder Records, including The Point of Arrival, The Beautiful Not Yet, A Permeable Life, and Everything is Everywhere. Newcomer has also released two companion books of poetry and essays, A Permeable Life: Poems and Essays and The Beautiful Not Yet: Poems, Essays, & Lyrics. Newcomer’s first theatrical production, Betty’s Diner: The Musical, was performed at a sold out run at Purdue University in 2015 and is now available to interested theaters, universities, and spiritual communities.
In 2016 Carrie presented the Goshen College commencement address and was awarded an honorary degree in Music for Social Change. She regularly works with Parker J. Palmer in live programs, including Healing the Heart of Democracy: A Gathering of Spirits for the Common Good and What We Need is Here: Hope, Hard Times, and Human Possibility. Newcomer and Palmer also are actively collaborating on The Growing Edge, a website, podcast, and retreat. Spirituality and Health Magazine named The Growing Edge collaboration as one of the top ten spiritual leaders and programs for the next 20 years. Three of Newcomer’s songs are included in Palmer’s newest book. Other special collaborations include presentations with neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor, author Rabbi Sandy Sasso, and environmental author Scott Russell Sanders.
Carrie lives in the woods of southern Indiana with her husband and two shaggy dogs.
Let’s Talk with Local Farmers
The Anti-Racism Committee of Moorestown Friends Meeting seeks to identify political and legislative priorities to support anti-racism. Given the Meeting’s roots in NJ farming, one obvious area of interest is agriculture. The committee acknowledges the systemic racism that permeates agriculture and farming in the United States. US Senator Cory Booker has taken note of the relative paucity of Black-owned farmland not just in NJ but throughout our nation. The direct connection between discriminatory practices of the USDA and the status of Black farmers was first documented by government-sponsored reports in 1997. The discrimination primarily took the shape of denying Black farmers timely access to government loans which caused Black farmers to lose their farms. The 2002 Farm Bill and the 2018 Farm Bill signaled progressive efforts to address this discrimination. While some progress has been made, e.g., an increase in the number of Black farmers and the acreage of Black farms, more is needed as the average farm income of Black-operated farms in 2017 was 40% of that of white-operated farms. To address this gap, the Justice for Black Farmers Act, co-sponsored by Senator Booker in late 2020, seeks to provide land grants to Black farmers.
On the recommendation of Member Pete Small, several committee members met for a tour of Free Haven Farm in early November 2020. We fell in love with the owners, the kale, and the fire sauce. Established in 2017, Free Haven Farms is a Black-owned farm in Lawnside, NJ. Its owners are Cynthia (Moorestown Friends School, 1997) and Micaiah Hall. The Halls are passionate about their mission of sustainability and attainability. To that end, Free Haven Farm produces much more than produce – farm tours, ag workshops, soil testing, garden consultation, a science camp for kids, and yoga and capoeira angola (Brazilian martial art) classes. Mr. Hall is the former Farm Director of Mill Creek Farm in Philadelphia. Dr. Cynthia Hall is an environmental geochemist and Associate Professor at West Chester University. Their farm reflects their interest in building bridges into the community through healthy food and food education for those with limited access to both.
Please join the Moorestown Meeting’s Anti-Racism Committee on Thursday, February 25 at 7:30 pm by Zoom for a conversation with Cynthia and Micaiah Hall. Click here or phone 646-558-8656 and use meeting #873 3565 8140.
Quaker Self Portrait: Green Street Meeting
We are a vibrant, caring community, rich in diversity and Spirit. This snapshot — of just some of our members and attenders — is a great example of the joy we feel being in fellowship together. #GreenStreetRocks
See how to share it at www.pym.org/census