Philadelphia Yearly Meeting

of the Religious Society of Friends

Inclusivity

New Years: Music of Vision and Inspiration with Karl Middleman

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A New Year’s Musical Retreat Registration 4-6pm in the Barn, December 28, first session after dinner. Concludes with lunch January 1st.

Music of Vision and Inspiration delivers on the vision of what life can be. It shows the brightness and beauty in the music of a rainbow of composers. This year we will feature music by women and diverse composers such as Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Caroline Shaw, and Valerie Coleman. Our brief foray into the music of the Harlem Renaissance will show a time in America when jazz gave voice to the joys, sorrows, and hopes of African Americans. Additionally, we will look at the concept of nationalism as refracted through the music of great 19th Century composers, Chopin and Smetana. Music of Vision and Inspiration offers compelling reasons to be resilient, hopeful, and expectant of beauty beyond times of strife.

For more information, to register, or to apply for financial aid, please visit: https://pendlehill.org/events/new-years-music-of-vision-and-inspiration/

Let’s Talk About Faith-based Reparations

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A world that is accountable for past harms including slavery, colonialism, genocide, and other material and moral abuses will be a world better for everyone. The Grassroots Reparations Campaign sponsors a course to examine the history, spiritual, conceptual (ethical and moral) and practical dimensions of reparations as a global movement. Centered on the approach to reparation from the United Nations, the twelve-hour course explores the perspectives that justify and help many ground the case for faith-based reparations. The spiritual journey to uproot white supremacy externally and internally co-exists with working toward full reparations and abolition-democracy. Barb Kreider will offer some insights from this course. Click here or call 646-558-8656 and enter meeting ID 873 3565 8140 to be part of the conversation.

Let’s Talk About Ellen Foster

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Book club! Moorestown Meeting attender Elizabeth will facilitate discussion of Kaye Gibbons’s award-winning short novel Ellen Foster. This story of a strong, smart girl and her challenging childhood is widely available in libraries and from booksellers. Click here or phone 646-558-8656 and use meeting ID 815 8781 6369 to join the conversation with our Anti-Racism Committee.

Let’s Talk About Ellen Foster

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Book club! Gather with us for a discussion of Kaye Gibbons’s award-winning short novel Ellen Foster. This story of a strong, smart girl and her challenging childhood is widely available in libraries and from booksellers. Click here or phone 646-558-8656 and use meeting ID 815 8781 6369 to join the conversation.

Let’s Talk About the Baldwin-Buckley Debate

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Ben will facilitate a discussion of Fringe Art’s production of ‘Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge’, a recreation of a famed 1965 debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley, Jr., on the question, “Has the American Dream Been Achieved at the Expense of the American Negro?” If you have a chance, see the performance Sept 9, 10 or 11 at the FringeArts Theater on the Philadelphia waterfront. You can also watch the original debate online, and find many related commentaries and analyses. Click here or call 646-558-8656 and enter meeting ID 873 3565 8140 to join the conversation.

Let’s Talk About Ellen Foster

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Join Moorestown Friends Meeting’s Anti-Racism Committee as our attender Elizabeth facilitates a discussion of Kaye Gibbons’s beautifully human, short novel Ellen Foster. The award-winning book about a strong, smart girl navigating an unusually challenging childhood is widely available in libraries and from booksellers. Enjoy a book club and help support the important work Friends are doing in witness to our testament of equality; click here or phone 646-558-8656 and use meeting ID 873 3565 8140.

Let’s Talk About ‘How Can We Win?’

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Author and activist Kimberly Jones went viral with a YouTube interview in which she asks, “How can we win?” Moorestown Friends Meeting’s Anti-Racism Committee recommends the interview highly; we’ll host a discussion of Jones’s perspective on race, protest, violence and economics for this Let’s Talk session on Thursday 22 July. Watch Jones’s seven-minute interview on YouTube – and maybe her 12-minute appearance on The Daily Show – then join us to discuss Jones’s ideas and our own perspectives; click here or phone 646-558-8656 and use meeting ID 815 8781 6369.

Providence Meeting’s Sarah Willie-LeBreton Writes about “Black Lives Matter”

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willie-lebretonSarah Willie-LeBreton’s article, “Out of the silvery silence: The prophetic call of Black Lives Matter” was just published on the website of the American Friends Service Committee.

Sarah is a sociologist who teaches at Swarthmore College and a member of Providence Monthly Meeting of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. She lives in Media with her family.

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Keeping ‘Em Coming: Advices for Meetings with Teens

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It’s a commonly proclaimed sentiment among Quaker adults: youth are a vital part of our Meetings. However, as children become teens they often drift away from Monthly Meeting communities, much to the discouragement of First Day teachers and other adult attenders! In order to keep teens relating to Meeting, adults need to figure out what works for young people in personal interactions, in First Day school curricula, and in Meeting activities and adapt our practices to create space that feels compelling to them. Below are advices addressing the topic of teen retention for Monthly Meetings. These were gathered from discussions that took place at the “Keep ‘Em Coming!” workshop from PYM’s February 2011 We Can Do It Day, in which participants considered feedback from some of PYM’s Young Friends and Young Adult Friends and shared the best practices of their own meetings.

Highlight and support opportunities for young Quakers to be together. Meeting adults can announce opportunities for youth organized by the Quarter or Yearly Meeting or at Quaker camps, as well as assist teens in planning their own times together, like movie nights, or an overnight service project. Additionally, Meetings can be generous with resources to assist teens in attending Quaker youth activities. Offering rides and funds, as well as chaperoning or being a Friendly Adult Presence help a lot.

Celebrate the youth in your Meeting and let them experience your support. Talk about their activities and accomplishments that take place outside of meeting during announcements or in the newsletter. Attend their games, performances, graduations, plays, and make sure they know you were there to see them.

Share yourself with youth. Strike up a genuine conversation and invite their thoughts. Try being a little silly or vulnerable. Opportunities for this kind of sharing can arise if Meetings intentionally plan inter-generational activity times – potlucks, maintenance and play days, dances, Santa’s workshops, etc.

Cover topics relevant to their life experience in First Day school. If Meeting is a place where teens can discuss and get consistent support for whatever is going on in their lives – whether it be questions about fitting in, drugs, sex, or relationships- than they will probably feel invested in continuing engagement with the Meeting.

Take the spiritual depth and possibility of youth seriously by asking and listening to their opinions on matters of spiritual import to the Meeting and by giving them the full benefit of Quaker Process, including Clearness Committees (for membership or another purpose, like perhaps what to do after high school).

Provide opportunities for youth empowerment through leadership. Teens are fully capable of fulfilling a variety of responsibilities, and having some may help them feel more invested and engaged. Some ways that Meetings could offer that are by giving teens a role in the rise of Meeting process (leading songs, etc.), inviting them to committee work that might interest them, or by suggesting that they have their own committee focused around a topic of their choice (for instance, different forms of fun and creative service to the Meeting or the world).

Engage with technology. Real and important expressions of life and community building are happening on the Internet, as well as fun and exciting worldly interests- that’s why youth think all the gadgets to access it are cool! If individual adults and Meetings as a whole can engage with these forms of communication and community building, Meeting may feel more relevant and accessible to teens. For instance, interaction through Facebook is sometimes more likely to get a young person’s attention and response than mail, email, or phone calls.

Stay in touch when they graduate. It’s always important for young people to know that Meeting adults care for them, and that doesn’t change when they leave high school. Meeting adults’ efforts to reach out and express care when teens have left home can have a grounding effect that makes returning to Meeting on breaks or visits home more appealing.