Philadelphia Yearly Meeting

of the Religious Society of Friends

Spiritual Formation

Practicing Discernment

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An afternoon on-campus workshop with Marcelle Martin, inviting commuters to join Spring Term resident students in exploring practices of Spirit-led discernment.

This workshop is an opportunity to explore and practice skills that are useful for personal discernment, spiritual friendships, clearness committees, and faithfulness groups. Every participant will have space in a small group to explore some relationship, commitment, leading, service, call, or witness for which you are seeking clarity. Participants are welcome to stay for dinner after the workshop.

Continuing Revolution 2023: Nurturing Experiments in Spiritually Grounded Abolition

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June 2-6, 2023: on campus and online via Zoom

  • On-campus resident  (June 2-6): $100
  • Commuter daily attendance: $15/day
  • Online: $20
  • Significant financial assistance is available!

Continuing Revolution, Pendle Hill’s annual conference for young adults (ages 18-35), is a space of collective exploration and learning for the spiritually curious who are striving to live in ways that reflect their values. We welcome those who are seeking to examine the connections between their spiritual, political, and interpersonal lives. 

To apply, click here.

Join young adult Friends and seekers (ages 18-35) gathering both online and at Pendle Hill to build community with others exploring abolition of police and policing. Building on themes and feedback from Continuing Revolution 2022: Experiments in Spiritually Grounded Abolition, we will focus this year on the relationship between individual and structural transformation. We will explore together definitions and practices of structural change, building skills for positioning ourselves in that work in our respective communities.

We will continue to draw on Mariame Kaba’s understanding of abolition as “a vision of a restructured society where we have everything that we need to live dignified lives.” Kaba notes that “abolition” is not a static or singular thing; the word is used by people of various political persuasions and imaginations, who “want to eliminate prisons, policing, and surveillance, and . . . want to create true safety, health, and well-being instead.” We will learn collectively from the tools, strategies, and processes that contemporary groups are using in local, national, and interpersonal communities, with an emphasis on the interaction between personal and structural work.

Come to Continuing Revolution 2023 to support and be supported in learning to make decisions that reflect your values and hopes for the building of abolitionist futures. Enjoy opportunities for reflection, sharing, worship, and skill-building with other young adults from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences in the nurturing environment of Pendle Hill, either online or in person.

Companions Open to Spirit & Each Other at Pendle Hill

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On a glorious weekend in October, the Spiritual Formation Collaborative hosted a workshop/retreat at Pendle Hill with a focus on becoming Spiritual Companions. We had four leaders: Nadine Hoover, Joann Neuroth, Cassie Cammann and Barbara LaSage, who volunteered their time, experience and Spirit to lead us closer to the Quaker way of being in the world. [Read more…] about Companions Open to Spirit & Each Other at Pendle Hill

Visual Journaling Online

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An online arts and spirituality series with Jesse White

Do you love journaling and want to integrate visual art with your words? We will invite Spirit’s guidance as we learn arts techniques to complement our written words.

This fun and exploratory experience is meant to meet you where you are with regards to journaling and art-making. No particular skills or experience is necessary to participate, yet the program will have something to offer even the most experienced writers and artists.

Visual Journaling Online

Written on:

An online arts and spirituality series with Jesse White

Do you love journaling and want to integrate visual art with your words? We will invite Spirit’s guidance as we learn arts techniques to complement our written words.

This fun and exploratory experience is meant to meet you where you are with regards to journaling and art-making. No particular skills or experience is necessary to participate, yet the program will have something to offer even the most experienced writers and artists.

Visual Journaling Online

Written on:

An online arts and spirituality series with Jesse White

Do you love journaling and want to integrate visual art with your words? We will invite Spirit’s guidance as we learn arts techniques to complement our written words.

This fun and exploratory experience is meant to meet you where you are with regards to journaling and art-making. No particular skills or experience is necessary to participate, yet the program will have something to offer even the most experienced writers and artists.

Visual Journaling Online

Written on:

An online arts and spirituality series with Jesse White

Do you love journaling and want to integrate visual art with your words? We will invite Spirit’s guidance as we learn arts techniques to complement our written words.

This fun and exploratory experience is meant to meet you where you are with regards to journaling and art-making. No particular skills or experience is necessary to participate, yet the program will have something to offer even the most experienced writers and artists.

Visual Journaling Online

Written on:

An online arts and spirituality series with Jesse White

Do you love journaling and want to integrate visual art with your words? We will invite Spirit’s guidance as we learn arts techniques to complement our written words.

This fun and exploratory experience is meant to meet you where you are with regards to journaling and art-making. No particular skills or experience is necessary to participate, yet the program will have something to offer even the most experienced writers and artists.

What the Spiritual Formation program meant to me as a young adult

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Since becoming a Quaker in college (at a non-Quaker school!), I have attended plenty of PYM workshops and events and been either the only young adult or one of a very small handful of young adults. My experiences generally fell on a spectrum with “alienated” on one end and “overwhelmed” at the other. My experience of participating in the Spiritual Formation program fell right in that happy middle section – engaged, included and valued.

Perhaps it is because of the content: deep spiritual listening, finding common threads among our diverse theological perspectives, focusing on central texts, connecting authentically with one another and encouraging one another to live faithfully. Perhaps it was the unique combination of individuals that lead and participated alongside me. Perhaps it was the blend of large group gatherings and small group accountability meetings.

As the youngest person (by a margin of more than a decade) in my small group, I was given the opportunity to return the care and curiosity to older people that so often comes at me from every angle as a younger participant. It was a joy to get to know these older Friends on a spiritual level; Friends not from my own meeting, who didn’t already know me closely. I felt valued, but not pressed upon; included, but not tokenized. When the purpose of a program is to know one another genuinely and grow together spiritually, age matters very little. The Spiritual Formation program also gave me a deep spiritual well to draw from and helped me to grow in my own journey. I continue to be grateful for the learning and nourishment it brought me during a formative time in my own life. It was time well spent.

Pamela Draper (right) is a member of London Grove Friends Meeting and worships with West Philly Friends Meeting

Learn more about the intergenerational Spiritual Formation Program cohort that begins this fall!  The opening retreat is on September 27th.  Register by September 10th.

New Intergenerational Spiritual Formation Program

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An Intergenerational Spiritual Formation Program is specifically designed for Young Adult and other interested Friends.  This 7-month program begins in Sept. 2014 and closes in April 2015.  The elements of Spiritual Formation include retreats, personal spiritual disciplines, readings, and prayerful support.  Participants will meet monthly in spiritual friendship and reading groups. We will be joining each other in worship, practice and witness to the Eternal in our lives.

The opening retreat will be held Saturday, Sept. 27, 2014, at Abington Meeting. The mid-year retreat will be held at Chestnut Hill Meeting on Saturday,  Jan. 17, 2015 and the closing retreat at Chestnut Hill on April 18, 2015.

If you have any questions about the program or about registration, please contact Amelia Diamond, aediamond7@gmail.com,  Jane Keller, janeckeller102@gmail.com, Wanda Wyffels, mewkw01@moravian.edu or Wade Wright atw9a8d7e6w@epix.net.

Join us on a new spiritual journey!  Invite a Friend to travel with you!

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