Westport Meeting News:
Westport Meeting Potluck & Campfire Sing, July 10! ALL ARE WELCOME–PLEASE COME! It has been a challenging year to say the least! As our Westport Friends community cautiously emerges from the pandemic, Monthly Meeting for Business has enthusiastically endorsed Gretchen’s vision of coming back together to celebrate, sing, enjoy a potluck supper and gather around a campfire on our Meeting property. July 10 is chosen specifically because it would have been the opening day of our Annual Book Fair, which as we know, is cancelled again this summer.
So instead of lugging boxes of books on July 10, come to this event and wrap your hands and heart around some good food and fellowship among one another, and enjoy lawn games, badminton, bubbles, and a campfire too? ! Friends will start gathering at 5 p.m. with the plan of sharing supper at 6, but come when it works for you and your family. Potluck dishes that don’t require cooking on site are encouraged! Westport Meeting’s potlucks are always generous and varied, so don’t stay home because you aren’t able to cook. Come anyway! Have a guitar or harmonica to help accompany singing? Bring it, too! Questions? Want to help? Email Gretchen or call her at 508-287-6441.
Congratulations to Aliza Beth and John LeClerc on the birth of their second child, Charles Steven LeClerc. “Charlie” was born July 3, at 4:54 PM, weighing 5lb, 12 oz. Congratulations also to Henry, Charlie’s older brother, and auntie Larissa Correia, and Vovo, Steve Correia!
FELLOWSHIP AND REFRESHMENTS FOLLOWING WORSHIP RESUMES! Gorman Reilly, clerk of Hospitality Committee, will be heading up efforts to begin bringing light goodies, coffee, tea, and related refreshments for Friends to enjoy during fellowship after worship on Sunday. Can you help? If so, email Gorman HERE, or call her at 917-495-9107.
MEETING CALENDAR: (All meetings via Zoom Unless Noted)
- Westport Meeting (in-person) Cookout & Campfire Sing, Sat, July 10 (Details above)
- Worship each Sunday in meetinghouse and via Zoom at 10 AM
- NEYM Meeting Leaders Call, 7 PM (Link via NEYM)
- Midweek worship, Wed, July 14 , 3:30-4 PM. (link sent day of)
- Seekers Group, Monday, July 19, at 7 PM. (Gretchen sends link)
- Sandwich Quarterly Meeting, sponsored by Sandwich Meeting via Zoom, July 24. Details TBA
- Quaker Voluntary Service Fellow’s Retreat (Private) at Westport Meeting, July 26-29 (Info below)
- Peace & Social Justice Committee, Sunday, Aug 1, 8:15-9:45 AM
- JYM Pre-Sessions Retreat, Aug 1-4. Details
- SAVE THE DATE: NEYM Annual (virtual) Sessions, Aug 7-12, 2021. Preliminary details
MIDWEEK WORSHIP, via Zoom, WEDNESDAYS, 3:30-4:00 PM!
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Yearly Meeting/Wider Quaker News:
Gretchen’s JYM-JHYM latest bi-weekly newsletter of July 7, 2021, containing programming and retreat info for young people, parents and Friends, can be read HERE.
Gretchen begins her latest JYM-JHYM Newsletter with, “I’m writing today with big and tender news.” I have copied Gretchen’s “big and tender news” in its entirety here so that Westport Friends are aware of the transition that one of our Meeting members will be undergoing in the year ahead.
Dear Friends,
I’m writing today with big and tender news.
One Sunday 32 years ago, Kevin Lee sat down next to me after worship and asked if I would consider being an adult staffer for a new elementary retreat program he’d started called JYM. I had no idea how much joy, love, Spirit, and gratitude lay ahead when I said yes. Much has unfolded through the years, with a wide circle of beloved children, youth staff, and families, extraordinary support from the Yearly Meeting, and grace and nudges from Spirit. It has been an exquisite gift to be in this work with so many good people and so much joy.
Six months ago, I unexpectedly experienced the beginnings of clarity that it was getting to be time for our Quaker youth to have someone new in leadership, to allow Spirit to rise and grow from another voice and heart. Through much listening, prayer, and reflection, this clarity has grown. And so, with a tender and grateful heart I am writing to let you know that I will be stepping aside as the coordinator of JYM and JHYM next summer (2022).
For a number of years, I’ve held a concern for how to best “do” a transition in leadership that someday would have to happen. I would never have expected that Covid would provide that opening. But, when all of our patterns and rhythms for our youth programs were abruptly halted last spring, Maggie Nelson, the coordinator of the high school program, and I had to become more flexible and experimental. We sprinted to find way—any ways—for our youth and families to feel cared for and connected. We tried all sorts of things, some we wouldn’t recommend repeating, but some that worked really well. I found a surprising amount of creativity—and Spirit—in this work. For sure, it has been a difficult, exhausting, and emotional time, but I know that in the midst of it all I wandered onto holy ground. I re-learned that I have to pay attention, as a baker does with the loaf of bread dough in her hands, to where Spirit is rising—and follow that way.
I want that kind of spaciousness for the next coordinator and for all of us.
Where is the Eternal Love leading us? I have many hopes. This new child and family minister could help us become a more welcoming, inclusive, and anti-racist spiritual community; help nurture local and regional connections for youth and families—a direction that Maggie’s ministry is growing into; and help to grow the circle of younger adults staffing JYM and JHYM. At the same time, I hope a new leader will be grounded in the rich soil from which our youth programs have thrived. I hope that the extraordinary Friends who have staffed JYM and JHYM for many years can help to hold the community, the Center, and the deep knowledge of each child and teen currently in our programs through this transition. And, I hope to be one of those staffers, as Way opens.
While there is grief in my heart (but how incredible is it that I have always, and still, love this ministry), there is also deep peace and trust. This is a good time, a compassionate time, for this transition, especially—most important—for the children. We can do this, as a beloved faith community, walking in the Light together. I often return to one of my favorite-ever retreat themes—his Little Light’s NOT Mine. It’s God’s. Our job is to nurture it, grow it, channel it, and listen with trust and love.
There will be time and space for a process of deep listening in the coming months before beginning a formal search process for a new coordinator next spring. Questions and specifics should be directed to Noah Merrill, our Yearly Meeting Secretary, at ymsec@neym.org. In the meantime, we will keep on keeping on, with love, joy, trust, and prayer.
Please hold in much Light our JYM and JHYM communities, our extraordinary youth staff, and a grounded spaciousness so that new leadership and a collective, multi-layered offering of ministry may rise. Together, dear Friends, let us continue to see what love can do as we take this leap of faith together.
I am sending each of you so much gratitude and love.
NEYM Newsletter: Grounded in Blessing, July 10, 2021, may be read HERE.
Introduction by Honor Woodrow
Annual Sessions is coming!
Exploring Spiritual Practices
Save the Date: Next Gathering on Ministry and Spiritual Life
Proposed chapter for Faith & Practice
Poem: “Trauma Tree”
New QuakerSpeak video
Right Relationship resource group news
Friends coalition for racial justice
Quaker parenting resource
What’s new in the Archives
Roadmap for action on Climate Change
Quakers in the news
What is Quaker Voluntary Service?
Quaker Voluntary Service is a year-long Fellowship program in which young adults between the ages 21-30 build intentional community, work full time at social service and social change agencies, and explore themes of spiritual and personal growth with local Quakers. Fellows receive housing, transportation, food, support for health and wellness (including access to health insurance if needed), and a small stipend, while engaging in regular self-led workshops and retreats that allow for continuing education in social justice, faith, and community building topics. (From their website) Moe info HERE.
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Friends, though we are living in challenging times these days, many individual Friends, monthly meetings, Quaker organizations, and our Yearly Meeting as a whole, are offering an amazing array of opportunities to expand our knowledge and improve our practice as Friends in a variety of ways. Check out the following links and see what we are being offered! Also, take a few minutes and explore additional programs offered by NEYM by visiting the Events page HERE.
Recurring virtual Quaker events:
- Daily at 8 a.m., Beacon Hill Friends House: Meditation practice
- Mondays at 3 p.m., Facebook Live: Singalong Concerts
- Sunday–Thursday at 9:30 p.m. Calming Pajama Party
- Alternate Thursdays at 4 p.m., Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL): Thursdays with Friends
- Thursdays at 7 p.m.: Taizé worship
- Thursdays at 8 p.m.: Parents’ Tea-and-Chat
- Alternate Tuesdays at 7 p.m.: Support for Friends Serving in Local Meeting Leadership Roles
- Saturdays at 12:30 p.m. Open Heart Worship Group
Events coming soon:
- NEYM Annual (virtual) Sessions, Aug 7-12, 2021. Preliminary details
Connect, Learn, Explore, and Be in Service among Friends Regionally and Globally.
Check out an array of Quaker schools, camps, retreat centers, other yearly meetings and Quaker organizations listed on NEYM’s website.
Closing:
We must always be on the lookout for perverse
dynamic processes which carry even good things to excess.
It is precisely these excesses which become the most evil
things in the world. The devil, after all, is a fallen angel.
– Kenneth Boulding