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Please join us for any or all of the day’s activities.
8:30a Meeting for Worship
9:30a Coffee, Tea, and Conversation
10:00a All Ages Singing
10:30a Meeting for Worship
11:45a Fellowship and Free Lunch
1:00p-3:00p Information Sessions
The Meetinghouse is wheelchair accessible and we have assisted listening devices available.
More information about The Religious Society of Friends and Putney Friends Meeting can be found at putneyfriendsmeeting.org.
In celebration of World Quaker Day, Putney Friends Meeting at 17 Bellows Falls Road in Putney will host an Open Meetinghouse event on Sunday, October 6th. In addition to the regularly scheduled Meetings for Worship at 8:30am and 10:30am, and All Ages Singing at 10:00am, the Open Meetinghouse event will include a free lunch at 11:45am and offerings from 1:00pm to 3:00pm to include children’s programming, drop-in worship, and information sessions on the following topics: Understanding Worship and Business, Structure and History, and Testimonies, Queries, and Social Justice. Visitors are welcome to participate in any or all of the day’s activities.
Putney Friends Meeting is a community of people who are members of The Religious Society of Friends, nicknamed “Quakers.” The Sunday morning services of unprogrammed Quaker Meetings, such as Putney Friends Meeting, are unique. Friends meet in silent expectant waiting with the possibility that vocal ministry may be shared by anyone. They have no hired clergy, and instead share in the responsibility of being open to the Divine’s promptings and leadings.
Putney Friends Meeting is an open and affirming church, welcoming all. The Meetinghouse is wheelchair accessible and there are assisted listening devices available. Childcare is available during the 10:30am Meeting for Worship each Sunday, and First Day School is offered for children on the first three Sundays of each month. Anyone who is curious and wishing to learn more about Quaker practices, who wants a chance to experience waiting worship, or who is seeking a religious community that is the right fit for them is encouraged to attend the Open Meetinghouse. More information about Putney Friends Meeting and The Religious Society of Friends can be found at putneyfriendsmeeting.org.
SEPTEMBER 2019 Dear Friends, Most years, on Indigenous People’s Day (“Columbus Day”) weekend, I go to the Sandwich (NH) Fair. A good old-fashioned fair, this includes gymkhana events; 4-H kids showing off their pigs, sheep and oxen; and lots of fried food. I always migrate to the horse pull, where pairs of draft horses pull a sled with successively heavier weights. At the beginning, usually all horse pairs pull the sled the required 12 feet, most barely breaking a sweat. As the event goes on, and the sled gets heavier, the horses have to work harder, and gradually teams drop out as they fail to pull the minimum distance. I have on occasion wondered, “What draws me to this event?” I think it’s that I find some joy in seeing the horses reveal an essential part of their nature. They were bred to pull heavy things and in this event, as they dig in and pull, we are witnesses to their strength, and the satisfaction in using that strength. The best teams are horses that are well-matched in size and style, and that have obviously worked together a lot. The setup which allows the horses to do this work is a complicated arrangement of straps and padding, at the heart of which is the yoke, a padded ring that goes around the base of the horse’s neck. This is the piece the horse leans into, pulling enormous weights without hurting itself. One could argue that the yoke helps the horse to realize what God intended for him. As someone who often thinks in visual images, I’ve always liked the metaphor of leaning into the yoke when I have some challenging piece of work to do, whether it’s actually physical labor or not. Some heavy “sled” that I have to pull for a required distance. Jesus used the image,“My yoke is easy and the burden is light,” to describe following his path. I’ve been told that in this context “easy” doesn’t mean”not difficult,” but more like well-fit or “comfortable.” Which makes more sense, as following Jesus’ path is not what I would call easy, but during periods when I am more diligent in my retirement and open to the encouragement of the Lord, I recognize that I will not be given anything I can’t handle, no sled I cannot pull. I expect most of you reading this have some experience of being yoked to some work, whether this is committee work at your local meeting, caring for an ailing family member, working in prisons or for immigrant rights. Sometimes the call comes in the familiar voice of a Friend on nominating committee, sometimes by the unsettling but powerful voice of the Divine. Sometimes we end up taking on roles out of a sense of duty, only to find some joy and satisfaction in the work. I also like the expression “well-used.” When there is a sense that my gifts have fit well with a need, and that it was indeed my work to do, even if the work is hard, there is some satisfaction in serving the Lord. I think the horses must feel something like that, after engaging with their full selves in a bit of physical labor. Some of this work can be scary, but if the Divine has called you to it, there’s usually a sense of being carried, of being supported through the work. As you lean into it, you find that, against expectations, the yoke actually fits! This reflection on yoked service is a lead-in to publicly expressing my own appreciation, and the Yearly Meeting’s appreciation, for two individuals who have just taken the yoke off, after a long pull of 4 years. Fritz Weiss (Hanover, NH, Friends Meeting) has just stepped down as our presiding clerk, serving his expected term of 3 years plus an extra year. In addition to the very public role of clerking business at Sessions, the presiding clerk is charged with clerking Coordinating and Advisory Committee and staying on top of myriad issues facing the Yearly Meeting, Yearly Meeting committees, the quarterly meetings, sometimes issues at monthly meetings, and occasionally interpersonal kerfuffles. Fritz took on this work with deep spiritual grounding, commitment to NEYM and the Quaker way, a warm and friendly manner, and a sense of humor. And a nice fedora. Through this same four-year period, Sarah Gant (Beacon Hill, MA, Friends Meeting) served as clerk of Permanent Board. This, too, is a big job, shepherding a variety of concerns and projects through the year, with six meetings every year. The Permanent Board clerk must stay on top of all the big issues that affect the Yearly Meeting, participates in Coordinating and Advisory, and must be diligent and patient, coordinating the various subcommittees and ad-hoc committees that report to Permanent Board. Sarah engaged in this work with great competence, an obvious love of NEYM, and an infectious joy. We owe both these Friends a debt of gratitude for serving us and the Divine with such love and open heartedness. I suggest that each of you thank them for their service when next you see them. Leslie Manning (Durham, ME, Friends Meeting) and I will be donning the yokes that Sarah and Fritz have doffed, and I expect it will take a little while for the fit to work quite as well as it did with these Friends. Please forgive us our minor transgressions, and accept our apologies if and when we fail spectacularly! Know that we, too, love our Yearly Meeting and have an abiding faith in the potential of the Quaker path to transform our lives. We welcome your prayers. Bruce Neumann Fresh Pond Friends Meeting (Cambridge, MA) Presiding Clerk, New England Yearly Meeting of Friends |
Dear Friends,
In response to the recent shootings in El Paso and Dayton, and seeking to speak prophetically to the condition of American politics and society, the Poor People’s Campaign has shared a “pastoral letter”. They are asking for supporters to share this message within their networks and to consider signing on to the letter as individuals, through the online platform they provide.
New England Yearly Meeting of Friends is an endorser of the Poor People’s Campaign. I have signed the letter. I hope you will consider sharing the letter with Friends in your meeting, and inviting them to sign on if so led.
Here is the link to the letter.
In faith and service,
Noah Merrill
Secretary, New England Yearly Meeting of Friends
Dear Friends, For 359 years, Quakers in New England have gathered for worship, spiritual nurture, fellowship and discernment of our shared calling. Online Registration for Annual Sessions 2019 is now open! Register Now |
Dear Friends,
Three weeks ago, I was blessed to be with Quakers in Ireland. The day before the yearly meeting sessions began in Dublin, Irish Friends gave me a special gift—the opportunity to visit the burial place of Job Scott.
Job was a New England Quaker and traveling minister from Rhode Island whose preaching and writing were deeply cherished. He was a teacher, a war tax resister, and an opponent of slavery, exploitation and oppression in all of its forms.
In 1793, he died of smallpox while traveling in ministry in Ireland. He has been described as the last Quaker minister to preach the original Quaker message, prior to the separations that divided North American Quakers in the 1800s.
But there is no gravestone for Job Scott.
The story goes that the last living Quaker who knew where he was buried refused to reveal the location, because he was afraid of idolatry—he was concerned that people would set up a monument to this famous Friend, that people would come to mistake the one through whom the gift of ministry was given for the Giver.
From the burial ground, the Friends hosting me brought me to the ancient meetinghouse nearby. There, in an upper room warmed by a fire, we found a group already gathered in worship together.
The simple ministry we heard spoke deeply to my condition. And it was there that I found what I’d come all this way seeking. I came home again.
A Friend spoke about our spiritual journeys being like children learning to walk: full of risk, frustration, and stumbling, but also of yearning, discovery, and becoming something new in relationship with everything. In our journeys of faith, we learn to “walk” together, held and sustained by Love.
Those who’ve come before us are never really gone. I believe the ministry of Friends who have come before us can still find resonance in living communities open to receive it. But if these voices from the Quaker past continue to speak and inspire in relevant ways, it’s because there are communities of faith living now, opening in our own context to the same Life and Power those Friends knew.
We have a choice in how we tell our story, how we hold our history. Jaroslav Pelikan writes: “Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Tradition is the living faith of the dead.”
We can–and at times do—fall into worshipping Friends’ history, pining for a long-lost golden age of Quaker heroes, or believing that the way we’ve done things is sacred and therefore unchangeable. This can keep us from being open to the movement of the Spirit now.
But if we listen with the ears of our hearts, the wisdom, humility, courage, and faith—as well as the mistakes, wounds, and shortcomings—of our spiritual ancestors can weave a cloud of witnesses that gather around us. Their testimony in their own time and context invites us to live faithfully together in our own.
This month, I’m grateful for all those—past and present—whose faithfulness has kindled new life in me. And I’m grateful for the communities of deep hope—in our Quaker tradition and in others—that offer the promise of rediscovering the Life and Power today. In this promise, I feel the echoes of the testimony of Friends’ faithfulness, from moment to moment, and from generation to generation.
May we be a community that receives and honors what has come before, drawing nourishment from the past to help us nurture the present and embrace the future. May we walk a path that opens our hearts to the Spirit’s continuing guidance for how we can live that same Truth in fresh ways today. That’s a path I want to follow, and a community I want to be part of. How about you?
in faith and service,
Noah Merrill
Secretary
New England Yearly Meeting of Friends (Quakers)
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http://www.commonsnews.org/site/sitenext/story.php?articleno=30168
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Dear Friends,
Exciting news! The House just passed the most sweeping election integrity bill that we’ve seen in nearly two decades. Join me on Tuesday, March 12 for an online briefing on the bill, state of play, and future of reform. The For The People Act (H.R. 1) contains sweeping reforms to our campaign finance, voting, and ethics rules. The Senate must now act on what the House has passed. Components of H.R. 1 could form a package of provisions on which Democrats and Republicans can agree. We need you to ensure that the Senate takes meaningful steps to address the serious flaws with the integrity of our elections. Join Jim Cason, FCNL’s associate executive secretary for strategic advocacy, and me for an online briefing on March 12 at 7:00 p.m.
P.S. You can start reaching out to your Senators now. Email them so they know election integrity matters to you. Get involved locally! Register to attend the upcoming FCNL Advocacy Team Workshop at Orchard Hill.ADVOCACY FOR THE LONG HAUL
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