All posts by Ken Stockbridge

Adult Discussion and Study

2005 End-of-Life Workshops & Worship Sharing

“Of the two births we experience, we can only prepare for the second–which we call death. May your time of preparation be full and happy.”

Quote courtesy of Steve Stahle

No one will leave this world without passing through the door of death, which may create difficult time for us and for those whom we love. We have planned these gatherings to address the needs of the Patapsco Friends Meeting community in our preparations. Each will feature speakers in the field, an introduction to local, national, and Quakerly resources, and an opportunity to ask questions.

Note: Resources collected from these sessions are now in 2 binders in our library. Also, coming soon, electronic resources will be available on this website.

June 26, 2005: Opening Worship Sharing

“Do I find time to reflect on aging and dying of myself and those who are close to me? Have I given consideration to preparing for my death?”

“What role does suffering play in our spiritual journey and our relationship with God? How much suffering should we endure to honor life? How much are we prepared to endure? What else do we require from life in order to be willing to endure suffering?”

“What is the essential quality of life that makes it sacred and obligates us to preserve it? What criteria do we use in deciding when it’s right to pull the plug or withhold care? When is life complete?”

“How can I be helpful to my family and friends who are preparing for dying?”

September 25, 2005: The Process of Dying

Meeting the needs of a dying person, hospice, living wills

October 30, 2005: Death and Taxes

The legalities of dying–wills, power-of attorney, estates

November 20,2005: After a death

Celebrating a life and grieving

January 22, 2006: Final Worship Sharing

Feel free to ask any of the End of Life committee for details about these important meetings.

Patapsco

Spiritual State of the Meeting Report, 2004

“Friends, How has the Spirit moved among you since we last met?”

A Spiritual State of the Meeting Report for 2004

Patapsco Friends, both individually and collectively, listened for the Spirit in our worship, in our business, in our activities and in our lives. While we have not always been successful we can point to a Spirit-led growth in many aspects of our meeting.

Early in the year three Friends joined together to share leadership in teaching Quakerism 101. That series was well attended, and Friends appreciated more fully the spiritual depth of worship sharing. In part as a result of these sessions two Attenders found both time and the financial support of the meeting to continue their search by attending a short weekend retreat at Pendle Hill on Quakerism.

An offering for sale of the original Quaker Meeting House in Ellicott City led to a serious testing of how the Meeting would handle a potentially divisive issue. Our decision was to focus on the spiritual questions that this opportunity raises for us individually and as a meeting. In that worship sharing we explicitly considered several questions: How do I listen to others when their position differs sharply from my own? Do I allow that all are seeking God’s will as faithfully as I? At the same time, how do I listen for the common ground that unites us and for the “third way” that harmonizes viewpoints we perceive to be in disharmony. Do we trust in each other to both share our thoughts with love and to hear each other with love? Do we trust in each other to embrace the diversity of perspectives among us? Do we seek unity among that diversity?

While we did not find unity as a Meeting to offer for the property, the process of worship sharing on the topic was very meaningful and reaffirmed our commitment to act only as we are lead by the Spirit.

The Spring and Summer saw a continuing series of ‘Meetings for Leadings’: a worship sharing group concerned with the general nature of Leadings, as well as the particular spiritual leadings of individuals. The sense of these meetings that there are common elements to all of our struggles with spiritual discernment led to moments of deep sharing.

In May we had an opportunity to support those in the meeting with a concern for Friends in the Great Lakes Region of Africa. Adrien Niyongabo, African coordinator of the Friends Peace Teams Trauma Healing and Reconciliation Project, and Gini Floyd, who celebrated her 84th birthday in Kenya while facilitating AVP workshops, spoke to us at a fundraising dinner about the vital work being done by Friends in this troubled region.

Patapsco Friends also hosted the Chesapeake Quarterly Meeting in June. Here again our concern to present a spiritually meaningful program led us to invite Tony Prete, a student and teacher of the Bible, to present two seminars on the Psalms. We learned there not only about the pattern or style of the Psalms, but also how intimate was the relationship between the writers and their God.

In Business Meeting we reaffirmed our intent not only to subsidize Friends to attend camps, conferences, retreats and meetings, but also to actively ask Friends to represent the Meeting. The spiritual growth of the Meeting depends on active seeking and participation of our members not only in the meeting activities, but also in the wider Quaker community. Our affirmation led us to send Friends to camp, to the Center for Talented Youth summer program, to Pendle Hill retreats, to Baltimore Yearly Meeting, and to FCNL’s annual meeting. Friends at Patapsco have volunteered for a number of BYM committees and have become active in the wider community.

In the Autumn, following on the Meeting for Leadings, a Patapsco Friend led us in a series of six intense sessions on ‘Sacred Spaces’. Focusing on prayer and other means of connecting with the divine, these again were patterned on Quaker worship sharing. These special opportunities for worship sharing were held against a background of more on-going activities: Bible Study was held consistently throughout the year, and ‘Friendly Bunches’ were also active.

We are grateful that our spiritual community includes people of many ages, both young and old. The children are important participants in our Meeting. Through their silent but lively eyes during the first fifteen minutes of Meeting, their exuberance at simple meals, their sweet singing of Quaker songs wafting into the Meeting after they leave, their eagerness to put up and take down the welcome signs, their down to earth discussions during First Day School, they exhibit hope, energy and a burst of reality for the rest of us. In addition to coming to Meeting, a number of them have become dedicated Quaker campers.

Planning and implementing a program for First Day School cannot be done ‘out of the Spirit’, and our teachers are in many ways our Spiritual leaders. Most importantly for growing our maturing Meeting, our Middle School young people are helping to teach the younger children in First Day School.

Sensing a sincere interest among our Attenders on the question of membership, Ministry and Care organized a series of worship sharing meetings based on readings from the Pendle Hill pamphlet “Members One of Another” by Thomas Gates.

Some Friends felt that our brief consideration of the Queries and Advices for a few moments before the business of Meeting for Business was inadequate. We started our experiment of devoting one hour a month to the consideration of a set of Queries in a worship sharing environment. In these session we are beginning to get beyond the perfunctory questions of Quaker practice, and discover the deeper spiritual ground on which those Queries are based.

In May the Meeting received an invitation from an inmate at the Maryland Correctional Institute at Hagarstown to hold a meeting at the prison. At first this seemed impossible to the Ministry and Care Committee. Later, however, a member was “reached” by this request and the opportunity it offered us to remember those closed in by high walls of concrete and our own forgetfulness. Negotiations with the administration began in September and meetings are scheduled to begin in January, 2005. A number of Patapsco Friends have spontaneously volunteered to join this effort.

As Thomas Gates declares: “Membership in a Quaker meeting is a spirit-led journey of coming to know ourselves as individual-in-community, a journey on which we experience meeting as a place of acceptance, a place of shared values, a place of transformation, and a place of obedience.” Patapsco Friends Meeting has made a serious commitment to that journey, and has travelled far in 2004.

Marriage Equality

Minute Regarding Discriminatory Policies of Friends United Meeting (6/2004)

From the minutes of the meeting for worship with a concern for business, 6/6/2004:

Baltimore Yearly Meeting (BYM) membership in
Friends United Meeting (FUM):

In light of the policy of FUM to discriminate against gay and lesbian Friends, we had a worshipful discussion of what we would recommend that BYM do. Continue reading Minute Regarding Discriminatory Policies of Friends United Meeting (6/2004) →

Patapsco

Spiritual State of the Meeting Report, 2003

Friends planted Patapsco Friends Meeting seven years ago in the spirit of George Fox’s early and persistent advice to meet together everywhere. We were led to provide for ourselves and for others whom we did not yet know an opportunity to experience the preemptive love of God, which speaks to us out of the silence. In meeting together we are practicing something old, walking a path well-worn, yet the mystery is that each meeting is new, surprising. We are in unity that the work of our meeting is to create a safe space where any who meet with us can stand in the Light, to see and share what God wills for each one of us in our measure.

Early in 2003, in First Day discussions and worship-sharing, we explored the Inward Light through the writing of George Fox and Rex Ambler’s Light To Live By. These meetings raised the question: How does a faith that began in the 17th century with “Christ Jesus has come to teach the people himself,” formed by a profound but surely heretical reading of the Christian scriptures, speak of Christ Jesus in the 21st century? Is there a place in our meeting for the Christ-centered Friend among Quaker Buddhists, Quaker Jews, Quaker agnostics. And what does “Christ Jesus” mean to the refugees in our meeting from Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, and other “Christian” churches? To begin to address this question our First Day explorations continued with worship-sharing centered by Thich Nhat Hanh’s Living Buddha, Living Christ. Since that time a group has been meeting on First Day evenings to study the Gospels using Records of the Life of Jesus. In the Fall, our explorations continued with a series of Pendle Hill pamphlets chosen to explore topics relating to Quaker spirituality and our personal spiritual journeys.

For some of us to sink permanently into these tender and spirit-led conversations would be our heart’s desire. Our fellowship asks more of us. Through grounding us deeply in the Spirit it prepares us to meet the demands of our life together and of the wider world.

We are called to be tender to those in our meeting who are struggling with the diminishments of aging, who are being tested by the needs of children, aging parents and friends, who themselves suffer with physical or mental illness or care for afflicted loved ones. As we support Friends in these difficult times we ask, “How can we better prepare ourselves to meet these challenges in our own lives and to support others who face these challenges?”

We have an on-going concern for our children. First Day School was held year round and the children enjoyed a number of extracurricular activities. On Easter Sunday, they helped assemble personal hygiene kits for citizens in Iraq and they collected gifts for a needy family at Christmas time. A holiday sleepover was held for the middle school aged kids at the Mt. Hebron house in December. The Meeting has included in the annual budget funds for assistance with camp fees with the goal of encouraging every child in the Meeting (4th grade and older) to attend camp. We are thankful for our Religious Education Committee and First Day teachers. As our children grow we are concerned with how to best nurture their spiritual development.

We have witnessed to the wider world our concern for peace and social justice. A silent vigil to remember the victims of September 11, 2001 as well as those of the subsequent wars continued each Saturday for most of the year. It was difficult to sustain the vigil in the months that followed the onset of the Iraq war and it was formally laid down in October after two years. Our Meeting was among the founders of the Howard County Coalition For Peace and Justice and through this group, the Howard County Council was petitioned to pass a resolution against the war in Iraq. The resolution was not passed but we felt God’s spirit at work in our community by so many silent and vocal testimonies to peace. In response to the despair that many feel during this frustrating and tragic period, a meeting for worship was called on March 21st at the onset of the bombing of Iraq and a Spring Retreat was held with the theme “Finding Inner Peace in Times of Turmoil.” The day included quiet reflection and worship sharing along with chanting and Dances of Universal Peace. The following day after Meeting for Worship, a walk was held at the Bon Secours Spiritual Center Labyrinth.

Patapsco Friends continue to prepare a meal once a month for twelve men living in a shelter for the homeless. Many Friends in our Meeting work with other organizations that need support. These organizations were introduced through a series of short talks during our monthly potlucks. One presentation described the Mediation and Conflict Resolution Center at Howard County Community College that mediates neighborhood, victim/offender, landlord/tenant, and similar community conflicts. A representative from Cease Fire Maryland was heard. We also learned about the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) that is trying to organize a new political/social advocacy group in Howard County comprised of a broad spectrum of religious and neighborhood groups. The final presentation was made by BRIDGE, another social advocacy organization similar to IAF.

From our small beginning we now have 30 to 35 regular attenders and 12 to 16 children in our First Day program. A Patapsco Friends Email Group was established through Yahoo to keep us connected and current. We are aware that not everyone has the Internet and that there is the need to communicate in other ways as well. Personal testimonies and spiritual understanding are shared through periodic publication of The Quaker Heron, the Journal of Patapsco Friends Meeting. Committee meetings, simple meals, monthly potlucks, Friendly Bunches, and picnics help build the interpersonal relationships so important in nurturing and strengthening our community. Patapsco Friends Meeting’s members and attenders are rich in gifts of the Spirit. We know no better way to be welcoming than to share our gifts with those who are seeking and those who have found a home in our meeting.