Westport Friends Meeting

September 2005 Newsletter

 
What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.                                                

Crowfoot

4 Property Committee, 8:30 AM             Ministry and Counsel, 11:45
9 Remembering 9/11-Quaker Prophetic Witness at New Bedford Friends Meeting, 7 PM See details
11 Finance Committee, 8:30 AM 16-18    JYM Elementary Retreat at Woolman Hill
17 NEYM Ministry and Counsel, Location TBA
18 Monthly Meeting, 11:45
20 Market Ministries 24         Meeting Potluck Gathering to honor and celebrate Frankie and Stewart Kirkaldy, 5:30 PM. See "Meeting News" for details
24 NEYM Sessions Committee, Location TBA
24 Anti-War Mobilization: “End the Iraq War” Washington D.C. See details 25 Peace and Social Concerns Committee at       11:45 AM.
30-Oct 2 JHYM Retreat At Hartford Meeting

 
           

2 Eleanor Minnehan
12         Glen Dubler
13         Max and Turner Dubler
16         Allon Dubler
23         Jeremy Baker-Smith
30         Ruth Howland
 

A Pot-Luck Gathering to honor and celebrate Frankie and Stewart Kirkaldy’s retirement and relocation to Vermont will be held on Saturday, September 24th at 5:30 PM.  Please speak with Betty Ann Lee If you would like to help. Bring dishes to compliment a turkey and ham.

Mark and Eliza Miley, our Friends In Residence, would like to remind everyone as we recycle items in the Community House Kitchen to follow the directions posted on the refrigerator. Knowing what can be recycled, and then getting those items into the proper bins as provided, would be appreciated.

College bound Quakers! Cooper Tatman, Nick Bauer, Tristan Athearn-Hess, Ben Baker-Smith and Larissa Correia have either left already or will be headed back to college this week. Maggie Bauer heads off to college for her first year as well. We wish them all well and hold them in our thoughts and prayers. Check the Newsletter next month for a listing of their addresses and school contact info. Friends are encouraged to drop them a note once they get settled into their studies.

 
The 2005-2006 Friendly Outreach Group program will begin with Jonathan Vogel-Borne, NEYM Field Secretary, as the featured speaker. Jonathan’s talk is entitled  “Remembering 9/11-Quaker Prophetic Witness” The on going program, sponsored by New Bedford Friends Meeting focuses on three key issues; nonviolence, economic development and job development. A monthly “Barclay Potluck” is also held to which all are invited. For information contact Greg Williams, Coordinator at 617-501-6258. Greg’s email is gcw2849@yahoo.com.

September 24-25-26 Anti-War Mobilization: "End the Iraq War" Washington, D.C. Busses for 1-day (24th) and 3-day (24-26) available. AFSC & area groups are coordinating transportation. For more information visit www.afscstar.org/s24 or call 401-521-3584.
 
 

 
As this newsletter is printed, the scope of damage, numbers of fatalities, and what needs to be done first is still being assessed by most emergency response organizations. Traditionally, Friends have responded generously during times of global or national disasters. A partial list of relief agencies that have a plan of action up and running now, and who are earmarking donations for the New Orleans area, is, listed below:

Oxfam America: www.oxfamamerica.org. 617-482-1211 AFSC: (Philadelphia office) www.afsc.org. 215-241-7030 American Red Cross: www.redcross.org. 1-800-564-1234.

A Letter and call to action by John Calvi, member of Putney Monthly Meeting, VT:

A Call to the Religious Society of Friends To A Conference on the Treatment and Prevention of Torture

The best way to share this information is to let John tell the story as published on the newly created Web site and organization called “QUIT,” Quaker Initiative to End Torture. Text by John Calvi,

Dear Friends,

I believe the time has come for Quakers to create a conference on torture. Increasingly, there are corners without Light in American culture and places of American domination where there is no longer simply the threat of abduction, imprisonment or death, but also the likelihood that this includes torture. This calculated brutality has become so large a part of our culture that the U.S. president has “found” legal grounds to sidestep the Geneva Conventions on torture perpetrated by our military on captives. What was once small and secret is now widespread, public, and stated policy. Opposition would be the essence of Friends’ Peace Testimony, practice, and faith and would add to our history.

Because there is indication that torture will continue and increase, I believe it is time for Friends to study this with a conference. Let us become informed, spread information, and choose action in education, investigation, prevention, and treatment.

I know this is the most repulsive topic to conference on. It may only draw a small number of people at first. But the problem of torture is the most without Light aspect of the current spiritual condition of the human family. It is the ugliest act of our species, and it is a furtive American crisis at home and abroad. These negative features make it more urgent that it be examined. Friends’ history makes us a good group to begin that very hard work.

Approaching great wounds with even the least amount of light will draw resistance and trouble. An effective conference will involve very careful planning. If its purpose and program are explained well, it may draw the widest possible audience, including experts from a wide range of fields. Since taking in such information is a burden of some density, to avoid exhausting participants the schedule will keep to a measured, reflective pace. The topic calls us to learn new ways to carry this realm of ideas, whose horror is well beyond the relative simplicities of hunger, homelessness, disease, and simple violence.

With many thanks, John Calvi

(Note: Plans are shaping up for the conference, which is being planned for the end of May 2006 at Guilford College, Greensboro, NC. For more info call 802-387-4789 or visit http://home.ix.netcom.com/~quit/.) After highlighting issues and programs on peace and social justice concerns, the D.C. anti Iraq War march, then the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, followed by a conference on torture, finding something a little more uplifting to end with seemed in order. Hopefully my little photograph comes close.

(Click for larger image )

 

 

God within me, God without,   
How Shall I even be in doubt?   
There is no place where I may go   
And not there see, God’s face not know   
I am God’s vision and God’s ears,   
So through the harvest of my years   
I am the sower and the sown  
God’s self unfolding and God’s own.

Please send items for Newsletter to Kevin Lee. kevin@jymretreats.org. 508-994-1638

Posted by Greg Stone at September 14, 2005 09:53 AM