Patapsco

• Interchange, Spring 2007
• Interchange, Fall 2006
• Interchange, Summer 2006
• Spiritual State of Our Meeting - 2005
• Interchange, Fall 2005
   
• Spiritual State of Our Meeting - 2004
• Interchange, Spring 2005
• Interchange, December 2004
• Interchange, September 2004
• FUM Policy Concern
• Interchange, May 2004
• Spiritual State of Our Meeting - 2003

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

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?

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.

Spearheaded by Susan Rose in response to a request from an inmate, a group formed to provide support to four inmates at the Hagerstown Prison who wished to hold Quaker Meeting and needed outside "sponsors."  Two Friends go to Hagerstown each Saturday to worship with the inmates and discuss Quaker issues.  Those participating feel they receive as much as they give.      

Two other small groups meet regularly as a spiritual practice. A Bible Study Group meets every other Sunday evening at a member's home.  Another spiritual centering group, which uses knitting to bring quiet focus into their daily lives and explore possibilities, meets weekly.

An Advancement & Outreach session on socially responsible investing will be given from 12:00-2:00 on February 20 at Mt. Hebron House.  Guest presenter Howard Zuses will define socially responsible investing, discuss how and why to get involved, and address myths and realities about fund performance. 

Five women from the Meeting went to BYM's Women's Retreat in late January and enjoyed the evening session and breakfast before the retreat was brought to a halt because of snow.

The Meeting struggles over the extent it should be involved in a community group focused on community building and holding politicians accountable and is mindful of the need to reach consensus. 
 

Susan Rose is leading a series of discussions/worship sharing sessions on First Day mornings on the topic of membership, including discussions of queries and other areas of Quaker thought while Carol Spangler is continuing her Tuesday evening series on seeking sacred space.  Participants are finding both these sessions very meaningful.

The Meeting is beginning a new way of dealing with queries.  Rather than only focusing on a query at the beginning of business meeting, the prior First Day to Business Meeting will have a time set aside for responding to the query of that month. 

This fall, the Middle School young people are helping to teach the younger children in First Day School.  They  plan one week and teach the next.  On their planning weekends, an adult takes over the younger children's class.  They are following a curriculum on famous Quakers.  So far, they have covered, among other topics, Mary Dyer, the first Meetings in the Chesapeake Bay area and William Penn planning Philadelphia.

The Nominating Committee is hard at work determining clerks and committees for the upcoming calendar year.  Committee members do their work by trying to talk with each person in the Meeting regarding how he/she would like to serve the Meeting in the next year.  These talks are rewarding in and of themselves in terms of keeping in touch with all Meeting members and attenders.

The Meeting is continuing to struggle with how to determine what groups the Meeting should support financially.  We are not clear whether the Meeting should support only organizations in the community that any individual member is working with, or whether the Meeting should determine its financial priorities in some other way.  Should the Meeting support national Quaker groups even though our individual contribution is quite small, or should such contributions be left for each individual member to do on his/her own?  These are questions the Meeting continues to consider.

Perhaps Patapsco’s major event was to host Chesapeake Quarterly Meeting in June. In addition to discussing the Statement of Purpose, we had good attendance at the program led by Tony Prete on the Psalms. Patapsco also hosted a fundraising dinner in support of Friends Peace Teams and the African Great Lakes Initiative (AGLI): Adrien Niyongabo from AGLI and Ginny Floyd from Sandy Spring both gave presentations for this event which was initiated through the efforts of Susan Rose.

We should also mention that Patapsco Friend Diane Reynolds published a review of the movie “Passion of Christ” in the Friends Journal.

Patapsco subsidized two Friends to attend a Quaker 101 Weekend program at Pendle Hill, and several of our members attended the FGC Gathering in Massachusetts as well as the BYM Sessions in Virginia. We supported several children in their desire to go camping this summer, and one who attended the Center for Talented Youth summer program at Moravian College at Bethlehem, PA. During the summer, the regular First Day School Program recessed, and in its place, child care activities were provided during Meeting for Worship by a different adult each First Day.

This summer, a particularly varied program was offered, including a tree walk, several expeditions to the creek, a chess playing group lesson, theatre improvisation activities, a spirited game of capture the flag and other outdoor games, and building characters using costumes and props. Both adults and young people benefited by these exchanges. Summer activities which have nurtured the Meeting included the annual picnic to honor the First Day teachers from the school year, and a swimming party in late summer at the home of Doris Rausch.

Several small enrichment groups have started or are beginning such as a group on leadings lead by Carol Dana, a bible study group lead by Diane Reynolds and Jean Pfferkorn, and a group on centering in the spirit to be lead by Carol Spangler. In addition, “Friendly Bunches” continue to meet for a meal on a monthly basis at people’s homes. Business Meeting is including committee reports in a more structured way to more closely link the work of the committees with the Business Meeting as a whole.

Our experience confirms that we are all equal before God. Our experience has been that spiritual gifts are not distributed with regard to sexual orientation or gender identity. Our experience has been that we have been immeasurably enriched over the years by the full participation and Spirit-guided leadership of gay and lesbian Friends. We will never go back to silencing those voices or suppressing those gifts.

In light of our commitment to equality, Patapsco Friends are in unity in opposition to the policies of Friends United Meeting (FUM) that effectively and unlovingly discriminate. We strongly urge Baltimore Yearly Meeting (BYM) to bring our concerns back to FUM and labor lovingly, tenaciously, and faithfully with them to modify their policies. We especially urge our representatives to be steadfast and persistent with these concerns as they affect our fundamental beliefs in the testimonies of equality and integrity.

The Meeting had an exciting time this winter when we learned that the old Ellicott City Meeting House was for sale.  While we did not find unity as a Meeting to offer for it, the process of worship sharing on the topic was very meaningful and reaffirmed our commitment to act only as we are lead.  A few Friends later decided to go together to make an offer; however a developer offered a higher bid and was able to buy the property. In the midst of this process, some people from the Meeting were interviewed by the Baltimore Sun and went to a hearing to testify that the building should retain its simplicity to maintain its Quaker roots.

Quakerism 101 was planned and offered by Susan Rose, Diane Reynolds and Carol Spangler on consecutive Friday evenings to a committed and interested group.

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.