State College

The members of the Meeting are glad to see Tom Ryan, Clerk of the Meeting back with us after heart surgery. He is doing well.

There are many worthwhile projects that the members volunteer for: “Ring the bell” for the Interfaith Missions, helping with Crop Walk to raise money for people in need—locally and internationally, and collecting donations for the food bank. All volunteers who teach First-Day School classes, and all who serve on the various committees of the Meeting deserve a big thank you.

The State College Peace Center sponsored a forum, January 19, 2004, in the State College Municipal Building. Shirley Way, daughter of Roger and Mary Way, and Father Bernard Survile talked about their experiences. (Shirley shared her experiences with Foxdale residents on January 20th.) Shirley and Father Bernard were part of a demonstration (number over 10,000) at Ft. Benning demanding that the U.S. government close the School of the Americas (S.O.A.), now renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. Regardless of the name, they will teach counter insurgency tactics to Latin American soldiers who then go back to their countries and commit atrocities against their own people. More than 60,000 have graduated since the School’s inception in 1946.

Shirley, a member of Central Finger Lakes Monthly Meeting in New York, and Father Bernard, a former resident of State College, crossed the line into the base and were arrested, along with 42 others. Shirley was sentenced to three months in federal prison. She had worked 19 months in Guatemala and Mexico with Christian Peace Teams. Father Bernard served a number of years in Nicaragua and Guatemala.

Spiritual State of the Meeting Report - 2003

We are a large, active Meeting that is blessed to have the State College Friends School and the Cooperative Playschool under its care, and Foxdale Village, a Quaker-directed continuing care community, close by. Whether it's the wisdom shared by a senior member who once marched with Martin Luther King or the contribution of an infant gurgling during worship, our lives continue to be enriched by our membership. State College Friends Meeting is a vital and diverse, yet cohesive, religious community, and it is instructive to consider the ways in which we have grown collectively during the past year. Our reflections begin with an overview of the Meeting's experiences, followed by more specific information related to the work of several committees.

Overview:

Last year we invited Arlene Kelly to guide us through a self-examination program "Deepening and Strengthening Our Faith Community". Members and attenders completed an in-depth survey regarding how well, and in what ways, the Meeting meets the spiritual needs of its community. There was a very high response rate, and in subsequent gatherings, we reflected upon members' perceptions of State College Friends Meeting and considered ways in which the Meeting can grow and deepen as a faith community. There was a high level of unity that our Meeting for Worship is central to the spiritual life of the Meeting, that the Meeting nurtures the spiritual development of its children and young people, and that we demonstrate a concern for issues and problems existing in the surrounding society. The report highlighted three main areas which might be further addressed to enhance the well-being of the Meeting: 1) Approaches to conflict within the Meeting, 2) Opportunities to deepen members' spiritual lives, and 3) Strengthening the infrastructure of the Meeting. Each area is explored in further explored below, along with the action steps which we hope will catalyze our growth as a Meeting.

• Approaches to Conflict: The Meeting has a strong sense of identity in being active in the wider community on issues of peace and justice. Yet we, like other Meetings, need to make our Peace Testimony real in our day-to-day relationships within our community. As one member stated, we are great at going out to tell others how to resolve conflicts, yet we are not very good at it in our personal relationships. Efforts to improve conflict resolution within our own Meeting include the new practice of listing contacts for the Care & Concern Committee in the weekly Bulletin, and the Worship Sharing sessions which were held in an attempt to air issues affecting members of the Meeting and Foxdale Village community. In addition, the Worship & Ministry and Care and Concern Committees met jointly to consider approaches to conflict and recommended a written guide which an Ad Hoc Committee is currently drafting.
   
• Opportunities to Deepen Members' Spiritual Life: Some expressed a longing for deeper, more sustained study in regard to Quakerism and/or the Bible. A Quakerism 101 course was taught in the fall, and four attenders have applied for membership as a result. Friendly Forums are held weekly, focusing on the writings and lives of Friends, other religious texts, and diverse spiritual practices and paths of members and attenders of our own Meeting. Others wanted the opportunity to work in small groups, and the Advancement and Outreach Committee has several workshops planned to meet this need. We have yet to discover a method to sustain small groups.
   
• Strengthening the Infrastructure of the Meeting: We could strengthen and make more visible our communal foundation by communicating specifically what membership entails and inviting attenders to become members. We are preparing a Meeting Manual and considering a threshing session regarding our Meeting structure, participation, and committee work. The Nominating Committee has encouraged all members and attenders to complete a brief written survey about how they would like to contribute to the Meeting.

Input regarding the spiritual state of State College Friends Meeting was sought from all members and attenders, but the majority of comments were offered by individuals active in the work of the Meeting. The insights and experiences of several Meeting Committees follow below.

Care and Concern:

Care and Concern Committee continues to wrestle with how to best provide pastoral care to a Meeting as large and diverse as our Meeting is. We are aware of considerable need for visitation, and other forms of outreach to the members and attenders of the Meeting. We attempt to meet those needs; but are not confident that we are fully successful. A number of clearness committee meetings have been held, and responses from those requesting this have been quite positive. We also have begun the first support committee with one of our members. The request was to provide career and personal support and the initial response to this has been positive. We are grateful to have been busy dealing with the substantial numbers of requests for membership. It is a joy to see the Meeting growing in membership. It seems at times that the resources of the committee are badly strained by the needs of our community. It has been suggested that we need to meet more frequently and maintain better contact with each other on the committee and with others in the Meeting. This seems difficult given the demands on all of us from employment, family, and a host of other demands. We are experimenting with maintaining closer contact through electronic means. Perhaps this will improve the effectiveness of the committee's functioning.

Worship and Ministry:

The committee has focused on reviewing the results of the "Deepening and Strengthening our Faith Community" program, and how best to translate these findings into new and productive spiritual growth for the Meeting as a whole. Working in conjunction with several other Committees, several workshops have taken place or are planned to offer opportunities for individual religious exploration. As a large Meeting, we are also challenged to creatively nurture our corporate worship such that our diversity of worship styles and preferences is enriching rather than divisive. In response to unease regarding the contributions of silence vs. vocal ministry within our Meeting, a Friendly Forum was held to address Friends' experiences with the 'calling' to speak. This discussion was well attended, offered an opportunity to share our spiritual understandings with others, and seems to have helped with a sense of balance in our worship together. Lastly, a small mid-week Meeting for Worship has begun to meet regularly on the Penn State campus, and is attended by several Meeting members, students, and faculty.

Religious Education:

Although our numbers of infants and toddlers has declined, perhaps with the ending of the second baby boom, we are delighted that our high school class is better attended than ever. Many members of this class are part of the Young Friends for Peace group, which has been very active. The Yearly Meeting as a whole had a chance to experience the energy of the Meeting's youth when the high school aged Young Friends for Peace provided lunch for Interim Meeting in October 2003, while the middle school class of the State College Friends School provided dinner on the same occasion.

It is challenging to integrate our many different age groups so that we can get to know each other. One of our senior members from Foxdale Village noted that some young people may be deterred by the "gray hairs" among us, and suggested that "perhaps we should dye our hair orange one day...."!

Advancement and Outreach:

State College Friends Meeting has begun sharing joys, sorrows and concerns at the rise of Meeting for Worship, and we find that this practice brings our large group together and makes us aware of individuals' needs. Many individuals have received personal support from the Meeting in this manner while they are struggling with family issues or grieving.

We are a long way from Philadelphia and other communities that have a longer history with Quaker practice. This has challenged us to find ways of communicating information about membership, committee work, and appropriate vocal ministry to our attenders and members. A new worship brochure has been developed and notices put in our weekly bulletin and monthly newsletters to help address this challenge.

Friends for Lesbian and Gay Concerns:

While this committee has served our Meeting since 1988, it has struggled in the last year. For lack of a clerk the committee was almost laid down; but Care and Concern committee felt strongly that we need to support this committee. Fortunately, a member came forward to co-clerk FLGC. FLGC continues to bring issues of equality before our Meeting; our Meeting is currently considering a minute in support of the legalization of same gender marriage and in opposition to the proposed constitutional amendment. Our meeting also has a representative in the local Gay Affirming Interfaith Network (GAIN), which sponsors educational workshops, speakers and panel discussions.

Peace and Social Action:

The Peace and Social Action Committee has been working actively to make our world a better place, with its members serving on five focused subcommittees. The committee has developed two minutes which the Meeting approved, one on Advancing Global Security and one regarding the former School of the Americas. Our subgroup working on the reduction of dependence on oil has submitted hints to the Bulletin for the last several weeks. The group working on legislative issues had a meeting on February 12 with Mike Oscar, an aide to Senator Specter, in which eight of our members participated. Mr. Oscar listened sympathetically and promised to take our concerns back to the senator.

Building and Grounds:

This winter has been environmentally challenging with extreme cold and heavy snows throughout the winter, as well as difficulties with a somewhat antiquated heating system. Those who have attended workdays have been very helpful and skilled in their activities - most of the work has been maintenance and repair in nature. Spiritually, we see more clearly the need to be environmentally conscious, so that waste and use of nonrenewable energy sources is kept to a minimum. We have been resolute in reducing our heating costs, and to this end have installed heat-conserving blinds in the Meetinghouse. We look forward as a committee to emphasizing the use of renewable and recycled supplies, and environmentally friendly practices in the years to come. The Meetinghouse was made available to the Village Acres Food Coop for locally grown food distribution, and Meeting youth created a Peace Garden to grow food for the Food Bank and flowers for our members in continuing care facilities. These efforts, big and small, help unify us with our Maker and His/Her precious creation.

Program:

The Program committee has had a successful year covering various topics which have been well received. The programs have covered a variety of topics, including a monthly book discussion of Meeting Jesus Again For the First Time, by Marcus Borg. We have had full cooperation, both from the committee members and those giving the various programs.

The program which was most well attended by a larger variety of age groups throughout the Meeting was the one concerning 'Speaking at Meeting', for which there was a lively exchange of conversation and input from many of those attending. There was a request to have a follow-up discussion of this topic which will either be sometime in May or at the beginning of next September.