Alexandria

• Interchange, Fall 2007
• Spiritual State of Our Meeting - 2006
• Interchange, Spring 2007
• Interchange, Fall 2006
• Spiritual State of Our Meeting - 2005
• Minute of Support
   
• Spiritual State of Our Meeting - 2004
• FUM Policy Concern
• Spiritual State of Our Meeting - 2003

Woodlawn Friends began the summer with our now traditional children’s picnic. The Children's Religious Education Program organizes an annual picnic on our lawn that ends the CRE school year. This June, we all enjoyed the fresh air fellowship as well as the burgers and dogs-- both the meat and veggie varieties-- grilled outdoors and served with all the usual picnic fare. The weather was very cooperative, and the picnic was very well-attended. Each year, the children select one or more charities they wish to support and, at the June picnic, ask for donations from all who attend. This year, they collected well over $700, to be sent to AFSC, half designated for work within the United States and the other half for their work in Africa.

Over the summer, Woodlawn Friends were involved in several meetings with officials from Fort Belvoir (the Army installation that surrounds our Meetinghouse property, after buying or appropriating the land of all nearby Quaker farms during the periods of WWI and WWII). Belvoir is implementing a major shift of additional programs and personnel to their facilities. Because we are a historic property, they must comply with federal historic preservation laws by working to avoid or mitigate negative effects to us of their new construction. We have been fortunate to have strong support from the Virginia Department of Historic Preservation, also a participant in the process. Their office has stated that part of what must be protected, as historically important, is our silent worship. The Fort has honored this through proposed limits of construction noise on First Days. All involved appreciate the interesting irony of the Army’s and the Friends’ shared efforts to be good neighbors for this complex process.

September brings our attention to projects ahead. A major effort that Woodlawn Friends expect to continue is with Ventures in Community's Hypothermia Outreach Program. Last winter, twenty-seven of us volunteered to staff an overnight shelter for the homeless, providing meals and overnight presence one night a week for two months. Because the effort stretched thin our modest-sized Meeting, we hope this winter to share the responsibility for our time with another small local church. Also, we will continue another VIC project of the past few years, in that a team of five or six Friends has been preparing meals several times a year for troubled families. Family groups of approximately fifty adults and children participate in a year-long “Nurturing Parenting” program sponsored by Fairfax County. The courses and events of this program strive to promote family functioning and to fight child abuse. Among the values demonstrated is that of sitting down together as a family for a common meal which area churches provide and share with the families.

“Dear Friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, “Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!” and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?”

James 2:14-17 (The Message)

The past year has been spirit-led and very full, both in joyful ways as well as experiences that brought loss and grief to our community. These things, as well as our continuing efforts to create a loving Meeting, provide caring support of visitors and those with special needs, have seasoned and deepened the work of our Meeting, and in particular, that of our Ministry and Oversight Committee (M and O).

This year has been a time when many members and attenders of Alexandria Monthly Meeting (AMM) came forward to expand their work and ministry beyond our meetinghouse. Friends associated with AMM moved fearless toward greater world service through the Christian Peacemaker Teams, Friends Peace Teams in Uganda, The School of the Spirit Ministry and other spirit-based study. M and O and AMM have been blessed by their leadings and commitment and were honored to support their work financially and prayerfully. The leading within AMM to support the Ventures in Community Hypothermia project to feed and shelter homeless individuals during the winter months was another example of outreach as was our Friend with a traveling minute. Our work in supporting and nourishing these Friends has not been without pain. The death our friend, Tom Fox, caused deep pain and angst to both the family, AMM and the greater community of peace makers. We were reminded of the price of truth in these dangerous times and drew together in loving support of those who suffered the greatest loss.

These experiences and the ever-greater number of individuals, who need support and care, led us to increase our efforts to address the pastoral needs of our community. As we share the burden of helping each other, we grow in love. Yet, learning about individual concerns and needs is not a simple matter in a meeting that draws from three states and a wide geographic area. Some members felt that AMM’s process of inviting the sharing of ‘Joys and Concerns’ led us away from the unprogrammed nature of our meeting for worship. At times, the details of the illnesses upset some of the children. So, we continue to work on improving our process of finding the best way to know about and attend to our members’ needs. At the annual M and O retreat, we were guided in prayerfully examining this concern, as well as examining the importance of nurturing ourselves and others in the Meeting. We endeavor to find better ways of supporting all with special needs, we are grateful for the work of the Healing Prayer Committee. The well attended Spiritual Formation program reaches out to many within our community.

AMM has been blessed this year with the addition of four new members: two adults, one transfer, and a new birth-right baby girl. Many new visitors and attenders have also found AMM to be a place of welcome and spiritual nurture. We have enhanced our outreach to these individuals through letters of welcome and personal contact. This increased attendance must be balanced with our regret over losing a beloved family who questioned the overt political stance of some in the meeting. This loss caused us to think deeply about the ways in which we seek the truth and the discernment of the spirit in our ministry. We continue to seek truth and spiritual guidance as we celebrate our blessings. We are striving to find better ways of being a part of God’s work.

Once again, our meeting community was enriched by an active Spiritual Formation Program. About twenty-five Friends are taking part this year, meeting at least once a month in one of five ongoing groups. Two of the groups are using Rex Ambler's "Experiment with Light" as their guiding focus. Another has been reading Howard Brinton's "Guide to Quaker Practice." All provide a place where we can share our spiritual journeys and support each other in a commitment to daily spiritual practice, not only connecting with each other as friends, but preparing the ground for deeper gathered worship on First Days.

The Meeting for Healing Committee has gathered each month with as many as 8 and as few as 2 of Members present. We continue to offer hands-on and distance healing. All members of the Healing Prayer committee are given a copy of our Guidelines and agree to follow them. Maintaining confidentiality and receiving permission to pray for someone else are two of our most important Guidelines.

We hold an average of 15 people in the Light during each meeting, allowing 3-5 minutes for each person, as led by Spirit. We begin each meeting by reviewing the progress of people we have been praying for. Members are encouraged to continue praying during the entire month for those individuals we hold in the Light during our Meetings for Healing. Our progress list is getting almost as long as our prayer list!

The committee has been very pleased to receive “thank you” e-mails and letters from individuals for whom we have been praying. We have witnessed miracles! We have been advised of unexpected financial prosperity, improved health, a successful pregnancy (mother had a rare blood disease, and requested prayer during her pregnancy), a pregnancy in a couple who married late and hadn’t had children before, and improved interpersonal relationships. We have also prayed for people during their bereavements. We are thankful to be instruments of God’s work in the world in this prayer ministry!

The Peace & Social Concerns Committee continues to be a vital part of our Meeting. The committee’s influence exceeds its numbers by promoting service, donation and learning opportunities to those beyond its membership. In its stewardship role, Peace and Social Concerns administers the meeting’s annual donations to organizations and charities.

Locally, the committee and individual members are involved in supporting affordable housing, homeless shelters, prison visitations and a food pantry. (We are reminded of the needs of our neighbors by the occasional attendance at meeting of a few homeless people from a local camp in the woods.)

The committee highlights issues on both the state and national level and encourages emails, letters, phone calls and visits to the offices of legislators. Our “simple meal” to raise funds for Right Sharing of World resources continues to be a popular annual event. At the end of the year, the committee was pleased to have enough funds left in its budget to donate to an organization on the Gulf Coast that had provided much needed support to the family of one of our members.

The meeting continues to provide Adult Religious Education at the ten o'clock hour every First Day except during the summer months. Topics include Quaker spirituality, history and biography, explorations of the bible and other inspired writings, and the relationship of science and spirituality. We have been especially blessed by the sharing of members deep reflections upon spiritual topics. Every third First Day, the Peace and Social Concerns Committee provides a presentation on a topic of social concern.

We are deeply grateful for the many talents and insights that have been generously shared with us through the Adult Ed. Program. Our sessions have been rich in Spirit and have offered a vibrant opportunity for sharing and growth in our community. We have had many opportunities to deepen our understanding of Quaker faith and our spirituality by listening to both Friends, and occasionally our brothers and sisters of other faiths, sharing their perspectives and wisdom. We have come to know one another on deeper levels and to be inspired by the experiences and insights presented.

The sessions have generally been warmly received and applauded by those who are able to make it, and we wish to share these enriching experiences with more Friends. We are holding this concern tenderly in the Light for spiritual guidance, and we are seeking our Friends input on how we can encourage them in their search for spiritual education.

In working with our young and younger Friends, the Children’s Religious Education Committee continues to base our efforts on sharing God’s love. We seek to discover this love through stories, Bible study, service projects, spiritual diaries, handwork and songs. We are blessed with a dedicated group of teachers and an equally amazing gathering of young Friends. We are all thankful for this ministry.

The Hospitality Committee has maintained the weekly gathering for a common meal following meeting for worship. This continues to be a time of fellowship and an opportunity to get to know one another. In addition, the hospitality committee coordinated meals to be delivered to friends throughout the year and provided support, through food and sharing, at Tom Fox’s memorial last spring at the Friends Meeting of Washington’s meeting house.

Our Meeting also has practical needs that are necessary in maintaining and fostering our spiritual community. The Trustees of Alexandria Monthly Meeting at Woodlawn are tasked with managing the Meeting’s real properties and financial investments. The Meeting is blessed in having a 2.4 acre historic enclave of woods, lawn, and cemetery on the edge of Fort Belvoir, Virginia, the legacy of a 19th century member who ceded part of his pre-Civil War farm to house a permanent Meeting house. Today, the continuing heritage of that generous gift continues to benefit our 21st century gathering. Our long history of peace activism and our continuing struggle to protect human rights echo quietly along the plain white walls of our simple, wood-sided Meeting house and among the trees that line the meditation paths of our wooded area. Together, our physical space and the measured, positive history of activism it represents help muffle the raucous sounds of a nation at war.

The trustees work with other committees, our members and attendees to define the path we follow in protecting our infrastructure and financial endowment. In conjunction with the Community Developments Committee, we seek to use our history and heritage as a shield against the physical and auditory encroachments of the outside world.

We are also blessed in being able to maintain our Meeting’s modest endowment, which provides sufficient income to cover infrastructure improvements and provide small scholarships for Quaker conferences and trainings and for our Meeting’s young Friends as they continue their education at colleges and universities.

For the early Quaker heritage that continues to protect us in the 21st century and for the bright future we see in the Light emanating from our young Friends’ faces, we are truly thankful.

Friends on the Property Committee carry out regular maintenance and cleaning of the Meeting’s buildings and wooded area. We also scheduled two workdays, in May and November. About forty persons, of all ages, contributed at each.

The Meeting undertook one major construction project in 2006: The repair and construction of the uprights which rest on the porch and support the porch roof, accomplished entirely through the efforts of our own Friends

We made great progress during 2006 in our goal to reconstruct the historic carriage shed that sits behind our Meeting house, in co-ordination with Community Developments and Trustees. This included a field trip on 14 October to a display lot in Glen Rock, Pennsylvania to look at current shed designs and to discuss construction with the Amish builders. The shed has fallen into serious disrepair due to an unfortunate tree-falling incident during a serious storm.

The Community Developments (CD) Committee responded to a variety of projects in our surrounding community, seeking to balance our meeting’s physical and spiritual needs with the ever-changing complexities of encroaching development. The meeting has in recent years moved from a position of relative isolation to one of on-going interchange with public, government, political, and military personnel and organizations, and such was the case in 2006. (CD) members sought to communicate and work effectively with the Department of the Army and Fort Belvoir officials; with the Federal Highway authority and VDOT; with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, the American Council for Historic Preservation, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and Fairfax County agencies for historic concerns (Preservation Officer, Architectural Review Board, Historic Commission); and neighboring historic properties.

Our Meeting has given the CD Committee the task of staying engaged with all the parties involved, and to bearing Quaker witness to them, in order to insure that the historic integrity of our meetinghouse and property as a place of silent worship be preserved.

In addition to such community involvement, was our successful effort to attain for Woodlawn Meetinghouse and property the designation of being eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. This eligibility, the result of submitting a successful Preliminary Information Form that was largely the work of our Historian, provides unquestionable legal protections for our future.

“Real wisdom, God’s wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle, and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.”

James 3:17-18 (The Message)

Alexandria Woodlawn Friends are enjoying a spiritually enriching – and busy — time. Over twenty-five members are participating in our Spiritual Formation program that began in October. For this program, small groups meet regularly every few weeks to explore readings or experiences that enhance their spiritual growth. For example, two groups are following Rex Ambler’s Experiment with Light, one group is attending worship services of other faiths, and another is exploring Thomas Kelly’s Testament of Devotion. The spiritual growth found in such groups in turn enriches the Meeting as a whole.

We also value the opportunity to support the ministry of two Friends. We continue assistance for the traveling ministry of Deborah Haines, most recently for a January Outreach Group Workshop at Annapolis Friends Meeting and for a February Outreach Revitalization project at Beacon Hill Friends Meeting in Boston. In late January, Eric Goldman traveled with our love and support to Uganda to work with African Great Lakes Initiative, a program of the Quaker-based Friends Peace Teams. He will work with children orphaned by AIDS, vocational education, and AIDS education.

The members of the Peace and Social Concerns Committee led us in several meaningful areas. They gathered donations of food and money for United Christian Ministries food pantry; traveled to Richmond to meet with legislators for Virginia Friends Advocacy Day 2007 as sponsored by Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy; contributed to a Mississippi Gulf Coast interfaith hurricane relief effort, God’s Katrina Kitchen; and organized Woodlawn Friends in teams to staff a shelter for the homeless one night a week during February and March. This is part of an interfaith effort, Ventures in Community, in the Route One community where our Meeting House is located. These teams provide meals and overnight sleeping quarters as protection from hypothermia at a facility in nearby Rising Hope United Methodist Church.

Trustees and the Property Committee began work on the complex process of rebuilding our collapsing carriage shed that dates from the 1890s. As a property in a Fairfax County Historic District, also eligible for listing on the National Register for Historic Places, we must attend to certain standards of historic reconstruction. If any other BYM meeting has had experience with such a project and might offer advice or expertise, please contact Judy Riggin at rigginjm@verizon.net.)

Submitted by Judy Riggin