Alexandria

• Spiritual State of Our Meeting - 2008
• Spiritual State of Our Meeting - 2007
• 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

In preparing for this report Ministry and Oversight conducted a Worship Sharing meeting on First Day February 8, 2009 after our common meal. The approximately twenty Friends who participated considered the following queries:

• How do the work of our committees enrich and focus the spiritual life of the Meeting?
• What do we need most to deepen the spiritual life of the Meeting?

Our community is mindful that our devotion to worshipping together is the glue and foundation of our Meeting. The time spent together in the silence with Spirit nourishes our growth. We share an active concern for each other when a member of our community is kept from attending Meeting for Worship.

Newcomers to our worship, as well as those who have been attending for years, sense the rhythm which allows our community of Spirit to work harmoniously, in most instances. We are quite successful in some activities, need improvement in others and are sensitive to areas of inadequacy. This sensitivity has led to discussions, sitting in contemplation with Spirit and in some instances practical activities. Together, we continue to seek.

Our Meeting does hospitality very well. Our weekly common meal on First Days is our time to show our love and concern for each other and to extend open hearts to those new in our midst. One friend recalled a recent incidence in which a first time attender, about to leave after Meeting for Worship, was invited to eat with us and did. This attender has returned a number of times to worship with us. This is just one example of how Friends reach out in welcoming hospitality, affording newcomers an opportunity to get to know us better socially. The hospitality committee is often the first committee newcomers see in action. If they choose to lend a helping hand with any aspect of hospitality, they are most likely experiencing Quaker committee life for the first time. It is important to note that this committee is sometimes the door to their joining with us on a more permanent basis. The committee’s continuing challenge is insuring that its members put their kitchen preparations aside in order to attend Meeting for Worship, for as much of the worship time as is possible.

The same holds true for teachers serving on the Children’s Religious Education Committee. The children’s response to the religious education program, the growing numbers of children attending on First Day and the dedication of the teachers who lead the program, are a source of great joy to our Meeting. However, the children’s classes are held at the same time as Meeting for Worship and the teachers are only able to worship with us when the children in their class do not show up. The ten minutes the children and teachers join with the Meeting for Worship is not adequate. This continues to be a great concern.

Newcomers, as well as seasoned Friends, can continue exploring their spiritual paths while increasing their knowledge of Quakers past and present by utilizing our well maintained library, attending our First Day mornings’ Adult Religious Education presentations and talking with Ministry and Oversight’s Quaker in the Corner after Meeting for Worship.

Our Nominating Committee has been actively seeking members and attenders who are willing to participate fully in the life of our Meeting by serving on committees. There is an awareness and recognition of gifts given to individuals for the spiritual life of the Meeting. Friends who cycle off a committee are asked to consider bringing these gifts to the service of a different committee of interest to them, bringing with them their energy and ideas.

Committees are asked to regularly report to the Meeting on their activities and to write short articles for the Meeting’s newsletter. These activities have brought an appreciation of what the committees do for our Meeting and the surrounding community. Our joyous celebration after the reconstruction of our carriage shed with the surrounding community was combined with a fund raiser for the United Community Ministry’s food pantry.

The Healing Prayer Committee has quickly become an important part of our Meeting’s spiritual support of those facing health challenges, with Meeting members seeking out committee members for inclusion in the committee’s monthly prayer meetings. The Community development Committee has moved steadily forward, bearing witness to others that the historic integrity of our meetinghouse and property as a place of silent worship must be preserved. The Traveling Ministry Committee has expanded its selection of traveling companions to include our entire membership. This has led to a deeper understanding, interest, and spiritual support by our Meeting of the traveling ministry committee’s work in the wider Quaker community.

Our community has been enriched by the work of the Peace and Social Concerns Committee, which participated with another Meeting and churches in awarding Peace Prizes for local high school students. Our community continues to support and participate in Venture in Community’s ecumenical hypothermia program, providing hot meals and overnight shelter for the homeless, as well as in Fairfax County’s Nurturing Parents program. Our civic responsibilities are realized in part by our support of Friends Committee on National Legislation, on reminders concerning voting registration and our involvement with death penalty issues. Many of our members participate in Spiritual Formation groups, enhancing their spiritual experience as well as adding to the spiritual depth of the Meeting as a whole. The Trustees have been faithful in affirming that we value our young people and are willing to sacrifice in big and small ways to help them with financial support for their schooling.

Our Meeting for Worship with a concern for business is exactly that – a Meeting for Worship. Each of the participants feels tender in asking for prayerful silence, while we consider difficult issues. The practice of beginning with Spirit, being open to Spirit and returning to Spirit for guidance when conflicted, influences the entire life of our Meeting.

Ministry & Oversight brings a deep understanding and insistence that all our community activities must be grounded in Spirit. There is no wavering on this point and the committee works closely with committee clerks and members of the Meeting to keep developing this awareness in our community life. The committee is challenged with encouraging our community to explore and avail themselves of clearness committees in making life defining decisions, when appropriate. Another continuing challenge centers on how best to encourage attenders to seek Meeting membership.

There were a few issues which tested our dedication to returning to Spirit for guidance: Our Meeting’s relationship with Baltimore Yearly Meeting, particularly the financial apportionment, and BYM’s relationship with Friends United Meeting, in relation to FUM’s intolerance towards Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Friends. While either of these issues could have had serious negative consequences for our Meeting, Friends labored, ministered and at times eldered each other over some harsh criticisms concerning these organizations and their policies, while not being actively engaged in the processes that brought these policies about. As a result, our Meeting is now more engaged and realizes that while we are just beginning our involvement we are aware that our Meeting’s spiritual growth and health is entwined with that of the wider Quaker community and the issues of concern to us all.

Gathering reflections on the past year’s activities for our State of the Meeting report was a reverential process brought to Spirit. Once there, we were reminded that the fruit of our communal prayer life was, and continues to be, the divinely guided work of our Meeting’s committees, addressing the needs within our community and beyond, as we continue to grapple with being grounded in the Spirit. The committee work reflects not only the priorities of our community, but the individual stirrings of God in our hearts.

Among its charges, Ministry and Oversight is responsible for the spiritual state of our Meeting and our adherence to Quaker practice.

We are deeply grateful for the many blessings Alexandria Monthly Meeting has enjoyed during the past year and for those small and large difficulties that helped us grow. AMM attenders and members contributed to the spiritual depth and breadth of our meeting in many ways. Our meeting was enriched by a number of families with young children who worship with us and whose children share their joyful energy with us each First Day. Two individuals have transferred their membership to AMM, and two birthright babies have become our youngest members. Through our financial trust, we have been able to support four young Friends and two adults in their college education, as well as two individuals who have been called to attend the School of the Spirit Ministry program. We are enriched by their continued work within AMM. Our annual M and O retreat helped us focus with renewed love on the challenge of becoming co-creators with the Spirit and with our AMM community to build a welcoming, supportive and spiritually rich Meeting.

The richness of Meeting for Worship continues to draw Friends to our community. The Hospitality Committee provides an opportunity for all our worshipers to share a common meal.

Three First Days each month, the Hospitality Committee provides a common meal following Meeting for Worship. The remaining First Day, our meal is a pot-luck to which many members of the community bring a favorite dish to share. Sitting and eating together, a treasured practice among all people, is a time of rich fellowship, providing opportunities to get to know one another better. It is also a time to discover and nurture gifts which could be of service to our community. The hospitality committee also coordinates meals to be delivered to Friends in times of difficulty.

While the Meeting moves forward building a spiritually grounded community, the Trustees work diligently to keep our finances, property and legal responsibilities in good order. They do so in consultation with Spirit.

During 2007, the Trustees focused on a growing number of issues: supporting the Meeting through careful oversight of business matters, including obtaining incorporation in the Commonwealth of Virginia; careful oversight of financial matters to ensure adequate operating budgets for the Meeting's committees; sustainability of our endowment; and the protection and enhancement of our Meeting's historic physical infrastructure.

Through careful stewardship of our human, fiscal and physical resources, our Meeting has been able to meet its operating obligations and begin to address strategic issues including historic status, legal protection and a planned response to neighborhood property and highway development. The Meeting will soon begin the renovation of our carriage shed to enhance our historic Meetinghouse and provide educational and storage space currently lacking. Preparation for shed renovation involved working with an architect through stages of design, seeking advice from the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, securing Fairfax County assistance for archaeological site testing, presenting our proposed plans in two sessions with the Fairfax County Architectural Review Board to secure its approval, and communicating with a contractor.

Trustees maintain regular and thorough reviews of the Meeting's investments to ensure alignment with Quaker beliefs and practices. We remain undaunted by a variety of upcoming challenges as we fulfill our mission of protecting the buildings, grounds, finances, and written records of the Alexandria Monthly Meeting.

The Peace and Social Concerns Committee’s spiritual foundation binds our worship to social activism.

Within the Quaker community, the Meeting provided financial support to the American Friends Service Committee, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, William Penn House, and Washington Quaker work camps. In 2008, the Meeting will support the Friends Wilderness Center. Other national organizations supported by the Meeting include the Center on Conscience and War, the Peace Tax Fund, Women For Women, and the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network. At the State level, the Meeting supports Virginians For An Alternative To The Death Penalty, Virginian Citizens United For Rehabilitation of Errants, and the Virginia Interfaith Center For Public Policy. At the local level, the Meeting provided financial support to United Community Ministries, New Hope Housing, and Ventures In Community.

The Meeting supported several neighborhood projects this year, often as a member of Ventures in Community (VIC). VIC is a loose collaboration between faith communities and social service agencies serving the Route 1 corridor. A major contribution was weekly participation in VIC’s winter Hypothermia Outreach Program. Four Friends stayed overnight and two Friendly cooks prepared meals at a local mission church for up to twenty-five guests each First Day night in February and March. Several evenings Friends prepared and served meals for families gathered to learn better parenting skills, under Fairfax County’s Nurturing Parenting program. The Meetinghouse hosted the annual Easter Sunrise Service for all members of the VIC community. Throughout the year, Friends brought clothing, food and household goods to the meeting on First Day, to be distributed to local shelters and to United Community Ministries. The Meeting was represented at a Board of Supervisors meeting in support of a program to end homelessness, which we hope the Board will approve and begin to implement in 2008.

It has often been said at our Meeting for Business, if the issue at hand has the concern of our children at its core, it will be approved. Giving our children the opportunity to grow in love and concern for each other in a safe and accepting space is at the center of our Children’s Religious Education Committee’s work.

The Children's Religious Education Committee is pleased that our number of children has grown over the past year, especially among our ‘wee ones.’ Our elementary school group has continued to learn through a combination of stories and crafts projects, while our older friends engage in readings and discussions, often with a focus on learning to center in Meeting. All groups have continued to make sandwiches for the Mondloch House homeless shelter once a month, as well as help put together care packages for our Friends away at college once per semester. Finally, we're happy to have raised $676 at our picnic last year for American Frieds Service Committee and we look forward to another great picnic in the coming year.

The Community Developments Committee addresses complex interactive projects, always with attention during the process to the Teacher within.

The Community Developments Committee represented AMM in many public processes and activities in 2007, attending to the protection of the physical and spiritual welfare of the Meeting in relation to the on-going complexities of our surrounding community. The Environmental Impact Statement and Section 106 processes for Fort Belvoir’s Base Realignment and Closure initiative, the Fort Belvoir Section 106 for the removal of Woodlawn Road security gate, the privatization of Belvoir electrical utilities, and the Section 106 for the County Road Connector project involved months of meetings. In these meetings and through written communications, Friends sought to foster on-going interchange with public, government, religious, political and military personnel and organizations. We recognize our involvement in these public processes will – and must -- continue in the future in order to bear witness to others that the historic integrity of our Meetinghouse and property as a place of silent worship must be preserved. We also recognize our work with our neighbors in the community contributes to our spiritual growth in unexpected ways and is to be valued.

The Adult Religious Education Committee continues to lead us in the Quaker belief that every area of interest presented to us has a spiritual level to explore.

The Adult Religious Ed program continues to be blessed by the generous contributions of many talented and dedicated members of our Meeting as well as visitors from other Meetings and from other organizations. We gather on First Days, at the ten o'clock hour, before our Meeting for Worship.

This year’s sessions offer opportunity to explore many topics such as: Quaker faith and practice, science and spirituality, reflections on the works of significant spiritual writings, social concerns such as affordable housing, contemporary slavery, criminal justice, genocide, and poverty.

Participants often express deep feelings of appreciation for the enrichment they receive through this program.

In addition to the deepening of awareness around important issues, we also have the opportunity to learn much about the spiritual journeys of those who offer the presentation, and of those who participate in the discussions.

The committee rejoices in the abundance of offerings that come forward to fill our calendar with a rich array of opportunities for spiritual exploration, and for all who come to share in the offerings.

In workdays for the Meeting, the Property Committee gives us the special gift of working together while building community. These are truly Meetings for Worship with a Concern for Maintenance.

Workdays in May and December were attended by twenty-three and seventeen Friends, respectively.

Repairs - The linoleum floor covering of the Buckman addition was replaced in July. The kitchen range was replaced with a donated new appliance. A new handicap-access ramp was built.

Trees - Three separate consultations were obtained on the condition of the trees on the Meeting property; all agreed that no urgent work was required. A long-range maintenance plan for the trees and other landscaping will begin if 2008, and funding has been requested.

Memorial - In memory of Tom Fox, a dogwood tree and a granite memorial were placed by his children near the front fence line.

Historic find - In cleaning out the carriage shed, Friends found two turned folding trestles of mahogany or walnut. They probably are the stools described in the October 1878 Minutes purchased to display coffins at funerals.

Change in practice - Two maintenance activities were contracted to local small businesses: outside grounds (including regular mowing) and snowplowing. Each was discussed in Meeting for Business, not only for specific approval, but because they represented a shift in the practice of the Meeting to undertake all maintenance ourselves.

The only pending repair/maintenance project is the back wall of the meetinghouse.

Our Meeting experiences, through support of one member’s leading, an on-going education in the Quaker tradition of traveling in the ministry. Besides giving spiritual and physical support to our member, the Traveling Ministries Committee remains aware of the need to lay before the Meeting this calling and the traditional spiritual practice among Friends this calling represents.

A Friend of our Meeting has continued to be led to share her gifts of ministry in 2007, and our committee has continued to meet on a monthly basis for her care and support. Our meetings have been times of spiritual refreshment for all of us. We are especially grateful to a long-distance member who continues to offer support and ministry and faithfully holds us in the Light each time we gather.

During the past year, our Friend has led meeting revitalization workshops in Cincinnati and Boston, accompanied by members of our meeting, and has spoken at a number of other Quaker meetings and gatherings. Her vision of an informal, largely unstructured Quaker gathering for spiritual renewal and community-building led to a successful week-long “Quaker Camp” in Barnesville, Ohio, in June 2007, for Friends of all ages. Another such gathering is planned for this summer.

She has also done much teaching and writing on Barclay’s Apology, following up on her series of talks during Adult Religious Education sessions at Alexandria Friends Meetings. She is inspired by the possibility of dissolving barriers of language so that “universalist” and “Christ-centered” Friends can meet on an experiential level and “know each other in that which is eternal” (George Fox). She is excited about reaching out to Conservative and Friends United Meeting Quakers and sees bridge-building as a central theme in her calling. She is faithful to the deep connecting seed that connects us all. Our committee and our Meeting feel joy in supporting her ministry.

Books and libraries have always been part of Quaker education, spiritual understanding and growth. The Library Committee continues its work guided by that tradition.

Our Meeting’s small library is an important spiritual and educational resource for seekers, attenders and members. In 2007, the Library Committee started to update the electronic catalogue, and a subscription to the Pendle Hill Pamphlet series was reestablished. The committee continued reviewing donations to the library. Those books not about The Religious Society of Friends and their current interests or those readily available in public libraries or major bookstores were given to others. The Fairfax County libraries received some, which will be put on the shelves or in the book sale, and others will be sent to Earlham College.

The Healing Prayer Committee offers, as an integral part of prayer, the space where those in need can be healed through prayer and become whole.

During this past calendar year (January – December 2007), the Meeting for Healing was held monthly (nine out of twelve months) from 4 – 5:15 pm on each third Saturday in the home of the clerk.

We continue to offer hands-on healing to those who are in attendance and request this. Most of our requests are for distance healing, another way of defining prayer.

We have begun reviewing progress reports, at the beginning of each Meeting for Healing, on the individuals we are praying for and have been encouraged by the number of individuals who have experienced physical, mental, emotional or spiritual improvement. Our progress report section is rapidly becoming as long as our requests for prayer. We see this as a good sign.

We feel that our committee plays an important role in the spiritual life of AMM, especially since the former practice of sharing joys and sorrows at rise of Meeting for Worship has been discontinued.

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