Menallen

Menallen Monthly Meeting is in its 260th year. A casual observer, on any given First Day, would see Menallen Monthly Meeting as a gentle, joyful, nurturing community. The members and attenders are openly respectful and affectionate toward one another. Friends who trust enough to make their needs known are met with generous assistance and tender guidance. We all have periods of transition in our lives and the support of the Meeting is invaluable. We have welcomed three new members and another transferring Friend who is retiring to the area of his ancestors. Our membership is 44 adults and of that number there are about 20 contributing households. We have a wonderful greeter who does outreach to area families. Plans are underway to present a program at Huntington Meetinghouse for a group of Mennonite school children whose teacher repaired the slate roof without charge. We are also blessed by the fact that so many of the members are willing to care for the buildings and properties in their own time and at their own expense. Also, by the time this is published our web site will be up and running.

While vocal ministry is rare, Friends have an opportunity to express their concerns during the ‘circle of joys and sorrows’ and the coffee fellowship that follows each Meeting for Worship. There is an adult reading group. We cannot however seem to come up with any device or strategy to meet the spiritual needs of those members who live nearby but never come to Meeting. However, there is one family that does attend at Huntington in the summer months when that historic meetinghouse is open. Plans are underway to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Redlands and the 275th anniversary of the arrival of Quakers to this Valley. The Blackburn family with about 300 descendents will be here over the weekend of June 21-24th 2012.

Several difficult stewardship issues have challenged the Meeting’s resources, both financially and emotionally, this year. Under the format of the called meeting we were able to address some of the issues and work on solutions. The Meeting authorized a new committee called The Friends of Quaker Valley, that will act as the fundraising arm of the Meeting to obtain funds for the care of the 3 buildings and 5 cemeteries under our care. We had another called meeting to address issues of peace with a special concern toward the ‘War is not the Answer’ sign. Some Friends worried that the sign could be misinterpreted and wanted to temper it with a ‘Support our Troops’ type sign. But Friends worried that would confuse passers-by even more. In the end we drafted a letter of support to those troops from the area that we know.

The preschool and the First Day School submitted art work for the ‘Let It Begin with Me’ arts festival sponsored by the Inter-Faith Center for Peace and Justice. The clerk will again direct the 2010 Peace Camp also sponsored by that group. In July the Meeting will host another week long camp here called ‘History Meets the Arts’, this camp has become so popular it will extend to a week.

Friends rejoice in the presence of the children at Meeting, who have their own children’s bench. They are our most important resource and our most important responsibility. While the children hopefully see the members as examples of people living a simple life of integrity, the parents do the bulk of First Day School programs. How can we get the members to share their gifts of the spirit with the children? Realizing that we are all teachers and learners, how can we get Friends to guide the children’s development to a sensitivity to God, others and the earth?

A warm welcome is extended to the membership of the yearly meeting to join us any First Day at 1030 AM. In summary , while we struggle, we realize that we are not perfect, and that we need improvement but, to paraphrase Leonard Cohen……. it’s the cracks that let in the Light.

The 890th Meeting of the Warrington Quarter will be held on May the 16th at Menallen Monthly Meeting. In 2011, the Meeting House at Redlands will be 200 years old; a picnic, tours, quilt presentation and other activities are planned. Huntington Meeting House will be open for worship on first First days starting in April till November.

For this year’s State of the Meeting Report we will list some of our blessings and problems, so that the reader can assess for him/herself, the spiritual state of Menallen Monthly Meeting.

We are blessed that all three of the historic meetinghouses under our care, are located in a beautiful valley of south central ‘Penn’s woods’. This rural beauty enriches us and continually inspires our vigilance on behalf of the planet.

We are so very blessed to have members and attenders who are most generous with their time and energy, their talents and resources. The Meeting benefits from their labors on the inside and the outside, whether it is physical or mental labor. Their offers of help run the gamut from carpentry to web building, from teaching to giving tours, from paper work to yard work. The Quaker principles are evident by the careers of our members in all facets of social service, and the active volunteerism of our retirees who serve locally and abroad.

We recently began the practice of having a ‘circle of joys and concerns’ at the rise of Meeting, initially for the purpose of announcements. The children of the First Day School, who have always been our greatest source of joy, are learning that they can speak up in this friendly, family-style format, which is good practice for everyone. Indeed the atmosphere inside our meetinghouse is informal and welcoming, including the coffee-fueled fellowship after Meeting and the Brown Bag Lunch book discussion group for the adults.

The First Day School has completed a semester of studying Everyday Quakers booklets, written by a member. Now they are working on composing a letter to President Obama. In it they will outline how they are complying with his inaugural directions to take “responsibility for ourselves, our nation and our world”. They have explored how local and global groups work to improve our world. Five children will be attending the 21st annual Peace Camp produced by the Interfaith Center for Peace and Justice and directed by a member of Menallen Meeting.

The Menallen Friends Preschool just held its 36th annual graduation. We are blessed to have dedicated teachers who gently and individually guide the children to acquire the skills and knowledge that will enable them to make sense of the world and to succeed in it in a non- confrontational way. During May, we held our annual children’s creative work shop with the theme “Lincoln in our Land”. It was well attended and greatly appreciated. We will be hosting a Day of Peace and free concert in July and Warrington Quarter’s summer campout in August.

One of our members guided the Meeting in a visioning process in March. We wanted to air everyone’s concerns and get an idea of the direction that Friends would like to see the Meeting take in the future. The discussion focused on the need for gentle Quakerly outreach and evolved into questions about what we offer spiritually; and why we have been unable to reconnect with the traditional, Quaker families of the area. Some feel the Meeting has moved away from the “agrarian type Meeting” that it used to be and now it is moving to the humanitarian outreach type Meeting. The diversity in the Meeting was also evident when one Friend worried that our “War is Not the Answer” sign could be misinterpreted and asked to put up a support the troop type sign. Five members who took a year long course entitled “New Dollars/ New Partners for Your Sacred Places” produced a Mission Statement, a Time Line, a Case Statement, and a list of priorities for the Meeting. And they proposed a fund raising tool called Friends of Quaker Valley. No one stood in the way of forming Friends of Quaker Valley but there was not unity on how to proceed. Friends seemed concerned how to balance a vision for Menallen Monthly Meeting that reflects the values of the past and embodies the needs of the future.

Our other big problem is our lack of resources because we only have the financial support of about 20 families. This is not enough money to cover the increasing costs of caring for three historic meetinghouses and five cemeteries. But yet when the appeal went out last winter for the new roof, the amount raised was close to the amount needed. Perhaps we need more faith to be able to trust that a way will open for us to meet our financial and stewardship responsibilities.

We send our greetings and welcome to the Yearly Meeting and ask that they remember Menallen Friends in their prayers.

After 15 years of dedicated service our beloved clerk Barclay Brooks has ended his service to spend more time with his family. He will however, continue his multitude of warden duties, much to the delight of the birds, the preschool children and members who enjoy watching them.

Mary Gemmill has agreed to serve as clerk. On and off, since the early seventies, Mary has been active in the First Day School for several Meetings, that is her area of comfort. She also served as co-clerk at Gettysburg Monthly Meeting for several years.

With Divine Assistance and lots of promises of help from the members, she has started her service, with the following comment, "What a hard act to follow!". Bless you Barclay.

The Friends of Menallen Monthly Meeting continue in their tradition of silent Worship. We find much of our unity with the Inner Light and understanding of the worlds other voices can be better heard and understood in our silence when we are not formulating a reply as in a conversation. We can better grasp the diversity of others and ourselves when the only sounds are those of mother Nature. Yet, our silence does not separate us but binds us more closely together.

We celebrated our 225th Anniversary as a Monthly Meeting in 2005. There were several events held at the Meeting House which brought the members, former members, neighbors, guests, and visitors from all over the world together in recognizing the signficance that Menallen Friends and their Meeting House has played in their lives and the lives of the local community. A children's' workshop, a colonial music performance, a peace concert, and a homecoming/open house were held to join us together.

The associate membership of Emma, Chandler, and Samuel Fee along with return of Mary and Arthur Wolfe to membership added to our fold. Unfortunately, Arthur Wolfe passed shortly after he became a member.

Our Menallen Friends' Pre-school continues its outreach to the Upper Adams County community. Serving the need of rural families to have their children socialize with others beside their siblings, while at the same time being introduced to sharing with others, a routine, listening, and the foundation that learning can be fun.

Sometimes the worldly concerns of the financial obligations and the physical demands of Menallen, Huntington, and Redlands Meetinghouses and their cemeteries along with the Friends Grove Cemetery and Newberrytown Cemetery crowd their way into our thoughts and deliberations. we have confidence that these needs will be met if we have the patience and perseverance.

The serenity, tranquility and fellowship of Menallen Monthly Meeting starts its next 225 years with the faith that the Light which abides amongst us and in each of us will bring others of like mind to Menallen.

SPIRITUAL STATE OF THE MEETING REPORT - 2003

Menallen Friends Monthly Meeting continues in its tradition of silent Worship. Through our silence we listen carefully for the Inner Light within ourselves, and we rejoice in the spoken truth as it is revealed through others. In these times of uncertainty, unrest, and war, the diversity of several manifestations of Inner Light gives us strength as individuals and as a community; we seek to stand in this Light to seek clearness regarding the many difficult issues facing each one of us, and our Meeting.

We have been blessed during the past year with numerous new and periodic attenders, and we hope that some will find a permanent home at Menallen. These new faces augment a core "Stone Soup" of dedicated members and attenders, each of whom brings variety and a different insight to the Meeting. It is of concern to the meeting that the numbers an any given First Day are low, although our fellowship is always strong. We are further encouraged that Chris Fee and Dave Garretson have joined our roll of members during the past year. Moreover, we look forward to the rebirth of First Day School at Menallen, complete with a small but vocal and joyful regular contingent, and we have hope of more children in the fall..

As a Meeting we are extremely concerned with how our spiritual values as Friends resonate with those of our larger community, and we wish to find ways publicly to celebrate our heritage of tolerance and non-violence without alienating or appearing to preach to our reasonable brothers and sisters with whom we disagree on some points of vital importance to us all. We find that we are doing some things already to address such concerns, and we seek consensus regarding potential activities which may lead us further towards our goals. Our greatest challenge as we face an uncertain future is to embrace our values and to articulate and live them in such a way as to be true to our traditions at the same time that we attract vitally needed new members and attenders. We are attempting to meet these goals in many ways, some of which are detailed below:

Our activities which reach out to the broader communities of Adams County include the Menallen Pre-School, which we support through the use of our facilities; the school continues to be successful. The students at Menallen Pre-School prepare for structured learning in the beauty and serenity of our Meetinghouse's surroundings; we have been very fortunate in having a dedicated teacher, assistants, and parents who support education and help to make it fun as our pre-schoolers begin their life-long understanding of the world around them.

Other ventures at outreach have included opening our Meetinghouse for an early music concert again last summer (now a regular practice scheduled to continue this coming summer) as well as for a lecture on war, conflict resolution, and art in Sri Lanka by Professor Rajmohan Rarnanathapillai of the Peace Studies program and Philosophy Department at Gettysburg College. Deb McCauslin, a regular attender and local historian, has given talks on Friends' associations with the vanished Yellow Hill community of African-Americans in various venues throughout Adams County.

Our Meetings for Worship with a concern for business are held on the Second First Day of each month, followed by fellowship and a potluck. These are especially convivial occasions full of love, laughter, and lively discussion, and we welcome any and all interested to attend, whether or not they bring a covered dish!

Menallen Friends continue to oversee the upkeep and maintenance of Huntington and Redlands Meeting Houses and their cemeteries, along with cemeteries at Newberrytown and Friends' Grove. Meetings for Worship are held at least once a year at Redlands, and once a month - during summer - at Huntington Meeting House. At times our resources are strained - the Meeting's 2003 expenses exceeded revenues by nearly $4,000 - but we feel an obligation to those Friends who preceded us and provided us with this bounty.

The Meeting was grieved to lose long-time members Virginia Parry, Gay Patterson Tilton, and Francis Worley, and asks for all to join the Meeting in holding their families in the Light. There has been no significant improvement in the health of our members William Wright and Roseanne "Posey" Wright. We encourage any of their friends to visit them, and ask all to keep them in their prayers.

We extend to all an invitation to visit us at the Menallen Meetinghouse for silent worship each First Day at 10:30 AM. We as a Meeting feel strongly that our silent worship is a vital respite from the cacophony of voices and onslaught of images that bombard us as we live our daily lives and try to reach clearness as we stand in the Light. We feel that the truth that is spoken in profound silence achieves a special clarity that we value highly. We hope to take the focus we achieve through this clarity with us from meeting and to use it as a means of discernment as we face complex realities.