The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: "Stand in the gate of the LORD's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the LORD. Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will let you dwell in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: `This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD. "For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly execute justice one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers for ever. Jer. 7:1-7.
FROM WORSHIP AND MINISTRY
Friends and Education
Since its beginnings in the mid-seventeenth century, the Religious Society of Friends has emphasized the importance of education both for its members and for society generally. Friends have held that all persons are potential channels for the Inner Light and that all can benefit from education. Such benefit is more likely if education is spiritual in its nature and objectives, if it draws people ever nearer to a concern for others and strengthens their commitment to live in accordance with spiritual principals. Faith and Practice p.43.
Query 12, from Faith and Practice, Integrity and Simplicity:
How do I strive to maintain the integrity of my inner and outer lives -- in my spiritual journey, my work, and my family responsibilities? How do I manage my commitments so that overcommitment, worry, and stress do not diminish my integrity?
Am I temperate in all things? Am I open to counsel and advice on overindulgence and addictive behavior, such as gambling? Do I take seriously the hazards associated with addictive and mood-altering substances?
Am I careful to speak truth as I know it and am I open to truth spoken to me? Am I mindful that judicial oaths imply a double standard of truth?
Do I refrain from membership in organizations whose purposes and methods compromise our testimonies?
UPCOMING EVENTS
Wednesday, June 6:
HFS Frolic
Saturday, June 30-July 7:
Friends General Conference, Blacksburg, VA
Tuesday, July 17-22:
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Center Valley, PA)
Sunday, August 12, Monthly Meeting.
Sunday, August 19, Noon: newsletter deadline.
HFS THIRD GRADE ATTENDS PEACE FAIR
On Friday, May 4th, both 3rd grade classes from Haddonfield Friends School attended the annual Peace Fair. This year's host was Westfield Friends. Moorestown, Rancocas, and Mullica Hill Friends Schools also participated in the all day event. Our day was spent playing cooperative games and doing a cooperative art project in groups with students most of whom we did not know. It was our goal that our children and their leaders gain much from this experience, and that we all come away from the day with renewed hope for a peaceful world. For the next two school years, Haddonfield Friends School will be hosting the Peace Fair. Priscilla Adams and Paul Shallers are already in the planning stages for this memorable event.
"IT TAKES A MEETING TO RAISE A FRIEND"
Flora McKinney
Quakerism works best when we all take seriously one of our central tenets: "each one of us has a role to fill in the Ministry of our Meeting". Let us continue to hold the Meeting in the Light each day throughout the Summer.
ASSISTED LISTENING IN THE MEETING HOUSE
The Property Committee is working on adding an assisted listening system to the Meeting House. They therefore thought it wise to visit a meeting that uses such a system. On Sunday, July 15, several persons will visit Provident Meeting in Media, PA to use and evaluate their the aids. Would you like to join this group? If so, call Steve Berryhill or Stu Harris.
MEN (AND WOMEN) NEEDED
Friendship Committee
Please volunteer to make refreshments for fellowship time after Meeting during the summer. It is really easy and doesn't take much time. Sign up on the calendar in the hallway and put your phone number next to your name. We need your help. If you have questions, call Mary Noland at (856) 795-8922. Thanks.
JUNE QUARTERLY MEETING
Haddonfield Quarterly Meeting on June 24 will hear the Annual Reports of our seven Monthly Meetings, and this year also the reports of
Orchard Friends School and The Greenleaf. Some nominating and treasury matters will be handled. Atlantic City Area Meeting near Absecon looks forward to welcoming a good number of Friends from each of our Meetings for worship at 10, followed by business and lunch. Suzanne Day, clerk
HFS BUTTERFLY/PEACE GARDEN
Bonnie Smith
Dear Friends of the HFS Butterfly/Peace Garden: the Garden Committee is looking for volunteers again this year. We have three ways for you to help the garden, which in turn benefits butterflies, birds, wildlife, children and our entire School and Meeting community! Let us know if any of the following opportunities interest you by contacting Bonnie Smith at (856) 273-3664.
1. ONE WEEK ADOPTION OF THE GARDEN DURING SUMMER VACATION: This means taking on the responsibility of visiting the garden, checking to see if it needs to be watered, deadheading flowers, weeding and edging flower beds and, most importantly, enjoying the garden and its visiting butterflies.
2. SERVING ON A BRAND NEW COMBINED COMMITTEE (STAFF/MEETING MEMBERS/PARENTS) TO SUPPORT THE GARDEN:
This committee would set up the summer adoption volunteer schedule, arrange for garden work sessions, publish news of what is happening in the garden in School and Meeting Newsletters etc.
3. IMMEDIATE VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES:
We need adults to work in the garden right now, alone or with other volunteers, to get the garden ready for planting and ready for summer. We can give help, guidance, specific instructions...whatever you feel you need. We can provide some tools. You can work during the school day, after school, evenings, or on weekends - the possibilities are endless!
This beautiful garden has gone through many changes since it was first planted in 1994. We have always appreciated the surprises and miracles it has to offer. If you are interested in any or all of the
above opportunities or have other ideas to share, please let us know.
NEW LIBRARY ADDITION
The following book was donated to the Meeting Library by George Oldham in memory of Nerma Neale.
First Among Friends: George Fox and the Creation of Quakerism, by Larry Ingle (289.6/Ing)
Grounded in primary sources and enriched with gripping detail, this well-written and original study reveals heretofore unknown aspects of George Fox and his times.
PHILAPEACE -- PYM PEACE AND CONCERNS NETWORK: THE POWER OF NON-VIOLENCE
Four young men who were involved in the non-violent overthrow of the Milosevic dictatorship will be with us on Monday, June 4, 5:45 pm at Friends Center, 1515 Cherry Street, Philadelphia, for a brown bag supper. These men, grad students at the University of Belgrade, are preparing themselves for leadership in building a civil society for their nation's future; they will be here to take George Lakey's rigorous "Super-T" course, "Training for Social Change,." but will take this evening off to tell us their experiences and to get to know us. Come and bring a friend - and don't forget your brown bag and sandwich. This event is arranged by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting's Balkans Working Group.
DIVERSITY TRAINING
Kitty Mizuno
Priscilla Adams and I participated in the very powerful weekend REAL (not an acronym, for once!) Basic Diversity Training workshop this past February. I was very lucky to have been able to also take the followup REAL Intermediate Training and REAL Advanced Training Retreat in March and April. These are sponsored by the New Jersey State Office of Bias Crime and Community relations, and take place in Trenton. The series was recommended to Priscilla by Ann Yasuhara, from Princeton Meeting, who was a participant in the advanced retreat with me in April.
It was a real gift to me to be able to take the training together with African Americans, Latinos and other Euro-Americans to share honestly, deeply, and sometimes painfully about how race issues have
impacted on our lives. Their stories will remain in my heart, and help give me a sense of direction in addressing race issues in my world. I am deeply grateful to the expert facilitators who, while keeping the sessions safe for all participants, helped us all to look deeply and honestly at the racism that shapes us all.
These training sessions are given on a ongoing basis. The next Basic Training will be on Saturday and Sunday, July 14th and 15th. For more information contact me at (856)-786-0809, or at kmizuno@erols.com. You can register by contacting the following: (the cost is only $20 for the whole weekend.)
The Institute for Human Relations Office of Bias Crime and Community Relations
P.O. Box 094
Trenton, NJ 08625
Telephone: (609) 896-8967
Fax: (609) 219-6595
MAY 2001 MONTHLY MEETING FOR BUSINESS
Monthly Meeting was held May 11, 2001. The passing on May 6 of long-term member Nerma C. Neale was recorded.
Gratitude was expressed to Janet Pilvalis for her may years of work on the Memorial and Graveyard Committee.
Allister Blossfeld Dodgson's and Jake McGlaughlin's memberships were approved. They will be visited and welcomed.
S. E. Watson reported on the Directory of Traveling Friends. She is listed and has met many interesting wonderful Friends.
Property Committee is investigating sound systems for the Meeting House. Any interested volunteers are invited to visit meetings with sound systems and report on their experience to Steve Berryhill, Stu Harris, or Harold Heritage.
Approval was given to Property Committee's request to loan the two Elizabeth Haddon chairs to the Haddonfield Historical Society for the summer.
Finance Committee reminds us that the fiscal year ends June 30. Please send your contribution well before then so it is recorded for this year.
The Meeting urges committees to refrain from scheduling meetings during First Day School time.
Pam Perry has promised the School Committee that closure will be reached on the HFS 7th & 8th grade issue by the end of the summer. The Meeting agreed to her request to have 2 called meetings before the end of May that will offer members an opportunity to voice concerns that have not previously been addressed, and to allow those with concerns who cannot attend an opportunity to voice their concern by mail or e-mail directed to her. During the meetings Pam will record all of the concerns presented and work with Overseers on a means that may address them.
Monthly Meeting will be held the second Sunday of the month in June, August, and September.
POEMS OLD AND NEW
Mowing Grass
Lyle Tatum
From early spring
to late in autumn,
there's always grass to mow.
Symbolic of work never finished.
Symbolic of eternal life.
Symbolic of nature conquering machine.
Fragrant green clippings
refresh my meditation.
The Darkling Thrush
Thomas Hardy
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervorless as I.
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
THE JOURNAL OF GEORGE FOX
[Continued from last month.]
There came also to see us one Colonel Rouse a justice of the peace, and a great company with him. He was as full of words and talk as ever I heard any man in my life, so that there was no speaking to him. At length I asked him whether he had ever been at school, and knew what belonged to questions and answers; (this I said to stop him).
"At school!" said he, "Yes."
"At school!" said the soldiers; "doth he say so to our colonel, that is a scholar?"
"Then," said I, "if he be so, let him be still and receive answers to what he hath said."
Then I was moved to speak the Word of life to him in God's dreadful power; which came so over him that he could not open his mouth. His face swelled, and was red like a turkey; his lips moved, and he mumbled something; but the people thought he would have fallen down. I stepped up to him, and he said he was never so in his life before: for the Lord's power stopped the evil power in him; so that he was almost choked.
The man was ever after very loving to Friends, and not so full of airy words to us; though he was full of pride; but the Lord's power came over him, and the rest that were with him.
Another time there came an officer of the army, a very malicious, bitter professor whom I had known in London. He was full of his airy talk also, and spoke slightingly of the Light of Christ, and against the Truth, and against the Spirit of God being in men, as it was in the apostles' days; till the power of God, that bound the evil in him, had almost choked him as it did Colonel Rouse: for he was so full of evil that he could not speak, but blubbered and stuttered. But from the time that the Lord's power struck him and came over him, he was ever after more loving to us.
The assizes being over, and we settled in prison upon such a commitment that we were not likely to be soon released, we broke off from giving the jailer seven shillings a week apiece for our horses, and seven shillings a week for ourselves, and sent our horses into the country. Upon which he grew very wicked and devilish, and put us down into Doomsdale, a nasty, stinking place, where they used to put murderers after they were condemned. . . .
One time a girl brought us a little meat; and he arrested her for breaking his house, and sued her in the town-court for breaking the prison. A great deal of trouble he put the young woman to; whereby others were so discouraged that we had much ado to get water, drink, or victuals. Near this time we sent for a young woman, Ann Downer, from London, who could write and take things well in short-hand, to buy and dress our meat for us; which she was very willing to do, it being also upon her spirit to come to us in the love of God; and she was very serviceable to us.
The head-jailer, we were informed, had been a thief, and was burnt both in the hand and in the shoulder; his wife, too, had been burnt in the hand. The under-jailer had been burnt both in the hand and in the shoulder: his wife had been burnt in the hand also. Colonel Bennet, a Baptist teacher, having purchased the jail and lands belonging to the castle, had placed this head-jailer there. The prisoners and some wild people would be talking of spirits that haunted Doomsdale, and how many had died in it, thinking perhaps to terrify us therewith. But I told them that if all the spirits and devils in hell were there, I was over them in the power of God, and feared no such thing; for Christ, our Priest, would sanctify the walls of the house to us, He who had bruised the head of the devil. The priest was to cleanse the plague out of the walls of the house under the law, which had been ended by Christ, our Priest, who sanctifies both inwardly and outwardly the walls of the house, the walls of the heart, and all things to his people. (To be continued)
