News

October 5 is World Quaker Day. Consider joining us for worship at 11:00 and potluck at the rise of meeting (around 12:15). All are welcome!

Pride Festival By Alyson The festival draws a lot of creative and open-minded folks who enjoy the safe place to be themselves and their energy is contagious. Our team worked very smoothly together. We had time to get to know each other while we were setting up and doing the outreach. Jace was an amazing help getting the shade awning in place and then getting things loaded for the return trip to the meeting house. The free cold water and canned drinks...

Pioneers in Mental Health By Kelly Little was understood about mental illness in the Middle Ages. Sufferers were viewed either as eccentric or possessed by demons. The high point of abuse, however, actually came in the 1600s and it was just then that early Quakers began to counter the conventional wisdom. Perhaps it was Friends’ experience with prisons that led them to carry a concern for the mentally ill locked up in poor houses, asylums, churches, or even private homes. George...

The "C" in SPICES By Adrian I’ve been thinking a lot about what creates an authentic community. At Illinois Yearly Meeting last June, I had the chance to talk with Windy Cooler whom I had met at a Pendle Hill retreat a few years ago. As she talked about her many experiences with both healthy and unhealthy communities, I realized that Quaker meetings can sometimes get into the habit of relying too much on rubber-stamping Quaker process, forgetting the importance of relationships,...

Mowing and Gardening By Carol The first spring in our meetinghouse (2009) we grappled not only with how to organize our rooms but also how to manage our yards. Mowing was a challenge because we have three -- front, side, and back. We soon realized the front yard was mainly for show, the side yard for gardening, and the back yard for First Day School. We are most familiar with the side yard since we park on Prescott and walk through...

2BNew or New2B By Kali As encouragement to new Quakers with a mix of questions, doubts, and wonder, I think it's like that for long-time Quakers, too! Imagine how new it must have felt for the first Quakers nearly 400 years ago. They had serious doubts about the religious thought of their day and felt it would be more practical to find God within people than in churches. They knew that would invite ridicule, but they were onto something. Since then, Friends...

A Prayer for Our Times By Kent IF . . . if they depend on ignorance, may i read until my eyes dry outif they depend on chaos, may i be steadfast and sereneif they depend on fear, may i be gentle and comforting to all i meetif they depend on division, may i nurture community wherever i...

Soul Trees By Randall Mullins On the last day of SeptemberI walk a half blockto visit eight trees I have gotten to know.They are left from a larger forest,still cared for by a third-generation owner.He took these trees into his heartand it shows. I saw them first five years agofrom our fourth-floor window,just after we moved herenine trees then, all evergreens,reaching for the sky,towering above everything around them.I walk from tree to tree,lean against each one,put by hands on its bark,and touch the...

Visiting a Spanish-Language Church by Blake Recently I attended a church service very different from our Quaker meeting. I sat in the back and understood only parts of the service, which was in Spanish. I was there to support my goddaughter Maria who had been asked to lead a "Know Your Rights" training after the service. Around me mothers swayed as they held their sleeping children, and older people smiled and nodded to everyone. Young children ran in quiet circles. The...

Marking MLK Day   Five Friends helped plant the 20 trees we donated to the Frayser Food Forest while five helped out with Food not Bombs at Court Square, both on January 18th. On the 20th, Susan and Blake marched in the MLK Day parade, and at least three Friends participated in two MLK interfaith events that revolved around having the inauguration coincide with MLK Day.