Meeting for Business Online Only

This coming First Day, January 9th, we will have a blended/hybrid meeting for worship from 10:15-11:15 a.m. However, our meeting for worship for the conduct of business will begin at 12:30 p.m. via Zoom only. Therefore, if you travel from a distance and plan to attend meeting for business, you may wish to attend all meetings via Zoom.

In love, and peace, and tenderness,

Mark Barker, co-clerk, Concord Monthly Meeting of Friends

Advent Calendar Fundraiser

Maybe we need a United Way thermometer type graphic. To date the bookkeeper reports donations received at $150. The goal, our annual pledge, is $800. See below for lots of detailed information about Christine and Friends of Kenya Rising.

New Page on CFM Website - Feedback Invited

In support of three of our many meetinghouse volunteer activities, a new page has been added to our website. The schedule for Greeters, Closers, and Boiler Cleaners is displayed, along with contact information that assists with managing schedule changes. Everyone is encouraged to explore the page as well as consider adding themselves to the list of volunteers! The Website Committee welcomes any feedback or suggestions on this, and any other page or potential page. One aspect of this new page is to initiate conversations about making pages "mobile device friendly", so feedback is eagerly anticipated. Navigation path: CFM home page, click on the Calendar tab (not hover over, it is not on the drop-down menu), use the link at the top of the Calendar page labeled "Greeting, Closing, Boiler Cleaning Assignments."

Access CFM website home page: https://www.concordfriendsmeeting.org [1]

Contact the Website committee: WebClerk [at] ConcordFriendsMeeting [dot] org

AFSC at a Crossroads?

I received this too late to send out for tonight's Zoom meeting, but the letter referred to below is compelling though the Zoom event is already underway. Sometimes Zoom live streams remain available after the fact, so I have not edited out the Zoom link. Sara Smith sent this message:

I want to make sure you are aware of an important conversation this evening, January 6 at 8 pm ET hosted by Western Friend. The conversation relates to a recent letter published by some Quaker leaders and the former co-worker Arnie Alpert to alert the wider Quaker world to significant challenges within AFSC.

You can read the letter here: https://westernfriend.org/media/afsc-perilous-crossroads [2]

The event this evening is a conversation with the authors of the letter; a representative from AFSC's Leadership Team will also be present, but perhaps only to give a prepared statement. I plan to attend, and I welcome your attendance and participation as well. The zoom link can be found here: https://westernfriend.org/event/afsc-crossroads-conversation [3]

Sara Smith

Quakers of Indigenous Descent

Paula Palmer (Colorada Friend who works on Indigenous issues) sent the following to let Quakers know about a conference for Quakers of Indigenous descent. Attached is " the invitation to Indigenous Friends, issued by Decolonizing Quakers. tom kunesh (he prefers lower case letters), an Indigenous Friend, is organizing this gathering for Indigenous Quakers to meet each other (online) and share their perspectives on what it would mean for Quakers to decolonize. I pass it on so it can be shared with any Quakers of Indigenous descent. - Sara

Calling All Indigenous Friends!

‘Decolonizing Quakers’ ( decolonizingquakers.org ) working group started as a primarily white Quakers’ effort toward improving knowledge and relation- ships with indigenous people of the USA & Canada. The working group has come to understand the need to add and center indigenous and african- american voices in our ‘decolonizing’ work moving forward. But we as a working group with the ‘decolonizing’ name have a problem: we’re not clear on how each of us uses the word, especially in different racial groups. To this end we invite indigenous Friends of Turtle Island (Quakers who are direct descendants of indigenous peoples of ‘North America’) to gather with tom kunesh (Lakota/mixt) to discuss the term ‘ decolonizing ’ and to see if we can come to some agreement on its meaning and goals among us indigenous Friends.

Decolonizing Quakers working group invites all Turtle Island indigenous Friends to meet online on zoom on saturday 5 february 2022, starting at 14:00 atlantic/ 13:00 eastern/ 12:00 central/ 11:00 mountain/ 10:00 pacific/ 09:00 alaska/ 07:00 hawaii. Pre-registration required. Indigenous Friends plan to meet for about 4 hours ~ an hour of introductions, an hour of small group discussion, an hour of large group discussion, an hour of seeing if we can come up with our own description of ‘decolonization’. If you are indigenous, a Friend, and interested, please fill out the interest/ contact form here at google.com/forms/ . Questions can be directed to tom kunesh (tom [at] kunesh [dot] net)

The Quaker Institute for the Future - a “Think Tank”:

Gray Cox

• Co-founder + Clerk: The Quaker Institute for the Future.
• Professor: philosophy, peace studies and language learning at College of the Atlantic, Maine, a school for human ecology.
• Writer: The Ways of Peace: A Philosophy of Peace as Action + A Quaker Approach to Research: Collaborative Practice and Communal Discernment.
• Singer-Songwriter

ZOOM Talk: Sunday, January 9, 2022 at Noon – 1pm EDT

The Quaker Institute for the Future - a “Think Tank”: Origins, Current Practices + Possible Futures for a Quaker Think Tank

REGISTER: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0sceirpzsoHtTskt62j-DJ42_SNzIqvV6m [4]

LIVE STREAM: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLcvmlRkcwwsDtLVT06TwQQ [5]

2nd Sundays Quaker ZOOM Talk Series

HOST: Peace + Social Order Committee

West Falmouth Preparative Meeting MA (USA)

The following items have appeared previously in emailed announcements.

Advent Calendar Fundraiser

Have you tallied up your 'abundance' in the Advent Calendar? Based on that (strictly or loosely) it's time to send your donation to Concord Friends Meeting with "Christine" in the memo line. (See below for ways to donate.) Thanks to those of you who have already sent donations.

Some more background: A year ago, Friends of Kakamega merged with another Kakamega social support organization, Crossroads Springs Africa, to become Friends of Kenya Rising. They shared the same mission and realized they could be more effective as one organization. The boarding program was replaced by supporting the children in their homes. In the past several years they had moved toward this model with gifts of solar lights, less polluting cookstoves, and fruit trees to each child's family (you may recall our extra donations toward these efforts).

I encourage you to go to the "Friends of Kenya Rising" website [6] where they state: "Our mission is to assist Kenyan students and their families as they rise out of poverty. Our FAMILY CARE MODEL [7] is our holistic approach to assisting families as they rise out of poverty. Our five guiding stars which symbolize this approach represent Education and Scholarships, Basic Needs, Health, Agriculture and Livelihoods."

Christine's whole family is now being supported by this program and our $800 annual donation. On the bulletin board in the Meetinghouse the children made a display of "before and after" pictures showing the improvements done to her family home 2 years ago, including a hygenic outhouse, attached outdoor kitchen (greatly improving air indoor quality) and new roof. Christine is happy to be living with her family in this much improved home, and she is now in high school! She has 4 siblings. Read her March 2021 letter to us here [8] written just before she took (and passed) her KCPE entrance-to-high school exams. Click here [9] for picture of her and her family in 2020 and here [10] for Christine (in black) and her sister outside their home.

As she says in one letter "My family [greets] you and they are so happy to sponsor us (sic)! They thank you for everything you have done for us." Thank you for your support of Christine!

Youth Religious Ed Committee

NEYM Program Coming Right Up!

Dear All,

New England Yearly Meeting is excited to announce our upcoming annual sessions! On January 7-8 we'll be hosting two panels and invite you to join us! Register here [11]!

January 7(Panel 1): Quaker Approaches to Understanding the Holy Spirit [12] (8am PST/11am EST - 10am PST/1pm EST)

January 8 (Panel 2): Decolonizing the Quaker Peace Testimony [13] (8am PST/11am EST - 10am PST/1pm EST)

Panel 1: Quaker Approaches to Understanding the Holy Spirit: Pneumatologies in Global Perspective

Panelists (Grace Ji-Sun Kim and Stephen Angell) and respondent Laurel Kearns explore a Quaker understanding of the Holy Spirit for the 21st century, a pneumatology (theology of the Holy Spirit) that can transform us into a community that can enact climate justice and draw on deep spiritual connection to do the work of repair and reconciliation this time will require.

Panel 2: Decolonizing the Quaker Peace Testimony

Panelists (Cristina J. Montiel, Sa'ed Atshan, tom kunesh, and Trayce N. Peterson) will dialogue about the peace testimony in light of colonialism. Topics will include repercussions of slavery and Indigenous land theft on Turtle Island (North America), imperialism in the Philippines, and Quaker approaches to peace in the occupied Palestinian territories. When Friends benefit from others’ use of force, what does equitable conflict resolution look like in practice? How can Friends live in solidarity with those being marginalized, and what repairs need to be made for the actions of past Friends?

-------------------------------

Christy Randazzo, PhD

Writer - Quaker - Theologian

Pronouns: They/Them

Resident of the Delaware River Watershed, on the traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation

Co-Editor, Politics of Scripture [14] on the Political Theology Network

Author of Liberal Quaker Reconciliation Theology: A Constructive Approach [15] (Brill, 2020)

Closing the Meetinghouse on Sundays

We sure could use some more help with this weekly work. Presently a rotation of folks have volunteered to do this work over the next two months. If you are able to join them in the rotation toward the end of winter and into the spring, please let JJ know. The current list appears below: Cleaning the boiler is a separate job and help is needed there too. Formerly there were about 8 of us in this rotation.

Draft minutes from the December meeting for business can be found here [16]

Are you wanting information from past announcements?

Visit this page on our web site: Past Announcements [17]

Are you wanting to donate to Concord Monthly Meeting?

Visit this page on our web site for more information: Donations [18]