Game Night - This Saturday

Ruth and Greg invite everyone to an impromptu party, "impromptu" because we never can seem to plan ahead. Bring any board games and ideas for parlor games that you may have and maybe a snack to share: This Saturday, January 14 at the Meetinghouse from 7:00 PM to 9:30 PM. We hope to see you there!

The Heaths

News of Friends

Last week we reported that Paula Werme has written an Op-Ed piece for the Union Leader regarding the need for reforms in NH family law and the courts. Some people had trouble accessing the article so  here it is in a different format.

YRE / Yard Sale, May 13

Last week we reported that Paula Werme has written an Op-Ed piece for the Union Leader regarding the need for reforms in NH family law and the courts. Some people had trouble accessing the article so here it is in a different format.

Planning is well underway for our YRE Fundraiser Yard Sale. The date is not set for May 13, rain or shine.

We are excited! Expect to hear from us often as plans develop. Please

1. start to set your excess good stuff aside and speak to folks you know who would like support this effort and clear out their excess stuff.
2. start thinking about how you can commit to help the event come off successfully. Here's a list of tasks that will be made easier with a healthy list of helpers:
   • Advertising / Public Relations
   • Receiving, sorting and pricing
   • Storage and transport of items for sale
   • Loaning and configuring Easy-Up shelters
   • Setting up on May 12th
   • Selling
   • Greeting and outreach to visitors
   • Assisting the children's efforts
     • Kid's activities
     • Tours of the Meeting House
     • Prep and sale of food items
   • Dismantling the sales area
   • Transporting of unsold items just after the sale - preferably in trucks
   • And there will be more as our planning continues

As you can see, we hope for this to be a community event; one that is not only fruitful, but lots of fun too. Please write or call Greg or Elaine with your thoughts and offerings.

Watch for news next week about taking photos of your items and how to get them to us. We will also have more information about our new Kenyan family, the Asongas, that we will be helping support through these efforts as they work to rise out of poverty.

Quarterly Meeting and Meeting of Ministers

Hello Friends,

I am looking forward to gathering again as a Quarter in about two weeks, on January 29. Please be in touch with anything you would like to see on the agenda.

Happening before that, however, is something I want to make sure you know about. Noah Merrill and Brian Drayton are hosting an "Opportunity for Friends in Gospel Ministry" to be held at Amesbury Meeting, January 21 beginning at 10 am. These details are copied from the NEYM website where you can find additional information. This takes the place of the gathering I was hoping to organize and the Quarter agreed to host. I encourage anyone who feels a call to gospel ministry to find a way to attend.

—Jeremiah

Details

Noah Merrill (Putney) and Brian Drayton (Souhegan), following a concern, invite Friends active in gospel ministry to gather for worship and conversation at the Amesbury Friends Meetinghouse on January 21st, from 10:00 a.m. to early afternoon. You may travel in ministry, or your service may be primarily in your own meeting. If you contribute to the vocal ministry under a sustained sense of duty and concern, you are invited to join us.

The purpose of this gathering is to offer space for mutual encouragement and instruction and to share news, concerns, and joys in the work. A simple soup will be available, but Friends are encouraged to bring a bag lunch. Please noah [at] secondday [dot] info (let us know) if you are coming, or have questions.

LGBT Asylum Task Force Fundraiser - Worcester

Dear Friends,

We are writing to invite you, as friends of the LGBT community, to a fundraising event for the LGBT Asylum Task Force. The event will take place at the Worcester Friends Meeting House** at 901 Pleasant in Worcester on SATURDAY, JANUARY 21 FROM 3-6 PM, with a formal program accessible via Zoom from 4-5 pm. The Zoom link for that time period is: https://bit.ly/zoomworcesterfriendsfundraiser

The number of LGBT asylum seekers fleeing dangerous settings around the world and seeking food and shelter from the Task Force has risen dramatically in the past year, yet funding sources have become more limited. Each asylum seeker costs about $1300/month to maintain, a heavy challenge with almost 50 asylum seekers now in residence.

Please see the attached flyer for more information about this event; we hope to see you there! If you cannot attend, we hope that you can still offer your financial support with an online donation: https://bit.ly/donateworcesterfriendsfundraiser

We appreciate your generosity at this critical time for the LGBT asylum seeker community.

In friendship,

Peace, Social Concerns, and Outreach Committee Worcester Monthly Meeting of Friends

** Given that the COVID CDC alert level in Worcester County is currently orange, wearing masks at all public events is strongly recommended.

Happy New Year - A Reflection

Regardless of your thoughts about celebrities and wealthy travelers into space, I commend this excerpt from William Shatner's “Boldly Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder,” co-authored with Josh Brandon.  The New Year offers us the chance to make resolutions and dedicate ourselves to fulfilling them, and it is certainly true that every "New day, year, moment" offers the same chance. The closing sentence in the excerpt below goes to the heart: "If we seize that chance."  - Greg

We got out of our harnesses and began to float around. The other folks went straight into somersaults and enjoying all the effects of weightlessness. I wanted no part in that. I wanted, needed to get to the window as quickly as possible to see what was out there.

I looked down and I could see the hole that our spaceship had punched in the thin, blue-tinged layer of oxygen around Earth. It was as if there was a wake trailing behind where we had just been, and just as soon as I’d noticed it, it disappeared.

I continued my self-guided tour and turned my head to face the other direction, to stare into space. I love the mystery of the universe. I love all the questions that have come to us over thousands of years of exploration and hypotheses. Stars exploding years ago, their light traveling to us years later; black holes absorbing energy; satellites showing us entire galaxies in areas thought to be devoid of matter entirely… all of that has thrilled me for years… but when I looked in the opposite direction, into space, there was no mystery, no majestic awe to behold . . . all I saw was death.

I saw a cold, dark, black emptiness. It was unlike any blackness you can see or feel on Earth. It was deep, enveloping, all-encompassing. I turned back toward the light of home. I could see the curvature of Earth, the beige of the desert, the white of the clouds and the blue of the sky. It was life. Nurturing, sustaining, life. Mother Earth. Gaia. And I was leaving her.

Everything I had thought was wrong. Everything I had expected to see was wrong.

I had thought that going into space would be the ultimate catharsis of that connection I had been looking for between all living things—that being up there would be the next beautiful step to understanding the harmony of the universe. In the film “Contact,” when Jodie Foster’s character goes to space and looks out into the heavens, she lets out an astonished whisper, “They should’ve sent a poet.” I had a different experience, because I discovered that the beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here, with all of us. Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound.

It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness. Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna . . . things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral.

I learned later that I was not alone in this feeling. It is called the “Overview Effect” and is not uncommon among astronauts, including Yuri Gagarin, Michael Collins, Sally Ride, and many others. Essentially, when someone travels to space and views Earth from orbit, a sense of the planet’s fragility takes hold in an ineffable, instinctive manner. Author Frank White first coined the term in 1987: “There are no borders or boundaries on our planet except those that we create in our minds or through human behaviors. All the ideas and concepts that divide us when we are on the surface begin to fade from orbit and the moon. The result is a shift in worldview, and in identity.”

It can change the way we look at the planet but also other things like countries, ethnicities, religions; it can prompt an instant reevaluation of our shared harmony and a shift in focus to all the wonderful things we have in common instead of what makes us different. It reinforced tenfold my own view on the power of our beautiful, mysterious collective human entanglement, and eventually, it returned a feeling of hope to my heart. In this insignificance we share, we have one gift that other species perhaps do not: we are aware—not only of our insignificance, but the grandeur around us that makes us insignificant. That allows us perhaps a chance to rededicate ourselves to our planet, to each other, to life and love all around us. If we seize that chance.

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