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The test of courage comes when we are in the minority.

The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority.

~ Ralph W. Sockman (1889-1970)

United Methodist Pastor

The Meeting Calendar

You may be wondering what has happened to your Solar Committee.  We've been working quietly behind the scenes and expect to bring important business to the Meeting.  We won't be ready in May, but we wanted to check in with the Meeting now.  We have written a history of our solar project that includes the overall scheme of how the plan was developed and how it is intended to work.  Jennifer Smith has contributed to this history as well.  Please take some time to read the document that you can download by clicking here.

The report is not short, and the arrangement is somewhat complicated.  We've worked hard to make this history readable and clear and sincerely hope that you find it so.  Please contact any one of us if you have questions.  By sharing this now we hope that we are laying the necessary foundation for our discernment when the time comes.

The draft minutes for the April 2024 meeting for worship with attention to business are available at https://www.concordfriendsmeeting.org/2024-04-14_CMM_Minutes or via https://www.concordfriendsmeeting.org/Minutes_of_ConcordMonthlyMeeting.

For corrections, missing documents, and/or clarifications of the minutes, please reply to web clerk, Concord Friends Meeting webclerk [at] concordfriendsmeeting [dot] org (<webclerk [at] concordfriendsmeeting [dot] org>).

With love, and peace, and tenderness,

Many thanks to the Pathfinders children and staff for their fine effort to clean up their outdoor classroom. Winter has left quite a mess, and they did a great job.  Their effort coincided with recognition of Earth Day next week.  They will be on their Spring vacation.

"It became clear over the last year that my personal and agrarian values and those of Sanborn's owner, management and practices were diverging.  Not necessarily that I disapprove of Sanborn's direction and leadership, just that I was not going to be a good fit before long if it continued the way I suspect it will.

At the time we were clandestinely exploring the region for other opportunities, the aforementioned friend in the previous email asked if we would be interested in helping him.  He is a very popular country musician (Tyler Childers) and he is unable to keep up with the farm he and his wife have purchased.  Life on the road prevents it.  They are hoping to grow food and facilitate a few different ways to get nourishing food into a community that is food insecure.  A relatively poor region of western coal country with all the unfortunate trappings one imagined in such a place. But it is beautiful.  And the people are good, though troubled.

So in collaboration with other regional farms we are hoping to generate large amounts of food and jobs in ventures related to food production.  A small storefront that will accept "pay what you're able" for prepared meals or ingredients will create four or five jobs.  A bed and breakfast will provide a few more, as the region is focusing on retooling itself for outdoor tourism, including steam locomotive excursions.  And the farm itself will offer paid internships (at least that's the plan) to Berea students wanting to learn to farm and log with horses and mules.

Anyway, aaaaaaall that to say that the aims of the operation are very much inline with my skill set and values.  The reasons I continue to farm and the way I do.  And so after much hand wringing, we decided to accept the offer.

Estill County is very near the Red River Gorge with lots of fun outdoor and scenic activities.

We welcome anyone who decides to go adventuring and finds themselves in our neck of the woods, to please visit.

Greg emailed and mentioned that he wasn't so surprised to see we have a connection to "Older Wendell".  It came to be in a very special way but would require an equally long or longer email to tell. Happy to at some point, but if you started reading this at breakfast, it must be getting on towards lunch by now.

I'd like to keep in touch, especially if I were to be able to visit the meeting when we return to visit family.

Penny was a very small coin made of copper.  As the years passed, she was stored and spent and stored and spent, again and again. Her body became dull and worn, bit by bit.  She hardly knew who she was anymore. Finally, she went to see a therapist who helped remove the dirt and polished away the dullness.  While not new, she felt shiny again. Her markings revealed more clearly who she was, even showing the date and place where she was minted.  She began to know herself.

As Penny began to comprehend more about her value as a coin, she visited a church where she met other coins. Some were pennies like her. Others were different: nickels, dimes, and quarters. As she got to know them, she began to realize that she was a part of something greater than herself. Together, she and the other coins were a part of a congregation worth multiple dollars. And their congregation could join with others worth five, ten, twenty, fifty, or even hundreds of dollars. Across the country, thousands or even millions could be counted.

Being the curious coin that she was, she wondered if there was more to the story. She searched beyond her own church, even beyond her own country. In her travels she met coins with markings different from hers and unlike any she had seen in her congregation or other churches of her own religion. These new friends looked different on the surface. Their markings said nothing like “cent” or “dollar.” Instead, they had words like, “peso, franc, dinar, ruble, rupee, dram, yuan” and others. She came to know, through interfaith dialogue, that another country’s currency, while different from hers, was quite similar in many ways and served exactly the same purpose.

Penny was pleased that she had gained a broader sense of herself as not just a coin, but one that represented a particular denomination among many wonderful currencies used around the world.

However, she still had a nagging feeling that there was more to the story. What did it mean to be a coin? Not just a penny or a peso, but any coin? What was it all about? In her search for deeper understanding, she finally met a teacher who shared wisdom about money in general. She learned that we, as physical objects, a coin or even a bill, represent something more abstract, independent of our physical properties. That abstract something remained constant even when we became dull, dirty, worn, or torn. We each had a value that couldn’t be diminished as long as we lived. A penny was always worth one cent, no matter what. What a comforting feeling.

She took it on faith that the value of being worth something was constant. But what did that really mean? Searching further, she came to understand that a coin or a bill was only a marker or place-holder, a tool for buying and selling. She even learned about theories of money such as a “gold standard” where each coin was thought to be a substitute for something more real or substantial. This was another leap of faith. How could a piece of copper, small and insignificant like her, represent something more sublime and precious as gold?

Her understanding continued to grow and evolve as she was exposed to more ideas, each agreeing with but transcending the previous ones—raising her understanding to a new level of complexity. She met a professor of economics who shared about market theory: things like inflation and recession, cycles of boom and bust. So the concept of maintaining a “constant value” even as the pennies grew older was true at one level but not a completely accurate description of the whole truth of who she really was. There was a more complex reality as more advanced levels were discovered and appreciated.

As she became more comfortable with receiving and accepting new levels of understanding, she also met an interspiritual mystic who showed her something really amazing and mind-bending. Not only was she, as a copper penny, capable of representing the value of an abstraction such as money, but her body was simultaneously a physical being made of the same matter that was used to create copper wires. These wires could carry electrical power, send signals of sound from one place to another, or even make up part of a filament in a glass bulb that generates light and heat. This light and heat was the same kind of abstract “energy” that was used to extract copper ore from the ground and transport it to mints where it was used to create new coins just like her. Her body may die one day but the substance of which it was created is immortal. She was no longer just some small, separate, independent piece of metal, a coin or currency. She was the stuff from which miracles are actually made!