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Please hold the following Friends in the light:

Kathi C.

Erin N.

Not sure what that means?  Here is a helpful article in Friends Journal by our Friend Peter Blood-Patterson called “We are all Held in Love [2]”.

Do you have a request for prayer?  A need for pastoral care or just somebody to talk to?  Please reach out to any member of Ministry and Counsel [3].

It’s not too late to sign up to join a group for Friendly 8s.  Friendly 8s are our antidote to February cabin fever.  Just fill out the doodle poll [5] with your available times, and then we’ll include you in a group of CFM friends for a potluck.

[8]Come "Sing Your Heart Out" on Friday, February 21^st from 7-9 p.m. at Quaker Meetinghouse at 11 Oxbow Pond Rd, Canterbury (near Exit 17).

Here's our chance to gather together on a cold, dark night to add some light and song to our lives.  We'll focus on songs of hope, peace, justice, and resilience.  Bring your 'Rise Up Singing [9]' and 'Rise Again [10]' songbooks (or borrow ours - we have lots!) and a finger food snack to share in our break for fellowship and food.

Everyone gets a chance to choose a song, and we'll all leave with lifted hearts.  Bring a friend, it's open to all. Contact Ruth H. (RuthH [at] ConcordFriendsMeeting [dot] org (subject: CFM%3A%20Sing%20Your%20Heart%20Out) or 603-724-4343 [6]) if you have questions or if you can bring an instrument and accompany songs.

This event will occur every 3^rd Friday of the month.  Save the dates!  We moved it to avoid a conflict with the First Friday High Street Coffeehouse at Boscawen Congregational Church (which is a great event also).  Their February 7^th feature is Tom Smith.  Find out more at: Tom Smith at High St Coffee House [11]

The program will be a conversation about the moment we are in and what it calls for from us.  Ministry and Counsel will suggest some readings to reflect on in the coming week.  We will engage each other around what resources we have to help us maintain inner peace in order to effectively make an external witness to peace and justice in tumultuous times.  Some of the questions we will ponder follow.

How can we pursue outcomes peacefully, all the while realizing there will be conflict?  What gives us strength to be the kind of people we want to be when confronted with injustice of any kind?   What stands in the way of us holding that inner peace required to react with love and not hate?  What helps us attain and maintain that inner peace?  How can we love our enemies or those who are harming others?

How can we be in relationship with those who stand for something we abhor?  How can we help each other with a difficult but necessary task of being true to our own calling as witnesses for peace and the greater good?

What resources does each of us bring?  What do we need?  How can we help each other?  What can we get from each other?  

We hope that you will prepare for our conversation by finding some time for reflection beforehand.  If you’d like to write something or share something that has spoken to you, please feel free.  But none of that is necessary – you can just come to listen and share as led during the worship sharing. 

Click this link to join Sunday February 16th 2025 [12]

From Heidi:

Prayer for Peace (from Sufi Mystic Hazrat Inayat Khan)

Send Thy peace, O Sovereign, which is perfect and everlasting,

     that our souls may radiate peace.

Send Thy peace, O Sovereign, that we may think, act, and speak harmoniously.

Send Thy peace, O Sovereign, that we may be contented and thankful for

     Thy bountiful gifts.

Send Thy peace, O Sovereign, that amidst our worldly strife we may enjoy

    Thy bliss.

Send Thy peace, O Sovereign, that we may endure all, tolerate all,

     in the thought of Thy Grace and Mercy.

Send Thy peace, O Sovereign, that our lives may become a divine vision,

     and in Thy Light all darkness may vanish.

Send Thy peace, O Sovereign, our Father and Mother, that we,

     Thy children on earth, may all unite in one family.

Amen.

From Greg:

As a member of both the Concord Quaker Meeting, aka Concord Friends Meeting, and the Vermont Zen Center for many years, I've been immersed in questions of how these practices support each other.  Among Quakers we speak of the testimonies that relate to our social witness and moral conduct.  Among Zen Buddhists we speak of the 10 Precepts, the first of which is “not to kill, but to cherish all life”.  Quakers are well-known for our testimony in opposition to armed conflict as well as striving for the peaceful resolution to all kinds of conflicts.  This testimony arises from the firm conviction that there is “that of God” in everyone.  Taking the life of a child of God, personally or state sponsored, does not occur to a Quaker as an option.

The Buddhist perspective arrives at the same place.  The thought of taking a life does not occur.  But we get there through different language, if not different meaning.  The presence of God in the world is not something Buddhists think about.  The Buddha was not a God.  He was one who had awakened to know his True Nature and the True Nature of all things.  You may have heard the joke of the Zen practitioner who asked the hot dog vendor to make him ‘one with everything’.  In fact, we don't speak of being one with everything.  We are not one, and not two.  That is to say, the True Nature of all things is unity or non-separation or non-dual.  To assert “one” requires there be a “two”.  Killing, just like causing any harm, could be likened to cutting off one’s own hand.

Since we are not fundamentally separate from one another, but part of a whole, the precepts to not kill, to not lie, and so on, to not even speak of the faults of others are not commandments from an external source, but behaviors that flow naturally from one who has awakened to their True Nature.  While Buddhists have no need to accept or to deny the Quaker wisdom that there is “that of God” in everyone, I am here to say that, indeed, there is.  No one in this room got skipped over at birth when God’s DNA was handed out.  We all have it.  Don’t let anyone gaslight you into doubting that fact.  Thank you, Sara S., and Bishop Brady for the invitation to plant these seeds.  May they grow.

Attending Sessions as a family is different than attending as an adult individual.  As Friends in New England discern possible changes to Annual Sessions as part of the Sessions Visioning [14] process, we especially hope to hear from parents of infants, children, and teens regardless of if you have attended Sessions before or not.  Join us for a Zoom-based facilitated conversation on March 4th [15] or March 30th [16].

We have a special opportunity coming up in March and Ministry and Counsel hopes you'll set aside time in your calendar now.  We will not be holding a program on 4^th Sunday in March.  Instead, a very special program is set for 5^th Sunday and we are hoping for a strong turnout.  Friends will be coming from all over our Quarter.  The Meetings in our Quarterly Meeting include Weare/Henniker, Dover, West Epping Preparative Meeting, North Sandwich, River Woods Worship Group (Exeter), and Gonic.  Such an opportunity!  And the program is especially important. 

New England Yearly Meeting is going through changes and needs to hear from Friends far and wide regarding the summer sessions and various alternatives to the current model.  Whether you have ever attended a NEYM summer session does not matter.  How the YM will meet the needs of individuals and Meetings in our changing times matters to all of us.  We hope you will make time to be present on 5^th Sunday in March.  Stay tuned for more information as the weeks pass.

The silent vigil for a ceasefire in Gaza continues every Thursday from Noon-1 p.m.  The vigil meets at (the northwest corner of) North Main Street and Park Street in Concord [20] on the plaza in front of the State House.  Make your own sign, use one provided, or just stand in silent witness beside others.  This is done in coordination with NH Peace Action.  We suggest that people make signs that convey something about justice for Israel and Palestine.  Also please avoid the word genocide, ethnic cleansing, and similar terms.

The draft minutes for the February 2025 meeting for worship with attention to business are available at 2025-02-09_CMM_Minutes [21] or via Minutes_of_ConcordMonthlyMeeting [22].

For corrections, missing documents, and/or clarifications of the minutes, please reply to WebClerk [at] ConcordFriendsMeeting [dot] org (subject: CMM%20Minutes%20for%202nd%20Month) .

There are other online Meetings for Worship that are generally available to Quakers, unlimited by geography, if that would be of interest. Some of those are listed here.