January 28, 2018

MEETING SCHEDULE AND PROGRAM

TODAY

9:00 – 10:00 meeting for worship (unprogrammed): care of meeting, Renae Bonde; Doug Herron (mic)

10:15 – 11:00 Explore 160 years of Meeting history through the “Quaker section” at Lakewood Cemetery. Learn more about how current members’ end-of-life plans can include burial plots owned by the Meeting there. Linda Coffin presenting for the Death and Memorial Service Committee

11:15 – 12:15 meeting for worship (semi-programmed): Ellen Swanson, speaker; Dave Bostrom, musician; care of meeting, Joanne Esser; Kassie Madden (mic)

“…of all the courses in the university of life, the course in old age is the hardest, the one with the most lessons to learn. Your own generation is gone. You can no longer count on your intellect or your memory. Your hearing lets you down. You can’t keep track of things and you’re constantly misplacing them. But you learn so much. You learn to accept help and to remember with your heart.” Emilia Fogelklou, Northern Yearly Mtg Faith and Practice
 

Save the Meeting the cost of postage! If you made contributions to the Meeting in 2017 via check, stock transfer or direct deposit, your Annual Contribution Statement is now available. Please pick up yours by the elevator TODAY. Thank you!

Directory updates, cumulative since the 2015 photo directory, are also available today on the bulletin table.

UPCOMING MEETING EVENTS

Mid-Morning Program next Sun at 10:15: Hallowing One’s Diminishments. Diminishments can be our own physical ones or diminishments in those we love; the loss of a personal dream or the loss of the expected health of our society or Earth. All of these can be made holy – can be hallowed. Come explore. Based on a Pendle Hill pamphlet; brought forward by the Ministry and Counsel Committee. Pamphlet summary: quakerquickread.blogspot.com/2017/02/271-300.html . Scroll to #292.

You are welcome at the potluck next Sunday at the rise of semi-programmed worship! To regulars – bring lots so we feel confident encouraging visitors to stay. And remember to list your dish’s ingredients!

Loaves and Fishes: TOMORROW, MFM will help serve dinner to the people of the Phillips neighborhood at Holy Rosary Church, 2424 18th Av. S, Mpls. Please help if you have a few hours between 1:30pm and 7pm that day. Volunteers sign up for shifts: chopping veggies or prepping dessert fruit 1:30 4:30pm; serving food 4:45 6:30pm; clean up 5:30 7pm. Fresh fruit donations for dessert are needed, too.

OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL MEETING ATTENDERS AND MEMBERS TO INFORM THE MEETING’S FUTURE LEADERSHIP STRUCTURE, Sat, Feb 24th, from 9:30 – noon at the meetinghouse. Please participate to inform the meeting’s next steps around its leadership structure. AGENDA: The ad hoc Transition Committee will summarize the community’s experience since Oct 1, 2017. The Friends gathered will further reflect on the experience and discuss possible next steps. The ad hoc committee will bring forward options to the March monthly meeting for business. Questions? Reflections on your experience in the Meeting since October? Ideas for the Feb 24th agenda? Please contact someone from the ad hoc Transition Committee directly or leave a message on the Meeting office phone and someone will get back to you. Committee members are Tom, Roland, Maddi, Renae, Jeannette and Evelyn.

Want to learn more about Quakerism and being a Quaker? Ministry and Counsel and Welcoming and Outreach Committees are offering a four-session series in March on Sunday afternoons and repeated on Tuesday evenings. Sunday sessions will be at 1 pm on March 4, 11, 18 and 25. Tuesday sessions will be at 7 pm on March 6, 13, 20 and 27. All the sessions will be at the meetinghouse. Childcare provided. Details and more are in flyers on the table by the elevator Sign-up there too!

The Nominating Committee’s work identifying and asking people to serve on Meeting committees is underway! Please respond to phone calls and emails from Nominating Committee members. Serving on a committee is an excellent way to get to know others and to learn how the Meeting functions. Want to know more about what the committees are and what they do? Ask Nominating Committee members: Doug, Annamary, Gayle, or Ed. Thank you for your commitment to MFM.

Read Out of the Silence: Quaker Perspectives on Pastoral Care and Counseling at the Watson reading group Tues, Feb 13th at 7 PM in the conference room. No need to read ahead – we’ll read together! One-timers and regulars – everyone is welcome!

Mary and Stephen invite Friends to their home at Kenwood Isles, every Wed until Feb 28th, from 12-1 pm for lectio divina, worship sharing on a passage read together. Thirty minutes with passage; a light lunch following. RSVP to Mary.

Quaker Voluntary Service is entering the next phase! Minneapolis Meeting is nominating members to serve with other area Friends on the Local Support Committee, working with and supporting the QVS Mpls/St. Paul Quaker House and Fellows. Area Friends will also be matched to each Fellow as nurturers. If you are interested in either serving on the Local Support Committee or being a spiritual nurturer for a Fellow, or if you want to explore what other support you could offer QVS, save the weekend of Feb 10th when Mike Huber, national QVS Program Director, will meet with local Friends.
~ Sat, Feb 10, at 1:00, Mike will gather at Twin Cities Meeting with those interested in the spiritual nurture part of QVS
~ Sat, Feb 10, at 2:00, Mike will meet at TCFM with those interested in coordinating spiritual nurture for QVS Fellows
~ Sun, Feb 11, at about 12:15, Mike, the planned speaker at semi-prog worship, will talk with Friends about all QVS supporting roles at a simple potluck following semi-programmed worship here at Minneapolis Meeting.
Feel free to ask questions of or consider together how you can participate in supporting QVS by speaking with members of the working group – Tom, Carolyn, Judith, Lin, or Ed.

Donate furniture for Quaker Voluntary Service house! QVS has signed a lease to rent a house in Powderhorn Park for the QVS Fellows arriving in Sept. The house needs beds, couch(es), easy chairs, a dining room table and chairs, lamps, dishes, pots and pans, bedside tables, bookshelves, dressers, etc. Donations made now will help ensure a welcoming space for the Fellows and will also create a furnished apartment which can be rented until the QVS Fellows arrive, helping reduce the QVS cost of holding the space. Contact the meeting office with offers. Please send photos if possible.

The Joint Religious Legislative Coalition (the largest public interfaith interest group in MN) is having its Day on the Hill on Tuesday March 13. This is a chance to go to the State Capital and speak to your Congressional Representatives as a member of a faith community. MFM members and attenders have been participating in this event for many years. It is a half day agenda with a cost of $45. The Peace and Social Concerns Committee will sponsor an MFMer who wants to attend! If you are interested, contact Debbie or Roland. More information can be found at jrlc.org.

OTHER HAPPENINGS AMONG QUAKERS

Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) Lobbying Workshop: Learn how to positively influence our national and state legislators during a three-hour workshop, 1-4 p.m. on Sun, Feb 11th. A lobbying expert from FCNL in Washington, D.C. will lead the workshop for those interested from Minneapolis and Twin Cities Meetings. The goal is to identify and equip a cadre of people who will regularly visit with senators and representatives around issues of interest to Quakers. This workshop promises to reveal the most effective techniques and most productive uses of your limited time. Tell Doug if you are interested.

COMMUNITY EVENTS

Mayim Rabim is offering a follow-up class on Chosenness, Distinctiveness and Universalism this coming Tue, Jan 30, 7-8:30 here at the meetinghouse. Explore why Jewish chosenness was rejected and how this plays out in the prayers and writings of Reconstructionism. Rick and Carolyn attended the first class (a film premiere) and found it thought-provoking. The questions of distinctiveness, superiority, humility and universalism are relevant ones for Friends, too.

A new documentary film, The World Is My Country, is currently available, free, online. To see the film, visit theworldismycountry and enter the code: CGS2018.

Love to sing? Sign up to join the new Southwest Lakes Community Choir – a fun, non-auditioned, mixed choir that will sing a variety of styles and genres. SLCC will be led by Nathan Knoll, former director of Southwest High School’s choral program, who has 15 years of experience directing at the high school and college levels. Rehearsals will be held at the Minneapolis Friends Meetinghouse, 4401 York Ave. S, on Thursdays from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm, Feb 22 – May 17. There is a participation fee for music and expenses. Register online here.

The Division of Indian Work’s annual fundraiser, LEAP into Action: Feeding Families, Empowering Youth, will be held February 26, 2018 at the Metropolitan, 5418 Wayzata Blvd, Golden Valley. Live entertainment, silent auction, live auction, appetizers, cash bar. Proceeds raised during the evening will support food shelf costs. This is the food shelf that receives food donations brought to the meetinghouse. Click here for tickets.

OFFICE HOURS

Carolyn VandenDolder, the interim Meeting Coordinator, will be in the office Wednesday through Friday, 10:30-4:00. Phone messages are checked daily. Bulletin deadline, noon Thur. Bulletin items can be phoned in to the office, emailed, or written and put in the bulletin file of the blue box.