March 12, 2023

MEETING SCHEDULE AND PROGRAM

TODAY

9:00 – 9:40 meeting for worship (unprogrammed): care of meeting, Lin Butler; Zoom host – Rae Beth

9:45 – 11:15 monthly meeting for business: John Kraft, clerk; Tom Ward, recording clerk; Zoom host – Kate W-J

11:15 – 12:00 meeting for worship (semi-programmed): Paul Erickson – speaker; care of meeting, Linda Coffin; Zoom host – Kate W-J

Email office(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)minneapolisfriends.org by noon Friday for the link to Sunday morning worship and mid-morning program.

“To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of all.” ― William Shakespeare

“Our life is love, and peace, and tenderness; and bearing one with another, and forgiving one another, and not laying accusations one against another; but praying one for another, and helping one another up with a tender hand.” ― Isaac Penington, 1667

NEWS FOR MINNEAPOLIS MEETING FRIENDS

Mid-Morning Program next Sunday at 10:15: New Member Welcome. Come join in welcoming and celebrating new members. A casual reception will follow.

There is mid-week worship every Wed night, 7PM. Email office(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)minneapolisfriends.org by noon Wed for the link.

Join “Settlers Speak of Belonging to a Place,” an online conversation with Ranae Hanson, Derartu Berhanu, and Lina Nyaronge about leaving home, displacing others, settling in a place, belonging, longing, and acknowledging. March 23, 6:30 – 8PM(CT). Sponsored by Climate Land Leaders and others. More and register at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/settlers-speak-on-belonging-to-place-tickets-551722164847?fbclid=IwAR3No2Crku6lCQbQL41UjizeuEUQkl6HpEJpiT6BPZWtqybApqYr4FDFXm4

Quaker Voluntary Service Minneapolis/St. Paul is hosting a dance with live music and caller at Twin Cities Meeting, 1725 Grand Ave in St. Paul on Mar 25, 7-9PM. Come have a glass of cider or lemonade, enjoy the music and company, and join in the dancing as desired! No prior experience or partners are required. Contra or circle dances and maybe some square dancing as well. Inside shoes or slippers requested (to protect the wooden floor.) There will be an opportunity to donate to Quaker Voluntary Service, to meet the local QVS Fellows, staff, and local support committee, and to get updates about the program. Masks are and Covid tests prior to the event encouraged – stay home if you’re sick! Let’s have fun together and create some sweet memories!

Quaker Voluntary Service has two program Fridays each month. Could you provide a vegetarian lunch for three on April 14th or 28th? Sign up with Miranda, QVS Local Coordinator: miranda(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)quakervoluntaryservice.org. Also check with Miranda if you are interested in joining her and the two Fellows, Robie and Elsa, for the lunch you provide! THANK YOU, Friends, for this gesture of care and support.

Need to schedule a Zoom meeting for a committee meeting or Minneapolis Meeting activity? Please send a request, including date, time, and purpose to office(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)minneapolisfriends.org to have it set up.

SMALL GROUP OPPORTUNITIES AT MINNEAPOLIS MEETING

The Right Relationship with Indigenous People group will meet this coming Monday night, March 13th, at 7PM. Open to all interested, this group meets every second Monday night. Contact Rick or Carolyn for the link.

Come for thirty minutes of Lectio Divina and worship sharing at noon on Tuesdays. Hold a short reading from the Bible, Quaker, or other spiritual texts to see if and how it might speak to us today, followed by a time of worship-sharing. Contact Stephen for the link.

There’s a new Getting to Know You group which will meet via Zoom at 1PM on March 14th and every second Tues to share personal stories. Contact Kate W-J for this month’s story prompt and link.

A new Spirituality in Dance and Movement group will have its first gathering at the meetinghouse on March 28th at 1PM. Those interested in moving and those who are interested but uncomfortable with movement, yet, are welcome. Contact Ellen for more.

The Watson Reading Group will meet on Feb 28th and every fourth Tues of the month, 7-8:30PM via Zoom. We are taking turns reading aloud from Karen Armstrong’s Sacred Nature, saving the last half hour for discussion and a brief meditation. Participants should have a copy of the book available to them. If you have interest in joining and have not expressed it already, please let John D. know.

OPPORTUNITIES IN THE WIDER WORLD OF FRIENDS

VOLUNTEER

Be the change! Friends for a NonViolent World is fueled by volunteers. If you are are eager to use your skills and networks to build a nonviolent world, there is still time to apply to join the FNVW Board of Directors! Contact board(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)fnvw.org to discuss this opportunity.

Friends for a NonViolent World warmly invites Friends to its annual meeting on Sat, Apr 1st, 9AM-noon. Come celebrate FNVW’s 2022 accomplishments, learn about plans for the future, welcome new board members and greet old Friends! Breakfast and door prizes for those who come in-person – Twin Cities Meeting, 1725 Grand Ave, St. Paul! Can’t be there in person? Join via Zoom – https://default.salsalabs.org/Taae9b73e-dcef-4583-a844-5e092b798e1c/b2dba806-8d6b-4084-9ed3-ac3e130b83ae; ID: 840 8245 2330; Passcode: 894621

Friends School of MN Plant Sale Volunteer Sign Up has started! The Friends School Plant Sale (the largest in the country!) is an incredibly important part of school life and a very important fundraiser. It takes over a thousand volunteers to make the plant sale happen. Volunteers come from all over the Twin Cities to perform jobs at all skill levels. For more and to sign up to help, click here. And remember – volunteers get to shop first! Not ready to commit to getting over to St. Paul? Thousands of newspaper plastic sleeves are needed for the bulbs sale. Bring yours to the collection box at the meetinghouse. And, if you are willing, collect strawberry / tomato boxes the next time you go grocery shopping. Hold on to them at home and we’ll let you know when you can drop them at school in May!

The Northern Yearly Meeting Journal is published 2-3 times/year. Friends are encouraged to submit creative artistic work and writing, including personal reflections and articles about your work and experiences as Quakers to nymjournal(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)gmail.com. Submission deadline for the Spring Issue is March 31st. The NYM Journal is available on the Northern Yearly Meeting Website at About > Publications.

WORKSHOPS, FILMS, RETREATS, PROGRAMS, PRESENTATIONS

Quaker Earthcare Witness will offer a workshop on Quaker Ecology with Cherice Bock, Tues, March 14th, 6PM (CT) Quaker ecotheologian, Cherice Bock will speak about her new book, A Quaker Ecology: Meditations on the Future of Friends. Climate justice can no longer be ignored if we want to have a healthy planet to live on and if we want to participate in the heart of the justice movements of the twenty-first century. Learn more and register at https://bit.ly/3JapIyQ

Friends Peace Teams will offer a slide presentation, Indian Boarding Schools and Multigenerational Trauma, on Tues, March 14th, 7–8:15PM (CT). Register at https://friendspeaceteams.org/upcoming-events/

The Black Quaker Project is sponsoring the Black Quaker Lives Matter Film Festival and Forum, through April 8. Films will be shown online, followed by commentary and discussion, every other Sat afternoon at noon (CT). Registration required, in advance, for each film to receive the Zoom link. Next up: Benjamin Banneker: The Man Who Loved the Stars (1981) on Sat, March 18th. Banneker was an early African American Scholar-Activist. Register at this link .

Friends for a NonViolent World has been invited to lead a mini-Alternatives to Violence session at the Changemakers Alliance event, Bodily Autonomy. Come get a taste of AVP while learning collective actions we can take to reduce gender-based violence – domestic violence, rape, and sex trafficking. Sat, March 25th, 10AM-3PM, First Unitarian Society of Mpls, 900 Mt Curve Ave. Find out more here. To register, click here.

Quaker Youth Retreat at Scattergood Friends School, April 14-16! This will be a great opportunity for rising 8th-12th graders who want to visit Scattergood for a weekend aimed at service, leadership, and finding one’s voice. This is a free event; limited lodging/meals for drivers. For more information, contact: Sadie at skirschenman(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)scattergood.org.

The first annual Quaker Leadership Conference will be April 27-29 at Earlham in Richmond, IN. Gather to share, listen, learn, and discern how God is working through us and among us and how we might contribute to a vital future for the Religious Society of Friends. Quaker leaders under the age of 40 are eligible for a discount code. For more, see https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1st-annual-quaker-leadership-center-conference-tickets-548018276417

School of the Spirit will offer a Contemplative Retreat, Reconnecting With the Divine in One Another, at the Siena Center in Racine, WI, April 27-30. Come experience the distinctly Quaker manner of knowing contemplation in community. There will be time for individual prayer, reflection, rest, and walks as well as times for worship sharing in small groups and opportunity to meet one-on-one with a retreat leader. More information, including the flexible fee structure and the registration info, is available on the retreat website. Early registration recommended.

Friends for a NonViolent World’s Everyday Nonviolence Podcast explores The Six Principles of Kingian Nonviolence, Then and Now. The gains made by the Civil Rights Movement under Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s leadership demonstrates what can be accomplished through strategic nonviolent action. But how much do we really know about MLK and the nonviolent activism of the Civil Rights Movement? How do we continue to move King’s vision forward in our world today? Explore the moral values and beliefs that guided MLK’s life and activism. Each short episode in this series features one of the six Principles of Kingian Nonviolence and includes queries for further reflection. This series is hosted by Jarren Peterson Dean and produced by Leah Robshaw Robinson, with audio engineering by P.J. Hoffman. Link here.

The 2023 Friends General Conference Gathering, Listen So That We May LIVE, will be July 2-8 at Western Oregon University in Monmouth, OR. Plenaries will be hybrid. FFI, see fgcquaker.org/fgcprograms/the-gathering/

Save the date for Friends for a NonViolent World’s People Camp, “Caring for Our Future,” Aug 6-12, Northern Pines Retreat Center, Park Rapids, MN. Registration is now open and discounted $40 until May 31. Link is here.

OPPORTUNITIES IN THE WIDER COMMUNITY

The Joint Religious Legislative Coalition’s Day on the Hill is March 29, 6:30 – 8:45PM, online and March 30. The program this year will be focused on homelessness in our state and advocating for HF1872, the Sacred Settlements bill. Register to attend a virtual issue brief and advocacy training program, then schedule an advocacy appointment for March 30 by contacting your legislators. Minneapolis Meeting is a member of JLRC.

The Muslim American Society of Minnesota and Minnesota Council of Churches have built relationships, reduced Islamophobia, and fostered conversations between people of different faiths through Taking Heart Ramadan Iftars. During Ramadan you are invited to an open house at a mosque where you can witness prayer, learn about your neighbors and enjoy a fast-breaking meal. Sign up to attend a Taking Heart Iftar.

OFFICE HOURS

The Meeting Coordinator, will be in the office Wed – Fri afternoons. Phone messages checked daily; email checked W-F. Bulletin deadline, noon Thur. Bulletin items can be phoned in to the office (612-926-6159) or emailed (office(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)minneapolisfriends.org).