September 22, 2024

MEETING SCHEDULE AND PROGRAM

TODAY

9:00 – 10:00 meeting for worship (unprogrammed): care of meeting, Mike Finley; Zoom host – Stephen S.

10:15 – 11:00 guest speaker Paula Palmer will give an update on the work of Toward Right Relationship with Native Peoples (a program of Friends Peace Teams); hear how Friends in Minnesota are building relationships with Indigenous peoples; and share thoughts, concerns, and inspiration for building relationships based on truth, respect, justice, and our shared humanity. Zoom host – Stephen S.

11:15 – 12:15 meeting for worship (semi-programmed): Nettie Smith – speaker; Dave Bostrom – musician; care of meeting, Mary Gochnauer; Zoom host – Stephen S.

Email office(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)minneapolisfriends.org to get the link to this Sunday’s programming.

The reckoning is here
We live in a time of great peril and great possibility
We do not and cannot know what will emerge
As the future unfolds
We will act from the best parts of ourselves

~ The Quaking of America. An Embodied Guide to Navigating out Nation’s Upheaval
-by Resmaa Menakem

There are those in Meeting who are sensitive to the electromagnetic radiation emitted from cell phones. And there are those who wish to distance and remain masked, especially as COVID once again surges. In a spirit of care, Friends are invited to turn off cell phones rather than just silence them, and to avoid sitting unmasked

HOLD IN THE LIGHT

Those who are grieving and those suffering from injustice, conflict, racism, colonialism, displacement, loss, and the climate crisis, and all those who are aiding victims and the dispossessed.

NEWS FOR MINNEAPOLIS MEETING FRIENDS

Mid-Morning Program next Sunday at 10:15: a panel discussion on Spirituality Within the Creative Process and Arts . Members/attenders representing various artistic categories, including Jane Downes, Dave Bostrom, and Bill Hendricks, will speak to their experiences in this context.

Meetinghouse Clean-up Day! Windows, cobwebs and lights –Oh my! Just a few of the things that need cleaning each year. Add chairs, elevator, smudges, fingerprints on walls, and dust where you least suspect. Stay and help with this important annual task at the rise of worship Sun, Sept 29th. Cleaning even a few windows before you leave from home will make a difference in the work load! Cleaning supplies and snacks provided. Your Property Committee has been cleaning out crowded storage rooms and found a number of items unused since the turn-of-the-century! Check out the items in the elementary classroom. Anything left, we’ll post on Freecycle or just recycle.

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.

What a difference a warm smile and welcoming hello can make to someone arriving at the meetinghouse for the first time! Be the one to offer that first gesture of hospitality by volunteering to be a greeter before worship – both early and later. Contact Mary G.

Ministry and Counsel Committee (M&C) asks individuals who feel led to share a prepared message or a reading during semi-programmed worship, to contact Lolly L. or other members of M&C. M&C is also looking for closers for both worships. Serving as a closer is a ministry of service to the meeting.

Autumn is in the air! Mark your calendars for Fall Together October 26th! Make time to gather with Friends at beautiful Fish Lake Park to rest, relax, renew, re-connect and RELISH time together in the great outdoors! If you’re planning to come, please invite another Friend to come along! Personal invitations work best. Paper copies (orange) of the schedule are near the main meetingroom doors.

Loaves and Fishes, Sept 30th: Join other metro-area Friends, the Ismaili Community and the Mayim Rabim congregation to provide a meal at Holy Rosary Church in S Mpls, 2424 – 18th Ave S. Prepare dinner (2PM); pack up and hand out the meals (4PM) or serve meals and clean up (5:15.) Fruit donations needed. Email Sue K. to sign up for a shift or to arrange to drop off fruit. Volunteers wear hair covering/hats, closed-toe shoes; food is served to-go. Sign up to come if you can!

Contributions update: Contributions from April 1 to August 31 totaled $44,870.50. Thank you, Friends, for your generous financial support. Contributions of $10,933 per month, through March, are needed to meet the curtailed budget, ($132,335.) Contributions of $13,181 per month, through March, are needed to fund the aspirational budget, ($150,320.) If you would like to set up automatic contributions to the meeting, contact Mike Finley.

SMALL GROUP OPPORTUNITIES AT MINNEAPOLIS MEETING

Join the monthly “Conflict Soiree,” meeting on Zoom, Tues, Sept 24th, 2PM. This is an ongoing group, meeting on the fourth Tues afternoon. Drop-in’s are always welcome! We explore conflict and difference in our individual lives and in the meeting. We propose that becoming more skillful and comfortable with difference might cause us to be more authentic peacemakers everywhere we go. Contact Nettie S. for a Zoom link.

The Watson Reading Group meets on the fourth Tues of each month, 7-8:30PM via Zoom. We are taking turns reading aloud from Krista Tippet’s Becoming Wise with time for discussion. Most participants have a copy of the book available to them, but it is not mandatory. If you have interest in joining, please let John D. know.

Small group line-up: Writing Group – first Monday night; Getting to Know You Group – second Tuesday afternoon; Deep Inner Work of Racial Justice Group – second Tuesday night; Conflict Soiree – fourth Tuesday afternoon; Reading Group – fourth Tuesday night.

OPPORTUNITIES IN THE WIDER WORLD OF FRIENDS

Northern Yearly Meeting (NYM) Fall Interim Session will be Fri, Oct 25 (7-9PM) and Sat, Oct 26 (9AM-3PM) and held at Twin Cities Meeting, 1725 Grand Ave. Consider how you might participate in some of NYM, despite devoting Saturday to Fall Together! Interim sessions will be hybrid. Hospitality is needed for the folks who come here in person. If you can offer an overnight stay on Friday Oct. 25 and breakfast Sat. morning, contact TCFM Office Coordinator Mindy Keskinen, 651-699-6995 / office(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)tcfm.org.

Northern Yearly Meeting (NYM) Sept E-News link is here. October newsletter deadline for submissions is Sept 25. The NYM Journal is now available in a new blog format at https://journal.northernyearlymeeting.org/ (an editor is still needed). Three new entries are posted, including Kat Griffith’s plenary presentation from Annual Session, “Inward Guidance, Outward Action.”

The Water We Swim In, an online presentation by Barry Crossno, General Secretary of Friends General Conference, will be offered on Tues, Sept 24, 7-8:30PM(CT). Barry will speak about the social and economic changes and context affecting our meetings and possible ways to renew our spiritual communities. Register for the link at: https://www.fgcquaker.org/event/water24-fall2/?mc_cid=e4432c95dd&mc_eid=7be0cf1357

Friends General Conference Annual Gathering, A Spring Whose Waters Never Fail, will be February 1-9, online only. As of 2024, on-site Gatherings occur in even years while online Gatherings are held in odd years. Smaller, Young Adult & Youth (YAY) events are also held during odd years to offer continuity of programming for younger friends. All are welcome to attend the Gathering of Friends. Gathering attenders range from newborns to those in their 90s and include both long-time Friends (mostly from the unprogrammed, liberal tradition), and those newer to the Quaker faith. In structure, it’s part conference and part family camp. In content, it provides an abundance of opportunities to learn about Quakerism, foster spiritual life, and have fun. More at https://www.fgcquaker.org/fgcprograms/the-gathering/

Toward Right Relationship with Native Peoples – Roots of Injustice, Seeds of Change workshop: Experience the history of the colonization of Turtle Island, now known as the United States, told through the words of Indigenous leaders, European/American leaders, and Western historians. Engage with this history through experiential exercises and small group discussion. And consider how we can build relationships with Indigenous peoples based on truth, respect, justice, and our shared humanity. Facilitated by Toward Right Relationship’s Native and non-Native teams. Appropriate for high school students and adults. Sun, Sept 29th, 3-5PM(CT), REGISTER at https://friendspeaceteams.org/trr-workshop-sep-2024/

Palestine
* from American Friends Service Committee – urge Congress to demand a ceasefire and prevent the spread of war in the Middle East. As violence and death invades the West Bank and neighboring countries, Quakers need to continue to press for a ceasefire. Friends Committee on National Legislation action link: fcnl.quorum.us/campaign/51886
* join AFSC every Friday at 11AM for an Action Hour for a Cease-fire Now.
* worship with attention to peace in Palestine with Friends across the U.S. every Thurs, online, at 4:30PM. Sign up to get the link at https://afsc.org/events/meeting-worship-attention-peace-palestine-israel

Madison Meeting is hosting a screening – in person and online – of Where Olive Trees Weep: No One Is Free Until We Are All Free, Sat, Sept. 21, 7PM. The film offers a searing look at the struggles and resilience of the Palestinian people under Israeli occupation, exploring themes of loss, trauma, and the quest for justice, following a Palestinian journalist and therapist Ashira Darwish, grassroots activist Ahed Tamimi, and Israeli journalist Amira Hass. Click “Get Tickets” at https://kinema.com/events/where-olive-trees-weep-hjpxh. Tickets are free. Sponsored by the Interfaith Peace Working Group and the Peace Subcommittee of Madison Meeting.

OPPORTUNITIES IN THE WIDER COMMUNITY

Mayim Rabim will host its Israel Palestine Study Group, in person at the meetinghouse or via zoom on Sun, Sept 22, 5-7PM, https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83232415695?pwd=QnBGZlczbW9TVjkvZXN2akVGWXpUdz09; ID: 832 3241 5695, Passcode: 893290. View and discuss more of Rabbi Maurice Harris’s dual narrative approach to events between 1948 and 1967 as well as a separate commentary by Jonathan Kuttab, a noted Palestinian human rights lawyer. Links to all the study group’s resources are compiled here.

Friends are invited to Song Circle on Sat, Sept 21st, 5PM. Sing under the trees and picnic on the grassy area of the parkway facing Vincent Ave N between 26th and 27th Avenues N. Host, Jimbo L. Bring a snack or a dish to share, for after. Bring your own eating and serving utensils, and lawn chairs or blankets, your voice, song books (e.g., Rise Up Singing or Rise Again or your favorite.)

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).