FGC Connections

By Marsha Holliday As a home-away-from home, a meetinghouse can be a tremendous asset in working with Quaker youth. Your child’s first best move away from the family, however defined, is to your meetinghouse. In the safety and comfort of their own meetinghouse, even young children can cook dinner with their First Day School class,…

by David Morse Storrs Friends Meeting had been wishing for larger quarters- for the same reasons that prompt many meetings to expand. Our building was too small to accommodate large gatherings such as weddings and memorial services; it was unfriendly to children, and inaccessible to the handicapped. After years of mostly vague talk, we began…

Friends General Conference Young Quakes Conference at Catoctin Quaker Camp from October 9-11, 1999 was an overwhelming success. Comments on our evaluation forms concerning “What didn’t you like?” Had primarily to do with too much rain and mud. Comments about “What could have been improved?” reported “it could have been longer.” Out of 88 Friends…

Walking Gently Over the Earth at Penn Center by Penny Wright Walking Gently Over the Earth at Penn CenterPowder fine dun sandAlabaster chunks of shellsSlippery russet melange of pine needles and live oak leavesPrickly pitchy pine cones, semi gnawed by squirrelsScattered whisps of pretend-green Spanish mossHop scotch splotches of warm sunBaby breath breezes stirring the…

Reviewed by Peg and Nils Pearson A well researched and fascinating history of Quakers from the founding up to 1914, James Walvin looks primarily at the financial and business successes of Quakers, how they achieved it and what it brought with it. The book examines the role and influence that groups of Quakers came to…

by Deborah Fisch My mom has a habit of collecting little things for my sister and me and storing them in cardboard boxes until we come for a visit and can take them home. A typical box might include: old towels for cutting into rags, extra cans of food, treasures we or she saved when…

by Bill Graustein My present understanding of wealth and of the Light emerges from a combination of example and on the job training. I am a member of New Haven Meeting and my principal work in the world is to serve as trustee of a charitable foundation that seeks to improve elementary and preschool education…

by Diane Pasta I do not have an extravagant lifestyle. Nevertheless, I must be rich, since I own a home. Yet, owning a home seems to make me poor! I alternate between feeling stressed by my apparently inadequate income and blessed by the wealth that is mine. I am striving to engage in both perspectives…

by Nadine Hoover Between a Christian distrust of wealth and witnessing massive, commercial greed, it is no wonder we react to money in emotional and dissonant ways. Matthew 19:24 says it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of…

by Lucy Duncan The 1999 annual meeting of Quakers Uniting in Publications, held at Charney Manor April 22nd-25th, was spiritually and professionally refreshing. I found QUIP to be a remarkable model of Quaker process and collegial fellowship. From discussions of how to distribute the fund set aside to support publishing endeavors to colloquia on nurturing…

Deborah Fisch In the last six months I have visited several meetings within Friends General Conference. There is a great desire among Friends to feel more spiritually connected, to know what issues other meetings are laboring with and how they go about discerning what they as Friends are called to do. Our foremothers and fathers…

Bert Skellie & Adelaide Solomon-Jordan Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting and Association Atlanta Friends Meeting began a discussion group on the topic, “Our Role as Individuals in America’s (U.S.) Racial History,” in November 1997. Through discussions of readings, videos and other personal sharing, we have sought to understand our part in racial history and to support…