Meeting Announcements

Links in announcements below are to webpages, not Zoom links.

From our Outreach Committee:

Sunday, June 18, 4:00 pm QUAKER QUEST at the Meetinghouse and on Zoom

Do you have a friend who doesn't know anything about Quakerism? Who wants to hear about Friends and experience Friends worship? The Outreach Committee will offer a Quaker Quest program on Sunday, June 18, from 4 to 5 PM, both at the Meetinghouse and on Zoom. Robert Foote and Gary Sandman will host the session.  The Quaker Quest will include Friends speaking about their faith, a time of worship and question-and-answers. 

For more on Quaker Quest, please go to https://quakerquest.org/. For questions about the June 18 program or the Zoom Link please contact Gary or email quakersroanoke@gmail.com.  

From the Religious Education Committee:

• Monday, June 12, 7:00 pm. Taking Personal Testimony a Step Deeper: Quakers don’t hold to creeds but they do have testimonies, a word vibrant with meaning for early Friends. Roanoke Friends will gather to take the concept of testimony a personal step deeper. (Zoom link in calendar above)  A single query will guide us:

"I would like my life to be a testimony to _________ . . . ."

• Monday June 26, 7:00 pm, Spiritual Journey Group Sharing:  (Zoom link in calendar above). Our focus will be on the spiritual journey, but it will include all who are present. Each is invited to share with those present why a particular individual has had an enormous impact on your life. Think of it as a chance to pass on to others something of this person's unquenchable spirit.

• Planning ahead, please let one of the Religious Education committee members (Charlie Finn, Susan Adams, or Judy Mott) know if you would like the opportunity to tell the story of your spirit journey on Monday July 24.

Help Our Meeting Be a WVTF-FM Day Sponsor: Many people in the Roanoke Quaker Meeting support WVTF-FM, the local NPR station, financially.  Our Outreach Committee would like to invite you to send your checks to the Meeting Assistant Treasurer.  Please make checks out to “Roanoke Quaker Meeting” and please earmark them as “WVTF-FM contribution”.  If we bundle together several checks, we can send them to WVTF-FM as one contribution and be listed as a sponsor of their programming.  We would get an online blurb, "This program is sponsored by the Roanoke Quaker Meeting", along with our website.  It's good outreach.  Please send checks to ​​Letty Collins, 8017 Goose Creek Valley, Montvale, VA 24122. (This is a correction from previous weeks; please send deposits and contributions to Letty Collins, not Otis Kenny.)

Monday, June 19 (3rd Monday), 6:30 pm, Quaker Reading Group, on Zoom. All are welcome. We are discussing the beginning 4 and 1/2 pages of John Woolman’s Journal Ch 10 (Moulton ed., pp. 155-159t). Woolman decides he needs to go to the West Indies, as a way to make some restitution for his part in the sale of a young Black man. He enters a time of great confusion. If you’d like a zoom link or a copy of the reading, contact Mike Heller.

Saturday, June 24, 8:00 am-2:00 pm, Groceries Not Guns: Roanoke’s third gun buyback is coming up soon. Our Quaker Meeting has a major role in this event Click Here for the Fundraiser Flyer. Click here for Advertisement Flyer.  We hope you get involved. We need financial donations and volunteers! Please mail donations to the dedicated PO box (not our usual donation address):  Roanoke Quaker Meeting, PO Box 4584, Roanoke, VA 24015; memo line: “Groceries Not Guns.” Thanks for your help! To volunteer or for more information, contact Mike Heller.

Wednesday, June 21, 6:00 pm, Quaker Solstice Celebration: Ces and I invite you to our Quaker Solstice Celebration – a potluck followed by our custom of sitting in the backyard, sharing readings and songs, thoughts and feelings, or simply sitting in the silence giving Thanks to the Divine Spirit and communing with the nature spirits. We ask that you park on either side of the median strip, keeping the roadway open for walking and for anyone needing to leave early. Feel free to drive up to the double gate if you or yours have a mobility problem. Also, if carrying your dish from the parking area is too much, you could drive up to the gate. Hope that you can come and enjoy the evening. Any questions, e-mail or call Herb Beskar.

Thursday, June 22, 7:00 pm, Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business on Zoom. (Link in Calendar above)  Note: date change due to the Solstice Celebration.

Lynchburg Friends Update: Quakers in Lynchburg have a change of venue. We continue to meet 1st and 3rd Sundays of the month, but at the Summit chapel at 1400 Enterprise Drive. The chapel is accessible with convenient parking, restaurants within walking distance, a place for potlucks. And a covered porch for conversation after Meeting. Y'all come! (Heidi Koring)

Books for the Roanoke City Jail: Our local Roanoke City Jail has a library and a librarian. Many of those held in the jail have not yet been tried (they’re on remand) but they may be held there for weeks or even months. Sue Williams is in contact with the jail’s librarian. The only reading materials currently available are those donated, usually used, whether paperback books or magazines. Sue will receive donations or even collect them and deliver them to the jail librarian. There are discussions to try to set up a way that our Peace & Social Justice Committee can donate money to enable the librarian to meet needs she sees or that inmates bring to her. Contact Sue Williams.

Shakespeare Play in Staunton: Could we gather a group to see a matinee this summer at the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton? We could carpool and afterward possibly have a bite to eat. We have 2 choices: Measure for Measure (Sun 7/2, Sat 7/8, Sun 7/9, Sun 7/23, Sat 8/12), and Much Ado About Nothing (Sat 8/5, Sun 8/13) (both excellent plays!). Tickets are roughly $30+ to $50+. If there are 10 people, we can get a group rate. If you are interested, please contact Judy Hopping.

From the Announcement Team:  Please send submissions to these announcements to quakersroanoke@gmail.com by Saturday to be included in Sunday’s announcements. 

Other Announcements:

School of the Spirit is now taking applications for its second version of Participating in God's Power. This year-long program, which starts in February, is an opportunity for Friends who hunger for a deeper spiritual connection to go deep with other Friends who share that hunger. For more information about this program you can click here and read all about it. Our Meeting has funds available to help Friends take courses like this.

The FGC Gathering is still open and you are invited.  The Gathering will be in-person at Western Oregon University, July 2nd - 8th.   Register Here.  For more information click here or go to the FGC website. 

FGC, Virtual Gathering "Listen so that we may Live" - July 2-8 - For those unable to travel to Monmouth, Oregon, there is an online option. Click the link above to register to receive all the Zoom links and for a detailed schedule. The schedule available is Bible Half Hour at 8 AM, Monday through Friday; Evening programs on M,W,F, and daily worship sharing with the same group each day. $100 donation  is suggested, however, it is “pay as you are led.” (Sharon Custer-Boggess)

Joys and Concerns, Prayer Requests, and Gratitude

Joys:

• Charlie Katz rang the bell at the Mayo Clinic on Tuesday!  He,  Zoe, and Calendula, the canine caregiver,  are delighted to be home in Blacksburg.

• Charlie Finn’s reunion with Jesuits.

• Granddaughter helping Betsy with her move and the delight of having her things here in Roanoke.

• Seeing Meade with us after her surgery.

• Susan’s opportunity rocking babies in the NICU and sitting with people who are in the palliative care unit. 

• Joyce & Robert’s grandson’s 4th birthday today.

Please Hold in the Light:

• Tony, Patsy, Heidi, and Robert’s young friend Johanna (from their School of the Spirit class) who is suffering from long COVID.

• Mike as he goes to Haverford College tomorrow to the Friends Association on Higher Education Conference where he will be giving a presentation called My West Point Reunion and Quaker Peacemaking.

• Susan’s friend who is dying of cancer. 

Gratitude:

• Meade’s successful surgery and the support she felt from the Meeting.

• For Charlie Brouwer’s sculpture and for Jenny Chapman for arranging it to be in our garden for all these weeks; Charlie is removing the sculpture on June 12, 1:00 pm.

• Jackie’s blessing of being able to return love to elderly parents that they've given her all her life.

• Kent’s successful surgery this past week.

Worship Opportunities:

• Saturday Quaker Worship at 10:30 am: All are welcome each Saturday at Highland Park, Alexander-Gish House, near the entrance to the parking lot on Walnut Avenue SW just off Fifth Street. Please bring a chair if you can.  

• Midweek Quaker Worship: the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays each month at 7:00 pm.  The next one will be Wednesday June 14 on Zoom (see link in calendar above).

• Worship on Zoom and In-Person continues every Sunday at 10:30: We are so pleased that we can continue to worship either on Zoom or in-person in the meetinghouse on Sunday mornings! Masks are no longer required. Unvaccinated participants are welcome and are encouraged to wear a mask. Masks are available in the Meetinghouse. Social distancing is recommended.

Shared at Worship, two quotes from James Finley:

“I will not lose faith with my awakened heart.”

“In your most childlike hour, your heart will not deceive you.”

Meeting Links: * Link to Roanoke Friends Meeting Website;  Facebook Page;  Facebook Group

Submitted by Patsy Martin and Mike Heller

Send submissions to quakersroanoke@gmail.com