Margery Post Abbott, Cherice Bock, and Gretchen Castle
Thursday, July 6, 2023
7pm PDT
Western Oregon University in Monmouth, OR
Our three speakers for the Thursday panel, Gretchen Castle, Dean of Earlham School of Religion, Cherice Bock who is a recorded minister and founding co-clerk of Sierra Cascades Yearly Meeting, and Margery Post Abbott, an author and Released Friend under the care of Multnomah Monthly Meeting, bring differing life experiences and engagement in varied traditions of Friends to a conversation on where we find life among Friends. We are all too conscious of the very human pull to find comfort and familiarity. Yet the world around us calls out urgently for commitment to listening in the depths for divine guidance and for the spark in every heart that can lead us to hope amidst the apparent chaos.
Margery Post Abbott
Marge is a released Friend whose ministry is held under the care of Multnomah Monthly Meeting. in Portland, Oregon. She served as Clerk of both the FCNL General and Executive Committees, and currently sits on the Board of Quaker Voluntary Service. She has traveled widely among Friends, led a variety of workshops and published numerous articles and books on Quaker faith and practice. Marge and her husband – Carl Abbott,– recently co-authored Quakerism: The Basics.
Cherice Bock
Cherice Bock grew up among Friends in Oregon and served as one of the founding co-clerks of the young Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting. As a leader with Oregon Interfaith Power & Light, her advanced degrees in theology and environmental studies prepared her to advocate and organize with people of faith, and to teach at the seminary and undergraduate levels. With Stephen Potthoff, she co-edited Quakers, Creation Care, and Sustainability, and she will soon release A Quaker Ecology: Meditations on the Future of Friends. Cherice and Christy Randazzo wrote Quakers, Ecology, and the Light, forthcoming in the Brill Research Perspectives in Quaker Studies series.
Learn more about Cherice’s work on her website http://chericebock.com.
Gretchen Castle
Gretchen Castle has served Quaker organizations for most of her career and has broad experience across the theological spectrum of Friends. For nine years, she served as General Secretary of the Friends World Committee for Consultation in London, England, traveling extensively among Quakers and representing Friends at the World Council of Churches, the Quaker United Nations Offices in New York and Geneva, and as chair of the Christian World Communions Conference of General Secretaries.
Gretchen served as presiding clerk of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, and has worked for Friends General Conference, Friends Services for the Aging, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, and Pendle Hill. She is a member of Doylestown Friend Meeting (PhYM) and is sojourning at First Friends Richmond (New Association). As a graduate of Earlham College and the current Dean of the Earlham School of Religion, Gretchen has returned to her Quaker roots in Richmond, Indiana.