Concord Quarterly News
Intergenerational Meetings: A Pathway to Strengthen our Beloved Community
I see intergenerational meetings not only inclusive across ages — but inclusive of all in the community. — Rachel Ishmail, parent of Kindergartener
We love intergenerational meeting! — Domi Waldron, parent of Kindergartener
At our upcoming Quarterly Meeting, members and attenders of Concord Quarter will be given an opportunity to strengthen the spiritual life of our eight interconnected meetings through the practice of intergenerational meeting for worship, which we have been using at Westtown Meeting. For almost twenty years, Melinda Wenner Bradley, Director of Program and Religious Life for Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, has researched, written, trained teachers, and shared this concept with her own meeting in West Chester. During that time, she has co-created and shared Faith & Play™, a Quaker approach to Godly Play®, a collection of stories and a particular method for sharing those stories developed by Episcopal priest Jerome Berryman, with Friends and others everywhere! Faith & Play Stories and Philadelphia Yearly Meeting have given us a gift!
Two of us at Westtown Meeting participated in Playing in the Light training in the fall of 2022. We spent a few Sunday afternoons virtually and a weekend together at Powell House to learn the concepts, interact with the materials, watch stories modeled by Melinda, and practice in small groups. In the end, each of us led the entire group through a story we chose. You may well have been present at Quarterly Meeting last January when Melinda introduced intergenerational worship to us through the use of a Faith & Play story to start our Meeting for Worship. Our Meeting wants to share with you how we have implemented this experience into our Meeting for Worship. We hope you can take this idea, share it with existing families, and use it to reach out to others perhaps by bringing in a grandchild or two, or bringing in a family, or including someone nearby who has a special need.
Below are the reflections of a few of our Westtown members and attenders. Let their stories speak to you. Wonder how we might in our Meetings strengthen each other and all spiritually using this experience. Intergenerational Meetings allow us a pathway to be with all in worship, know God’s presence deeply, and gently touch all.
Parent
Even though my daughter loves being with her friends and teacher Abigail while mom is centering, Antoinette loves more doing big girl things with mom. It gives her a sense of inclusiveness. This inclusiveness isn’t solely inclusiveness of all ages. I recall during an intergenerational meeting for worship a beautiful young lady with Down Syndrome was moved to speak. Her testimony included that she wouldn’t have felt moved to speak at any other meeting for worship — just the intergenerational meeting for worship. I often ponder why this person, who is not a child but has a disability, felt more at ease to give testimony at an intergenerational meeting. I see intergenerational meetings not only inclusive across ages — but inclusive of all in the community.
Parent of two children
We have younger kids. At this stage of our lives, it is hard to think of ourselves as individuals, or even as a couple. The meeting acknowledges this explicitly with planning, resources, and abundant acceptance of our needs and limitations as a family unit, as children and as parents. They serve that of God in all of us, big and small. It’s playing the “long game,” for the Meeting as well as for us. And more broadly, for our gathering and spirituality to be meaningful to all of God’s children — the whole spectrum of humanity in terms of skin tone, language, physical/mental/emotional ability, age, income bracket, gender etc. A great place to begin is with those already among us who are often confused by or maybe mildly resistant to our weekly hours together.
We are so grateful for the Meeting’s evident loving commitment to our families; their hard work and patience is a gift given with foresight and contagious optimism. We have enjoyed the intergenerational meetings. In particular, the story element and the activities on the floor help keep the kids engaged and quiet. The quiet time in spiritual space with the activities sets kids up to succeed in remaining silent. The invitation for a short sharing from the children, I think, is a mutual benefit for adults and children feeling they are in community and known by others.
Teacher & Parent of teenagers
In intergenerational worship, we love seeing our whole Meeting gathered together for all of worship. We can see how our youngest members are growing, and we can support parents and children as they explore meeting for worship and our Meeting community. Members and attenders of all ages enjoy interacting with the quiet materials that are available. Allowing a space where it is ok to move around brings life to our worship. Friends of all ages often share something about the story or something they are wondering during worship. It is a joy to hear Spirit rise through our youngest friends, and so wonderful for children to also share messages.
Parent of adult children
When we are intentionally intergenerational, I see Spirit move. The ebb and flow of attention, movement and occasional vocal ministry opens my centering and contemplation to important observations and reflections that I don’t access as easily among only adult Friends. I feel this type of gathering nurtures the sense of belonging for the younger Friends. These interactions, even at a distance through Zoom, allow us to become more aware of each other, seeing our natural personalities. This is important over time because it lays the groundwork for connection as we all age. This time together helps a young friend to experience Spirit firsthand and with all members of their community. Over time a young Friend may pick an older Friend to become a Friendly Adult Presence in their life. This type of Meeting can provide the early basis for those future relationships. We enrich each other and that is reason enough to foster this intergenerational experience.
Teacher & Parent of adult children
There is a quote that says something like, “the strength of a nation lies in its youth.” This quote comes to mind during our intergenerational meetings. These special worship gatherings are a time for our Meeting to focus on youth: to nurture them and to plant seeds of faith, kindness, and mindfulness in their hearts. This also teaches children they are valued and respected by a community, which will fortify them as they grow up. In turn, they will do the same for their younger generation. Youth are the hope for the strength of our Meeting.
Teacher of Children’s Meeting
I believe it is a wonderful tool and resource that encourages the community to witness the Spirit together. I appreciate how it is inclusive of everyone. The exploratory and interactive aspect of the process has captured my heart the most.
PYM Annual Sessions – July 2023
Annual Sessions were held online on July 26 - 27 and met jointly in-person/hybrid at The College of New Jersey, July 28 - 30. The theme of the sessions was “Living with our Neighbors: Growing into Beloved Community.” The Sessions offered joint worship each day, several keynote speakers, meeting for business sessions, morning Bible Study, a program for Young Friends and another program for youth and children. Three epistles were created from the Sessions that are well worth reading and can be found at https://www.pym.org/sessions/
Meeting in-person after Covid was very meaningful for those present. The informal interactions between the meetings afforded participants a chance to get reacquainted with old friends and meet others for the first time.
A keynote address by Jeanne Elberfeld was an inquiry into how Friends might use the science of stress and safety to cultivate and nurture our Quaker Communities. She explored how the brain works through the lens of neuroscience. She postulated that a prerequisite for a gathered, beloved community is safety, belonging, and connection. She indicated that scientific methods of helping people deal with trauma and stress are productive avenues of exploration for Friends communities. She discussed how we can make Meetings safe for everyone. She examined the five elements to nurture others are 1. expressing care by listening and encouraging, 2. challenge growth by expecting the best, 3. provide support, 4. share power, 5. expand possibilities.
Meeting for Business Sessions covered three important themes.
There was a corporate witness session on addressing racism presented by the Addressing Racism Collaborative. Some upbeat experiences of three Monthly Meetings that have forged a partnership with three separate African American churches were shared. The presentation explained how each of the three Meetings established contact and elaborated some of the joint activities made possible by the associations. See Website: https://www.pym.org/addressing-racism-collaborative/ and report: https://www.pym.org/sessions/advance-documents/
The PYM Session on climate change was presented by the PYM Eco-Justice Collaborative. It focused on what individual meetings can do. The committee presented a Playbook on climate action to go carbon neutral. The session drew on the experiences of Meetings that are working to become carbon neutral. See report at www.pym.org/sessions/advance-documents/
General Secretary Christie Duncan-Tessmer gave an overview of the updated computer-based resources that PYM offers. She highlighted the new on-line skills registry as well as other on-line resources.
Fall Continuing Sessions (hybrid) will convene pm Saturday, 11/11 and will include worship, community, youth programs and yearly meeting’s business. The program on living into our spiritual gifts will be in person at Arch Street Meeting House in Philadelphia.
Right Relationship with the Lenape: Year One
Hè! (Lenape for hello; pronounced like “hey”). On September 18, 2022, meeting for worship at Birmingham began for the first time with a land acknowledgment. Our working group had established our commitment toward relationship with the Lenni-Lenape, the original people of this land and a people who still live among us. That day’s opening exercise was a recognition that a land acknowledgment was just the beginning. Taking action was our ultimate goal. A relationship is by definition a state of engagement between two people or parties. It was time to turn our attention from book readings and article sharing to hearing Lenape people.
Our first presenters, from the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania, drew the largest crowd the meetinghouse had seen since the pandemic. It was joyous. Adam Waterbear DePaul, Chief of Education and Tribal Storykeeper, and Shelley DePaul, Director of Language and Treaty Liaison, shared their experiences as descendants and scholars of Lenape who in the 19th century married into the German farming communities of the area. These Lenape who stayed behind lost their national tribal identity, but they passed aspects of indigenous knowledge and beliefs to their children through the generations.
We also learned, albeit belatedly and unexpectedly, about the controversy over the Lenape Nation of PA. Given that there is no proof of lineage in the federal tribal records, the legitimacy of the Lenape Nation of PA and its members is challenged by federally recognized tribal nations and allies. Indigenous identity is especially contentious in Pennsylvania, which does not recognize any native American tribes in the state, unlike its neighbors New Jersey and Delaware, which do recognize that some remained and grant state privileges accordingly. The difficult conversations within the Quaker community precipitated by our hosting of the DePauls served as a reminder of how little we know about Lenape affairs. The westward removal of Lenape far beyond their homelands to Oklahoma and Wisconsin does not change the necessity of our getting close to them and their stories. Our payment of honorariums was a choice of material support going to one tribal nation and not another. It was a lot to think about.
Our second set of speakers were Gail Melix and Paula Palmer, co-facilitator and co-director, respectively, of Toward Right Relationship with Native Peoples, a program of Friends Peace Teams. Paula’s research on Quaker Indigenous Boarding Schools has become the foundation for workshops nationwide to invite Quaker meetings and schools to learn and process the uncomfortable truths of Quakers’ involvement in the cultural genocide of native peoples. Gail, who hails from Massachusetts, is an enrolled member of the Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe of Plymouth and a member of Sandwich Friends Meeting. They joined us for meeting for worship and then a conversation about their experiences navigating Quaker history and indigenous identity. Paula and Gail provided depth and perspective about the controversy above. We learned that the messiness of identity politics confounding us was commonplace. Gail and Paula’s kind encouragement reassured us to follow our leading.
Finally, we are excited and honored to host a virtual presentation with Curtis Zunigha this coming October. He will present on Forced Removals of the Lenape: The Original People. Mr. Zunigha is an enrolled member of one of the three federally recognized tribes: the Delaware Tribe of Indians in Oklahoma. He is also co-founder and co-director of the Lenape Center in New York. A specialist in Delaware/Lenape culture, language, and traditional practices, Mr. Zunigha is a long-anticipated speaker of the working group. We hope you will join us for his presentation. (Editor’s note: See Calendar on Page 4 for date and time.)
Land Stewardship & a Mexican Cloud Forest
The cloud forest is a magical place. It is both the most diverse and the most endangered eco-system in the world. While only .8% of the land area in Mexico is cloud forest, there are 2,500 plus plants that prefer this eco-system. It is an essential habitat for many migratory birds we enjoy here. Due to land cover changes, illegal logging and cattle grazing, the cloud forest is endangered. The conservation and restoration of cloud forests are extremely important to support biodiversity and to ensure water quality, water availability and flood mitigation.
So, how did two Concord Quarter Quaker educators end up doing reforestation work in the cloud forest of Mexico? Having heard about the amazing work being done by a young couple, Ricardo and Tania Romero we visited the Romeros at their project, called Las Canadas, in 2003. The visit was life changing. Their 600-acre cattle ranch had no amenities, but it possessed a rare fragment of intact cloud forest. It led them to replace their cattle with a small dairy herd to stop any further ecological damage. They then radically changed their lifestyle to reflect what they understood about climate change and threats to biodiversity. Through workshops and apprenticeship programs, they had invited others into a process of sustainable agro-ecology. They committed most of their lands to a first of its kind land conservancy in Mexico. We saw in them that Quaker impulse to align with the truth — by acting on our broken relationship with the natural world. It prompted us to consider how we could take that relationship just as seriously. What actions were we willing to do to heal our relationship to the cloud forest?
In 2003, we brought the first of many groups of high school and college students to experience a Quaker environmental leadership workcamp in collaboration with the Romeros. That led us to experience a great opening to be of service to this habitat. Ricardo informed us that his neighbor wanted to sell 250 acres of degraded land with only a fraction of cloud forest remaining. We were led to take this next step of buying the land without really knowing what we were getting into. We named the project Las Bellotas or the “Acorns” after both the endangered oaks found on the property and the symbolism of new life from acorns.
Our first step was to get guidance. We turned to the National Institute of Ecology in nearby Jalapa where their faculty introduced us to restoration ecology, a process of assisting in the recuperation of an ecosystem that has been degraded or destroyed. We gained a knowledge of what a healthy cloud forest look like. We were fortunate to have several legacy tree species which had not been logged. In addition, we had a healthy ecosystem in our neighbor, Las Canadas, whose restoration work was years ahead of us.
With so much land degraded by grazing, we started with active restoration because this land needed a jump start! Our first steps were to collect seeds from the remaining mature trees and start a nursery. We received financial help from a Mexican foundation that we used to purchase native tree species. In 2005, we planted 27 tree varieties and 10,000 trees. In 2006, we focused on 17 varieties and planted 10,809 trees. In 2007-9, we planted 30 varieties (including shrub layer plants) and a total of 17,804 saplings. We continued to plant at a slower rate over the next 10 years. Not all the 40,000 saplings survived! Our challenges were ants, mice and larger rodents, unexpected killing frosts and the exotic grasses that had been planted for cattle. For some trees and in some years, we faced high mortality rates.
Once the active phase was underway, we selected areas for passive regeneration. In these areas, we let nature take its course. In some of these areas the bracken took over, but in others we saw resilience.
This year we are celebrating our 20th anniversary of our relationship with this patch of cloud forest. You can see the contrast between the aerial photo from 2003 and the more recent one. We have met our first goal to stop doing harm. We have assisted in the recuperation of an ecosystem. Our biologist colleagues who measure our progress have seen an increase in birds, reptiles, amphibians and most recently mammals including the jaguarundi and foxes.
In May of 2023, we were awarded the designation of an ecological reserve by the state of Veracruz, a small step toward the international goals set by the 2022 UN Biodiversity Conference, to reverse the destruction of nature. Just as we were inspired by the Romeros, we hope other Friends will be led to follow our example on their own properties or to support us as we expand our restoration work. If you want to learn more about our project watch this Google Drive video. If you would like to contribute to our project, please visit our GoFund Me site: www.gofundme.com/f/restoring-the-cloud-forest-and-ourselves. If you would be interested in visiting the project, please be in touch!
Completing the Circle – Traveling as an Elder in England
“All along the way there has been God's Grace. Matt and I started out as, ‘father and son,’ and now we are like brothers.” — Journal entry, September 8th, 2023.
I met Matt Rosen at Pendle Hill. He was there for the spring term, 2023. He was totally different from what I had expected. As a philosophy major, coming from Oxford University, and as the Cadbury Scholar, I assumed he would be highly intellectual, very aloof, and difficult for me to make connections with. Instead, I met a young man who had a strong intellectual gift, but was clearly following his heart as well, and he had two feet firmly on the ground. As it turned out, our faith journeys were very similar, despite our age difference (4 decades!) and we soon became close friends.
We were both brought up in suburban Quaker Meetings, even in the same Quarter! We both struggled as youth, trying to understand the Quaker meeting for worship and in the process not finding the strength within ourselves to be, “good Quakers.” We both left Quakers looking for answers elsewhere. We were both totally turned off by religion and found it empty and meaningless. We were both spoken to deeply within by a Power greater than our own. Both of us were drawn to read early Quaker writings and found real Life and Hope in them. Both of us were “convinced” deeply by an experience of Jesus as our Living Teacher, within us, and among us. We both returned to Friends to try to share our experiences and call Friends to connect to the vital faith in our roots. Pretty amazing. I was gobsmacked!
Matt and I visited the Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College. He was working on a paper about Quaker “convincement:” what it means, and how it relates to membership. I suggested we take a break and explore the new cafeteria building. As we were looking around, a staff member came up to greet us and asked if we were enjoying our visit. He clearly thought that we were a father and son, looking at Swarthmore on a college tour. From that point on at Pendle Hill, Matt was referred to as my son. My wife, Verona, also “adopted” Matt. He quickly became a part of our family.
It was hard to say goodbye (after six weeks) when Matt left to go back to Oxford. Not long afterwards, an unexpected email arrived saying that Matt was, “feeling called to travel in the ministry” and visit meetings in the Oxford area. I shared the email with Verona and she said, “You have to go!” Friends at Middletown Meeting agreed, and some of them even offered financial support for the trip. So, with some trepidation, I wrote back and asked Matt if he had a traveling companion (elder) to go with him. I told him that I might know someone who is interested. He wrote back encouraging me to come.
This began a journey together that provided an extraordinary opportunity for us both. It helped me to close a circle. I had been called to travel in the ministry among Friends as a young man (around Matt’s age) and didn't know what this meant or how to proceed. Some older friends had encouraged me and traveled with me to help me find my way. Now I could do this for Matt. Coincidence? To me it felt like it was a gift from a Divine Hand, something I had never planned or anticipated.
We traveled to six Meetings together, often spending the night in the home of our host Friends. This allowed for good informal conversations and opportunities to learn about the joys and concerns of each Meeting. As we traveled together, I was given the Grace to encourage and support Matt in many ways. As he grew into his calling, I also grew in my understanding and experience of what it means to be an elder.
I encouraged Matt to look for additional opportunities outside of meeting for worship where he could speak for longer periods of time. I suggested that he make sure his heart had been fully cleared and to ask for questions and responses afterwards. He first tried this at Jordan’s Meeting, in a small village outside of London.
Matt started by speaking of his own “convincement” experience. Then he spoke about his work with the Oxford Young Friends. He finished by speaking about his experience of yielding to, and following a leading “to travel in the ministry among Friends.” The first person to respond after Matt spoke said that he had never heard such a clear and deep explanation of the Quaker faith. He was clearly moved. Others also expressed their appreciation. By sharing from his heart, Matt opened the door for Friends to have deep conversations about their faith.
As I write this, Matt is continuing to travel, accompanied by other friends, carrying a message of Light and Hope. If you want to hear Matt speak, you can register for his Pendle Hill Monday Night Lecture, November 6th, 2023. The link is listed below.
pendlehill.org/events/awakening-the-witness-convincement-and-belonging-in-quaker-community/
Chris will be speaking here on Oct. 1: https://cropwellquakers.org/october-1-chris-stern/