by Diane Bowden | Mar 6, 2025 | Uncategorized
Peace and Social Concerns will host a fundraising luncheon at the rise of Meeting for Worship on First Day/Sunday, April 6 to benefit the Ramallah Friends School (RFS) in Palestine's West Bank. Guest speakers are Betsy Brinson, a member of Richmond Friends Meeting now living in Chapel Hill NC, and Faedah Totah Ph.D., an Associate Professor at VCU's School of World Studies, coordinator of the International Studies Program, and mentor to the VCU Students for Justice in Palestine. Betsy and her husband Gordon Davies lived in Ramallah for two years (2009-2011) while working on a definitive history of the Ramallah
Friends School, which traces its Quaker roots to 1869. Faedah is a 1984 graduate of Ramallah Friends School and a sociocultural anthropologist who teaches courses in globalization, development, urbanism, and the Middle East.
Betsy will speak on the current plight of the Ramallah Friends School, where emergency tuition assistance is needed to assist families at risk of leaving the school community due to the 60-80% unemployment levels in Palestine. Faedah will provide additional context about the wartime conditions across Palestine that threaten the present and future educational infrastructure.
Bring your checkbooks! If you cannot attend but are led to contribute, send contributions to Friends United
Meeting, 101 Quaker Hill Drive, Richmond IN 47374 and note Ramallah Friends School in the memo line.
P.S. For F/friends living at Westminster Canterbury Richmond, Betsy will visit there on Saturday, April 5 at 10
am in the Jaqueline Room and provide an update on the conditions and needs of Ramallah Friends School and
how you can help. To donate online to RFS: https://www.rfs.edu.ps/en/page/donate
by Diane Bowden | Feb 25, 2025 | Baltimore Yearly Meeting, Clerk’s Business
February 24, 2025
Judge Theodore Chuang has blocked the Department of Homeland Security from conducting enforcement actions (raids, arrests) "in or near any place of worship" associated with our lawsuit. This is a temporary block and is specific to the places of worship that filed our case. Nevertheless, we can be hopeful that similar cases will also be successful. Read the press release from Democracy Forward.
by Diane Bowden | Feb 17, 2025 | Activity, Adult Spiritual Education, Vocal Ministry
All of us have struggled with whether to stand up and give a message during Meeting for Worship. The Adult Spiritual Education (ASE) Committee is sponsoring a workshop to help us think about this struggle, by using the pamphlet, "On Vocal Ministry" by Barry Crossno and J. Brent Bell, which is available free to anybody who wants one. Here are two paragraphs to get you started:
Vocal ministry is a spiritual practice. That’s fortunate because, as with any practice, there is a body of knowledge and experience to turn to. In this pamphlet, we’ll lay out some principles found in that body of knowledge which can guide Friends in giving vital vocal ministry. By “vital vocal ministry” we mean messages that take the community of faith deeper into what is helpful, loving, challenging, and timeless. As George Fox said, “Friends, meet together and know one another in that which is eternal, which as before the world was.”
Meeting for worship is at the heart of Quaker faith and practice. Although our personal direct experience of the Divine is central to our individual spiritual lives, it is in communal worship that we gather together to hear the Voice that has spoken through the generations and still speaks today.
Copies of the Pendle Hill Pamphlet #460 are available in the RFM worship room foyers.
To reach as many people as possible, we are offering two similar workshop sessions:
- In person in the community room, Sunday, March 30, 9:30 am - 10:45 am
- On Zoom, Saturday, April 5, 10 am - 11:15 am
During both sessions we will be discussing the same questions which can be found at the end of the pamphlet, "On Vocal Ministry". Childcare is available on Sunday, March 30th at 9:15 am. Contact Monica Shaw with questions or concerns.
by Diane Bowden | Feb 17, 2025 | Fundraiser, Peace and Social Concerns
Peace & Social Concerns Committee invites you to lunch on March 9, a fundraising event at rise of meeting to benefit ...
...The Healing Place, a long-term, peer-driven residential recovery program that helps individuals struggling with substance use disorders. It offers services 24/7/365 at no cost. The men’s program is the longest-running of such programs in the region, now 20 years, and has recovery rates that rival those of expensive private facilities. The women’s program opened in late 2020 to provide a similar long-term addiction recovery program for women in metro Richmond.
Here are a few ways our residents demonstrate success after their time at The Healing Place:
- 765 men and women found recovery and hope at The Healing Place in 2021.
- Nearly 70% of our alumni are sober after one year of completing the program.
- Participants find jobs within one month of completing the workforce development component of the program.
- An efficient and effective program model allows us to house and provides recovery services to one person for only $17 a day, compared to $500 a day for a night in traditional medical detox.
A representative from the Healing Place will give a brief presentation at the luncheon, and be available to answer your questions after. Lunch is provided by the Peace & Social Concerns Committee. You just bring you appetite and checkbook!! That’s ... First Day March 9 at Rise of Meeting.
by Diane Bowden | Feb 17, 2025 | Announcement
Alice Paul and The Fight for Women's Rights, by Deborah Kops
- A narrative with details that help to show the atmosphere this Quaker worked in to help gain the vote and other rights for women
Peace, by Miranda and Baptiste Paul
- Thoughtful examples of large and small ways we can promote peace in our daily lives
Something Happened in Our Town, by Marianne Celano
- A best-selling child’s story about racial justice
Susanna and Alice, Quaker Rebels, by Leslie Denis
- Also about Alice Paul, a story of her and her cousin Susanna, who worked in very different ways to bring about change--reviewed in August, 2023 Friends Journal