FALL 2002Sixth Month 9th, 2002
he Salem Quarter Worship & Ministry Committee met on Sixth Month 7th, 2002, at the Horvays’, with 13 Friends from six monthly meetings present plus our faithful coordinator. We convened near the appointed hour of 7:30 p.m. and opened with worship.
Business focused on the two activities currently under our care: the Quarter Retreat of Eighth Month 23rd-25th at Burlington Meeting House, and the program for Ninth Month 8th Quarterly Meeting in Greenwich.
The retreat planning committee has met twice. Michael Wajda and Alison Levie, facilitators for the adult program, will explore with us how the divine leaven is working in our lives. Coordinator Phil Anthony will find facilitators for the children’s program, having been given a list of suggested names, first choice being Christie and Zach Duncan-Tessmer. A planning subcommittee of Sondra Ball, Biz Thomas, and Phil Anthony will convene to divide the conference attenders into small groups for worship sharing and work assignments. Another subcommittee of Gloria Horvay, Peggy Warner, and Mary Waddington will create meal menus and purchase food. Mary Rowson will teach yoga each morning. Phil will print up and mail fliers to the monthly meetings.
The Ninth Month Quarterly Meeting program will be a sharing of how we as individuals and as monthly meetings have responded to 9-11. This can be a retrospective as well as a looking forward. Roshan Dinshah, Mario Cavallini, Marjorie Candau, and Sondra Ball have volunteered to plan and execute this program.
The usefulness of appointing representatives to Quarter W&M by monthly meeting Nominating Committees was discussed. It was noted that this practice could lead to total Quarter representation, which could strengthen our spiritual connectedness.
Mary Waddington announced that she is stepping down as clerk of this committee for health reasons and to pursue a long-standing leading that can no longer be ignored. What followed was a brief time of gentle expressions of gratitude directed to and coming from the clerk, remarkable for its tenderness. It exemplified the level of support, dedication, and love that exists within this committee. One Friend moved us into prayer. A clerk naming committee comprised of Gloria Horvay, Peggy Warner, and Mary Waddington will meet and bring forth their report to our next gathering.
The last hour of our meeting was worship sharing that felt more like meeting for worship. We began it with the statement from Faith & Practice that informs us of the responsibility of Quarter W&M committees to “respond sensitively when a monthly meeting is in need of special nurture,” the clerk adding that this should also apply to members not feeling nurtured by their monthly meetings. Queries were distributed which asked us if our monthly meeting did indeed provide us with adequate spiritual nurture, what we do when this doesn’t happen, where we go to find it, how we bring it back to our monthly meeting, what commitments we make to our meeting, what we can rightfully expect from our meeting, and how we perceive God’s love working through us for the spiritual nurture of the other. Messages, poignantly honest, humbly offered, welled up from deep pockets of worship.
We rose and formed a circle of closure at 9:30 p.m. and refreshed ourselves with food and fellowship until 10:30. We meet again on Ninth Month 6th, 2002.
Respectfully submitted,
Mary WaddingtonRETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 08:19 AM
