SUMMER 2006Being led by the Spirit, Woodbury Monthly Meeting continued the Gifts Program at our annual retreat. Our diversity has led us to a new love and understanding of each other as we searched our hearts to share our weaknesses and strengths. After breaking into two groups, each composed a letter to the angel or collective spirit of Woodbury Monthly Meeting. These letters express our awareness of the challenges we face as we move into the future, but it is our belief that in recognizing the gifts of each other and our Meeting we are becoming a much stronger Quaker community. We wish to share our letters with the Salem Quarter community in the hopes that we may all be strengthened in our faith.
— Judy Scott, clerk, Woodbury Monthly Meeting
To the Collective Spirit of the Woodbury Meeting:
Let us begin this missive with the acknowledgement and appreciation of the loving guidance that the Spirit brings to our community.
While it is true that the Woodbury Meeting has had its challenges as a community, we believe we have made progress in becoming a community that reflects Quaker ideals.
Among our challenges have been: not waiting on the Spirit; power struggles, committee infighting; attempts at domination; holding onto the past; the need for clearness; not listening to each other; lack of succinctness; resistance to Quaker practices; keeping track of past decisions; lack of diversity; and losing people to other Meetings.
We are a Meeting comprised of Friends with different strengths and different weaknesses, different belief systems and different tolerances for human foibles. But we are united in our commitment to building a loving community and in taking the actions – and when appropriate, the inactions – as we as individuals are capable in any given moment toward this end.
Sometimes we fail, and sometimes we succeed, but in our failures is always the resolution to do better, and in our successes is the satisfaction of being that which we aspire to be: our highest selves.
We ask that we be granted the inner strength and spiritual guidance to do more of what we know we should do in creating and maintaining a loving community, and less of what we might "reactively" do that thwarts this spiritual endeavor.
As a community and as individuals, let us lead by example in forwarding the Quaker testimonies of simplicity, peace, integrity, community and equality … and in implementing our vision of loving stewardship of Mother Earth … and in the recognition of the oneness of all life … and of seeing that of God in everyone.
Most sincerely and gratefully,
Woodbury Meeting Retreat 2006
Dear Woodbury Meeting Angel:
Listen to who we are and rejoice with us. We are overflowing with energy, creativity and passion. We have bold ideas. We are an amazingly diverse people with diverse gifts. We have riches among us. We are blessed in many ways. We celebrate our wonderfulness. We do much, we think much, we desire much.
Watch over us. Inspire us. Help us fit our passions and our visions together. Help us to worship and serve together as one body, one people, a single gem composed of kaleidoscopic facets. Help us to understand what is in our highest and best corporate interest. Guide us as we seek to name and claim our cornerstone, our anchor, our core, our foundation, our deepest taproot, our rudder, our topsail.
So much of our energy and vision is in our seeking, in our as yet unanswered questions. Be with us, nudge us, hover over us and challenge us, as we ask ourselves …
- What keeps us from having more frequent gathered or covered meetings?
- What are our responsibilities to each other and of the whole to our individual members?
- How might we strengthen and nurture the spiritual life of the Meeting?
- How might we live out peace, justice, integrity, community, equality and simplicity within our Meeting and in southern New Jersey every day of the week?
- How might we better reach out with respect and love to those members and attenders who have dropped out or who are in special need?
- How might we best help one another name our gifts, support each other, and hold one another accountable in truth and in love?
- In what directions might we move to depend less on the generosity of long dead Friends who preceded us?
- How might we help develop and nurture truly healthy egos within the Meeting?
- As a corporate body, who or what is our aithority, our source of strength and comfort, our lifeblood, the wind behind our sails?
- How might we consistently live love?
Woodbury Angel, help us to hear or see the beautiful fragments of the answers being given to us all the time. Oh, yes, and thanks for your patience. We appreciate your faith in us!
With hope, courage and expectant joy,
Woodbury Friends Meeting
At Annual Retreat at Pendle Hill
February 25, 2006.RETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS
Last modified:
Monday, May 08, 2006 at 07:24 PM
