SUMMER 2008Phil Anthony
(856) 769-0066 (voice)
(856) 769-1416 (fax)
salemqtr@verizon.netMillville Worship Group
Millville? Why Millville?”
“Because that’s where they live.”
The they I was talking about are the folks who make up the core of the new worship group under the care of Salem MM. Some had attended Salem or another monthly meeting. Others are having their first experience of Quaker worship in a circle set up in a living room in a house on West Foundry Street. In Millville.
When I came to Salem Quarter, my first job of course was to get to know its seven meetings. Each one has its own special flavor, its special gifts, its special problems— and what I sometimes call its own special refraction of the one Light. I worshipped at each one, met its members, got to know you all, and did what I could to support you.
After about a year, I was sitting in my office one day staring at a map. Some of you have heard the story. I traced the southward line from Woodbury, jogging a little west to Mickleton and then back east to Mullica Hill. From there, it’s a straight shot south on Route 45 to Woodstown and, ten miles later, to Salem.
JUNE QUARTERLY MEETING
Lower Alloways Creek Meeting House
Sunday, 8 June 20089:30 am Gather 10:00 am Worship 11:00 am Program: Michael Gibson sings George Fox's Epistles 12 m Lunch 1:00 pm Business Meeting Child care provided From there, one goes east on Route 49 and cuts south to get to Greenwich. Then there’s a big jump over to Route 50, south to Route 9, and another mile to get to Seaville.
In the middle of the rough arc on the map that makes up Salem Quarter’s meetings, I imagined, there was a great blob labelled, “Here There Be Tygers.” Terra incognita, the Unknown Land. Okay, that isn’t what it really says. What it says is Vineland.
And I began to dream. There was no Quaker presence whatever in a major city of New Jersey. The Maurice River Monthly Meeting in Port Elizabeth, where we still maintain a burial ground, was laid down in 1855. The population center shifted north, and left Quakerism behind. Couldn’t we reach out to Vineland’s people?
Actually, I got to know folks from Vineland and the surrounding areas. Lois and Roshan Dinshah of Mullica Hill MM live in Malaga, just to the north. Gary Holmes of Woodstown MM, clerk of Salem Quarter’s Trustees, is in Vineland. Other residents of Vineland and Millville have attended Salem, Greenwich, and Seaville MMs— for a while anyway. Many of them drifted away, however. It was just too far to travel.
At the time, nothing came of my hopes for a Vineland meeting. The quarter showed some interest … but there was no core group from a monthly meeting to oversee.
So it was a joy when Mary Waddington called me in January of this year to talk about a proposal to form the Millville worship group. The request came from a Salem MM attender who was willing to open her home for the worshippers. Mary and her partner, Richard Rieger, have shepherded the group through its first steps, and in March Salem MM approved a committee to oversee it. And Salem Quarter has been asked to help provide nurture for the Millville group.
By April, when I first attended its meeting for worship, the group seemed already to have outgrown the space. With four of the participants absent, the living room was crowded. And at present worship is held only once a month.
Suggestions for a permanent home have been made. The schedule of worship and location are still in flux. But Salem Quarter welcomes its new sister, and asks for Friends’ prayers as it grows “in wisdom and in stature.”
June Quarterly Meeting
From the new to the old: The June meeting of Salem Quarter will be held at the Lower Alloways Creek meetinghouse in Hancocks Bridge, about five miles south of Salem. The meeting there was laid down in 1938, and for a short while the meetinghouse was leased to the Salem County Historical Society. It is currently under the care of Salem Quarter, and our Trustees are attentive to the needs and possibilities of the historic structure.
On Sunday, 8 June, the meetinghouse will be opened for worship at 10:00 am, program at 11:00, brown-bag lunch at noon (Mickleton and Mullica Hill MMs will provide beverages and dessert), and business meeting at 1:00 pm. Woodbury MM’s Michael Gibson will offer his musical settings of several of George Fox’s epistles, which he has previously presented at the FGC Gathering and PYM sessions at Rowan last summer.
Please come and join us for this wonderful day. Those who need directions will find them on p. 26. We look forward to welcoming our new friends from Millville and greeting old friends from our seven monthly meetings
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