New England Friends Women
United Society of Friends Women
Winter (February) 2002
Message from your Clerk
Dear Friends in the tender embrace of Christ,
I have so many things on my heart. One way that the tragedy of Ninth Month, 11 changed me is that I am thankful for the simple things: the shrieks of my children, the smell of popcorn, a hug from my spouse, a burst of fresh air, the caring of a friend.
I did not loose any friends on 9.11, but with the continuation of bombing and of protracted war, I expect to loose friends. It's not that a lot of people I know go into the military, but still the war is bringing misery to more than just soldiers and Afghanistans. In my work with the urban poor, I see 14 and 15 year olds pregnant, families who are homeless, and victims of rape or trauma who need public assistance to stabilize. I work with illegal immigrants, grandmothers trying to get their GED (high school diploma), people who are permanently disabled because they had no health care. The war on terrorism sears into these social programs at home. Plus, we are losing civil liberties with the USA Patriot Act approved 3 months ago; we are losing advancements to protect our habitat; our media is so saturated with the glory of war that a 15 year old boy flew an airplane into a Florida building. Who in our government is advocating for us to pursue justice by working through the UN world court?
I am Christian, a war tax resister, a Cubaphiliac, a pacifist, and I consider myself very patriotic. I love our flag, but that doesn't mean as a concerned citizen, I can't disagree with the majority. I owe so much to those Americans who came before us who had a wider vision of justice. God sees all of us as deserving children: the Al Queda, the orphans, the Falun Gong, the overfed & complacent, the right-wing evangelicals, or the Muslims. I fly my flag, not just because of the founding principals of freedom and justice but to honor the many who risked their lives on unpopular causes, women like Alice Paul, Lucretia Mott, Barbara Lee and Ida B. Wells who risked everything so I could be a full citizen. Otherwise, to quote Barbara Kingsolver, without these people anyone "who is female, or non-white, or without land, would have been guaranteed in 1776 the same voting rights as a horse."
"As we rebuild ourselves from the most terrible assault we've ever known, we raise our flags for what we love, declaring that heartlessness can't steal heart. No insult can touch the fact that I care enough about my country to work for what's best in us. We've declared ourselves solidly behind New York and every victim of September 11, vowing that an injury to one of us is an injury to all. If our hearts are in that pledge, we can take the next step and dedicate ourselves to a mindful protection of religious and political minorities in our midst."
How has the Sept. 11th attack changed your prayer life? Have you been able to speak with God's Truth to the intolerance and war fury and revenge? Don't, we as Quakers have a unique role to play in these times? Let us sally forth with the gospel as our weapon in these dark times.
In sisterhood,
Minga Claggett-Borne
9:45 gather for fellowship before the program
10:30: Sara Hubner and Margaret Hawthorne, recent visitors to Cuba YM, will share about their visit.
12 noon: Bring a brown bag lunch. Dover Friends will be providing "something warm" and beverages.
Business session to follow lunch.
Agenda includes:
Plans for Yearly Meeting
will be meeting at Durham Friends Meeting,
Sunday 24 March 2002,
for orientation for Friends planning to attend the FUM triennial in
Nairobi Kenya.
Anyone planning to attend the triennial is
encouraged to attend.
Attending Ann Armstrong - Acton; Barbara Sturrock, Kathy Mulhern, Nell Neil - Dover; Dorothy Hinshaw, Clarabel Marstaller, Muriel Marston, Bernice Douglas, Judy Marstaller, Kitsie Hildebrandt, - Durham; Shirley Leslie - Gonic; Virginia Towle - N. Sandwich; Jeanne Kinney - Smithfield.
Following meeting for worship, Barbara Sturrock led a brief sharing about what Friends were doing with interfaith groups. She then presented "Silent Weapon; The Embargo Against Iraq From A Religious Perspective", a 1999 film.
Lunch was provided by Shirley Leslie and Barbara Sturrock with help from others of Gonic and Dover.
Regrets from Minga Claggettt-Borne who was in Richmond IN at a Missions Consultation.
Dorothy Hinshaw, assistant clerk, presided. She opened with the prayers of Colin and Kathy South printed in the fall USFW newsletter.
August Minutes were accepted with the addition of Jeanne Kinney as Peace and Social Concerns Secretary added to the nominating committee report.
Clarabel Marstaller gave the treasurer's report. $75 had been collected for the Right Sharing of World Resources. We agreed to send this on to RSWR with a request that it be used for Kenyan women if at all possible.
Since USFWI at the 2001 triennial raised membership dues, we decided that we would raise our at-large dues to $8.00 of which $4 will go to USFWI, and the other $4 will go to NE USFW general budget. The "every member in a meeting" dues will be raised to $2.50 per woman member of which $2 will go to USFWI and $.50 will got to NEUSFW general budget. The increased rates will take affect January 2002.
We will again recommend that Friends subscribe to the Advocate and make that easier by having a check off place and a two tier at-large membership form in the next newsletter.
There was some question about what USFWI general budget pays for since that is what the membership dues help to pay. We wondered if we should write the USFWI board to ask if they are using the most cost effective ways of doing business without losing the sense of God's guiding presence.
We considered offering a years free newsletter subscription to anyone not currently on our mailing list. It was noted that several years ago we decided to be sure that a copy of our newsletter went to at least one woman in each meeting of NEYM.
We approved the budget for 2002 -- copies of the BUDGET AND FINANCE REPORT will be sent by postal mail from USFW, PO Box 1401, Shirley, MA 01464 or usfw@neym.org --
Nominating committee had found Virginia Schonwald to serve as co-secretary of Youth and Children, but has not found a recording clerk or 3rd member for the nominating committee. All are encouraged to send possible names to the current nominating committee (Sarah Hubner, Margaret Wentworth, and Shirley Leslie). Nominating Committee was asked to report at the next meeting.
Stewardship sec, Ann Armstrong asked us to plan our next appeals. We decided that the winter appeal would be the Ramallah Play Center. The spring appeal will be for Marian's ministry in Kenya if money is still needed to support her 2nd and 3rd years. The fall appeal was left undecided until we know if RSWR is able to support women in Kenya.
Literature sec Kathy Mulhern plans to have an article in the next newsletter.
Peace and Social Concerns Sec, Jeanne Kinney reported on a talk given by Elise Boulding (which was videotaped) and about Elise's book Cultures of Peace: The Hidden Side of History. This book was selected by Mosher Book and Tract and was sent free to every meeting.
Ann Armstrong passed on information of NEYM FUM committee plans for preparing for the 2002 triennial in Nairobi, Kenya. There will be a special orientation meeting on March 24 for all who are planning to attend. Friends are asked to let the committee know of others that plan to attend the triennial.
We discussed possible times and places and program for the spring meeting. Sharing time and space with April committee day was considered but most felt the time would be too short to allow time for a program since several also serve on YM committees. It was felt that a Saturday meeting would be preferred by most. Dover Friends invited us there for either Sat. May 4 or May 11. We also considered piggy backing with permanent board on May 11, but need to know where they are meeting to make that decision.
Possible programs suggested were: Eden Grace or whoever from FUM committee is doing the Kenya orientation, Judith Inskeep from QUNONY doing a Quaker historical figure, AFSC rep to update us on Afghanistan, Cuba reports from women who have visited recently (Sara Hubner, and Margaret Hawthorn plan to go on work camp in January 2002.
Minga, Dorothy and Ann will consult together to decide the date, place, and program for the spring meeting.
We thanked Shirley and Barbara for hosting the meeting and asked them to pass on our thanks to Tom Heald who provided the video equipment and to Ed Leslie for doing the kitchen cleanup.
Ann Armstrong, Temporary recording clerk
Kathy Mulhern, Literature Secretary
War and its aftermath are much on our minds these days. Those of us who were young in the 1940's are taken back in memory to a time when the whole world seemed overshadowed by tyranny and conflict; when the formal cessation of hostilities brought a realization of massive devastation and bitterness; when a world sobered by the coming of the nuclear age hoped that lasting peace could somehow emerge out of the ashes.
I've been reading a wonderful record of those times, Journey of the Wild Geese, a Quaker Romance in War-torn Europe, by Madeleine Youde Stephenson and Edwin "Red" Stephenson. The Stephensons were Friends in Residence at Pendle Hill in 1990. The book is composed of letters written in postwar Europe, 1946-47. Red and Madeleine met in March 1946, less than a year after the end of the war. They, along with four other young volunteers, sailed from New York to France under the auspices of an AFSC relief program.
Because of his pacifism, Red had served in the Civilian Public Services during the war. Madeleine's pacifist principles had led her to work at AFSC Headquarters in Philadelphia.
Red and Madeleine fell in love. The story of the eighteen months between their meeting and their marriage emerges through a series of poignant letters that reveal much about the heartache and frustration of their work, as well as their growing need for each other. Madeleine's work in Southern France, and later in Germany, brought home the massive dislocations of war, as she worked first with refugees of the Spanish Civil War, and then with German "displaced persons" from Western Poland. Red spent most of these months in Poland, where the war had caused unimaginable destruction.
In their letters Madeleine and Red explored the difficult questions that arose out of their pacifism In light of what occupied Europe had suffered at the hands of German, how could people be brought to extend forgiveness? Madeleine began to understand how some Europeans with previously strong pacifist convictions could nevertheless have contributed to the efforts of the Underground, passing along ammunition, etc. Red's conviction that war solves nothing remained unshaken by his confrontation with the ghastly evidence of German atrocities. He was nevertheless certain that those horrors must be faced squarely, and he wrote a book documenting some of what he had learned working with Polish survivors of the occupation.
Encounters with these realities matured both Red and Madeleine. Throughout their letters, you sense a growing spiritual depth, as well as a deepening of their love,. By the time Red and Madeleine are finally able to marry, you feel a great identification with them. This is a book to read and ponder, as our nation faces the problems of peacekeeping and relief in Afghanistan, once the tragic war there concludes.
(Journey of the Wild Geese is available from FGC catalog.)
Fran Chickering, Children and Youth Secretary
Minga Claggett-Borne urged us to examine our own part in creating violence in the world in the Spring newsletter. Her questions caused me to pause and reflect. Minga asked: "...what is our own violence that we may originate? Few of us Friends hit our children, but yelling and demanding too much from them could be violent. How do we avoid anger and control from disturbing our families and marriages?" How are we violent with our children and our families? " I agree that yelling and demanding too much are violent behaviors. The need to control others, too seems violent to me.
Control in particular is an issue I have spent a lifetime thinking about. I love the story of Sir Gawain and Lady Ragnell as told in Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting. Under the power of an evil spell, Lady Ragnell was hideous in appearance for one half the day. Her husband broke the spell by giving her the choice as to when that would be, by according her sovereignty, the freedom to be her true self. This lesson resonates for me. How do I accord sovereignty to my children? With the children in First Day School? How often am I 'violent' by being controlling? I think the answer to that question depends on my viewpoint of children. Are they wild creatures to be tamed/to be controlled? Are they vessels to be filled, clay to be molded? The answers to those questions shape how I will be as a parent at home and in First Day School.
I aspire to these ideas: "When children are viewed as spiritual equals, there is much less emphasis on teaching them those things we adults hold to be true and more emphasis on enabling them to get in touch with their own understanding, both innate and unfolding. There is less desire to shape a child's thoughts and behavior, and more desire to discover and support who the child is." (P. 56 Dharma Family Treasures: Sharing Mindfulness with Children, edited by Sandy Eastoak).
"Many people credit one special person, who gave them soul recognition and encouragement to be who they were, as the source of their success in life. The mentoring of children and adolescents by people who themselves know in some way their own wholeness, and give thus give selflessly to bring out the beauty and wholeness in others, is the sacred responsibility of adults in any healthy society." (P. 53 Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting by Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn)
These words resonate for me and inspire me to work towards being a whole and healthy person. I want to choose peace for my family and the world. Considering how I originate violence gives me an unsettling awareness and identifies my own responsibility to create peace each day.
Barbara Sturrock, Dover Meeting
John Woolman never asked how he could be an effective witness; rather, he continually asked what obedience to "pure Wisdom" required of him in a given situation. To the modern mind, preoccupied with results, Woolman's scruples may seem insignificant, even futile. His scruples were rooted in his remarkable capacity to see and identify with the sufferings of all God's creatures. Woolman's genius was his ability to not only feel this compassion, but to allow it to be incarnated in himself and in all his actions. These actions were performed with such tenderness and genuine caring for the other that often that engendered the changes in them as well. Whether he may have liked, been neutral or even disliked the other person was never the issue. He was faithful to love within and this is what went forth from him.
He changed the hearts of slave holders and that is a more effective way of effecting societal change then by legal means forced on a people as exampled by the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation Think of it! Even though he was initially very much disliked and even distrusted by many within the Society, he still spent much of his time, rode thousands of miles, often alone and unsupported to be faithful to his leading. His fairness, tenderness and genuine concern for the slave holder as well as the slave moved hearts, opened them to the Spirit and led them to act accordingly. The change elicited was completely nonviolent, never the result of public or even private shaming.
Here is where the ardent abolitionists failed. They felt compassionate motives but they also felt they were the good guys and slave holders were the bad guys. That division always creates it s own problems. We are still experiencing the aftermath of that in our times. G. M. Trevelyan, the English historian, put it this way, "close your ears to John Woolman one century, and you will get John Brown the next with a Grant to follow." You could also add bitter legacies of hatred persisting still, a century and more later. Yes, the immediate cessation of legalized slavery was achieved, but the long term effects continue; general civil inequity, racism and social uneasiness still tear our society apart.
This matter of trying to feel with and for people when they are holding ideas entirely repulsive to ours is something we can learn from Woolman. We must find ways to respect and love people who ignore or deny our positions or worse, offer arguments we know are irresponsible and unjust to advance there positions Speaking truth to power means bringing the issue to light and emphasizing its rightness. This kind of confrontation is only effective if it is not accompanied by our personal judgment of the person's character who we are confronting. Truth does not need our validation in this way; it can stand by itself.
In our modern way we want results, soon. Woolman's deceptively simple approach has one added virtue; it can liberate us from endless preoccupation with devising tactics and second-guessing results. We must act but we must also embody Peace or our integrity is in question. If we forget that and compromise our integrity, we lose a great deal and the results will be mixed. Worse, we will not have been faithful to the vision of the Peaceable Kingdom which Friends claim as their model and goal.
When Marian Baker returned to Indiana in October for FUM board meetings, she accepted a temporary reassignment to Jamaica to help in the Boys and Girls homes while tutoring Sarita Williams, daughter of FUM's Jamaica Field staff, in science. She will be returning to Kenya before the FUM triennial meets in Nairobi in July 2002.
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28 November 2001
Thank you for your Love Gift for our support. We are encouraged that you are concerned about us and the children of the homes.
Sending Marian Baker to us, was also a gift. She has been here less than a week and already has helped us in our remedial reading programs and is teaching Sarita science.
The other blessing is finally having a boys superintendent. He is committed to making a difference in the boys lives, and is learning fast what it takes to run a boys home.
Thank you again for your gift. God bless you and have a worshipful Christmas season.
Dwaine, Becky & Sarita Williams
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21 January 2002
Greetings from Jamaica
The sun came out this morning. Praise God. It has been raining most of the time for several days and everything became damp; all clothes, sheets, towels, even writing paper! Mosquitos hatched out, but at least they don't carry malaria. I'm drying out everything before heading off to tutor kids.
The year started right. The first morning I saw a doctor bird in the wild, a beautiful hummingbird with an extra long graceful tail. The National Bird of Jamaica -- not commonly seen. The first Sunday was my birthday so Becky, Dwaine, and Sarita Williams took me to Port Antonio meeting on the east coast of the island. The meeting had much spontaneous prayer, singing, testimonies, and preaching plus some silence. It felt good to start the year rededicating my life to God. We had taken a picnic lunch and were invited by a Jamaican elder in the meeting to have it as his place. It turned out to be a large house with a verandah overlooking the sea. We got to share my cupcakes with his wife, a Louise (instead of sharing with my sister Louise in New Hampshire!).
On Monday, as I was tutoring four girls at Lyndale Home, they found out about my birthday. Luckily they did not do what is often done here -- dusting the birthday girl with flour! The youngest one gave me a beaded hair clip as a present. It is a humbling experience to receive gifts from children who have so little. At Lyndale I'm also tutoring two new girls who cannot go to school. (In Jamaica if you move midterm, you have to wait until a new semester or new year to enter school. Thanks for the suggestions some of you have sent me about dyslexia and ideas for illiterate teens.
Thanks for the Christmas and birthday cards and messages. They are trickling in, so we get to celebrate for a longer time. Like early Friends who didn't celebrate Christmas, I agree that we should be celebrating Christ's birth and presence daily.
Join with me in thanking God for the following:
Prayer requests:
Thanks for all your continued support of my ministry.
In Christ's Light,
Marian Baker
December 13, a building on the Ramallah Friends Schools upper campus was hit by rockets fired by Israeli Defense Force helicopters. One missile hit the wall of the changing rooms below the stage level in the Chapel building. The other hit a ground floor classroom immediately adjacent to the Chapel building. The missiles hit the school after hours; only Colin and Kathy South and a guard were on the premises. Considerable damage was done to the classroom and there was most likely structural damage done to the wall.
No one was in the building at the time of the strike, so there were no injuries. The missiles were apparently aimed at a Palestinian Authority Police station located next to the school campus. The temporary structure had gone into use after the previous police building served as the site of the October 2000 lynching of two IDF security forces and was destroyed in reprisal attacks by Israel shelling decimated a makeshift compound used by PA El-Bireh/Ramallah police.
The following day, the school's end-of-trimester exams were taken by pupils at a non-damaged wing of the institution.
An Israeli Defense Force spokesperson confirmed Sunday, December 16, that a Palestinian school had been hit when the army fired missiles at a Palestinian police building. Reparations will be sought from the Israeli government to pay for the damage, but the result of this process will not be known for some time.
Ramallah-Friends School founded by an American Quaker group some 100 years ago, has announced intentions to submit claims in a U.S. court for damages caused by an Israel Defense Forces shelling. The administrative head of the Friends School is Colin South
We request and encourage your support for the Ramallah Friends
Schools at this time. Minimal damage repair estimates now stand at US
$20,000. Architects are being consulted to determine the extent of the
damage. Friends United Meeting has established a relief fund to help
with repairs. Contributions can be made through the web or mailed
directly to:
RFS Damage Relief Fund
Friends United Meeting
101 Quaker Hill Drive
Richmond, IN 47374
December 14, 2001 Churches for Middle East Peace has heard that the White House comments line is now specifically tabulating comments of support or opposition to a Palestinian state. So, get those calls into 202 456-1414
Checks should be made out to USFW of NEYM and sent to:
USFW treasurer, PO Box 1401, Shirley, MA 01464
with the following information
Enclosed please find a total of $________________________
Please use it as specified below:
_________________ Ramallah Play Center
_________________ Contribution to the General fund of USFW of NEYM
_________________ Annual dues to NEYM USFW (please check the
appropriate box below)
__$8 - I don't want a subscription to The Advocate . If you don't
already subscribe please reconsider.
__$18 - Please send my
subscription to The Advocate to the following address:
_____________________________________________________
It is time for the annual request for dues from our at-large members. As we did last year, we are making the dues two tiered: $8 to cover the cost of the NE newsletter and dues to USFWI, or $18 to cover the above and a subscription to The Advocate, the bimonthly publication of United Society of Friends Women International. Since USFWI had to increase their membership dues and the cost of The Advocate subscriptions, we have increased our dues a dollar. [see minutes of our meeting in October] We really encourage all of you to get The Advocate since it is a great source of inspiration and information about Friends women around the world.. Of course contributions to the general fund of USFW of NEYM are always welcome.
I wish I could show you the letters in Violet's own handwriting, but here is the content complete with underlining and capitalization and duplications. Please contribute money to this project. -- Ann Armstrong, Stewardship Secretary.
June 23, 2001
The children and their parents at this Amari Refugee Camp will Never, never forget your love, care and help. Ramallah Friends Local com members are grateful for all that you are doing to give our project a helping hand.
Violet
"When God allows trouble to come our way, He gives us a shoulder to
lean on"
October 1, 2001
Dear friends,
Friends, Parents of the 50 refugee children, and of course the children and Ramallah Friends tell you Thank-you for love, care an help. No one can ever forget what you are doing to the needy little ones.
Violet
We pray for Peace, WAR NO MORE
We pray for Peace, WAR NO MORE
The next section is excerpted from a letter published in Nov-Dec Advocate, the letter was dated August 27, 2001.
When God allows trouble to come our way, He gives us a shoulder to lean on. Yes, friend God gave us all friends, Friends who know us and pray for us... After writing the above paragraph , I had to run to a safe corner in another room, because there was shelling and shooting so near our house. Oh! How we were scared; the time was 12 noon. Now it's 4 p.m. And all seems to be quiet. [italicized was red ink]
Now I come back to continue my letter to you. Why cannot people love each other, but , if we want peace, we just work for justice.
We were hopeful to have UNRWA [United Nations Relief and Works Agency] build us a new play center, but it had frozen all its building program after we had moved our furniture to a store room Colin [South] had made possible for us. We had to get a truck to move the materials back to our play center. Too sad (money lost). But we are glad we have our old dear oasis of peace for the refugee children. September 1 we will start as all UNRWA and public schools. You know that we are on UNRWA property. "All is well that ends well:
With love and prayers for the best,
Violet Zarou
There is always good news too. The school continues amid this political mess. The damage that the helicopter gunships did to the school has been repaired. Thanks to all of you who have expressed your concern and many of you who have signed letters or made phone calls protesting on our behalf against the senseless damage. Students and teachers continue to give of their best. I am very proud of this School of over 900 students (normally a 1000). I am proud not of any achievement of ours but of the resilience of the human spirit and its capacity to repair itself. Some of our readers may dismiss God as anything other than a notion but here God is not a notion. For most individuals, God is a living, breathing spirit which provides hope and incentive to rise above the nastiness of life and to rise above one human being's inhumanity to another human being.
Much love
Colin and Kathy South
Next Newsletter Deadline is May 30, 2002.
Please send your articles to:
usfw@neym.org
or USFW News,
PO Box 1401, Shirley, MA 01464-1401
Officers of New England United Society of Friends Women
Clerk: Minga Claggett-Borne
Asst. Clerk: Dorothy Hinshaw
Rec. Clerk:
Treas.: Clarabel Marstaller
Auditor: Bernice Douglas
Christian Service: Christine Wozich
Children & Youth: Fran Chickering, Virginia Schonwald
Peace and Social Concerns: Jeanne Kinney
Literature: Kathy Mulhern & Kitsie Hildebrandt
Stewardship: Ann Armstrong
Adult Missionary Ed.: Christina Smith
Newsletter: Ann Armstrong
Nominating: Sara Hubner, Margaret Wentworth , _____