April 6, Sunday ........ Potluck lunch at 11.30. April 13, Sunday ........ Forum, Book Study: Opening the Scriptures, Tom Gates April 20, Sunday ........ Meeting for Business, 11.30. April 27, Sunday ........ Forum, What does it mean to be a community of Friends?
Each Thursday at 4-5 p.m., a silent peace vigil is held at the NE corner of Main Plaza (Commerce and Soledad) near the San Fernando cathedral.
Clerk: Bill Wilkinson, e-mail: bdwilkinson@earthlink.net).
Website: http://www.sanantonioquakers.org.
Donations may be made to Friends Meeting of San Antonio, P.O. Box 6127, San Antonio TX 78209.
Meeting telephone to ask for information: 210-945-8456.
AFSC Nominates West Saharan Woman for the Nobel Peace PrizePHILADELPHIA (February 20, 2008) - The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker humanitarian service organization, has nominated Western Sahara human rights activist Aminatou Haidar for the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize for her nonviolent leadership in the Sahrawi people’s struggle for self-determination. AFSC received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947 in recognition of Quakers’ humanitarian service during and after the two world wars and as a past laureate is entitled to nominate others for the prize.Western Sahara is often known as “Africa’s last colony.” Despite international recognition of their right to self-determination, the Sahrawi people have lived under Moroccan occupation since 1976. Haidar has dedicated her life to achieving self-determination for its citizens. In 1987, during a peaceful demonstration in Morocco, Haidar was arrested and detained in secret for four years. During her detention, she was tortured, beaten, and endured physical abuse that caused irreversible health problems. Haidar never received an explanation for her arrest and detention. She has been jailed twice since then. Haidar is a divorced mother of two and lives in the town of El Aaiun in Western Sahara. In between her two prison sentences, Haidar earned a degree in modern literature. “We have few models of those who can turn from their own suffering to forgive their oppressors and work for a state of reconciliation and equality,” says AFSC’s General Secretary, Mary Ellen McNish. “Aminatou Haidar is a model of how ordinary working mothers and fathers can rise above their circumstances in their devotion to a cause greater than their own survival.” Haidar has been nominated for and won various awards for her fight for social justice. In 2005, she was nominated for the Sakharov Prize and in 2006 won the Juan Maria Bandres Prize given by the Spanish Association for Refugees and Human Rights. Last year Haidar won the Silver Rose Award in Sweden for her achievements in work for social justice.
AFSC Press Release
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Business MeetingThe meeting opened with silent worship.The treasurer read her report into Meeting for January and February. The Meeting did receive one significant gift in January; otherwise, income and expense are in line with expectations. She reported that the mortgage on the property will be paid off in five years. Outreach announced that there will be a Children’s Party on Friday, May 9th at the Meetinghouse—details to follow. Because reservations are required well in advance of an event, the picnic at the Cypress Pavilion in Brackenridge Park has been scheduled for November 8, and, thinking ahead, March 14, 2009 has also been reserved. The clerkless building committee continues to make progress. New screens have been placed on the windows along the walkway. An electrical problem associated with our timed and motion-sensitive lights was fixed by the handy son of our treasurer. Concern was expressed that the Meeting appears to lack a wiring plan for the building. A Friend volunteered the services of her husband to create one at a future date. The Meetinghouse sign is going through some additional design work to ensure it can conveniently accommodate notices of special events.
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Good, Good, FridayOn last Friday, March 21, it seems almost no believer of any sort was left without his or her own holiday. In what is a once-in-a-millennium combination, the following all occurred that day: Good Friday;Purim, a Jewish festival celebrating the biblical book of Esther; Narouz, the Persian New Year, observed in Iran and all the "stan" countries, as well as by Zoroastrians and Baha'is. Eid Milad an Nabi, the Birth of the Prophet, celebrated by some Sunni Muslims; Small Holi, Hindu, an Indian festival of bonfires, followed on Saturday by Holi; Magha Puja, a celebration of the Buddha's first followers, marked primarily in Thailand. "Half the world's population is going to be celebrating something," said Raymond Clothey, Professor Emeritus of Religious studies at the University of Pittsburgh.
Taken from David van Biema with Simon Robinson, Time
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PersonalNeil got a 2nd grand prize at the Alamo Regional Science Fair that was held at St. Mary's March 8th and 9th. He and all the first and second grand prize winners are going to Intel's International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in Atlanta, Georgia, May 11-16, 2008. (He gets to skip the state competition that feeds into the ISEF.) His project is a continuation of Algebra: Not the Same Old Game which studied the effectiveness of the algebra computer game Math Blaster Algebra. Neil is VERY excited to present his work at the competition.Sharon returned from a month in the Mexican Yucatan learning Spanish and had to have foot surgery for an old complaint. Ken visited Reynosa, south of the border, with a group from Austin Tan Cerca La Frontera, an AFSC-supported group. The group met with maquiladora workers affiliated with Comite Fronteriza de Obrer@s (deliberate @), fine people working to obtain fair and honest working conditions there. More next month. Mark had an accident with his bike which kept him in Emergency for a while. He was badly shaken but has recovered well from everything but the bill. Karl writes, “Hello All, I have a folk art show opening at the Guadalupe Crossing Gallery in April to celebrate the coming of Spring. It is entitled, 'Folk Revival: One' and I hope you will be able to stop by and see it. The opening is on Saturday, April 12th from 2 - 4 pm, and coincides with the annual Crawfunk festival in Waring, Texas, at 542 Waring-Welfare Rd.,” located near Comfort. Marian went to Lima, Peru in March on a Global Volunteers program. She served in an orphanage, where there are many handicapped children. Little Winston, with developmental problems, was her responsibility, though not much teaching of English conversation seems to have been possible. She was impressed with the sweetness of the Peruvian people. She climbed partway to Machu Picchu and sat to appreciate the grandeur and uniqueness of the place while others went on climbing. Family names have been omitted for purposes of privacy on the web.
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Questions“I’ve always had pacifist leanings, and so one of the things I wanted to learn was how do you react to the Second World War if you’re a pacifist. That war is always held up as the great counterexample, the one that was justified. And I got hungrier and hungrier to answer the question: Did the Allies’ response to Hitler really help anyone who needed help?One of the things I discovered, for example, was that the most impressive opponents of the war were also the people most actively arguing that we had to help the refugees. There was complete overlap. . . What are you going to do when Europe is threatened by Hitler, this paranoid, dangerous, person? My feelings about the war change every day. But I also feel that there is a way of looking at the war and the Holocaust that is truer and sadder and stranger than the received version.” Nicholson Baker, Human Smoke, quoted by Charles McGrath, NYT, 3.4.2008 Colm Toibin, reviewing the same book in the NYT Book Review on March 23, says: “Baker is adept at managing the reader’s emotion. His vignettes about the treatment of the Jewish population, the deportations and the planned mass murders, are just as carefully chosen, with the same amount of barely contained anger in them as his piece about what was done to the civilians of Germany and to the civilians of Britain by bombers. It seems that he wishes to stir up an argument as much as settle one. In his afterword he says of the pacifists: ‘They failed but they were right.’ It is an aspect of the subtlety of his book that the reader is entitled to wonder if it’s true. . . He has produced an eloquent and passionate assault on the idea that the deliberate targeting of civilians can ever be justified.” Such attacks continue, in Darfur, Chad, and Congo, following those in Chechnya and the remnants of Yugoslavia.
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EventsImam Omar Shakir, who came, with Asmar Townes to tell us, movingly, of their pilgrimage to Mecca together, saw the opening of his new mosque last month. It is Mesjid Bilal, at 818 West Avenue. He and his African-American congregation have been meeting in rented rooms, as we did before 2000. Members of other religions were present and many were honored. Janet and Ken were invited and introduced as “Our Quaker friends, and we all know how Quakers helped us in the past, don’t we?” That explains the honor.Marty Cain, master dowser and international labyrinth builder will conduct a workshop for Building a Labyrinth at Jim J’s and Gayle’s home on Friday, April 4, 7 pm, and Saturday, April 5, 9am-5pm. They say, “The Labyrinth is a single path, not a puzzle maze, which commonly leads to a destination and safely returns us to our starting place. It is a metaphor for life, found in ancient sites all over the world. In the labyrinth, we discover a long-forgotten mystical tradition, a walking meditation, which is an opportunity to engage in a powerful inward journey in search of God, the Truth, the Self. The classic labyrinth pattern is over 5000 years old, and newer stylized variations were created on the floors of cathedrals of Europe during the Middle Ages for many reasons, including to symbolize the great pilgrimage to Jerusalem.”
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Two versions of conflictWhat are the weapons of the powerful? Tanks, humvees, bulldozers, helicopters, smart bombs, Predators. Shock and awe. What are the weapons of the weak? Concealment, roadside bombs, suicide bombers, rockets, AK47s. Shock and horror.An alternative: What are the weapons of the powerful? Wisdom, compassion, listening, truth, justice. Transparency and integrity. What are the weapons of the weak? Nonviolence, openness, truth, forthrightness, resoluteness. Transparency and integrity.
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Pakistan“. . .religious parties sank from fifty-six out of 272 seats in the national assembly to just five. In the North-West Frontier Province, the MMA [Islamist Muttehida Majlis Amal ] has been comprehensively defeated by the overtly secular Awami National Party (ANP). This is a remnant of what was once a mighty force: the nonviolent and secular Red Shirts movement, which, before the creation of Pakistan, was originally led by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, an important ally of Mahatma Gandhi from the North-West Frontier Province. . .In the election, Asfandyar's ANP routed the Islamists, demonstrating that contrary to their image as bearded bastions of Islamist orthodoxy, Pashtun tribesmen are as wary as anyone else of violence, extremism, and instability.” Wiliam Dalrymple, New York Review of Books, April 3. The Pashtun who support the ANP are part of the Pashtun people on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghan border, from whom the Taliban receives its main support.
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The Peace Symbol“It started life as the emblem of the British anti-nuclear movement but it has become an international sign for peace, and arguably the most widely used protest symbol in the world. It has also been adapted, attacked and commercialised. It had its first public outing 50 years ago on a chilly Good Friday as thousands of British anti-nuclear campaigners set off from London's Trafalgar Square on a 50-mile march to the weapons factory at Aldermaston.The demonstration had been organised by the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War (DAC) and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) joined in. Gerald Holtom, a designer and former World War II conscientious objector from West London, persuaded DAC that their aims would have greater impact if they were conveyed in a visual image. The "Ban the Bomb" symbol was born. He considered using a Christian cross motif but, instead, settled on using letters from the semaphore - or flag-signalling - alphabet, super-imposing N (uclear) on D (isarmament) and placing them within a circle symbolising Earth. The sign was quickly adopted by CND.
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. . . and as a US peace symbolNational Geographic Books will soon release a new book, Peace: The Biography of a Symbol, by American pacifist Ken Kolsbun and Michael Sweeney.How the sign migrated to the US is explained in various ways. Some say it was brought back from the Aldermaston protest by civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, a black [Quaker] pacifist who had studied Gandhi's techniques of non-violence. The history of the peace sign is traced from it's origins to protest the testing of nuclear weapons. From that point on, the symbol spread throughout the world, taking on new forms and constantly being adopted for new causes.”
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Food for ThoughtWhen we were young we were taught not to waste food. To eat everything on our plate. To finish our bread and butter. To remember the poor children in Africa. The connect did not seem great to us. If we threw away a crust, how would it hurt a poor child in Africa?Now we get our lessons from the news. Wheat prices have doubled in the last six months. The prices of barley, corn, and soybeans are all going up. “Farmers the world over are producing flat out. . . The world’s grain stockpiles have fallen to the lowest levels in decades. ‘Everyone wants to eat like an American on this globe,’ said Daniel W. Basse of the AgResource Company . . . ‘But if they do, we’re going to need another two or three globes to produce it all.’” Farmers’ sons and daughters, in larger and larger numbers, are moving into the cities all over the world, becoming buyers of food. The costs of fuel for agricultural machinery and transport are increasing. We eat increasingly in restaurants, unable to control the amount of waste. We use corn for fuel. And in Nigeria, Abel Ojuku, tailor, has been forced to cut back on his family’s bread. Bakers are producing smaller loaves for the same price. “To save a few pennies,” Mukala Sule “decided to skip butter.” Social unrest is spreading in some countries, including riots in some. Our mother was right.
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New Vatican SinsVATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Thou shall not pollute the Earth. Thou shall beware genetic manipulation. Modern times bring with them modern sins. So the Vatican has told the faithful that they should be aware of "new" sins such as causing environmental blight.The guidance came at the weekend when Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti, the Vatican's number two man in the sometimes murky area of sins and penance, spoke of modern evils. Asked what he believed were today's "new sins," he told the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano that the greatest danger zone for the modern soul was the largely uncharted world of bioethics.
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International ShoppingOne way of getting to know San Antonio Muslims is to shop where they shop. Here are two stores which advertize in Al-Ittihad, San Antonio’s Muslim newspaper:
Ali Baba International Food Market, 9307 Wurzbach.
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Finding Our VoiceInstead of asking "What canst thou say?" perhaps we should ask "Cat got thy tongue?" Many of us are waiting to hear other's voices instead of saying something ourselves in meeting for worship. If we truly believe that the Spirit is seeking us, we need to limber up and respond from time to time.
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Kenya TodayDavid Zarembka has returned to Kenya He says, “The mood in Nairobi didn't seem quite as buoyant as the reports I was reading from Kenya on the internet. While everyone is relieved that a seemingly successful power-sharing agreement has been reached, the concern is now that all three major political parties are in the government, all cooperating together so nicely, perhaps the bad old days of one-party dictatorship can easily return in the form of a three party dictatorship. This remains to be seen. . .As we traveled up-country. . . we could see the plastic huts of many displaced people still in the camps alongside the road. There was the same destruction of houses, shops, and farms as we could see before, but seeing all this again was discouraging since it all seemed so unnecessary. After a year of delays . . . There were ten Alternatives to Violence workshops while we were away including a good one here in Lumakanda.” But he left a more cheerful note, “After the dry season, the first rain is like the first snow for a five year old in America. Here everything stops for that first rain. The dogs bark, the cows jump up and down, the children go run in the rain and wiggle their toes in the mud, and everyone looks forward to planting the new crops. It's a different kind of spring.”
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GeorgeIt’s bad enough that Eliot Spitzer let everybody down by arranging time with a call girl in the Mayflower in Washington. But to pass himself off as George Fox? Did he wear leather britches? He doesn’t look anything like George Fox!
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ForumsIn March one forum, led by Jim S, focused on recommending priorities for Friends Committee on National Legislation for 2009. The priorities suggested by FCNL were under the headings of its goals:
Complete report next month. The other discussion was on Prayer, Petitionary Prayer, and Holding in the Light among Friends. We investigated just what is meant by these. Searching Yearly Meetings’ Faith and Practice, prayer was found to be communion with God, particularly as experienced in the silence of meeting for worship. Petitionary prayer is less on asking for something than on becoming one with the will of God. Holding in the Light appears to be a term which has come into being over the past 20-30 years, not mentioned by Yearly Meetings. It is suggested by some that it is used to avoid the word “prayer” and it is close to petitionary prayer. In April we shall start discussion of Tom Gates’s Opening the Scriptures. In chapter 1 he searches for George Fox’s use of the Bible. Fox’s emphasis is always on the internal experience corresponding to the external historical account of the New Testament. For Fox, “the process of making straight the way of the Lord is an interior one.” On April 27 we shall have a continuation of the discussion Ruth began in November. We hope to have a rich discussion within the following outline: Attention to the corporate life of the meeting involves answering queries such as:
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The MeetinghouseThe magazine Architectural Record, in its February edition, featured an article with photos on the meetinghouse. In it, it said,“Arriving parishioners approach the small complex on a path that meanders through xeriscaped shrubs and mature mesquite and acacia trees, which block a nearby beauty salon from view. As one treads the circuitous path, the gradual arrival sequence allows the mind to settle, shedding the busyness of daily life until one passes through a heavy wood-slotted gate set in a thick limestone perimeter wall. . . Once inside, parishioners encounter a covered portico stretching along a wing housing a series of small rooms, including a nursery and a library. With a garden courtyard on the right, circulation continues to the main meeting space on the other side of the building’s “L” plan. Each parishioner’s journey of quietude ends in the main hall, where Friends gather to practice attentive silence.” Parishioners? Read an excerpt from the article at: Friends Meetinghouse.
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At least One Thing“One thing is quite certain. Quakers today would not ever offer the next life as either reward or punishment or consolation for the life on earth. And in my observation they find this subject of little interest, preserving by-and-large a robust conviction or a cheerful agnosticism, which as they get older may sometimes moderate into a quizzical curiosity.‘Not expecting but hoping that the Resurrection will not catch them unawares whenever it takes place.’” Geoffrey Hubbard, Quaker by Convincement, quoting John Heath-Stubbs, A Charm Against the Toothache.
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A TombstoneWife of Thomas Smith, marble cutter. This monument was erected by her husband as a tribute to her memory and as a specimen of his work Monuments of the same style. 350 dollars. From Choices, newsletter of the Funeral Consumers Alliance of SA.
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Query for April
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