August 3, Sunday ........ Potluck lunch at 11.30.
August 10, Sunday ....... Forum, not sure.
August 17, Sunday ....... Forum, Gates, Opening the Scriptures, Session 5
August 24, Sunday ....... Forum, to be announced.
August 31, Sunday ....... Forum, not sure.
September 1, Monday .... Picnic at the Wilkinsons, 2 p.m..
September 7, Sunday ..... Potluck lunch at 11.30.
September 14, Sunday.... Forum, not sure.
September 21, Sunday... Meeting for Business, 11.30.
September 28, Sunday.... Forum, not sure.
Each Thursday at 4-5 p.m., a peace vigil is held at the corner of Commerce and Flores -- one block from Main Plaza.
Clerk: Bill Wilkinson, (561-9360); e-mail: billwilk3@att.net.
Website: http://www.sanantonioquakers.org.
Editor, Ken Southwood: jksouthwood@grandecom.net
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.
Here is a report from John Muhanji, Director of African Ministries of Friends United Meeting, on the return of the internally displaced people to Sugoi. “The IDPs told the District Commissioner the only people they know who have been very helpful in ensuring that they resettle to their homes are the District Officer and the Friends Church. He was given my number by the DO and the IDPs would like to meet me from the Friends church and the DO on Monday morning. I was very tired and I needed a rest after a long week full of activities. I tried to give excuses not to go or send someone else, but the DC said, ‘You have done a lot for these people and I believe you are the only person who could make this day a success.’ I accepted reluctantly but at the same time I asked God to give me energy and wisdom on how to deal with the situation. . . |
Business MeetingThe clerk recorded the minutes and discussion by hand – no recording clerk, nor notepad computer! Meeting regressed thirty years! He asked committee clerks to advise him of their meetings, as he would like to attend some of these.The treasurer’s report showed that contributions are matching expenditures. She asked if Meeting should convert to Windtricity, power by wind. After considerable discussion, helped by Joe R’s knowledge, it was agreed that Meeting should convert to 100% Windtricity and that the treasurer should report back as to how it affected costs. The clerk of M&O spoke of Jen Osborne’s research work and interest in going to Rwanda (see below). She took our good wishes with her and $100 from Meeting to contribute to some worthy project there. She will be laying the foundation for a longer stay next year. We have her email address if anyone would like to write to her. We have heard from Julie Hicks Fondanova, now Julie Hicks. She and Michael have separated and Julie has moved to Illinois to be nearer her children and friends. She has been attending a local church and wishes to resign her membership in the Religious Society of Friends. In accepting her resignation, while recalling good memories, Janet will ask her for news of Michael , who is still a member of our meeting. Janet thanked everyone for their loving care at the time of her recent accident, saying “Do we have a Community of Friends? I’ll vouch for that.” The Outreach Committee has discussed methods of outreach to the wider community, with interest in Quakerquest (see below). Changes in the website were discussed, with some changes to the introductory statement, for more and larger photos, and noting that Quakerquest had found that seekers were interested in spiritual practices of contemporary Friends, not in Quaker history and organization. Meeting expressed its thanks to Colby Glass for his support of the website. The committee wondered what evening social activities Friends would prefer and will inquire of them. The Friendly Eights last year did not get off the ground. There will be a Saturday picnic in Brackenridge Park in November and inquiries are underway for an evening of Friends’ artistic creations. We have lists of films, on loan from the FGC library, which we might show, all on relevant social concerns, and a list of art films. Cataloging our library books is proceeding and the library would be grateful for donations of suitable books. The committee will display some Pendle Hill pamphlets and invite Friends to select some for a Forum. Selections from the Quaker Tapestry annual calendar will be displayed later to enable Friends to order 2009 calendars if they wish. The new clerk of the Building Committee presented his report, saying that we are ready to install the new signs at the road intersection. A list of needed repairs will be posted, inviting handypersons to volunteer, and a history of the building and its features is being prepared. A question was raised about the installation of fans, suggesting that, if needed, they should be in the loft and invisible. During the meeting the A/C fan was running throughout to see if this sufficed. The clerk raised the matter of Cielo Grande Quarterly Meeting, which was very sparsely attende last year. Should we suggest holding it here? After a great deal of discussion it was decided that an ad hoc committee should inquire into this. [The list of members will be posted in the foyer.] Hospitality would be needed; the Mennonite Martha and Mary House was suggested; a good program will be necessary; other Meetings should be notified. The clerk also spoke of inquiring if another Eyes Wide Open display should be held here, possibly on rentable city property. Docents would be needed; there is enough in our budget to pay for it; a special business meeting will be called to consider more information. As business was being discussed we enjoyed the sight of a humming bird dancing above a bush by the steps of the meetingrooom deck.
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PersonalJan has gone off to Rwanda to study how different international humanitarian Non-Governmental Organizations and researchers establish an ethical basis there that helps them communicate effectively with Rwandan individuals and organizations. She says, “I’m particularly interested in humanitarian organizations, especially those that work toward peace and reconciliation.”She will find out how Rwandan individuals who work toward peace there see these attempts and identify possible shortcomings in the NGOs’ modes of communication. She is now doing preliminary work and will return next year to do the full study. She says, “Earning legitimacy in countries is essential for NGOs who operate in post-colonial cultures.” Kyle Farmbry writes to us: “We just completed our 2008 United States South African Young Leaders Summit in Cape Town, South Africa. Despite what turned into a rainy few days (July is both the height of Cape Town's winter and the height of the rainy season), all of our participants from the U.S. and South Africa had a wonderful experience. With students from Philadelphia, PA, Washington, DC, several cities in NJ, Albuquerque, NM, Johannesburg, SA, and Cape Town, SA we were able to watch a number of new friendships form among students who we know will be leaders on national and international levels in the very near future. Next on our agenda is the Capitol Leaders Summit, which will take place from August 10-14, 2008 in Washington, DC. This program, for students entering grades nine and ten promises to provide another opportunity for us to meet and connect with more young leaders from various communities. But places are now filled. We are very excited about the recent admission of two of our South African program participants into the African Leadership Academy, a very selective new school that is based in Johannesburg. Kylie Marias and Spencer Horn are only a handful of students from South Africa and from the continent of Africa who were chosen to be students in this school.” Francesca visited family in Italy recently. She is well, the boys are rambunctious but getting high grades in school. Dmitri was promoted at work this summer. Lee G and his wife Linda visited town. They were married under Meeting’s care in 1999. They are well and enjoying their work at Clemson. Sharon took off following Lewis and Clark across America in July. Carol, Joe, and Neil are going to Hawaii to see Carol’s mother.
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What Do You Make of This?At 65 miles an hour, if you turn off your car A/C, opening the window cancels any fuel savings because of the extra drag. Apples shipped from New Zealand to Britain were found to have a smaller carbon imprint than apples grown and sold in Britain, apparently because they were grown and shipped more efficiently. Plastic bags require less energy and greenhouse emissions to manufacture, ship, and recycle than paper bags and take up less space in landfills. Throughout the world last year there was exactly one death by shark attack.From John Tierney, NYT 7.29.08
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QuakerquestQuaker Quest is a dynamic new approach to outreach that has brought seekers to meetings all over England. It is based on the idea that Quakerism, "a spiritual path for our time," is simple, radical, and contemporary.The project began in 2002 as the leading of a group of seasoned Friends in London. Quaker Quest sessions have been so popular that they are currently offered at Friends House, London, every Monday night. Two years ago the core group began to train meetings outside London. Quaker Quest is now being offered by meetings throughout the United Kingdom and in Australia. In essence, Quaker Quest is a series of public open meetings on Quaker topics, which are presented in repeated cycles. The sessions follow a lively format which engages seekers intently for two hours. During each session three Friends speak briefly from the heart about the evening’s topic. Seekers then divide into small groups each facilitated by a Friend who makes certain that everyone has a chance to share. The three presenters then offer a second, shorter set of talks. A question and answer period follows. The program closes with a 30-minute Meeting for Worship. Extensive publicity is a key to the success of Quaker Quest and it requires experienced volunteers. One of the benefits of offering multi-session cycles of classes is that one round of publicity promotes numerous events. Each meeting offering Quaker Quest has to figure out the best approach to publicity in its particular area. Friends General Conference provides leaflets and posters to meetings electronically. The meeting pays to have the materials reproduced locally. Effective publicity can be expensive; meetings see this as an investment in the future. For more information about Quaker Quest go to the British site, http://www.quakerquest.org/. Leaflets and the web site describe Quakerism in this way:
Responding to questions raised by seekers in Quaker Quest sessions, the core group in London created a series of pamphlets which can form the basis for sessions: "Twelve Quakers and God," "Twelve Quakers and Worship," "Twelve Quakers and Pacifism," "Twelve Quakers and Simplicity," "Twelve Quakers and Evil," and "Twelve Quakers and Jesus." Each pamphlet contains a brief introduction followed by twelve personal statements. In addition to avoiding the difficulty of reaching agreement on a single statement or of appearing creedal, the pamphlets show the diversity among Friends while allowing each writer to express his or her own spiritual understanding.
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Today In Alternate HistoryThis is a website, giving awards for outrageous fictitious history: http://www.todayinah.co.uk. On October 30th, 2005, the award went to: “in 1650, the murderous cult that called itself The Society of Friends first gained its popular name of Quakers when founder George Fox told them that ‘the unbelievers will quake and tremble at our approach’”.
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The Dazzle of DayThis novel by Molly Gloss, newly in the Meeting library, is an account of the sailing of Quakers to the new world. But the time is not past, but future, and the new world is literally that, a world which has taken them two hundred years to reach, the original travelers replaced by later generations. They travel in a great doughnut-shaped, rotating, spaceship, growing their own crops in naturalized artificial fields, infested by pests, raided by birds, watered by rain from the metallic sky, aerated by breezes generated in mechanical tunnels, bathed in artificial sunlight, and in temperatures which vary by regulated seasons.Living in small communities with limited contact, they govern themselves by Monthly, Quarterly, and Yearly Meetings, reported to by ubiquitous committees. As they approach the distant planet, they have sent out a scout craft, which returns, having lost half its crew, with accounts of a cold, harsh, environment. They must decide whether they will land and try to settle and adapt to this, or continue to search for another world. Someone raises the possibility of just staying in the only “world” they have ever known. At this, the decision to land and settle comes from the message in meeting of a stroke-stricken man whose urgent confused syllables are reborn in Friends’ minds as “Are we thinking we’ve created something? Are we thinking, because we’ve put ourselves and some other creatures inside a container, that this container we’ve made is Eden? . . . Are we thinking we can go on living forever inside the little circle of each other’s arms without returning? Without joining ourselves to the cosmos?” For readers unfamiliar with the peculiarities of Quaker life, the book gives glimpses of Quaker spirituality among imperfect Friends, silent meetings in which messages are incomplete in themselves and only completed by the messages of others in the minds of the gathered meeting. Yet readers should wonder how much of the customs and manners of these Friends are those of Quakers today and how much are imagined manners in an unknown future.
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CUT FLOWERSIn a crystal bowl, but drooping fast,Beautiful roses with not long to last, Pink petals falling in the heat of the room, Drenching the senses with damask perfume.
Not protective the dark leaves, veined and shining,
No more to blush at the kiss of the bee,
Bright roses still growing, a living still-life,
Though a vase of roses is lovely to see,
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Mortality“The art of being sick is not the same as the art of getting well. Some cancer patients recover; some don’t. But the ordeal of facing your mortality and feeling your frailty sharpens your perspective about life. You appreciate little things more ferociously. You grasp the mystical power of love. You feel the gravitational pull of faith. And you realize you have received a unique gift – a field of vision others don’t have about the power of hope and the limits of fear; a firm set of convictions about what really matters and what does not.”Tony Snow, who died recently, writing in 2005
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The Light in All“Oh God, place light in my heart and light in my soul, light upon my tongue, light in my eyes and light in my ears, place light at my right, light at my left, light behind me, and light before me, light above me and light beneath me. Place light in my nerves and light in my flesh, light in my blood, light in my hair and light in my skin! Give me light, increase my light, make me light!”Zia Inayat Khan, Sufi Order International Taken from Gary’s handout at the reading of Gates’ book, Opening the Scriptures.
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A Mass Quaker Grave!This is an item of BBC news from last June:“A mass grave believed to contain the bodies of followers of the Quaker religious movement has been uncovered in Cambridgeshire. Environment Agency workers found the rare Quaker burial site while carrying out work for flood defences at St Ives. Sixteen bodies were in the unmarked grave dating back to the late 1600s. Archaeologists described the find as "remarkable and unusual" as it gave an insight into Quaker burial practices just after the movement started. The Society of Friends was still emerging and developing as a religious movement in the last 1600s and now has many millions of members across the world. Nine male bodies, five female and two of undetermined gender were uncovered during excavations for a £8.8m flood defence scheme at St Ives designed to protect 1,600 homes. The men and women were buried between 1680 and 1720, local historians have traced most of their names and archaeologists have examined the skeletons. One male skull revealed evidence of a pipe facet - two holes in teeth on one side of the jaw formed by years of pipe smoking.” We hope to hear more about those many millions and hope research is proceeding into how so many could have survived.
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Eggs and the Hens which Lay ThemMost of the eggs we consume come from operations in which thousands of hens may be kept in cages stacked several rows high. The manure generates high levels of unhealthy ammonia. Egg packaging may falsely imply that eggs are produced under humane or safe conditions. Here's what you should know:Only one label in the marketplace establishes government-backed standards that are independently verified: • Certified organic. USDA-certified organic eggs are laid by hens raised under stringent standards: 100% organic feed with no animal by-products, no antibiotics, and access to the outdoors, but no guarantee they actually went out. Other claims: producers are accountable to the USDA for the truth, but these are not independently verified: • Free-range and free-roam: many eggs from hens which may not actually go outdoors. • Cage-free: generally means hens are uncaged inside henhouses, with no requirement of access to the outdoors. • Natural: products are minimally processed with no artificial ingredients. Most fresh animal products meet these criteria anyway. Some producers use the term to refer to how their animals are raised, but are not accountable elsewhere for its truth. • Pasture-raised: grain-based feed with pasture grazing producing eggs with a higher level of certain beneficial fats. A USDA-backed label for grass-fed beef will appear in stores later this year but not for poultry, dairy, eggs, or other animal products.
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EventsThe Wilkinson family is hosting a Labor Day picnic for all FMSA members and attenders, at 2:00 pm. Activities include swimming, badminton, board games, any other game or activity you bring along, and of course eating and great conversation! Please bring your own meat or other items to grill, as well as a side dish or dessert to share. Bill and Denise will provide beverages. We have some chairs, but if you have a lawn chair you could bring along, that would be great. Please let Bill or Denise know if you intend to come – but if you don’t get a chance, just show up! .... Look forward to seeing you there!An event occurred in July, but not one widely advertized. Someone burgled some apartments on Eisenhauer and dropped the loot off under the end of the meetingroom. We believe a police officer who lives in La Fiesta caught the thief and recovered the loot. Marian found a policeman watching over it. A rally, “Help Stop Child Imprisonment,” to close Hutto prison, holding undocumented immigrant families with children, will be held at Taylor, 25 mins. North of Austin, on August 16, at noon. An ad hoc committee of the meeting is considering holding quarterly meeting here on October 11-12 in conjunction with an Eyes Wide Open display. Bill is looking into holding this outside the Alamo. We would need hospitality for visiting Friends, arrangements for children, organization of the display, oversight, and dismantling of the EWO exhibit, which is smaller than the original, now focused only on Texas. So it’s more manageable. The meetingroom A/C failed again at the end of the month. It was a repeat of the previous problem and we solved it ourselves. A small group from San Antonio will be visiting Hill Country Meeting at Dotty’s house on August 3rd. It is a small group and Don is no longer able to take part.
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Inazo NitobeInazo Nitobe (1862-1933) was by birth a member of the samurai, the ancient military caste of Japan. He was converted to Christianity in his student days, and then also arose in him a desire to be a link between the East and the West. One of the first two Japanese students to study in America and Europe, he joined our Society in Baltimore about 1885, and married a Friend, Mary Elkinton, of Philadelphia, in 1891. Having studied Agriculture and taken his Ph.D. at Halle, he returned to Japan and effected great agricultural reforms. He was eminent in education and at their home in Tokyo he and his wife influenced countless students through the long years of his services to his country. After the first world war he became Under-Secretary-General of the League of Nations at its foundation, and spent some years in Geneva. On his return to Japan he was made a life-member of the House of Peers. He said, “Only in Quakerism could I reconcile Christianity with Oriental thought.”
You can find out more from: http://members.lycos.co.uk/JennySteel/quakers.html.
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Transnational Trade Unions?As transnational corporations spread their operations across the world, taking advantage of low wage rates and less restrictive legal requirements, their workers are culturally, economically, and nationally diverse, and isolated from each other. Now some unions aim to become transnational. The United Steel Workers (USA and Canada) have merged with the largest British union to become Workers Uniting, and coordinate trans-Atlantic activities.They are discussing setting up operations in Colombia, Liberia, and India. Helping workers in the Third World to improve their working conditions helps First World workers too. But the new union will have to deal with drastically different labor markets. After WWII the British Labor government encouraged unions in British colonies and the Trades Union Congress to help them organize. We hope for something better.
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Heifer (or Goat?) InternationalOur children – take note!Heifer International gave a goat to a village family in Uganda. It soon had twins, giving the family more money and the children milk to drink. The family could now afford to send their daughter, Beatrice, to school. She became the school’s best student. She won a scholarship to Uganda’s best girls’ high school and to a prep school in Massachusetts, and then to Connecticut College. People who gave money to Heifer International supported her. The villagers held a special Mass and a feast to celebrate! The first local person to get a college degree in America! She plans to get an MA at the Clinton School of Public Service and return to Africa to work for an aid group. Does anybody have a goat to spare?
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Anna Quindlen, quoting:= A friend of Senator Tsongas, "No man ever said on his deathbed ‘I wish I had spent more time in the office.’"= Her father, "If you win the rat race, you're still a rat.” = John Lennon , "Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans." = Herself, It's so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit.
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The Light, ImprisonedHere are two stories of the inner spirit within Italian prisoners of war in World War II, in very different parts of the world.The first is of three men, confined in Camp 354 near Nanyuki, Kenya. From the camp they could see Mount Kenya, a distant vision of freedom. One of them, Felice Benuzzi, persuaded two others to escape the confinement of camp life with him. They escaped in January 1943, walked through the countryside undetected and through deep jungle infested with large and fierce wild animals, and climbed the mountain, using a sketch of it drawn on the label of an Oxo tin as their guide. With one of them sick and unable to make the final climb, they descended by the same hazardous route, made their way through the country and, after 18 days, astounded the camp commander by breaking back into the camp. He gave them 28 days in solitary confinement. Benuzzi’s book about this, No Picnic on Mount Kenya, is in the downtown public library -- 940.54724 BENUZZI The other story is of POWs, from warm Italy, imprisoned and made to work on the empty island of Lambholm in the Orkney Islands off the cold northern tip of Scotland. John Ross, in News.scotsman.com, says, “More than 60 years ago, Guido DeBonis was one of a team of Italian prisoners of war who fashioned a small chapel out of two drab Nissen [Quonset] huts in Orkney. Using scrap material from a wartime construction project, they created a masterpiece that people have marvelled at ever since. But until recently the 89-year-old former soldier had no idea the labour of love had even survived the Second World War, far less that it had become one of the islands' most iconic buildings. Yesterday, he made an emotional pilgrimage to the uninhabited island of Lambholm to see again the sanctuary that became known as the Miracle of Camp 60. ‘I cried when I walked through the door,’ said Mr DeBonis, now a great-grandfather. ‘I was brought here in 1942 and I cannot believe it is still so beautiful after all these years.’" They also created a statue of St George, patron saint of England, made from barbed wire coated in concrete, perhaps because, as he said, “ . . they gave us good warm clothes and we were well looked after, and in a funny way I remember them as happy times." After June 1943, when Italy capitulated, the men were no longer prisoners. A comment from a resident there, said, “Many of the Italian POWs never left Scotland, they married local girls and opened Ice cream parlours and chippies.” You can see many amazing pictures of that church at website: http://www.orkneypics.com/webpage/page/page045.html. In the painting above the altar the Christ child holds a sprig of olive. We told these stories to Francesca, who came to America from Italy, and had not heard them.
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Sixth Graders in Penn House:For three days in March last year sixth graders from Buckingham Friends School in Lahaska PA stayed at William Penn House in Washington, seeing the sights and their congressman by day and coming home to games at night. Some of their comments from the guest book:“This house is AWESOME! They have games galore. Thank you VERY much. The rooms are very cozy and beautifully decorated... THANK YOU. Will Yarnall.” “I loved everything this is the best house ever. I love the rooms they are big and roomy I want to live here forever. Thanks! Chandler Ney” “Thanks! I had a really great time + everyone was SO nice! Julia Savage.” “Thank you very much. It was great. I will make sure when I come back to Washington I will stay here. Thanks a lot! Philip.” “Thank you so much for letting us stay here and enjoy ourselves! I’d love to come back and see you guys again. Thank you again, and it was wonderful to meet you all! Valentina H, Evans “Leaving here is about the worst thing in the world. Every moment of being in this house was great. I just want to say thank you for being so kind while my class and I stayed. Addie Rizzo” “The bananas were awesome! On another note, thank you for making us feel welcome here! We are leaving this afternoon and I am going to miss this house! Maddy Wiley” [They were just bananas. What a polite group!] Now for the best:] “I really enjoyed staying at the William Penn House. The Southwoods were great and really helpful. The Hope Diamonds and gems were really fun to see. Michael Godshall” We suspect they were urged by their headmaster, Toby, to express appreciation. And they must have found out Janet’s name. They brought a wind of beauty into the house. Never did feet pounding the stairs sound more musical. We asked one of them if there were any nasty kids in their school. Thoughtfully, he said, “No. . .” Here is what a parent, who came, said: “We leave tomorrow morning for our final half day in Wash. DC. The hospitality was much appreciated as well as meeting for worship, fellowship, and getting to know ‘all’ our students in a much more thorough and interactive way. That was the ‘best’! Seeing the children interact, have fun, see new things, react to new surroundings, make choices, and basically acquire special knowledge and experience. George Yarnall.” The grownups who came with them enjoyed it as much.
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Meeting LibraryThe library books are being cataloged, with the possibility of placing the catalog on the website. Many of the Pendle Hill pamphlets provide good topics for discussion. Friends are asked to consider choosing one and introducing it at a Forum.If you have any spare books about Friends, by Friends, or about peace, or nonviolence, etc., and they are in good condition, please donate them to the Meeting by dropping them off at the library.
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God Absent, London YM 1994?In that year LYM approved a new Book of Discipline which contained “twelve sections which imply or declare that sodomy is morally acceptable, a kind of union blessed by God. . .” These words are those of a Friend who felt that LYM that year had been misled into the acceptance of sin. He opened his criticism thus:“The story is told of a Friend who attended this Yearly Meeting and died the following weekend. Called by God to give an account of himself, he recounted how he had attended London Yearly Meeting. "The Devil take it!" said God, "I knew I was supposed to be somewhere last weekend."
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From The FriendLittle girl playing in the garden said to an intrusive and persistent puppy - AOh, go away! What with you and God following me about, I can=t do a thing!@A Child=s Howler: AIn Quaker Business meetings the Clerk often writes a minuet to help to keep the Friends in step.@ A Committee was being appointed and a name was suggested by a Friend. A disapproving voice remarked, AThat is not a name which would have occurred to me.@ There was a period when some Quaker ministers thought it impressive to stand in silence before beginning. An American visitor [to England] did this in a large Meeting, and a voice from a remote corner said, AOur Friend is not heard,@ to which the Minister replied, AI h=aint said nothin= yet! [May have been a Texan. But it’s a British joke. This is how they think Americans speak. Ed.]
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Advices:AugustBe honest with yourself. What unpalatable truths might you be evading? When you recognize your shortcomings, do not let that discourage you. In worship together we can find the assurance of God’s love and the strength to go on with renewed courage.
September Every stage of our lives offers fresh opportunities. Responding to divine guidance, try to discern the right time to undertake or relinquish responsibilities without undue pride or guilt. Attend to what love requires of you, which may not be great busyness.
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