It was a short month, but a lot happened in Febuary in the life of our Meeting. News of completed meetinghouse repairs continues to roll in, our co-clerk Amanda has been away some Sundays to fulfill her chaplaincy residency at a nearby hospital's trauma unit, and on the last Sunday of the month, our Zoom screen and little circle of chairs swelled to accommodate seventeen members, attenders, and visitors. On the fourth, we had our first of two or three first-hour discussions devoted to gathering input for our annual State of the Meeting report to South Central Yearly Meeting (SCYM). Although many could not be there that morning, there were enough of us present to put together some preliminary responses to the following queries: Worship: How does the spirit illuminate your Meeting's worship? How do you encourage ministry and seek to deepen the spiritual life of the Meeting and of individual Friends? Meeting Community: How does your Meeting's community reflect its spiritual strivings? How do Friends care for one another in times of spiritual or material need? What role do children play in the Meeting community? Religious Education: How has study deepened your faith and your understanding of what it means to be a Quaker? How have you explored issues of faith with newcomers, seasoned Friends, and children? Decision Making: How is the good order of Friends used among you? How does the Light illuminate your meetings for worship with attention to business? Membership Changes: How has your membership changed? How has this affected the life of your meeting? Concerns: Does your meeting have concerns that have not been adequately explored in answering the queries above? How have these concerns affected your meeting's spiritual and community life? Although our Peace & Justice Committee is not currently convening formal meetings, we as a meeting and many of us individually are involved in local social justice initiatives. John Coffin attended the Arkansas Coalition for Peace and Justice's annual meeting on the 10th, which he later reported was well attended. We appreciate his longstanding work in the community as a peacemaker, including his work at Tucker Prison and on-air presentations on KABF. On the eleventh, we were led by Tina Coffin in an exploration of the Naylor (or Nayler) Sonnets, a booklet of sonnets by Kenneth Boulding first published nearly 50 years ago. Based on the famous last words of James Nayler, one of the early Quakers, they are, in the words of the introduction, “written to express the hope that lies beyond despair.” At our Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business, we got the good news that the deck has now been power washed and made safe for our tenant. Sealing will take place after the weather warms up a bit more. Other items receiving attention were: the adoption of an Indigenous Land Acknowledgment Statement, booking a site for Winter Quarter 2025, the continued weeding of the library so as to make room for books about Quakerism and topics that are directly related to Quakerism in a strict sense, the archiving of the Carillon, and the upcoming Yearly Meeting (end of March). During First Hour on the last Sunday in February, David led us in another activity designed to help us become more compassionate communicators. We watched a video of Marshall Rosenberg and participated in an exercise. With First Hour, Worship Hour, and Young Friends program all considered, we had seventeen members, attenders, or visitors participate in some way that day. The exciting achievement in the Young Friends room was the mending of a hoodie. One less item will be headed to the landfill now.
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The larger monthly meetings in our Arkansas-Oklahoma region take turns hosting fall, winter, and spring quarterly meetings, while the other "quarter" is yielded to a yearly meeting. Each host meeting strives to find a place, such as a state park or lodge, that is within driving distance for Oklahoma and Arkansas Friends. In years past, we have met at such beautiful places as Robbers' Cave and Dwight Mission in Oklahoma. Little Rock Friends lost our go-to hosting spot when Dwight Mission near Stillwater, OK, was acquired in 2021 by the Cherokee Nation. We hold out hope that the Cherokee Nation might return to running it as a camp, retreat, and conference center. Meanwhile, finding a place that isn't booked years in advance has been a challenge that resulted this year in our plan to gather at Subiaco Abbey's Coury Guesthouse in Western Arkansas, a place that has served many in this area as an oasis of spiritual renewal and silent retreats for decades. Our decision was bolstered by how well Sister Cecilia Brickell's presentation was received during Winter Quarter 2023. Yet this was not an easy decision. It came about through a long process of spirit-led discernment by our Meeting and the ad hoc committee, the reworking of the contract by Subiaco's legal team, the gathering of input from LGBTQIA+ Friends across the quarter, and a series of first-hour activities meant to improve our capacity for good allyship and awareness of religious trauma. With AR-OK Friends being accustomed to paying roughly $25 to $45 for an entire weekend where we share the jobs of food preparation and dishwashing, the cost of lodging and meals at this guesthouse would be more than triple that. On the positive side, we imagined the older Friends' appreciation for a bed with a real mattress and bathrooms/showers that can be accessed without a trip through the cold of night, as is the case at lovely Lake Wister State Park. On the other hand, we did not want even one Friend to stay home due to cost. Thus fundraising began. Thanks to the generosity of several donors, including Stillwater Meeting, we were able to lower the cost of the weekend to around $80 for two nights' lodging and six meals if a Friend shared a room. A private room was a bit more. Those Friends who made it in time for Friday supper were greeted by Abigail, who has toasty warm accommodations right outside the guesthouse door. She loves skritches and coming on walks, but chooses not to come into the guesthouse. Also there to greet us was Fr. Patrick, whose assignment at the abbey includes taking care of the Coury House guests. He was a charming host full of funny stories, including that the other monks find it ironic, given his portliness, that he wants to put Abigail on a diet and exercise regimen. By the end of breakfast Saturday morning, we had all pretty much learned our way from Coury House across to the main building and under the red awning to go either up to the chapel where one could follow along with the monks at Vespers and other services using an electronic tablet or down to the basement to the guest dining room where kitchen staff hiding away in an enormous kitchen and pantry that ran the length of the building prepared meals for three sets of people three times a day: students, monks, and guests. After breakfast and worship sharing, Fr. Jerome Kodell joined us for a dialogue in which we learned about each other's traditions. He learned about the SPICES, and we learned about the Rule of Benedict, in particular mutual or reciprocal obedience. Fr. Jerome also told us about how monks receive assignments, and how that can change over time. He had never worked in a wood shop before, and now he makes all the coffins, allowing the abbey to have less expensive and at the same time more beautiful coffins. After lunch, some of us took the tour of the abbey with Fr. Francis. We left Coury Guest House at 1:00 and didn't get back until 3:00, very tuckered out and ready for snacks. We spent an hour just in the museum. Some highlights were: the hundreds of relics that made their way to Arkansas from Switzerland at a time when they were at risk of being seized by the government; decades' worth of farm implements, kitchen utensils, chasubles, habits, gifts, clocks, newspaper clippings; and an impressive collection of salt and pepper shakers. We also saw the altar in the church, which was vandalized in an incident that went viral globally. The original altar was made with a piece of imported marble lowered in by a crane before the roof was put on, but the abbey opted for a less costly and cumbersome method of replacing it. After the tour, those who went had about half an hour to refuel and get settled in for the workshops: Les Brelsford got us all up to speed on AFSC and other national Quaker organizations. Then Ruth led us in worship sharing around the Israel-Palestine situation. That was a heavy topic, so we chose to chant right after, which proved to be just the right transition activity before the sharing of favorite poems. Sunday morning at sunrise, some could be seen taking a walk--led by Abigail. At 8:00 a.m., we trekked back over to the guest dining hall for another delicious vegetarian meal and thanked the head of the kitchen team for making an exception for us to their usual "we do not accommodate special diets" rule. Worship was at 9:30, after which Jack clerked the Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business, giving all meetings a chance to report on the health and state of their meeting. Living alongside Benedictine monks for a weekend was an experience we won't soon forget.
Little Rock Friends started the year on the first day of January with a special New Year's pot luck of black-eyed peas, two kinds of cornbread, several side dishes and desserts. It was a month of many joys and some losses, as well. We held our dear co-clerk and her husband, our treasurer, in the Light as they walked the hospice journey with their beloved Muffin, a teacher and Zen master disguised as a dog. While not everyone could attend, many of us closed out the month in joyful reunion with our Arkansas-Oklahoma Quarterly Meeting in a unique setting--a Benedictine Abbey! Before breaking bread together on New Year's Day, Friend John led us in reciting together A Prayer for Peace, a copy of which he had brought back from a meeting of peacemakers in Little Rock who shared intentions for a nonviolent new year. On the seventh we had a surprise visit from occasional attender and Swarthmore alumna Dr. Karama Neal, one of thirteen who joined us for a discussion of two sections of the Holy Obedience chapter in Thomas Kelly's A Testament of Devotion. Sadly, Amanda and Tommy lost Muffin that evening. On the fourteenth nine Friends braved the cold for worship sharing followed by a potluck. We continued to announce the upcoming Friends General Conference "Changing Times" workshops--many of them focused on anti-racism--as well as our ever nearer Arkansas-Oklahoma Quarterly Meeting. Third Sunday was, as usual, Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business. One of the standout topics was the need to craft an Indigenous Peoples land acknowledgement statement for our meeting. We incorporated a simple, short statement into that day's meeting but will begin to gather ideas on Indigenous land acknowledgements and the reparative actions that we as a Meeting might undertake to underscore the adoption of the opening statement. On the 28th, a sizable contingent from central Arkansas was away at the AR-OK Quarterly Meeting, this time held at Subiaco, a Benedictine Abbey in Northwest Arkansas. That event will get its own blog post. About eleven who did not go to Subiaco came together at the meetinghouse or online. First Hour was an open discussion that spanned a number of topics including: how do we educate our teens and young adults to think critically and to prepare them for the world we now live in, and how might we preserve democracy? At the Rise of Meeting, we had a called Business Meeting to approve wood and labor costs needed to repair rotting boards on the back deck. The Meeting quickly came to unity on approving the work.
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