Calendar
Extended Worship Session
Extended Worship Saturday convened by Michael Wajda and Jean Rosenberg at Friends Meeting at Cambridge, Mass. on March 29.
Meeting for worship from 9:30 to 12:30, lunch (bring your own sandwich), and then sharing on the experience, finishing by 2:30. Overnight accommodations are available, as is an optional Friday evening program by Marcelle Martin on Being Gathered by the Spirit in Worship. Go to the Woolman Hill website here for more information on the program and how to register for an overnight. It can be helpful to let us know if you are coming; contact Jean Rosenberg at jrosenbe@middlebury.edu.
Cambridge Friends are offering limited hospitality for Friends traveling from a distance. Please reach out to Jonathan Vogel-Borne by March 22. The contact information is on the flyer.
The need to gather and to sink down to the Seed is even more important during the menacing time that we are facing right now. We hope that you will be able to join us.
Community Workshop
Following worship Worship & Study will be facilitating a participatory workshop on What is healthy and authentic community? Its conditions and characteristics from 12:00 to 2:30. To begin with our exploration of what it means to be a healthy and resilient community, we need to define what community means to us. A light lunch will be provided by Worship and Study between 11:30 and 12:00 pm.
Celebration of Life Gathering
Come Celebrate with Us ! The Celebration of Life Sunday
Please join us on Sunday, 6/1/25, from 10 a.m. on at the DAR state park in Addison, VT to worship together, enjoy a potluck meal together and celebrate! For more information, please reach out to John Cook, Louis Cox, or Grace Seale (this event will be co-hosted by the Worship and Study and Fellowship Committees).
The Celebration of Life Sunday started at MFM almost 50 years ago originally as a response to the question: what do Quakers do when babies are born? In lieu of the baptism or christening which is a rite to welcome new life in many churches, MFM responded with a gathering that included poetry/music/prayers/actions to “bless the new babies”. It was often at a member of the Meeting’s home and held outside, with shelter available if needed. It was held on Mother’s Day and was a day of feasting and celebrating. There was a May pole, music, kite-flying and more! The photo below is from long ago. Scroll below the photo to learn what is planned this year.
At a recent Friendly Forum, during which friends discussed this special time, there was agreement about continuing the Celebration of Life Sunday, but with some changes. We hope to continue the Celebration of Life at MFM as a time to recognize “natural and personal seasons” as we acknowledge significant life transitions and continue growing into new identities and places. In addition to recognizing milestones in the lives of younger friends, we hope to also recognize milestones in our adult community. Such things as retirement, the birth of grandchildren (or greats!) and relocation are some important events.
Meeting for Business
We gather monthly to discern how the Spirit guides us in our work together. The meeting is hybrid.
Middlebury Community Supper
Middlebury Friends Meeting is preparing (starting at 3:30 pm, serving, and enjoying the April 18 Middlebury Community Supper. We need to provide desserts (cookies and bars) for 125-130 people, and that means we need volunteers to make/bake the desserts and drop them off at the Congregational Church kitchen between 1:00pm and 3:00pm on Friday, April 18.
If you can make desserts but need to drop them off the day before, please call or text me (John Cook) to arrange that ASAP. Thank you Friends, and I hope you will come, prepare and share in the Community Supper starting at 5:00 pm.
Worship changed Venue
We will be worshiping at the Ripton, Vermont Community Church. Route 125 in the village center.
Listening session on the future of NEYM Sessions
March 23 at the rise of worship. Hybrid meeting
Why a Listening Session?
Recent years have brought many changes, both internal and external, to the context and circumstances surrounding NEYM Annual Sessions. These include increasing costs, diminished capacity to pay on the part of many Friends and families, reduced and shifting patterns of attendance, increased demand for supportive services and capacities, reductions in volunteer availability, and growing awareness of the need to focus and prioritize limited attention and resources.
In light of all of these changes, the Yearly Meeting’s model of programming, logistics, services, and funding for the event of Annual Sessions is in need of review and reimagining.
Starting in the fall of 2024, we will embark on a months-long process to engage many Friends across New England in meaningful consultation and discernment regarding future offerings of NEYM’s Annual Sessions. For more details on this process, see the full proposal and slide presentation in the downloads section below.
For this broad and deep consultation and discernment to be possible, we will need many Friends serving as facilitators, notetakers, conversation partners (engaging with focus groups) and more.
Background materials are available here: https://neym.org/sessions-visioning
Meeting for Business
We gather monthly to discern how the Spirit guides us in our work together. The meeting is hybrid.
Sharing Session on Current Events
Sunday March 9: At rise of Meeting for Worship. The meeting is hybrid.
Sharing session on current events. Facilitated, with queries:
How are you doing?
What are you doing to care for yourself and others?
What is rising most strongly among us?
State of Society Meeting
After the rise of worship and a light lunch we will gather to reflect on the events of 2024. Queries will be presented that will help guide the discussion.
Exploring Nature's Role in Addressing the Climate Emergency
Betsy Taylor will share how natural climate solutions involve actions to protect, better manage and restore nature to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and sequester and store carbon. These solutions can provide up to 37% of the global emission reductions needed by 2030 to keep global temperatures under 2 degrees Celsius.
Betsy's work with the Volgenau Climate Initiative and in philanthropy involves advancing this field in the United States. She will provide a brief overview of some of the promising initiatives in the United States to regenerate and conserve natural systems as a way to pull carbon pollution out of the atmosphere and sequester it in our forests, soils, and wetlands.
Extended Worship
Extended Worship Saturday convened by Michael Wajda and Jean Rosenberg at Woolman Hill. Meeting for worship from 9:30 to 12:30, lunch (bring your own sandwich), and then sharing on the experience, finishing by 2:30. Overnight accommodations are available, as is an optional Friday evening program by Marcelle Martin on Being Gathered by the Spirit in Worship. Go to the Woolman Hill website here for more information on the program and how to register for an overnight. It can be helpful to let us know if you are coming; contact Jean Rosenberg at jrosenbe@middlebury.edu.
Holiday Gathering
Holiday gathering. Jean and David Rosenberg’s house (232 Washington Street Extension, Middlebury). Gather at 10 am for all-ages worship, followed by pot luck lunch and then a bonfire (depending on the weather). Parking across the street at the veterinary hospital.