Bellingham Friends Meeting weekly E-News, January 14, 2015

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Sunday, Jan 18 is a Singing Sunday: come early and raise your voices. Then stay for a much anticipated second hour:
Quakerism: Experience it! Session 3, The Meeting
See below for readings which are not required, but will enrich your experience of the second hour.

Meeting Tasks for Sunday, January 18:

Care of Mtg - Nan Macy
Key - Don Goldstein
Setup help - Lorina Hall
Greeter - Wendy Beach
Snack - Mary Ann Percy
Kitchen - Mark Hersh
Kitchen help - Judy Hopkinson
Children's Teacher - vacant

Please contact Carole Teshima at knitpearl68@gmail.com to volunteer on a semi- regular basis or to fill any of the vacant tasks this Sunday.

Quakerism: Experience it! (QEI)
Session 3. Jan 18

NOTE: There is a document with readings for QEI on Dropbox, click here to access it. (If you cannot access dropbox, contact Virginia for assistance. She can send a .pdf file.

When you follow the link it takes you to a folder with six subfolders. Click on the one called "Xtra Reading Pamphlets, Articles, Charts, Papers." Then you'll see three pdf files. Click on the one called "Reading Materials Compilation." It includes ALL Course Packet materials for QEI. To prepare for Session 3, you may also want to do the readings that are NOT part of the Course Packet. (George Fox, Punshon Stephen, and Sheeran). Those are parts of books/pamphlets. If you did not order them from Susan Richardson, you will need to borrow them either from the Meeting library or from someone who owns them.

Readings for Session 3 onJanuary 18 are:

Study: “That of God in Everyone, Crauderueff, Course Packet, pp. 57-59

Journal of George Fox, Fox, pp. 262-263.

Encounter With Silence, Punshon, pp. 11-28, 74-91.
Beyond Majority Rule, Sheeran, pp. 3-7
Quaker Strongholds, Caroline Stephen, pp. 16-21
“Deciding to Speak in Open Worship,” Course Packet, p. 60

(Short of time? Read Sheeran, pp. 3-7; Punshon, 11-19)

Reflection:Kelly, The Gathered Meeting, Course Packet pp. 79-84

Gospel of John: Chapters 3 and 4.

Quakerism: Experience it!, Sessions 4-8 readings are also in a Dropbox file. Click here to find all of them. Then click on Weekly Materials for Participants to open that subfolder, then click on Introduction.pdf. You can then scroll down to see lists of the readings for all sessions (called "Weeks" in the materials.)

Coming in the Metamorphosis

(Each month’s Metamorphosis is available on our website (www.bellinghamfriends.org ) the Wednesday following Meeting for Business. A few of the many offerings in the current issue are:

December:
Update on Friendly Water for the World

January:
Couples Enrichment Workshop report
Friends Committee on National Legislation

Upcoming Second Hours

Jan 25: State of Society Report
Ministry and Counsel requests that Committee Clerks bring their State of Committee reports to this meeting.
February 1: Potluck
February 8: Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business
Feb. 15: Jay Thatcher from North Pacific Yearly Meeting will speak about Children's Programing
Feb 22: Quakerism: Experience It! Session 4: Discernment

Bellingham Friends Calendar of Events

Weds., Jan. 14, (tonight!) 7-9 PM Midweek Worship

at Mary Ann Percy's home
(1 hr worship + worship sharings and/or check-ins).
After this time, midweek worship will move to the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays each month. Future dates will be on January 21, Feb 4, 18, March 4, etc.
*****

Thurs, Jan 15, 6 PM
Movie Night and potluck

At "Cuddles house" (Joanne Cowan's)
Movie: Return of the River - a sold out during Documentary at the Pickford last October, this is the story of the effort to remove the Elwha Dam and restore the Salmon run on the Elwha.

Announcements from Friends
Anyone interested in a
Couple Enrichment Workshop in Bellingham?

Two Bellingham Friends (Wendy Beach and Don Goldstein) recently attended a Couple Enrichment Workshop at Whidbey Island Friends Meeting. They were very favorably impressed with both the workshop and the leaders (Cathy Wallin and Scott Bell from Fairbanks, Alaska).
New couples and established couples alike enjoy and benefit from well-led Couples Enrichment workshops, and these leaders apparently have the knack to do it right!
Wendy and Don were so impressed with the experience that they want to bring Cathy and Scott to Bellingham for another workshop - possibly in fall of 2015. If there is sufficient interest, Wendy and Don will propose meeting sponsorship and will handle the details needed to make this a reality.
If you and your partner are interested in being part of a local Couple Enrichment Workshop,
Please contact Don Goldstein (671-1395 or dnx6309@gmail.com).
See the January Metamorphosis for more information about the workshop.

Highlights from

Meeting for Worship with

Attention To Business

January 11, 2015

Ministry and Counsel shared the following poem which was included in a thank you note to the meeting from the Harris family:

CHRISTMAS

The shepherds might have slept that night,
Too tired to see the star.
The wise men might have had no time
To seek Him from afar.

For they lived through the same dull toil
That you and I now know,
And light and beauty come tonone
But those who rise and go.

The song and star are always in our skies,
Not only on His night.
Let us then wake and be aware,
Lest we miss the light.

- Howard L. Harris, 1958

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Meeting approved the following letter to be sent to the Army Corp of Engineers and the Lummi Nation (copes will also go to Senators Murray and Cantwell). The letter will be signed by the Clerk on behalf of the Meeting.

Army Corps of Engineers:

Dear Corps:

Recently the Lummi Nation in Whatcom County has made it clear that permitting of large export terminals at Cherry Point constitutes a major violation of their treaty rights because it seriously endangers their ability to maintain their tribal customs and way of life and threatens traditional coastal fisheries that support the economic independence of the Lummi Nation.

As Quakers, our faith calls on us to speak and act in ways that foster integrity and respect as well as simplicity, peace, community, and right relationship with the earth. We write to you now because we feel a vital opportunity is at hand for our nation to behave with integrity and courage. In our finest hours, our nation has done this. However, there are many times we have fallen short - for example by repeated violation of treaties made with the descendants of the original inhabitants of the United States.

At this unique point in time, you, the Army Corps of Engineers, are in a position to choose whether the United States will honor its treaty commitments, or circumvent them and risk irreversible damage to the traditional way of life of the Lummi Nation and the land and waters of their ancestors.

We strongly urge you to honor the treaty and to deny any and all permits that would allow construction of additional export terminals at Cherry Point or significant increases in large capacity vessel traffic in the traditional fishing waters of the Lummi Nation.

Thank you,

Bellingham Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)

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Minutes of Meetings for Worship with Attention to Business are sent to Friends who request to be included on the meeting for business mailing list. If you are not on that list, and would like you name to be added, email Judy at jd.hopkinson@gmail.com

Query of the Month

Seek to know an inward stillness, even amid the activities of daily life.

Do you encourage in yourself and in others a habit of dependence

on the Spirit’s guidance for each day?

Hold yourself and others in the Light, knowing that all are cherished.

Adapted from Britain Yearly Meeting Little Red Book, #3

From Ministry and Counsel:

Please hold Rob Dillard, Susanne and Sarah and extended family in the Light. Rob's mother died on December 29. She was buried on Saturday, Jan 10.

As of Tuesday of this week, Maya Hatten Beck has been released from Children's Hospital, where she underwent a bone marrow transplant about a month ago. Hooray!!! She's eating and drinking more and her blood counts are all good to great! Katy and Maya are getting ready to move up the street to the apartment at Ronald McDonald House. The plan now is to monitor her for Graft Versus Host Disease, treating where needed. Sometime between March 3 - March 23, if things go as planned, she will be able to return to Bellingham.

Please hold Sharon Trent and her family in the Light as she recovers from pneumonia.

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To honor and nurture our precious silent worship together, please plan to arrive before 10 a.m. on Sunday mornings. Please enter the hallway outside the worship room quietly, as voices carry. Please silence cellphones and arrange belongings before entering, and keep comings and goings during worship to a minimum.
Thank you.

Looking ahead to wider quaker gatherings:

Pacific Northwest Quarterly Meeting (PNQM) Silent Retreat – Jan 23-25, Camp Huston, in Gold Bar, WA. Information describing the retreat and instructions for registering are attached below.

PNQM Spring Quarterly Meeting – April 24-26, Ellensburg, WA: Theme: Lift Every Voice – Music & Spirituality

Friends General Conference (FGC) Gathering of Friends – July 5-11, Western Carolina Univ., NC APPLY NOW TO BE A SPONSORED ATTENDER -- SEE BELOW

North Pacific Yearly Meeting (NPYM) Annual Session - July 15-19, Whitworth Univ., Spokane

Quaker Earthcare Witness (QEW) Fall Steering Committee Meeting:October 22 - 25 at Ben Lomond Quaker Center near Santa Cruz, CA

Bellingham Friends are reminded that they may contact Ministry and Counsel for assistance reaching clearness about attending, and/or availability of financial assistance for attending any Quaker event.

Call for Applications for FGC Sponsored Attender Scholarships

Bellingham Friends are encouraged to apply now for the "sponsored attender" position at the annual Friends General Conference Gathering in July.

Sponsored attenders receive up to $1,000 in financial support from the Meeting to help defray the cost of attending. This year's gathering will be in the
Great Smokey Mountains of North Carolina, July 5-11
at West Carolina University in Cullowhee. The theme is Seeking Wholeness.

A preliminary list of workshops is already available at the FGC website, http://www.fgcquaker.org/connect/gathering/programs-and-events/workshops.

Sponsored attenders are expected to make arrangements promptly for their own transportation and register for the gathering promptly once registration opens April 1; attend a morning workshop; and participate in a range of activities throughout the week. Friends are asked to apply for financial aid directly from FGC to help reduce the amount of the grant needed from BFM. Sponsored attenders also are asked to make both a written and an oral report to Bellingham Friends within a month or two of returning from the Gathering.

If you are interested, let Nominating Committee (clerked by Mimi Freshley)
know as soon as possible, so a nomination can be
presented for seasoning at the February 9
Meeting for Business.

Announcements from the Wider Community

January 14, 2015
World Issues Forum
“On the Brink: Israel and Palestine on the Eve of the 2014 Gaza Invasion”

Alice Rothchild, Physician, author, filmmaker, and longtime activist

12 Noon-1:20pm, at Fairhaven College Auditorium
7:00pm - 8:20, 1220 Bay St, Bellingham (co-sponsored by Whatcom Peace & Justice Center)
On a fact-finding and solidarity visit to the West Bank and Israel during the last three weeks of June 2014, Alice Rothchild, with her careful observation and a deep understanding of the consequences of racism and occupation, documents the honest, heart breaking stories and lives that do not make the evening news. She will share these stories that are essential to understanding the context in which that news occurs.

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January 21
World Issues Forum
“Are We Off the Climate Precipice?”
Dahr Jamail, independent, award winning journalist
12 Noon-1:20pm, Fairhaven College Auditorium

Between 150 and 200 species are going extinct every single day. We are likely to begin seeing periods of ice-free Arctic by as soon as this coming summer, or the summer of 2016 at the latest. The 14 hottest years on record have all occurred in the last 16 years. August, September, and October of 2014 were each the hottest months ever recorded, respectively, and 2014 is already tied with the hottest year ever recorded. All this and we are only .85C above pre-industrial temperatures. Have we already gone off the climate precipice? What can we expect in the climate disrupted future, and what should we do now?

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Wed, January 21, Death Cafe

Will meet at Moles Family Funeral Home, 2465 Lakeway Drive
at the intersection of Lakeway, Woburn and Yew Street; parking lot entrance on Woburn.

Maureen "Koala", RN, and Cathy BSN RN are offering their outstanding presentation on
"The Realities of Advanced Medical Interventions"

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Saturday, January 17

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Saturday, February 21, 2015

League of Women Voters special Event

Living on the Brink:

Women's Economic Security in Whatcom County

Doors open at 9:30; Program is 10:00 – 12:00
Bellingham Technical College , Bldg. "G"
Settlemyer Family Hall
3028 Lindbergh Avenue. Free parking.

The League of Women Voters® of Bellingham/Whatcom County invites the public to a special presentation sharing the findings of their study on women’s economic security in Whatcom County and an opportunity to start a community dialogue about the implications. Guest speakers include Sheri Emerson, Associate Dir, Opportunity Council; Kirsten Barron, Attorney, Barron Smith Daugert; and Kerri Holferty, Whatcom Community College.

General Information:

Ways to connect with Friends: click on the links below for

Please contact Allen Stockbridge by email cleanairguy@gmail.com if you have any trouble connecting to either the Facebook account or to the Yahoo group.
And - See the October Metamorphosis for more information

Bringing snack? You may make this a contribution to Meeting, or, if you would like to be reimbursed, please write your name and "please reimburse" on your receipt/s and put in the Donations box. Thank you!

Posting items to the website calendar? Contact Virginia Herrick (vherrick@q.com) if you need help