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Meeting Tasks for this Sunday:
Care of Meeting: Larry T.
Key - Judy H.
Setup help - vacant
Greeter - Joanne C.
Snack - vacant
Kitchen - Mark H.
Kitchen help - Don R.
Children's Teacher - Sharon T.
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Calendar for Bellingham Friends
When
Wed, Aug 29, 7– 9pm
What
Where
Midweek Worship
Mary Ann P.'s home
One hour worship + one hour worship sharing/ check-in. Friends gather for midweek worship on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays each month.
When
Sat. Sept 12, 2pm -
Sun Sept 13, 2 pm
What
Where
Annual Retreat
Camp Lutherwood
See full information at the bottom of the newsletter.
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Upcoming Second Hours:
Aug. 23 –Informational Meeting/Worship sharing on Meetinghouse Offer? (Or, Mary Ann’s presentation on Advance Care Planning.)
Aug. 30 – Held open as possible MfWfB if needed, (OR threshing session, re: Meetinghouse proposal?)
Sept. 6 – Labor Day Weekend, extended social time (OR threshing session, re: Meetinghouse proposal?)
Sept. 13 - BFM Annual Retreat (with potluck Sunday)
Sept. 20 -
Sept. 27 - Quarterly Meeting, extended social time
Oct. 4 - Potluck
Oct. 11 - MfWfB
Oct. 18 – “39 Questions for White People” (SEC)
Oct. 25 - “39 Questions for White People” (SEC)
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From Ministry and Counsel:
Please hold Carole Teshima in the Light, as she recovers from knee surgery. Friends who are available to help with errands or meals, pleaselet Virginia Herrick know of your availability and she will coordinate if Carole needs any help. At this time she is mostly needing to rest a lot, she says!
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We ask Friends to hold our whole Meeting in the Light. We are already a few weeks into a 120-day contract within which we hope to discern whether purchasing the Bell Tower building is a Spirit-led choice.
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Please honor our shared silence in worship by planning to arrive before 10 a.m. on Sunday mornings. Please enter the hallways outside the worship room quietly, as voices carry. Please silence cell phones and arrange belongings before entering, and keep comings and goings during worship to a minimum.
Thank you, Friends.
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Opportunities for Friendly Activists
From your Social and Environmental Concerns Committee
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SUPPORT THE IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
A huge vote on war and peace is right around the corner.
click here
and follow the instructions (very easy) so that Friends Committee for National Legislation (FCNL) can help you send a message to your legislators.
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Support Low Income Housing Residents
Residents of Washington Square Housing are mounting a campaign to ask our Senators to use their influence to pass HR 233: Tenant Income Verification Relief Act of 2015
H.R.233 would reduce the burden on persons living in low-income housing by requiring income verification (and the completion of 27 pages of paperwork!) only once every three years instead of every single year .
A Petition will be available for your signature at Meeting for Worship for the next several weeks.
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Comment on the Tongue River Railroad
We have an opportunity to comment on the Draft EIS for the Tongue River Railroad (TRR), which, if built, would transport 20 million tons of coal annually from the proposed Otter Creek coal mine for likely export to Asia. The TRR would adversely impact the lives and lands of farmers, ranchers, and the Northern Cheyenne Nation of southeastern Montana, and would contribute to 2.5 billion tons of new greenhouse gas emissions.
More information is available at: www.northernplains.org/issues/tongue-river-railroad/
And...
Here is a direct link to the page on the Northernplains Resource Council website that will help you formulate and send a comment to the agency that has the power to approve or turn down this project.
Taking the time to comment is easy, educational, and meaningful for the future of our shared ecosystem.
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August 13, Thursday, 5:30pm
Rally
White Supremacy Has Got to Go
Picket Bridge at Dupont Street, Bellingham
If you live in Bellingham you probably have passed the Pickett Bridge near the County Jail and the Post Office near downtown. Originally constructed in 1857 by Captain George E. Pickett of the U.S. Army as a military bridge. Pickett left Bellingham in 1861, returning to Virginia to be a successful Confederate General in the Civil War.
People of Color have been living with the consequences of White Supremacy. The Pickett Bridge is a local symbol of the not so hidden history of White Supremacy in Bellingham and Whatcom County.
We are calling on our community to join us to be in solidarity with People of Color and especially in this political moment to follow the lead of #blacklivesmatter to call to an end of sanctioned and unsanctioned violence towards black and brown people.
Organized by C2C, facebook event
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Experience FGC - the Gathering from the comfort of your own home!
You can view all the 2015 FGC Plenary sessions including
Parker Palmer
(this one will be available a little longer)
Click here
for access to all 2015 FGC gathering Plenary sessions
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Metamorphosis has a new format!
Click here
to find it online
The feature article on the Elders in the July issue is the first in a two-part series. Not only is it informative, its a great read.
Don't miss it!
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Friday Peace Vigil
When
Every Fri, 3:45pm – 4:45pm
Where
104 W Magnolia St, Bellingham, WA 98225, USA ()
Description
The Nation's oldest weekly Peace Vigil. Paricipants gather weekly at 4:00 pm with signs in front of the Federal Building on the Corner of Magnolia and Cornwall Streets.
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More
Announcements from the Wider Community
Concert in Elizabeth Park
Thursday, 6 pm
SUMMER PARK CONCERT SERIES:
Bellingham's Columbia neighborhood at Elizabeth Park.
Every Thursday through Aug. 27.
http://www.cob.org
6:00 pm - 8 pm
Free concerts sponsored by The Eldridge Society, in partnership with Bellingham Parks and Recreation. Hot dogs will be available for purchase, and all are encouraged to recycle and compost. Donations to enable The Eldridge Society to continue to pay the performers will be gratefully accepted at the concerts.
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Listen to Speak Up! Speak Out!
In Whatcom on KMRE 102.3 FM Sunday at 11 PM
In Skagit KSVR 91.7 FM (streaming at www.ksvr.org). KSVU 90.1 FM. KSJU 91.9 FM Friday Harbor. Wednesdays at 5 PM , Repeats Sunday at 8PM.
A half hour weekly locally produced radio show committed to community, peace, justice and non-violence issues. Topics and interviewees change weekly. Schedule subject to change.
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Discernment
Second Hour, Aug. 16, 2015
Quaker discernment is a process of collective decision-making that is not majority-rule, not consensus, but something both powerful and elusive. We call it “finding the sense of the Meeting.” It is practiced in Meetings for Worship for Business (our decision-making meetings for most things) and in committee meetings. It is rooted in the belief that there is “that of God” or Spirit in each of us, and that if we all attend to this Spirit, we will come to unity – complete, united understanding of the decision and peace with it. It is not quite the same a unanimity, either, but something rooted in this advice from George Fox: “Keep your meetings, and dwell in the power of truth, and know it in one another, and be one in the Light, that you may be kept in peace and love … All that ever you do, do in love; do nothing in strife.” This second hour will be an opportunity to explore where this process came from, how it works, and to go over some of the time-tested practices Friends have evolved to make it work better. Please join us!
Friends who wish to do some reading to prepare for the second hour program
may want to consult:
- North Pacific Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice - Chapter 5 “The Monthly Meeting.” Read about Friends Method of ReachingDecisions- especially sections on “Sense of the Meeting,” “Unity,” “Threshing Sessions,” and “Serious Differences of Opinion.”
- Beyond Consensus: Salvaging Sense of the Meeting: pp. 13-19.
- Gospel Order: A Quaker Understanding of Faithful Church Community: pp.4-5; pp. 9-10; pp. 38-39.
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From Outreach and Welcoming
Ever been puzzled about Quaker jargon?
The Outreach and Welcoming Group (OWG) is pleased to announce its publication of “A Quaker Glossary, with Some Notes on How Things Got That Way,” originally drafted by Howard Harris several years ago and recently augmented and edited by OWG Clerk Don Goldstein. Here are a couple of sample definitions:
Continuing revelation ---- The belief that God (or the spiritual dimension) can speak directly to people today just as tradition says happened in earlier times. Also called “ongoing revelation”
Lay down ---- To terminate a committee or activity when its work is completed, no longer felt necessary, or is not sustainable with the resources available.
The entire glossary may be read or downloaded by clicking on the following link: BFM Quaker Glossary . A few paper copies will also be available at Explorations Academy beginning about mid-August. Feedback to OWG about the glossary, including suggestions for definitions of additional Quaker-jargon words and expressions, is welcome by contacting Don at dnx6309@gmail.com.
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AFSC Suggested Action on Immigration Reform
and weekly video
AFSC is organizing a week of action against immigration detention, starting August 10. Specifically, the week is centered around asking Congressional Representatives to sign on to legislation that would end budgetary language that requires Immigration to pay for a certain number of beds in immigrant detention facilities each day. Removing these so-called "bed quotas" would be a major step towards ending immigrant detention, as it would take the guaranteed funding that is making private prison companies so profitable.
Each week for the next several weeks, the E-News will post a link to a short video from AFSC on this topic.
Here is this week's video:
ICE Immigration Detention- What You Should
Click here to access this video on youtube
Several additional AFSC-suggested youtube videos on immigration (including last week's) are available here
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Announcements from the Wider Community
Book Club Discussion
Tuesday, August 18th at 5:30pm
Bellingham Public Market
1530 Cornwall Ave.
The Bellingham Racial Justice Coalition invites you to join in on this community book group and discussion of Michelle Alexander's “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.” We’ll discuss through chapter 3, and meet again on Sept. 1 to discuss the remainder of the book
We will use the study guide and call to action published by the Veterans of Hope Project. This guide is about studying and exploring together as much as it is about doing the demanding work of creating a country free from the dehumanizing scourge of mass incarceration, Vincent Harding explains in the foreword.
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August 29th
Lummi Youth Academy Benefit Dinner and Variety Show
Lummi Gateway Center: 4920 Rural Ave., Ferndale (I-5 Slater Rd Exit)
Bar-B-Q Salmon Dinner (Lummi Style), Mallards Ice Cream
$35 per dinner:
Reception 6:00, Dinner 6:30
Tickets at Brown Paper Tickets or call Lummi Youth Academy
360-738-4218
Brought to you by Setting Sun Productions
Singing, Comedy, Skits, Poetry, Drumming, Silent Auction
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Totem Pole Blessing Ceremony at Lummi Nation
Saturday, August 22nd - 5:30 pm
Lummi Tribal Center, 2665 Kwina Road
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Whatcom Museum
HELMI'S WORLD: SYMBOL, MYTH, FANTASY
June 27 - October 11, 2015, Lightcatcher Building
Helmi’s World presents 65 artworks—paintings, drawings, prints and ceramics—drawn from the Whatcom Museum’s collection of her work, which numbers 250 objects. Some of her finest pieces are highlighted, including paintings of petroglyphs from Central Washington, watercolors of Lummi masked dancers, and linocut prints based on the Makah Wolf Dance experienced at Neah Bay. The exhibition suggests the complexity of Helmi’s vision by displaying some of her most unusual artworks, where images and symbols from a variety of cultures converge. The influences of Mark Tobey, Pablo Picasso, Scandinavian Folk Art, and Judeo-Christian and Buddhist iconography are also explored.
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