Dear Friends Wilton Quaker Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, Quakers 317 New Canaan Road (Route 106), Wilton, CT 06897 www.wiltonfriends.org Meeting for Worship 10:00 a.m. each First Day (Sunday) Children attend for the first 15 minutes, followed by First Day School Meeting for Business at rise of meeting on second First Days June/July/August, 6 th, 7 th and 8th Months, 2018 Query: Do we maintain Friends' testimony against war? Do we "live in the virtue of that life and power which takes away the occasion of all wars"? Are we exerting our influence in favor of settlement of all differences by truly nonviolent methods? Do we strive to transmit to everyone an understanding of the basis of our peace testimony? New York Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice Advice: Friends are earnestly cautioned against the taking of arms against any person, since "all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons" are contrary to our Christian testimony. Friends should beware of supporting preparations for war even indirectly and should examine in this light such matters as non-combatant military service, cooperation with conscription, employment or investment in war industries, and voluntary payment of war taxes. When their actions are carefully considered, Friends must be prepared to accept the consequences of their convictions. Friends are advised to maintain our testimony against war by endeavoring to exert an influence in favor of peaceful principles and the settlement of all differences by peaceful methods. They should lend support to all that strengthens international friendship and understanding and give active help to movements that substitute cooperation and justice for force and intimidation. New York Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice New Slate of Officers Takes Effect Assistant Clerk Martha Gurvich: Martha has been active in many committees, including Ministry & Oversight and within New York Yearly Meeting. She will join Sean Higgins, Ann Homeier and Nancy Sarno on the CFS Board. Welcome, Martha! as a temp. Newsletter Editor Renda McCaughan:. She has been Newsletter Editor before (2011-2016). Although trained as a microbiologist in college, she has wide experience in the clerical field, stemming from her years Clerk Pete McCaughan was approved for his third year in office, as was Treasurer Albert Hsu. They must be doing terrific jobs! Aug. 4-5 Dates to Remember SoNo Arts Festival Aug. 5 11 a.m. Purchase Quarterly Mtg at Croton Valley Monthly Meeting Aug. 12 noon NO BUSINESS MEETING The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. MLK borrowed it from a 19th century minister. Submitted by Virginia Auster Wilton Quaker Meeting July/August 2018 Page 1
Table of Contents Page Query and Advice 1 Announcements, Photos 2,3 Minutes: Meeting for Worship wcfb, 6th Mo. 4-7 Photos of 75 th Anniversary Finale 8,9 Langston Hughes Poem 10 Op Ed, Calendar 11 Announcements NO BUSINESS MEETING IN AUGUST As customary at Wilton Monthly Meeting, there will be no Meeting for Worship with a Concern for Business on the second First Day in August (August 12). Purchase Quarterly Meeting, Aug. 5 Croton Valley Monthly Meeting is hosting Quarterly the first First Day/Sunday in August, Aug. 7th. It is a small meeting on a winding lane about 40 minutes from our Meetinghouse, according to Google Maps, taking Rte. 172. A program about lining up gun control sessions is planned. WQM on Instagram Wilton Quaker Meeting now has an Instagram account. If you use Instagram, please follow us at WiltonQuakers. Then the word will spread. (Why do we have this account? Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 so there is good linkage between the two. When we advertise for outreach on FB, some of our ads will appear on Instagram as well. Instagram has a younger demographic, so this encourages the intergenerational growth of Meeting.) Do check out our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/wilton-monthly- Meeting-of-the-Religious-Society-of-Friends- 105383136184316/ and our website (https://www.fgcquaker.org/cloud/wiltonquaker-meeting) regularly too. WQM is doing its best to be social media-savvy! SoNo Arts Festival, Aug. 4 and 5 Wilton Meeting's table for outreach at the SONO Arts Festival in Norwalk. Volunteers needed; call Diane at 917-32-4601. At least, do stop by! Hiroshima/Nagasaki Commemorations August 6: Commemoration of Hiroshima & Nagasaki (Aug 8). Since 2017, our public witness changed to Sept 26, the International Day for Abolition of Nuclear Weapons by the United Nations. Save that date Peace & Service Urging Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), our Quaker lobby in Washington, asks us to tell our Senators to please support Senate passage of the Elie Wiesel Act (S.1158). The House has already passed, by 406-5 and after five years of lobbying by FCNL and others, the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act. This will make investments in peacefully preventing war and violence. Our Senators are Senator Richard Blumenthal and Senator Chris Murphy. They can be reached by writing to U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20515, or phoned at 202-224- 3121, or emailed at senator_@murphy.senate.gov and senator@blumenthalsenate.gov. News of Friends Mungers back in New Canaan After ten months away, Doris, Rip, Kendra, Geoff (and wife and daughter) are back home! Rip is now bedridden but in good spirits. Cards are always welcome. By the way, Kendra looks great! Ty Griese s new address: 12 Danbury Rd Ridgefield, CT 06877 Missy Conrad shares quotes In 1857, a Quaker Mary Still declared, "Now is the time when Faith & Works must unite on Page 2 July/August 2018 Wilton Quaker Meeting
behalf of the thousands of people who now are & the thousands yet unborn." In 1943, the year Missy was born, the first Ex Sec of Friends Committee on National Legislation, E. Raymond Wilson, said, "We ought to be willing to work for causes that will not be won now, but cannot be won in the future unless the goals are staked out now & worked for energetically over a period of time." Quaker Thomas Paine use that phrase, "Now is the time..." in the late 1770's. Missy has heard this stirring phrase since a child, but did not know until her 50's that Paine was a Quaker. Two Quaker ladies having tea (Pat Gormley and Laura Higgins) July 1 Back to May: Mothers Day March A rainy day, but some stalwart marchers were at the Town Hall protesting. A nice day in June Pete McCaughan and Lucy Sam, Children & Young People s Officer from Britain Yearly Meeting, visiting us with Melinda Wenner- Bradley Two Quaker men hunched over their computers. Some of us (Children s Meeting, Advancement & Outreach, Ministry & Oversight) held an impromptu meeting with our guests that afternoon. That s Virginia Auster, Melinda Wenner- Bradley, Laura Higgins, Missy Conrad, Renda McCaughan, Lucy Sam, and Ty Griese sitting together. Wilton Quaker Meeting July/August 2018 Page 3
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Ed: I did not receive the Minutes of the July Business Meeting in time for this Newsletter. You may go to the WQM website (https://www.fgcquaker.org/cloud/wilton-quaker-meeting to get them when they are ready. Wilton Quaker Meeting July/August 2018 Page 7
We celebrate the Finale of our 75 th Anniversary Year with a picnic on July 15, 2018 Laura Higgins & Rob Docters point to the food Peter Murchison, Nancy Docters, Nancy Sarno, Virginia Auster John Anderson, Ty Griese, Tim Connolly make up a table. Yolanda Goodman and her daughter Adira Behmlander visited just in time to join us. Page 8 July/August 2018 Wilton Quaker Meeting
Renda McCaughan and Heather Blanco Pete McCaughan and Richard Duffee Panoramic views of the Finale. Thank you, Sean Higgins, for all these views of the party! Wilton Quaker Meeting July/August 2018 Page 9
Let America Be America Again By Langston Hughes Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be. Let it be the pioneer on the plain Seeking a home where he himself is free. (America never was America to me.) Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above. (It never was America to me.) O, let my land be a land where Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe. (There's never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.") Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? And who are you that draws your veil across the stars? I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars. I am the red man driven from the land, I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek And finding only the same old stupid plan Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak. I am the young man, full of strength and hope, Tangled in that ancient endless chain Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land! Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need! Of work the men! Of take the pay! Of owning everything for one's own greed! I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil. I am the worker sold to the machine. I am the Negro, servant to you all. I am the people, humble, hungry, mean Hungry yet today despite the dream. Beaten yet today O, Pioneers! I am the man who never got ahead, The poorest worker bartered through the years. In search of what I meant to be my home For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore, And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea, And torn from Black Africa's strand I came To build a "homeland of the free." The free? Who said the free? Not me? Surely not me? The millions on relief today? The millions shot down when we strike? The millions who have nothing for our pay? For all the dreams we've dreamed And all the songs we've sung And all the hopes we've held And all the flags we've hung, The millions who have nothing for our pay Except the dream that's almost dead today. O, let America be America again The land that never has been yet And yet must be the land where every man is free. The land that's mine the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME Who made America, Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, Must bring back our mighty dream again. Sure, call me any ugly name you choose The steel of freedom does not stain. From those who live like leeches on the people's lives, We must take back our land again, America! O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath America will be! Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, We, the people, must redeem The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless plain All, all the stretch of these great green states And make America again! Submitted by Virginia Auster, thanks to Diane Dilley and Betty Devereux Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream In the Old World while still a serf of kings, Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true, That even yet its mighty daring sings In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned That's made America the land it has become. O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas Page 10 July/August 2018 Wilton Quaker Meeting
Op Ed from your editor: At random, I opened the Quaker Faith & Practice of Britain Yearly Meeting to item 21.27 and I found this quote under CREATIVITY: A sudden concentration of attention on a rainy August morning. Clusters of bright red berries, some wrinkled, some blemished, others perfect, hanging among green leaves. The experience could not have lasted more than a few seconds, but that was a moment out of time. I was caught up in what I saw: I became a part of it: the berries, the leaves, the raindrops and I, we were all of a piece. A moment of beauty and harmony and meaning. A moment of understanding. Ralph Hetherington, 1975 Has that ever happened to you? It has happened to me while I am gardening, not every morning, but every once in a while. I will be looking for a mature green bean, perhaps, in amongst the equally green leaves, and the confluence of all the different greens lime green, dark green, yellow-green and the shapes of leaves, stems, long beans hanging down, the sunlight shining through brings me to that sense of my being all a part of that scene. I am drawn into that whole world, just for a few seconds. But pow! It is powerful. I must shake myself as I withdraw. I feel as though I have touched something of God, and I do feel exhilarated. Unfortunately, coming down from that exhilaration, something has been devastating my green beans, nipping stems at their axils, denuding plants left and right. I do not see any bugs or slugs, just dying stems lying on the ground. And, of course, no more green beans. Does anyone know what could be causing this devastation? I have tried soap spray to no effect. A solar beeper also had no effect. Fortunately, the roots of the plants are just fine, and new stem shoots and flowers are already appearing. However, with no cure, the new stems will suffer the same disease. Sigh. Calendar Aug. 5 10:00 am Meeting for Worship Aug. 5 11:00 am Quarterly Meeting at Croton Valley Meeting Aug. 12 10:00 am Meeting for Worship 11:45 am NO Meeting for Business Aug. 19 10:00 am Meeting for Worship 11:45 am NO Friendly Forum Aug. 26 10:00 am Meeting for Worship Committee Meetings: First Sundays: Phys.Stewardship, Finance at 9:00 am, P&S at noon Second Sundays: Children s Meeting: 9 am. Third Sundays: LRP 9 am; A&O 11:30 am. Fourth Sundays: M&O 8:45 am Clerk Recording Clerk Treasurer Pete McCaughan Laura Higgins Albert Hsu Finance Committee Clerk? Ministry & Oversight Clerk Children s Meeting Acting Clerk Physical Stewardship Convener Peace & Service Clerk Newsletter Editor Peter Murchison Renda McCaughan Laura Ferrera Sean Higgins Diane Keefe Virginia Auster Renda McCaughan Submissions to the newsletter are due by Aug. 22. Renda L. McCaughan, editor Wilton Quaker Meeting July/August 2018 Page 11
Wilton Quaker Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends 317 New Canaan Road Wilton CT 06897-3322 First Class Mail Dear Friends Page 12 July/August 2018 Wilton Quaker Meeting