We Face The Dawn
Join us at 9:30 am on February 10th for a discussion of the book, We Face the Dawn with the author, Margaret Edds.
ASE session cancelled on Dec 10
The ASE session: Restoring Our Collective Spirit, One Circle at a Time, scheduled for December 10 at 9:30 am, has been cancelled.
ASE Schedule Change
The ASE session, How Quakers Talk About God, previously announced for October 22nd is being rescheduled to be a part of the Living the Quaker Life Series beginning in February.
Adult Spiritual Education Programs for the Fall of 2017
The Adult Spiritual Education Committee has planned a series of sessions for the Fall that will allow members of our community to share their spiritual journeys, interests, and gifts. Mark your calendars and plan on attending as many as you can. The sessions will be held in the Community Room and will begin at 9:30 and conclude by 10:45 in time for Meeting for Worship.
September 24
The Modern Plague: Voices and Images of the Early AIDS Epidemic
Presenters: Betsy Brinson and Kathy Yost Benham
October 8
Beyond the Comfort Zone: Three Years in Budapest
Presenter: Tom Ilmensee
Note: The following session has been rescheduled for the series starting next February.
How Quakers Think About God
Presenters: Dan Shaw, Don Miller, and Howard Garner
November 12
Memento Mori: On Life and Death
Presenters: Michael Pierce and Lynda Perry
December 10
Restoring Our Collective Spirit, One Circle at a Time
Presenter: Sylvia Clute
Spiritual Formation Program 2017-2018
Registration is open!
The Baltimore Yearly Meeting Spiritual Formation Program invites its participants into a deeper spiritual experience through retreats, spiritual community, reading spiritual classics, and individual spiritual practices. The opening BYM retreat is September 8-10 (Friday evening through Sunday lunch) at Priest Field Center in West Virginia; car pools will be organized. If you would like to learn more about the Spiritual Formation Program or register for the opening retreat, visit the BYM site: https://www.bym-rsf.org/events/spiritform/
The Spiritual Formation Program at the local RFM level includes a monthly large-group meeting that includes everyone. In addition to the large group meeting, most people join a small spiritual friendship group of 4 to 6 members who meet once a month to share spiritual journeys and daily spiritual practices.
Our first large group meeting will be held on Sunday, October 1, from 5-7 PM.
Our series focus will be “How has a Weighty Friend in each century of Quakerism found spiritual nurture? How do this Friend’s writings and stories speak (or not) to my condition?” We will focus on one Friend each month. The main text is Quaker Spirituality, edited by Douglas Steere, 1984 edition (or the briefer 2005 edition by HarperCollins Spiritual Classics). We will also read the Pendle Hill Pamphlets Margaret Fell Speaking by Hugh Barbour, and Reclaiming the Transcendent: God in Process by Thomas Gates. (See attached Calendar.)
From October through May, the monthly large group Spiritual Formation meetings will be on the 1st Sunday of the month from 5-7 PM beginning with a shared potluck.
If you wish to explore the possibility of joining Spiritual Formation at Richmond Friends Meeting, you are encouraged to contact Mary Fran Hughes-McIntyre or Ellen Arginteanu.
Please complete the form and submit electronically, or print out your form and return to meeting’s Adult Spiritual Education mailbox, by September 22, 2017. In addition, paper copies are available at the meetinghouse.
Link to online registration form: Click here.
Calendar: RFM S F Calendar 2017-18
Registration form to print: RFM SF Reg Form-2017-18 To Print
The Quaker Splits III: What Keeps Us Together
In recent months, Adult Spiritual Education sessions covered the history of splits and schisms in Quakerism, showing the Richmond Friends Meeting’s positions over the years.
On June 25 at 9:30am, Ministry & Worship Committee will continue this discussion. ASE will provide a quick recap, from George Fox until, after the 1967 death of its pastor, Richmond Friends Meeting switched from being a pastored, programmed meeting into the unpastored, unprogrammed meeting we are today. Then M&W will launch small discussion groups where all can share our individual beliefs and how they operate within a loving and very meaningful — if not always totally unified — meeting community.