Peace and Social Concerns committee offers Zatoun olive oil and soap for sale to help support farmers in Palestine and peace in the region. Olive oil is the primary source of income for about 75,000 Palestinian farmers.
Current prices are $25 for 25.4 oz bottle of olive oil and $6 for a bar of soap. The oil is exceptional quality and the soap is unscented, mild, and long lasting.
Please contact Julia Hebner to purchase.
This month’s column, with a passage from the book by Michael Eric Dyson, Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon To White America, 2017 and 2021 was contributed by Tronette Anochie of Sandy Spring Friends meeting. She also contributed the response.
“America is in trouble, and a lot of that trouble - perhaps most of it - has to do with race. Everywhere we turn, there is discord and division, death and destruction. When we survey the land, we see a country full of suffering that we cannot fully understand, and a history that we can no longer deny. Slavery casts a long shadow across our lives. The spoils we reaped from forcing people to work without wages and treating them with grievous inhumanity continue to haunt us in a racial gulf that seems impossible to overcome. Black and white people don't merely have different experiences; we seem to occupy different universes, with worldviews that are fatally opposed to one another.”
Response by Tronette Anochie: Where do we go from here? The BYM Working Group on Racism, the Growing Diverse Leadership Committee, the Reparations Action Committee, and STRIDE are seeking the way forward out of darkness. But everyone is needed as we move towards the Light. A Friend who likes simple prayers asks, “What is mine to do?” Each person should be asking themselves this question and then listening to the Spirit within for direction, guidance, love, and action.
This column is prepared by the BYM Working Group on Racism (WGR) and sent to the designated liaison at each local Meeting. The BYM WGR meets most months on the first Saturday, 10:00 am to 1:00 pm, currently via Zoom. If you would like to attend, contact the clerk at david.etheridge@verizon.net.
The Baltimore Yearly Meeting Spiritual Formation Program invites its participants into a deeper spiritual experience through retreats, spiritual community in the local meeting, and individual spiritual practices.
· Richmond Friends will carpool to the BYM Fall Spiritual Formation Retreat Sept. 9-11, 2022 at beautiful Shepherd's Spring Outdoor Ministry Center in Sharpsburg, MD.
· The Spiritual Formation Program is founded on a daily spiritual practice of each person’s choice.
· All RFM participants gather in person or virtually for 3 large group meetings: Program opening (October 2), midway (January 15), and closing (May 5) from 5 to 7pm. Those in person at RFM will end with a 6:30 potluck.
· From October 2022 through May 2023, Spiritual Formation participants build community through committing to a monthly small group (virtual or in person), or to a spiritual friendship pair. Small groups, usually 6 to 8 members, meet once a month to share spiritual journeys and support one another in a daily spiritual practice. Or a participant may form a spiritual friendship with one other person. Themes of the small groups will be:
o The Creative Process as a support group for people who grow spiritually through dance, music, photography, painting, poetry, etc. (facilitated by Cas Overton)
o Spiritual Companion Group
o “Middle Third“ Group (young adults around 25 to 45, child care provided, facilitated by Katie Will and another Friend)
o Spiritual Friendships (groups of 2)
Our first large group meeting will be held on Sunday, October 2 from 5-7pm as an introduction to the process, for organization of small groups and dyads, and for sharing spiritual journey resources.
For more about the Spiritual Formation Opening Retreat, visit the BYM site: http://www.bym-rsf.org, click “Events,” click “Spiritual Formation.”
To register, you can use either the on-line form (https://forms.gle/BJGTn4mCWfXJggtq8) or the paper form available at the meetinghouse. Please register by September 25, 2022.
After a long illness, our F/friend Martha Menk died on Wednesday, August 3. Details about a memorial service will come later. Please hold Gary, Isaac, and their extended family in the Light.
Jules Arginteanu is home from the hospital and has hospice care. Please continue to hold Ellen, Jules, and their families in the Light. Care + Counsel invites the RFM community to provide Jules and Ellen with practical, comforting support, by volunteering to deliver a simple evening meal through this Meal Train link. Thank you in advance for supporting Jules and Ellen.