Dear Friends,

It is delightful to have our evaluations completed. Thank you to all of you who filled out an evaluation form. I will go into this more thoroughly next week and talk about the places I need to grow and other responses to you.  It was nice that overall, most answers were very complimentary.

Many of you on this email list are not regular attenders of the meeting.  But are you a Quaker?  For those who are sure that is how they identify, we say you are  a “convinced Friend”.   If you are an attender, how do you follow Quaker processes?  The goal of the Quaker process is to discern what Spirit wants or needs.  We have several processes that we go through to help us discern outcomes.

The first thing in all questions is to come to a stillness before answering. Sometimes this is done with prayer, yoga, mediation, or just silence. But it can, in the best-case scenario, become a habit that you still yourself before responding to anything.  Block out all of the “noise” of this world and your own internal banter and let peace be in you and all around you. This is true especially when the world is chaotic.  Deep breaths help us all. Mindfulness helps us and lengthens our life expectancies as well as physical and mental health.

But what about church?  We are called a monthly meeting because our committees meet monthly, and most of the time we meet once a month for business.  The committees I am referring to are the Stewardship Committee, the Ministry and Care Committee, and Peace and Social Concerns.  These committees exist in almost all Quaker meetings if they are churches or if they are another form of worship or fellowship.  I don’t know how long these committees have existed in Quaker circles, but at least a century.  I am attaching a daisy flow chart so that you can see who to get in contact with in the meeting (church) depending on what you have a question about.  It is important to take a look at the chart and know what goes where in the church. These monthly meetings all answer to the greater church body.  They begin in silence and there is care taken to keep a discerning and respectful attitude during the entire meeting.  To get in touch with our clerk of the church, Bernadette Kero, call 541-274-0169.  To get in touch with the clerk of Stewardship, contact Mike Moore at 541-892-1886.  To get in touch with Peace and Social Concerns, contact Joe Tolton at 765-994-9924. To get in touch with matters related to Ministry and Care of the meeting, contact Wendy Williams at 510-701-2360.  For anything related to the pastor or if you are not sure, please give me a call and I will point you in the right direction as best I can.  Hopefully this helps with helping you get your questions on Quaker process in the meeting answered when it comes to common questions or concerns.  We will talk about other ways of discernment in another newsletter and cover clearness committees and other Quaker processes for decision making.

Something from a totally different direction I need to mention in this week’s newsletter is the Interfaith Food Pantry.  There is a white table up in the meeting house entry room, and we want to fill the table with items for the Feed a Child program.  There is a need for hygiene products as well as the following kid friendly meals and snacks: peanut or other nut butters, jellies and jams, packets of peanut butter crackers, noodle cups or ramen, cereal, instant oatmeal, pop tarts, canned fruit and fruit cups including applesauce, granola bars, Chef Boyardee Ravioli or spaghetti (make sure they have flip top cans for children to open easily), canned soups, chili, and stews.

You are all so very generous, and I know we will have the table filled soon.  We begin the project in June to cover for the time that children are out of school and home.  This will be taking place in June, July, and August of this year.

Thank you for your love and giving hearts,

Leigh Tolton