As Way Opens
This time of year, as many things are coming to a close, graduations are happening, and summer adventures and new pursuits are finally upon us, I find myself reflecting.
This reflection is more about my awareness than it is a simple reminiscing. John Philip Newell wrote of this in the epilogue of his book, “The Rebirthing of God” (a favorite that I often glean wisdom from). He begins by quoting one of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver, and then turns to some very Quakerly thoughts. He says,
“Mary Oliver says of the way of awareness that we need to learn “to be astonished.” We need to see the Light that is within all life the way a child views the brightness of a new day with open-eyed wonder. We need to see with radical amazement the almost unbelievable gift of every moment. For this to happen we need to die to the calloused ways in which we handle the so-called ordinary encounters of everyday life. Jesus says, “You must be born anew.” Rebirth will happen when we see again the glowing luminosity of the numinous in each created thing.”
I think sometimes in our busy lives we lose the child-like ways and not just become calloused but block ourselves from the opportunities to be astonished. We lose the beauty found in the ordinary aspects of life.
For me, summer has always been that time of rebirth. I again begin to see the beauty in nature, in my family, in the lives of those around me. I see the luminous glow in the beautiful goldfinches in my backyard, the vibrant rose buds opening, as well as the late-night conversations under the stars, the laughs while on road trips, and moments that I wish could last forever around a crackling fire.
This summer, join with me in looking for ways to be astonished. Let’s put off our calloused ways and enter as children with open-eyed wonder. I guarantee we will be born anew!
To read Mary Oliver’s poem “Messenger” click here.
Happy Summer!
Bob
Joys & Concerns
We had a wonderful time this past Sunday! The First Friends Children’s Choir under the direction of Barbara K shared a beautiful song, “May There Always Be Sunshine” in worship. Thank you, children for a beautiful song, and thanks to Barbara’s leadership! Also during the service, we honored our high school, college, and advanced degree graduates as well as our volunteers! Congratulations graduates, and thank you to our wonderful volunteers! (Thank you to Sue H & Anna R for photos).
Congratulations Mary Ellen L! We celebrated our Friend Mary Ellen completing her Spiritual Direction Program and we made sure to do it in true “Mary Ellen” and unique Quaker fashion! Thanks to Kathy R, Bob H, and our waiter at Lou’s for taking photos!
Announcements, Reports, & Opportunities
Sunday School & Choir Notice ~ Friends, please note that Sunday School and Choir will have their last meetings this Sunday, May 22, before taking their usual summer break. We’ll see you again in the fall!
America’s Existential Crisis: Our Inherited Obligation to Native Nations ~ The Indianapolis Peace and Justice Center (IPJC) invites you to “America’s Existential Crisis: Our Inherited Obligation to Native Nations”, a speaker event featuring our own Jeff Rasley! The title of this program is the title of Jeff’s 12th book, which is a historical narrative of the complicated relationship two ancestors of Rasley had with Native tribes in the 19th Century. One was an "Indian fighter" and troop leader at the Wounded Knee Massacre. The other was an honored friend of the Potawatomi in northern Indiana. Rasley will share the opposing stories of his two ancestors and will discuss the issue of reparations and recent progress the Biden Administration has made in addressing the USA's inherited obligation to Native nations. This event will take place on May 18th, 2022 at 7:00 pm on Zoom. Please RSVP to indypeaceandjusticectr@gmail.com. A zoom link will be sent to all who RSVP prior to the event.
Men’s Threshing Together ~ If you are interested in gathering with other men who mull over current issues or topics, where all points of view are heard, no decisions are made, and all in a non-threatening atmosphere over a meal, then Threshing Together is for you! Join us for our next in-person meeting on Thursday, May 19 at 7:00pm. See locations for 2022 here.
Illuminate Bible Study ~ You are cordially invited to the First Friends Bible study every Thursday at 7:30, by Zoom. On May 19 we'll begin a new 13-week study of several New Testament books; 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and 1, 2, and 3 John. Here's the link to the book: Illuminate: 1, 2 Timothy; Titus; Philemon; and 1, 2, 3 John (barclaypressbookstore.com). Just email the office for the Zoom link, which is the same each week.
Donations Needed ~ Leslie K works in a nonprofit residential treatment center for substance abuse disorders; many of the men who come in for treatment have come off the streets or have been incarcerated. If you've been doing spring cleaning and would like to donate gently used men's clothing, tennis shoes, books, Bibles, backpacks, duffels or unused musical instruments, any or all would be greatly appreciated by the residents. Donations can be left at the meeting house.
Birdwatching with Brad ~ The early bird gets the worm and the early risers will see the birds with expert birdwatching guide, Brad J. Participants will gather in the Holliday Park Nature Center parking lot on Friday, May 20th. The actual walk will start at 8am. Bring binoculars, wear appropriate shoes for hiking and dress for the weather.
Brad knows his birds. His columns and drawings appear regularly in Friend to Friend. This is the third birdwatching walk Connections has arranged with Brad. Please call or email the office at (317) 255-2485 or office@indyfriends.org to R.S.V.P. It is not absolutely necessary, but Brad will know to expect you.
Connect to Friends Fair ~ Attend the CONNECT TO FRIENDS FAIR if you want to get involved in fun activities, deepen your spiritual journey, or engage in efforts to strengthen community or enhance global equity. In order to find out about these opportunities, be sure to attend the Fair after worship during Fellowship Hour on May 22 in Fellowship Hall.
Do you want to become a more active participant in First Friends Meeting and get to know others on a deeper level? Get connected by learning more about Meeting committees and ongoing small groups. Potential examples include Friday Singalongs and Oak Leaf: Meeting for Reading. The Fair will give new folks and regular attenders a chance to see where they might be led to “Connect to Friends” and help serve at the Meeting. Representatives will be available to answer questions at each booth. The Fair is sponsored by Connections Program Meeting.
Your Talent is Needed! ~ The choir goes on summer break after this Sunday, May 22. Please see the signup sheet on the bulletin board in the hallway to sign up for summer music! We are hoping you will come share your talent with the congregation while our choir takes a break. Be it with your voice by singing or by playing an instrument. Sign up now for any or several Sundays over the summer. Thank you for sharing your God-given gifts!
Restorative Yoga ~ Please join friend Kristyn G in a restorative yoga practice session! These sessions will take place on Monday May 23, Tuesday May 31; Mondays June 20 & 27; and Mondays July 11 & 25 at 4:00 pm in Fellowship Hall. Each session will last for an hour. This gentle practice will stretch and restore you. $10 suggested donation. If you have any questions, reach out to Kristyn at her cellular number 317-409-2116 by text or call. Hope to see you there!
Night of 1000 Comics! (Give or Take a Few) ~ You’re invited to a night of clean comedy on Sunday, June 5 at 7:00pm at Epworth United Methodist Church (6450 Allisonville Road). Tickets are $15 in advance, $20 at the door, with 25% of proceeds benefitting Society of St Andrew – Feeding America’s Hungry. Featured comics include Paul Aldrich, Robert G. Lee, and Gordon Douglas. To buy tickets and for more information, visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/night-of-1000-comics-give-or-take-a-few-tickets-289003295637.
Save the Date: Organ Concert! We are so excited to announce an Organ Concert put on by our new organist, Wolff R. Join us on Sunday, June 5th at 4pm at Indianapolis First Friends. Be sure to save the date!
VBS: Volunteers Needed! This year we are having Vacation Bible School from Sunday June 26th through Thursday, June 30th—mark your calendars, parents! This year’s theme is Monumental: Celebrating God’s Greatness. We are in need of volunteers for crew leaders and people to bring snacks during one of the weeknights. This is a wonderful event that children look forward to each year and we are able to offer it free of charge thanks to volunteers like you! If you can help, please contact the office.
The Gospel of John: Illuminate Summer Speaker Series ~ You’re invited to join Barclay Press & Pendle Hill for a series of evening discussions with authors of the Illuminate Friends Bible Study summer curriculum on the Gospel of John. The series will kick off on Monday, June 13 at 7:30, and will take place the 2nd and 4th Mondays, June through August, from 7:30pm - 9:00pm Eastern Time via Zoom. Speakers will share insights from their studies as they prepared this summer’s lessons and “Friendly Perspectives.” This quarter’s Illuminate introduces us to the life, teachings, and actions of Jesus in this unique gospel, the most theological of the four gospels in the Bible. “Friendly Perspectives” accompany each week’s lesson, showing Jesus’s encounters with a variety of people, and prompting us to consider what it means to be a Friend of Jesus in this time. The basic fee for the series is $125, or $25 per single session. Financial assistance is available. For the schedule and more information as well as registration, visit https://pendlehill.org/events/illuminate-summer-speaker-series-2022/.
The Overman Family Scholarship, in memory of Jess and Mark Overman, is available again this year. High school seniors through graduate students are welcome to apply. Undergraduate students will be given first consideration. The scholarship fund is designated to support the members and attenders of Indianapolis First Friends Meeting. Scholarship funds may be applied to any school related expense, i.e. books, supplies, tuition, housing, computer, etc. The deadline for application is June 19th. For an application, please contact the office at office@indyfriends.org.
Changing Footprints ~ Changing Footprints is a nonprofit that collects new and gently used shoes for distribution to homeless, disaster-stricken, or underprivileged people. They are on track to distribute a record 50,000 pairs this year just from the north Indy location alone. They provide gently used footwear to local nonprofits as well as refugees and the needy in foreign countries. Please bring to the Donation Station in Fellowship Hall any footwear that you no longer need. They collect all types, and are very grateful for your past contributions! Thank you.
Mark Your Calendars! First Friends will be working at the Dairy Bar again at the Indiana State Fair on Saturday, July 30th all day. Please consider volunteering for either a morning or afternoon shift for this major fundraiser for our youth programming. More details to come!
First Friends Financial Update: As a friendly reminder, the Meeting continues to seek and welcome financial support. To donate online, visit indyfriends.org/support/#givenow, or text to give at 317-768-0303. Other means of helping include automatic giving, stock gifts, estate planning, and donation of IRA Required Minimum Distributions. For more information, please contact the office at office@indyfriends.org.
Oak Leaf: Meeting for Reading would like for you to join us from virtually anywhere in the world as we discuss Hamnet: a Novel of the Plague by Maggie O'Farrell (373 pages) A New York Times Notable Book (2020) Best Book of 2020: Guardian, Financial Times, Literary Hub, and NPR.
Drawing on Maggie O'Farrell's long-term fascination with the little-known story behind Shakespeare's most enigmatic play, HAMNET is a luminous portrait of a marriage, at its heart the loss of a beloved child.
Warwickshire in the 1580s. Agnes is a woman as feared as she is sought after for her unusual gifts. She settles with her husband in Henley street, Stratford, and has three children: a daughter, Susanna, and then twins, Hamnet and Judith. The boy, Hamnet, dies in 1596, aged eleven. Four years or so later, the husband writes a play called Hamlet.
Award-winning author Maggie O'Farrell's new novel breathes full-blooded life into the story of a loss usually consigned to literary footnotes, and provides an unforgettable vindication of Agnes, a woman intriguingly absent from history.
We will gather in the Parlor and simultaneously via Zoom starting at 7 pm EST on Tuesday, May 31, 2022 led by Loryne C.
New Leadership for Community Garden
Ben F is taking on the leadership of the Community Garden. I have enjoyed this role for many years but feel it is time to turn it over to someone else. I will still garden, but Ben is going to do the organizing and has energy and ideas for our community. Samantha R has also led the garden effort with me in the past and I appreciated our fun partnership. It has been a pleasure to work together with others and a joy to watch our garden grow. It was a respite during the pandemic and will probably still serve that purpose.
If you are interested in having a raised bed in the First Friends organic garden, now is the time to condition the soil and get those plants in the ground before the weeds take over the world! Contact the office at office@indyfriends.org.
—Nancy S
Help Barclay Press! Barclay Press publishes and sells Quaker writers and other books of interest to seekers and those who wish to let their lives speak. BP is having a hard time financially and is seeking donations to help it transition into a self-supporting enterprise, as it is no longer funded by Northwest Yearly Meeting. Friends here deem it to be a worthy organization which operates on a shoestring. If you need more information about BP, you may email publisher Eric Muhr at emuhr@barclaypress.com. Here are some things you can do to help:
CHOOSE BARCLAY TITLES: Do you lead a book study group or First Day School class? Instead of selecting from Amazon, choose a Barclay book. Click this link to see the many enlightening titles sold by BP, including Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman, I'll Push You, A Journey of 500 Miles, Two Friends and a Wheelchair, by Patrick Gray, et al, So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo, many wonderful books of poetry and more. Click here to go to their shopping page, where you'll find a search bar in the upper right corner. All Books (barclaypressbookstore.com)
SHOP BARCLAY BOOKS: Birthdays, graduations, Father's Day, Christmas... go to the previous link to search the nearly 400 available titles. You can also search for BP titles on Amazon if you find it easier, but remember that Amazon takes a big cut of sales, so be sure to order directly from BP. When you shop, consider rounding up to the nearest five or ten dollars to make a small donation to BP.
DONATE: Click the DONATE button now on this page: BARCLAY PRESS to make an online donation or send a check to the address at the page of the same web page.
Gnostic Gospel Group ~ A couple of weeks ago we dug into the ever controversial topic of resurrection and had a very lively conversation! Before taking a summer break, we will meet one more time on Thursday, May 26 at 6:30pm in the Parlor for our usual light meal before discussion. We will be discussing The Prayer of the Apostle Paul and The Second Book of the Odes to Solomon. We will also talk about possible plans for the fall. If you are interested in joining this group study on the non-canonical/Gnostic Gospels, email, call/text Ed Morris (emorri@earthlink.net, 317-691-5542) or contact the meeting office (office@indyfriends.org, 317-255-2485).
Afghan Family Update
For a few weeks, I’ve been helping out with the Afghan family that First Friends is serving. It has been a pleasure getting to know the parents and their children. All of them have such welcoming smiles every time I have been in their home. If, as Friends often believe, the light of God is within each person, it shines clearly from the faces of these four people who I've been working with. This cheerfulness is especially remarkable given all the struggles that they have been (and continue to go) through. Learning a new language is not an easy thing to do, and neither is getting around Indianapolis without a car, but these are both challenges that the family enthusiastically faces.
First Friends has obtained bicycles for the family that they can use to get to work or the pharmacy. The Meeting has also secured Internet for the family, and set up ELL (English Language Learner) classes via Zoom. I have tried to learn a few words in Pashto and these two languages are very different from each other! I am very impressed with the parents’ persistence as they participate in the classes three times a week, an hour and a half at a time. They are really trying hard to learn English. I have greatly enjoyed tutoring four members of the family in their efforts with the new language and have thoroughly enjoyed our conversations, as well as my own learning about Afghan culture.
Several times the family has fed me lunch, and always offers delicious tea and treats. I have been amazed by their commitment to hospitality, offering to provide for me when they have so little. I am so proud of First Friends for our own efforts to display hospitality to this sweet family.
Beth F
First Friends Afghan Project
Team Member
Claim or Reclaim Your Community Garden Plot ~ How does your garden grow? The land is ready to receive your gifts of seed. Raised beds are available to people wanting to be a part of the organic gardening community. The garden is located on the north side of the Meetinghouse, beyond the parking lot. You do not necessarily need to be experienced. It does take a commitment to keep up the plot by weeding and watering. It takes extra effort to defeat pests and disease when gardening organically. This mostly boils down to nourishing the soil and using responsible gardening practices. We have a cistern that supplies water when rain is scarce. If one has not gardened before, it helps to be curious and proactive in order to soak up new knowledge. A willing spirit is helpful if you want to help keep up the Hope plot that honors those experiencing difficult times or those who have died. We grow flowers there and people are welcome to pick them. Some volunteer labor is appreciated to keep up the food pantry plot. Harvested veggies from this plot are donated to the Mid-North Food Pantry. Free seeds are available through the Indianapolis Public Library to supplement your own. If you are interested, contact the office.
Meditational Woods Bird of the Month for May: Ovenbird
Teacher Appreciation
It was a perfect day for birding in the Meditational Woods and the rest of the Meetinghouse property. After a nighttime soaking rain, the morning was cool and crisp, with little wind. Sounds, especially bird songs, carry well in these conditions. There was plenty of activity, birdwise, as first of May begins the two weeks leading up to the peak of spring migration. Perhaps today I will even find a species new to me for our woods.
Then I heard the loud song. I immediately stopped to listen again. This was an Ovenbird, a type of warbler, and this was my second encounter over the years with this species here in the Meditational Woods. The bird almost always sings while on or near the ground. Except for the black-bordered orange cap stripe, the bird resembles a miniature thrush, with a brown back, bold streaking, and a white eye-ring. The unusual name comes from its habit of building on the ground a domed nest with a side entrance, reminding the namer of the outdoor ovens of pioneer days.
What in the world does this have to do with the above subtitle of Teacher Appreciation? I do appreciate that loud song I heard, which is unmistakable. It needs a loud, diagnostic song because this small bird nests in large forest tracts, from Indiana all the way to the far north. It sings, “tea-cher, tea-CHER, tea-CHER, tea-CHUR, tea-CHUR, tea-CHUR, tea-CHUR”. The song gets louder with each “teacher”. Some people say that the syllables are actually reversed, as in “Cher-TEA”. Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!!
Note: As it turns out I actually DID add a new species in the Meditational Woods today, but that story will have to wait for next month!! - Brad J
Queries for the Week
· Am I passionate and falling madly in love with this life?
· How might I introduce myself to my “shadow side” this week?
· In what ways do I need to work on embracing “otherness”?
· How am I transforming my suffering into something that brings life?