Our Calendar
Featured Events
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, December 19 at 7:00pm. See locations for the upcoming year here.
Babysitting Night ~ Our FREE babysitting Night is happening Saturday December 21, 3:30-7:30pm. This is a great opportunity for parents to drop off their kids, and for the kids to have a fun night! Please contact Beth if you would like to have your kids join in the fun that evening!
No Seeking Friends ~ Friends, please note, there will be no Seeking Friends Adult Sunday School for the next two Sundays, December 22 and December 29, in observance of the holidays. We will see you when we return on Sunday, January 5. Merry Christmas, and happy New Year!
Children’s Pageant ~ Join us during our Meeting for Worship on Sunday, December 22 as our children depict and read the story of Jesus' birth. As well, the congregation will join in with singing hymns together. This is an annual tradition that you do not want to miss!
Chocolates, Coffee, Tea & Olive Oil available for Purchase ~ This coming Sunday, December 22 after Meeting for Worship we will be selling chocolates, coffee, and tea. These are wonderful treats to enjoy or gifts for loved ones. Proceeds will support our Right Sharing of World Resources so if you’d like to buy some, be sure to bring your pocketbook!
Family Christmas Eve Jazz Meeting for Worship - December 24, 2024, at 5:30 PM ~ This Christmas Eve, join us at 5:30pm for a beautiful evening of reflection, music, and Light as we celebrate “The Light of Hope.” Our service blends heartfelt readings, silent reflection, and jazz-infused music to welcome the spirit of Christmas. Together, we’ll reflect on finding light in darkness, hear the Christmas story brought to life, and embrace the hope born anew this season. Come as you are, and let us welcome the Light together.
Holiday Closures and Office Notices ~ Please note, the office will be closed December 25 through January 1 in observance of the holidays. Also, please note Friend to Friend will go out on Tuesday, Dec 24 (so get your announcements in early!) and there will be no Friend to Friend the week of January 1. The newsletter will resume normally the following week, Wednesday, January 8. We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year with your families and loved ones!
Waiting worship on Sunday, December 29 – Please note that due to the holidays we will be holding waiting worship in the parlor on Sunday, December 29th at 10:15am. This is a nice quiet time for us to worship in the traditional Quaker manner. Thank you to Mary Blackburn for leading us in worship. (Please note there will be no 9am waiting worship session that day.) We welcome anyone who would like to join us that day. Happy holidays!
Called Business Meeting Sunday, December 29 ~ Friends, Please mark your calendars for a called Meeting for Business immediately after 10:15am Waiting Worship on December 29, 2024. If this changes we will notify you. The purpose of the Meeting is to hear from the Death Penalty Opposition Clearness Committee regarding what has occurred, recommendations, and to collectively determine our path forward. Please also find attached our Meeting’s last correspondence with the Governor in this matter.
It is with sadness that we learned last night about the execution of Joseph Corcoran, a schizophrenic who never received “a hearing to determine whether is he competent to be executed,” as his lawyer clarified in a statement to the Associated Press. “It is an absolute failure for the rule of law to have an execution when the law and proper processes were not followed.”
We agree. These last several weeks our Meeting has taken a firm stand in opposition to this and all executions. We have worked tirelessly to avoid this outcome not just for Mr., Corcoran, but for all Hoosiers who are forced—financially and by association with the State of Indiana—to support a barbaric institution that eclipses redemption and remains an affront to civilized persons everywhere.
This killing makes our resolve stronger. We reject, as stated by Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita this morning, that Corcoran "finally paid his debt to society as justice was provided to his victims. We are reminded in Romans 12:19: “Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written: “vengeance is mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.”
Yet certain state officials disagreed. For example, and contrary to his punt for responsibility that Corcoran’s “sentence has never been overturned and was carried out as ordered by the court,” Eric Holcomb was in control of Joseph’s life down to the last eight minutes of his death. He had the ability and clear legal authority to grant clemency. Instead, his office spent significant time and other resources not only obtaining the questionable Pentobarbital to be used in this and perhaps seven other upcoming executions, but rebuffing our and others’ lawful requests for information about it.
We find this disgraceful, and we agree with our Catholic and Protestant cousins across the world that this killing is an outrage. We also believe through the efforts of Christians and other people of faith and conscience across Indiana, that this event will lead to the undoing of capital punishment. As a result, we intend to continue to work and pray for its abolition. As at the outset of the Society of Friends and ever since, we again consider how to address this flawed and expensive apparatus using lawful and peaceful means that remain at our disposal.
Thank you for your generous financial support to date, as well as your prayers of protection for Mr. Corcoran, for the Meeting, and for the many Friends and others who have engaged deeply on this matter—and continue to do so.
Oak Leaf: Meeting for Reading would like you to join us as we discuss The Wind Knows My Name*** by Isabel Allende (260 pages) This powerful and moving novel from the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Petal of the Sea weaves together past and present, tracing the ripple effects of war and immigration on one child in Europe in 1938 and another in the United States in 2019.
Vienna, 1938. Samuel Adler was six years old when his father disappeared during Kristallnacht—the night their family lost everything. Samuel’s mother secured a spot for him on the last Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria to the United Kingdom, which he boarded alone, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and his violin.
Arizona, 2019. Eight decades later, Anita Diaz, a blind seven-year-old girl, and her mother board another train, fleeing looming danger in El Salvador and seeking refuge in the United States. However, their arrival coincides with the new family separation policy, and Anita finds herself alone at a camp in Nogales. She escapes through her trips to Azabahar, a magical world of the imagination she created with her sister back home.
Anita’s case is assigned to Selena Duran, a young social worker who enlists the help of a promising lawyer from one of San Francisco’s top law firms. Together they discover that Anita has another family member in the United States: Leticia Cordero, who is employed at the home of now eighty-six-year-old Samuel Adler, linking these two lives.
Spanning time and place, The Wind Knows My Name is both a testament to the sacrifices that parents make and a love letter to the children who survive the most unfathomable dangers—and never stop dreaming.
We will meet at MJ M’s home starting at 7 pm EST on Monday, December 30th led by Kathy R. Happy New Year from Oak Leaf!
There will be NO ZOOM.
***Please note the change in the date from the flyer for The Wind Knows My Name discussion has been moved from Tuesday 12/31 to MONDAY 12/30
Happy Holidays from Oak Leaf: Meeting for Reading! Oak Leaf meets on the last Tuesday of the month in the Parlor. If you’d like to be on the monthly email list, contact the office at office@indyfriends.org.
January 28 ~ Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips
February 25 ~ The Measure by Nikki Erlick
March 25 ~ Better Living Through Birding by Christian Cooper
April 29 ~ Dinners with Ruth by Nina Totenberg
May 27 ~ Maus a Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman
June 24 ~ James by Percival Everett
July 29 ~ Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
August 26 ~ Democracy Awakening by Heather Cox Richardson
September 30 ~ The Women by Kristin Hannah
October 28 ~ A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan
November 25 ~ Shakespeare by Dame Judi Dench
December 30 ~ The Delgado Connection by Gary J. Rhyne