Contents

• Where We Worship
• Why a Meeting House
• Where Two or Three Are Gathered
• Renovations at the 1694 Flushing Meetinghouse
• The Oldest House of Worship in Western N.Y.
• Sharing the Oldest Building in the Village
• Saratoga: Expanding a 1793 Meetinghouse
• What Price Historic Preservation?
• Our Meetinghouses: Nurturing Growth and Community
• Growing Pains at New Brunswick Meeting
• Being Faithful to What We Are Called to Do
• What Role Does Your Physical Space Play in the Life of Your Meeting?
• On the Quality of Light in Brooklyn Meetinghouse
• Use of Our Space in the Life of the Meeting
• At Home in a One-Room Schoolhouse
• The Peace Street Meeting in Plainfield, N.J.
• Where I Worship
• Quaker Meetinghouses
• Vision Statement for Old Chatham Meeting
• What's in a Meetinghouse?
• Peace on Earth—Peace with Earth
• Minutes of Fall Representative Meeting (opens in new window)
• Yearly Meeting Prayer List
• Task Group on Youth
• 2007 Summer Sessions
• Drawing Out Gifts—Traveling in the Ministry
• The Vow of Nonviolence
• Notices

Why a Meeting House

Mark Alan Hewitt, AIA
Chatham-Summit Meeting

As our meeting begins a major renovation project after several years of planning, it seems fortuitous that I should be asked to reflect on what this building, and meetinghouses generally, mean to me as a Friend. I am a historical architect and write often about the history of American buildings, particularly houses. So let me begin with the most obvious question: Why a meeting house?

As most Americans know, diaspora from Great Britain crossed the Atlantic in search of religious freedom in the 17th century. Most of the Protestant sects, including both the Puritan/Calvinists and the followers of George Fox, rejected the idea that worship should occur only in elaborately decorated buildings, filled with symbols of Christian piety and doctrine. For many, the English word "church" summed up all that was wrong with Anglican and Roman Catholic liturgy. Early French Calvinists were the first to construct "houses" of worship, designed to evoke the domestic qualities that reformers like Fox and John Wesley found conducive to a new kind of worship service. When I teach First Day school classes about Quaker meetinghouses, we spend time talking about why the word and concept of "house" makes us more comfortable to settling into worship, and why kids in particular feel so "at home" in our building.

Although meetinghouses throughout Europe, both Quaker and Calvinist, are very simple and often employ forms common in domestic architecture, in America these forms developed with particular references to vernacular house types in New England, the Middle Atlantic states, and the Southeast. Perhaps this is because "house" is the social and political locus around which Americans define themselves, and have since the beginnings of our democracy. Our major government buildings all use it as a metaphor: Congress House (the original name for the Capitol in Washington), White House, State House, etc.

So, while simplicity and domesticity are hallmarks of Quaker meetinghouses everywhere, we in America have pursued the ideal of creating spiritual homes with a particular zeal. Scholars of Quaker aesthetics (yes, there are some) have written about how early Friends in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New England adapted house types from Wales and the west of England to conditions in our climate to produce the unique meetinghouses we know today. I have been drawn to these buildings ever since beginning my studies in architecture, even before I became a Quaker. For me, there is something sublime about entering a meetinghouse, experiencing the subtle play of light on the walls, the silence, and the profound sense of being home.

All of us experience, I hope, the sense of community, light, and silence in our home meetings. A room designed to promote these things is always the heart of a meetinghouse complex. The meaning of "meeting" is itself a summation of what such a space should encourage—individuals coming together to share God's light in a gathering of souls. In this way our buildings reinforce the central tenets of our Quaker belief that God's presence is in every person.

As I write this I can think of many spaces in which I've experienced this feeling of my individual light "gathered" with the light of the community as a whole—Dover Randolph Meeting's austere and ancient wooden room, the marvelous Houston Friends' meetinghouse with its James Turrell light box ceiling, the sturdy brick architecture of Salem Friends in south Jersey, the majestic Central Friends meeting room at 3rd and Arch in Philadelphia, and of course our perfectly square space in Chatham-Summit. Although it is the community, the people, who make worship in these spaces meaningful, the architecture contributes powerfully to the way people come together on First Day.

For the past several years our meeting has been planning a renovation and expansion of our 1969 building and campus. The designers of our complex were the noted Philadelphia firm of Cope & Lippincott. Mather Lippincott, the principal, designed numerous fine Quaker meetinghouses during his long career, and the firm also employed the young Robert Venturi as a designer during the early 1960s. (Coincidentally, I was an apprentice in the Venturi office during the 1970s in Philadelphia.) I have a special affection for the kind of abstract, playful geometries of Philadelphia school modernism from this fruitful period.

It was interesting for me to learn, while researching the fundraising and history documentation for our building campaign, that the founders of Summit meeting (as it was then called) entertained ideas for a more expansive campus of four buildings before settling on the design that was finally constructed. The architecture of the original scheme was, frankly, much more exciting than what we have now, and won awards from the local AIA chapter. But, from my perspective as a Friend, I now realize that our simpler and traditional building forms probably suited the meeting better then—it felt like the right "home" for those founding families.

Though it is easy to second-guess the intentions of our predecessors, it is clear they arrived at the kind of place-specific house of worship that fit the Quaker aesthetic. They clearly understood, through discernment, the meaning of meetinghouse in both architectural and social dimensions. When our committees undertook the modification of their plans, and sought to expand the buildings and mission of our monthly meeting, they followed a similar path. Initially attracted to more complex architectural solutions that were not only more costly but also more invasive in the landscape we treasure, the building committee pulled back and chose a modest and fitting solution.

In this process, a meeting of minds and hearts in our committee, we discovered a central truth about the nature of our worship space. That is, our meeting room is a spiritual home that week after week reminds us of who, what and where we are as Friends, in every sense of the word

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Where Two or Three Are Gathered

Mary Kay Glazer, Ticonderoga Worship Group

The worship space for the Ticonderoga Worship Group is small. If there are more than five or six people attending, it begins to feel full—even overfull. But most of the time, that's not an issue. Most of the time, we have two or three people, maybe four, worshipping at 4:00 on a Sunday afternoon. And the space feels just right.

The Ti Worship Group began not so long ago, on a cold day in January 2006. And many times in the past year, there have been just two or three of us worshipping—my husband, Mark Moss; our 11-year-old son, Martin; and I—who are the conveners of the group. Over the year, a few others have become regulars. The space welcomes us.

Once we had gone through the clearness process and discerned way opening for the worship group, it wasn't long before I knew just where I wanted our worship space to be: in the little chapel next to the altar at the Catholic church a block from our house. I sometimes go and sit in the church in prayer during the day, so I knew the chapel would be ideal. But I wasn't at all sure if the priest would agree, or if the cost would be prohibitive.

When Mark called Father Bill and asked about our using the church's space for the worship group, it turned out that Father Bill was very open to the idea. We made arrangements for me to meet with him and look at the options. He took me to the church's community space in the basement; though it would have been fine, it was not quite what I was looking for. I suggested the chapel, and we went and looked at it. I said that this is where the worship group would like to meet, and he agreed.

As we talked, it became clear to me that Father Bill was familiar with Quakers (he had "worked on the streets" with them in the 1960s). It also became clear that I was the only one who had to make a decision about whether to use the space; he had already decided that we would be welcome. I brought up the matter of money, and before I could finish saying how few our financial resources were, he waved it away and said there would be no charge. My prayers had been answered, and far more easily than I had imagined!

The space has lived up to my sense of its rightness. The church and the chapel have a sense of the sacred, a feeling of being grounded in the Holy Spirit. One of our regular attenders says the chapel is very peaceful. As soon as I walk onto the grounds of the church and into the entryway, I begin to feel more centered in the Divine. We set up the chairs in a circle of nine or ten (only once or twice, with summer visitors, did we ever fill the seats). As I sit and center, and wonder who might be coming this day, I look through the window onto the altar, or at the Celtic crosses on the high walls, or at the stained-glass window of Jesus on the cross. I am not bothered by the music stands and file cabinets against the wall, or the small altar at the front of the chapel. I am easily immersed in God's presence.

This space is also right for us because we can walk the short distance to the church each Sunday. There is an outdoor playground where children can play when the weather is good. Because we live so close, it is easy for attenders to accept our invitation to a simple dinner after every meeting for worship. It is easy to find the church, because it's the only Catholic church in town and its spire rises high into the sky and is seen easily as you drive into town. The space is also right because of the bridge it creates with the Catholic community in town. Though we hardly ever have direct contact with anyone from the church, I feel a bond in the Spirit. The Spirit permeates the relationship and the worship space. We are grateful.

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Renovations at the 1694 Flushing Meetinghouse

Hugo Lane, Flushing Meeting

Built in 1694, Flushing meetinghouse is the oldest building for religious worship in continuous use in New York City. As such, it is probably older than some of the churches George Fox decried as steeple-houses in the seventeenth century. But even if we who gather in Flushing know that we, not the building, are the meeting, the possession and regular use of a meeting that is more than three hundred years old brings with it responsibilities that are not easily ducked by treating our meetinghouse as incidental to our meeting. That problem has become especially pronounced as we have begun a major renovation project.

Flushing meetinghouse

Our meeting is now less affluent and has far fewer members than a century ago, and we might well find meeting in smaller, more modern quarters simpler than using our venerable meetinghouse, but we see our continued commitment to our meetinghouse as bearing witness to Quakerism as a living religion with deep roots in our country. Should we abandon our meetinghouse, it would become a relic that many would interpret as a further sign that Quaker beliefs, while well intentioned, are untenable in our complex world.

We were already wrestling with that issue before we were confronted with the need to undertake major renovations. That happened after we noticed that a major structural beam had pulled away from a joint in 2003. We called in an architect who determined that the beam was stable, but that the meetinghouse had suffered water damage along the roof-line. He recommended we put on a new roof and repair the Yankee gutters—wooden gutters built into the external structure of the house—to halt the water leaks. Because our meetinghouse is a registered New York and National landmark, honors we did not seek out, the architect said we would have to undertake a restoration using the same materials and methods employed in the original construction. The projected cost of the repair, $200,000, threatened to wipe out our endowment.

Fortunately, our architect informed us of a New York State matching grant of $100,000, which we applied for and received. Our endowment was more than sufficient to match the grant, but we were uncomfortable doing that, because we were already unable to pay our normal operating expenses without drawing down the endowment. That concern prompted the letter of appeal Friends in New York Yearly Meeting may remember receiving a couple of years ago. We hoped that a positive response from Friends, indicating that they valued their heritage, would also help fundraising with the general public. The money we received from our appeal, however, indicated most Friends saw our project and financial concerns differently than we did. The donations we were gratified to receive did not even reach 10 percent of the funds necessary to secure the state grant, leaving us largely on our own, or so we thought.

To gain local support for our project we approached our local city councilman John Liu to write a letter of support. Then in November 2005 he surprised us with the news that the city had appropriated $500,000 for our project. Now in addition to the original work we expect to install a sprinkler system and repair our porch.

Before we secured the money, however, we faced several obstacles. First, there was the issue of the separation of church and state. At the time, the city had not yet developed a policy to cover grants to houses of worship that were city landmarks. After that basic issue was resolved in our favor, we had to negotiate a covenant with both the city and the state that would obligate us to fulfill certain conditions for 15 years after the project was completed. Chief among these was a requirement that we not sell the building or transform it into a commercial enterprise during that time. While the state covenant was relatively easy to negotiate, some departments in the city sought to impose provisions that Friends found problematic. Most notably, the city wanted us to guarantee that we would let any group use our building, including those whose activities might be contrary to Quaker practice. In particular, our meeting feared that someone might use such language to promote military action in our meetinghouse. Fortunately, after much discussion the city agreed this fall to consider our covenant with the state sufficient.

We are glad our story has a happy beginning—we cannot speak of a happy end until the work is completed—but we still find that the constraints of having to work with the city and state so closely bring complexity we are not entirely happy with. Were we not a national and city landmark, we could make alterations that fit our own perceived needs. Still, it is gratifying to know that even if the city, state, and national governments do not see our meetinghouse in the same way we do, they value Flushing meetinghouse, so it is unlikely it will fall into catastrophic disrepair any time soon. But it is up to us to ensure that we continue to gather there regularly as a witness that we are not just stewards of a building, but also of enduring spiritual values.

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The Oldest House of Worship in Western N.Y.

Dale Jacobs, Orchard Park Meeting

The May 2006 Spark included an article about renovations to our meetinghouse in Orchard Park, the oldest house of worship in Western N.Y. Originally called East Hamburg Meeting, we were under the care of Pelham Monthly Meeting in Ontario, an early Canadian meeting. East Hamburg Monthly Meeting became an indulged meeting in 1807. At the time of the War of 1812, we came under the care of Farmington Meeting. Recently Friends and others have shown an interest in restoring the 1816 Farmington meetinghouse because of its historical interest and its potential as a tourist site. (For information see farmingtonmeetinghouse.blogspot.com.)

Farmington Meeting was an important site for women's rights, Quakers and their relationships with Indians, abolitionists, and the Underground Railroad. I believe it is important to learn from the past and to honor where we have been. It is also important to acknowledge where we are now. Our Orchard Park meetinghouse is both a historic site and a house of worship. We believe that maintaining our meetinghouse is fundamental to the life of our Meeting. We are renovating it to assure that there is a comfortable place to worship not only now but for future generations.

This year we have installed two new furnaces and new carpets in our entrances, and we are investigating installing interior storm windows and additional insulation, and removing the facing benches in our "gathering room" to allow for more space for additional tables for potlucks. We continue to strive to balance our vision of functional facilities (we do not have hot water at any time, or water service to the kitchen in winter months), accessibility, and sustainability with very limited income from a small number of members and attenders.

Our meetinghouse is integral to our Meeting. When our Meeting was revived in 1958, it was because of the meetinghouse that we became an active meeting instead of an executive meeting as it had been for about 50 years. This year we are considering putting in our budget a substantial amount each year to assure that the meetinghouse is properly cared for. We believe that the meetinghouse is not a historic artifact, but a Living Witness to the spirit of both ourselves and our ancestors, as we go to "greet the Light" within in worship and deep reverence.

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Sharing the Oldest Building in the Village

Joseph H. Proskauer, Westbury Friends Meeting

Westbury Friends Meeting is blessed with a natural, tranquil setting amidst the bustle and concrete of suburbia. Our 17 acres of open space, tall trees, and unobtrusive buildings creates a gentle shelter from the ordinary. Situated at the corner of two of the oldest roads in the area (Jericho Turnpike was originally an Indian trail), something of the mood of bygone years has remained —even as traffic has grown to include a fairly heavy stream of automobiles, diesel trucks, and motorcycles, and the parkway has come through. Members and guests often express appreciation for the peaceful atmosphere—even at our annual Fair; some comment on a spiritual quality.

Westbury meetinghouse

Between the parkway and the main part of our property lies the cemetery, which dates back to the Meeting's earliest days over 300 years ago. The two oldest buildings on the campus are the Orthodox meetinghouse (built in 1832—the oldest surviving building in the village), and the newer one (built in 1901, successor to those of 1702 and 1801) where we still meet. Around 1880, the Meeting built a separate structure to accommodate Quarterly Meeting. In the 1950s, this was moved and enlarged as a center for regional Quaker activities, and then also to host events for the wider community. Over the years, we have used the Community Center for covered-dish suppers, films, talks, square dances, plays, and fireside Christmas sings. We hold our weekly after-Meeting hospitality hour there, our committee meetings, and our semi-monthly Quaker study groups. Early on, it became the center of activities for our First Day school and for Westbury Friends School, which was founded in 1957 and became the Meeting's major outreach activity. WFS soon expanded to use the Orthodox meetinghouse, and its continued growth prompted the addition of several new buildings. The most recent addition (2002) is the school library and media center—carpeted, quiet, with light entering through cupola windows above.

The buildings give a sense of simple clarity. Approaching the meetinghouse, one mounts three steps to the raised porch (from horse-and-carriage days). Entering, the sense of a place devoted to plain, open, foursquare presence may grow: there is a single large room—30' x 45'—with white walls, a wood floor, darker stained pillars and beams supporting the 15'-high ceiling, and ten large rail-and-muntin windows (24 panes in each). Along the north wall is a raised-platform facing bench, now used only as regular seating on the rare occasions when the place is full. Twenty-six long, wooden, cushioned benches can accommodate nearly 200 (as at our tercentennial), but most First Days we have between 20 and 40 folks. The quiet afforded by the surrounding grounds is such that the ticking of the pendulum clock may seem to fill the space—providing a difficult distraction for some, a welcome constant for others; it's joined by seasonal sounds of birds, breezes, occasional stronger weather (seemingly rare on Sunday mornings), and farther out, the roads. A couple of years ago, stirred by a vibrant message from a visiting former member in his 90s, we rearranged the benches around an open center. We trust that this change has enhanced, rather than disrupted, our tradition; one recent message spoke of the spirits of plain-clad, long-haired farmers in broad-brimmed hats steadfastly joining us in worship. Beyond the outer furnishings and sounds, within the gathered community that extends beyond earthly time and space, one may begin to enter the other side of silence.

Building projects have nourished us in reciprocal ways: First, the activity of conceiving and constructing a new building tends to engage and unify the Meeting. Once built, the space itself may invite new opportunities and inspirations. (And we are further nourished through occasional work days and "Meetings for Cleaning.")

Sharing the Space

Even with our rich heritage of a prominent yet peaceful location, ample yet simple and welcoming buildings and grounds, and a spiritual practice that may resonate with modern seekers, we have remained a small meeting for the last few decades. But now, we are witnessing a kind of religious growth around us: There are several new churches in the area. And something similar to this may be happening closer to home.

In recent years, the Meeting has accommodated an increasing number of religious and other cultural groups who don't have a home of their own. At least two of these are groups who have broken with their home congregations over differences in outlook or questions of conscience. They range in size from a handful of members to 80 or more. Some meet once or twice a week, some monthly, and some annually; one has just come, while others have been meeting here for years. They use various parts of our facilities, from basement gym to kitchen to the outdoors to the meetinghouse, and each offers a financial contribution. Our guests currently include: New Covenant Baptist Church (a descendent of the church founded in the late 18th century by those formerly enslaved by Westbury Friends), Church of God (an offshoot of Herbert W. Armstrong's organization), Little Flock Pentecostal Church (a congregation of about 80 immigrants from a town in India), a large congregation of Iranian Muslims, a dharma study group (led by a local electric guitar builder who is also a Tibetan Buddhist monk), a yoga and meditation group (followers of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar of India), a Centering Prayer group which sponsors an annual day of silent worship, an Alcoholics Anonymous group, a program for autistic youth socializing with others, an organization of families that have adopted children from Latin America, a local home schooling group, and the Long Island Traditional Music Association—with whom the Meeting cosponsors a family barn dance every other month.

The use of the facilities by various groups has not been without its share of tensions, particularly regarding cleaning standards and responsibilities. Partly to address this, we held a meeting attended by representatives from most of these groups. This served as a forum to introduce ourselves to one another and foster a shared vision (including practical procedures). "Our aim is to create a place and atmosphere of clarity, cleanliness, caring, and simple beauty —a home for the life and light of the spirit. We encourage all who share this space to strive toward a spirit of community—offering what understanding and support they can to others, and what contribution they can to the needs of the whole, as well as expressing hopes and needs of their own." The feeling was warm; the results were evident; the opportunity for improving communication and cooperation continues.

We sense that this community has the potential for fostering a spirit of brotherhood among people of diverse views, faiths, and interests. Our guests have invited us to join them in their activities —from silent worship to festivals with delicious ethnic food, chanted Persian poetry, and rousing song. Some have pointed out the resonance of Quaker seeking and the Inner Light with their own views. Several have shared worship with us, and joined in a potluck meal, work project, and conversations about faith and community.

It seems to me that the primary reason for sharing our facilities is that wehave them to offerto others. A secondary reason is that the various activities these groups pursue maybear fruitfor the community and the world. A third level is the opportunity for nurturing interest and fellowship across cultural and religious lines, and a fourth is to foster theawakening of the cultural/spiritual sphereto its vital role as the source of ideas, insight, and inspiration for the social organism.* Perhaps through participating in such an endeavor—through cultivating our interest in others—this very vitality may invigorate the Meeting.

*The need for recognition of the roles of three realms of society (political, economic, and cultural) has been articulated in various quarters. (See, e.g. Nicanor Perlas, "Social Threefolding," the first chapter in his Shaping Globalization—excerpts available on line at www.globenet3.org). This requires the cultural sphere to become aware of its own essential function. Simply meeting one another may be a good beginning.

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Saratoga: Expanding a 1793 Meetinghouse

George Seiler, Saratoga Meeting

Saratoga meetinghouse before . . .

Over time, the trailer simply wore out. We were down to two families with children in the meeting, but we were clear that we needed a place for the First Day school. We had some conversations about the possibility of adding onto our meetinghouse and began to look at various ideas. In early October 2004, one visiting Friend catalyzed our action by making a generous gift toward an addition. Even with this, we were greatly concerned about being able to afford any such project.

. . . and after

In late October that year we held an in-depth worship-sharing session about our meetinghouse. Our notes from that session summarized our thinking, expressing these key issues and concerns:

1. The Meeting community is our center. The community is far more important than any facility.
2. This historical meetinghouse space and all the associated feelings about this place are very important to us.
3. Our community is not complete without the children. A complete community includes people of all ages.
4. We need to find a way to make a comfortable place for the children.
5. Several expressed that they do not want to see the meetinghouse building significantly altered.
6. There is reluctance in our community to take on a heavy financial burden or to require substantially higher energy and attention to our facilities.
7. Travel to the country in winter is quite uncomfortable for some.
8. There is a sense among some that a more central location would help us better connect with the wider community.
9. It is key to know ourselves as a community and to assure that we operate in harmony with our community values.

We conducted a survey of members and active attenders, asking about priority wishes regarding an addition. Twenty people responded. From this we determined that our top priorities, to make the Meeting welcoming to adults and children alike, were:

1. one, or preferably two, rooms for First Day school
2. one or more bathrooms with working, "user-friendly" toilets
3. a gathering room suitable for worship and other activities
4. comfortable heating
5. a design compatible with our meetinghouse and setting

After much prayerful discussion, our Meeting in July 2005 approved making an addition to our meetinghouse for First Day school classrooms and working bathrooms and insulating the floor and ceiling of our historic meetinghouse. This approval was made in the faith that we could find the money and contingent upon our raising funds over and above those needed for our operating budget. The Meeting's Finance Committee was charged with raising the required funds.

We asked members of our community to communicate their intent to support the building project and received generous support, bringing us to about 80% of our initially anticipated costs. We considered the possibility of a mortgage and learned that a Meeting member would have to guarantee the loan. Our trustees decided we could borrow from members as necessary.

One of our members is a contractor and presented a proposal for the work. In September 2005, we entered into a contract for a 900-square-foot unfinished addition, without plumbing or paint, believing that we could add the plumbing later and that Meeting people could do the painting. This met our budgeted amount but left no room for contingencies. Our completion target was early 2006.

In our State of the Meeting report for 2005 we said:

As is so often true with construction projects, there were a number of unforeseen obstacles. In midstream we revised our construction contract, increasing the cost; this was both a difficult and tender process for all concerned. Our operating budget for the Meeting, including loan repayments, has more than doubled. We are hopeful that we can complete the project without excessive burden on the community.

The addition is yet to be completed but has been in use since September 2006. The meeting community, young and old, rallied together to paint the addition inside and out. One positive effect of this effort is that the young people feel a sense of direct connection with and a proprietary interest in the space.

The addition is at the back of the meetinghouse. It has its own entrance, since a direct entry from the meeting room would have been difficult and would have changed the character of the room.

We are all pleased with the way the addition harmonizes with our historic meetinghouse. The craftsmanship is first rate. We will not consider plumbing or other amenities until we have paid off our loans and built back a modest building fund reserve.

All in all, we believe that making this addition to our space has had a very positive effect on our Meeting community.

Our draft of the State of the Meeting Report for 2006 opens and closes with these paragraphs:

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What Price Historic Preservation?

Lee Maxwell, Shrewsbury Meeting

Friends have met for worship since at least 1727 on the same square of land, at the corner of what was then the King's Highway and the old Indian trail from the Atlantic Ocean to West Jersey in what is now Shrewsbury Borough, Monmouth County. In that year Shrewsbury Friends built their first meetinghouse at that location, which was destroyed by fire in 1810. The second meetinghouse, the first double-celled meetinghouse built in New Jersey, was completed in 1816.

This meetinghouse survived the schism between Hicksite and Orthodox, the migration of many Friends out west, near-abandonment in the first half of the 20th century (except for Friends of a then-merged Manasquan-Shrewsbury Meeting who used it semi-regularly during the summer), and a fire in the 1960s that damaged the east side and led to construction of a kitchen and indoor restrooms.

As one Friend in our Meeting observed, his commitment to restoring our meetinghouse comes from the spirit he perceives just by sitting in our worship room, surrounded by walls built by our forebears and furniture used in worship by thousands of other Friends in the previous centuries.

Now at the start of the 21st century, time and various animals or the elements have gnawed at the windows, siding and cornices, soffits, fascia, and other exposed wood under the roof. While the building is structurally sound, it needs repairs and restoration that have been neglected for years. The signs were there, yet until recently many Friends felt at a loss regarding what we should do.

We sought advice from experts in building restoration, who estimated in 2001 that the cost of necessary repairs easily could top $100,000; our annual budget is about $25,000, including all operating expenses and covenant donations to the Yearly Meeting, with not much left for discretionary spending. Our meager savings was nowhere near enough to pay for all anticipated repairs. That estimate was off-putting enough to us that we did not take any action until nearly five years later.

We first decided to do what we could afford to do, one project at a time, despite our fear that inflation might push the cost of postponed work beyond our reach. We established a capital fundraising campaign with a goal of $500,000 over five years. We held fundraising events that raised relatively small amounts of cash but (we hope) helped raise awareness in the surrounding community of our Meeting and our need for donations. And we took advantage of opportunities to secure some larger donations from individuals and a foundation outside the Meeting.

With the funds we raised so far, plus donations from Shrewsbury Friends and some savings, we have paid for the first restoration phase, the repairs to the cornices, soffits, and fascia, at a cost nearly equal to our typical annual operating budget. But we have not raised enough to pay for any more work. What to do next?

What about a government grant? There were two programs in particular; the New Jersey Historic Trust, which gives grants to owners of historic buildings, including houses of worship, and a Monmouth County program that gives similar but smaller grants. Those who favored seeking such grants pointed out that other Quaker meetings had sought and received them, and that conditions of the grants were reasonable. Further, we received strong encouragement from officials with the county program that our meetinghouse was the kind of historic structure their program was created to aid.

However, some Friends in our Meeting strongly opposed seeking any government grant. One argument was that Friends believe strongly in the separation of church and state, and some Friends felt that accepting a government grant could allow the granting government agency a say in our affairs. Others cited the war in Iraq, the violation of civil rights in the name of fighting terrorism, and corruption among politicians on the national, state, and local levels as reasons, among many others, for shunning any involvement with government money. The compulsory nature of taxes used to raise the funds we would seek also was raised as an objection.

Friends labored over this concern for more than two years, with some discussions over the question ending with some Friends departing visibly upset, and, with no sense of the Meeting on the question discerned, no application was submitted. No other Friends in other meetings to which we reached out could recall this question becoming an issue within their meetings, so it was difficult to find guidance from the experiences of other meetings.

In the end, those Friends who had strongly objected to seeking a government grant set aside their reservations, and the application for the Monmouth County grant was prepared and submitted. We expect to learn this month if we received it. With the grant and with more savings and more fundraising, we hope this year to carry out the second phase, repairing two chimneys and two large windows on the north side of our meetinghouse. Meanwhile, the question of whether to seek other government grants remains unresolved.

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Growing Pains at New Brunswick Meeting

Jeffrey Aaron, New Brunswick Meeting

The history of the meetinghouses of New Brunswick Friends is interesting. The Meeting celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2005. Some of the founders attended the celebration, including John and Miriam Brush, who are well known to many New York Yearly Meeting Friends. In conjunction with the celebration, John Brush created a complete history of the Meeting, which is available to Friends through the Yearly Meeting office.

The current meetinghouse was purchased in 1984 with fundraising that included a few sizable donations, a loan, and the proceeds of the sale of the prior facility, a boardinghouse owned by a corporation of N.J. Friends meetings from both New York and Philadelphia Yearly Meetings. That facility had been established to provide a home to New Brunswick Friends and to establish a Quaker presence near the Rutgers University community. The history of Quaker House in New Brunswick during the era preceding 1984 is intriguing. The building was administered by a committee of the owners, from several meetings. It was in the low-income part of New Brunswick and served inner-city students. It provided a Quaker-oriented communal program that was meaningful in the lives of several current NYYM Friends. When that communal era came to an end, significant financial difficulties arose. The small population of New Brunswick Meeting members faced the financial insecurities that are unfortunately common among meetings that own meetinghouses. To avoid this situation, New Brunswick Friends in 1984 sought to purchase a facility that met several criteria: affordability, a suitably sized meeting room plus a place for First Day school, a site near one of the New Brunswick Rutgers campuses if possible, and a building with potential for additional rental income.

New Brunswick meetinghouse

Such a facility was known to the current clerk of the meeting at the time, the author of this article, because it was his childhood home, built by his grandfather as a two-story, side-by-side duplex, adjacent to the Douglass College campus of Rutgers University. In 1984 it was owned as a rental investment by his aunt. She was anticipating moving out of state with her husband, who had retired. The right side apartment had been converted several years earlier into two apartments, one upstairs and one down. The small downstairs apartment could become the meetinghouse, with its partially finished basement available for a First Day school. The large apartment on the left side and the small upstairs apartment could easily be rented to Rutgers students. The upstairs tenants would have access to the downstairs meetinghouse in order to access the basement where the plumbing and heating systems were, in the case of possible emergencies, and also to enable laundry facilities to be set up for their use. This arrangement required a cooperative relationship between the Meeting and the tenants, one of whom could also serve as an in-house caretaker of sorts for the entire building and grounds. This same tenant could also handle trash and recycling duties, and be paid a small stipend.

This system, with some modifications, has worked very well in the years since, and has facilitated a good working relationship between the Meeting and the tenants. Many student tenants welcome the opportunity to earn a few dollars for a very small amount of work. Thus the landlord-tenant relationship moved beyond the standard arm's-length, income-oriented business model into one of a cooperative relationship, from the first days of the Meeting's ownership.

The Meeting chose from its inception to make a commitment to good stewardship by renting the apartments at below-market, affordable rentals, mostly to students. An affirmative-action rental statement was later articulated and drawn up as an additional witness, covering those individuals who may be discriminated against by virtue of "color of their skin (so-called 'race'), by ethnicity, by gender, age, sexual preference, national origin, or disability."

A second "job opportunity" arose when the Meeting realized that it had a problem concerning snow and ice removal in the winter. So the tenant "caretaker" was also given the opportunity to accept snow removal as an additional job commitment. If s/he did not wish to accept the position, it was offered to any of the remaining tenants in either apartment. These two paid positions are carefully spelled out on paper so that expectations are clear, and there has always been a volunteer.

When the Meeting moved into the facilities, it chose to cooperate with the city and not seek tax exemption, and thus not be a burden on the municipality. It nevertheless soon became clear that even with property tax expense, and with relatively low rental income, and with repair and maintenance demands, the property would still generate a significant, permanent positive cash flow. This fact led to the concern that Friends could come to rely on this income to meet the Meeting budget, instead of relying on their own contributions and fundraising. The Meeting decided to separate the budget into two separate entities—operations and property. Not only would the operations budget need to function independently from rental income, but the Meeting would also make a small quarterly contribution to the property accounts in lieu of rent, for its use of a portion of the facilities. After 20 years, the Meeting still annually struggles somewhat to meet its operations budget, but the property budget has provided sufficient cash flow to renovate the Meeting portion, to make it fully barrier free and accessible, to replace the roof, the old siding, boilers, and water heaters, to pave the driveway and replace the inefficient old windows, to replace the three garage doors, and to upgrade both rental apartments to a much higher standard. The grounds have been improved with attractive plantings, a substantial financial cushion has been invested with Friends Fiduciary Corporation, and the tenants have always been deeply appreciative of the affordable housing that is provided together with a warm relationship. Although it is rare for a tenant to come to meeting, the fact of Friends' existence and our conscious witness through good stewardship has been made clear in word and action to all the tenants who have lived at the facilities. Seeds have been planted. An avenue for outreach and witness for New Brunswick Friends has, indeed, been its own property.

The Meeting rooms have also been made available to outside nonprofit groups whose values are in line with those of Friends. Dignity, a gay Catholic organization, has met at the meetinghouse for many years, charged a small fee to cover utilities. Another LGBT group used the Meeting rooms for years until they obtained their own facilities, and a local peace coalition uses the facilities regularly. All have expressed great gratitude for the welcoming access to Friends' facilities at low cost or no cost, if appropriate, and if there is Meeting approval of a waiver of fees, such as has been the case for the peace coalition, in which members and attenders participate.

At present, New Brunswick is encountering a happy dilemma. The meeting room has a legal capacity of 50, and a real capacity of closer to 36 or so unless chairs were to be set up in classroom style, which would not be conducive to meeting for worship. Recently, meeting for worship has begun to approach capacity from time to time. This fact has made Friends study a difficult situation, since the use of the building for meeting is now a grandfathered nonconforming use as a result of zoning changes since the purchase of the facilities. This means that we would not likely be permitted to change the footprint of the building, such as an addition would require. As a result, Friends are studying internal changes that may include the taking of a portion of the large apartment next door. If this plan is feasible, as it appears to be, the Meeting would have a larger meeting room and a second large area that would enable several other uses, including a First Day school room that is more attractive and fully accessible. It would provide committee meeting space and a reception area for socializing at rise of meeting. It appears that all or at least the bulk of the funds necessary to make these renovations may be available from the current property accounts, including accounting for the reserve that New Brunswick Friends have determined must be retained for security, in the event of major property needs.

On review of property matters over the years since our decision to purchase the current facility, two thoughts come to mind. The first is that there has been a meeting-wide sense of great satisfaction that we have managed to serve as good stewards of our property, including witness and outreach, an inherent opportunity in our property ownership. Service opportunities may arise where the standard business models in society at large may not demonstrate such opportunities. The second is the recollection that when Friends were contemplating the purchase, there was a classic Quaker discussion: Should Friends put the money, time, and human energies that property ownership requires into such a venture, in particular since the role of landlord requires that much more of all these energies, or should our money, time, and energy go into what would seem like more appropriate, traditional Quaker projects in our communities? I do not look back to this discussion with any sense of righteousness; these considerations are real and appropriate, and the answer may not always be the same for different meetings in different circumstances. Without strong business acumen and ongoing attention to relevant concerns, such a decision would become a catastrophe. New Brunswick Friends are grateful that is has not been so for us.

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Being Faithful to What We Are Called to Do

Sue Tannehilll, Buffalo Meeting

Our discussions about what to do with our Meetinghouse go back many, many years. Our meetinghouse was a beautiful home (donated to the meeting through the generosity of the Matlock family) on the East Side of Buffalo New York. Blessed with leaded glass windows, oak trim, big pocket doors, enough space and a view of the park, it was our home for many years

Soon after I became clerk, the issue of selling the meetinghouse came up for discussion at a business meeting. It had come up before. After lengthy discussion, Friends became aware that both sides (sell the house and don't sell the house) had a common desire. They were interested in good stewardship, and wanted the house well used. Those that felt our meeting didn't have the energy to use the house well wanted it sold. Those who felt there were still opportunities wanted to keep it. Once we were clear that we all wanted good use of the space, it became a question of trying to find good use of the space. We interviewed people who wanted to run a day care, a drop in center for teen-moms, even a Quaker school—we had lots of plans. None of them materialized.

Years later (maybe as many as 10) we revisited the idea again. By now, it had become clear that there were issues with caring for the house. February of 2006 saw a gas bill of $1,600.00. The next month the gas bill was between $1,100.00 and $1,300.00 The house needed work, and the basement was regularly flooding, causing plumbing and heating problems. We also found ourselves unable to care for the refugee family we invited to live upstairs when they began to take advantage of the house in many unthoughtful ways.

So, at the June 2006 business meeting, we were clear to sell the Meetinghouse. It was a wonderful meeting because it was so clear that we needed to sell the house. However, we only knew that it was time to sell the house.

There are no coincidences, and the very next day, Monday, a group of parents bound by the fact that all have lost a child to a violent death came to use our meetinghouse. The "Friendly Quaker presence" at that meeting, told of being ready to sell the meetinghouse. A man who was there that night, offered to buy it, and is currently under contract to buy it. Less than 24 hours after we were clear to let go of the Meetinghouse, the person who wanted it appeared.

Near the time that we left our Meetinghouse, I had a message about moving. I remembered the story of Ruth and her words to Naomi: "… for where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God…" (Ruth 1:16 RSV). It was clear to me that as much as I loved that Meetinghouse and no matter how many memories it held for me, the real Meeting was with the people, and wherever they went, I would go too. That message was reinforced when we came to our new meeting room. The first meeting for worship held there felt like praying at a bus stop. The normal sense of being held by the physical space was missing for me, but by the end of the first meeting, I sensed us gathered up again, one people joined and being faithful only to as much Light as they had. Now we await the next Movement of the Spirit among us. What strikes me most about our journey is that by being faithful to what was asked of us, we wound up without the meetinghouse which had become a burden to us, but not without our meeting, which continues to sustain us.

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W h a t    R o l e    D o e s    Y o u r    P h y s i c a l    S p a c e
P l a y    i n    t h e    L i f e    o f    Y o u r    M e e t i n g ?

On the Quality of Light in Brooklyn Meetinghouse

Jim Morgan, Brooklyn Meeting

For Quakers, light connotes a mystical union between human consciousness and each individual's numinous potential. Yet some Friends will tell you that our frequent references to "the Light" are strictly metaphorical and that we could worship just as well in a barely lit space as we can in a brightly luminous one. Accepting that as a truism, one must ask why, then, did those who planned and built Brooklyn meetinghouse in 1857 provide in the meeting room twelve enormous 16-over-16 double-hung windows, each with a glazing area of four feet-by-twelve feet, or fifty square feet of clear glass per window, if natural light has little sensual importance for members of the Religious Society of Friends?

Brooklyn meetinghouse

Today, of course, there are only seven windows in the meeting room since four of the original windows are now in the upper vestibule and another one in the meeting room was closed when our school was built nearly a century ago. The worship room itself is now almost square, 44 feet wide and about 42 feet deep with a ceiling height of more than 20 feet. That makes it a half-cube, one of the classic formulae for proportions of a large ceremonial space. There is no ornament at all. Although the side-wall lighting coves are recent additions, the curving hood above the facing bench dates from the 19th century. While some of the benches are permanently placed on risers around the room's edges, an equal number fitted with casters can be repositioned on the main floor as occasion demands: 250 people can be comfortably seated here at one time. 

Describing the quality of light in this noble space is more of a challenge than giving its dimensions. Recently repainted in a warm off-white color, the space seems brilliantly lit even on overcast days, partly because the contrast between solid and void on the outside walls is minimized by the high color value of the walls. The diffusing effect of this treatment helps to make the room seem even larger than it is because the edges of the interior cube seem ill-defined. That is especially true of the wall-ceiling juncture, thanks to a large-scale quarter-cylinder cove molding on three sides of the room. In the winter, the room takes on a particularly lucid quality as crisp, cool radiance floods it. During warm weather, because the sun is higher in the sky, the

lambent effect is brighter, less subtle: A natural incandescence fills the space, washing the walls with various rosy tones. In either case, at any time when there is a normal level of daylight there, the room appears to glow, a characteristic that effectively augments for many of us the great emphasis, however symbolic it may be, placed on "the light" by traditional Quaker worship.  

At present, the south- and west-facing windows have good access to light directly from the sky-dome; those on

the east do not, being limited to that which reflects off of the courthouse's west wall. There is a noticeable reduction in its brightness from that entering through windows on the other two sides. Except for a few weeks either side of the summer solstice, sunlight doesn't enter from the east—blocked by the courthouse's bulk the rest of the year. Because our meetings for worship are held in late morning, sunshine entering through the two south-facing windows plays an extremely important role in the quality of light during that hour. Winter sunlight literally reaches all the way across the room. It is fair to say that the stately procession of sunlight patterns across the room during our time of worship is a liturgical component of as great importance for some of us as is the priest's movement to and from the altar in other religious traditions.

In effect, once the proposed courthouse addition blocks direct sunlight from those south windows, the sacred character of our meeting room, consecrated by a century and a half of devout worship, is compromised—perhaps forever. The virtually complete loss of illumination from the south will be exacerbated by further reduction of light received from the east due to a much more tightly constrained light-well there. Daylight from the west remains unaffected but, as far as our morning gatherings are concerned, direct sunlight will never again animate Brooklyn Meeting's religious experience.

NOTE: This is an essay I wrote in 1995 when it was proposed to build another courthouse on the lot immediately south of our meetinghouse. Working with the community, Brooklyn Meeting convinced government authorities to build it elsewhere. Unfortunately, in late 2002, we learned too late that a developer had acquired that site for an apartment building, had all necessary approvals, and was going ahead with it. We were able to convince him to use light-colored brick on the walls of the courtyard opposite our south-facing windows but, by one year later, sunlight streaming through them was a memory. Many Brooklyn Friends seem oblivious to its loss. I'm not one of them.

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Use of Our Space in the Life of the Meeting

Gretchen Haynes, Martha Smith, and Barbara Jo Kingsley, Westbury Meeting

The present meetinghouse was built in 1901 on the foundation of the 1802 building that burned down, having replaced the smaller 1702 building. It is an almost perfect reflection of not only historical Long Island Quaker form, but also a more modern openness that has been able to accommodate generations of changing use, in ways that some older meetinghouses have not. The community center was originally enlarged to house quarterly meetings, but also the meetings, discussions, and social activities of the surrounding Village of Westbury.

In 2007, Westbury Friends School will mark 50 years of existence. The school buildings expanded from the original community center as enrollment increased. Each of these was built on the 17-acre grounds to touch our larger community—to expand our community. Now many diverse organizations—religious and secular—share these facilities in our effort to reach out. However, these efforts have proved to be a mixed blessing, often because we, as a meeting, do not stay in contact with the visitors except as problems arise.

Begun by members of the meeting as a nursery school, Westbury Friends now has classes from pre-K through 6th. The atmosphere is warm and accepting. Our school reflects diversity in the range of ethnic, economic and religious students. Children attend weekly meeting for worship, in which they respond to queries they themselves have developed.

Involvement by members of the meeting in school affairs has been sporadic, ranging from intense during fundraising and building projects, to indifference much of the time. Interrelations have been antagonistic on occasion, not to the school as such, but because of unresolved conflicts. Although parents attend meeting from time to time, the last family who joined came over 10 years ago. The last Quaker child graduated four years ago, and there are no Quaker teachers or staff.

Cooperation grows from the shared space. The school pays for utilities of all the buildings; the meeting pays for maintenance of the classrooms and grounds. As the cost of the tuition rises, Friends contribute to the scholarship fund. Some parents and teachers come to the annual Friends Fair and some Friends attend school events such as concerts and galas. The Board of Managers, which has a Quaker majority, has oversight and financial responsibility of the school. The Religious Life Committee of the Board works with the parents and staff to ensure that the school embraces the unique characteristics of Quaker education.

On the other hand, there is tension that grows directly from the use of shared spaces, particularly keeping them clean. Children gather in the meetinghouse to wait for school buses, leaving debris and scratched benches. Meeting events leave food and debris in the community center. Other groups use the school gym on weekends. This concern also affects attitudes toward the several other groups that use the space. The gathering of these groups in 2005, described in detail on page 10, did much to increase awareness of the problems and ameliorate them. Sensitivity to the needs of each constituent of the meeting community is essential; we need more communication and cooperation, an ongoing process.

Thus the use of our facilities by other groups provides a paradox. Although the activities are seen as outreach, apart from the one school family, the meeting has gained not a single member from among the users in over 20 years. The users are seeking commodious space for their activities, a spiritual home for themselves but separate from Friends. However, the financial contributions such groups make help to offset the meeting's upkeep and other expenses. In general, Westbury Friends share our buildings and grounds out of a sense of generosity for its own sake, and we need to be reminded of this when irritations arise.

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At Home in a One-Room Schoolhouse

Carol Coulthurst, Somerset Hills

For more than 20 years we at Somerset Hills have been meeting on First Day morning in the Brookside, N.J., Community Club. We feel comfortable there, at home. The building in which we meet, one of several surviving one-room schoolhouses in the area, is historic, simple, open, and colonial in design, not unlike a Quaker meetinghouse. Thus it is in keeping with the spirit of our small unprogrammed meeting.

It is a large, plain room with two bathrooms and a kitchen. We enjoy comfortable heating in the winter, and we have no responsibility for any maintenance or yard work at all. The parking lot is ample, and there is wheelchair access. However, having no separate facilities for children may limit our growth.

We have been allotted two hours on First Day morning from 9 to 11 A.M., and for this time at the Brookside Community Club we give them a donation twice a year. We feel that we are extremely well treated. Without our own property, we have the opportunity to use our financial reserves freely without any obligations to maintain a building and grounds.

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The Peace Street Meeting in Plainfield, N.J.

Roger Dreisbach-Williams

As Friends we hold no physical place to be more sacred than any other. Where two or three are gathered in Stillness and Truth be it on a sidewalk, in a home, or even a in car, the Spirit is present and that is holy ground. We know that meetinghouses are not to be worshiped, they are only buildings made by human hands . . . but Plainfield meetinghouse is a special space.

The minutes of the meeting begin in 9th Month 1686. The meeting had begun in the hope and promise of the new settlement at Amboy Point, which was intended to sweep away the bitterness and discord of the first 50 years of European settlement in the region. But soon the meeting itself was torn by the bitterness and discord of the George Keith separation (he was a leading member of the meeting who became an Anglican missionary). There are no entries in the minute book for 15 years, only a brief reference to what could not be written down, then the reestablishment of the meeting in a private home at Woodbridge in 1704. Our meetinghouse was built there in 1713. It would be reluctantly abandoned later as Friends settled farther inland.

The original Plainfield meetinghouse was built in 1731, a decade after Friends had been given permission to meet for worship in the nearby home of John Laing and a year before Friends would lose exemption from war taxes and military service as the province of East Jersey became part of the colony of New Jersey. The next 55 years would bring a succession of wars and military conflicts culminating in the War for Independence, which ran through the meeting as royal forces held Perth Amboy and rebels held the hills. Both sides raided Quaker families, and the losses were substantial—more than £1,375 in livestock, grain, produce, and household property. When the conflict was over, the meeting began talking about a new meetinghouse.

The new Plainfield Friends meetinghouse was built in 1788. The new meetinghouse wasn't as big as the one at Shrewsbury, the wall between the men's and women's sides didn't go to the ceiling (only to the balcony), the beams supporting the balcony weren't finished, and materials from the original meetinghouse would be used for the carriage sheds. But it had carriage sheds, brick insulation, plaster walls, and 20 windows.

They named the road in front of the meetinghouse Peace Street, and a century later it would be referred to as the Peace Street Meeting. In many ways the building of the new meetinghouse healed the meeting after all that it had

suffered in the years before.

The Friends who crafted this building and worshiped here before us have left the query, "And you? How will you respond in your day, given what Friends who sat on these benches before you did in theirs?" We don't have a meetinghouse so much as we have a legacy. It challenges us as well as providing comfort. There are Bibles and boxes of tissues on the benches, there's a basket of soft stuffed animals, and a piano in a corner. All get used from time to time. A passage with storage closets, wheelchair access, and bathrooms leads to the "school wing" (what used to be the carriage sheds) with areas for preschool and older children, a kitchen, an office, and the library.

The school wing is our social space. Moveable partitions can create smaller rooms as our First Day school program grows. They also provide privacy for those staying overnight as part of our meeting's participation in the FISH hospitality program for homeless families. When the partitions are moved to the side, the space can accommodate up to eight tables for community meals and projects. Beyond the school wing is the burial ground where children run and we hold picnics. There are more stories here, the Friends whose lives were devoted to the meeting, the empty space yet to fill.

At Plainfield the physical space nurtures and enlarges the life of the meeting. It brings us awe and joy, peace and inspiration, instruction and grace. We are stewards of this space. We are called for a time to carry on the Life that has been given to us, preparing to pass it on to new generations as we ask ourselves, "What role does your physical space play in the life of your meeting?"

The Meeting has also been through wide variations in active membership. Generations of Friends have cherished the meetinghouse, through the coming of the railroad and the post office (both built on land that had belonged to the meeting), the transformation of an agricultural and commercial community into the industrial city of Plainfield, its decline, and now its renewal.

During a period when we were few, the roof began to leak and the shake siding showed signs of rot. The report from the Property Committee was grim. We did not know where we would get the money for the necessary repairs. Then a member found out about a new state program, the New Jersey Historic Trust, which provided funds for the preservation of historic structures.  After much prayer (and a lot of work) the application was completed and approved. This was the good news.  But it meant that matching funds would have to be raised. Those who were present when the commitment was made know how much faith was involved in the decision—and how much hard work by a very few Friends (with no qualifications other than being available to attend meetings) went into the restoration.  The meeting reached out to the wider community and to Friends who had left the area. Old families were contacted and the funds were provided.

Having the state involved meant that there were no shortcuts, only the best materials were used, and there was research behind the decisions—in other words it was not run by Quakers trying to do it on the cheap or to their sense of history and propriety. Thus the color of the building changed from "Quaker Gray" to "Bright Pumpkin" and passersby began to notice that it wasn't an all-but-abandoned building after all. We were also required to open the building to the public, and while this was something we had always done, now we began to look harder for these opportunities, and groups began to seek us out.

Perking up the meetinghouse perked up the Meeting as well. The rough times didn't end until a few years after the project was completed, but in looking back it feels like a good marker for the beginning of the renewed spirit in Rahway and Plainfield Monthly Meeting. Several things about Plainfield's experience were crucial to its success:  First, there is a quality about the meeting room that people remember. We found a large community that was willing to contribute to the cost of the restoration because they had been in the meetinghouse and knew that it was a special place.  Second, the City of Plainfield grew up around the meetinghouse, and for many years youth groups, including school children, came on tours and field trips. This added to the support from past members and former attenders of the meeting.  Third, there was a convergence of public policy and our need. Without the New Jersey Historic Trust those resources would not have been available. 

Finally, the experience of almost losing the building during the Depression left those who lived through that time, and the generation that followed, with a strong commitment to providing financial support. This had been going on for decades, and it put the meeting in a much stronger position than if we had reoccupied an abandoned meetinghouse and were starting without a legacy.

We are comfortable in this space. For many of us it is a respite from a harsh and demanding world, a place where we come for restoration and renewal. With everything else that we're doing (raising children, pursuing careers), we do not have the time or energy that a major building project requires. Past generations turned the carriage shed into a school wing and the McCutchen from an elderly residence into a nursing home. At present we are too scattered and too busy to imagine doing something on that scale.

What role does your physical space play in the life of the meeting? At Plainfield the physical space nurtures and enlarges the life of the meeting. It brings us awe and joy, peace and inspiration, instruction and grace. Visitors come into the meetinghouse and tell us that for reasons they can't explain, they feel at home. We understand. That is why many of us are here. Through this space we tell the meeting's story and in this space visitors become a part of the meeting. We are stewards: called for a time to carry on the Life that has been given to us, adding our chapter to a continuing story, preparing to pass it on to new generations.

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Where I Worship

Judith Inskeep, Purchase Meeting

I love the Purchase picture window. When our old meetinghouse burned down in 1973, it was sad to lose that room that felt spacious and hallowed. In deciding not to rebuild with a replica of what had been, I believe that we were rightly led. A newer space can become hallowed too; some years ago a member gave a message in worship saying that the meeting room had been "seasoned" by now, by a sufficient number of meetings for worship, weddings, and memorial meetings. The window looks out on trees, which lift my spirits along with their branches, and the five memorial dogwoods bloom in the spring. The presence of trees doesn't seem to lead to an overabundance of messages about roots, trunks, leaves, etc. If one doesn't sit too far forward, one can manage not to see (well, almost) the parking lot. I think of the noise of Interstate 684 as being a wind blowing toward us from the past, bringing down the centuries the experience of God and heartfelt desires of early Friends. As for the airport noise, the airport manager does make an effort to keep it down during our worship hour, and when I hear it I draw comfort from telling myself that in 50 years the airport will have been overtaken by technology, and it won't be there any more. But Purchase Meeting will.

Purchase meetinghouse

We are blessed with an inviting library (except that it's also a walk-through space) and, since our recent renovations, an improved kitchen, a large art room for the children, and two new classrooms. We also had a playground installed several years ago. We needed extra space for First Day school in the early '90s, and we've shrunk since then; now that we've built it, will they come? For history and atmosphere, we have our 1830s Orthodox meeting room, which is used for First Day school singing. It was our worship room after the fire; I liked the intimate, antique feeling of it and its old benches. Our lawn outside the social room has seen many decades of games; the annual FDS picnic features the (raw) egg toss and the gobble-the-Twinkie-with-whipped-cream classic.

Sometimes I wonder if we could be more active and effective if our meetinghouse were in an actual community, with neighbors. Is a city/town location better for presence and outreach? Or if we were there, would we long for spiritual nourishment from country trees and earth?

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Vision Statement for Old Chatham Meeting

Old Chatham Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends is a community of people seeking to respond to the living Spirit as we live our lives. We gather to worship together, to provide counsel and support to each other, and to encourage each other in the faithful practice of our beliefs.

Our community is growing and includes many children. We wish to build a meetinghouse that will realize our desire to live faithful and fruitful lives, and to carry out a strong witness for peace and justice in our troubled world. We dream of being better able to teach our children about our faith and practice through providing a more generous space as a fitting spiritual home for them.

We dream of a building that will embody Quaker principles of simplicity, egalitarianism, community, care for the Creation, and seeking the Light—"that of God in everyone." Our dream is that this Meetinghouse will be both functional and inspiring. The words below are some of those that F/friends of Old Chatham find important in representing Quakerism. We hope that they can be useful in discerning the rightness of any proposed design. Light, equality, worship, peace, God-led, justice, inner-peace, centering, Christ Spirit, community, faithful, seeking, F/friend, leadings, ministry of all, sense of unity, courageous, non-violent, speaking truth to power, plain, environmentalist.

Having our own home will help us to let others know who we are and what our beliefs are, and to welcome seekers more graciously in joining us. We hope to gather there more often to "break bread" together, an important ritual for creating an intimate community. We wish to be a visible witness and peace center in our wider community, addressing violence and injustice that we believe is contrary to God's will for the earth. We anticipate that a building which is both practical and an inspiring spiritual home will better help us to seek to know God and the divine will for us, and to live out the Quaker testimonies of simplicity, integrity, equality, and non-violence. We hope that this space will serve not only our Meeting, but Friends visiting Powell House, Friends of New York Yearly Meeting, and other groups whose work is leading to a stronger community and a more God-centered, peaceful, and just world.

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What's in a Meetinghouse?

Ginny Blanford, Scarsdale Meeting

It all started with a leak in the kitchen sink. Water was getting under the caulking around the sink, and the wooden cabinet beside it was starting to rot. A few of us who use the kitchen frequently at Scarsdale meetinghouse wanted to get it fixed—but when we thought about fixing the leak, we found ourselves thinking about replacing the countertops (in place for at least 25 years and probably longer). And if we were going to replace the countertops, then why not consider doing something about the serious lack of storage space for the several groups that used the kitchen? And if . . .

Our little group went to meeting for business with three possibilities: We could spend $300 and fix the leak. Or we could spend $10,000 and renovate the kitchen. Or we could try to identify all the physical needs of the meetinghouse (storage was an obvious one) and create a master plan that laid out a way to meet all those needs. The meetinghouse, we suggested, was the physical manifestation of our spirituality, and its current condition (messy, grimy, in several ways nonfunctional) was not supporting the life of our Meeting in ways that we would like it to. To our astonishment, the Meeting formalized our committee and asked us to dream big: Identify the needs; create the plan. We swallowed hard, and then began. We agreed on several principles up front:

• We would make the process as transparent as possible, offering regular monthly progress reports at meeting for business, even when we had not moved very far forward.

• We would make sure that every voice was heard by meeting with or surveying all the Meeting committees, as well as the various constituent groups that use the meetinghouse (our nursery school, a Jewish congregation for whom the meetinghouse is home, and a variety of smaller groups).

• We would follow Quaker process always, listening to everyone and making no decisions without unity in the committee.

At first, we found ourselves raising solutions—we could expand the kitchen by moving it here; we could build storage here. Everyone had ideas. But of course, what we really needed was agreement on the needs, the problems. So we began with surveys, meetings, and conversations, and eventually we began to isolate the larger issues:

•There was not enough storage space.It wasn't just the kitchen. Two corner classrooms with multiple windows had been appropriated as storage rooms. The allocation of storage between the First Day school and the nursery school was unclear. And our tenant, the Congregation M'Vakshe Derekh, was necessarily storing several large pieces of furniture used in their worship in the foyer to the meeting room. We wanted to be sensitive to the needs of the Congregation, but this foyer-as-storage made entry into meeting for Friends somewhat dissonant.

•The kitchen was outdated and inadequate.Lack of storage, cracked counters, an accumulation of grime over the years—all this made for a joyless work space.

•There was inadequate access for those with disabilities.Our second-floor meeting room was reached only by a flight of stairs or a long outdoor path—and the bathrooms were on the first floor.

•The meetinghouse was not welcoming to newcomers.As our architect remarked on his first time through, if the bathrooms are more prominent than the meeting room, and you have to have a sign to point you to the most important space, you're in trouble. Even the outdoor entry was unclear, with multiple doors facing newcomers.

We interviewed three architects and wrote a formal request for proposals—in itself a learning experience. We settled finally on an architect whom we knew—who had, in fact, grown up in Scarsdale Meeting—and that was a fortuitous choice, since he understood and even valued Quaker process. His comfort with our changing minds and need to come to unity supported the process even at times when the committee itself was frustrated. We worked with our architect as a committee for about six months, reporting back to meeting for business every month, and holding several presentations and forums with the Meeting at large, and we presented our master plan to the Meeting last June. Our committee was laid down, and a new committee was formed to consider implementation of the plan.

Whether or not the plan is implemented (and the costs are daunting), the process of creating it was a remarkable one for me and, I think, for others on the committee. It was spiritual. It was thoughtful. I was changed by this process. I came to understand and appreciate Quaker process much more deeply than I had before.

As a committee, we found, in this process, a unity in recognizing that our building was a trust handed down to us from those who had gone before, a trust that we needed to carry forward for those who would come after. We did not take that responsibility lightly. We found a unity in our agreement that the changes we recommended should respond to articulated needs and not to individual desires. We found a unity in the understanding that physical space does make a difference—that a welcoming building and a joyful kitchen can change the way we support our own spirituality. We found a unity that we should walk lightly on this earth.

All of this from a little leak in the kitchen sink.

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Peace on Earth—Peace with Earth

Earthcare Working Group Formed for NYYM

At this past year's NYYM Summer Sessions, an Earthcare Working Group (EWG) was formed by the Nurture Coordinating Committee to lift up the spiritual basis of Earthcare within the Yearly Meeting. Recently, we worked with Sessions Committee to bring forward Earthcare as the theme for the 2007 Summer Sessions. Today, we ask that the Meeting hold us in the Light. We have found ourselves being led by the Spirit throughout these days. We are prayerfully aware of our solemn responsibility to answer God's call to respond now to the cry of this beautiful planet—this most precious gift, the Earth.

As Liseli Haines said this past summer in her Quaker Earthcare Witness report: "We are recycling, buying hybrid cars, using compact fluorescent light bulbs, and driving less. Now it is time for the next step. It is time to expand our testimony of love for one another to embrace a radical love for all creation. To feel in our very souls the aliveness of the earth, the healing power of touching, tasting, and feeling the world around us. Knowing that every atom of our being has been around from the beginning of time. The atoms that make up our body have been part of a rock sitting in the sun, a drop of water on the tip of a whitecap on the lake, a mote of dust dancing in the sunlight, our greatest hero and a feared dictator, and will be again. The essence of our equality is that we are all one. All of God's creation is one. So go outside and greet your brothers and sisters, lie in the grass, watch clouds, caress a white birch, climb an apple tree. Go barefoot in the sand, float in the lake, and sing with friends. Rejoice in rain, listen to crickets, take a night walk, watch a great blue heron fly by, eat wild berries, and dance."

EWG would like to keep monthly meetings informed about our work. If an interested individual from your meeting would like to be on our e-mail list, please contact EWG's clerk, Janet Soderberg, at jesoderberg [at] verizon [dot] net. See the 2006 Yearbook for the full list of the working group's membership.

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Yearly Meeting Prayer List

Almost daily, Yearly Meeting staff or Ministry and Counsel members hear of Friends going through health crises, deaths in the family, abrupt transitions, spiritual openings, and all manner of life events that would inspire us to pray for them. Frequently the word has been sent out in an informal way to those who we feel might be concerned for this Friend, and want to offer support. We have wanted for some time to widen this circle of support. Ministry and Counsel Coordinating Committee has seen clear to address this need through supporting the creation of a Yearly Meeting prayer list.

Bobbi Sue Bowers, of Manasquan Monthly Meeting, has volunteered to serve as the point person for such a list. She will be receiving names of those who feel a need for the support of the broader community. Once a week, she will be sending out the list via e-mail to those who feel a leading to hold others in the Light. Those without e-mail capacity will receive hard copies.

If you would like prayer support for any reason, you can be on the list in several ways: You can be on the list with an asterisk, which means that you do not want to be contacted or asked about why you are on the list; you can be on the list with a short description as to why; or your name can be there by itself. Please do not submit someone else's name without their permission. If you wish to be on the list, or feel led to a practice of prayer, you can contact Bobbi Sue at bobbisue [dot] bowers [at] juno [dot] com or 732-919-1261.

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Task Group on Youth

Mary Rothschild, Brooklyn Meeting

Consider these hypothetical situations: After years of preparation centered on Bible study, a meeting in Upstate New York gives its twelve-year-olds Bibles and tells them they can now either join the adult meeting or provide childcare for the youngest children. In a meeting in New Jersey, ten-year-olds begin to prepare for the transition that will occur when they reach 13 by taking more responsibility for preparing and conducting their meeting. At 13 they will enter the teen meeting, overseen by an adult, where there is a teen clerk and age-appropriate worship and sharing. A meeting in the Hudson Valley has an otherwise willing adult who hesitates to begin teaching First Day school because of the time required to prepare activities and explore resources. Friends in New York City want to know how Friends elsewhere have addressed the issues of popular culture and the development of values. A meeting in Connecticut wants to explore rites-of-passage events that have been used by meetings for teens or welcoming rituals for new babies coming into the meeting. What avenues are available to these meetings to share experiences as well as information and techniques they have developed? What avenues are available to search for the resources they need?

It is just these kinds of needs that are expressed by the teachers and parents of children in the monthly meetings of NYYM. The Task Group on Youth under Nurture Coordinating Committee has begun to develop ways we can share experience, access resources, and communicate for mutual support. There are those Friends who doubt the relevance of Yearly Meeting efforts to the individual meetings. Yet Yearly Meeting is uniquely positioned help each parent, each teacher, and each child throughout by connecting the collected resources and wisdom of the individual meetings through several different means. This communication, which is really a circulation of energy and life, will help sustain an increasingly healthy and Spirit-led work with our youth.

Our first response is to be increasingly sensitive to the young people and those who work and live with them in our meetings and to have one-on-one conversations with them. Informed by that contact we will create a resource Web page. A Yahoo! e-mail list is now available to enhance contact among members and attenders of meetings all across New York around the concerns of and for youth. Members and Attenders can subscribe by going to NYYMTask_Group_On_Youth-subscribe [at] yahoogroups [dot] com.

This is a new initiative. The Religious Education Committee was laid down two years ago. Now the attempt is to start fresh, to be open to new ideas, and, most importantly, to hear the voices of children, teens, and young adults about what they are experiencing as Friends and what they need to sustain and develop their spiritual lives. Below is a partial list of Task Group members. Please contact us and join in this effort.

Mark LaRiviere, Fifteenth Street Meeting
Kathie Scanlon, Purchase Meeting, Philipstown Worship Group
Carol Rice, Purchase Meeting, Philipstown Worship Group
Margaret Lew, Fifteenth Street Meeting
Rick Townsend, Fredonia Meeting
Mary Rothschild, Brooklyn Meeting
Kelli Meland-Lewis

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2007 Summer Sessions

Announcement from Sessions Committee

Kate Lawson, clerk, Sessions Committee

The theme the NYYM's 2007 Summer Sessions will be Stewardship, conceived as the care of our earth, bodies, and spirit. This theme was decided by the program subcommittee of the Sessions Committee in October and approved by Sessions in December. This will be the first of a series of Summer Sessions focusing on the Quaker testimonies. Perhaps as we move through the winter, spring, and early summer, we can begin the work of discerning what the testimony of stewardship has to say in our daily lives—as individuals, as citizens of the world, and as a faith community.

In order to better serve the theme of stewardship, we have invited four speakers to attend the 2007 Summer Sessions and share their ministry with us. When we have confirmed their availability, their names and topics will be announced. Friends will recall that study groups were offered for the first time during our Jubilee Year. This year, instead of study groups, the speakers will be available for extended evening discussions.

We hope you will join us for the 2007 Summer Sessions!

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Drawing Out Gifts—Traveling in the Ministry

Powell House workshop, January 19–21, 2007

Travel under concern can be a vital source of spiritual nourishment for both the concerned Friend and those to whom the concern is brought. Now more than ever, we have need of faithful travelers who can help us be open and faithful to the Spirit's guidance. Some of us are very experienced in this kind of work, others are not, but everyone has more to learn, from our own experience and from each other.

This will be a real workshop, in which the experience and present concerns of attenders will be an important source of material. Topics are likely to include: understanding a concern; finding the right "form" in following the concern; discernment and decisionmaking while carrying the concern; relating your concern to others'; travelers and their relationship to their home meeting; the relation of faithfulness under concern to the Lamb's War.

This workshop is especially for any who are feeling led to travel under concern, whatever the concern may be. Friends who feel drawn to travel in ministry are particularly encouraged to attend.

Brian Drayton is a member of Weare (NH) Meeting, in New England. He is a recorded minister, and has long been concerned to encourage others called to ministry. A recent fruit of this concern is his book, On living with a concern for Gospel ministry. He has a strong interest in the spirituality and theology of early Friends, and of the "middle period" of Quakerism, and in helping modern Friends to take nourishment from the Quaker tradition for their present witness. He is one of the originators of the Quaker Peacebuilder Camp in New England.

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Notices

NEW MEMBERS
Ray Barnes – Poplar Ridge
George Loft – Saratoga
Sharon Podbela – Matinecock
Elizabeth Powers – Brooklyn
William Tyler – Poplar Ridge

TRANSFERS
Mary Hamilton, to Alfred from State College (PYM)
Katherine Lynne Rapaport, to Brooklyn from Willistown (PYM)
Mary Cora Sangree, to Brooklyn from Rochester

BIRTHS/ADOPTIONS
Jonathon Bishop Heshmat, on July 22, 2006, to Justin Bishop, member of Schenectady Meeting, and Crystal Heshmat

DEATHS
Milford Lester, member of Saratoga, on December 30, 2006
Herta F. Rosenblatt, member of Montclair, on November 26, 2006.

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