State College Friends Meeting

Adult Religious Education

to introduce, strengthen and deepen our Quaker spiritual life

Adult Religious Education provides monthly sessions on a variety of topics. Most sessions are hybrid, with some Friends meeting in person and others on Zoom. When possible, Zoom sessions will be recorded and posted on the website. In addition to Friends from Foxdale and Friends School, we also welcome participants from Upper Susquehanna Quarter and other local faith communities.

Past programs have focused on diverse topics such as Friends' spiritual journeys; local Quaker history; nontheism among Friends; preparing for worship; advocacy; and a Kenyan Quaker describing her ministries. Suggestions are welcome, and can be sent to Ann Sidone (annsidone1@gmail.com).

April 28,2024 1:00PM

Please join the State College Friends Meeting Adult RE committee on Sunday, April 28 at 1:00 in hosting Phil Jones, the Executive Director of the Center for Alternatives in Criminal Justice (CACJ). CACJ was founded as a nonprofit in 1978. In its beginning, CACJ was largely supported financially by the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. The mission of CACJ is "to serve society by working with the community and justice system to promote, develop, and implement effective alternatives that preserve human dignity, restore, heal, and empower individuals."  Our work includes supporting and monitoring the lives of individuals awaiting trial, providing court appointed or other mediation opportunities that empower people through mutual understandings, offering youth a community-based alternative to traditional court processing, and engaging workplaces, schools, and neighborhoods in an intentional guided dialogue through which all participants are heard, and able to contribute to the resolution of conflict. CACJ currently has five full or part time staff and depends on many volunteers to assist in providing our restorative services to those of the Centre County region.

This will be a hybrid program held at the meeting house. Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88194490526?pwd=Si9RK0VRcHh5ak9ONGh4MTFVdjU0Zz09

Quakerism 101 Winter 2024

This winter, the State College Friends Meeting Adult Religious Education Committee offered Quakerism 101-- a series of workshops designed to help deepen people’s understanding of Quakerism. Each session started with a presentation followed by a discussion time.

1)     Quaker History- January 28 with Selden Smith
Transcript

2)     Quaker Beliefs and Values- February 11 with Martin Melville and Doug Miller
Watch the Zoom Recording
Passcode: 5w.Psf3d

Resources:
BYM and PYM Faith and Practice
Quakerspeak.com Quaker Basics videos (https://quakerspeak.com/basics/)
Anything by Parker Palmer
Brother Lawrence’s Practice of the Presence
George Fox’s journal
Friends for 350 Years, Howard Brinton

3)     Quaker Decision Making, Business Meeting- February 25 with Vilmos Misangyi
Presentation Slides in PDF Format

4)        Living as a Quaker and Meeting for Worship- March 17 with Laurie Jeffrys and Eliza Bradley
Watch the Zoom Recording
View the Presentation Slides

Religious Education Archives

November 11, 2023
Chris Staley shares his spiritual journey: Poignant Moments. How can questions be the answer? Chris shares moments in his life that posed questions that have guided his spiritual life. These are a few questions that guide this interactive experience.

What has been one of the most challenging times in your life?
What did that experience teach you?
How do we learn to have more empathy?
What role does doubt play in one’s spiritual journey?
If there is that of love in all of us, how do we grow that love?

View a Recording (Note:there was a recording malfunction from 11:55 - 13:55)
Passcode: Chris@scfm1123

March 12, 2023
In this recording Emma Graham shares her spiritual journey. Emma grew up attending Wellsboro Friends Meeting until the age of 16 and has been attending State College Friends Meeting off & on for the past 12 years. Growing up participating in youth Quaker Camps in PYM & BYM led Emma to a deeper exploration of Quakerism and that has shaped her direction in Quaker Education and Volunteer service. Emma attended Westtown for 3 years & graduated in 2006. While there she was a part of the Quaker Leaders Program and attended Westtown Friends meeting weekly. She then went on to Guilford College and participated in the Quaker Leadership Scholars Program for the 2 years she was there. Emma worked at the Woolman Semester School in Nevada City, CA in 2010 as an admissions representative and also worked as the Friends Center Intern at Guilford College for part of her time, when she returned to school in 2016.  Emma attended New Garden Friends Meeting, First Friends, and Friendship meeting when she returned to the school at different times. While at Guilford, Emma participated in a Quaker led service trip with Frank Massey to the Belize Friends School, in Belize City in Spring of 2017. The focus was on assisting kids in the classroom and helping to renovate a building for a new school site.  After graduating from Guilford in May 2018, she & her sister, Sunita, went on a Service trip to Ramallah Palestine/ Israel led by Max & Jane Carter. The focus was on serving the Ramallah Friends School with building projects and hearing about living under the Occupation. Emma will be sharing how these experiences have shaped her growth & deepened her true connection to Quakerism.
View the Recording
Passcode: *=h9189r

February 10, 2023
In the February Adult RE program, The Prison Outdoor Recreation Committee discussed the issue of Centre County prisoners NOT having outdoor recreation, which is against the intent of Pennsylvania law. This committee is in the process of garnering support (in the way of letter writing and attending the Prison Board meetings) of Centre County residents for their effort to get outdoor recreation for Centre County prisoners (and other county prisoners throughout the state).  In addition, Laurence (a friend of the Meeting) and others talked about their incarceration experiences. 
Watch this Presentation
Passcode: kU&M8jr1

What WE can do: Advocating for outdoor recreation at Centre County Correctional Facility

January 15, 2023: Giving support to those who are dying.  
Presenter Jackie Naginey Hook, MA, is a spiritual director, celebrant and end-of-life doula whose work helps people find hope, healing and wholeness. Companioning ourselves and others around dying, death and grief can feel scary and overwhelming. We want to do and say the “right” things. What if the best place to start is simply being present and attending to what is going on inside of ourselves?
View PDF Handout for this presentation: Companioning Around Dying, Death, and Grief

Watch the Zoom Recording
Passcode: s284K*Y@ 

Please note that we were having audio difficulties for about the first nine minutes of the presentation.

Jackie recommended these resources:
Greg Yoder.  Companioning the Dying.  A Soulful Guide for care givers.
Henry Fersko-Weiss.  Caring for the Dying.  The Doula Approach to a Meaningful Death
Karen M. Wayatt, MD. What Really Matters. 7 Lessons for Living from the Stories of the Dying
Anne-Mari Keppel. Death Nesting. Ancient and Modern Death Doula Techniques, Mindfulness Practices and Herbal Care.
Ram Dass & Mirabai Bush. Walking Each Other Home

December 4, 2022
Campbell Plowden shares information about his work with the Center for Amazon Community Ecology, which supports sustainable livelihoods and cooperation in native communities in the Peruvian Amazon. Campbell founded this organization (publicly known as Amazon Ecology- www.AmazonEcology.org) in 2006 to promote forest conservation and sustainable development with forest-based communities in the Amazon region.This group helps hundreds of traditional artisans from 18 native and campesino communities in the northern Peruvian Amazon to make and market innovative fair-trade handicrafts, improve the management of plants used to make crafts, empower artisan associations, and strengthen their communities. 

Watch the Zoom Recording
Passcode: 0$w@5CRN

November 13, 2022 Joe Doherty, Head of School at State College Friends School, provides a glimpse into the future of Friends education, including the importance of the Quaker testimonies, providing a personalized learning environment, fostering a culture of love, and preparing students for an unknown and unpredictable future.
Watch the Zoom recording. Password: *#vbIv2T

October 16 at 1:00 PM, JT Dorr-Bremme hosted a hybrid Adult Religious Education session "Eldering: Reclaiming a Practice". This session focused on eldership in modern unprogrammed Friends. Eldering is a tradition for Quakers, and it is often also unfamiliar in Friends' practices. Bring your questions and curiosity! After an introduction to the noun/verb "elder" and some personal reflections on JT's eldership practice, we will spend most of our time in discussion and Q&A. 
Watch the Zoom recording.
See a Creative Listening document.

September 17th, 10:30AM
The second part will be a Walking Tour of some of the key sites of the Underground Railroad/African American/Quaker history in Bellefonte. The tour will begin at 11 AM on Saturday, September 17. Those wishing to carpool from the SC meetinghouse should meet there at 10:30. The tour will be leisurely and very informative but it is a walking tour so wear comfortable shoes. The tour will last about 90 minutes.

And here is a video of The Underground Railroad Tour that Robert, the late Dr. Donna King, and others did with WPSU in 2016.

September 15, 2022
In the hybrid part of the September Adult RE program, Robert Lumley-Sapanski talked about the Underground Railroad history in Bellefonte, the role the Quakers played during this time and other related historical facts; for instance, did you know Frederick Douglass spoke in Bellefonte or that Bellefonte was one of the first Pennsylvania public school districts to integrate their schools?
View the Zoom Recording
Passcode: 9jwRLMT

April 10, 2022
The Adult RE session on April 10 featured members of the Lancaster Monthly Meeting talking about their FCNL advocacy work. They will be talking about the work of FCNL, the kind of lobbying work the Lancaster advocacy teams do and their focus this year, which is the U.S.-Saudi Arabian war in Yemen, going on for 7 years now at the cost of almost 400,000 Yemini lives. The U.S. is assisting the Saudis with logistics, intelligence and supplies; previously the U.S. was refueling the Saudis' bombers in mid-air but stopped that.

The group also provided this link to a video on lobbying: https://youtu.be/5ccnqgJnWrM

And 2 flyers describing how your meeting can create their own advocacy team.
Make Your Voice Heard and General Advocacy Teams

In the November Adult RE session, Dorothy Habecker shared her spiritual Journey, including her early experiences with religion as a child, and her first experiential spiritual encounters. She followed her growth and journey as an adult and shared the impact that Quakerism has had and continues to have on her spiritual life.
Dorothy also shared a Quotes and Resources Document.