We will be having a memorial meeting for worship in remembrance of our beloved Friend Dee Abrahamse on Saturday, January 11, 2025 at 2PM in the sanctuary of the Orange Coast Unitarian Universalist Church at 2845 Mesa Verde East, Costa Mesa. Use the link below if you wish to attend online.
If you’d like to learn more about Dee’s life, you can read her story here. You can also see her being interviewed about her spiritual journey here.
Friends, we are called to gather again in fellowship at our traditional place, Temescal Canyon. We have a long history with that spot, and if you’ve never been, we encourage you to make the effort to come in person. We plan to have a hybrid gathering, so the option of remote participation will be available, but if it’s at all possible, being in the beautiful place with fellow Quakers from around the Quarter is a wonderful experience.
The Ministry and Counsel Committee has chosen to consider “Faith and Prayer in Action” as the theme for the gathering, and speakers who will lead us to consider this theme are being invited. With the rich variety of people in our Meetings, we hope this topic will stimulate broad discussion. On a very basic level, many of us consider the “Ministry of Small Things” to be prayer – the prayer while washing dishes, preparing food, or arranging the logistics for Fall Fellowship. At the same time, many of us have been appalled by uncaring response from politicians to, for example, mass shootings, with the hypocritical “thoughts and prayers”. This is why Ministry and Counsel has deliberately chosen the phrase “Faith and Prayer in Action”. Come and engage in this worship and learning.
In addition to our keynote presentations and worship sharing on Saturday and Sunday mornings we will have interest and affinity groups, time for fellowship, hiking, plenaries, community night, and worship.
We will be offering a rich children’s program for all ages during plenary and interest group sessions. Fall fellowship is an opportunity for kids to get to know one another in our geographic region and spend some time in nature. Attendance fees are automatically waived for babies, toddlers, children, and teens.
Please join us for SCQM’s Fall Fellowship on the beautiful grounds of Temescal Gateway Park in the Pacific Palisades, just north of Santa Monica, or via Zoom. See below for details.
In peace,
Dan Strickland, SCQM clerk
On the first weekend of November (1-3), join Quakers from around southern California at Temescal Canyon. It’s a beautiful location a couple of miles inland from Will Rogers State Beach. We’ll sleep in cabins, share meals in the dining hall, and enjoy discussions, speakers, meeting new people and old friends, and have fun. There will be programs for children and teens. There’s some very fine hiking as well. More information arriving shortly, so keep an eye on your mailbox (of the electronic sort).
Pacific Yearly Meeting’s Annual Session will be held in person July 19-24,
2024 at Whittier College in Whittier, CA. It will also be possible to attend
remotely via Zoom. This year’s theme will be Transformation. Registration for in-person attendance closes July 1st, and registration for online attendance closes July 15th.
Click here for more information, including the Clerk’s Call, the schedule, fees, and a link to
registration.
Please be aware that our Quaker Explorations (QE) facilitators are taking a short summer recess from July 14th through the 28th. QE will resume at its usual time (9:30 to 10:15AM) on August 4th, with a discussion of the Advices and Queries on Simplicity. All are welcome.
The Orange County Marathon will be running Sunday, May 5th, near the Meeting House. In previous years this has been a headache for anyone driving to Meeting.
The best way to get to Meeting, for anyone coming by car, will be:
405 to Harbor South
Right (west) on Gisler, the first light south of the freeway, by the Arco and In’n’Out
Left on Gibraltar, the first stop sign
Round the bend on Gibraltar
Left on Labrador (Gibraltar ends)
Right on Baker, a four-way stop
Left on Mesa Verde Eats, a four-way stop
Then Meeting will be on the right.
There may be a lot of traffic this way, from people trying to get to the marathon’s route. Here are two links to the Marathon’s website:
Thelink on the right takes you to a page with links to lists of road closures. If you prefer maps, scroll to the bottom and click on the rectangular thing on the right, in the black bar. That will give you a full-page interactive map.
*Photo by Miguel A Amutio on Unsplash
Please be aware that Quaker Explorations will not be held on Sunday, March 31st, so that the facilitatiors can spend Easter morning with their families. QE will resume on the following Sunday, April 7th with a discussion on the Advices and Queries for the Fourth Month: Stewardship and Vocation.
HEALING PRACTICES and QUAKER SPIRITUALITY
led by Shannon Frediani
We do not store trauma in the mind;
we store trauma in the body.
Living in our world today involves trauma exposure.
Whether healing from personal trauma or
avoiding being traumatized by working with others who suffer from trauma,
we can learn in this workshop a new form of healing
Bringing attention to our bodies can help us bring our nervous systems
back into balance and to come back to one’s own center of peace.
Balancing and returning to one’s center,
where we encounter Spirit, is building our own resilience.
This 2-session series is an introduction to practices that support the resilience needed to meet today’s challenges.
This program will be conducted online and will consist of two 1½ -hour sessions. Participants will have the opportunity to do the following:
10:30 – noon: Recognize and reflect on their own responses to trauma exposure.
Learn to interrupt the trauma response.
1:00 -2:30: Build resilience and new strategies for centering, and
Connect with Spirit and deepen their Quaker faith.
Shannon Frediani is a Quaker teacher, writer, and activist. She is a member of Santa Cruz Monthly Meeting.
Please join Friends from throughout SCQM, in person and via zoom, to hear about the Spiritual State of the Monthly Meetings and Worship Groups in our Quarter.
We will gather at Orange Grove Friends Meeting, 520 E. Orange Grove Blvd in Pasadena. Please see the OGMM website for maps and maps and detailed directions if needed.
Snacks, coffee/tea, and lunch will be provided for a donation, and there will be activities for children.
We will provide a zoom link for all sessions.
Please register below by midnight, Tuesday April 23rd, 2023.
Friday, April 26 at 6:30 PM Pacific (via Zoom)
Interest Group: Healing from Abuse in Quaker Communities.
Speaker: Windy Cooler
Recognizing and healing from abuse is paramount for a healthy mindset, relationships and community, but within the Society of Friends, where acknowledging this may disrupt our idealized Quaker ‘comfort zone’ because of our peace testimony and our public commitments to pacifism, working on remedying these circumstances, not only applies to interpersonal relationships but also to our other blind spots such as classism and racism. (For more information on Quaker discernment on abuse, see this website).
Saturday, April 27:
9:30 – 11:45 am Worship, Plenary 1, State of Society Reports Part 1
11:45 – 1:00 Lunch Break – optional fellowship
1:00 – 2:45 pm Plenary 2, State of Society Reports Part 2,
2:45 – 3:15 Closing Worship
Please be aware that Quaker Explorations will not be held this coming Sunday, March 24, 2024. Instead, immediately after the end of Meeting for Worship, we will be holding a “talking meeting” in preparation for our State of the Meeting report
