Affiliate Organizations

January 25, 2026February 14, 2026 FriendQuaker Conferences and Retreats, Southern California Quarterly Meeting, Uncategorized

Silent Retreat: March 13-15, 2026

TWENTY-NINTH ANNUAL FRIENDS’ SILENT RETREAT

Friday, March 13-Sunday, March 15, 2026

Optional Extended Retreat, Monday, March 16, 2026

Prince of Peace Abbey

650 Benet Hill Road

Oceanside CA 92058

Earthquake, Wind, or Fire: Attending to the Still Small Voice

Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm!
(John Greenleaf Whittier, The Brewing of Soma)

“The poem references 1 Kings 19:11-12, in which the prophet Elijah is confronted by God in the
wilderness. Elijah faced tumultuous times in his prophetic task of speaking truth to power. Whittier,
a Quaker abolitionist, similarly dealt with seismic issues in his commitment to the cause of
anti-slavery and social reform.”
(Max Carter: Stephen G. Cary Memorial lecture, Pendle Hill 2025)

For some of us, this retreat comes after literal fires, winds, and rains. Surely, we have all
experienced political and social storms. We have grief; we have confusion, bewilderment,
anger and overwhelm. We long for peace in the chaos, despite the external turmoil.

What if we bring our fear, discouragement, anger and grief, and lay them at the foot of the
mountain? What might we hear if we surrender our desires and the limitations of our mind
and body and sit and listen to the Still Small Voice? Maybe strength and new purpose,
maybe permission to change direction. Maybe a perspective on what part of Spirit’s work
is ours and what is for others.

The silent retreat offers a sanctuary for us to listen deeply, whether walking the beautiful
grounds, participating in optional activities or sitting quietly in our rooms.

Registration Information

COVID PROTOCOLS: Masks will be optional. We kindly ask participants not to come if they are
having any symptoms.

REGISTRATION: The retreat is open to members of Friends’ Meetings and to attenders of at least
three months. Please register by clicking here:

Weekend Retreat FEES:

Registration by February 20th:
Double room, $325 per person
Private room, $350 per person
Financial Aid is available**

Late registration until February 27th:
Double room, $350 per person
Private room, $375 per person
Financial Aid is available**

The Abbey has raised their fees and we had to raise ours accordingly. Our actual per-person costs
are about $350. Those who are able to pay more than $350 will help subsidize others who need
financial aid. Fees include program, lodging, and six meals. We can’t accept registrations
submitted after Friday, February 27th. Cancellations received by Friday, February 20th will receive
a full refund. After that date, a $30 cancellation fee will be deducted.

**FINANCIAL AID: No one is turned away because of lack of funds. We have financial aid
available and many meetings offer scholarship grants. Please contact our registrar, Judy Leshefka,
for details about financial support options (judyleshefka@gmail.com).

Venmo or Zelle: Make your payment to Sarah Crompton, Treasurer for the Silent Retreat: cromptonclark@gmail.com (310) 963-6319.

Check:

Make a check out to our treasurer Sarah Crompton and put Silent Retreat in the memo line.

Mail your check to: 440 N. Broadmoor Blvd. Springfield, Ohio 45504.

After registration, you will receive a confirmation letter with more information about the retreat and directions to the Abbey. If you will be using public transportation (bus, train) and need a ride to the Abbey, contact Judy Leshefka by Monday, March 9th.

ARRANGEMENTS: Please plan to arrive between 3 pm and 5:30 pm on Friday, March 13th to check-in and get your room key. Dinner will be at 6 pm. We’ll gather at 7 pm for a brief tour of the grounds, followed by an orientation and preparing to enter into the silence, which will last until late Sunday morning. The retreat will end after lunch on Sunday. Please plan to be present for the entire retreat. The spiritual richness of our gathering is enhanced by each participant, and it can be disruptive to have people arriving or leaving at odd times.

(Questions or concerns: contact Judy Leshefka at 858 652-1406 or email: judyleshefka@gmail.com

EXTENDED RETREAT DAY OPPORTUNITY

March 15-16, 2026

Participants may choose this opportunity to stay an extra day for deeper reflection. They can continue their silence during Sunday lunch and throughout the afternoon or join in conversations.

At 3:45 PM, we will meet for a brief worship and set our intentions for the remainder of the retreat. We will then re-enter into silence. On Monday morning, a writing exercise will be offered as an optional activity. We will all meet at 10:30 AM for worship and worship-sharing. The retreat will end after lunch.

If you wish to stay over, please indicate your intention on the registration form. We must know by February 27th so we can inform the Abbey. Unfortunately, we are not able to offer any scholarships for this opportunity. The cost will be $150, the Abbey’s

June 12, 2025June 19, 2025 FriendQuaker Annual Session, Conferences and Retreats, Pacific Yearly Meeting

Registration for Annual Session is now open!

Pacific Yearly Meeting Annual Session

Annual Session will be held at Whittier College and online July 11-16th. This year’s theme is “Find Your Balance, Heart Reaching Forward.”

Click on the button below to register or to find more information about the schedule, program activities, fees, and financial assistance. All are welcome!

PacYM Annual Session 2025

June 12, 2025June 12, 2025 FriendQuaker Annual Session, Conferences and Retreats, Pacific Yearly Meeting

Call to Annual Session 2025

Common folk, not statesmen, nor generals, nor great men of affairs, but just simple men and women, if they devote themselves . . . can do something to build a better peaceful world.

Henry Cadbury
1947 Pacific Yearly Meeting, Faith & Practice 2001

Find Your Balance, Heart Reaching Forward

Call to the Pacific Yearly Meeting 2025 Annual Session

Last year my life got difficult–fractiousness at Meeting, family drama, health concerns, and other heavy loads. One night while participating in a pre-recorded yoga class, I toppled over. Sitting there, I thought, “I can’t do this.” Just then the teacher’s voice said, “Find your balance, heart reaching forward.” That invitation/prayer resonated with

me immediately and sustained me through the following months of rapprochement at my meeting, healing of my body and soul, and renewal within my family.

With daily political and social blows, with outrage, fear, and anger leading the headlines, our society has become self-righteously polarized and isolated. How can we maintain our equanimity and reach out with generosity? How can we say to Friends and our neighbors, “You are my beloved community; you are safe here,” and make it so?

We can find balance by standing up carefully, planting our feet firmly, maintaining flexibility and responsiveness, and reaching out for a railing, wall, cane, or a friend’s arm. Can we help each other balance? We can reach forward with our hearts by returning again and again to the seed of our faith, in worship, prayer, devotion, and trust in the divine and each other. Can we be trustworthy?

Our plenary speakers, “common folk” and “devoted” will share their experiences and discoveries in finding balance and moving forward: John Pixley (Claremont), Aaron Terry (Honolulu), Amy Cooke (Grass Valley).

Please join us for Annual Session onsite or online, July 11-16 at Whittier College, California, for worship, fellowship, work, and play. Registration opens in May.

Love and blessings,
Robin DuRant,
Clerk, Pacific Yearly Meeting

Additional Encouragement from Faith & Practice 2001

If but one man or woman were raised up by His power to stand and live in the same spirit that the Apostles and Prophets were in, who gave forth the Scriptures, that man or woman should shake all the country in their profession for ten miles round.

George Fox

One of my final observations. … has to be about the extraordinary ordinariness of many of these women. They wanted their mundane daily lives to be impregnated with the experience of the Spirit and its fruits of love and peace and harmony. They went out into the streets, faced physical abuse and cried their message over paying opposition, then they went home to check the household accounts and feed and comfort their children. They foresaw the millennium, wrote letters to the King and served beef and beer at supper.

Christine Trevett
Women’s Speaking Justified: And Other Seventeenth Century
Quaker Writings About Women (1991)

April 2, 2025April 2, 2025 FriendQuaker Southern California Quarterly Meeting, Spring Gathering, Uncategorized

Clerk’s Call to Spring Gathering

A letter from Dan Srickland, Clerk of SCQM

I recently turned 79, not a remarkable number (except for being a prime, of course – I see you, fellow math geeks). The next birthday will be a big one, though. I remember everyone talking about the “Big 3-0”. Well, hold my beer! So it’s for me becoming a time of mulling over where I am, who I am, and where I’m going. A year of reflection. It’s been a year of loss, personal for me as our house and its contents turned to ash in the Eaton Firestorm. A number of Orange Grove Friends’ Meeting people lost much in that firestorm. For myself, I was surprised to discover the degree to which the house, the things within it, the surroundings and neighbors are a part of my identity. The cliché goes “it’s only stuff”, which certainly speaks to Quakers – but I feel a part of me is gone.

Others among my friends have losses – friends, family, spouses – and apart from the ache of each loss, there’s a sense, I think, of wondering how the loss changes us as individuals. I’m an old Peace Corps volunteer, and served in a country where the volunteers tend to remain a tightly knit community. So we hear about, sometimes see in person, our old friends in declining health, hear when they die, and wonder at how friends who are still young – a year or so younger than I, for Pete’s sake – could be gone.

I think many of us feel that same sense of loss over what has happened to our country. I feel some trepidation at mentioning politics in this context, so I’ll be brief, but I see anger, fear, and mourning among my friends. I see, as well, that same concern over a loss of identity, who we are as a people.

At meeting for worship recently a Friend talked about his grandfather, who recently turned 109, putting my 79 in a very different perspective. The grandfather is officially one of the 10 oldest men in the US. The funny stereotype is a reporter asking the elder how they lived so long, and being told the secret is a daily pack of Camels and a pint of Jim Beam. The Friend observed his grandfather over a visit or two, and saw that he constantly had friends come visit. Lots of conversations, jokes, stories. Maybe that’s how we all survive and thrive, as individuals and as communities, spiritual and otherwise. Lots of visits, gatherings (such as this one I’m calling you to), shared meals, telling stories and planning for future gatherings and visits.

Come to the quarterly spring gathering, join us in the Santa Barbara Meetinghouse, and enjoy our extended community. Let us help, support, heal, and find hope with each other.

April 2, 2025April 2, 2025 FriendQuaker Peace, Southern California Quarterly Meeting, Spring Gathering

Friends Peace Teams, April 25, 2025

At 6:30 PM on Friday, April 25th, the Peace and Social Concerns Committee of Southern California Quarterly Meeting is conducting an online interest group featuring the clerks of Friends Peace Teams, a spirit-led organization working to develop long-term relationships with communities in conflict around the world to create programs for peace building, healing and reconciliation. They will be sharing news about the Alternatives to Violence Project, the Towards Right Relationship with Native Peoples Program, and other peace and social justice work. Please register using the link below if you are interested in joining, even if you do not plan to attend the Saturday morning Spring Gathering program.

April 2, 2025April 2, 2025 FriendQuaker Conferences and Retreats, Southern California Quarterly Meeting, Spring Gathering

Spring Gathering April 26, 2025

Registration for the Southern Quarterly Meeting’s Spring Gathering is now open!

Where: Santa Barbara Friends Meetinghouse, 2012 Chapala Street, Santa Barbara
When: Saturday, April 26, 9AM-3:15 PM
What: Friends from across Southern California will share State of the Meeting reflections and other information. Lunch will be provided
Transportation: Spring Gathering is a two-and-a-half hour journey by car under good conditions, and the Santa Barbara Amtrak station is a seven-minute taxi ride from the Meetinghouse.

October 12, 2024October 18, 2024 FriendQuaker Conferences and Retreats, Fall Fellowship, Southern California Quarterly Meeting

Registration for Fall Fellowship 2024 is Open

Registration is open until October 25, 2024

Click here to register

Call to SCQM Fall Fellowship
November 1-3, 2024
at Temescal Canyon & on Zoom

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

Click Here for more details

September 1, 2024October 12, 2024 FriendQuaker Conferences and Retreats, Fall Fellowship, Southern California Quarterly Meeting

Save the Date for Fall Fellowship!

Southern California Quarterly Meeting
Fall Fellowship
November 1-3, 2024
at Temescal Canyon State Park

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).

June 26, 2024 FriendQuaker Annual Session, Conferences and Retreats, Pacific Yearly Meeting

PYM Annual Session 2024

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 1^st, 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.

March 25, 2024March 25, 2024 FriendQuaker Conferences and Retreats, Southern California Quarterly Meeting

Invitation to Spring Gathering

2024 Spring Gathering of the Southern California Quarterly Meeting
at Orange Grove Friends Meeting
April 26-27th, 2024

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.

2024 Spring Gathering Schedule

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).