Comment by Raye on 10th mo. 3, 2010 at 8:16pm

Thanks for this.

Comment by Rosemary Gould on 10th mo. 4, 2010 at 11:40am

You asked for stories of what felt like renewal in our meetings and churches on your blog. A few years ago our town's churches got together and formed an organization that would arrange for all the homeless not otherwise sheltered to spend the cold months of the year receiving hospitality in the churches. They spend 2 weeks in each church that hosts and are fed dinner and breakfast there by the congregation.

Our meeting originally partnered with larger churches to provide food, but thought we didn't have room for guests. Then we had an extremely expensive (and divisive) addition put on the meetinghouse. Now we host the smaller group of women ourselves. This will be our second year. Everyone felt quite surprised to see the outpouring of assistance and labor that Friends were able to summon. For a group that has trouble getting teachers signed up for RE and anyone other than a few regulars to attend business meeting, it was amazing to see such cheerful, ready service. As a result, we began to engage more in other organizations in town that work ecumenically for social justice.

I think myself we were changed by doing the kind of work Jesus calls us all to. Much of the "doing" in Quaker organizations is actually thinking and writing about doing, not actual doing. Quakers tend to be more comfortable remaining in the realm of the head. It'd be an improvement to do some listening before all the thinking and writing, but that's still different from service in the world.

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