The Continuing Committee\napproved Marcia Nelson as Presiding Clerk of Illinois Yearly Meeting beginning\nat the rise of Annual Sessions, 2019. Marcia is a member of Downers Grove\nMonthly Meeting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Marcia started coming to Annual\nSessions in the early 1990s when her children were little. She remembers the\nsandbox worship group. The children played in the sand, while the parents (in\nthis case, mothers) sat in a surrounding circle and answered queries or\ndiscussed their Quaker spirituality. At the heart of this group was spiritual\nformation and the building of deep spiritual friendships. These parents\nsupported each other during Annual Sessions and Marcia remembers that one day\nwhen her child was having a bad day, another mother took him under her wing,\ngiving Marcia some much needed quiet time. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Marcia was the representative\nfor Fox Valley Meeting in those days and she occasionally spent Annual Sessions\nteaching the children. She attended and was spiritually nourished by Annual\nSessions for about 15 years. After that, job conflicts started to get in the\nway and she was unable to attend. However, a few years ago, she had a leading to\nbecome a chaplain. In exploring that career, she started going to Earlham\nSchool of Religion and she reconnected with the Illinois Yearly Meeting as part\nof her spiritual base. This time, she attended the business sessions as well as\nthe other activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Being a part of Illinois Yearly\nMeeting over the years has helped Marcia to meet Quakers outside of her own\nmonthly meeting. When she moved and she realized that it would be much easier\nto get to Downers Grove Meeting instead of Fox Valley. Already knowing some\nFriends at Downers Grove facilitated the move, not only because she knew their\nnames, but because she had a broader understanding of Quakerism that extended\nbeyond the way Fox Valley did things. She also found that being a newcomer in\ntwo meetings has given her insight to what other newcomers may be experiencing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Marcia\u2019s impression of Illinois\nYearly Meeting today is that it is a healthy meeting. The committees are\nfunctioning well and she is looking forward to hearing more about that work\nincluding the successes and the challenges. She welcomes copies of committee\nminutes. She remembers serving on committees in the past and how it was a place\nto sink her roots. At the same time, she recognizes that the reports are pieces\nof the picture of the yearly meeting. Annual Sessions is the time when we put\ntogether an overview of where are we now. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She is looking forward to\ngetting to know everyone at Annual Sessions. She recognizes that people\ncome for different reasons. However,\nwhether it is for meeting together in worship or business as a larger group or\nfellowship for children as well as adults, she hopes that everyone will find\nthe spiritual nurture that she as experienced at sessions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pam Kuhn, Among Friends co-editor and member of Lake Forest Friends Meeting The Continuing Committee approved Marcia Nelson as Presiding Clerk of Illinois Yearly Meeting beginning at the rise of Annual Sessions, 2019. Marcia is a member of Downers Grove Monthly Meeting. Marcia started coming to Annual Sessions in the early 1990s when her children were little. She remembers the sandbox worship group. The children played in the sand, while the parents (in this case, mothers) sat in a surrounding circle and answered queries or discussed their Quaker spirituality. At the heart of this group was spiritual formation and the building of deep spiritual friendships. These parents supported each other during Annual Sessions and Marcia remembers that one day when her child was having a bad day, another mother took him under her wing, giving Marcia some much needed quiet time. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1366,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"series":[16],"class_list":["post-1363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-among-friends","series-among-friends-summer-2019"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ilym.org\/ilym\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/MarciaNelson.jpg?fit=289%2C366&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ilym.org\/ilym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ilym.org\/ilym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ilym.org\/ilym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ilym.org\/ilym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ilym.org\/ilym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1363"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ilym.org\/ilym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1539,"href":"https:\/\/ilym.org\/ilym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363\/revisions\/1539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ilym.org\/ilym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ilym.org\/ilym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ilym.org\/ilym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ilym.org\/ilym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1363"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ilym.org\/ilym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=1363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}