The WordPress.com stats prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 8,000 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 13 years to get that many views.
Saturday, October 13
10am – late afternoon/early evening
Illinois Yearly Meeting Meetinghouse & Kitchen
McNabb, IL
THIS JUST IN: Peace Resources Committee is thrilled to announce the generous contribution of apples from Tanner’s Orchard of 740 State Route 40, in Speer, IL. We will be gifted all we need for the workshop, so come join us for a day of learning and fun! (posted 9/14)
Thanks to the gracious planning assistance of Beth Schobernd, Grayce Mesner, and Mariellen Gilpin we – the Peace Resources Committee – invite Friends to gather at the Yearly Meetinghouse for a day of storytelling and apples. This is a Peace House on the Prairie program, the first of many we hope to facilitate. The day will include:
– apple prep* with worship sharing around several apple-themed queries
– period of sterilizing jars and cooking apples
– an exploration of an assembly line process
– queries while the apples simmer
– processing apples with Foley mills
– processing apples with blenders/food processors
– boiling extra jars
– filling jars
– possibly learning about other ways to preserve apples (at least a small demo)
*apples will be prepared for processing with Foley mills and food processors, so some apples will be washed & cored while others will be washed, peeled, chopped and freed of seeds.
The day will proceed at its own pace. The goal is to share knowledge, learn more about each other and this fruit, listen to each other’s stories and walk away having made a delicious treat for ourselves and our loved ones. Especially in this year of drought, let us celebrate food and our access to it. This is an opportunity for us to build & deepen our community; we who haven’t yet been taught, we who desire a refresher, and we who want to share past experiences of preserving apples.
There are about a dozen Friends who have already expressed interest. We ask that those excited to participate please RSVP by October 1: email PRC clerk Breeze Richardson at breeze.richardson@sbcglobal.net. This will ensure we arrange appropriate hospitality, purchase enough apples, and confirm the necessary equipment. The day will be free to all who wish to attend, with the opportunity to overnight at Clear Creek House. Our shared midday meal will be potluck.
Friends are encouraged to bring the following items:
– a paring knife/peeling knife
– cutting board
– preferred mixing bowl
– your personal Foley mill, food processor, or blender*
*If a participant wants to know more about these options we can provide additional details about what might be used. Some of those attending are purchasing needed equipment both for use in this workshop and future personal use with these new learned skills.
We will provide:
– enough apples to provide multiple quarts of applesauce to each participant
– sugar, cinnamon
– jars and lids
– some structure and queries to get us started…
The day will begin in the Meetinghouse Kitchen, and possibly expand to the outdoors if the group is big enough to divide into smaller worship groups & some want to prep apples outdoors (at the possible risk of attracting bees).
There is a need for some Friends to gather Friday evening or earlier on Saturday morning to wash down counters, sweep, and clean the necessary pots and accessories. Thanks to Beth and Diane who are kindly taking inventory of cooking pots and appliances during Fall Work Weekend.
We look forward to spending the day with you!
It is finally here! After five years of planning, in a few short weeks Illinois Yearly Meeting is sending four representatives to a once-in-a-generation, global gathering of Quakers: the Sixth World Conference of Friends, to be held in Nakuru, Kenya starting April 17th.
The last World Conference was in 1991, and there hasn’t been a conference of this size since 1967!
We urge you to unite in spirit with our representatives, Adrian Nelson, Rose Dennis, Mark Amos and Dawn Rubbert, as they cross the oceans and continents to worship and seek the Spirit with 1,000 Quakers from Africa, Asia, the West Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas. Every kind of Quaker worship style will be practiced, and every kind of Quaker way of living will be witnessed. I can affirm that the spiritual fire of George Fox himself can be experienced in a gathering like this.
A large percentage of the delegates are young adults, so this promises to inspire the next generation of Quakers to bring their share of Truth and vitality to the Religious Society of Friends and the Quaker Church.
You and your meeting can stay involved by using the study booklet at
http://www.saltandlight2012.org/materials, and by watching the official conference site, the FWCC Section of the Americas site, or the ongoing Global Change Initiative site where you are likely to find live blogs, transcripts, reports, minutes and other forms of Friends’ witness.
Many of you have contributed to help ensure the diversity of this gathering, and it is not too late to chip in to the world travel fund. You can do it online at http://saltandlight2012.org/donate.html.
Please hold all the world’s Friends in the Light and in your prayers during this blessed time.
Dawn Amos
past ILYM representative to Friends World Committee for Consultation
On Tuesday, February 28, 2012 author Staughton Lynd published a letter to explore the role of consensus decision-making and nonviolence in building a community of trust. Upon reading it, Friend David Finke asked that Peace Resources Committee publish a link here, writing: “Staughton is prophetic, and we must help get this message out, I believe.”
Click here to read the letter in full, which addresses:
I – Every local Occupy movement of which I am aware has begun to explore the terrain beyond the downtown public square, asking, what is to be done next?
II – Here, in brief, is the history that I pray we will not repeat.
III – Although I am concerned that small groups in the Occupy Movement may contribute to unnecessary violence in Chicago, it is not violence as such that most worries me.
IV – So what do I recommend? I am eighty-two and no longer able to practice some of what I preach, but for what they may be worth, here are some responses to that question.
***
What are your thoughts about the Occupy Movement’s next steps? Are you an active supporter? What do you think this movement has to gain from consensus decision-making and nonviolence in building a community of trust?
Just published, the Summer 2011 issue of ILYM’s Among Friends includes some fun facts about this blog. Enjoy!
Author: Breeze Richardson
Dear Friends,
If you have subscribed to “How Do You See Peace?” or had regularly visited here upon our project launch, you know we have been pretty silent for the past year. Silent, at least, in this space. But it wasn’t intentional and as we’ve collaborated on other areas of our work as the Peace Resources Committee of Illinois Yearly Meeting, we’ve talked about “the blog” a lot. In the past month, I am happy to say we have collectively decided we want to come back to it.
For me personally, it’s two young children and a career that’s kept me away. I’ve thought so often about writing, wanting to share some experience or thought that I was hungry for a response to… what did other Friends think? …what words of encouragement were waiting for me? …what new insight could be right around the corner?
The thing that is most exciting about this project for me is the opportunity to share and reflect on peace in our daily lives today. There are so many moments where a choice is made to react, say, think, or do something that profoundly (albeit sometimes in a small way) impacts the way you see the world. If I can process those moments in my own life, and learn from others about theirs, I will have a unique opportunity to make different choices. I believe that. And with the Chicago summer at my doorstep, let the conversation begin again!
Author: Dawn Rubbert
Having been exposed to the principles of Non-Violent Communication and the work of Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, who created this method, I am looking forward to the retreat next weekend (Feb 20-22, 2009). I have learned enough about the principles to recognize that in order to use peaceful communication one must practice. The world in which we live does not generally support this kind of communication, it does not come naturally. Rather it must be cultivated and intentionally developed. One needs to practice so that skills will increase and come more easily with less thought as time goes on. Non-Violent Communication is sometimes called “Compassionate Communication”. It is one way to be proactively peaceful in our world. Language is more powerful than we tend to realize, especially on a daily level.
Just try getting through a day without using words that, in some context, refer to violence. I think, from my experience, that you will be amazed. Do you ride in elevators? What word do you use to tell someone what to do to the buttons? Perhaps you say something like “hit” seven for me . . .
Who has not encountered a situation where language separated them from someone else? Misunderstandings about what words mean? Surely you have heard the famous story about England and the United States being separated by a common language.
So, I am thrilled to have an opportunity to deepen my understanding, be with others who are learning, and have a safe Quaker “family” with whom I can practice. They say that practice makes perfect . . . We could all use a more perfect world and I must start/continue that venture by working on myself.
One of the campaigns that ILYM PRC is bringing to a wider audience is to encourage personal expression through use of the anti-death penalty “Declaration of Life” wallet card.
In part, we as Friends “are opposed to capital punishment because it is contrary to the Divine law of love. The application of the death penalty is brutalizing and degrading to the public mind. It leaves no room for the reformation of character, which should be the principal aim of criminal law, nor for the revision of the sentence in the event of a miscarriage of justice.”
On our website we outline the history and motivation of Quaker work around the issue of the dealth penalty in more detail, and share some specific educational resources, but wanted to share this specific action here, as well.
To download the “Declaration of Life” wallet card, click here.
We are a group of Midwest Friends (Quakers) who have been nominated to serve as members of the Illinois Yearly Meeting Peace Resources Committee. This forum aims to be a place we can share our personal thoughts on today’s world, talk about the current campaigns for peace we are individually or corporately involved in, invite your participation both here and out in the world, and share resources we’ve discovered along the way.