Coming to Meeting for Business

Friends often ponder the difference between gossip and caring concern. Perhaps the difference is one of intent and tone. As a Friend pointed out last week, we cannot really come prepared to Meeting for Business unless we know what is going on in our Meeting community.

Another observation (which clerks could call to the attention of members and attenders) is that simply showing up at Meeting for Business makes people be taken more seriously and thus changes their social and spiritual lives as members of the community.

(By the way, this post and other exchanges about clerking a monthly meeting are available at www.quakerlists.org/quaker-mm.)


415-452-1526

book released -- people like it!

The book is out. It is blue and looks nice. It sold 96 copies during the week of Friends General Conference and sles continue brisk, they tell me. It appears to be well received -- see Clarke Dixon-Moses positive comments on the blog. And Marie Schutz commends me for being able to "write anything light-hearted" about clerking!

But of course -- it is all just a labor of love within a loving community.

Now I am interested in the new ideas people have to share about life in Quaker communities. When I gave a little presentation about the book at FGC, one Friend told how her Meeting has an assigned "listener" at every Meeting for Business who gives feed back about process to the whole Meeting at the end of the session, suggesting where Friends may have wavered from "good order." I was most intrigued.

Book coming out this month

Well, finally the book about clerking a monthly meeting is ready to be released. But it looks like even I, the author, won't see it until I get to the annual Friends General Conference Gathering, which starts June 28 in Jonestown, Pennsylvania. I'll be hanging out in the FGC book store a lot and will do a little presentation there on Monday, June 30, at 3:15, telling how this book came into existence.

The book is already listed for sale through the FGC QuakerBooks catalogue and Amazon. I've already got new things to say about monthly meetings. I can't wait to hear comments on the bits that I know are controversial. And I am hoping the book will spark good ideas on this blog from other people.

Another place to share commentary is at http://quakerlists.org/quaker-mm.

New book forth-coming

This blog connects to a book called Where Should I Stand? about clerking a Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends.

Whee! We are setting up the blog now, though the book won't be released by Quaker Press of Friends General Conference until late spring of 2008.

We means me, the author, Elizabeth Boardman, and Robin Mohr, my good buddy in San Francisco Friends Meeting, who knows much more about blogs than I do.

Stand by for further developments!

Cheers........................Elizabeth