Trusting in the Slow Work of Sourdough, Our Communities, and God

Hello everyone! Helen here. I'm going to share some pictures that I took at Powell House last weekend throughout this post to break up the words.

This past weekend, Anna and I attended a retreat at Powell House led by Christopher Sammond titled "Trusting in the slow work of God." One of the perks of being a Young Friends in Residence is that we are able to attend Powell House retreats for free. I'm really grateful for this, as I would not otherwise be able to afford to go. I've been to two already, and I hope to be able to do more. Anyway, I was struck this weekend with how open the group was to sharing personal stories and revelations with such a large group (more than forty, some had to stay in the ACC). One of my favorite activities was creating a life map of spiritual, vocational, emotional, and otherwise important life events. It was interesting to see the variety of ways in which people chose to map their lives, and incredibly powerful to hear about people's revelations and observations about the process. It came to me that "trusting in the slow work of God" means not just believing that God will be at work in my life, but realizing that God always has been at work.

The topic of "Trusting in Slow Work" has brought to mind something that was said two weekends ago when YFIR presented at Farmington-Scipio winter gathering: that Young Friends in Residence has been an exercise in trust. The pilot program started a year and a half ago based on a dream of what it could be, and without the funding to complete a full two years. Since then the program has grown in unforeseen ways, thanks largely to the trust that individuals and groups have put in the interns and the committees that support us. Thanks to Farmington-Scipio, we now have the funds to continue until the end of August 2011.

Another aspect of trust has been on my mind recently. At our last retreat, we had three new attenders. As one mother was dropping off her daughter, an eleven year old who was not Quaker, and did not know any of the youth at the retreat, it struck me: this woman is putting so much trust in me right now, to care for her daughter for a whole weekend. And I know that, when I was eleven, you couldn't have paid me to spend a weekend without anyone I knew in a strange place with new people all talking about a religion I had barely any knowledge of. But here they were. And by the time her mother came to pick her up at the end of the weekend, the girl was telling her that she wished the retreat were a whole week long.

One last trust topic: sourdough. This fall I became interested in sourdough, a process by which (ideally), you can bake using only the yeast that occurs naturally in the air. I'd neglected my sourdough starter for a while, so yesterday I took it out and tried to make bread. When baking, you trust that all of the elements will come together to make what you're trying to make, or at least something edible. I don't fully understand sourdough, but I have to trust that the bread will rise even if I don't understand why. Unfortunately, yesterday, I was cooking on the stove top while the bread was in the oven, and somehow accidentally turned the oven off part way through. The result was a dense, doughy, but still delicious bread that we ate with grape lavender jam from our CSA. I guess I'll try again today. If you want to learn more about sourdough, check out this site.

The only thing to do is to come together and ask “how is God working among us right now?”

Hello all you wonderful beings,

(Friends having a little fellowship time before we started class)

Over the last year and a half I have been blessed to teach two adult religious education classes attended by Friends from Perry City and Ithaca Meetings.

The first class which started in November 2009 was called “The Theological framework for Quaker Traditions and Prophetic Witness,” (nicknamed Quakerism 101 and 202 by those Friends who took it.) This class ran almost every week starting at 9:30 am-10:30 am on Sundays before Meeting at Perry City Meetinghouse, until June 2010.

I then taught “Quakerism and Mystical Traditions: A history of radical theology,” (Quakerism and Mysticism for short) from September 2010 - December 2010. This class was also well attended by Friends from Perry City and Ithaca and met at the same time and place as the class before it.

Both classes where a wonderful experiences for me and I felt blessed to spend time with the Friends who attended.

For 2011 I have felt lead to do something different though. Under the prayerful guidance and support of Perry City Ministry and Counsel I will be offering a series of workshops on spiritual nurture issues.

These workshops will meet at Perry City Meetinghouse at 9:30 am-10:30 am. Some workshops will be single Sunday morning session some might be several consecutive sessions long depending on the need.

A planning session will be held on February 6th at 9:00 am Sunday at Perry City Meetinghouse to solidify the schedule. Workshops should start soon after.

The topics of the workshops will be:

• Meeting For Worship: Deepening the Space
• Fellowship Among Friends: How do We Pray Alone, How Do We Pray Together?
• Fellowship Among Friends: A Community More then One Hour A Week
• Meeting For Worship With A Concern For Business: Deepening the Space
• Greeting The Stranger: Newcomers and Hospitality
• The Many Parts of the Church: Naming of Gifts and the Work of Friends
• How High Is Our Hedge? : Our Quaker Community and Our Secular Communities
• That Still Quiet Voice: Nurturing Vocal Ministry

• Some Quakers Have Pastors: Understanding and Nurturing Community Between Monthly Meetings and Wider Quaker Community

Each workshop will include a brief reading but there will be no required text and no fees. These workshops are designed to be less academic and more prayerful planning sessions where we work together to come up with ways to deepen and nurture our communities around these issues.

For more information about the specifics of each workshops visit my Quaker blog Raised in the Light. If you have any questions feel free to email me at anna.e.obermayer AT gmail.com

Peace and Joy,

A.

Lets Talk About Food!

Hi all you beautiful beings,

As some of you may know out of the four YFIR interns I do the cooking for the youth retreats. For every retreat I plan out a menu, do the food shopping, cook the meals and manage the meal crews. It has been for me on of the best parts of the program. I also cook a lot at Beloved Community House because I love to cook and we eat communal meals together every day.

For the youth program we YFIRs have made the commitment to buy as much local foods as we can, to eat seasonally whenever possible and to buy fair-trade when we can. Every retreat is vegetarian with always a non-dairy or vegan option. We are lucky to live in the Ithaca area where we can get local fruits, veggies, dairy, bread, honey, maple syrup, flour, and soy products. We can get sugar, coffee, tea, and chocolate fair-trade. It only costs a little more money to be much more ethical with our food choices.

At Beloved Community House we also have a commitment to eating and buying local and fair-trade the CSA shares that Friends have donated the money for has allowed this to be possible on our lower income. At Beloved Community House we also eat vegetarian and often vegan.

Some Friends have voiced interest in seeing recipes for some of the delicious food we eat at the YFIR youth retreats and around the Beloved Community House. So on my personal blog I have begun writing down recipes to some of the food that I make. If you want to check it out I hope you enjoy it.

Peace and Joy,

Anna.