Social Justice and Action and Meeting for Worship

In our school community, we have differing types of Meetings for Worship. Next week, we'll meet as a Lower School community in silent reflection about the big ideas that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr inspires in our students. 

Teachers use the days leading up to our Meeting for Worship to work, think, and reflect on those big ideas and also on our continuing growth in our Meeting for Worship faith and practice.

We gather for our all Lower School Meeting for Worship for social justice and action as an entire Lower School student, parent and friend community.

The Meeting begins in silence. A student from the query writing class reads their Query near the beginning of the meeting to give us focus:

As we reflect on the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., how can we encourage others to speak up and stand up for what is right? 

We close our gathering singing a Martin Luther King, Jr. song, Sing about Martin.

In preparation for this Meeting, teachers look for the way to open to reflect on experiences at Meeting for Worship. Below are some ideas for framing that conversation and reflection (and reminders):

• What do we do to settle into the silence? 
• Are we considerate of others in the silence? (Do we “take away” the silence from our friends? intentionally or unintentionally)
• Are we mindful of our own lower school Faith and Practice? 

Are we repeating messages? Are we addressing each other or using names? Are we giving the Meeting enough silence between messages?   

• What do we do when we start to “unsettle”?
• How many messages do we think should be shared during our 20 minutes? (remembering the meaningful silence that must follow each message)

Additionally, teachers try to find a few minutes to remind our students that this Meeting is a time to consider how we might move peacefully forward in our lives. 

We center on how Martin Luther King, Jr. let his life speak and how we can use that as inspiration as we shine our own lights.

During these conversations, there are many Friends that we can look to as examples of Letting our Lives Speak, especially in ways that lift up social justice, reform and action.

Some of our quick resources are below:

·         Margaret Fell and Elizabeth Fry – prison reform

http://www.documentingdissent.org.uk/quaker-women-prison-reformers-at-lancaster-castle/

·         Bayard Rustin – civil rights

http://www.fgcquaker.org/resources/bayard-rustin-invisible-activist

·         Alice Paul – suffragist

https://youtu.be/HnQiXDW4urU

·         Lucretia Mott and Levi Coffin– abolitionists

http://www.harriet-tubman.org/supporters-of-the-underground-railroad/

·         Elizabeth Blackwell – champion of women’s education

https://www.nwhm.org/online-exhibits/education/Biographies_Blackwell.htm

·         Edward Hicks – artist

http://nyti.ms/2dHOGrq

·         John Woolman – abolitionist and native American peacemaker

http://www.westrichmondfriends.org/FamousQuakers.htm

·         Rufus Jones – anti-nazi activist

https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005212

A wonderful and simple picture book that notes other peaceful activists is Peaceful Heroes by Jonah Winter.

Rufus Jones, in Quakers in the American Colonies (1911)

“There has always been in the Society of Friends a group of persons pledged unswervingly to the ideal. To those who form this inner group compromise is under no circumstance allowable. If there comes a collision between allegiance to the ideal and the holding of public office, then the office must be deserted. If obedience to the soul's vision involves eye or hand, houses or lands or life, they must be immediately surrendered. But there has always been as well another group who have held it to be equally imperative to work out their principles of life in the complex affairs of the community and the state, where to gain an end one must yield something; where to get on one must submit to existing conditions; and where to achieve ultimate triumph one must risk his ideals to the tender mercies of a world not yet ripe for them.”

Rufus Jones

Worship Sharing

Guidelines for Worship Sharing

The following is a list adapted from guidelines from Baltimore Yearly Meeting and Friends General Conference.

The purpose of a Meeting for Sharing (Worship Sharing) is spiritual deepening through shared, prayerful attention to a given topic.

1.  We share out of the silence. Time and space between messages are helpful to allow us to take in what others have shared.

2.  Contributions are voluntary. Anyone may “pass” by simply remaining silent.

3.  We try to speak more from feeling and experience than from opinions.

4.  We speak briefly and only once so that everyone will have a chance to share. (If you wish, and if there is time, Friends may speak again after everyone has spoken once or passed.)

5.  We try to listen with an open heart and with acceptance. In silent listening we cherish one another and offer our respect. We wait for other, separate occasions for asking questions.

Experiences or feelings shared during this time together are confidential. This trust should open the way for each to speak his/her truth.

There are many types of Meetings...

We have different types of meetings for different types of needs. In our community we have Meeting for Worship, Meeting for Business, Meeting for Sharing, Programmed Meetings, Unprogrammed Meetings, and Called Meetings.  Some classes have explored Meetings with a special intention.

These meetings are part of our school culture and are used as authentic, personalized, age appropriate versions of meetings one might find at their Monthly Quaker Meeting. They have been adapted (just a bit) to suit an elementary school setting.

Here is some brief information about these Meetings:

Meeting for Business:

*Two of our faculty members clerk our Lower School Meetings for Business and Grade Level representatives clerk a smaller Meeting for Business each week.

*All members/participants of a Meeting for Business should be continually learning and practicing their “craft” (of either being a clerk or of being a participant of a clerked Meeting)

Meeting for Sharing (Worship Sharing):

* A Meeting for Worship that has a sharing intention generally has more messages than a MfW

*Participants may be focusing on a topic and sharing their thinking with the Meeting about that idea

Programmed Meetings/Unprogrammed Meetings:

*Programmed Meetings for Worship have a plan that may include readings, singing, or other components that are planned ahead of the Meeting

*Unprogrammed Meetings for Worship are silent Meetings with no planned components

*Members of the Meeting speak into the Silence as moved to do so.

*Our Lower School Meetings for Worship are semi programmed since we do have the planned element of reading the Query every month and sometimes we sing a song

Called Meetings:

* A Meeting for Worship called by a clerk at a non-regular time, usually for the purpose of considering a particular issue

*A Called Meeting is clerked by the party who calls it. That person should sit at the "front" and close the silence at the appropriate time

Our Fare Thee Well Meeting at the end of the year is a Meeting with a Special attention:

*A Meeting for Worship that has a celebratory intention generally has more messages of good wishes, farewells, gratitude

*The silence between messages is still very important – although it may be shorter than our weekly MfW (think of it as taking a really good breath or two between each message, if not more)

*The nature of sharing into the silence should be calm, respectful, thoughtful

*The nature of sharing into the silence should not be a race and should not be game-like or an attempt to make sure to get a word in before it all ends (in other words, we’re not speaking just for the sake of speaking)

Consider using Silence and Meeting in your classroom:

*To celebrate a milestone or accomplishment

*To honor and reflect upon a big idea, current event

*To deeply consider those times when you and your students are on the social emotional growth edge

A Favorite Quote...

The March Query by Second Grade

*In gratitude to Ms. Chambers and Ms. Beeny and their students

Stories that promote Conversations

Recently, I received a grant to look at picture books that teachers in my school might use to open conversations about testimonies or tenets of Quakerism.

I compiled a beginning list of books that would be appropriate for elementary school settings. I would love to know that middle schools and even high schools consider using these stories. There is something both simple and complex about really good picture books that even older learners can use.


Picture Books categorized by Quaker subject area.