NYC Quakers All-day Winter Retreat

About 30 Friends gathered at the Fifteenth Street Meetinghouse on March 21 for a day-long retreat on "Who are we, and how do we witness in this present time?" New York Quarterly Meeting (NYQM)’s Ministry and Counsel Committee and Community Organizer Jess Hobbs Pifer arranged a full day of workshops and worship, including breaks for a delicious catered lunch, for making NYC Quaker buttons, and for sharing the new Facing Bench zine (soon to appear at a Quaker Meeting near you).

Friends got to choose between six workshops in three time slots: 

• In Luisa Giugliano's Spiritual Accompaniment workshop, she talked about Friends being in a community of mutual pastoral care and the importance of simply being present for each other.
• In Scott Blumenthal’s workshop on Deepening Worship, Friends discussed ways to deepen their experience of worship and how to overcome hindrances like doubt and distraction.
• Jerry Reisig and Ron Hogan led Bible Study on 1 Corinthians 12, “Concerning Spiritual Gifts” and “Unity and Diversity in the Body," including a discussion of the context in which Paul wrote the passage. 
• Margery Cornwell, in Worship and Witness, introduced the Quaker organizations that help Friends put our beliefs into action.
• August Guy facilitated a conversation on Driving Change in Quaker Spaces, including what he's learned while working to expand Brooklyn’s monthly Community Dinner to a weekly lunch service.
• In her Guided Worship/How We Worship workshop, Barbra Masters led Friends through an exploration of different aspects of worship and then through a guided worship experience.

The workshops were rich in content and will be expanded upon in future news articles.

The retreat ended with a worship and threshing session addressing the query, “how we may witness in this present time?” Friends talked about centering love in our community and organizing from a place of love and acceptance. Our Quaker meetings are seen as being well equipped to help Friends and newcomers take spiritually-based action in community. 

I left the retreat with a feeling of fullness and a new awareness of being supported by my Quaker community. I felt a bit like I had had my spiritual tires re-aligned, so to speak. Many thanks to the Friends that shared their gifts with us and made the retreat possible. — Sarah Way