Twelvth Month, 2016 QUAKER NEWSLETTER GAINESVILLE MONTHLY MEETING OF THE RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS 702 NW 38th Street, Gainesville, FL 32607; (352) 372-1070 www.gainesvillequakers.org Sandy Lyon, clerk

Forgiveness is not just some nebulous, vague idea one can easily dismiss. It has to do with uniting people through practical politics. Without forgiveness, there is no future. To forgive is the only way to permanently change the world. Desmond Tutu Hold in the Light: Hap Taylor, Anne and Phil Haisley, Connie and Tim Ray, Arnold and Amy Von der Porten.

Calendar of Events: (online at www.gainesvillequakers.org) Every Sunday: 11:00 am Meeting for Worship; 11:15 am First Day School No yoga in December Saturday, December 3 9:00 am Meeting Clean-Up Day Sunday, December 4 9:30 am Library committee 9:30 am Meetinghouse committee 12:00 pm Welcoming New Members Celebration Tuesday, December 6 11:30 am Friendly Lunch - at the Meeting House Sunday, December 11 12:45 pm Meeting for Worship for Business Sunday, December 18 9:40 am Peace and Social Concerns Committee 12:45 pm Meeting Holiday Party Wednesday, December 21 Deadline for newsletter items. Email to Bonnie Zimmer at [email protected] Friday, December 23: 50th Anniversary Open House Celebration for Sandy and Bruce Lyon 3:00 pm: Join us to celebrate Sandy and Bruce's 50th anniversary Sunday, December 25 1:00 pm Bible Study

The Meetinghouse and Grounds Committee is responsible for organizing set-up and clean-up of food after Meeting for Worship. The list for committees responsible for set- up and clean-up is located on the bulletin board in the social room. Gainesville Friends Meeting Page 2 Twelfth Month, 2016 Meeting Bazaar The Meeting Bazaar was held on November 19. There were many baked goodies, used books, and some small yard sale items. A Reminder: Community Ministries Friends have been providing many food items for Community Ministries for which we receive their gratitude. All the food has been well within the sell-by or best-used- before dates. Thanks to everyone for their thoughtful generosity to hungry people. There is always a need for food items, as well as such baby supplies as diapers. Items from Eleventh Month Meeting for Worship with a Concern for Business Florida Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence: The Meeting decided to become a partner organization, supporting a state ban on all semiautomatic assault weapons and large-capacity feeding devices as well as comprehensive universal background checks. Support for Standing Rock Sioux: The Meeting minuted unity with several other meetings and Quaker organizations in supporting the Standing Rock Sioux Protest. Spiritual Deepening Program: FGC has made available the new Spiritual Deepening Program. The first 3 modules are available in 2 formats: as an individual on-line course, beginning in January; or as a course intended for small groups (in person). Our meeting was one of 6 meetings that served as a pilot meeting for this program as it was developed. The cost of the program is $20/person. A forum to introduce some of the materials will be scheduled after January 1. EarthCare Committee On November 20 we had a tour with a ranger of the Sweetwater Wetlands Park Treatment facility. The facility provides advanced treatment for the municipal wastewater from the Main Street facility as well as stormwater from Sweetwater Branch. This water was formerly discharged into the Alachua Sink. From there it entered the Floridian Aquifer. With the addition of the wetlands treatment, both nitrogen and phosphorus are removed by the wetlands plants The water then is discharged into Paynes Prairie, where Sweetwater Branch historically fed the wetlands. In addition, the wetlands provide a rich habitat for many species. Peace and Social Concerns Committee Alternatives to Violence Program: An AVP workshop is being planned for March 3 – 5, 2017, at the meetinghouse. If you are interested, plan now to attend. For more information, contact Shawna Doran. Local Sanctuary Movement: As the violence and rhetoric concerning deportations has increased over the last days and weeks, there has been an increase in concerns about what can be done locally. Meetings have been held at the Mennonite Church and we anticipate that our community will become involved. For more information, contact Shawna Doran. Sunday, December 4 On Sunday, December 4, at the rise of Meeting we will have a lunch time celebration to welcome three new members: Joshua Killingsworth, a new member of the Religious Society of Friends, JoAnne Lordahl, who has transferred from Hawaii, and Ellie Clayton, who has transferred from Brevard Meeting. Sunday, December 18: Holiday Party Gainesville Friends Meeting Page 3 Twelfth Month, 2016 Our Holiday Party will be Sunday, December 18. We will gather at the rise of Meeting to prepare food and plan to eat at about 2:00 pm. After dinner there will be singing. There will be sign up sheets for foods to bring. Saturday, December 23: 50th Anniversary Celebration for Sandy and Bruce Lyon 3:00 pm: We join Sandy and Bruce to celebrate their 50th anniversary. Christmas Family Our Christmas Family this year is actually 2 related families: a mother and teenage daughter; and a single woman. Sign up to provide items that they need. Update: Student Maid: Cleaners for Our Meetinghouse Recently a Student Maid supervisor met with me at the meetinghouse to give us more information about the company. The students hired have background checks and must maintain a 3.5 grade point average. The students receive extensive training. Once a month a required meeting is held; students are paid to attend it. Nothing about cleaning is on the agenda, instead the staff provides assistance to students on personal development, ethics, resume writing, and any other emerging topics. The company provides other services such as house sitting, pet sitting and errand service. In case any of us want to use any of the services the supervisor gave me some $15.00 gift certificates. Please contact me if you would like to have one. Laura Winefordner News from Friends General Conference Central Committee Central Committee is the governing board of FGC. It met in October and some highlights of that meeting are summarized here. FGC will undertake an assessment of institutional racism and oppression within the organization. Another governing structure is under consideration that would include the larger body (as it is now) that meets once each year and would continue to make the large decisions and perhaps a smaller body that could meet more often and make decisions of less import. More Friends of Color will be included on the site selection committee to avoid selecting sites that seem hostile to Friends of Color. Name Tags Please remember to wear your name tag. It is helpful to visitors and newer members of our community. If you want a computer printed name tag, ask Bonnie Zimmer (or put a note in the newsletter box) and she will print one for you. Gainesville Thrives We received an email from our website email this month from Gainesville Thrives, a non-profit providing volunteer opportunities for tutoring and mentoring of students in Gainesville. From their website, it appears that they have applied for, but have not yet been granted, 501(c)3 status. The places they provide tutoring seem to be for elementary and middle school children on the east side of Gainesville. The following information is taken from their website: gainesvillethrives.org. The website provides contact information. Gainesville Thrives promotes tutoring and mentoring by informing the faith-based community and others of needs and opportunities. For long-term academic success, mentoring can be as important as tutoring. The faith-based community is well-suited to help with this. New from QuakerBooks: Syria Burning by Charles Glass Review by Ellen Michaud “No hands are clean,” writes former ABC News chief Middle East correspondent Charles Glass. “Syria has become the venue of …`a proxy war’ or wars: the United States versus Russia; the Sunni theocracies of Saudi Arabia and Qatar against the Shiite theocrats of Iran; and Turkey versus Arab nationalists over the attempted restoration of Turkey’s pre-World War I dominance.” In an age in which much of our national media has closed its news- gathering bureaus abroad to fund a cult of partisan political pundits at home, Syria Burning: A Short History of a Catastrophe Gainesville Friends Meeting Page 4 Twelfth Month, 2016 is a deep breath of straightforward reporting that, line by line, reveals how the Middle East went mad—and how the United States, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Russia, Hezbollah, ISIS, and various freelance jihadis contributed to the insanity that today consumes Syria. Graham Garner, long-time manager of QuakerBooks, had handed me the paperback last April when I’d visited the bookstore at Pendle Hill. A cross-country move to settle between coastal California and the Nappa Valley had delayed my reading it for months. But now, with Russian bombers tearing apart Aleppo—having killed 200 adults and 106 children in one day alone—and 10,000 Syrian, Iraqi, and Hezbollah troops massed to storm the city’s eastern, rebel-held stronghold, I had unearthed the book from its packing box. How on earth had we gotten to this point? Written by veteran Middle East reporter Charles Glass, the book uses the sharp, clear language of reportage to cut through a veil of diplomatic ambiguity, political propaganda, and blatant pretense from all those countries involved that has obscured both the reasons Syria is being systematically destroyed and the people who are taking it apart. Glass, who was once kidnapped and held hostage for 62 days by Shi’a militants, was ABC News’ chief Middle East correspondent for many years. Today he writes regularly for the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books and is the author of Tribes with Flags, Money for Old Rope, The Tribes Triumphant, and The Northern Front, among others. In Syria Burning, he points to the “Arab Spring” that spread across the Middle East in 2011 that ignited what is now called the “Syrian Winter.” Syria had escaped the bonds of the Ottoman Empire in 1946, Glass explains, and developed its own parliamentary government. Then came the Arabian American oil company known as Aramco. Its executives wanted to run a pipeline from Saudi Arabia to the Mediterranean. Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Lebanon went for it. The Syrian government did not. Then, as Glass reports, an American CIA agent approached the Syrian army’s chief of staff to arrange a coup. The chief of staff seized power in 1949, and promptly signed an agreement with Aramco. A series of military coups followed until Hafez Al-Assad, current Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad’s father, seized control in 1970. The country’s cafes rumbled with dissatisfaction, and rebellion occasionally percolated to the surface. But the Syrian people, Glass writes, were tired of war. Until, that is, the Arab Spring of 2011, when 15 Syrian children in the ancient desert city of Dera, not far the Jordanian border, painted anti-government slogans on the city’s walls. The children were arrested and tortured, and the citizens of Dera took to the streets. The response of Bashar Al-Assad, who had assumed Syria’s presidency in 2000, was brutal. ISIS, Hezbollah, freelance jihadis, and most of the countries around the world jumped into the melee that followed. As Glass reports, On the one side Russia and Iran have supplied weapons, ammunition and diplomatic cover for President Assad. On the other, there is the Group of Friends of the Syrian People, a collection of 107 countries and organizations modeled on the Friends of Libya who cheer-led NATO’s air war in that country. “No hands are clean,” writes Glass. Crediting Moroccan diplomat Mokhtar-Lamani, the UN-Arab League representative in Syria, with first articulating the new reality, Glass points out that “Syria has become the venue of …`a proxy war’ or wars: the United States versus Russia; the Sunni theocracies of Saudi Arabia and Qatar against the Shiite theocrats of Iran; and Turkey versus Arab nationalists over the attempted restoration of Turkey’s pre-World War I dominance.” The cost to the Syrian people has been devastating. Some 35 percent of the country is occupied by ISIS, and, as of five months ago, a report released by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, a think tank originally based in Damascus, reveals that more than 470,000 Syrians had been killed since the citizens of Dera took to the streets, while nearly 7 in 10 Syrians were without food and water. An astounding 10 million people had been forced from their homes— including some 4 million who fled the country. Who is left to kill? Gainesville Friends Meeting Page 5 Twelfth Month, 2016

A Walk in the Quaker Woods — Jean Larson, with photographs by Bill Mitchell December 4, 2016 After a bountiful meal in connection with the celebration of three new members, Bill and I headed out to the woods, admiring the slope freshly weeded with help from Bonnie and several people from Grow Gainesville — the grasses and sedges are no longer visible; the cold and drought browned foliage has been trimmed back; the bits wandering onto the drive and into the sidewalk have been removed. We stopped to admire a blooming silkgrass (Pityopsis graminifolia) in the middle of the slope. There was a brief shower on Thursday (0.11 inches) after a very dry November with only 0.02 inches for the month compared to an average of 2.06 inches. It shows in the landscape with fallen leaves, light filtering through the remaining leaves on the eastern hophornbeam trees (Ostrya virginiana) near the meeting for worship in nature area. We lingered there to check the power washing done by an amiable crew of ten from AmeriCore, arranged for by individuals with Grow Gainesville for the workday. We wandered up to the junction of the ditch and the border with Shir Shalom where Bill had been watering some plants that he is encouraging to grow along the edge of the ditch where it is freed from the sandbag walls. The coontie seedlings (Zamia pumila) are prospering, but the newer Eastern gamma grass (Tripsacum dactyloides) looked somewhat stressed. We started down the ditch, a dry, sandy bed sprinkled with yellow and brown leaves, then took a right turn to head to the part of the creek which still has water in it. The light was lovely with the winter thinning of the the leaves and the understory. After we reach the creek, we turned and walked back along it toward the ditch catching the (movement of a very small fish here, a ripple

Leaves — Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) left, Bald cypress Taxodium distichum) on the upper right, and floating in the water on Royal park creek, below.

there, or glints of sunlight reflecting off the water. The water sank into the ground perhaps 15 feet before we reached the place where the ditch joins it. We had a pleasant walk down the dry creekbed to the point where it heads south to the Henderson property where we turned north to complete our walk.

It was peaceful to walk in the woods on a pleasant winter afternoon full of sunshine. What makes you feel peaceful, content, at home in the world? Gainesville Friends Meeting Page 6 Twelfth Month, 2016

Queries for the Twelfth Month: Do we work for peace in the world? Do we nurture peace within ourselves? ■ Do we “live in the virtue of that life and power which takes away the occasion of all wars”? ■ Do we seek consistently to carry out this testimony for peace in all our relationships, including family, community, and work life? ■ Do we as individuals and as members of a meeting seek to take part in the ministry of reconciliation between individuals, groups, and nations? ■ Do we faithfully maintain our peace testimony? ■ Do we reject military training, preparation for war, and participation in war as inconsistent with the spirit of Christ’s teachings? ■ Do we as a meeting take a stand and do all we can to remove the causes of war and violence? Advices for the Twelfth Month:

Do we work for peace in the world? Do we nurture peace within ourselves? ■ Do we “live in the virtue of that life and power which takes away the occasion of all wars”? ■ Do we seek consistently to carry out this testimony for peace in all our relationships, including family, community, and work life? ■ Do we as individuals and as members of a meeting seek to take part in the ministry of reconciliation between individuals, groups, and nations? ■ Do we faithfully maintain our peace testimony? ■ Do we reject military training, preparation for war, and participation in war as inconsistent with the spirit of Christ’s teachings? ■ Do we as a meeting take a

Gainesville Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends 702 NW 38th Street Gainesville, FL 32607