FGConnections, Summer 2004
Visitation among Friends
Creativity, Spirituality and Effective Social Change — Connections
By Margaret Slavin. “So how is it going, people ask me, and what is its purpose? Its purpose is to visit, and to listen. Also I travel with special concerns around our creative gifts (I am a writer) and around the children (there is a connection.) I encourage Friends to bring something they have made. The sharing that is grounded in this way—in quilts, paintings, poems, song, wooden bowls, painted birdhouses—goes deep.”
Lessons to Travel By
By Deborah Fisch. “I learned many things that have benefited me not only in travel, but in life in general. They include: don’t take more than you need and you probably don’t need as much as you think you do; remember you have to carry everything you take; check the weather where you are going; layer; allow time for making errors; carry your family with you (in pictures and prayers); seek to be faithful not successful; pray and ask others to pray for your safe travel and faithful service; remember to breathe.”
Quaker Finder
By Tommy Gipson. “I wasn’t looking for Quakers, but I found them anyway. Over a year ago, I took a test at beliefnet.com at the prompting of my daughter and the results suggested I was 100 percent Quaker. I admit I knew little about Quakers and associated them, as do so many others, with the Amish. I began exploring the internet and found some excellent web sites introducing me to the wide diversity of Friends today as well as the rich history of Friends.”
Visitation in Quaker History
By Margaret Hope Bacon. An overview of traveling ministry. "From our earliest days, Quakers have been a traveling lot... From Mary Fisher to the present, there is a continuing stream of intervisitation, making glad the City of God."
Beyond Summers in the Catoctin Mountains
By Risë Hunter. Experiences at a Quaker summer camp challenged this writer to share her Quaker identity with the world. "As I admire the mountainous views of Monteverde, I feel so fortunate for my past experiences and friendships that have led me here. While my friends here did not share Catoctin with me, they know the person who was shaped by such a loving and supportive environment. The woman I became at Catoctin is the same woman that I allow new friends to know."
