Menallen Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends - Quaker

08/05/2023

We are thrilled to welcome Emma Fee to Quaker Voluntary Service as a 2023-2024 Philadelphia Fellow! Please join us in welcoming her!

Emma Fee (she/her) is from outside of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and grew up attending Menallen Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends - Quaker

She recently graduated from Gettysburg College, where she was an English and Interdisciplinary studies major, a program coordinator for the Painted Turtle Farm through Center for Public Service at Gettysburg College, and tried to find time to enjoy live music, good food, and sunset walks with friends. She was also lucky enough to spend a semester abroad in Tunis, Tunisia, which was both a personally and intellectually enriching experience that encouraged her passions for religious studies, philosophy, and community organizing. She is excited to work with ACHIEVEability for the year as well as to learn from the people and communities of both QVS and Philadelphia!

08/12/2021

Gettysburg C.A.R.E.S. (Combined Area Resources for Emergency Shelter) is our community’s cold weather shelter of last resort for those experiencing homelessness. Last year, during the height of the pandemic, C.A.R.E.S. for safety reasons had to depart from our church-based shelter model and housed our guests in motels. This year our plan is to return to our traditional strengths and to partner with local congregations to house our guests for two weeks at a time in area churches. We will be open during the coldest months of the year, when the temperatures plummet and cold and wet combine to offer potentially deadly conditions. This year C.A.R.E.S. will be open from October 18th to April 17th.

No one ever wants to have no other option but to enter a shelter for those experiencing homelessness. No one. If you yourself would hesitate to spend the night in such a shelter, please consider the fact that most people actually forced into such a circumstance feel precisely the same way as you would. It’s not surprising, therefore, that over the course of my two decades teaching about and striving to end the conditions that lead to a loss of housing, I have worked with many folks who are too afraid of the shelter systems to enter them, regardless of how bad the conditions outside may be. This is especially true in urban areas, where many shelters, fairly or unfairly, are considered more dangerous places to lay down one’s head than are the streets.

That’s exactly why C.A.R.E.S. is so vital to our community: We offer a safe, welcoming environment that allows our guests to try to get a decent night’s rest. We also try to ensure that they are eating nutritious food, and that they have access to other services, including help in securing permanent housing.

Don’t be deceived by commonplace stereotypes, either: Many of our guests work, some multiple jobs, and they often include family units and children. It’s easy to suppose that anyone in such a situation somehow “brought it upon themselves,” but that is in fact a comforting fiction for those of us blessed to have the resources to house ourselves and our families. The number one reason for homelessness in America today is the lack of affordable housing. This is closely followed by economic issues, such as un- and underemployment. These conditions have only been exacerbated by the pandemic, which has left many vulnerable folks unable to pay their rent, and with the lapse of moratoria on evictions, we are likely to see many more individuals and families lose their housing.

That’s why Gettysburg C.A.R.E.S. is more important than ever.

If you’d like to help or to learn more, please contact C.A.R.E.S. at [email protected], go to our webpage, or check us out on Facebook: C.A.R.E.S. could use any assistance you might be moved to offer, in terms of time, talents, or donations. Please consider helping us to try both to offer emergency shelter and to locate permanent housing for the most vulnerable of our friends and neighbors.

Christopher Fee
Board Member, C.A.R.E.S.
Professor of English, Gettysburg College
Menallen Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)

https://www.gettysburgtimes.com/eedition/page_2bc486ff-1298-59d8-800e-1472659da871.html

08/12/2020

From "Healing a Nation Sick at Heart: Fighting a Spiritual Pandemic with 'Our Better Angels:'"

"As a local Quaker and peace-maker...I must align my words and deeds with those of my spiritual forebears in this very community who steadfastly worked for justice and freedom and equality while at the same time refusing to hate and to vilify those they opposed: They loathed the sin of slavery and had to react strongly against it, but never violently, and they were at all times required to love the sinner with all their hearts.
I must do the same, and as Friends always have, I call on the broader community to do so, as well...."

By: Christopher R. Fee This summer has been a hot and uncomfortable one, literally, metaphorically, and spiritually: We seem to be at a cross-roads in history. A particularly notable flash-point oc…

08/05/2020

To the Editor of the Gettysburg Times,
The mask debate took an interesting turn when the President changed course on it. Perhaps the country will now rally around mask-wearing. We’ll see.
My concern is how hateful that debate has become. Why is it so divisive?
Having spent the spring researching the literature of Plague, from the Bible to today, I would assert that pandemics have long brought out both the best and the worst in folks: When we can’t see the root cause of the problem, we look for something tangible upon which to fix our feelings of helplessness and fear.
Masks provide a focal point for our anxieties: Everyone is worried about health, jobs, and long-term stability; our anger at each other over the issue of masks is a way of focusing those feelings on something we can see.
I say this as a peace-maker, to bring us together, as the Friends of my Meeting have attempted to do for nearly three centuries.
Upper Adams County was founded by Quakers. Those of us who belong to the local Meetings today still raise our children with the traditional Quaker belief that we should “walk cheerfully over the earth, seeking that of God in everyone.” This is really an extension of Christ’s Commandment to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, and with all our souls, and with all our minds, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Please know that when you see me wearing a mask, it is because I love you: I see my God reflected in you, whether you wear a mask or not.
If I put on the mask unnecessarily, what did I lose? Otherwise, however, what might be the cost of the refusal to wear a mask?
Right around the time and place of the founding of Quakerism in the North of England, an entire village was counseled by their pastors to quarantine themselves in order to contain a Plague outbreak. This they did as their Christian duty. As a result—contained at close quarters—they died at a higher rate even than that in London at the time.
They also completely contained the outbreak in the North. They sacrificed their lives that others might live. They didn’t know about microbiology, or how Plague worked: They took a chance to give their lives to show that they indeed loved their neighbors as themselves.
A mask is much less to ask.
Chris Fee
English Department, Gettysburg College
Menallen Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends (Quakers)
Author of Plague, Pestilence, & Pop Culture

http://www.gettysburgtimes.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/article_66993cd4-afb1-56ff-bbb2-f428a357b289.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=user-share&fbclid=IwAR3cEBAlKJ6UvrrLwYh4stWFGRonLjZBDXe3H-WcyaZAp38pyQcV9FcfLpU

09/17/2017

Scriptural passages overheard today at Menallen Friends Meeting, regarding the Quaker custom of silent worship:

Psalm 46: 10 “Be still, and know that I am God."
Isaiah 30: 15 "...in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”
Habakkuk 2:20 "The LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him."
1 Corinthians 3:16 "Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in your midst?"

Feel free to join us each week as we seek the revelation of Truth through a gathering of Friends in silent worship, waiting in reverent quiet upon the movement of the Spirit in our midst.

07/10/2017

Seekers for the Light should share common ground, not quibble over distinctions in doctrine and ritual.

More Methodist words of wisdom for Quaker ears; let not our differences divide us, but rather let our common love of the Divine and our thirst for justice bring us together. Concerning the variety of rites and rituals: "My only question at present is this, 'Is thine heart right, as my heart is with thy heart?' (2 Kings 10:15)" John Wesley-Sermon 39

Menallen Friends Meet in Silent Worship each First Day (Sunday) at 10:30 AM. ALL are ALWAYS welcome! Quakers seek the Light of God in every person! Come!

07/10/2017

Seekers for the Light should share common ground, not quibble over distinctions in doctrine and ritual.

Methodist words of wisdom for Quaker ears; let not our differences divide us, but rather let our common love of the Divine and our thirst for justice bring us together. Concerning the variety of rites and rituals: "Let all these things stand by: we will talk of them, if need be, at a more convenient season." John Wesley-Sermon 39

Menallen Friends Meet in Silent Worship each First Day (Sunday) at 10:30 AM. ALL are ALWAYS welcome! Quakers seek the Light of God in every person! Come!

07/09/2017

The Fugitive Slave Act was wrong, and Quakers were called to reject it, regardless of the consequences: It is clear in Quaker Faith & Practice that the Justice of God supersedes the laws of men. It is therefore not enough to lament injustice; we actively must strive to offer redress. In the words of George Fox:

"Let all nations hear the sound by word or writing. Spare no place, spare no tongue, nor pen; but be obedient to the Lord God: go through the work; be valiant for the truth upon earth; tread and trample upon all that is contrary." (1656)

In our own community, as Friend Crispin Sartwell has documented all too well, our neighbors are being targeted on the basis of national origin, and as a result, many are terrified of arrest, deportation, and the fragmentation of families. Such policies may follow the letter of the law, but they seem antithetical to the “family values” so often touted in political campaigns; more to the point, the policies currently being implemented seem designed to scapegoat Latinos for political ends, and offer our community only social destabilization, countless personal traumas, and severe economic instability in a region dependent upon a Latino agricultural workforce.

Therefore, while attempting to offer support to our Latino neighbors in concrete ways, Friends should also emphasize in the broader community the historical reality that this Commonwealth was founded and designed overtly according to traditional Quaker tenets of inclusion and tolerance, as well as the fact that many of our ancestors fled here just a step or two ahead of the long arm of oppressive and intolerant Old Country laws.

Our God-fearing neighbors should also be asked to remember that Scripture is explicit in its requirement that we accept and embrace the immigrants in our midst; Leviticus makes no mention of legal status:

The stranger that sojourneth with you shall be unto you as the home-born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were sojourners in the land of Egypt: I am Jehovah your God. (Leviticus 19:34)

https://www.wsj.com/articles/fiestas-and-apple-orchards-small-town-life-before-trump-1497037405

My corner of Pennsylvania was thriving again—until immigration agents began carting people away.

07/08/2017

Menallen Quakers were active in the Underground Railroad, and today we feel called to bring the same passion for righteousness to seek justice for our all our brothers and sisters, most especially the voiceless, the marginalized, and those in need of material and spiritual sustenance; most particularly, we desire to embrace our neighbors who work so hard in the fields and orchards and canneries which surround us.

http://www.menallenfriends.org/

Menallen Monthly Meeting, founded in 1748, is an active dynamic group who view our mission as one of support - to each other and to surrounding community. The meeting is part of the National Park Service National Network to Freedom, which commemorates sit