Monongalia Friends Meeting

08/31/2026

Did you know Quakers played a role in Gandhi's spiritual journey, and that Gandhi's ideas later influenced Quakers in return?

Gandhi’s interest in religion, which began in his childhood with his devoutly Hindu mother, deepened quickly when he moved to South Africa as a young lawyer in 1893. As part of his religious exploration, Gandhi became friends with a small group of Quakers in Pretoria. Though he rejected Christianity, the Quakers encouraged Gandhi’s study of comparative religion. Learning about Quaker pacifism also reinforced Gandhi’s emerging belief that justice cannot be achieved through violence.

That connection deepened through Gandhi's decades-long friendship with British Quaker Horace Alexander. Gandhi stayed with Alexander at Woodbrooke Quaker study center in Birmingham during his negotiations with England in 1931, where he attended meeting for worship. The experience inspired Gandhi to incorporate silent meditation into the prayers at his ashram, and Alexander remained a trusted friend throughout India's journey to independence.

The influence flowed both ways. Quaker author Richard Gregg helped introduce Gandhi's ideas to the West, in turn inspiring Civil Rights organizer Bayard Rustin, a key advisor to Martin Luther King Jr. Today, there are many humanitarian and peacebuilding organizations that are founded jointly on Quaker and Gandhian principles.

08/22/2026

If you're not sure if an hour sitting in stillness and silence would work for you, here's some things to try instead.

08/22/2026

07/03/2026

As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, the true architects of its rebellious spirit might not be the founding fathers you expect. This week, on the podcast, Quaker historian Max Carter joins us to unpack the radical, plain-speaking movement that quietly hardwired the nation's legal system, culture, and architecture. Discover how a "holy experiment" accidentally fueled a revolution and shaped the foundational values that Americans still live by today.

https://quakerpodcast.com/how-quakers-invented-america/

06/29/2026

Betsy Ross, known as the woman who sewed the first American flag, was born into a Quaker family in Philadelphia and educated at a Friends school.

To her family’s dismay, she fell in love with a fellow apprentice upholsterer and eloped at the age of 21. Her husband was not Quaker, and so Ross was read out of meeting, according to the custom of the Society of Friends at that time. When her husband passed away a few years later, Ross managed their upholstery business alone, making tents, flags, and uniforms for the Continental Army. And, according to the oral history of the Ross family, George Washington brought her an unfinished design for an American flag, which she completed and sewed with stripes and stars for each of the 13 colonies.

Ross joined the Free Quakers (or Fighting Quakers), a group of Friends who set aside the pacifism of mainstream Friends in order to support the Revolution. She was originally buried at the Free Quaker burial ground on North 5th Street, then moved to another cemetery 20 years later, then moved one final time in 1975 to rest in the courtyard of what is thought to be her former home to mark America’s bicentennial.

Betsy Ross House

06/13/2026

Friends spent the day talking to our neighbors at Morgantown Pride! We handed out free cold water, some sweet treats, shared the history of Friends' involvement in social justice movements and highlighted some of our favorite q***r Quaker heroes. We also provided info on gender affirming care and reproductive health available in WV.
At Monongalia Friends Meeting you will always be accepted and welcomed exactly as you are. The Light of the Divine shines bright in each of us. Let yours shine brightly for all to see. ☀️🌈

06/08/2026

05/04/2026

Gary Kurtz, producer of the Star Wars movies “A New Hope” and “The Empire Strikes Back”, has been called the “father of the Force.” Over the course of many late-night conversations with George Lucas, the two determined that in Star Wars, the Force would be an all-encompassing, metaphysical energy that emanates from people and binds the galaxy together. Does that sound a bit like the Inner Light to my Quaker Friends? Well, Kurtz was a Quaker!

Kurtz was raised in a Quaker family and enlisted as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War. He served in the Marines as a combat cameraman and refused to carry a weapon.

Star Wars fans, what do you think? Are there similarities between the Force and the Inner Light? Is there anything else that’s Quaker about the Star Wars movies? May the fourth be with you!

05/01/2026

A bit of Quaker history about the line six miles north of Morgantown.

Jeremiah Dixon was an English Quaker surveyor and astronomer. He was written out of Raby Meeting in Durham in 1760 at the age of 27 with this minute:

“Jery Dixon, son of George and Mary Dixon of Cockfield disowned for drinking to excess.”

But that reputation didn’t affect his career, as he and Charles Mason were selected by the Royal Society to observe the transit of Venus the following year. After this success, the pair were next contracted to resolve a boundary dispute between Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. Dixon, Mason, and their Iroquois guides spent 1763-1767 surveying the boundary, but had to abandon the project before its completion when they came to Lenape territory and the guides refused to go farther. The border became known as the Mason-Dixon Line, and when Pennsylvania abolished slavery in 1781, this line was the boundary between slave states in the south and free states in the north.

The most famous story about Jeremiah Dixon shows off his Quaker conscience, if not his Quaker methods. One day, Dixon came across a slave driver beating an enslaved woman.

Going up to him, Dixon said, “Thou must not do that!”

He received the curt answer, “You be damned! Mind your own business.”

Dixon replied, “If thou doesn’t desist, I'll thrash thee!” Then he seized the slave driver’s whip and with it gave him a sound thrashing. Dixon kept the whip as a trophy and took it back with him to Cockfield, where it was long regarded as a family treasure.

Dixon's name may be the origin for the nickname “Dixie" used for the Southern United States.

04/10/2026