Ridgewood Quakers

11/14/2025

https://apnews.com/article/quakers-worship-noisy-world-philadelphia-pennsylvania-6549d5f4560f9a068bc48a7803216502?fbclid=IwY2xjawODohlleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEe1jc5GSICHWglDS0ZFthl4LkChxIpdjz_2jWRJTpPpFqDdpAQTdRo-DEJzsw_aem_bqNfkaHk6KLaQZYgF8p5-Q

There’s been an unprecedented surge in the numbers of attendees at Sunday worship at the Quaker Arch Street Meeting House in Old City Philadelphia.

03/09/2024

You are invited to attend NYYM's Spring Sessions
Friday-Sunday, April 5-7, 2024
at Oakwood Friends School, Poughkeepsie, NY & Zoom
Please register by March 20 if attending in person

Spring Sessions is one of the three times a year that members of our New York Yearly Meeting (NYYM) Quaker community gather to worship, conduct business, and have fellowship together. As we gather together, to journey through this new year, let’s uphold each other in the spirit of “Faith, Hope and Love." Open to all.
Visit nyym.org/spring-sessions-2024 for more and to register.

If you are planning to stay in a nearby hotel, NYYM has arranged for a reduced group rate for rooms at the Hampton Inn at 2361 South Road, Poughkeepsie. To reserve a room, call the hotel at 845-463-7500 and use the code NYY.

02/16/2024

Salutation to the Dawn
by Kalidasa

Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of life,
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence:

The bliss of growth,
The glory of action,
The splendor of beauty,
For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow only a vision,
But today well lived makes every yesterday
a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore, to this day!
Such is the salutation of the dawn.

[from https://www.appleseeds.org/Salutation_Dawn.htm]

07/23/2023

Simplicity:

"Simplicity, like all virtues, is valuable because it is useful. I have come to understand that making life simpler does for our minds what getting in shape does for our bodies. It makes us feel more in control, more centered, more effective. And as with getting into shape, you have to want it sincerely, and you have to work at it consciously every day.

"I have found that simplicity is an indispensable ally in giving ordinary life meaning.... Simplicity helps us to live to the point, to clear the way to the best, to keep first things first."

- Robert Lawrence Smith, "A Quaker Book of Wisdom" (1999)

07/23/2023

A Quaker model of leadership.

07/12/2023

H/t Reflections from the Facing Bench: Quakering in Ridgewood

FCNL deplored the Biden Administration’s short-sighted and dangerous decision to supply cluster munitions for the war in Ukraine.

05/27/2023

Experiments in fasting and body prayer.

05/27/2023

We will not be meeting for the regular Meeting for Worship tomorrow Sunday, May 28, 2023.

We apologize for any inconvenience, and wish you a peaceful Memorial Day weekend.

03/30/2023

My Mind to me a Kingdom is
by Sir Edward Dyer

My mind to me a kingdom is;
Such perfect joy therein I find
That it excels all other bliss
Which God or nature hath assign'd.
Though much I want that most would have,
Yet still my mind forbids to crave.

No princely port, nor wealthy store,
No force to win a victory,
No wily wit to salve a sore,
No shape to win a loving eye;
To none of these I yield as thrall,—
For why? my mind despise them all.

I see that plenty surfeit oft,
And hasty climbers soonest fall;
I see that such as are aloft
Mishap doth threaten most of all.
These get with toil and keep with fear;
Such cares my mind can never bear.

I press to bear no haughty sway,
I wish no more than may suffice,
I do no more than well I may,
Look, what I want my mind supplies.
Lo ! thus I triumph like a king,
My mind content with anything.

I laugh not at another's loss,
Nor grudge not at another's gain;
No worldly waves my mind can toss;
I brook that is another's bane.
I fear no foe, nor fawn on friend,
I loathe not life, nor dread mine end.

My wealth is health and perfect ease,
And conscience clear my chief defence;
I never seek by bribes to please,
Nor by desert to give offence.
Thus do I live, thus will I die,—
Would all did so as well as I!

03/01/2023

H/t Reflections from the Facing Bench: Quakering in Ridgewood

This Quaker method, if method it can be called, might be described as the laboratory method. The modern teacher of science does not require his class to blindly accept the authority of a book. Experiments are done which prove the facts. Similarly the Quaker worship is not a worship by proxy, but a worship of actual personal experience. Howard Brinton