Goose Creek Friends
Newsletter November 2018
Goose Creek Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), Lincoln, Virginia
Queries for Eleventh Month:
Listening
• When is it hardest for me to be ready to
listen?
• To what extent do I open myself to the risks
of listening?
• How have I been changed by deeply
listening to another, to God, to nature?
• How does my own perception affect the way
I understand what others say?
Monthly Meeting for Worship
with a Concern for Business:
Eleventh Month
Friends approved with thanks the annual
report of the Unity with Nature Committee.
A focus of the committee’s work this year has
been limiting the use of plastics, including the
use of plastic straws. A representative from
Audubon at Home visited Goose Creek and
spoke with the committee about native plants
and pollinators that would work well on the
Meeting House grounds. Unity with Nature has
been very active in helping us understand how
we can all make earth-sustaining changes in
our lives.
Friends approved with thanks the annual
report of the Publications Committee, which
is responsible for Meeting’s newsletter,
website, email list of members and attenders,
and listserv. We often hear from Friends who
now live far away that they like to stay in
touch with Goose Creek Meeting through
these resources.
October 28th’s First Day School Never Too Young to Vote Class
Sheila Kryston read a letter prepared by the
Ministry and Oversight Committee in the wake
of the assault on Tree of Life Congregation
in Pittsburgh, to be sent from Goose Creek
Friends to Congregation Sha’are Shalom
in Leesburg and to Beth Chaverim Reform
Congregation in Ashburn. A slightly different
letter has been prepared to send to Tree of
Light Congregation. Meeting approved sending
these three letters, with the Clerk’s signature.
Friends approved a donation to the Friends
Journal capital campaign.
Friends agreed that we do not feel monuments
in our burying grounds to be in keeping with
our practices.
Last month’s threshing session to discuss
ideas for practices and standards for First Day
School was well attended and fruitful. Another
such session will be held.
Jed Shilling will be moving to California
this month, and this was his last Meeting for
Worship with a Concern for Business at Goose
Creek. He and his family will be with us on
Continued on next page g
Goose Creek Friends Newsletter | November 2018 | Page 2
December 9th
after the rise of Meeting
Early Quakers & the Bible
Join the discussion led by Allen
Cochran and Caroline Pelton.
Please come!
Continued from page 1
November 18. Friends thanked him for his
service to Meeting.
Baltimore Yearly Meeting:
November 17 – The Gathered Meeting at
Frederick Friends Meeting (Frederick,
MD): Warrington Quarterly Meeting presents
Steven Davison leading a discussion about
The Gathered Meeting, the subject of his
2017 Pendle Hill Pamphlet by that title. We’ll
explore what the Gathered Meeting is and why
it’s important both in the history of Friends and
for our future. We’ll also discuss things that
Meetings and individuals can do to make our
experience of holy communion more common
in our worship. There will be a brown bag
lunch after the discussion.
November 23-25: Young Friends Conference
– Homewood Friends Meeting
(Baltimore, MD). For information, check
the Young Friends website (www.bym-rsf.
org/what_we_do/yfs/yfcon.html) or contact
Jocelyn Dowling: (301-774-7663).
Friends House [a continuing care retirement
community in Sandy Spring, MD] is breaking
ground to add fourteen new duplex cottages
and 33 lodge apartments. A new three-story
apartment building with 80 moderately priced
apartment homes will replace the charming
garden apartments built in 1967, which are
impossible to upgrade to meet requirements.
Diversity of income is something found in
few other retirement communities, and is very
important at Friends House. A large proportion
of Friends House residents are Quakers. Many
are drawn to Friends House because of Quaker
values. (To read more: https://indd.adobe.com/
view/d7e07df3-f5e1-41b8-800d-986f28fcb816)
Meeting News
Happy news from Carolee and David
Chamberlin: “Our youngest, Marion, got
married to her girlfriend, Sephora Findling,
on October 18th in Wilmington, NC. Their
wedding was an untraditional traditional one
and was a lovely combination of Quaker and
Jewish traditions. Both Jessica Stoddard,
as the photographer and friend, and David
Dotson, as a dear friend, attended. It was
wonderful for us to be with our whole family
and friends we hadn’t seen in a long time.”
Our love and congratulations to Marion!
Continued on next page g
Friends, please give your attention
to the Finance Committee letter that
accompanies this newsletter.

Continued from page 2
Sad news about a man who was a good friend
to Goose Creek: “It is with great sadness that
we share the sudden passing of our dear friend
and co-worker, Frank Ellmore. Floral designer
and plantsman extraordinaire – he was always
ready with a smile and quick jest. He will
be greatly missed by the entire community
and certainly here at Abernethy and Spencer
Greenhouses. Please join us in celebrating
Frank’s life on Sunday, November 11, at
2PM, at the Goose Creek Burying Ground
in Lincoln, Virginia. Reception following at
Springdale Village Inn.”
Committee clerks and co-clerks are asked to
submit their committees’ 2019 budget requests
to the Finance Committee. Thank you!
Goose Creek Friends Newsletter | November 2018 | Page 3
Save the Date!
Save the date for this year's Christmas
potluck dinner and carol singing.
December 16, 2018
Upcoming In
First Day School
November 2018
NOVEMBER 4
Never Too Young To Vote. Students
discuss the importance of voting and
create Get Out The Vote posters.
NOVEMBER 11
Students will make holiday ornaments out
of clay which will be fired and brought back
to decorate on December 9th.
NOVEMBER 18
Students will continue their work on
making a quilt and learning the craft and
the value of community as they go.
NOVEMBER 25
The students will learn a little about the
Valiant Sixty, a group of early leaders and
activists in the Religious Society of Friends
(Quakers). They were itinerant preachers,
mostly from northern England, who spread
the ideas of the Friends during the second
half of the 17th century.
Page 4 | November 2018 | Goose Creek Friends Newsletter

Sundays Facing Bench

Meeting for worship at 9:45 a.m. NOVEMBER
First Day School at 10:00 a.m. Sheila Kryston
Fellowship at 10:45 a.m. December
Martha Mason Semmes
Wednesdays
Discussion Group at 7:00 p.m. First Day
School
Calendar 11/04/18
NOVEMBER Never Too Young to Vote
11.4 Sun 11 am Meeting for Worship 11/11/18
Making Clay
with a Concern for Business Holiday Ornaments
11.7 Wed 6 pm Religious Education Committee Meeting 11/18/18
Quilting &
11.11 Sun 11:30 am RE family potluck & bonfire, weather Community
permitting, at Sara Brown’s farm 11/25/18
Valiant Sixty &
11.12 Mon 5:30 pm SPICES Peace Troupe Meeting Gratitude
11.25 Sun 11 am Ministry & Oversight Committee
Meeting
DECEMBER
12.2 Sun 11 am Meeting for Worship with
a Concern for Business
12.9 Sun 11 am Discussion: Early Quakers and the Bible NEWSLETTER
The Goose Creek Friends Newsletter
12.16 Sun 6 pm Christmas potluck dinner and carol sing is published monthly by the
12.30 Sun 11 am Ministry & Oversight Committee Goose Creek Friends Meeting,
18204 Lincoln Road, P.O. Box 105,
Meeting Lincoln, VA 20160.
CLERK
JANUARY Debbi Sudduth, 540.338.3363
dfsud@comcast.net
1.6 Sun 11 am Meeting for Worship with ASSISTANT CLERK
a Concern for Business Rich Weidner, 540.554.2747
richard_weidner@hotmail.com
TREASURER
MARRIAGE Brian Burgher
goose.creek.treasurer@gmail.com
Marion Chamberlin, to Sephora Findling, on October 18, 2018 NEWSLETTER EDITOR
Catherine Cox, 301-471-5330
blycox@comcast.net
“It is a powerful discipline for the ‘listener’ to try to listen without WEBSITE & FACEBOOK
agenda, without the compulsion to help, abandoning the need or www.goosecreekfriends.org
desire to appear knowledgeable, wise or comforting. There may https://www.facebook.com/
Goose-Creek-Friends-Meeting-
be no more tellingly difficult spiritual practice than the effort to 150892438287560/?rc=p
receive what is being said by someone else hospitably, without
DONATIONS
editing, without correction, without unsolicited advice. Yet it is this Please direct donations for
open listening that makes room for the Spirit of God to be present Goose Creek Friends Meeting to
in the midst of the interaction, illuminating and guiding what is Brian Burgher, P.O. Box 105
Lincoln, Virginia 20160
taking place.” – Patricia Loring, 1997