Goose Creek Friends
Newsletter May 2020
Goose Creek Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), Lincoln, Virginia
Queries for Fifth Month – Integrity
• How do we seek truth by which to live? Meeting for Worship with a Concern for Business. We
How do we recognize it?
• In what ways does my life speak of my beliefs some others will work on sending Friends an informational
and values?
• Do I strive to be truthful at all times, avoiding
judicial oaths?
• In what way is my life out of harmony with Friends approved the Technology Committee’s purchase
truth as I know it?
Monthly Meeting for Worship with a
Concern for Business: Fifth Month
The Clerk reminded Friends that the Archive Committee
has encouraged committees to send records of their
activities during the pandemic to the Clerk and
Recording Clerk.
Friends approved the annual report of the Jane Pancoast
Shepherd Scholarship Committee. Thirty scholarships
were awarded in 2019, and this spring, 29 students have
been offered financial support for their studies.
Friends approved with thanks the annual report of the
Goose Creek Scholarship Committee. From 2011-2020,
support has been provided by this fund to 68 students.
Thirty scholarships were awarded in 2019, and 29 students
were offered financial support for their studies this spring.
The Religious Education/Camping Committee requested
that Meeting make a generous donation to Baltimore
Yearly Meeting’s camping program. Even if the camps’
programs are suspended for the summer, they will still
incur considerable maintenance costs, and the camping
program will suffer a large budgetary shortfall if camp is
not held.
Different ways of donating to the camps were discussed,
keeping in mind Meeting procedures for allocating
funds for donations. Friends approved the release of this
year’s allocated campership funds to BYM and approved
directing them not to keep this sum in escrow. We will let
BYM know that if camp is not held this summer, we will
not ask them to return the funds. Friends discussed what
the amount of a further donation might be and decided
to approve a donation and its amount in next month’s
will have more information by then. Annie Carlson and
email about the camps before next month’s business
meeting. Individuals are also encouraged to make their
own donations if possible.
on behalf of Meeting of a Zoom Pro subscription with
one host.
Sheila Kryston followed up on the Peace and Social
Concerns Committee’s request for a donation to be
made to the Movimiento de Mujeres Dominico-Haitiana
– the Movement of Dominican-Haitian Women. This
donation was in that committee’s budget for 2020, but the
committee did not bring it to Meeting for Budget as a new
donation. Susan French, a member of Hopewell Centre
Meeting, an attender here, and a member of Peace and
Social Concerns, has visited with this group and will visit
again. Susan endorses its work. Friends approved
this donation.
Also for Peace & Social Concerns, Sheila Kryston
described the Ampersand Pantry Project in Leesburg. This
project buys lunches from local restaurants and distributes
them to people who need them. The committee would like
permission from Meeting to send information to Friends
about making individual donations. Meeting approved, and
approved a Meeting donation to be made on an emergency
basis (bypassing usual Meeting procedure).
Bobbi Blok asked Friends to hold in the Light the
children in West Virginia who are being subjected to
food insecurity.
Eric Carlson presented the lyrics of the SPICES Traveling
Peace Troupe’s song that is just the right length for a hand-
washing. Friends approved the SPICES group’s sending
this song out.
Lee Lawrence reported on a bell made in the 1870s in
Lincoln at the Taylor Foundry by Richard Henry Taylor,
a son of Yardley and Hannah Taylor. More details about
this bell can be found elsewhere in this newsletter. The
Continued on next page g
Goose Creek Friends Newsletter | May 2020 | Page 2
Continued from page 1
Property Committee will decide how and where to place it
so that it remains safe.
Members of the Lincoln Community League and others
will be asked this week to collect imperishable food for
the food bank. Frannie Taylor asked permission to send
this information to Friends if this is approved by the LCL.
Meeting approved.
The Ampersand Pantry Project
This project is based in Leesburg at 338 East Market
St. and provides lunch and other necessities to those in
need.  Lunches are purchased from local restaurants,
helping to keep restaurants in business and workers
employed as well as providing lunch (and a flower) for
their guests.  Meeting has made a generous donation to
the project and encourages those who are led to add to
their own individual donations [it is a 501(c)(3)]:
Ampersand Pantry Project  
105 Loudoun Street SE, Leesburg, VA 20175
MUDHA: The Movement of
Dominican-Haitian Women
Meeting has approved a donation to The Movement
of Dominican-Haitian Women, or MUDHA. This
organization helps the Dominican-Haitian people who are
caught in a terrible legal bind.
Most people of Haitian descent who live in the Dominican
Republic, Haiti’s neighboring country, are denied the
right to register there and obtain government-issued
identification. Some are immigrants, some have lived
there for generations. Many of them are sugar workers
and work in bateyes, settlements around sugar mills. Their
wages are very low even by DR standards. They have
no access to government services – no schools, medical
care, passports, drivers’ licenses, etc. They are constantly
at risk of deportation to Haiti, where, as Dominican-born
Haitians, they also have no legal status.
Our Peace and Social Concerns Committee member
Susan French has visited a school that one batey had
managed to construct, though it had no desks or chairs
or supplies. She is planning to coordinate with MUDHA
to order items needed by this school. Susan is linked to
MUDHA through the work being done in Haiti by the
International Association of Women Judges.
Join our Meetings for Worship via Zoom
https://zoom.us/j/233706124
Meeting ID: 233 706 124
The login is the same each week!
Just a reminder that Goose
Creek Has a New & Private
Facebook Group!
This is a closed group – only the people approved by
Patricia Barber will be able to join the group and see the
posts. Procedure: go to Goose Creek Friends Sharing
the Light (a slightly amended name) and click on the
“Join” button. If you use Facebook at all, please join and
participate!
From Friends Wilderness Center
We are closed temporarily for visitation until the
COVID-19 Virus pandemic has passed and it is safe
once again to gather at the FWC.  Please stay safe, keep
healthy and come to visit and celebrate once restrictions
are lifted.
Calling All Friends,
All Ages 1-100!
We’re Taking the Every Problem Has a
Solution Quilt Project Online
May 22, 4:00-6:00 PM
Using the SPICES and a query-based approach,
identify a problem you’d like to solve and depict its
solution – visually – in the form of a quilt square!
Guidance and instruction will be provided during Zoom
meetings held every 1st and 3rd Friday from 4 to 6 pm.
Each finished product will be your own to keep –
such as for a place mat or a wall hanging. However
– and this is very exciting – we will take photos of the
finished squares and "piece" them together as a 
Virtual Community Quilt for all to enjoy.
Stay tuned for more info via
the list serv and on the website.
For more information, please contact
Barbara Lake at barblake09@yahoo.com

Kasey Jones, on the left, presenting the bell to
Goose Creek’s Lee Lawrence.
Historic Bell
This bell was made in the 1870s at the Taylor Foundry in
Lincoln by Richard Henry Taylor, a son of Yardley and
Hannah Taylor. Kacey Jones of Winchester has made a
gift of it to Meeting. It is likely that the bell was originally
purchased by Kacey’s great-grandparents, John Russell
Smith and Mary Virginia Smith. They farmed near
Lincoln and attended Goose Creek Meeting. It was cast
with the words “Lincoln, VA” on one side of its yoke and
“RH Taylor & Son” on the other.
From Baltimore Yearly Meeting:
BYM has created a page on the Yearly Meeting website
that they are updating with monthly meetings’ news as it
is received. They are encouraging everyone to share what
they are doing at their Meeting, in their committees, or
just in their daily lives to support the world of Friends
these days. https://www.bym-rsf.org/who_we_are/
commswgscovid19.html
The Yearly Meeting's Program Committee united in a
decision to cancel the in-person gathering of Annual
Session 2020. This was done with great regret and a sense
of loss, recognizing the unknown challenges ahead from
the coronavirus pandemic as well as the need to care for
the health and welfare of both our community and those
we work with at Hood College.
We will arrange instead for a variety of virtual/online
opportunities for Friends to meet together. The Presiding
Clerk of the Yearly Meeting, in consultation with others,
will decide on holding virtual/online meetings for worship
with a concern for business or otherwise carry forward
the Yearly Meeting's business. More information will be
forthcoming with specific plans and ways you can share
your hopes and ideas with the Program Committee.
Goose Creek Friends Newsletter | May 2020 | Page 3
Called Interim Meeting
Saturday, May 16, 2020
10:00 – 11:30 am by Zoom
Please RSVP to IMClerk@bym-rsf.org
To keep the work of BYM moving forward during this
pandemic time, there will be a called Interim Meeting
on Saturday morning, May 16 by Zoom, BYM’s
teleconferencing program. Documents to prepare Friends
for this meeting will be sent by email on May 8. 
News and Notes
Welcome to the world (and to Goose Creek Meeting),
Ellis Parris Augarten! He was born on Wednesday, April
22, 2020. Kelsey Parris and Greg Augarten are Ellis
Parris’s parents, and Eleanor Welsh is his grandmother.
We’re all eager to come together again in the Meeting
House, but don’t yet know when that can happen. In the
meantime, the floors have
been refinished in the First Day
School room and the walls in
the Meeting Room are now
being repaired and painted.
And here’s the new storage
shed! g
Quaker Jargon of the Month
“To elder”
Last month I offered an explanation of the word elder as it is
commonly used among liberal Friends today. (Note: “Liberal” in this
sense does not denote political beliefs. GeneNote: “Liberal” in this
sense is not about political beliefs. Liberal Friends worship without
programing or pastor and are open to a range of religious beliefs.)
Broadly, an elder is a Friend whom other Friends consider to be
sensitive to the needs of a Meeting and its members and attenders,
and who has a deep understanding of Quaker process.
In one sense of the word, eldering signifies an occasion when
such a Friend offers to another some good advice or constructive
criticism regarding their conduct or speech in meetings for worship
or business. There are plenty of jokes about tongue-lashings being
administered under the guise of “eldering,” but such advice or even
reprimanding should be offered privately and in a spirit of love and
helpfulness. This can be especially useful for someone relatively new
to Friends: Quaker practice is often subtle, and how else are they to
understand it?
Historically, and even today, there are Friends who travel in
ministry, giving workshops or prayer sessions or visiting Meetings
for one purpose or another. Traditionally, and often even today,
a minister is accompanied by an elder who holds the gathering
in prayer and observes the ministry and its effects. A minister
therefore expects to be eldered – given advice about what went
well and what didn’t. In my first years of editing this newsletter,
I was often gently and kindly eldered in the process by my guide,
the late Arlene Janney, and very grateful I was for that! Nancy
Uram and Maria Nicklin continue as my regular newsletter elders
to this day. – Catherine Cox
Continued on next page g
Page 4 | May 2020 | Goose Creek Friends Newsletter

Sundays Facing Bench

Meeting for worship at 9:45 a.m. may
First Day School at 10:00 a.m. Martha Semmes
Fellowship at 10:45 a.m. COVID-19 NOTICE
All of our in-person Meetings for First Day School
Wednesdays Worship, First Day School, and
Discussion Groups are postponed until
05/03/20
Discussion Group at 7:00 p.m. further notice. However, Meetings for
Simplicity &
John Woolman
Worship are being held via Zoom each
05/10/20
Calendar week. See calendar below.
Peace & The
MAY Reluctant Dragon
Happy Mother's Day!
5.03 Sunday 9:45 am Meeting for Worship via Zoom
05/17/20
5.10 Sunday 9:45 am Meeting for Worship via Zoom Integrity & Journal
5.17 Sunday 9:45 am Meeting for Worship via Zoom Keeping
5.20 Wednesday 6:00 pm Religious Education Committee 05/24/20
Meeting via Zoom Community &
5.22 Friday 4:00 pm Every Problem Has a Solution Service Projects
Quilt Project class via Zoom Until we can meet in person,
5.24 Sunday 9:45 am Meeting for Worship via Zoom lesson plans, activities, and
5.31 Sunday 9:45 am Meeting for Worship via Zoom resources are posted weekly on
11:00 am Ministry & Oversight Committee our website to download and use
at your family’s convenience.
meeting via Zoom http://www.goosecreekfriends.
org/first-day-school/
BIRTH
Ellis Parris Augarten, born to Kelsey Parris and Greg Augarten on NEWSLETTER
Wednesday, April 22, 2020. The Goose Creek Friends Newsletter
is published monthly by the
Goose Creek Friends Meeting,
18204 Lincoln Road, P.O. Box 105,
The SPICES Traveling Peace Troupe’s theme song Lincoln, VA 20160.
happens to be just the right length for hand-washing! CLERK
Rich Weidner, 540.554.2747
SPICES Song rich.blacksmith1@gmail.com
ASSISTANT CLERK
Come on people gather round Pick a spice and help us out Allen Cochran, 540.338.6485
Your SPICES Troupe Come and find what it’s about Cochransstone@aol.com
TREASURER
has come to town SPICES, SPICES every day Brian Burgher
We’re here to shine and Peace and love pave the way goose.creek.treasurer@gmail.com
help your way Peace and love pave the way NEWSLETTER EDITOR
Catherine Cox, 301-471-5330
By using SPICES every day blycox@comcast.net
WEBSITE & FACEBOOK
www.goosecreekfriends.org
https://www.facebook.com/
“Only wait to know that wherein God appears in thy heart, even Goose-Creek-Friends-Meeting-
the holy seed, the immortal seed of life; that that may be discerned, 150892438287560/?rc=p
distinguished, and have scope in thee; that it may spring up in thy DONATIONS
heart, and live in thee, and gather thee into itself, and leaven thee Please direct donations for
Goose Creek Friends Meeting to
all over with its nature; that thou mayst be a new lump, and mayst Brian Burgher, P.O. Box 105
walk before God, not in the oldness of thy own literal knowledge or Lincoln, Virginia 20160 - OR -
donate online: http://www.goose-
apprehensions of things, but in the newness of his Spirit.” creekfriends.org/please-support-
– From a letter by Isaac Penington (1616-1679) goose-creek/