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Events

Creative Listening for Our Quaker Future

September 02, 2022, 4 PM - September 04, 2022, 2 PM US/Pacific

~ Ben Lomond Quaker Center (California) and Elsie K. Powell House (New York) are pleased to invite Friends to a seven-part series of retreats they are cosponsoring September 2022 through June 2023 on the health and future of the Religious Society of Friends. The year-long series is called Testimonies to Mercy. Click here to read a full description of the series. This ambitious series features nine dynamic Quaker public ministers from the United States and the United Kingdom, intentionally representative of some of the diversity of identity and experience in Quaker community. Friends may participate in one or several of these retreats, which are designed to stand alone while contributing to larger conversations and development in the Religious Society of Friends. Individual retreat topics include education, the time to be tender, emotional separateness and openness, equality, truth, lament, and hospitality. While five of these retreats are available via Zoom only, the first and last are in person at Ben Lomond or Powell House. Ben Lomond is excited to serve as the host location for the very first retreat, facilitated by J.T. Dorr-Bremme of Forward in Faithfulness, and Windy Cooler, a public minister in the Quaker tradition from Baltimore Yearly Meeting. At this retreat, Creative Listening: For the Future of Our Quaker Communities, J.T. and Windy will engage Friends in deep listening to one another and in the development of skills to help us be better listeners at our meetings. Labor Day Weekend, September 2-4, 2022 Ben Lomond Quaker Center Click here to register. You can expect that this will be a playful and relaxing experience of spiritual development on the wooded grounds of Ben Lomond. Friends of all ages are welcome. Friends are encouraged to send members of local meetings to this retreat as a way of deepening corporate listening practices that are key to healthy communities back home. You may register for this retreat at either the links included above.