Hello Friends!

I am beginning to see photos of children standing on their front porches with fresh sneakers and backpacks.

In the coming weeks, many of us will be entering back into our normal routines as we wave goodbye to Summer 2022. I am looking forward to the next few months at West Hills Friends. I made a promise to communicate more as we enter into this new season as a community. My hope is that these letters will keep us all in the loop and moving towards something together.

It feels like I have been away from all of you for a long time. We left for a 10 day trip to Pennsylvania to visit family on August 10th. Three days later, and 3,000 miles away from home I tested positive for Covid-19 for the first time. I had planned to worship with all of you on Zoom on August 14th but I woke up that morning feeling as if I went toe to toe with Mike Tyson for a few minutes. Thankfully, our elders stepped in at the last minute and pulled together a lovely meeting for worship.

We returned from Pennsylvania on August 21st, and I am working all this week before leaving for a brief camping trip on August 27, returning on the evening of August 28th in time for my kids first day of school on the 29th. This means I will have missed three Sundays in a row. That is a long time.

I was worried about this prolonged absence at first. With Klarissa stepping down as one of our released ministers in July, it felt important to have some consistency from “the front.” But as soon as I felt that worry, I was reminded that there really isn’t a “front” at WHF. Our Quaker Meetinghouses reflect the hopes of our leadership structure, we sit in a circle together.

I knew our elders and all of the fine people who help make a Sunday meeting for worship happen were ready and capable to step in and create the space for all of you to worship. This is the beautiful Quaker way, and I am so thrilled to be a part of this way of doing things.

So I hope you will find a moment to extend some gratitude to our elders, our tech/sound folks, our musicians, Holly for holding things down in the office, Susanna and Caryl for continuing to create space for our children, and our nursery care worker Kelly Boylan for being with our babies and little kids. It is one big party of thankfulness.

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We have a few big Sundays coming up in September.

On September 11th we will celebrate the start of a new school year with our traditional Sundae Sunday event.

This is our way of ringing the dinner bell, letting everyone know that we are here, and ready for our children and families to join us once again for Godly Play.

We will launch a new year of Godly Play, and celebrate it all with ice cream sundaes following meeting for worship. We will plan to eat our treats outside, no one wants Covid-19 sprinkles on their whipped cream.

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The next big Sunday is QVS Sunday, September 25th

We will welcome the new Quaker Voluntary Service fellows to Portland as they visit West Hills for the first time. There are just three fellows this year. Below are some brief introductions to them. 

Quaker Voluntary Service (QVS) is an experiment at the intersection of transformational spirituality and activism, a year-long Fellowship program for young adults. The fellows will be living in SE Portland for the coming year, and will worship with one of the Friends meetings in town.

Our hope is to give them a flavor of WHF on the 25th with a special potluck following meeting for worship. Let’s fill our table for them to feast!

Mickey Alford - Portland QVS Fellow

Mickey (he/they) is a recent graduate from St. Olaf College, having completed a double major in Art History and French. Interested in art, social justice, and community organizing, he is excited to be a part of QVS, and to learn as much as he can!

Originally from Austin, TX, Mickey is a fan of sunny days and swimming in any body of water they can find. In their free time, Mickey enjoys dancing with their friends, eating fresh fruit, listening to Beastie Boys, and reading horror novels.

He is also a very enthusiastic hockey fan - ask him about the Philadelphia Flyers! He is over the moon about his placement with QVS, and is honored to be working with Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility this upcoming year.

Elizabeth Zhao - Portland QVS Fellow

Elizabeth (she/her) grew up in Edison, New Jersey. She is a recent graduate of Bryn Mawr College with a major in sociology and a minor in health studies. At Bryn Mawr, Elizabeth developed a passion for social change. Outside of classes, she has volunteered with the IRS Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program as a tax preparer and co-coordinator of the BMC program helping students and low-income taxpayers file their taxes and maximize credits and refunds. This coming year, Elizabeth is excited to grow and learn as a QVS Fellow at the Outside In East Clinic.

Jenna Thompson - Portland QVS Fellow

Jenna (she/they) grew up in Corpus Christi, Texas and graduated from Duke University in 2020 (on their couch at home). She then spent a little over a year living at Camphill Village Minnesota, a farm and intentional community of around 50 people. Most recently Jenna has been an au pair in Berlin, Germany, and she enjoys swimming in lakes, reading in parks, and going on long walks around the city. Jenna is looking forward to returning to community life, exploring Quaker spirituality, and serving with New Avenues for Youth in Portland this year.

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Conversations with Elders...

Lastly, I wanted to give you a glimpse into the conversations happening with elders about how things are functioning now that Klarissa has stepped down. The elders are meeting about twice a month at this point. Our meetings are full, as we try to assess the health of the meeting and make plans for the future. Right now the elders and I are strategizing about how best to meet the logistical needs of our community. We are finding creative ways to invite Friends to offer messages, as I still plan to bring 2-3 a month. We want to be sure that Friends still know that there is spaciousness in the worship calendar for messages, first word, and music!

We are also looking at worship facilitation. We may be experimenting with elders stepping in to facilitate parts of our gatherings to see how that feels. On Sundays I give a message it feels like a lot of Mark Pratt-Russum filling the space, so our hope is to create some diversity in voice on Sunday morning.

Looking back on the months of July and August it seems like a theme has emerged. Perhaps it is helpful to reflect on that. What was God saying to us? We had several messages on Truth, and how it is revealed to us. I wonder why this message came to us when it did? What is it asking us to consider? How might it serve us in the coming months? I don’t know the answers to those questions, but I trust they are there for a reason. I adore all of you and I look forward to these next few weeks with each of you.

With Love,
Mark Pratt-Russum
Tuesday, August 23, 2022

This report comes as our community received the news that our beloved Friend Klarissa Oh announced her decision to step down from her role as a Released Minister in our community. Klarissa will be rejoining OAASIS, an incredible non-profit that she co-founded.

We find ourselves in another season of transition. We have had quite a few of these in recent years. So, we’ve had opportunities to practice! A question for us to consider: What lessons have we learned from previous transitions? What should we be keeping in mind as we move forward? 

My hope in the coming weeks and months is to communicate as much as possible! A lesson I learned through previous transitions is that it is helpful to be more communicative rather than less. That is why I wanted to speak at the business meeting today and to share this with everyone afterward. 

Last week I spent a lot of time talking to folks about where we are at. On Monday I met with Mike Huber, as a friend and mentor to hear what wisdom he has about what pastoral leadership looks like in our present day. I also met with my former supervisor Peg Edera, mostly for me to verbally process what is going on in my brain/heart. Elders met on Thursday and most of our meeting was used to discuss our thoughts on the transition and to start making some preliminary plans.  From these three meetings, I wanted to share some initial thoughts and questions. 

I am operating under the assumption that we will not be seeking to hire an additional released minister in the near future. There is always danger in assumptions, and so I wanted to speak it out loud so that there is the opportunity for me to be corrected if I am wrong! This assumption comes from my knowledge of our current financial situation, knowing resources are tight. Over the last couple of weeks, I have oriented my thinking about the transition with that assumption, and so I have been trying to imagine what my role will look like, alongside Holly’s, to meet the needs of our community. 

The scope of my responsibilities now feels broadened, and in the last few weeks, I’ve noticed trying to get my head around that. I think there are a few ways for us to wrap our heads around the ongoing needs and goals of our community. The easiest way is to acknowledge the age range represented in our community, and the efforts we undertake to meet the unique needs of each of those demographics. From the care we provide in the nursery to newborns all the way to the care we provide for folks approaching the end of life. In between, we have folks in all sorts of various stages of life. 

We can also think about subcultures within our meeting. This is a natural and beautiful part of any community our size. Here are some examples:

• We have our beloved LGBTQIA+ Friends, and our continued welcome to that community.

• We have Friends who are politically active, seeking out opportunities for activism.

• We have Friends longing to have deeper conversations about the Bible, or particulars of the Christian faith.

• We have Friends longing to have conversations about Spirituality that are broader than Christianity.

• We have Friends wanting deeper interpersonal connections, and so who are looking for opportunities to fellowship together outside of Sunday mornings.

• We have artists looking to share their work with one another. We have folks who are working hard in conversations about race.

At the business meeting I asked those in attendance to list some other subcultures at West Hills. Here are some that folks listed.

• People who were present before and during the yearly meeting split and those who joined long after.

• People who have been attending West Hills during Mike Huber’s leadership, and those who joined after his departure.

• We have people with a broad connection to Quakerdom and those whose experience of Quakers is just at West Hills.

• We have Friends with previous experience with Evangelicalism and those who have not.

• We have Friends who have experienced trauma in the Church, and other expressions of the Christian faith. 

When we step back and look at the beautiful landscape of our community, and the needs and desires represented here, how can we structure ourselves to nourish these various groups and demographics? 

We have, as Friends, the expectation of shared leadership in our meeting. It is a beautiful and collaborative model, and I am already encouraged by several efforts currently being sustained by leaders in our community. We are also Friends who have committed to having released ministers and the expectation that some of the work we are being called to do is handed to me and Holly. I am so thankful that all of you have trusted us with this responsibility, and it is my hope that I can make you feel proud of the work I am doing. 

So, partly the question before us is a dance between acknowledging the gifts that Holly and I have to offer this community and the stated desires we and God have for this community. Holly works about 15 hours a week, covering many of the administrative, logistical, and technical aspects of our community. I am released for 40 hours a week, of which about half of that time is currently allocated to children and youth, and the rest to overseeing the pastoral needs of younger and older adults and the functioning of our Meeting.  

Our elders are holding a considerable amount of the tasks surrounding the health of the meeting, and all of you are holding the authority and responsibility of decision-making for our community. Going forward, I think there are a few ways of thinking about how to structure my released 40 hours so that I can come alongside all of the other leaders in our community in sustaining our Meeting, and seeing it into our future. 

First, I can imagine that we create a new structure for our children’s programming. Instead of the responsibility being just mine to oversee the children’s program, we move towards having a vibrant children’s program committee, of which I am happy to clerk. Spreading the responsibilities of the children’s program out to a larger group of people will ease the amount of pressure on Sunday mornings, and may also create the momentum to attract new families and children to our meeting. 

On a typical work week, I spend between 10-12 hours preparing for, and being with our teenagers. I anticipate continuing in this vein. The number of teens we have attending youth group is slowly dwindling, but we currently have about 15 active young people from middle to high school. 

It seems wise, at this point, for us to draw on our Quaker distinctive when it comes to shared leadership, and to feel the thrill and potential of it. I am imagining that my role as one of your released ministers will be less about trying to tend to all of the needs and desires of the subcultures and demographics we listed above, but rather to equip, encourage and support the leadership nudges of folks in our community who feel called to care for these various folks. 

If it wasn’t clear before, I hope we can be SUPER clear now…we hope you feel the hope and energy of creativity and potential at West Hills Friends when it comes to the ways in which you can be a leader. I imagine that I could structure my weekly and monthly schedule to meet with folks who are leaders in our community to find ways to support them and to come alongside them in their work. I want to set the intention of coming alongside and giving my support to leadings that individuals express in our community as a way to help create critical mass and momentum. 

This is less of a concrete plan, but more of a brain dump of what has been circulating in my brain for the last few weeks. Again, my intention is for open communication. My hope in regularly speaking about this is that we can continue to collaborate as a community as we step into this next stage of our life together. 

By Greg Morgan

Quakers speak often about the Light.  One particular Quaker, yours truly, cried his way through last night’s Christmas Eve meeting for worship, as I always do.  This year …

I cried tears of sadness, for the darkness in the world around me, near and far.  I cried tears of joy that on this night we celebrate a Light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never overcome it.

I cried tears of joy for the seeds of faith that were planted in me in my youth.  I cried tears of sadness for the shame I felt for years in expressing this faith, until the darkness almost overcame it.  Still, the Light persisted …

I cried tears of joy that God so loved the world as to make a home among us, to help us see the Light within us, full of grace and truth.  I cried tears of sadness for how often I still fail to see this Light.

I cried tears of joy to be in a community of those who celebrate this Light of all life.  I cried tears of sadness at how distant this Light still feels for so many.

I cried tears of joy for the many relationships that help me feel like a child of God on this night.  I cried tears of sadness for so many who feel unloved and abandoned.

I cried tears of joy for the work of sharing my piece of the Light with those who seek it, and for the gift of receiving the Light they share with me, whether they know it or not.  I cried tears of sadness that the need of the world for the Light is so great, and my piece of the Light is still so small.

And yet, my tears tell me, the Light shines in the darkness, and that Light is full of grace and truth.

“Holy Family Icon” by Kelly Latimore

On Wednesday, August 28, 1963, 250,000 people from all over the country assembled at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial all the way back to the Washington Monument for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. One of the two main organizers of the march was Bayard Rustin, a gay Black man who was a member of Fifteenth Street Meeting of Friends in New York City. 

“Thousands traveled by road, rail, and air. Marchers from Boston traveled overnight and arrived in Washington at 7 am after an eight-hour trip, but others took much longer bus rides from places like Milwaukee, Little Rock, and St. Louis. Organizers persuaded New York's MTA to run extra subway trains after midnight on August 28, and the New York City bus terminal was busy throughout the night with peak crowds.[55] A total of 450 buses left New York City from Harlem. Maryland police reported that "by 8:00 a.m., 100 buses an hour were streaming through the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_on_Washington_for_Jobs_and_Freedom#Security_preparations)

I think about our Quaker hero Bayard Rustin, and the incredible work he did to organize what will go down as one of the most important moments in human history. Whenever I see video footage from that day, the images of people pouring off buses is seared into my brain.  These people arrived not having been alerted by a Facebook event invite, or a retweet, or an e-mail newsletter campaign. 250,000 people, 75% of them black, felt the power of movement, they heard the spirit say move, and they moved. 

We find ourselves in the season of Advent. A time, we are told, of waiting. The natural world around us has gone dormant. Bulbs and seeds are hidden in the dark of the soil under our feet. We have fallen into a rhythm of life that accepts darkness as our new norm. We settle into our homes, and we cuddle up and we wait. 

While I certainly welcome the intentionality of hibernation, it also seems a bit odd, if you think about it, to be lifting up waiting and dormancy in this time when the story we remember is full of so much movement. 

Mary, days away from giving birth is roused up and along with her partner Joseph to leave Nazareth and go to Bethlehem. Did you know that when you type into a Google search bar, “miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem” you get driving directions? By car, you can make the trip in two hours and twenty-five minutes. They don’t have a donkey icon on Google to figure out donkey speed, but I clicked on the little person for walking directions, and it would take 33 hours of walking to get from Nazareth to Bethlehem. 

Friends. I have witnessed my partner carrying a full-term baby in her body twice now. While carrying our daughter at this point in her pregnancy I witnessed her walk up and down the steps of Mt. Tabor in an attempt to induce labor and I stood at the base of the steps with my son in the stroller in LITERAL shock. I can barely scale those steps on my own, let alone with another 8 POUND HUMAN BEING INSIDE MY BODY! 

All this to say. I CANNOT imagine the incredible physical sacrifice Mama Mary made to switch off between walking and riding a donkey while 9 months pregnant for 33 hours. Y’all, we may be enjoying warm blankets and Netflix on the couch in December, but Mary sure as heck wasn’t. She was moving. A likely scared, confused, bewildered teenage girl, told by an angel that she was carrying within her GOD. 

And the Shepherds, in the fields, blinded by light and told to get a move on. To come and check out the incredible thing happening. And the Magi, the stargazers who traveled from far off lands to bring gifts to the new King. And then right after Mary and Joseph welcome a baby into the world they are warned that the actual King was pretty upset about this whole new King jam, and so instead of returning home the way they came, they had to take another route, likely to avoid detection. I don’t know what route they took, but I’m assuming it wasn’t the most expedient one. And so now we have Mary and Joseph taking the back way home.

If you haven’t yourself traveled with a newborn, you’ve likely been in proximity to a newborn in transit. I think about Mary and Joseph having to stop alongside the road because Jesus was screaming his head off and Mary having to find a spot to nurse him. 

A bit of a rabbit trail, WHOA spend some time pondering that image right there. Jesus, God in human form was a HELPLESS newborn baby, who cried out for his mother, and who found comfort and nourishment in the warm embrace of his mother. Um, if that doesn’t get your poetic, symbolic juices flowing… 

ANYWAY. Can you imagine being a new mother, having to walk 35 plus hours back home with a newborn baby, a baby that you just found out the King wants to have murdered? 

They arrive home and the scripture says this, “13 When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” 14 So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, 15 where he stayed until the death of Herod.” 

Do y’all have any guess how many miles Egypt is from Nazareth? 

487 Miles.  

The first days, weeks, and months of Jesus’ life were with his teenage mother and father literally moving on long, hard journeys. 

And just like all the other circumstances of Jesus’ birth, there is profound foreshadowing of what is to come of this little baby, and the life and teachings he would live and die by. But the one thing I want to emphasize today is that Jesus was about movement from the womb and that we shouldn’t lose this point even in a season of waiting. 

Just like the people stirred in their hearts to board busses to Washington D.C. I believe that we, as folks who gather here in this setting as Quakers are a part of a movement. What scares me, is that the way we have chosen to assemble ourselves for the last two thousand years has done us a tremendous disservice to the legacy of a baby whose mission in life was not to create a religious tradition, but to create a MOVEMENT. 

I’m worried that our pews, pointing forward towards podium for thousands of years has conditioned us to believe that the primary work of being a Church is to spectate. 

I’m worried that our church services have become venues for spiritual TED talks or Christian pep-rallies. 

Why did a quarter of a million show up in Washington D.C? It wasn’t to hear Dr. King speak, it was because they were profoundly aware that they were a part of a movement, and at the heart of that movement were people of faith, people living in the legacy of a baby born in Bethlehem who came not just to say nice things, but to heal the sick, the dying, the blind, and flip tables in the temple, to tell those who have been forgotten and forsaken that he was there to build them a new place where they would know what it feels like to be welcomed, to belong, to be loved. He told his followers, time and time and time again that we shouldn’t be waiting for things to change politically, not to wait for a new president, not to wait until after we die to finally live in a place that is just but to do it now. He was the King they were waiting for, and the Kingdom being created was so profoundly absurd to the current Kings and future Presidents that it would seem foolish, and it would be disruptive and it might, as the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee revealed to the world, could get us killed. 

Dr. King’s last words were spoken to Ben Branch on that balcony and he said this, “Ben, make sure you play 'Take My Hand, Precious Lord' in the meeting tonight. Play it real pretty.”

Do y’all know the lyrics to that song? 

Precious Lord, take my hand

Lead me on, let me stand

I am tired, I am weak, I am worn

Through the storm, through the night

Lead me on through the light

Take my hand, precious Lord

And lead me home

When my way grows dreary

Precious Lord, lead me near

When my life is almost gone

At the river I will stand

Guide my feet, hold my hand

Take my hand, precious Lord

And lead me home

It’s a movement song y’all.

A question that sits at the heart of the future of faith communities, even ours is, “where are the young people at?” And many faith communities are trying all kinds of things to lure them in. But  I think so many of those attempts are missing the point entirely, and we only need to look at the sea of people standing in Washington in August of 1963 for the answer. People, regardless of age, want to be a part of a movement. We, as Quakers, live in the legacy of Friend Bayard Rustin, who knew the power of a movement. I feel and sense so much potential for West Hills Friends to be a generative space for building movements, for inspiring, for challenging, for organizing. 

In this season of advent, I’m not wanting to wait around for that to be born into the world, because Mary is already on the move, and that baby she carried has already been born. Mary birthed a movement. Let’s keep on moving. 

• When you think about being a part of a movement, what grows inside you? What stirs you?

• How might remembering that we are a part of a movement influence the future of our Quaker meeting?

• What might be getting in the way of us moving when the Spirit says move?

We at First Unitarian Church of Portland share the heartbreak of our nation at the escalating violence of gun terror in the United States. If you are in need of community and solace, you are warmly welcome to worship with us this morning at 10:15.

Since we last worshipped together, 53 people have been killed in mass shootings in our country. We mourn their lives, we denounce hate and terrorism, and we especially decry the growing racist vigilantism and toxic fragility that has emboldened the perpetrators to commit such atrocities.

We pray that we may each, and collectively, find the strength and clarity to engage in the real actions that might reverse this epidemic: enacting rigorous gun legislation, building resilient and connected communities, and engaging with all those who feel isolated, disempowered, and embittered to bring them back in to loving relationship with themselves and the world before they act on their hatred and fear. May we find in ourselves and our communities the strength and the faith to work for a better world. Amen.

- Rev. Mira Mickiewicz