Morningside Quaker Meeting

Black & Pink Pen-Pal Workshop, Sunday, February 18

On Sunday, February 18th, 2024 from 12:45 to 3:30 pm, come learn about Black & Pink NYC’s pen-pal matching program! Black & Pink is an organization our meeting supports that does prison and jail support for queer and HIV+ people. One of their main programs is their pen-pal matching program to connect incarcerated members with people on the outside who are interested in ongoing correspondence. Two organizers will come talk to us about the pen-pal program and other volunteer opportunities with Black & Pink. Then there will be time to either match with a pen-pal and write an introductory letter to them, or those who don’t want a pen-pal right away can write birthday cards to incarcerated members. Please join us and learn more about Black & Pink!

You are invited to Potluck! A Meeting for Eating!

Charlene Ray writes:

The NYQM working group, Concern for Quaker Living (CQL) invites you to a Meeting for Eating! It’s a potluck! Bring your favorite dish! Spill the tea on strength and joy. Let’s hear your thoughts and talents. More spiritual resiliency, health, Light, love and connection in 2024!

Meeting for Eating Potluck
Tuesday Evening, January 30, 2024
6:30 pm
Social Room, Brooklyn Meetinghouse
110 Schermerhorn Street

We ask that you test negative for COVID before this event.

“Voices for Peace” - Online Concert

Bernard Winter shares:

My wife Sandra has felt called to organize an on-line concert, titled “Voices for Peace”, in which she and twenty other artists from Israel, India, the United States and Europe will share songs, chants, and prayers from different traditions all expressing messages of hope, love and peace.

The concert will take place Saturday, December 30th at 1:00pm Eastern Time/ 12:00 Noon Central Time/ 10:00am Pacific Time.

There is a suggested donation of $10 - $25, but you can give as much or as little as you wish. All proceeds are going to Doctors Without Borders, which is working in 72 countries around the world, including assisting people affected by the conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, Israel, and Syria.

Here is the website: https://voicesforpeaceconcert.com

We would be honored to have you join us and spread the word among other like-minded friends.

Wishing you all the joy and peace of this season of light, Bernard and Sandra Winter

What I Brought Home and Left Behind with Mulumba Kazigo on December 14th

Robert Rose III shares:

In the fall/winter of 2023-2024, the Sing Sing Prison Museum will continue its virtual webinar programming with a new series called What I Brought Home and Left Behind: Formerly Incarcerated People Share Memories and Personal Collections. The next program is at 7 pm on December 14th, featuring Mulumba Kazigo, and will continue on the second Thursday of every month through March 2024. Pre-registration for each session is required; free. 13yrs and up.

Mulumba Kazigo’s story is one of resilience, transformation, and hope. A student and accomplished pianist, Kazigo’s life took an unexpected turn leading him to spend 15 years in the New York State prison system. Despite the challenges he faced, his journey is a testament to the power of the human spirit to overcome adversity and effect positive change. Today, as a free man, Kazigo is a voice for change, advocating for legal reforms and providing support to those who have endured similar experiences. His daily reflections and advocacy work underscore his commitment to justice and his desire to help others find the same liberation and peace he has achieved.

We all have things we collect and use to decorate our lives and places, things that ground us in our histories or encourage us to aspire to something better, items critical to daily life. Let’s apply this lens with previous residents of Sing Sing, and other correction facilities, and learn how ephemera and objects take on value inside a maximum-security correctional facility. Additionally, the SSPM will share an object from our collection at the start of each conversation drawing collections between the past and now. Participants will listen to a 30-minute presentation and then ask questions.

https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_sAyIU9ipTR64lA90zcSB8g#/registration

Interfaith Civic Leadership Academy accepting applications

Scott Blumenthal writes:

The Interfaith Center of New York is now accepting applications for the next cohort of the Interfaith Civic Leadership Academy. ICLA fellows are diverse clergy members, lay leaders, and faith-based activists working to improve the lives of New Yorkers. In a series of evening workshops, they build relationships across faith lines while learning effective strategies for community leadership, organizing, and advocacy. They then use these skills to create community projects that contribute to the civic life of New York. Each fellow receives $500 in grant funding for their community project, as well as a $500 personal stipend to honor their commitment to the program.

More details are available here: https://interfaithcenter.org/icla/

ICLA “is particularly interested in working with emerging faith leaders – with individuals who have some past experience in community leadership or social activism, but could still benefit from ICLA trainings. The program is not a ‘master class’ for seasoned faith leaders.” Information about previous ICLA fellows can be found here: https://interfaithcenter.org/icla-fellows/

The application shouldn’t take long to complete, so please apply if you’re interested! Or share the information with an emerging faith leader you think could benefit from the program.

Worship Sharing on Abundance Sept 30 in our Cemetery

Charlene Ray writes:

Concern for Quaker Living (CQL), a sub committee of the NYQM’s Ministry & Counsel invites you to a worship sharing gathering at the Cemetery.

How can we find abundance, confidence and trust?

We live in fragmented times, the earth is suffering, people are restless, hope is fleeting and tolerance and love are in short supply. Instead of embracing each other’s humanity and life itself, we argue, separate, form groups of “us” and “them”, and basically forfeit our voices and interest in listening to others.

But what about you?

Have you lost your voice, your ability to trust?

Are you finding an inward path to support you?

Isn’t it time to seek community, to share with an abundance of spirit, and to embrace the world around us?

Come to the Cemetery on Saturday, September 30th at 10:30 to share, to eat and to enjoy each other’s company.

Worship sharing starts at 11:00-12:00, followed by a potluck lunch.

If it is raining, come to 110 Schermerhorn, Brooklyn Friends Meetinghouse.

Braiding Sweetgrass, a worship sharing opportunity -- please join us!

Charlene Ray writes:

In cooperation with the Racial Justice Study Group, a series of 4 worship sharing times, using Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book, Braiding Sweet Grass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, 4 parts, beginning with pages 1-117 (Printed 2013, First paperback edition, Milkweed Editions, Canada). Some questions we will be interested in answering might be 1) what chapter was most interesting and why?, 3) are there ideas or practices that you might like to try? And 4) does any of this reading suggest a new view of Thanksgiving and/or Christmas?

Framed by Ernie Buscemi and Charlene Ray, we hope you will joing us on a journey into more expansive relationships\We will be starting October 22 and invite you to read and re-read this in the meantime. Our proposed reading schedule is something like:

October 22: Pages 1-117—Planting Sweet and Tending Sweetgrass
January 28: Pages 121-201—Picking Sweetgrass
February 25: Pages 205-300—Braiding Sweetgrass
March 25: Pages 303 to end

Here is a little bit about the book and the author from Wikipedia: The series of essays in five sections begins with “Planting Sweetgrass”, and progresses through “Tending,” “Picking,” “Braiding,” and “Burning Sweetgrass. This progression of headings suggests how Kimmerer’s book functions not only as natural history but also as ceremony which plays a decisive role in how Kimmerer comes to know the living world.

Kimmerer describes Braiding Sweetgrass as ”[A] braid of stories…woven from three strands: indigenous ways of knowing, scientific knowledge, and her story, the story of an Anishinabeckwe scientist trying to bring them together in service to what matters most.” She also calls the work an intertwining of science, spirit, and story.

Kimmerer, who is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, writes about her personal experiences working with plants and reuniting with her people’s cultural traditions. Robin Wall Kimmerer (born 1953) is an American Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental and Forest Biology; and Director, Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF). Born in 1953 in Upstate New York, her time outdoors rooted a deep appreciation for the natural environment. Kimmerer has a BS in Botany from State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. . She spent two years working for Bausch & Lomb as a microbiologist. Kimmerer then moved to the University of Wisconsin–Madison, earning her master’s degree in botany, followed by her PhD in plant ecology in 1983.

Countdown to Closing Rikers demonstration, August 31

Scott Blumenthal writes:

Hi, friends. Freedom Agenda, a member-led project, dedicated to organizing people and communities directly impacted by incarceration to achieve decarceration and system transformation, is organizing a demonstration at City Hall Park on Thursday, August 31. We will remind Mayor Adams that closing the Rikers Island jails by August 31, 2027 is the law and he must take steps now to comply with it. I hope you will join us if you feel led and are able. You can read about the demonstration and register to participate here.

Aug 12 Escape to Governors Island and visit with Indigenous artists

Ernie Buscemi and Charlene Ray write:

We invite you to join Morningsiders on an excursion to Governors Island. We plan to take the 9:30am Governors Island Ferry for a leisurely exploration, a 11:30am rendezvous at Little Eva’s for lunch (bring your own or pick up something from Little Eva or one of the several food trucks; Little Eva is on Liggett Terrace and is equipped with tables and chairs). After a leisurely lunch, we can amble over to 15 Nolan Park to visit the studio space of the American Indian Community House and their several artists in residence at 1pm. Let’s take time after this visit to have some sharing of our own learnings before heading back to the NYC bustle.

Everyone is welcome!! And it will help us if you can let us know you are coming so we can look for you; please RSVP charleneceis@gmail.com. We hope to see you there, rain or shine!!!

Both Governors Island and the American Indian Community House have more information on their websites and Facebook pages.

In Friendship,
Ernie Buscemi and Charlene Ray, for the Morningside Monthly Meeting, as we seek to have relationships with our Indigenous neighbors.

Hip Hop's 50th Birthday Jam

Miguel Herrera shares this information with Morningsiders:

On Friday August 11th, the birthday of Hip Hop, the Universal Hip Hop Museum is hosting Hip Hop’s 50th Birthday Jam. They will celebrate Hip Hop’s elements at Mill Pond Park (Exterior Street and 150th Street), next to the museum’s construction site in the Bronx. The event is free.

The party starts at noon EST with music, food, and drinks (of course), murals created by artists courtesy of Thrive Collective, including Tats Cru, Lady Pink, and Queen Andrea. Immediately following the visual art, RAPAMANIA, a rap showcase hosted by the iconic Van Silk, begins at 2pm EST. Next up, Red Bull BC One will host an Open Cypher, presenting a number of world-renowned breakers and local talent.

View the invitation on the Universal Hip Hop Museum’s website.