Moorestown Monthly Meeting

	Moorestown Monthly Meeting
Moorestown Meetinghouse		Mt Laurel Meetinghouse

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LIBRARY NEWS

New Materials

The Library Committee has purchased a number of new items for adults and children. Not all of them are on display or on the shelves yet. If you do not find what you are looking for in the library, please ask the librarian for help. She will be happy to move any items up on her “to-do” list so that you can borrow them about a week after your request. More materials will be coming in 2008. Watch the Weekly Bulletin, News Notes and this space for the addition of those items.

New books related to the

Adult First Day School’s

“Quakerism, Spirituality and the Arts”

Quakers and the arts: “Plain and Fancy” by David Sox. (704.286 Sox) The author covers an astonishing number of Quaker artists of all kinds (e.g., writers, actors) from our early history through the present.

The Quiet Eye: A Way of Looking at Pictures by Sylvia Shaw Judson. (704 Jud) Judson is best known to Friends for her statue of Mary Dyer. In this classic little book, she provides us with thirty-three pictures (some are of sculptures), covering a wide spectrum of subjects and styles. Each illustration is accompanied by a quotation she has chosen to help us affirm our sense of wonder and deepen our spiritual livesas we look at these works of art.

Centering: In Pottery, Poetry, and the Person by M.C. Richards. (701 Ric) Daniel Rhodes wrote of this classic at the time of its publication, “This book, in its form and in its content, seems almost without precedent. Its style flows directly with an intensity, an honesty, and a frankness which are rare. It is a poem, a sutra, a tract, a confession, a revelation, a guide to art and life.”

By Shaker Hands by June Sprigg. (289.8 Spr) This illustrated book covers the art and world of the Shakers – the furniture and artifacts, as well as the spirit and precepts embodied in their simplicity, beauty and functional practicality.

The Knitting Sutra: Craft as a Spiritual Practice by Susan Gordon Lydon. (746.42 Lyd) A reflection on finding one’s own spiritual path by pursuing one’s personal passion. The author finds in knitting a way to discover “the stillness within, a way to contact the soul.”

Bach: Advent Cantatas (CD 783.3 Bach Canta) John Eliot Gardiner conducts the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists.

Other new books

Holy Silence: The Gift of Quaker Spirituality by J. Brent Bill. (289.61 Bill) Several Friends and visitors asked for this book after it was quoted at our September 30 Open House. Another author has this to say: “Brent Bill reminds us that silence is a dwindling resource that needs to be preserved for the sake of our souls. If you are seeking to hear God’s spirit above the din, follow the instructions [Holy Silence] offers. Relax your body and mind. Breathe deeply. Pick up this book. And read. Can you imagine how silence might change your life?”

Mind the Light: Learning to See with Spiritual Eyes (248.4 Bill) Throughout this book J. Brent Bill uses boxes he calls “Illuminating Moments”: they contain practical suggestions for seeing the Light. Each ends with one or more queries. Here’s a sampling: “How will I practice learning to see? Will I use a camera? A pencil or pen, and paper? Or just my imagination?” and “What time can I remember when artificial light marked an emotional or a spiritual experience?”

Discovering God as Companion: Real Life Stories from “What Canst Thou Say?” (248 Dis) “What Canst Thou Say?” is a quarterly newsletter that gathers stories of Quakers sharing their mystical experiences and contemplative practice. This book includes some of the stories and poems published in the newsletter’s first

ten years.

The Quaker Bible Reader, edited by Paul Buckley and Stephen W. Angell. (220.67 Qua) The editors bring together essays by thirteen very different Quakers, all writing about books, themes or characters in the Bible that they hope will encourage Friends to engage the Bible, as Marty Grundy has put it, “…entering into a dialogue…, exploring your own assumptions about God, and deepening your relationship

with the Divine.”

Elise Boulding: A Life in the Cause of Peace by Mary Lee Morrison. (B Bou) This biography of the Quaker sociologist and social reformer does not neglect Boulding’s pioneering studies of the role of women in promoting peace. As the book blurb puts it so well, “…her ideas on transnational networks and their relationship to global understanding are seminal to modern peace studies and have led to Boulding’s status as matriarch of the 20^th century peace movement.”

New DVD

An Inconvenient Truth: A Global Warning is shelved with other DVDs on a shelf just to the left of the east windowsill.

Children’s Materials

We have a new compact disc for children: Animal Playground, a collection of songs from Putumayo World Music’s series called World Playground. All of the discs in the series enable children to hear different languages and music genres from around the world. Listening as a family is fun for all! Our disc is displayed on the children’s table: when we have a new CD for children, this one will join other CDs on a shelf to the left of the east windowsill.

Here’s a list of the books we have added for children since our last edition of this space.

Good Friends, by Judith Baresel (J 289.6920 Bare) is a collection of Quaker biographies in the form of a story about a First Day School class preparing to stage a play. Some fascinating trivia can be picked up by adults!

We’re Going to Meeting, by Abby A. Hadley is a classic picturebook introduction to Meeting for Worship for very young Friends, now with a new look. Now the line drawing illustrations depict a slightly racially diverse Meeting. We are keeping this small paperback in the toy box in the foyer, but please feel free to retrieve it from there and sign it out.

What Makes Me a Quaker? by Adam Woog is one in a series of books for children about different religions. It will be useful for our children to learn about how our faith and practice in PYM fit into the bigger picture of Quakerism in the world. It will be shelved at J 289.6 Woo.

The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig is a picturebook to be enjoyed by all ages – the title supplies the reason for its multigenerational appeal. The story will be wonderful for starting conversations about cooperation and how to respond nonviolently to threats – creatively! It also speaks to the way we “profile” people (and wolves). Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, said “Among the wittiest fractured fairytales around.” This new book will be on the display in the children’s area for a while and then it will be shelved at J F Tri.

A book for all of us, twelve to 102…

Quaking, by Kathryn Erskine deserves special mention. Its genre is usually referred to as “Young Adult Fiction,” but this book is appropriate for ages 12 through adult. When it is removed from the east windowsill display of newer books, it will be shelved with fiction for adults, on the 800s shelf on the south wall.

Quaking is written in the first person by Matt (Matilda, but don’t call her that!), a fourteen-year-old who has experienced domestic violence in her parents’ home. As a result, she has been shunted from one relative to another and she is confused about her identity when she arrives at the home of her last remaining relatives, a Quaker couple. In the early chapters some of Matt’s observations of Friends are hilariously on-point. As the story moves on, things become deadly serious. Matt is bullied at school and as the faith communities of the town begin to speak out against the war in Iraq, they are threatened by individuals in the community who see them as unpatriotic.

Moorestown Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)
118 E. Main Street • Moorestown, New Jersey 08057 • 856-235-1561 • mmm1802@verizon.net