Home › Programs & Courses › Summer Term Core Courses
These courses meet weekly. Resident students may take any or all of them.
So What Are Quakers Quaking About?
Quaker Faith and Practice in the 21st Century
Rebecca Mays
The Religious Society of Friends is the "new kid" on the block of the world's religious neighborhood with a history of only several hundred years. Yet an early visionary, Mary Penington, felt she had come into "a Power greater even than the Quakers at their first coming forth" when she worshipped in their midst. Her ministry is a testimony to that power of the Spirit which manifests anew in every generation. As Quakers we strive to create and make vital the kind of community in which this renewal happens; how do we do so facing challenges and opportunities our founders never dreamed of?
In a porous and perilous world, the Quaker tradition offers a generous theology and space for worship to help us know what to do next. In this course we will learn of that theology and practice the worship. To do so, we will read the testimonies to the experiences of quaking in the Spirit in the spiritual autobiographies of Isaac and Mary Penington, John Woolman and Elizabeth Hudson, John Gurney and Elizabeth Fry, Elias and Rachel Hicks, and select contemporary Friends since the 19th century splits. We will worship with the Pendle Hill community and do our own worship-sharing and journal work to encounter our own spiritual autobiographies.
In three of six sessions we will study scriptural texts with invited guests from the Jewish, Islamic, and Evangelical Christian traditions to help re-interpret the sources of religious violence in each of our traditions. We will also increase our understanding and respect of the sources of what George Fox called that "Power that takes away the occasion of war." In an era of religious violence, we will identify what steps we need to take to deepen our faith and open to a transforming energy that, indeed, makes us quake with the spirit of Love and Truth that is our testimony in the world.
Rebecca Kratz Mays graduated from Earlham College. She earned a Masters in Folklore and Folklife at the University of Pennsylvania, where she did her thesis work on the aesthetics of Quaker simplicity, comparing Quaker community with Anabaptist communities. She served at the Friends Schools in Ramallah. For twenty years she was editor of Pendle Hill books and pamphlets and for ten years she taught in the Pendle Hill Resident Program. Currently she directs a Master's program in English and Publishing at Rosemont College near Philadelphia. She serves as clerk of her meeting's worship and ministry committee and as clerk of Friends Association for Higher Education. She is the mother of two young adults who continue to be her spiritual mentors.
Communter fee: $268 (6 classes)
Prophetic Community/Prophetic Leadership
Zachary Moon
This course will explore the prophetic possibility in our personal lives and in the lives of our communities. How can we give voice to our deep lament as we seek to tear down systems of violent oppression even as we proclaim and make manifest the lived-alternative of God’s Kingdom? How do we personally surrender to God’s order and how can we help catalyze the necessary corporate surrender of our faith community? How can models like the early apostolic church, Bonhoeffer’s underground seminary, Gandhi’s ashram, and Ella Baker’s vision of leadership development serve to inspire and clarify our lived faith today?
Zachary Moon is a lifelong Friend, originally from Berkeley, California. He has worked amongst Quakers at the local, regional, and national levels, leading workshops in the Bible, Quaker tradition, theology and practice, and building vibrant, faithful community. He is currently a student at Chicago Theological Seminary and has been a member of the Pendle Hill staff since the winter of 2007.
Communter fee: $268 (6 classes)
Earthen Vessels: Clay as Meditation and Play
Francis Elling
Come explore our connection with earth and spirit through playing and praying with clay. We will transform mud into treasures by creating forms, dressing them in glaze or slip, and offering our creations to the fire. With the help of meditation, silence, music, collaboration, support, and simple tools, we will create using hand-built methods and the potter’s wheel. Bring a willingness to risk, to share discoveries, and to call on the creative spirit that dwells in each of us.
Francis Elling was a 2005-2006 Minnie Jane artist-in-residence at Pendle Hill and has taught in the summer term ever since. With an M.S.W in mental health and a fourteen-year career as a social worker in Kansas, Francis began his career as a potter five years ago, studying on his own and at the Lawrence County Arts Center. He took two awards at the juried Muldane Art Fair in Topeka and held his first one-person show in May 2005 at the Topeka Arts Council. Francis is a member and former clerk of Oread Friends Meeting in Lawrence (KS).
Commuter Fee: $240 (5 classes)
Panna Flower
Early morning drop-in classes by yoga teacher Panna Flower are offered free to summer program participants.
Panna Flower has taught yoga for 34 years. She is Kripalu certified with five years in residence at the Kripalu Center. Panna’s in-depth training and experience as a nationally certified massage therapist and her master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling also enhance her skill in working with a wide range of abilities.
For more information and an application, contact admissions@pendlehill.org or call ext. 3 at 800-742-3150 (US only) or 610-566-4507 (worldwide).
