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March 27-29, 2009
Grief’s Compass: Finding North
A weekend with Patricia McKernon Runkle
Is it true, as Emily Dickinson says, that pain has no future but itself? Or do we dwell in possibility, as she also asserts? During a period of extended grief, Patricia McKernon Runkle came to find the poetry of Emily Dickinson and the image of the compass helpful in navigating this unknown territory. She conceives of south as the disoriented state of shock; west as what we have lost; east as what we still have; and north as the spiritual center that orients us and draws us forward into new life. This weekend, we will explore all points on grief’s compass, paying special attention to north. Using poetry, music, conversation, and reflection, we will honor each other’s grief and growth. Come where you are, as you are, and bring with you objects that symbolize what you’ve lost, what you still have, and what you feel you’re moving toward. Pay attention to your dreams, and bring them, too.
Songwriter Patricia McKernon Runkle has presented concerts, workshops, and ‘keynotes in song’ at many Friends’ venues, including Baltimore, New England, Lake Erie, and South Central Yearly Meetings, Earlham College, and Pendle Hill. Her recent experience has led her to understand grief as an essential human passage requiring patience, persistence, and passion. Her workshop evolved from a presentation she gave at Pendle Hill February 12, 2008; visit http://www.pendlehill.org/resources/lectures_reports_forum.php for more information and a link to the mp3 file of her talk.
$285/shared room; $360/private room; $200/commuter
March 27-29 , 2009
Are We Still A Dangerous People?
Changing the world by being a changed people
A weekend with Marge Abbott and Peggy Senger Parsons
This weekend will explore the spiritual qualities that once caused Quakers to be thrown in prison and legislated against as a danger to the realm. This "danger" grew out of the power of their worship and their faithfulness to the Light of Christ within. These set them apart from their neighbors and meant they were not cowed by threats or dangers to themselves or their property. Transformation, deep self-knowledge, a fearless faith, and a life lived out of a place of love and grace have all been visible in Friends’ demeanor at various points in our history. Are they alive and relevant features of your faith? What does this look and feel like in your experience? What other features might be crucial today? How might we support one another and be patterns in the world?
What does it mean to be "dangerous"?
- To be transformed
- To care more about the Still, Small Voice than the neighbors
- To act out of our faith, not our fears
- To enjoy paradox
- To be able to use the power of anger without getting angry
- To listen with an open heart.
Marge Abbott has been "released" by Multnomah Meeting, a liberal, unprogrammed meeting in Oregon, for a ministry of teaching and writing about Quaker theology and practice, often asking "What is being a Friend all about?" in the context of Friends worldwide. Marge and Peggy co-edited Walk Worthy of Your Calling: Quakers and the traveling ministry. Marge’s book reflecting on her own spiritual journey, “On Being Broken and Tender,” is scheduled for release by FGC Press in 2009.
Peggy Senger Parsons is the pastor of Freedom Friends Church in Salem (OR). She is a Quaker minister who preaches and teaches nationally and internationally. Peggy is a licensed professional counselor with a specialty in trauma healing and a certified spiritual director. She writes regularly on topics of spirituality. She received the Northwest Yearly Meeting 2001 Award for Excellence in Peace and Social Justice. Her blog is at sillypoorgospel.blogspot.com.
$285/shared room; $360/private room; $200/commuter
April 3-5 , 2009
Permaculture, Ecology, and Biodynamics: Design Ideas for Your Home and Garden
A weekend with Andrew Faust
Bring questions about your garden and home. Together we will explore permaculture ideas that can improve your quality of life, simplify your needs, and increase your family time. We will discuss organic gardening; building with local and natural materials; ecological lawn, meadow, stream, and wetland care; orchards; composting; off-the-grid water systems; and domestic and wild animal management. By cooperating with ecological processes we can create abundance and beauty.
Andrew Faust has been a certified permaculture designer since 1996 and a certified alternative school teacher since1993. For six years, he homesteaded off the grid in West Virginia, where he created the Center for Bioregional Living (www.homebiome.com). With 17 years of experience in bioregional education, Andrew is presently thriving on permaculture design work, teaching, consulting, and gardening in New York City and the northeastern United States with nonprofits, businesses, schools, communities, and homeowners.
$285/shared room; $360/private room; $200/commuter
April 3-5, 2009
Your Money or Your Life (YMOYL)
A weekend with Carolyn Hilles and Suzanna Schell
Are you looking for more clarity about your personal finances? Do you sometimes struggle with the question “what is enough?” This workshop is designed for those seeking to align their personal finances with their spiritual values. It can be challenging to step outside of the dominant consumer culture to look critically at how we use our resources. Your Money or Your Life workshops have helped many individuals and organizations handle their money more intentionally. Based on new revisions to the bestselling book by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez, the workshop will help participants learn strategies for understanding their spending, practice query-based discernment, recognize fulfillment, and align finances with life purpose. Participants prepare for the workshop by doing advance reading and collecting data. They will not be asked to share specifics about their finances.
Carolyn Hilles and Suzanna Schell are both members of Beacon Hill Monthly Meeting (MA) and have practiced YMOYL principles for more than ten years. Carolyn has taught YMOYL at Pendle Hill, Woolman Hill, and Friends General Conference, among other venues. Her article “Our Money and Our Lives” was published in the July 2006 Friends Journal on Friends 
and Money, available online at http://www.friendsjournal.org/our-money-and-our-lives. Suzanna is a fundraiser for the arts, environment, and education. She serves on the Permanent Board of New England Yearly Meeting and the Development Committee for Friends Council on Education and is a founder of Friends Organizations of New England. Suzanna is passionate about helping people align their values and their giving to realize their dreams for a better world.
$285/shared room; $360/private room; $200/commuter
April 10-12, 2009
Love Made Complete in Us
An Easter Retreat with Deborah Shaw
Early Friends believed that dwelling in the Christ Spirit was the key to unity or oneness with God - a possibility immediately and intimately accessible to all of humanity. The Kingdom of Heaven was not a distant promise, but attainable today and every day. At this time of renewal, let us consider how we respond to that precious Love and Light, the ever-present gift of Christ alive in us, the invitation of the Kingdom here and now.
Deborah Shaw is assistant director of Friends Center and associate in Campus Ministry at Guilford College. She engages Friends' diversity through work at the college with the Quaker Leadership Scholars Program, Friends Association for Higher Education, and traveling in the ministry among Friends. She serves on the Pendle Hill Board of Trustees and is a recorded minister and member of Friendship Meeting (NCYM-C) in Greensboro (NC).
$285/shared room; $360/private room; $200/commuter
April 13-17, 2009
Balancing Head and Heart through Midrash:
Creative Expression of Sacred Stories and Central Questions
A short course with Carrie Newcomer and Faith Kirkham Hawkins
Within Jewish tradition, sacred texts are renewed through midrash – the creative retelling of the important stories, themes, and questions, connecting ancient wisdom with modern insights. Retelling biblical and sacred stories remains an important way for us to creatively and intellectually consider the central questions. We will read biblical and other texts deeply, engaging them creatively through writing, journaling, visual arts, and music. Participants will explore ways the traditional wisdom speaks to the questions we face now – personally and as a community. The course is open to those new and experienced in these creative arts. For the experienced, it will encourage a deepening of your work and exploration of new tools. For newcomers, it will be conducted in a nurturing and accepting environment for all.
| “To my mind - a writer’s mind - Carrie Newcomer is much more than a musician. She’s a poet, storyteller, snake-charmer, good neighbor, friend and lover, minister of the wide-eyed gospel of hope and grace.” - Barbara Kingsolver, author of The Poisonwood Bible. |
Carrie Newcomer has recently released her eleventh critically acclaimed album. Awarded a Grammy for songwriting in 2003, she has performed throughout North America and Europe. A practicing Quaker with dedicated involvement with peace, justice, health, and environmental organizations, Carrie leads workshops in songwriting/creative writing, vocation /activism, and faith. For more information, visit www.carrienewcomer.com.
Faith Kirkham Hawkins is a biblical scholar and author who has taught at Emory University, Candler School of Theology, and Gustavus Adolphus College. She has a passion for exploring biblical and other texts as companions on the journey toward the Holy. An amateur artist, Faith finds clay work, writing, and weaving generative ways of revisiting central questions through creative exploration.
$490/shared room; $585/private room; $375/commuter
This course qualifies for our Bring a Friend Discount. Learn more here
Hear Carrie Newcomer in Concert, Tuesday, April 15, 8:00 p.m.
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April 19-23, 2009
Some Poets, Some Mystics
A short course with Paul Lacey
Starting with the Bible’s great love poem, the Song of Songs, and sermons probing mystical meanings by Bernard of Clairvaux, we will explore the interplay between several mystics and poets from the medieval to the contemporary. Included will be “The Showings” of Julian of Norwich and the Denise Levertov poems they inspired, brief excerpts from the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola and poems of W.B. Yeats, Mary Oliver, and Gary Snyder. Immerse yourself for four days in some of the most beloved poetry of spiritual experience.
Paul Lacey is professor emeritus of English Literature at Earlham College . He clerks the board of the American Friends Service Committee. His writings include Growing Into Goodness: Essays on Quaker Education, three Pendle Hill pamphlets, and most recently, “Denise Levertov: Testimonies of the Lived Life,” in Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature.
$490/shared room; $585/private room; $375/commuter
This course qualifies for our Bring a Friend Discount. Learn more here
April 19-23, 2009
Our Quaker and African American Ancestors
What can we learn from their past interactions?
A short course with Vanessa Julye and Donna McDaniel
For the past seven years, Donna and Vanessa have researched and written “Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship,” their book about the complex relationship between Quakers and African Americans. Studying Quaker abolitionists, educators, and civil rights workers over that time has given them insights they are eager to share. What can we learn about meeting attempts to “diversify” from the experience of the integration of Quaker schools? How does the abandonment of Reconstruction help us understand racism today? To what extent does European-American culture impede sharing the Quaker message with the wider world? The course will also provide an opportunity to learn some African American history most of us didn’t learn in school.
Donna McDaniel has enjoyed many careers and avocations—teacher, counselor, community activist, journalist, editor, singer in two choruses, and volunteer with inner city “youth at risk.” But researching and writing “Fit for Freedom” has been the great passion of her seven decades, surpassed only by the opportunity to mine the riches of the book with Friends and others. A member of Framingham (MA) Friends Meeting, she holds a B.A. in History from Tufts University and a M.Ed. from Boston University .
Vanessa Julye is an author, speaker, workshop facilitator, and coordinator for Friends General Conference’s Committee for Ministry on Racism. She is a Quaker leader who invites Friends meetings, communities, schools, and colleges to explore the topic of racism, and assists them with developing processes to heal from the wounds that racism has caused. A member of Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, she holds a B.A. in Psychology from Temple University .
$490/shared room; $585/private room; $375/commuter
This course qualifies for our Bring a Friend Discount. Learn more here
April 24-26, 2009
Advanced Clerking Clinic
A weekend with Arthur Larrabee
Many Friends have gotten their grounding as clerks from Arthur Larrabee's popular "Clerking: Serving the Community with Joy and Confidence." In this experimental weekend clinic (piloted at North Pacific Yearly Meeting) Arthur will focus on the experiences, issues, and questions raised in advance by participants in their applications. This practical interactive workshop is for those with extensive clerking experience or those who have taken a basic clerking workshop and have had some clerking experience. Please contact registrar@pendlehill.org for an application.
Arthur Larrabee, a lifelong Friend and a member of Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, has led many workshops on clerking. He has served as clerk of his meeting, the Committee in Charge of Westtown School, and Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (PYM), as well as numerous committees and boards. He currently serves as General Secretary of PYM.
Limited to 30
$285/shared room; $360/private room; $200/commuter
April 26-May 1, 2009 (Sunday to Friday)
Light Then and Now – A Tour of Quaker Philadelphia
A short course with Stan Banker
Within Philadelphia and the surrounding area reside powerful truths to the Quaker testimony. During this week we will visit together the places, people, and experiences that nurtured the witness of early Quaker faith and practice and discover what they have to teach us today. We will also look at the Quaker influence upon American democracy and religious freedom. The week will be sprinkled with delightful additional group activities such as “A Funny Look at Friends” and “Songs of Faith.” The tour will combine information, inspiration, fellowship, and fun in abundant servings.
Stan Banker is pastor of Indianapolis First Friends Meeting, author of Walk Cheerfully the Middleroad, Quaker Lite, and Quaker Lite 2½, former editor of Quaker Life magazine, and a guest speaker among Friends and others. He and his guitar, Beulah Mae, enjoy playing together songs of faith.
$610/shared room; $710/private room (includes meals, transportation, and entrance fees)
This course qualifies for our Bring a Friend Discount. Learn more here
May 1-3, 2009
Beyond Abstinence – Taking the Steps to Happy, Joyous, and Free
A weekend with Maia S.
In this program we will explore how to achieve the promises of recovery, especially the happy, joyous, and free life promised in the 12 th step. We will use the AA Big Book as our text. Feel free to bring the book your program uses. We will also examine how the Program’s principles compare and contrast to Quaker traditions.
This program is not about how to achieve abstinence; six months abstinence and familiarity with the steps is a prerequisite. We will meet, eat, and sleep at the Brinton House Conference Center, so anonymity is assured.
Maia S. has been active in several 12-step programs since 1985 and has over 20 years of continuous abstinence from alcohol. In a life visited with some significant challenges, she has found a faith that works in the 12-step process and a rich, full, rewarding life which is indeed, happy, joyous, and free. More information about Maia is available from the registrar.
$285/shared room; $360/private room; $200/commuter
May 1-3, 2009
Sacred Circle Dance: Celebrate the Rebirth of Spring
A weekend with Joan Rawles-Davis and Peggy O’Neill
For millennia people have danced in circles to honor the sacred in their human experiences. Sacred circle dances celebrate our connection to the rhythms of the earth, to each other, and to our spiritual selves. Drawn from many cultures, some dances are lively, many meditational, but all are done with a spiritual intention. Simple repetitive steps allow us to give ourselves over to the deepening spirit that can grow by dancing together to glorious music. Dancing will be interspersed with worship sharing and time for journaling or meditation. During part of the weekend, we will weave the maypole, an ancient celebration of the rebirth of spring. No prior experience is necessary; each dance is gently taught.
Peggy O'Neill is a longtime member of Richmond Friends Meeting (VA). She has taught dance classes and workshops for over twenty years, and leads Sacred Circle Dances for people of all ages at her monthly meeting and at regional and national Quaker gatherings. Peggy loves the powerful sense of community and love created when we are fully present in our bodies in the moment.
Joan Rawles-Davis is a longtime Quaker who has taught Sacred Dance for ten years. She has brought dance to weddings and birth-days, hospice groups, croning ceremonies, and a state mental hospital. Dance is for her a form of worship: a meditation for grounding, a healing for pain, a celebration for joy.
$285/shared room; $360/private room; $200/commuter
May 3-7, 2009
Mixed Blessings: The Legacy of William Penn
A short course with Paul Buckley
Between 1660 and 1690, the Religious Society of Friends redefined itself, its relationship to other Christians, and the wider world. Rather than claiming to be the only true Christians, we positioned ourselves as merely one among a variety of acceptable expressions of Christianity, differing only in non-essential ways from other Protestants. This “re-branding” was at the heart of William Penn’s campaign for official toleration. Come meet the man who saved Friends from persecution, established a new Quaker homeland in North America , and forever changed the shape of our society.
Paul Buckley has given many years of service to the Friends – most recently as a teacher and a writer. His book, Twenty-First Century Penn, re-introduced some of William Penn’s theological works to a modern audience. Paul offers short courses, workshops, and retreats to Friends’ gatherings across the Quaker spectrum and teaches occasional Quaker Studies courses at the Earlham School of Religion.
$490/shared room; $585/private room; $375/commuter
This course qualifies for our Bring a Friend Discount. Learn more here
May 15-17, 2009
Black Fire: Black Quakers on Spirituality and Human Rights
A weekend with Hal Weaver and Stephen W. Angell
Black Quakers constitute more than half the world's Quakers. Over the past 200 years African-American Quakers have made major contributions to society, culture, education, life, science, polity, and economy. Join two Quakers passionate about shedding more light on the rich legacy of such eminent Black Friends (and friends of Friends) as Paul Cuffe, who led a Back-to-Africa movement for free African Americans in the 18th century; pioneering Harlem-Renaissance writer Jean Toomer; sociologist Ira Reid; spiritual leader Howard Thurman; lawyer-activist Mahala Ashley Dickerson; slave-narratives' scholar Charles Nichols; and civil rights activist Bayard Rustin. What have these seminal thinkers to say to us today as activists, as Friends?
Over the past 40 years, Hal Weaver has taught, published, lectured, organized film festivals, consulted, and conducted workshops in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas on African and African-American studies. A graduate of Westtown and Haverford with a doctorate in international education from UMass at Amherst, Hal focuses on using the arts to enhance
racial justice and international understanding through The ChinaFilm Project, The BlackFilm Project, and The BlackQuaker Project. He is the initiating editor of "Black Fire: Black Quakers on Spirituality and Human Rights," forthcoming from FGC Press.
Stephen W. Angell is the Leatherock Professor of Quaker Studies at the Earlham School of Religion. A past chair of the Afro-American Religious History Group of the American Academy of Religion, he has published widely on African-American religion, including Black Methodists and Quakers. His books and articles on African-American religion include Bishop Henry McNeal Turner and African American Religion in the South. With Hal Weaver and Paul Kriese, he is a co-editor of "Black Fire."
$285/shared room; $360/private room; $200/commuter
May 15-17, 2009
Playing in the Light: A Godly Play® Workshop for Quakers
A weekend with Michael Gibson, Caryl Menkhus, and Melinda Wenner Bradley
Co-sponsored with the Religious Education Committee of Friends General Conference
Are you looking for a dynamic, Quaker-friendly approach to religious education and the Bible that is open-ended and that honors the spiritual lives of children? Are you looking for a curriculum for children between the ages of 3 and 12 that offers consistency, meaningful engagement and rich pay-off to both teachers and children? Are you looking for material that can also be used effectively in multigenerational settings? Many Friends have found that the Montessori-inspired approach known as Godly Play® is all of these and more. Not a method you can use just from reading a lesson plan or seeing a demonstration, Godly Play® requires some training and practice. Be nourished in the relaxed environment of Pendle Hill as you experience Godly Play® for yourselves and get the training and practice you’ll need to use it.
Michael Gibson is Religious Education Coordinator for Friends General Conference. First exposed to Godly Play® at an all-adult ecumenical meeting, he was amazed how a familiar Bible story could work in him for weeks after experiencing it through this method. Certified as a Godly Play® teacher, he is active in the Faith & Play Working Group (formerly the Godly Play ® Working Group) of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.
Caryl Menkhus pastors a programmed meeting in Camas (WA). She began to see how Godly Play® could serve the distinctive spirituality of Friends when Godly Play ® founder Jerome Berryman was scholar-in-residence at her Quaker meeting. Caryl is a certified Godly Play® trainer and teaches children's spirituality at George Fox Seminary.
Melinda Wenner Bradley, a member of West Chester Monthly Meeting (PA), serves on the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Children's Spiritual Life Committee and the Faith & Play Working Group. A certified Godly Play ® teacher, she teaches history and Quakerism at Westtown School and draws spiritual insight and inspiration from her three young children.
$285/shared room; $360/private room; $200/commuter
May 22-24, 2009
Nouwen, Then - Nouwen, Now
A weekend with Ron Hooker
Henri Nouwen believed that the most personal is also the most universal. In over 40 books he intimately shared his spiritual insights, struggles, and life’s journey from diocesan priest to academia (Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard) to life with developmentally disabled adults in a L’Arche community. In this workshop, we will focus on Reaching Out, which Nouwen considered “closer to me than anything I have written” and in which he articulates his “most personal thoughts and feelings about being a Christian.” We will consider the three movements Nouwen explores: from Loneliness to Solitude; from Hostility to Hospitality; from Illusion to Prayer.
Ron Hooker, pastor emeritus of Grace United Church of Christ in Columbus (OH) was one of Henri Nouwen’s students at Yale Divinity School and maintained a friendship with him until two years before his death. For more than 20 years, Ron taught a college course on religion and psychology using Reaching Out as one of the principal texts. Ron enjoys introducing his friend Henri Nouwen to others in workshops and Catholic mission settings.
$285/shared room; $360/private room; $200/commuter
May 29-31, 2009
Lay Down the Burden and Rest
A weekend with John Calvi
Many of us are called to carry the Light to dark places in difficult times. Do we understand that the Light is strong and we are fragile? How can we witness deep hurt and continue to refresh our own deep love of life? Do we remember that compassionate care givers must also be attentive care takers? This weekend will be a time to rest and relax deeply from hard work – interior work and work in the world. And a time to learn smoothness in self-care, pragmatic compassion, and balancing towards our best selves. Some gentle touch, some questions, some naps.
John Calvi returns to Pendle Hill after a yearlong sabbatical celebrating 25 years of humanitarian service in the world. A Quaker healer working with trauma survivors, John has been teaching at Pendle Hill since 1990. More information at www.johncalvi.com.
$285/shared room; $360/private room; $200/commuter
May 31-June 4, 2009
Great Gardens of the Philadelphia Region
A short course and tour with Adam Levine and guests
At the horticultural epicenter of the United States , the Philadelphia area is blessed with more public gardens than almost any other region in the world. We invite you to stay at Pendle Hill, which itself qualifies as an arboretum, and sample some of these garden riches guided by the author of A Guide to the Great Gardens of the Philadelphia Region. We will visit a selection of Quaker gardens in Philadelphia , several of the du Pont gardens (including the recently renovated 225-acre Nemours estate), Chanticleer, and some community and private gardens. Illustrated lectures in the evening with regional gardeners will prepare you for the gardens you will see the following day. There will be opportunities for early morning photography, mid-day respites, and some surprises.
Adam Levine is an award-winning garden writer whose work has appeared in many regional and national magazines. In addition to A Guide to the Great Gardens of the Philadelphia Region, he co-authored The Passion for Gardening and The Philadelphia Flower Show. Adam lives and gardens near Pendle Hill in Media , PA , and regularly leads tours of Delaware Valley gardens.
Limited to 13
$685/shared room; $765/private room (includes meals, transportation, entrance fees, and a copy of A Guide to the Great Gardens of the Philadelphia Region.
