Church guide

We are very happy that Mark Condo has accepted Reedwood’s invitation to serve as pastor. Mark and his family will move from Mansfield, Ohio to Portland this summer, and Mark will begin his service at Reedwood on August 1. Estamos muy contentos de que Mark Condo haya aceptado la invitación de Reedwood para servir como pastor. Mark y su familia se mudarán de Mansfield, Ohio a Portland este verano, y Mark comenzará su servicio en Reedwood el 1 de agosto.

Tomorrow is the final Center for Christian Studies class of the season. 6:30-7:45 in room 121. Coffee and snacks available. You are welcome, even if you haven't been to previous sessions.

Tonight...

Quaker women: save the date! Pacific Northwest Quaker Women’s Theology Conference June 24-28, 2020 Cascades Camp in Yelm, Washington Dear Friends, Your PNW Quaker Women's Theology Conference Planning Committee is preparing for 2020! It has been such fun to get to know one another and plan for our next time together. We are writing today to let you know of our progress for our 2020 conference. Time and Location for 2020 For the last couple of months we have been listening to your feedback and striving to honor people’s concerns about: varying locations between Washington and Oregon selecting a date that allows teachers and mothers of school-age children to attend improving ADA accommodations providing options for many diets without compromising variety needing a larger, more flexible plenary space We researched many possible venues, visited three, and made a deposit with Cascades Camp, near Yelm, Washington (southeast of Tacoma), for June 24-28, 2020! This lovely facility fits the above criteria and has a large acreage with walking trails, a lake for boating and swimming, and ADA facilities. Committee Changes There have been some changes to our committee. We were saddened to learn of the death of Joy Williams, our treasurer. We are grateful for her service and participation in the Conference and we pray for her family and friends as they grieve. Also, Kate Jaramillo has stepped down and Judy Maurer has joined us. In November of last year we met for a weekend-long in-person planning retreat on San Juan Island and have also utilized Zoom conference calls to regularly meet by video. Welcoming Self-Identified Women In our work together these last six months, the Spirit has taken us right to the heart of things: What does it mean that we are a women’s conference? Our discernment lead us to see that despite progress toward gender equality, “women only” spaces continue to be necessary given the harmful nature of our larger patriarchal and misogynistic social climate. Our Conference is an empowering and nurturing place for Quaker women, a space that allows us to use our voices, take on leadership, tell our narratives, and share our experiences of theology. However, we also recognize the complexity and fluidity of gender, which complicates the idea of how we understand who is a woman and thus who belongs at our Conference. If we do not address this deeper question of gender, then we risk participating in the same unhealthy systems for which we hope the Conference is a remedy. We researched the history of the conference and identified two unique aspects of its Quaker spirit from the beginning. First, the Conference is self-renewing every two years through the nature of being wholly planned by a new Spirit-led committee. Second, this gathering has always been committed to the healing and growth needed for its time. In 1995, at its inception, it brought together both unprogrammed and programmed friends who met and worked together while wrestling through mutual suspicion and judgement. Now, in planning for 2020, we feel strongly that the need for healing and growth in our time is in seeking to be inclusive of all self-identified women. In order to be faithful to the Spirit, we feel the Women’s Conference needs to claim, articulate, and embody a fuller and more nuanced understanding of what “woman” means. By default “women” means cisgender women, and the majority of our group are cisgender, that is people who find their gender and their sex at birth to be the same. Cisgender being the majority and the gender our culture normalizes, we want to be careful about ways we might contribute to the oppression or exclusion of marginalized genders. Inclusion begins with the language we use to define ourselves as a group to each other and to the public. Though transgender women and gender nonconforming people have attended the Conference before, nowhere in our materials do we welcome them openly. Through careful discernment and prayer, the Conference Planning Committee is committed to welcoming all self-identified women to the 2020 Conference. This wording recognizes we respect someone’s gender as defined by their internal personal sense of it, not by other’s assumptions or by the sex they were assigned at birth. Our materials will say that our event is “for cisgender women, transgender women, and anyone who identifies as a woman in a significant way.” To foster this leading, it would be helpful for the larger Conference community to use the term “self-identified women” in promoting the Conference. Of course, a statement is not everything. It is a good first step but we must back it up with education and action. The Planning Committee will work to bring our welcoming statement to life in practical ways through both the planning process and at the Conference itself. We also want to support the Conference community in the work of self-education, conversation, and prayer regarding gender inclusivity. Please feel free to contact any of us (emails below) at any time. The Planning Committee also recognizes other groups at the margins of our Conference including people of color, parents of young children, and young, working class and/or lower-income persons. We will continue to discuss and discern how the Conference can be more accessible for these folks, too. Please reach out if you have any suggestions. Please hold us in Love as we continue our work. We look forward to seeing you June 24-28, 2020!

All today's activities are canceled: Center for Christian Studies, Children's choir, Adult choir

Reedwood's offices are closed today because Portland Public Schools are closed. Because of ongoing weather uncertainty, all evening activities are canceled.

Looking forward to piano tuning day https://youtu.be/1Hqm0dYKUx4

We raised $1,000 towards this summer mission project

We don't do things by halves here. Big red tree-eater is providing entertainment for the pre-school

And what would the season be without Jose Feliciano? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZhhAD4EluY

And this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJt3Yrb93Xk

The tree looked good on the farm yesterday. It looks good in the chapel today. And the smell of fresh fir is wonderful. El árbol se veía bien en la granja ayer. Se ve bien en la capilla de hoy. Y el olor del abeto fresco es maravilloso.

It's beautiful - but will it fit on top of José's car?

It's almost completely wrapped in twine now. Ready to be loaded on José's car

Fresh trees are first shaken by machine to get the bugs off, then put through this baler. This is "our" tree being wrapped.

Buying a tree for the chapel

We don't do things by halves here. Big red tree-eater is providing entertainment for the pre-school

It's almost completely wrapped in twine now. Ready to be loaded on José's car

Fresh trees are first shaken by machine to get the bugs off, then put through this baler. This is "our" tree being wrapped.

Between 40 and 50 of us went to the ocean to learn about the creatures that live at different levels in tidal areas. Dwight Kimberly is a great teacher. Here are some of the group who went to Boiler Bay. My group went to Yaquina Head. We all met for a good seafood lunch at Mo's in Lincoln City.

Getting exciting on SE Steele Street

Never a dull moment at Reedwood

How many Quakers does it take to line up in the order in which we first came to Reedwood Friends Church? Answer: more than thirty and we did it pretty quickly, considering we'd just eaten a ton of pizza