Quaker Town Crier – November 8, 2025

Dear Member of the Midlothian Friends Community,

In this issue: Circle of Friends Reading; Meeting for Discernment; MFM’s Food Collection for Food Banks; New Donations to MFM’s Library; Leaf Blow-a-Thon; November Charities at the Thrifty Quaker

First, please read and take action on this important MFM communications request:  Some of the weekly “MFM update” email messages I sent on October 31st ended up in spam folders. To prevent this from happening in the future, please check your spam and junk folders. If you find emails from clerk@midlothianfriends.org, they are from me. Please mark them as not spam. This simple action on your part notifies your email provider that MFM’s clerk of meeting messages are not spam, and it's a key step in preventing future filtering issues. I understand that email providers like Gmail and Outlook require time to evaluate the legitimacy of new email addresses that frequently send mail to more than ten recipients per email. Also, kindly add clerk@midlothianfriends.org to your contacts.  Thank you – Claudia

 

There’s much happening at MFM this week and in the near future.  Join us, your presence is a gift!

 

Circle of Friends  Sunday, November 9, 2025

10:00 – 10:45 at the Meeting House and on Zoom

Selected reading to prompt reflection and discussion:

 

What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?   Micah 6:8

God is love.  1 John 4:16

What is the meaning of “love” here?  Some thoughts: 

The Greek language has another word [for love]. It calls it agape. Agape is more than romantic love. Agape is more than friendship. Agape is understanding, redemptive goodwill for all [human beings]. Agape is an overflowing love, a spontaneous love, which seeks nothing in return. And theologians would say that it is the love of God operating in the human heart. When you rise to love on this level you love all [people], not because you like them, not because their ways appeal to you, not because they are worthful to you, but you love all [people] because God loves them. And you rise to the noble heights of loving the person who does the evil deed while hating the deed that the person does. And I think this is what Jesus means when he says, “Love your enemies.”

– Martin Luther King, Jr., from a 1961 sermon delivered at the Detroit Council of Churches’ Noon Lenten Services

 

Agape love is…profound concern for the well-being of another, without any desire to control that other, to be thanked by that other, or to enjoy the process.

– Madeleine L’Engle

 

Compassionate love is an attitude toward other(s), either close others or strangers or all of humanity; containing feelings, cognitions, and behaviors that are focused on caring, concern, tenderness, and an orientation toward supporting, helping, and understanding the other(s), particularly when the other(s) is (are) perceived to be suffering or in need. 

– Sprecher S, Fehr B, from “Compassionate love for close others and humanity” in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 2005; 22:630

 

 

Meeting for Discernment  Sunday, November 9, 2025

11:00 – 12:00 at the Meeting House and on Zoom

Reflections:  

It is important for Friends to have clearness regarding matters brought to the meeting for discernment.  The basis for Friends method of reaching decisions as a community is a spiritual one.  Adapted from Faith and Practice, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (2018)

Central to the Quaker understanding of unity-based decision making is Fox’s idea that there is “that of God in everyone.”  Michael J. Sheeran, from the 2013 Resource for Faith & Practice of the Baltimore Yearly Meeting (reprinted in 2019)

Agenda:

  • Wild Roots Homeschool Group request to use MFM building and grounds

– Hannah Scarborough, Vice President, and Jessica Roland, Treasurer

  • Midlothian Friends communications update  

Peter Farago, Clerk, Records and Technology Committee

MFM’s Food Drive – please donate items from the list below!

MFM will be collecting food during the months of November, December and January for donation to either Feed More or the Chesterfield Food Bank Outreach Center.  If you can, bring something from the list below and drop it off in the collection box in the Meetinghouse kitchen.  Brian McCutcheon and Lucretia Farago will make sure it reaches the donation center.  Anything you give is very much appreciated. 

Most Needed Items:

  • Nut butters
  • Canned proteins
  • Canned soup and vegetables
  • Canned fruits 
  • Tomato products
  • Beans and lentils (cans or bags)
  • Cereal (hot or cold)
  • Pasta, rice, and whole grains
  • Healthy snacks, dried fruits, and nuts
  • Condiments
  • Oils
  • Spices

Low-salt, low-sugar items are especially needed.  But please no glass containers (they break easily).   Thanks!

Recent donations to MFM’s Library

These books are currently located on the bookshelf in the downstairs committee room. Check them out (figuratively and literally!)

    

  • The Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben
  • Horizon, by Barry Lopez
  • Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County, by Kristen Green
  • The 1619 Project, created by Nikole Hannah-Jones
  • Between The World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
  • Medgar & Myrlie / Medgar Evers and the Love Story That Awakened America, by Joy-Ann Reid
  • The Warmth of Other Suns / The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, by Isabel Wilkerson
  • The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
  • James, by Percival Everett
  • How To Be An Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi
  • White Fragility / Why It's So Hard For White People to Talk About Racism, by Robin DiAngelo
  • How The Word Is Passed / A Reckoning With The History of Slavery Across America, by Clint Smith
  • The Night is Long but Light Comes in the Morning / Meditations For Racial Healing, by Catherine Meeks

 

MFM’s CHRISTMAS Leaf Blow-a-Thon!!

Sunday, December 7, 2025   12:15 – 2:00pm

We hope you can join us for some old-time Christmas fun!

Midlothian Friends Meeting invites you to our Annual Leaf Blow-a-Thon after meeting for worship ends around noon. We will gather in the spirit of the Christmas season with our leaf blowers and rakes to clear the leaves from our grounds. We will have on hand some extra rakes and tarps to use. However, also do bring your own rakes and leaf blowers – if you can. If a lot of Friends join us, we should be done in about an hour or so. During this event we will have Christmas music playing on our front porch along with refreshments provided in the Christmas spirit. You are welcome to add to the refreshments with your own favorites if you want.

November 2025 Charities at the Thrifty Quaker

The Thrifty Quaker (TQ) is a thrift shop created in 1996 by Midlothian Friends Meeting to raise money to help support the non-profit work of various, mostly local, selected community charities.  Once its bills are paid, TQ provides grants directly to charities (that have been researched and selected by MFM’s Peace and Social Action Committee) at the end of each month.  Please consider shopping, donating or volunteering, which will help TQ provide these grants!  These are the charities to receive grants based on TQ sales during the month of November:

  

Coalition of Powhatan Churches

3926 Old Buckingham Rd, Powhatan VA

Powhatan VA 23139

Powhatan Food Pantry

2500 Batterson Road, Powhatan VA

 

WRWK 93.9 FM

913 Grove Rd

Midlothian, VA 23114-2669  

   

Drexel-Morrell Center of Powhatan

4747 Cosby Rd

Powhatan, VA 23139

 

In Friendship,

Claudia Farr

Clerk of Meeting

Manage subscription: email mfm-newsletter+unsubscribe@midlothianfriends.org (or reply “unsubscribe”).