Kendal Friends Meeting – Spiritual State of the Meeting for 2023-24
Final Version – Accepted by our Meeting for Business on March 14, 2024
Kendal Friends Meeting (KMM for short) is encircled within the Kendal at Longwood Continuing Care Community that celebrated its 50th year in 2023 – with a post-pandemic, year-long, energetic outpouring of creativity. The Meeting for Worship gathers in the library – about 20-25 of us in person – and another 12-15 via zoom – including residents in our Health Center, and two adult children. Some wish for more vocal ministry; others find the deep silence a respite from the pace of the Kendal community, the challenges of aging, and the maelstrom of outside events. Our Meetings for Business were all held via zoom, and our committees meet in various formats – in person, zoom only or hybrid.
We have participated online a number of times with Quaker groups, including FWCC/Americas, PYM, Western Quarterly Meeting, Pendle Hill, and FCNL. We are deeply grateful to the members and attenders of our Meeting who give generously of their time to facilitate these gatherings. We reached out to adult children who live far away, and invited them to join our Meeting for Worship via zoom at Christmas time.
Our major committees have functioned well. Ministry & Care meets monthly in hybrid mode and seeks to stay aware of the needs of our members. The committee sponsored Summer Conversations – five small groups in residents’ homes. The Finance Committee, meeting as needed & via e-mail, produced the budget & exceeded its fundraising goals. It also dealt with an unusually large, anonymous donation that we used principally for local outreach: a much-needed elevator project at Friends Home Kennett. The Memorial Committee managed the arrangements for several Memorial Services. The manner of Friends’ Memorial Services – with the emphasis on the celebration of life – is valued at Kendal by Meeting members and non-Friends. The Communications Committee – instituted during the pandemic – consolidated some of its technology functions, including an updated database. The Nominating Committee was successful in filling our slate, and especially in finding a new Treasurer.
Somehow we have adapted to our post-Covid hybrid worship, gathering in the Spirit those
who find meeting face to face more conducive to spiritual fellowship and those who either cannot meet with us face to face or find it more helpful to join the worship virtually. The Owl system allows us to profit from the vocal ministry regardless of whether speaker or listener is present physically or virtually. We rejoice in this. What is more difficult is sensing the ministry of those who worship in deep, grounded silence when not present face to face. Our meetings for business are being conducted only via Zoom for technical reasons.
The nurture of deep Spirit-led vocal ministry has, in our Meeting, many roots including the quite varied experiences of our members as well as our ever-changing membership as we welcome new participants and mourn those who have departed. The minutes of our January 2023 meeting for business note that “we encourage one another on both a general and a personal level.” The meeting has also been enriched by the participation in our meetings for worship of adult children of Kendal residents.
That our Meeting is deeply entwined with Kendal at Longwood also nurtures the Spirit of our worship in many ways. One example is our involvement with the Spiritual Life Committee of Kendal at Longwood. There has been one or more resident Friend on this committee for at least each of the last ten years. In 2023 the Spiritual Life Committee brought the author of Wake Up Grateful!, Kristi Nelson, to Kendal for several days. She helpfully distinguished feelings of gratitude from living gratefully and shared the remarkable story of the expectation of her immanent death and her choice to enjoy as much as possible each day left to her.
Local outreach beyond Kendal at Longwood has been characteristic of our Meeting for many years. The Meeting has designated visitors to Good Samaritan Services (which provides assistance to those temporarily homeless in the area), Doris Haley’s Prison Ministry (which focuses on supporting children of incarcerated parents in the County), and Friends Home in Kennett (aka Friends Boarding Home of Western Quarterly Meeting). Kendal Friends Meeting was pleased to make a sizable donation to FHK’s campaign to acquire funds to install an elevator large enough for wheeled cots and stretchers.
While the membership of Kendal Friends Meeting is almost entirely residents of Kendal at Longwood, other Quaker residents of Kendal at Longwood are members of other Friends Meetings nearby, including Birmingham, Centre, Hockessin, Kennett, London Grove, New Garden and Westtown, as well as Meetings farther away (e.g. Germantown, Swarthmore, Providence PA, Landsdowne,Reading, and Wilmington). Indeed, many Friends at Kendal remain members of meetings they used to attend before moving to Kendal and often become active in Kendal Friends Meeting. We designate such Friends “affiliate members” of our meeting, at their request, though they do not show up in our annual report of membership to Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. In consequence of these many connections there is a larger, vibrant community of Friends at Kendal at Longwood, of which Kendal Meeting members and attenders are a part.
Among the concerns that have surfaced for Kendal Friends Meeting are concerns about how to live with integrity in the awareness of the brutal conflicts taking place particularly in Europe and the Levant, warfare with tremendous civilian casualties; rapidly accelerating climate change and the population disruptions of people, fauna, flora, weather, and so much more that it is causing; the exceptional level (compared with that of other economically “advanced” countries) of gun-violence in the U.S. More locally we experienced the riveting case of an escaped prisoner, a convicted murderer, in our immediate area, a man who was eventually captured unharmed and not having harmed anyone else while on the loose.
Kendal Friends Meeting members and attenders are involved with the our Quarterly and Yearly Meetings. In addition we have enjoyed visits from representatives of FCNL, Right Sharing of World Resources, and Friends Peace Teams. We have delved into the rise of “Christian Nationalism” in the USA and have joined with others at Kendal at Longwood in regular protests regarding the level of gun violence in our country. We held a threshing session on reproductive rights as part of FCNL’s discernment on this sensitive issue. We celebrated World Quaker Day by inviting George Lakey for a well-attended talk about direct action and the witness of Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT).
We have also joined with others here to raise the awareness that the land on which our community stands was once Lenape territory and have taken steps to honor this heritage in general and Hannah Freeman. Born in the 1730’s on the creek that runs through Kendal-Crosslands Communities today, Hannah Freeman, as she was known, is remembered as a healer who was beloved of many Quaker families that had settled here.
Some of our members are engaged in what must surely be called leadings – whether so recognized by them or us. Concerns include deep ocean health, native plants, climate/sustainability/energy issues, lifting up of the life and witness of a forgotten Quaker abolitionist/Warner Mifflin, and the story of the following engagement, ongoing for several years:
The Chester County area, just over the border from Delaware, was a significant link in the “underground railroad”. While Friends were certainly part of the “railroad” and took significant risks in the endeavor, we have learned something about the very important role played here by free Blacks, including ancestors of members of the Union American Methodist Episcopal Church (UAME), the first Black church to be legally recognized. It was fully incorporated in the State of Delaware in 1813. The New Garden Memorial Church, UAME is located in Kennett Square, and in response to a general invitation to visit the Church, one member of our meeting took to attending New Garden Memorial Church services the third Sunday of each month beginning January 2021 and every month since when possible. A strong bond has developed.
