We utterly deny all outward wars and strife, and fightings with outward weapons, for any end, or under any pretense whatever; this is our testimony to the whole world. The Spirit of Christ by which we are guided, is not changeable, so as once to command us from a thing as evil, and again to move us unto it; and we certainly know, and testify to the world, that the Spirit of Christ, which leads us unto all truth, will never move us to fight and war against any man with outward weapons, neither for the Kingdom of Christ, nor for the kingdoms of this world ... Therefore we cannot learn war any more."

Do you endeavor to live "in virtue of that life and power which takes away the occasion of all wars?" Do you work to make your peace testimony a reality in your life and in your world? Do you weigh your day-to day activities for their effect on peace-keeping, conflict resolution, and the elimination of violence? Are you working toward eliminating aggression at all levels, from the personal to the international?

War Resisters International is a worldwide network , founded in 1921of independent organizations, who all accept the WRI declaration:

An excerpt from the 1997 statement:

"…we acknowledge that certain situations pose a problem of conscience: episodes such as armed resistance to Fascism or to genocide, or armed struggle for liberation from oppressive or externally-imposed regimes. Each conflict merits analysis. While we unite in opposing the militarist policies and the oppressive structures leading to these situations, and in developing nonviolent forms of solidarity, in such situations we are aware of the limits to what our approach offers in the short term. Therefore, we take a long-term view. We know where war leads - to suffering and destruction, to rape and organized crime, to betrayal of values and to new structures of domination. And so we reject it, acting upon our commitment to create a better way.

In response to the losses at the Pentagon and the World Trade Centers, Ione Taylor and Shelly O'Foran led the First Day School Classes in the making of pillowcases to comfort those injured in body or spirit. The pillowcases are to be distributed to suffering people as a tangible reminder that we hold them in the light, and as a covenant of help to follow. Each pillow case is imprinted or packaged with a poem composed by Ione.

"When you lie down upon your bed

Sadly, the first pillowcases to be distributed were delivered by Paul Murphy, whose cousin Chris Murphy was killed in the collapse of the World Trade Center. Paul attended the funeral in New York and took 7 of the pillowcases for members of his family, and for survivors of another friend who was killed that day.

"The secret of finding joy after sorrow, or through sorrow, lies, I think, in the way we meet sorrow itself. We cannot fight against it and overcome it though often we try and may seem at first successful. We try to be stoical, to suppress our memories… to kill [the pain] with strenuous activity so that we may be too tired to think. But that is just the time it returns to us with overwhelming power. Or we try to escape from it--to run away through travel, books, entertainment, study. But when the trip is over, the book closed…the research accomplished, there is our sorrow waiting for us, disguised perhaps, but determined…

What we must do…with God's help, is to accept sorrow as a friend, if possible. If not, as a companion with whom we will live for an indeterminate period, for whom we have to make room as one makes room for a guest in one's house, a companion of whom we shall always be aware, from whom we can learn and whose strength will become our strength. Together we can create beauty from ashes and find ourselves in the process. We do not have to foresee the whole course of the way when we start out with sorrow as our companion. All we have to do is to be genuinely willing to accept his company for as long as he shall stay with us, to learn from him all that he has to teach us, to live our life quietly and steadily in these new circumstances. We do not do it alone. We do it with God's help.

Herndon Friends gathered for their 9^th annual fall retreat on September 7^th through 9th, again at Catoctin Quaker camp, and again joined by Friends from Winchester Monthly Meeting. More than 40 Friends and two dogs gathered for the retreat.

Fred Cresson did major duty as lagoon lifeguard, and the lagoon was the main attraction for young friends. Ting Yi Oei led an intrepid band on a hike to Black Rock, and Lisa Payne from Winchester led a trek to Twin Lakes. On Saturday evening Friends of all ages joined for board games and singing, led for a time by Tristan and Lucy Kirkman in a series of Camp Catoctin Rounds.

Ria Hawking led the adults on a discussion of the life and teachings of James Nayler. His fascinating history and inspirational writings have been sometimes neglected in the accounts of early Quakerism that focus on George Fox. His deathbed Testimony, probably dictated to waiting Friends at the time of his death in 1660 at age 44, is a remarkable treatise on the power of patient love to triumph over evil.

On Saturday and Sunday morning, Adult Friends met before breakfast to study the Nayler sonnets of Kenneth Boulding. Each of these sonnets, composed from 1939 through 1943, takes as a topic one of the lines of Nayler's testimony.

What patience must we cherish, to out-wear

The sleepless hosts of hell, who lie in wait

A committee of Asa Janney, Ting Yi Oei, and Dennis Jones visited Diane Norman, and found clearness for her request to become a member of Herndon Friends Meeting. The Meeting united with their recommendation.

"John Von Pischke was graduated from Westtown Friends School in June and is enrolled in Occidental College in Los Angeles for the fall."

"We do not share FCSYM's vision of realignment. Baltimore Yearly Meeting Friends have found we can grow through and are enriched by, diversity. We are reminded of the words of Issac Pennington (1616-1679). "And oh, how sweet and pleasant it is to the truly spiritual eye to see several sorts of believers, several forms of Christians in the school of Christ, every one learning their own lesson, performing their own peculiar service, and knowing, owning, and loving one another in their several places…For this is the true ground of love and unity, not that such a man walks and does just as I do, but because I feel the same Spirit and life in him… and this is far more pleasing to me than if he walked in just the track wherein I walk."

Twenty one somber Friends meet at meeting for worship with attention to business, gathered by clerk Ting Yi Oei with a reading of Psalm 27.

Minute: The meeting unites with the minute from the Quaker organizations.

Ting Yi was also asked to draft a minute for Herndon Friends to consider at a called meeting for business on 9/23.

Meg Wallace, Dennis Jones , and Katherine Cole were appointed to fill the vacancies on the nominating committee, to join Gretel Von Pischke in preparing a report for the 11^th month business meeting.

Cathy Tunis reported that Friend David Smith has asked to be relieved of his responsibilities as clerk on the Finance Committee. Al Taylor has agreed to act as convenor of the Finance Committee pending the report of the nominating committee.

Harry Tunis reported that November 11^th has been selected as the date for the Fall Meeting House Clean up. Rake leafing, window washing, and general maintenance will be in order.

Katherine Cole reported for the Religious Education Committee. The committee is revising the pamphlet on First Day School. A "Back To First Day School" Night is planned for parents on 9/29/01. The Big Kids class will be doing a fall curriculum on world hunger, and the elementary II class will be using " In Our Hands" a curriculum on Peace and Justice.

Margaret Fisher and Jonathan Rosenthal have offered to try to coordinate an educational program from one of the local mosques to learn about practice of Islam, leading possibly to an exchange of visits to worship activities.

Virginia has scheduled the execution of Christopher Beck for 10/18/01. Beck pleaded guilty to the 6/6/95 murders of his cousin, Florence Marie Marks, and her two housemates, William Miller and David Kaplan. An Arlington County judge sentenced Beck to death for each of the three convictions. Beck was 20 years old at the time of the crimes. No further legal appeals are planned, and a commutation from the Governor is unlikely.

Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty is marking its 10 year anniversary. Friday evening October 5, with a presentation of the nationally renowned play, "The Exonerated". Actors tell the stories, in narrative, of 10 of the 98 (and growing) people who have been exonerated from Death Rows across the country. On October 6^th, VADP will be having its annual meeting. For more information use the web site www.vadp.org or call toll-free at 1-888-567-8237(VADP), or e-mail at mail@vadp.org

You know the coolest thing about bowling these days? When you go to the bowling alley, you don't have to know how to score, because the computer does it for you. Unfortunately, you can't cheat, because the computer does it for you, and you can't lie, because the system displays your score on the wall for everyone in the bowling alley to see. Perhaps this is why the Friendly Adult Presences attending the Elementary II meeting house sleep over and bowling party over the Labor Day weekend didn't want to bowl. Or maybe it's because the children of the Elementary II class discovered that you could edit a player's name while they were throwing the ball, so that when they came back to their chair, the screen on the wall announced them to the world as "Monkeybutt" or "Sallymander". But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The Big Kids class has had 4 or 5 meeting house sleepovers in the last 5 years, sometimes watching a movie ("Dead Man Walking" one year, "Austin Powers International Man of Mystery" another) sometimes bowling or skating. (They also played mysterious games like Tiddlywinks--no, it's not the game you're thinking of) But they think they're getting too old for that kind of stuff. The elementary II class--the 4^th-6^th graders thought it was their turn.

So Kim Glazer and Gwen Zanin thought it would be good to have a back to school meeting house sleepover.

Then the Clerk had an idea. Ting Yi Oei and his wife Diane Curling bought and donated a doll house kit from a toy store in Vienna that runs a yearly haunted house contest. The idea is to put together the doll house kit and decorate it as a haunted house so it can be displayed with others from the community. Folks from the community are invited to vote for their favorite haunted house by putting money in a bucket, and the house that gets the most money wins. All the money goes to a charity.

Then Don Chamlee said that the local Habitat for Humanity chapter would be interested in raffling the haunted house off at a Habitat event.

So these planners thought "what a great triple whammy: the kids get to build and decorate a haunted house, and it benefits two different charities."

On two successive First Days adults and children (well, mainly adults on the second session) labored with sandpaper and glue to convert the eight 8"x24" diecut 1/8^th inch plywood sheets, dozens of "accent" pieces, 500 individual redwood shingles and sheets of decals into a structure worthy of Habitat's slogan, "No More Shacks!" Evelyn Marquart assembled a circular staircase, Bonnie Stockslager applied the window decals, Don Chamlee built the front steps, Priscilla Chamlee applied shingle after shingle after shingle, Shelly O'Foran vacuumed (no, I made that part up) and as the afternoon wore on, and workers struggled with crooked drainpipes and jagged edges, the cry rang out again and again, "Lower your standards!" Finally it was together.

On Saturday September 1, the day of the sleepover, the Elementary school kids gathered at 2:00 pm at the meeting house. Kim Glazer and Gwen Zanin were in charge, with this reporter as supervisor and recorder. With foam blocks, and paint, modeling clay and popsicle sticks, branches and leaves, spider webs and cardboard squares, scissors and markers the children transformed what was, frankly, a pretty shabby excuse for a doll house into a fabulous haunted house, replete with bats, ghosts, witches, broken windows, and a dozen hidden stories for the careful eye to discover. Diane Washburn did a marvelous job painting the house. Matt Glazer carved a wonderful chimney. Aubrey Stanton figured out how to hold the tombstones in a block of foam till they dried. Tristan Kirkman molded an awesome guardian for the cemetery. It was beautiful. Josh Rosenthal planted a tree with a broken swing. Brad Dressler built furniture. Anna McCormally suffered the only real casualty, from a hot glue gun.

While the glue dried, they went bowling. Lindley Taylor got more spares than this reporter could count, and even a strike. Daniel Murphy was a strike getter, too. Katie Zanin was the one who figured out the way to change people's names, but it was her mother who changed Katie to SallyMander.

After bowling, the group went to the Pizza Hut for dinner, and only one pitcher of soda was spilled. The waitress got a big tip.

Even though the FAP's had cleverly remembered to order caffeine free soda, the kids were still wound up. A detour to Bruin Park for 45 minutes of romping on the equipment helped reduce the hyperactivity to a manageable level.

Back at the meeting house, there was another hour of work on the haunted house, and then a series of games. Matt Cresson and Kristofer Garriott were the most persistent at the trivia game, concentrating after most of us were too fatigued to think straight.

By 11:00 it was time to brush teeth and retire to sleeping bags in the meeting room. Terence read the story "Susan and the Witch" from The Friendly Story Caravan. It's the story of an 11 year old girl in England during the 1650's whose parents have joined with the Quakers and left her to tend house for her big brother. She befriends the local witch--a pathetic woman who became grievously depressed after her husband and son's death in a snowstorm, and whose delusions frightened her neighbors. (The Friendly Story Caravan is on the meeting house library shelves.)

With the lights out, we slept well. In the morning there were donuts and juice, and clean up activities. All in all, a very successful overnight. Those Big Kids don't know what they're missing.

The summer First Day School Program was unique in relying on Herndon Friends to share their hobbies or interests with the First Day School Classes.

Jacob Rosenthal brought in snakes for us to touch and hold, and a video of feeding a mouse to a ball python. Asa Janney shared his knowledge of archeology and fossils.

Gwen Zanin led the kids through some Odyssey of the Mind exercises.

Laura Jones demonstrated T-shirt painting, some of the results of which are still on display. Lee Davis talked about camping and his work with Trek Pak.

Cathy Tunis instructed the First Day Scholars in Flower arranging.

Allen Gilbertson displayed his coin collection and presented some information about how to go about it.

I missed this one, but two adults and one child told me that Gary Garriott brought in worms of some kind.

Diversity is wonderful.

The pacifist tradition is sometimes misunderstood as passive. Times like these call out to us to speak out and act, because only thus can the reflex to violence be stilled. But consider the roots of these words.

Passive comes from the Latin passivus, the past participle of passus, meaning to suffer. It comes from the same root as passion, and it caries the connotation of enduring. Perhaps the opposite of passive is not active, put punishing

Pacifist has a different derivation. It comes from the two Latin roots--pax for peace and facere, to make. Far from simply decrying war, the pacifist is working to create peace

On July 22^nd, it seemed like a slow start. "Maybe we've collected all the spare bikes", said Friends coming out of Meeting for Worship to the bicycle collectors poised on the Meetinghouse lawn. There were only 2 or 3 bikes, when in the past we'd started with a row of bikes from the Closet or the Police Station. Some thought it was a cause past its prime.

The workers kept faith-- after all the posters did say the collection didn't start till noon, The bikes started coming, and coming, and coming. Paul Murphy and the Peace and Social Concerns Committee had organized the most successful collection for Pedals for Progress ever held in this area. When all was done, Keith Oberg of Pedals for Progress had collected 265 Bicycles and $2000.

Scraped knuckles and sore backs served as reminders of Friends work for many days after the collection was completed.

Many Friends worked long hours on that First Day, but the Editor (without seeking any consensus from anybody) nominates Margaret Fisher as Bicycle Friend of the Year for her tireless (no pun intended) work in demounting pedals, twisting handlebars, and lowering seats. She not only kept working till the last bike, but she assisted Friends young and old in keeping at the task. (For those who don't remember, Alan Mahood was nominated for this honor last year).

The bake sale organized by the First Day School provided nutrition for the workers through the hot afternoon, and helped raise the money to ship the bicycles.

Barbados, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Namibia, Nicaragua, Panama, Senegal, and South Africa, Haiti, Fiji, Madagascar, Malawi, Mexico, Mozambique, New Guinea, Peru, the Solomon Islands, Venezuela, Ecuador, Eritrea, Columbia, the Dominican Republic, and Appalachia.

Pedals has announced a plan to develop a customized storage facility to collect bicycles prior to shipping. Estimated costs are $400,000, and contributions are being actively sought.

Contributions can be made to Pedals for Progress, PO box 312, High Bridge, NJ 08829-0312. More information can be found at www.p4p.org

I wrote this piece for the last newsletter but missed the deadline. What I wrote then has taken on more meaning for me in light of the events of September 11, 2001. I hope you will see why.

A good friend of ours died last May after a short, cruel bout with cancer. I knew him from the time I started teaching at South Lakes in 1979 when he was an assistant principal. He retired from there in 1987 but "unretired" to become the principal of the high school in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. We reconnected in 1989 when we, too, went to teach in Santo Domingo.

The words expressed about Bill Robertson from friends and family universally spoke about his willingness to help others — unasked and with absolutely no expectation of anything in return. We knew this about him first-hand because our experience in the Dominican Republic was not always easy. He helped us the first weekend we were there when Genevieve was ill and had to be taken to the clinic. He shuttled us back and forth to the supermarket. He and his wife, BJ, included us in trips to the beach. And he wasn't doing this just for us — any number of people there could give similar examples. He was truly a good man.

At Friends General Conference several years back, a Friend named John Gallery led a series of worship sessions on the parables of Jesus. In speaking about one of the parables, he told us how difficult it was for him to define love, and how often people are at a loss to explain what it is they feel when they speak of love. Being kind, however, was much simpler to understand, he said. Everyone recognizes and appreciates an act of simple kindness. It is what the Good Samaritan did to nurse the wounds of a man beaten and robbed. John Gallery also defined the word for me in a way that I had never thought about it before. When we use the word kind, we liken things that are similar: "It's the kind of book that…' or, "It tastes kind of like an…" Acts of kind-ness, then, become events that connect us as human beings, that remind us that we are all of one kind. Through these many kindnesses, we express our love for each other and our common humanity. This was Bill Robertson. As for me, I am the better to have known him, and I should strive to be as kind.

Reston Interfaith has announced its holiday food and gift programs. The meeting will be assembling two Thanksgiving baskets and buying gifts for a family in the Adopt-a-Family program. Friends who want to participate in other RI holiday programs, or help to organize the programs) (Thanksgiving Baskets, Holiday Food Baskets, Holiday Gift Ship, and Adopt A Family can contact Reston Interfaith (Ellie Moody 703-787-3115 for food programs or Jeanine Gravette at 703-787-3118)