Category: Community

Posted on

Ruth Woodward, Pat Hatton: Quilt for ASP

2015 asp quilt 1OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

A quilt designed by the late Ruth Woodward will be featured at the dinner auction, to benefit the Appalachia Service project, on Saturday, March 14 at 6 p.m. Ruth —  a PUMC member who was committed to missions — did not finish it before she died, so Patricia H. completed and donated the quilt.

Her pasttime was quilting, but in her professional life she was an historian, author,  and editor. She wrote the history of PUMC.  She co-edited at least two volumes of a biographical dictionary and was a supporter of, and the historian for, the Women’s College Club of Princeton.

The dinner and auction, in Princeton United Methodist Church’s Fellowship Hall, will be hosted by youth in grades 9 to 12. The evening also includes many bargains at a silent auction. All proceeds go to the annual service trip to Appalachia, where the teens work to make homes warmer, safer, and drier. Tickets are $5.

To complete the circle, Michele TuckPonder will “call” the auction for this quilt, and she lives in the Woodward’s former house.
2014 11 slider for asp

Posted on

Kuba Art at UFAR’s African Soiree

two menFascinating masks and textiles, intriguing pottery, carved figurines, and exquisite beading with cowrie shells — Kuba artwork from the Democratic Republic of Congo will be for sale at the African Soiree on Saturday, March 21, 5 to 9 p.m. in the main lounge of the Mackay Center at the Princeton Theological Seminary.

Many of these beautiful items will be for sale at the African Marketplace, which starts at 4:30 p.m., and a dozen of the choicest artworks will be up for auction. The Marketplace is open to the public. For $70 African Soiree tickets ($35 for children) go to the UFAR website, Riverblindness.org.

The Soiree  is always exciting and fun. Youth from PUMC will help serve the sumptuous buffet of African and international foods and this year we will enjoy gospel music by Selah, a seminary ensemble directed by La Thelma Armstrong.

Traditional Congolese “Kuba” art was affected by influences from abroad that arrived during the era of colonization, but the individuality and variety of tribal customs has been preserved. Proceeds from the sale will benefit  UFAR (United Front Against Riverblindness), founded by PUMC’s Daniel Shungu, and FEBA (Woman, Cradle of Abundance), founded in the DRC by an ecumenical group of women.

 

 

 

 

Posted on

Cornerstone Kitchen on Christmas Eve

CCK servers Klass who and Lee IMG_0304Cornerstone Community Kitchen celebrates its third Christmas, its first in the new Fellowship Hall. We serve every Wednesday, no matter what ! But on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve the meal will be 1 to 2:30 p.m. (instead of the normal 5 to 6:30 p.m.

Today Cornerstone Community Kitchen was featured in an excellent article, “Princeton UMC Takes Lead as Community Kitchen Host,” in The Relay, the newspaper for the United Methodist Church of Greater New Jersey Conference. Click here to see the article. 

The Relay used the photo above, showing (from left) PUMC member Joan Klass, community volunteer  Jeanne McGann, and PUMC member George Lee.

The CCK team for second Wednesdays could use another volunteer! Email cck@princetonumc.org for information.

Posted on

Methodists Respond to Ferguson

In response to Ferguson, the Greater New Jersey Conference will hold a “Just in Time” Prayer and Reflection for Justice and Peace, on Sunday, December 7, 5 PM, at Trinity United Methodist Church, 1985 Pennington Rd. Ewing. Contact welcome@magnoliaroadumc.org or 609-388-8852
The keynote speaker will be Rev. Gilbert H.Caldwell, civil rights activist. Huffington Post blogger, and retired Methodist minister. A former public defender, De’Travius A. Bethea, will also speak. Reverend Vanessa M. Wilson JD, chair of the conference’s Commission on Religion and Race, will facilitate.
The conference initiated the Conversations about Race Series as a safe forum for clergy and laity to discuss issues of race, ethnicity and culture, as well as gain tools to equip participants to build bridges for full and equal participation of racial and
ethnic people in the total life of the United Methodist Church.
“Just in Time” indicates that the session is being convened as an immediate response to a recent event. In this case, it is the Ferguson, MO grand jury finding of no indictment of Officer Darren Wilson for the shooting and killing of an unarmed
teenager, Michael Brown. This session is designed to be informational, educational and inspirational, as we examine the situation in Ferguson; as well as, the bigger context of race, religion and American law.

 

Posted on

Moral Monday Rally: October 27

The Campaign to End the New Jim Crow is holding the Moral Monday Rally to end the criminalization of our youth, remove barriers to re-entry, reduce the prison population and invest in the social safety net (schools, housing, jobs).

On October 27, noon to 2 p.m., The Moral Monday Rally will aim for lawmakers to reform our criminal justice laws and racially discriminatory incarceration systems.to end the criminalization of our youth, remove barriers to re-entry, reduce the prison population and invest in the social safety net (schools, housing, jobs). It will be October 27, noon to 2 p.m., on the steps of the New Jersey State House in Trenton. Parking is available in the New Jersey State House and Trenton Wyndham Hotel decks.

jim crow book

Inspired to organize by Michelle Alexander’s seminal book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, the Campaign to End Jim Crow is an all-volunteer grass roots coalition of area leaders and concerned citizens who have come together to raise awareness of our broken criminal justice system, promote prison reform legislation and to garner support for the incarcerated and their families.

In 2010, Michelle Alexander, a highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, advocate, and legal scholar who has taught at a number of universities, including Stanford Law School, published The New Jim Crow which details how, by targeting black men through the War on Drugs and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice systemfunctions as a contemporary system of racial control. Through America’s “war on drugs,” black and brown men in America were targeted for incarceration, thereby recreating a racial caste system denying these people access to employment and voting rights hard fought and won through the civil rights movement, and succeeding in decimating black families. In noted historian Cornel West’s forward of The New Jim Crow, he writes of “the massive use of state power to incarcerate hundreds of thousands of precious poor, black, male (and, increasingly, female) young people in the name of a bogus “War on Drugs.”

Join CENJC’s rally to end the criminalization of our youth, remove barriers to re-entry, reduce the prison population and invest in the social safety net (schools, housing, jobs). Visit CENJC on Facebook.

Methodists, of all Christian denominations, share John Wesley’s heritage of pushing for prison reform.

 

 

Posted on

Meeting Needs: Bentley Community Services

bentley
Dorothy Sterns-Holmes and Brant Holmes of Bentley Community Services have been providing fresh produce, frozen meats, and desserts for Cornerstone Community Kitchen for more than a year –and  now we can hear them speak at the UMM-sponsored breakfast this Sunday, October 12, 8 a.m. Topic: “Meeting Needs Brings About Restoring Self-Sufficiency”
 
Bentley Community Services is a charitable organization dedicated to  providing food, basic necessities, household goods, clothing and adult  education on an ongoing basis to struggling families in need. 

Brentley  welcomes and serves those who need a “hand up” rather than a “hand out” and  are prepared to participate in the unique  method of meeting  needs while working towards restoring self-sufficiency.  Bentley Community  Services encourages and provides the opportunity for its friends and neighbors in the community to join in and assist with their service.This program has been modeled from the Birch Community Services in Portland,  Oregon.

Please contact the church office by 12 noon – Friday, October 10,  with your attendance plans so that we can plan the breakfast for all who will attend by calling (609) 924-2613 or  email office@princetonumc.org. A $5.00 donation for breakfast is recommended.

2014 9 10 hands

 

Posted on

Walks and Talks on Race re Mike Brown

The Princeton community will host a parade and rally on Saturday, August 23, 2 to 4 p.m. “to insist on Justice for Mike Brown and to share our common grief, dismay, anger, and our commitment to future change.”

Not in Our Town (NIOT) Princeton, in partnership with the Princeton Public Library, will host a special session of Continuing Conversations on Race on Thursday, August 28, 7 to 9 p.m. PUMC belongs to NIOT.

Also responding to the events in Ferguson, the UMC’s Greater New Jersey Conference will hold a “Just in Time” conversation about race on Saturday, August 30, 9 to 3:30 p.m. at Turning Point United Methodist Church, 15 South Broad Street, Trenton. Free but registration required, call Dr. Vanessa Wilson, 609-388-8852

Re Saturday’s rally: All are invited to join in solidarity and determination to fight for “equality and justice for all”—the words we say when we recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
DATE: Saturday, August 23
TIME: 2-4 p.m.
PLACE: Gather at 2 PM at Tiger Park (with the bronze tiger!), Nassau Street, just up from Palmer Square, Princeton—from where we will march peaceably along Nassau Street and Witherspoon Street to Hinds Plaza next to the Princeton Public Library
HINDS PLAZA: speeches, demonstrations of solidarity, cries for justice, songs and poems as you wish; each individual should probably keep remarks to 3 minutes
SIGNAGE/PLACARDS: If you bring a sign to the parade and rally, it should use language FOR justice, healing, and (radical) reform, and NOT “against the police” (we have an outstanding police department in Princeton which has worked long and hard the last couple of years to build much better relationships through their community/walk/bike the streets methods, not just sitting in patrol cars.) Signs should not be on poles and should be lettered so as to be visible from the street.
Say the organizers: Never again (we have said so many times) and now we must say it again, mean it, and live the words.

Posted on

Sally: Proclaiming the peace of God

IMG_3369Catherine Williams gave the inspiring message at the funeral for Sally Ross on Monday, April 28. Here is the text of her sermon, based in part on Sally’s obituary and on Psalm 139.

At one point Catherine quoted the obituary, “Sally was committed to building a supportive church community. She was an active member of the PUMC, sang soprano for the choir, served on numerous committees, assisted with countless fundraisers and did practically everything but preach.”

It is this last phrase – did practically everything but preach – that I find interesting. I am a currently a third year doctoral student of Homiletics (preaching) at Princeton seminary, and one of the things I have constantly wrestled with in my study is a working definition of preaching that I find satisfactory.

I’m thinking of this dictum that has been dubiously attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi that says, “Preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words.”  On that basis, I do think that Sally did a little preaching herself.

But there’s one other message Sally preached that quilters and crafters may comprehend more easily. Again Psalm 139 is my reference point because the Psalmist speaks of a God who is involved in the details of our lives. The Psalmist reflects, “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.”

It was as though the Psalmist could see God leaning over a masterpiece, working with deft, nimble hands to create a unique, one-of-a-kind person – right from the womb. Anyone of the unique, one-of-a-kind quilts or handmade shawls and garments made by Sally is a picture that paints a thousand words of God’s intimate, creative involvement in our lives and indeed in the world.

Yes, I would contend that Sally did everything in church, including a little preaching. She may have found this notion hilarious, but she did. She proclaimed the unconditional love of God through her friendships. She proclaimed the wisdom of God through her timely counsel. She proclaimed the steadfastness of God through her persistence and resilience in her fight with cancer. She proclaimed the peace of God, even in her dying….

For the complete text, click here.

 

 

Posted on

In honor of Sally Ross

Anna Looney gave one of the tributes to Sally Ross, buried today. Here is a link to the obituary. Anna began with quotes from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Expery:

“But if you tame me,” said the fox to the Little Prince, “then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world….”

The Little Prince said to the pilot,“Of course I’ll hurt you. Of course you’ll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence.”

At this moment, as we come together to remember and celebrate Sally, I’m conscious of how words fail us at this time of heart-breaking loss. We struggle to speak of her courage and love, not knowing how we will carry on without her.

So many people have shown their love for Sally Ross. Her beautiful obituary stated Sally’s deeply held value: “being there for your loved ones is the most important thing you can do.” This was Sally through and through: Sally was there for Charles, Andrew, Claire and Grace. She was there for friends and neighbors. She was unfailingly generous with her time, her attention and her presence even in the difficult years of dealing with cancer. Sally did not complain or check out when her health was challenged; I can’t recall one time when she begged off a request to help or a chance to do something kind for someone else. Sally never showed self-pity for the hard hand she was dealt.

By being present, Sally was an inspiration. Just a couple weeks ago, I asked her how she coped, having such a cheerful attitude, and she replied that each of us has this day, this present time, no guarantees. She said it so matter-of-factly.

Sally lived the fullest and best life possible, with absolute grace and true beauty.

Charles has said Sally was his perfect complement: cheerful and upbeat no matter what challenges life threw at them. I found Sally brought the same kind of positive attitude to all of us. Yet she was not a Pollyanna; Sally was a strong woman with a voice, opinions and a keen mind. We talked over life’s hard knocks and injustices, as well as our own foibles and silliness, all within a framework of genuine affection, humor and the benefits of age.

I cannot begin to describe how many ways Sally’s friendship blessed me and enriched my life. Most recently, Sally inspired me to try quilting. When I dreamed up a crazy plan of making a Christmas present quilt for my daughter, Sally helped me in every step —- showing me with patience and support how to do it, while step by step the sheets and batting were turned into a bed cover that was precisely what they wanted. (Seriously, she shocked and amazed me when she boldly took her scissors to expensive fabric, making necessary cuts required by the process, when she took the huge thing home and sewed it up, then together we chalked the quilting grid, both of us crawling around on the floor with pins and yardsticks to mark off the squares.)

At our New Year’s Eve party, Sally talked about the history of quilting and showed examples of quilts she’s made. Her beautiful handiwork caused us collectively to catch our breaths. Shortly afterwards, Sally taught me my first steps in quilting – a craft that I will continue, always with thoughts of Sally.

In fact, Sally’s quilting skills were another embodiment of her inner person. Through her kindness, warmth, and loving hospitality, Sally brought people together.Just as she had an eye for placing fabric into a master design, Sally brought people together around their table, in her living room, in her lovely back yard…. Sally made everyone feel included, loved and important.

What Sally did with fabrics, she also did with people in her life: weaving odd bits into a beautiful design that brought out the best in everyone and every thing.

I cannot begin to express how deeply I will miss Sally. Not having her physically present in my life is something I cannot fathom right now…She is indeed ‘our beloved Sally.’

Sally inspired me to be a better person through her friendship and example. I’m sure I speak for many here today that herlegacy inspires usto greater kindness and presence, to more intentional generosity and patience, to authentic loving service and commitment, and to divine grace and beauty.

Like the works of art her quilts are, Sally has created a life well-lived, full to the brim, bursting with color andsuffused with meaning. As her life and friendship have been a wonderful blessing to me – and to all of us, her impact will never leave us.

Like the Little Prince said to the pilot, when we look at the stars, we will think of our relationship. Sally is present in our hearts always. I am reminded again of James Taylor’s song – “Shower the people you love with love; show them the way you feel.”

In honor and celebration of our beloved Sally, let us be present today to each other. Let us shower the people we love with love. Let us find ways to connect with each other like beautiful patchwork quilts.