Keep reading to find out about things to do in the area, a map to the park and more details.

Download the Flyer

Directions to HMM

The Northwest corner of Connecticut has much to offer…come for the day or make it a weekend.

Things To Do

New Milford

Harrybrooke Park
Bicycling, Walking, Jungle Gyms

Sunny Valley Preserve
Walking, Bird Watching

Lovers Leap State Park
Hiking, Views over Lake Lillanonah

Town Green
Walk around New Milford’s historic town green, with shops, restaurants, gazebo and movie theater

The Pratt Center
explore the preserve, hike the trails and visit the nature center.

The Northwest Corner (15-45 minutes)

Kent Falls State Park
Hiking, Waterfalls

Clark Outdoors
Explore the Housatonic River by Canoe, Kayak or Rafting

Hike the AT / Berkshire Hills
Explore sections of the Appalachian Trail or other area trails

The Antiques Capital of CT
Want to find that special antique head across Rt. 67 and 317 to the town of Woodbury and it’s historic main street lined with antique shops

The Institute for American Indian Studies
4th Annual Green Corn Festival – 38 Curtis Road, Washington, CT 06793. Phone: 860-868-0518.
Join IAIS staff and friends at our Annual Green Corn Festival on Saturday, August 1/2009 from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm to celebrate this time of year when the first corn is ready to be eaten. Dale Carson, Abenaki and nationally known Native American chef, will host the event and prepare traditional Native American dishes on an open fire in our outdoor replicated Indian village.

Summer Concert Series at City Center Danbury
Curtis T Blues/Soft Rock

Bandshell/Danbury Green, Danbury, CT 06810. Phone: 203-792-1711.

On Saturday, August 1, 2009 starting at 7:30PM the Danbury CityCenter Summertime Concert Series continues with Curtis T Blues/Soft Rock. Concerts are all free. Bring a chair and a picnic and enjoy the show.

14th Annual Litchfield Jazz Festival
Litchfield Jazz Festival, Kent School, One Macedonia Road, Kent, CT 06757. Phone: 860-567-4162. Fax: 860-361-6288 . Litchfield Jazz Festival, now in its fourteenth summer, is held at the Campus of Kent School in Kent, CT on July 31, August 1, 2, 2009

Elsewhere In the State

Times are estimated from Housatonic Meeting as the starting point.

The Aldrich Museum for Contemporary Art – Ridgefield (30 minutes)

The Maritime Aquarium (with IMAX) – Norwalk (40 minutes)

Sherwood Island State Park – Westport (50 minutes)

The Mark Twain House – Hartford (60 minutes)

The Wadsworth Atheneum – Hartford (60 minutes)

Silver Sands State Park – Milford (60 minutes)

Mystic Seaport – Mystic (2 hours)

Mystic Aquarium – Mystic (2 hours)

Considering the query, “How do we sense the Spirit among us?” proved to be a opportunity for deep worship sharing among Friends, with the wish that those active Friends who were unable to attend could have shared in this fruitful experience of community. Our discussion combined sharings about personal faith as well as insights about the well-being and vitality of our Meeting.

The thread that wove its way through our time together was the conviction/affirmation that worship is the essential core of Quakerism and of our life as a Meeting. For many reasons (members’ work and family demands, Friends moving away, etc.) we have had fewer in worship this past year. We feel diminished joy and occasional discouragement when few people come to worship. The Meeting’s strength and spirit seem lessened when we share First Day worship with only three or four others. One Friend commented that we are on the edge of being a vital meeting or a waning meeting, but that most of the time we seem vital.

Ours is a small meeting and every individual matters. So we especially feel the loss of those who are no longer here due to illness or other circumstances. One person observed that Meeting right now is in an ebb rather than a flow, although the Spirit is “flowing” in parts of our Meeting; for example, First Day School sessions, Advancement Committee initiatives, and the depth of worship.

Yes, Meeting ebbs and flows, but not Spirit. Spirit is always here – we are either aware or not aware of the Spirit’s presence. It is easy to get caught up in the world’s craziness and become inactive. One Friend commented on her “joyful renewal” in reconnecting with Meeting after absence from worship for nearly a year. Worship is the way to return to awareness of Spirit.

A Friend, who transferred her membership to our meeting, spoke of her heart’s journey from her previous meeting to Housatonic Meeting. She now is “at home” here and expressed gratitude for HMM’s firm “moorings.” We need to recognize and affirm this grounding in the Spirit and come “back to the harbor.”

Our tender sharings about worship, which included some sense of loss and yearning for more, evolved into expressions of gratitude, remembrances about the year’s high points, and understandings about what Meeting means to us. We were pleased to be able to finish the porch railing, completing the renovations to our meetinghouse begun over five years ago. Our participation in New Milford’s 300th anniversary parade – carrying our new HMM banner – was spirited fun and affirmed our identity in this town, in which only three of our members reside. Indeed our meetinghouse is not only ours, but belongs to the community; we are stewards of this 203-year-old historic building.

We had much joy in hosting Quarterly Meeting in November and know that the program on New York Prison Families touched many and is continuing to have an impact beyond our Meeting. Our meeting does have a prophetic witness – the film discussion of “A Force More Powerful,” one of several in our outreach series, and our hosting of the walkers on the Underground Railroad Tour attest to the potential of Spirit-led connections with others.

More recently, we sat in worshipful silence before beginning a discussion about our responses to FUM’s personnel policy with regard to Friends’ gender and sexual orientation and NYYM’s continuing relationship with FUM. We listened and shared deeply with one another. While no formal sense of the meeting was spoken or approved, and while doubts about our membership in FUM remain, all Friends expressed a desire to remain in relationship with FUM and to engage in ongoing discussion of these matters. Our conversations about these issues will continue.

Our worship sharing on this year’s query came full circle when one Friend, referring again to all the activities that can keep us from Meeting, called us to account: “I could be doing other important things today, but I choose to be here because Meeting is the most important thing.” For this Friend, “Meeting is the most important thing” means that her relationship to God is the most important thing in her life, and that meeting for worship with Friends is essential for keeping God at the center in her mind and heart.

“Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price” will be shown at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, January 27, at the Housatonic Quaker Meetinghouse in New Milford, at Route 7 and Lanesville Road (just north of Lanesville Rd. intersection). The documentary film provides a look at the impact of the retail giant on local communities. All are welcome and there is no charge. Healthy refreshments and discussion will follow. The program will conclude at 5:00 pm.

Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price is the documentary film sensation that has changed the largest company on earth. The film features the deeply personal stories and everyday lives of families and communities struggling to survive in a Wal-Mart world. It’s an emotional journey that will challenge the way you think, feel… and shop.

Plot Synopsis: This documentary takes the viewer on a deeply personal journey into the everyday lives of families struggling to fight Goliath. From a family business owner in the Midwest to a preacher in California, from workers in Florida to a poet in Mexico, dozens of film crews on three continents bring the intensely personal stories of an assault on families and American values.

Parking will be available at the Red Barn just south of the meetinghouse. For more information, call Bill Holcombe at 203-313-4438.

“Voices” producer, Christine Shuler, will be on hand to introduce the film and lead discussion with the audience after the screening.

The Civil Rights movement was a pivotal era in American history. Since accounts of such major turning points are usually written by their leaders, the stories of the ordinary people who made them possible are often lost. This documentary film presents a sampling of the most compelling of these narratives, which were preserved and collected in an archive of Civil Rights oral histories and housed in the Library of Congress.

The Housatonic Quaker Meeting is sponsoring this film program to foster an understanding of that tumultuous time and remind us of the movement’s courage and its ultimate triumph of the spirit.

Parking will be available at the Red Barn just south of the meetinghouse. For more information, call Bill Holcombe at 203-313-4438.

Housatonic Friends Meeting is pleased to be a stop along the tour again.

For more information on the tour visit, http://www.aacaa.org

Documentary film about the hopeful birth and untimely death of the electric car: environmentally friendly, cost-saving salvation to some, profit barrier to others.

Launched in 1996 by General Motors, it was among the fastest, most efficient production cars ever built. It ran on electricity, produced no emissions and catapulted American technology to the forefront of the automotive industry. The lucky few who drove it never wanted to give it up. So why did General Motors crush its fleet of EV1 electric vehicles in the Arizona desert in 2002?

Sunday, April 29
3:00-5:00 PM
Quaker Meetinghouse, New Milford

Film showing followed by discussion
Healthy refreshments will be served
Free – all are welcome

Parking will be available at the Red Barn just south of the meetinghouse. For more information, contact Bill Holcombe at 203-313-4438 or visit www.housatonicmeeting.org

Following is the description on the DVD:

“Searching for Peace in the Middle East” is a vivid and compassionate portrayal al the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Through the voices of Israelis and Palestinians of diverse backgrounds, it explores in a compelling way a common yearning for peace, pointing the way toward a resolution of this tragic conflict that would meet the deepest needs of both societies, and it calls for new American diplomatic leadership.”

It also includes interviews with 12 different people.

Landrum Bolling, a veteran peace maker and President Emeritus of Earlham College, has had a distinguished career as an informed advisor to world leaders and as a peace advocate. A former Director of the Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem, he has deep ties to the Middle East. In 2000, he and Senator George Mitchell won the Peacemaker/Peace Building Award from the National Peace Foundation. He is a Senior Advisor at Mercy Corps and a Director of the Foundation for Middle East Peace.

Below is the Queries. If you’d like to download these and print them, please click here.

Dear Friends,

Once again, it is time for the Coordinating Committee for Ministry and Counsel to ask you to consider the spiritual condition of your meeting. According to Faith and Practice, “the monthly meeting on ministry and counsel should appoint one or more of its members to prepare and present a report on the spiritual condition of the meeting. This should be reviewed in turn by ministry and counsel and by the meeting for business of the monthly meeting.”

We invite you to look back over the year 2006, focusing on your meeting community. These queries may help you in your deliberations.

• What is the state of your meeting or worship group? Are there places where your meeting feels stuck? Where do you see new life emerging?
• How do you attract newcomers and integrate them into the life of the meeting?

During yearly meeting sessions this year, Friends have labored with concerns about earth care, racism within the yearly meeting, conscientious objection to war taxes, GLBT ministry, and meeting the minimum needs of all.

• How do these concerns manifest themselves in your meeting?

Please include any other information that you feel would be useful for the yearly meeting to know about your activities, joys and concerns.

When the monthly meeting approves the State of the Meeting report, the clerk should forward it to the Yearly Meeting Office by February 14, 2007. If possible, send it both electronically and in hard copy.

If you would like assistance in writing the report, you may contact any member of NYYM Coordinating Committee for Ministry and Counsel or someone from your regional ministry and counsel.

Blessings,

Deborah Wood
for CCM&C

David Kikaya is an international relations professor from Nairobi, Kenya and Brewster Grace is the former director of QUNO – Geneva. A

fter joining us for worship and hospitality they will speak to us informally at 11:30 (remember the time change!). David, a Kenyan Quaker, is involved with HIV/AIDs programs. Brewster will tell us about Quaker UN projects.

We’d like to follow this talk with a potluck. This is a great opportunity to learn more about Quakers around the world.

Hope to see you Sunday… Cathy

If you plan to bring a potluck dish, please email clerks [at] housatonicmeeting.org

Please plan on being with us for that weekend…It should be memorable.