peace month 2016: sabbath as peacemaking

Believe it or not, this is our seventh annual Peace Month in Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends, so we're focusing on Sabbath as Peacemaking. I serve as the general editor for the Peace Month materials each year, and we produce a booklet for leaders to use in planning worship and education, as well as a Daily Reader, with reflections on this year's theme for each day of the month of January. The Leader's Handbook contains contributions from Howard Macy, who wrote the sermon suggestions, Drew Miller, who wrote the suggestions for youth workers. Will Cammack, this year's Friends Leadership Program intern, solicited Daily Reader entries and edited the reader. Brandon Buerkle designed our cover art. Many other NWYM Friends contributed to the Daily Reader. Thanks to all of you who contributed! It's always great reading your stories and reflecting on them each day in January.

Anyone is welcome to use these materials, though they are specifically designed for Friends in NWYM. They can be easily modified for other contexts, I'm sure.

Today is the first First-day of Peace Month, and in Western Oregon it's snowy out, which means no one leaves their homes because there is half an inch of white stuff all over the place. Therefore, my meeting and several other meetings are practicing a peaceful Sabbath of resting and enjoying time at home with our families. In many ways, this is a perfect way to start out a month focused on Sabbath rest! In other ways, I'm a little bit disappointed that the messages planned for today and the time spent listening to God about the place of Sabbath in our lives won't be heard. I trust that the message gets through, anyway.

If you're interested in learning more and/or downloading the materials for this month, go to the Peace Month website. The downloads are at the bottom of the page.

Here is a photo from our snow day: