World Quaker Day is this Sunday, October 6!  First suggested here in Bucks County in 2013, Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) introduced this worldwide celebration in 2014.  The purpose of World Quaker Day is for Quaker Meetings and organizations around the world to celebrate their involvement with the world around them.  

The theme for World Quaker Day this year is Sustainability: Planting Seeds of Renewal for the World we Love.  Friends will feature the importance of taking care of our natural environment and the spiritual imperative to sustain life on earth.  This connects beautifully with our all-school, year-long theme of studying “Soil” as part of our signature Joint Environmental Mission (JEM) program at BFS, “The Sustainability Workshop,” co-taught by Stephanie Thliveris and Laura Downs in Eighth Grade, and other units of study. 

Quakers in Kenya, Africa, for example, will be planting more than five thousand tree seedlings at the Farmers Training Centre in Lugari, Kenya!  Others will choose to celebrate the day inspired by the Quaker Testimonies of Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality, Service, and Stewardship.

There are approximately 400,000 Quakers worldwide in North, Central and South America, Europe, the UK, East Europe, Russia, Africa, Southeast Asia, The Far East, Australia and New Zealand.  In Bucks County, there are 12 Quaker Meetings plus George School, Buckingham Friends School, Newtown Friends School, United Friends School, Pennswood Village, Chandler Hall, and Friends Home and Village.

Also this Sunday: Quakers: The Quiet Revolutionaries – October 6, 06:00 pm on WHYY.  Quakers: The Quiet Revolutionaries covers the beginnings and rise of Quakerism in the 1600s to its current form in present day America and throughout the world. It describes the remarkable impact of this early sect on our eventual adoption of civil liberties, abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, and non-violent civil disobedience leading to universal civil rights. The documentary also addresses the mystical/spiritual side of Quakerism and how that informs social activism leading to social change.