M O R N I N
G S I D E M
E E T I N G
____ A
Historical Sketch ____
An informal worship group began meeting on the
Columbia University campus in the winter of 1957-58. At times, people from
a small worship group which met at near-by Riverside Church joined them. Victor
Paschkis, a Quaker and a Professor or Chemical Engineering at Columbia, obtained
permission for the group to meet for Sunday morning worship in a small room
in Earl Hall, the University’s center for religious activities. By 1960, the
Meeting, under the care of the New York Quarterly, was named the Morningside
Heights Preparatory Meeting, and costs were paid by the Quarterly Meeting.
In 1973074, the Meeting became the Morningside Monthly Meeting, and began
gradually to assume costs, becoming self-supporting in 1990.
Membership in the Meeting grew rapidly in the early
years to about 50 Friends in 1965. Although many Friends have joined and others
have left since then, the number of members has remained fairly constant at
50 to 55 members. Average attendance at Sunday worship, however, has fluctuated
widely. During the Vietnam War years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, estimated
average attendance grew— to as high as 75 in 1972! By 1981, it was back to
30.
Children were an important part of the Meeting
during its first two decades. A First Day School was started with three young
children in 1960, and grew to three classes in 1963/64. The School
In
1997, acting on the belief in the value of each child, plus the faith that
more would come if we were prepared for them, Morningside began a First-Day
School for one. Today there are nine regular attenders at the School.
Creating
a community within a relatively transient Meeting with no Meeting House has
always been a major concern. Mid-week meetings in each others’ homes for worship
sharing, and periodic week-end retreats in the country or at the sea-shore
have been staples of Morningside Meeting during most of its existence. Seekers’
groups, encounter groups, a hatha-yoga group, a men’s and a women’s group,
and discussion groups on mysticism, sexuality, bible-study, Quaker Testimonies,
the environment and many other topics have also helped to create community.
In recent years “committees of care” for members with AIDS, cancer, or other
diseases or problems, have brought Friends together and earned Morningside
a deserved reputation as a caring community.
At
times, the process of coming to unity on important concerns has brought the
Meeting greater community. Perhaps the prime example was in January, 1987,
when the Meeting reached unity and approved a minute to regard and treat same-sex
marriage just as we treat opposite-sex marriage. It is believed that Morningside
was the first Meeting anywhere to take a same-sex marriage under its care
with the marriage of John Bohne and William McCann on May 30, 1987. (Several
other Meetings held “Ceremonies of Commitment” earlier, but Morningside was
the first to name the relationship marriage.)
Local
and international outreach and concerns for peace have been expressed in a
variety of ways during the 40-plus years of Morningside’s existence. Activities
and projects the Meeting has embraced include:
—Peace
vigils in Times Square (Vietnam War years) and peace marches in Washington D.C.
(Vietnam and Persian Gulf Wars);
—Carrying
$2000 in contributions to the Friends of Montreal Meeting to be used for
medical relief in all parts of Vietnam,
and declaring this intention at the U.S./Canadian border (1967);
—Talks
with members of the Black Panthers to see if a Quaker presence might minimize
the risk of violence between the Panthers and New York City Police (1976);
—Working
with a neighborhood group attempting to purchase a nursing home and turn it
into a pleasant home for the area’s elderly;
—Volunteer
work and financial support at a shelter for battered women and their children,
and at a center for homeless men with AIDS (1989 through 1992).
In
the fall of 1995, Morningside Meeting began a local Friends’ Committee on
Unity with Nature, and was quickly joined by members of the 15th Street and
Brooklyn Meetings. The Committee has sponsored many activities to help Quakers
understand and appreciate nature, and to become aware of our role in the environmental
crisis and how we might prevent further deterioration.
As
the Meeting prepares to move to a new home in the Tower of Riverside Church
in July of this year, we look forward to many more years of worship, struggle,
diversity and unity.
May,
2002
Written
by Sarah Leuze
(Based
in part on documents by Steven Kirkman and Lois Coelho)