My Last Great Adventure

December 5, 2023 By Judith Favor

Jeannette Piccard pokes her head out of her Stratospheric Gondola after her record-breaking ascent.

“Dying is the last Great Adventure,” the Rev Dr Jeannette Ridlon Piccard told me as she lay dying with Congestive Heart Failure. The courageous high-altitude balloonist and first woman ordained to the Episcopal priesthood has inspired me for 50 years. Now her mighty soul accompanies mine on the Journey to Infinity.

At her ordination as a deacon in 1971, Jeannette was presented by her granddaughter, Jane, left, then a U student in social work. On the right is Rev. Denzil Carty, first to affirm her calling as a priest. Minneapolis Star.

My Congestive Heart Failure was diagnosed in May and has progressed rapidly from acute to fatal. Blessedly, I am mostly free of pain. Numbness and increased daily as congestion rises from feet and legs toward gut. Breathing is greatly aided by oxygen 24/7.

Even more blessedly, I am physically, emotionally, spiritually and mentally upheld by the most unconditionally loving people on the planet. Plus the caring, compassionate comfort-care from VNA Hospice Team and my wise, kind and seasoned Doctor of Osteopathy. They come into my home daily with healing hands and hearts, so I am richly blessed with unconditionally loving TLC.

I welcome your prayers on this last Great Adventure. It feels great to sense your presence as I navigate the Great Sea of Unknowing into the Heart of God.

Jeannette Piccard tells her ballooning stories to her grandaughter Betsy in 1963

For More Information on the life of Jeanette Piccard,
follow this link: https://connect.cehd.umn.edu/heaven-and-earth/

Claremont Authors Event on 9/30/2023

September 10, 2023 By Judith Favor

Judith Wright Favor

Saturday, September 30, 2023

10:00AM to 12:00NOON

Claremont Helen Renwick Library
Meeting Room

Meet the Author: Jan 14th/4pm at The Claremont Forum

January 9, 2023 By Judith Favor

CLAREMONT FORUM BOOKSHOP | PRISON LIBRARY PROJECT

MEET THE AUTHOR

Judith Wright Favor portrait photo
Who are the people in prison or on death row? Those of us who are “free” don’t often think of those who are incarcerated but friendship and communication have the power to heal and enrich lives on both sides of the prison bars.
Friending Rosie by Judith Favor (book mockup cover image) This special event sheds insight on those who are incarcerated and on death row – exploring themes of friendship, compassion, and understanding the realities of a life behind bars. Proceeds from book sales and donations will support the Prison Library Project.

January 14 at 4pm
586 W. 1st St., Claremont
Claremont Packing House

C L A R E M O N T F O R U M . O R G

The Spirituality of Waiting
— An Advent Retreat led by Stillpoint

November 15, 2022 By Judith Favor

December 3, 2022

9:30am – 2:30pm PT

This retreat will be held online.
All sessions will be recorded
for later viewing.

When the external light lessens, creation takes its deep breath and enters a season of waiting. In her darkest hours creation waits, restoring herself and preparing for a new season of life and growth. But we are not good at waiting, we prefer to keep getting things done. The good news of Advent is that – like creation, we do not wait alone. We wait in community with others.

You are invited to an on-line guided contemplative retreat to pause and wait in the company of others to give attention to what needs restoring and what is waiting in you. Noticing how you are waiting for God, and how God is waiting for you.

RETREAT SCHEDULE

9:00am – 12:00pm PT
Morning Session

Lunch/Screen Break: 12:00pm – 1:00pm PT
Centering Prayer: 12:00pm – 12:20pm

1:00pm – 2:30pm PT
Afternoon Session

COST

$70 registration

Stillpoint desires to keep our retreat registration cost low in order to be accessible to everyone. There are a limited number of “no cost” options available.

REGISTER NOW

“I’m Gonna Be a Part of It, New York, New York!”

October 11, 2022 By Judith Favor

Judith and Daughter Penelope in New York
on the local news at a Foodie Exhibit.

RESTING IN LOVE —
The Healing Balm of Silence: (in-person) Silent Retreat

July 8, 2022 By Judith Favor

September 30 – October 2, 2022

Experience a weekend of quiet in the beauty of the Redwoods. Silence can soothe our bodies and minds in order to better attend to the longings of our souls. To nurture the silence, optional activities will be offered including meditative writing, soul collage, walking meditation in nature, and healing meditation. There will also be opening and closing worship sharing and Meetings for Worship. This retreat is for first timers as well as those who have participated in many silent retreats.

A woman sits quietly in meditation at the Quaker Center

“Sacred places have constancy in them…because we, who worship in them, imbue them with our lives, our hopes, and our concerns. ..Many of us have favorite places where we sit, where friendship with God and each other is brought to mind and heart….where our souls are remembered into presence and service.”
(4–5) Gunilla Norris, Cultivating Sanctuary, PHP 466

About our PROGRAM LEADERS:

Judith Wright Favor is a member of Claremont Friends Meeting who also serves Southern California Quarterly and Pacific Yearly Meeting. She taught at Claremont School of Theology and facilitated AVP workshops in California prisons. Judith’s ministry includes writing for publication, soul companionship and retreat leadership.

Judy Leshefka is a member of La Jolla Friends Meeting. She helped start the Annual Friends’ Silent Retreat which has been offered in Southern California every Labor Day weekend for the last 25 years. Silence has been her primary spiritual practice since her teenage years.

for REGISTRATION INFORMATION
watch this space and/ or our website: www.QuakerCenter.org

Map Pinned Location of the Quaker Center near Santa Cruz

Location of the Quaker Center near Santa Cruz, CA

Writing Your Ethical Will

June 29, 2022 By Judith Favor

Thursday, August 04
– Friday, August 26

Link to Spirituality & Practice page

What do you want your legacy to be?
What are the foundations of your life choices?
What do you need to produce an effective set of documents?

This new program, designed by Judith Favor, a Discovery Writing guide for more than 50 years — will consist of Zoom meetings bookending every emailed session, before and after. You will discover how to pass your values, principles, practices, and stories on to your loved ones and future generations. Thus far, Judith has led three other writing programs for Spirituality & Practice: “As It Is: Spiritual Journaling”; “Contemplative Writing and Listening”; and “Composing Your Spiritual Memoir.”

“I love to help people find and express their true voice through contemplative writing. I love guiding people ‘in and down’ to uncover fresh new truths and form surprising new connections. I offer inventive exercises and prompts to bring out surprises percolating beneath the surface. Skilled writers and shy writers are equally welcome because I emphasize process more than product.”

The Discovery Writing approach is well suited to writing an ethical will. Usually written in a letter form, an ethical will consists of:

meaningful personal & family stories
qualities & attributes you try to exhibit
lessons you have learned over the years
beliefs & spiritual practices
expressions of love & gratitude
apologies & amends
hopes & dreams for current & future generations
questions & guidance for others to consider
blessings for present & future loved ones
and anything else you would like to share

In this one-month program under Judith’s guidance, you will learn basic tools for Writing Your Ethical Will (also known as a “Legacy Letter to Loved Ones”).

Your writing will be sparked by prompts and poems, carefully curated quotations and questions, and examples from ethical wills and legacy letters penned by ordinary people throughout the ages. You’ll be encouraged to write messy rough drafts on themes from past memories, present practices, and future hopes and blessings. Weekly writing will help you will find your voice. You’ll be encouraged to express what you cherish in everyday words, not fancy language or legalese.

You will also have access to an online Practice Circle. This for posting excerpts from your writing, which Judith and other participants can read and offer supportive comments.

During Zoom meetings, at the beginning and end of the month, you will have more opportunities to share your legacy writing and be inspired by the writing of others.

Schedule:

August 4, 2022: introductory email
August 5, from 12 – 3 pm PDT, we will meet on Zoom for talks about key themes, do some short writing, and meet in triads to hear emerging thoughts from each other. Zoom gatherings will be recorded, so if you have to miss any or some, you can catch up later.
On Thursdays, August 11, 18, and 25, you will receive emails with a range of examples of ethical wills and legacy letters penned by ordinary people throughout the ages. Past, present, and future themes will be highlighted in these excerpts to help you articulate what matters most to you, what loved ones mean to you, and how you want to be remembered.
On Friday, August 26, we will meet again on Zoom and you will practice how to organize what you’ve composed over the month, and break again into triads. You will learn how to review and renew your ethical will in years to come. This Zoom gathering will also be recorded.

A Personal Word from Judith Favor:

I am an octogenarian who has been guiding contemplative writing classes and retreats since the 1970s. Dr. Ira Progoff, Intensive Journal founder, was my first — and most influential — spiritual guide and mentor in this work. During the 1980s, Gerald May and Tilden Edwards accompanied me in learning the art of spiritual guidance. I spent hundreds of hours with these great teachers, infusing my bones with the practices and principles of contemplative listening and writing.

I was ordained in the United Church of Christ and pastored churches in San Francisco during the Nineties. For the next decade, I taught at Claremont School of Theology, and led spiritual formation programs with Stillpoint at Ghost Ranch.

After becoming a convinced Friend in 1998, I took up the ministry of writing for publication. Six of my books are out in the world, and more are in the works. All this while teaching Discovery Writing consistently brings me great joy. I love serving as mentor and midwife, bringing forth living words from writers of all ages, states and conditions.

In this course, I offer a trusting (occasionally intimate) atmosphere in which writers can feel safe and supported. I also set high standards for undivided attention, courtesy, respect and kindness.

I have found that feeling pressured often reduces honesty in writing — and honesty is essential in composing an ethical will, so I never want writers to feel stressed. Verbal sharing will be encouraged, but not expected. You may always pass if you’d rather keep something to yourself. Baring your soul does come with the territory, however. It happens naturally. I will bare my soul along the way and encourage you to risk the same when you feel ready and willing. Writing Your Ethical Will is, after all, based upon diving deep and authentically expressing your truest, most cherished values, principles, practices, and stories.

To join me and other open-hearted souls in August,
click on the Subscribe button below.

Thursday, August 4 – Friday, August 26

$80.00

SUBSCRIBE — GIVE AS GIFT

Interfaithfully Speaking: Connecting Interfaithfully with People in Prison (Claremont Courier Article)

March 6, 2022 By admin

March 3rd, 2022

by Judith Favor, member of Claremont Friends Meeting (Quakers)

I’ll tell you four stories about Claremont people who connect interfaithfully with people in prison. But first, a note about the word religion. It originally meant “that which binds together,” but religious words can also be used to tear people apart. In Claremont, we commune freely in interfaith gatherings. We move safely between churches, mosques, meeting houses, meditation halls, sanghas and chapels, but in many places religious beliefs divide people. Religious disputes are common at the Central California Women’s Facility, where inmates from different traditions carve out little pieces of truth and hold on for dear life. What eases the pressure and brings peace? Open-hearted listening.

Rick Moore’s story comes first because he was my first mentor in the art of listening. He founded the Prison Library Project in Claremont to hear the voices of those behind bars. I met Rick in 1998, and was touched by his care for incarcerated persons. I became the second PLP volunteer, reading letters, hearing yearnings, and doing my best to meet requests for books. Many want dictionaries. Responding to handwritten letters from inmates is a low-risk form of listening. Several Pilgrim Place residents read and reply to hundreds of letters each month. The Prison Library Project needs more volunteers. Your caring attention can make a big difference.

The second story is about Claremont women. Twenty-plus years ago, I was a newly-minted Quaker, led by the Spirit to befriend a woman sentenced to die for her crime. Rosie requested pen-friends for others on death row, and Pilgrims took up the call. Gail Duggan recruited Presbyterian women to befriend women at CCWF. Carolyn Francis inspired Claremont United Methodist Church women to form a group called JUDI—“Just Do It”—to offer care, prayer and listening ears to incarcerated women. When Rev. Rosemary Davis rented a van, a bunch of us traveled to Chowchilla to visit inmates with whom we’d been corresponding. Before long, Catholic nuns started “Get On The Bus,” and Claremonters of many faiths gave up Mother’s Day weekend to accompany kids eager to share hugs, stories and games with their moms behind bars.

The third story is mine. Early in our relationship, Rosie requested Pepsi each time I visited. I chose grapefruit juice. After a decade or so, she switched from caffeinated soda to apple juice, but the rest of the routine remains the same. Female officers strip-search Rosie, then escort her to the visitor center in handcuffs and ankle chains. I wait in attorney room A or B. Once we are locked in together, she has privacy to speak her truth without being overheard. I’m a Quaker and Rosie was raised Catholic. I’m a pretty good listener, genuinely curious about what matters most to her. I don’t interrupt, don’t change the subject, and do ask open, genuine questions. Our conversations can be painful, confessional, semi-serious, silly or completely hilarious.

When we get hungry, she signals the guard to let me out. While I wait in line at the vending machines to purchase our pre-packaged lunches, Rosie sculpts brown paper napkins into the shape of roses. She sets the table with plastic forks and packets of Tabasco sauce. An armed guard lets me in, locks the door and returns to his station. I place food on the table and sit across from my friend. We bless the drinks, the burritos and the salads, then we share stories. Rosie does most of the talking. Locked up together at CCWF in Chowchilla, two women of different generations and religions celebrate prison communion with food, drink, and vulnerable conversation.

The fourth story is ours. She and I co-wrote “Friending Rosie: Respect on Death Row.” The idea came in 2019 while I was a patient at the Pilgrim Place Health Services Center. Weak from multiple fractures, struggling with rehab, I was awakened in the night and heard “Write a book with Rosie.” First I protested, then accepted the sacred call. Rosie objected to my initial proposal and refused, so I rewrote it. An “anchor committee” of Quakers helped me season it. Once Rosie and I reached common ground on the shape of the book, it took a long time to interweave her letters, my memories and the perspectives of her mother and sister.

“Friending Rosie” is a “porous” book, meant to be opened at any page by readers seeking insight or information. Our friendship story is structured around themes of faith and practice that reflect our purposes here on earth. Rosie wants to speak the truth, seek forgiveness and become a better person. My purpose is to honestly convey the little miracles that can happen spiritually when one friend is locked up and one is free. Seeing things differently, and tentatively expressing our inner truths brings both participants into sacred presence where healing and transformation take place. Prepare to be surprised—mutual gifts await!

Interfaithfully Speaking: Connecting interfaithfully with people in prison

Composing Your Spiritual Memoir

January 6, 2022 By Judith Favor

Judith Favor - Author - Portrait

E-Course
with Judith Favor
January 14 – June 11, 2022

Are you ready to write a spiritual memoir?

How can you sincerely convey
your deepest faith, values, and practices?

What sort of remembrances to you want to give
to the people who matter most to you?

Are you ready to see your life through a new lens
and reveal to yourself and a caring community
the hidden parts of your wholeness?

After last year’s popular program on Contemplative Writing and Listening,
Judith Favor is back to guide you through the process of converting
the stories of your life into a spiritual memoir.

Online Writing Student Example Image

This five-month program will consist of 22 weekly emails with writing prompts and 6 monthly Zoom gatherings with teachings, guided writing practices, and listening sessions with peers.

You’ll be encouraged to choose from a palette of themes to craft your own memoir, read excerpts from published memoirs, and do meditations to support your writing.

This program is a rare opportunity to receive sturdy listening support
from peers combined with guidance from an author who has published
five memoirs in 12 years. Read more and register here:

SpiritualityandPractice.com/Spiritual Memoir

Friending Rosie: Page Publishing

October 21, 2021 By Judith Favor

Bookcover Image for Friending Rosie: Respect on Death Row by Judith Favor

In alternating voices, Judith Wright Favor and Rosie Alfaro take the reader on a frank, frustrating, and unforgettable journey. Friending Rosie: Respect on Death Row bridges the chasm between souls consigned to life behind bars, and souls enjoying the privileges of freedom.

Rosie’s letters from Central California Women’s Facility, interwoven with Judith’s reflections and questions, highlight perspectives from authors of different races, religions, and languages. Marginalized people stifle their stories when there is no one to hear, but mutual listening brings forth accounts of regret, doubt, humiliation, and grace. Some stories describe difficult encounters in prison. Family members with intimate knowledge of Rosie tell their stories. Other tales illustrate surprising parallels in the inner lives of both authors.

Judith follows the friendly path of Quakers who began in the 1650s to value women’s leadership and befriend prisoners. Rosie grew up Catholic, in a faith tradition that shaped her art and values. Both write stories interwoven with social challenges and spiritual practices intended to support readers in reaching out to persons behind bars.

8-12-20: “It’s yours, mine, and God’s book. I’ve been lettin people know about our book and about you. People are very interested in our story, and I know this is a start of a great journey. I’m very proud of us, friend… I wanted to tell you that to me this means nothing, but to lots of people who like crime stuff, me being the youngest and the first Latina to get the d. penalty in Calif. is a big deal. I’m personally ashamed of it, but there’s people who think it’s cool. I love you and you stay safe. Tu Amiga, Rosie”

Incarcerating our way to safety does not work. Friendships do work. These stories, rooted in caring and respect, offer a warmly satisfying testimony to the power of friending.

Click on One of these Logos to Buy Online:

Page Publishing’s Devoted Page

My Last Great Adventure

For More Information on the life of Jeanette Piccard,
follow this link: https://connect.cehd.umn.edu/heaven-and-earth/

Claremont Authors Event on 9/30/2023