The Possibility Alliance is a community and an educational center guided by the principles of simplicity, self-reliance, community service and gratitude. It is affiliated — perhaps in whole — with the Silver River Worship Group, which has comes recently under the care of Penn Valley Monthly Meeting of Friends.

Ethan and Sarah Hughes are the founding members of the Possibility Alliance, and they and others from the group have visited with us many times. And in turn, the group has hosted members of Penn Valley.

WHAT IS A WORSHIP GROUP?

Jim Kenney explains. “A worship group is a gathering of people that meet regularly for worship after the manner of Friends and desire to be identified with the principles and practices of the Religious Society of Friends.”

It is different from a preparative meeting, in that it does not receive members, hold weddings or perform other functions of a monthly meeting. Attenders can become members of a sponsoring monthly meeting, or not as they choose.

“The only difference (between preparative meeting and worship groups) I can discern is that of intent,” Jim says. “The preparative meeting is just further along in the process of becoming a monthly meeting and members have stated their intent to become one.”

They are choosing to live a simple life style without cars, electricity or fossil fuels and have adopted many Quaker practices since their founding four years ago since the founding couple both have some Quaker background. At PVMM’s August MFWWATB it was minuted to take the group under the care of PVMM.

MORE ABOUT POSSIBILITY ALLIANCE

The following information was printed in the March 2011 Friendly Connection. It is reprinted here because it’s fun to read.

The community practices a form of radical simplicity guided by Gandhian and Quaker principles. It operates an 80-acre farm that has no electricity or gasoline-powered contraptions. No cars, no tractors, no light bulbs. They use draft horses and bicycles, public transportation and simple tools. There is a strong spiritual vein to the community, and a dedication to sustainable resource consumption and stewardship of the Earth.

The following is taken from a printed statement from the Alliance:

“The mission statement of the Possibility Alliance is to work toward the upliftment of all beings and awaken to our true nature, which we believe is love. The five guiding principles that ground our mission are:

1) Simplicity: continually shrinking our ecological footprint and our needs. This includes striving to provide for our own food, clothing and shelter through our own labor, and trading for or buying
what we cannot yet provide for ourselves, as locally and mindfully produced as we can find.

2) Service: outward service on the local, state, national and international levels.

3) Nonviolent social and political activism: engagement in the world on behalf of peace and justice.

4) Inner work: cleansing fear, hatred, impatience, judgment and greed in ourselves through nonviolent communication, meditation, prayer, present moment awareness and laughter.

5) Celebration: applying the above four principles in a spirit of joy and refusing to be motivated by guilt.”

The alliance also requires members of the community to spend a minimum of one month per year participating in social and political change somewhere in the world.

The Possibility Alliance serves as the umbrella for an international bicycling service group known as the Haul of Justice. More than 500 people have dressed up as their own self-created superheroes and collectively bicycled over 12,000 miles in 23 states and five countries providing ore than 50,000 hours of community service. The group also is creating a network of communities and organizations on the national level to coordinate large-scale nonviolent action, service and disaster response.