Saturday, March 15, 2014

Calhoun Geiger



Cal

each of us is a bell, 
more or less fully-forged 
by circumstance, genetics, choice,
and we each ring a sound into the world
with the life we live,

Cal’s forging took true
and to be with him was to hear 
a beautiful clarity of self sound clear
as if to lead us to the harmony possible 
when we live our faith in how 
we treat our fellows and our selves,

so much of who we are as a school
is the present moment of students and staff
who seek together to find the way
through what can feel to be a trackless wood,
or maybe through a wood with tracks well-trodden
but tracks that end up leading nowhere we want to go,

and sometimes we need to reinvent the wheel
as we seek to find anew what works
so that each learner on each journey can find a way
that fits who they are and allows them to become
the best of who each can become,

Cal followed George Fox and Margaret Fell
as each reminded us to listen to that of God within us 
and to God within the other,
Cal was a conscientious objector during World War II,
and a conscientious advocator for lives of good will always,


as Cal would speak in meetings
the purity of the tone of his bell
helped us to synchronize our own notes with such prime commoning,
the moral clarity of Cal’s and his sister’s history grounded us,
his sister a nurse in Palestine who ministered to all as war raged,
and, when war-provoked disease killed her,
both sides cease-fired for her funeral,
Cal’s willingness to always seek to be of service challenged us,
his careful loving basket-weaving settled generations
with the physical mantra of basket after basket coming to be,


I seek to appreciate the primal power of spirit at the heart of our school,
to appreciate those Friends in Durham and Chapel Hill 
who heard a calling
and brought forth a vessel, the school, 
within which that of God in each student 
might learn to express itself with sureness, 
within Cal the spirit rang true, and all of us who heard that bell,
could seek to synchronize the sounds we could make with that purity,

who we are has needed many hands to lift us up toward the light,

Cal deserves our thanks for his part in how we can be who we are.

by Henry H. Walker

March 11, ’14










by Henry H. Walker
March 11, ’14

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