a life of fullness and joy

 

Benny Dickinson

I feel lucky to have married into a family

with so many cousins brilliant in both head and heart,

Benny Dickinson lived life with joy

and infused his joy with the call of service,

delighting in helping others, in living a life of love:

with his wonderful partner, 

the two of them completing each other,

with his kids, whose lives resonate with his,

with any he could touch with the help they needed,

paralleling Paul Holman’s care for others

with his care for Paul when Paul needed it,

when Mildred had a stroke,

there he was with us making sure

there was a power of attorney, a will,

a sureness to discovering and implementing Mildred’s wishes,

so like his father Sam, who Mildred described as

“probably the nicest person she had ever known,”

so like his mother Esther, a nurse, devoted to serving others,

Benny a Democrat, in a family of Democrats,

a family also informed by the Word

through the Disciples of Christ,

believing in “the priesthood of all believers,”

echoing the work of John Rogers

who worked to make certain The Bible was translated

so that all could have access to the Word themselves,

and to then live the teachings of Jesus in their own lives, as he did,

religion and politics combined to make the world better,

serving God through service to others,

there was a fullness and a joy to Benny’s life,

a life which shone brightly, even to this newcomer to the family.

by Henry H. Walker

October 20, ‘20

our deal with the maidenhair tree

 

The Ginkgo and Us

the ginkgo knows itself,

is true to itself,

enduring while all of its closest cousins

no longer live to leaf and be themselves,

the ginkgo made a deal with people,

and, surprisingly, we followed through,

not for the food it would give us,

nor for the wood we would take from it,

rather, the wholeness of its beauty

led some Chinese Buddhist monks near a thousand years ago

to cultivate it in their garden and preserve the surrounding forest,

others of us have awoken enough to see it true,

we plant it, and appreciate it,

such a partnership with the natural world of plant and animal

seems all too rare for the human species,

rather we enslave animals to be our food,

or domesticate them to be our pets,

to leave the wolf and the whale alone to just be themselves

is not yet consensus,

we domesticate plants to please us with their foliage and their flowers

or fill our bellies with their seeds,

nevertheless, we have found space in our world for the ginkgo:

I bought a ginkgo for my wife’s birthday decades ago,

in October one low branch yellows early,

now, as November comes rushing at us,

sweet yellow slowly transforms the soft green

of the flat disks of leaves,

they who have worked all season with the Sun

to remember this year and prepare for next,

the color of the Sun works its way toward the trunk

as it steadily prepares for a full blaze of transcendence,

an enlightenment of celebration of this year’s life well-lived,

I see within this maidenhair tree the hope

that consciousness ignites in me

that this year’s life, well-lived,

continues into tomorrows we believe in but cannot yet know,

may all of our final days blaze like the ginkgo,

gratuitous acts of beauty

before the passing that comes upon us all.

by Henry H. Walker

October 29, ‘20

juggling the balls

 

be gentle with our selves

I send out an e mail to the wrong group

in a hope to help them remember the schedule

and get to class via Zoom,

all this while I work to get the students on the screen

managing an assignment I need, 

one where they can sum up what they’ve learned

and how they feel about the process,

when tardy students check in,

I actually thank them for reminding me

that all of us can make mistakes, 

for helping me feel not so bad about my own e mail mistake,

I seek to express that they, and I, are but human,

in a world that seems to challenge us to be superhuman,

first juggling at all, then tossed ball after ball

and expected to keep them all in the air at the same time,

through my long nights I fear the balls I might drop,

the times I might not be there for my students,

the imposter in me watches my colleagues,

intimidated by every technological hoop

each seems to master with ease,

 I search through the juggled and dropped balls

and look to see the individual young person

whose worth is infinite, whose effort is extraordinary,

and who just can’t quite keep all the balls in the air,

I work to just support them and their effort,

I caution myself, my colleagues, and my students,

to be gentle with our selves, 

and appreciate how well we are doing, 

despite how much we fear that we should be doing even more.

by Henry H. Walker

October 22, ‘20

honoring the sunset of a life

Jasmine Ann Freeman Baker

when a person leaves us for the great beyond,

I hope for them to be remembered,

seen, honored, appreciated,

the Light of their life

still shining upon ours,

so that what we make with our own brief moments

can shine even brighter,

we can reach to synchronize

with how well they lived their life truly,

we can hope to do the same,

as we are inspired to follow their lead,

Jasmine Ann Freeman Baker

shone brightly with her life,

her joy in the moment readily morphing into laughs

that a grandchild described as contagious,

her joy, her light rippling out

to husband, to children, to grandchildren,

to her beloved horses and plants,

she loved the practical joke:

once carefully opening a bottle of wine,

drinking it, replacing the wine with water,

and repackaging it all as if the bottle still was full of fine wine,

what actually happened with the bottle

far less important than the joyous prank,

at the beach in Brighton

her ice cream on the cone was melting,

and she flicked bits of it at her grandchildren,

all of whom delighted in the whimsy,

Jasmine Ann was grounded,

in her parents’ world which saved us all

from the insanity of Nazi Germany

through the courage and perseverance of her father

and of her mother who held down the fort

while husband was away, both selfless in their service,

her father missing the first two years of Jasmine Ann’s life,

dance and photography a part of her, relationships vital,

place important to her:

the idyllic house and view, 

with the South Downs stretching before them into glory,

stretching toward gorgeous sunset after sunset 

for the whole of her married life,

the garden where tomato and cucumbers needed her tending,

even, just weeks before her death, the pansies planted,

year after year saving seeds for the next season

because it is frugal, and right,

she was literally and figuratively rooted in the South of England,

her daughter helping the next generations

know the practical and the forest,

cruises called to her, 

and she loved experiencing the world with her beloved husband,

her love of horses, grounded in the life of her past

and experienced exuberantly in the magnificent plumed black horses

her husband made sure were there 

to pull her hearse one last time

to where her life could rest,

and still resonate in the wonder 

that her daughters and grandchildren can still work 

to express with the fullness and joy of their own lives,

the cardinal points each have within them messages,

a Native American meditation speaks of facing the West, the sundown,

which calls us to live life as fully as we can

before our lives fade in to the night which calls us all,

our last moments, like the sunset, should be of glory,

Jasmine Anne’s sun has set,

and set with the glory of her life.

by Henry H. Walker

October 17, ‘20

toward wholeness

person to person, eye to eye

the Universe has a center,

but, for me, it changes with my attention,

today we get back to school as person-to-person,

though with masks that block the mouth and nose

from expressing themselves,

nevertheless, the eyes are there, today, before me,

I come into a classroom,

and I can see the wonders before me

with more clarity than the Zoom world

can easily release,

each extraordinary person has been there

for the last month and a half of school,

being true to self

and to expressing who they are,

as best they could,

on the screen, in their shared words

in discussion and on assignments,

yet also having that mammalian furtiveness

that saved our ancestors when predators had to be avoided,

I come into the room,

I look into their eyes,

and I am undone with the power each lives,

despite the self-doubt that obscures the clarity each deserves,

I look into the eye,

and I see the center of the Universe

that deserves to be seen, appreciated, known,

eye-to-eye, despite how much the mask

can block the rest of the face from speaking,

I escape the prison of my own doubts and loneliness

to see the other,

 to feel the self burgeoning with power and hope,

and I know why I still teach:

every student centers the Universe for me,

and, more importantly, for themselves,

first is to center one’s self,

then to reach out to find and appreciate the other centers,

building friendships and community, 

all in the grand goal to reach toward wholeness.

by Henry H. Walker

October 9, ‘20

The Light within students

 

The Light Within

there before me on the desktop computer

I see four former students from my first decade of teaching

who are vibrant and real, even in the two dimensions on Zoom,

their personalities, their selves,

add dimensions of depth and time,

yet, most truly, they add the dimension of the Light within them

that blazes before me with a fierceness all should be able to live,

Henry Walker, Rebecca Laszlo, Lisa Long Jackson,
Michael (Misi) Polgar, Gretchen Klopfer Wing

they each know themselves, like themselves,

live their selves with a wholeness

I hope for all people to be able to find,

certainly for the students I still have before me,

they are each true to their own self,

and they each love the other as a part of who they are,

even the other they don’t know yet,

but who they continually realize is just as much

a part of the larger self as each of them is,

inclusivity, diversity, social justice:

wording that reaches to hold

the wholeness that calls to them,

I work in Zoom to let them speak

as to who they were and are within Friends School,

as to who they are now within the tumult 

of their present lives some forty years later 

than our earlier time together,

tomorrow, CFS middle school will welcome many students

back into person-to-person learning,

each student a bundle of hopes and fears, 

strengths and needs,

each a center of the universe,

the path forward for a middle schooler

is never as straight-forward as a line,

now the paths forward proliferate with possibility,

far too many possibilities and adventures 

those one would not choose if given the choice,

we believe in the Light within each student

that circumstance can too easily block from releasing itself,

whether the circumstance of their own lives or their schooling,

our goal tomorrow, and the next day, and the next week,

and every moment we are given with such amazing young people

is to help them find the Light within,

the Light that aches to shine forth from them,

just as that Light today shines so clearly

from my former students on the screen before me,

education is a sacred calling,

and the Light within students can answer that call.

by Henry H. Walker

October 7, ‘20